Page 82 of Mesmerized

Madame Valenskaya subsided at that threat, apparently fearing gaol even more than her daughter. She went docilely with Tom out the door. Rafe volunteered to bring Irene down to the study and strode out of the room after them.

Stephen and Olivia looked at each other. “We are talking about possession now?” he asked disbelievingly.

Olivia shrugged. “I don’t know that it is any more bizarre than any of the other things we have seen.”

Great-uncle Bellard spoke up. “If we believe that those who have died can remain in a house in some form, as your Lady Alys and Sir John seem to have, then I would think it’s not that hard to believe such a lingering spirit could somehow enter a living human being. You have accepted that Olivia sensed a sort of lurking evil. What if it tried to enter Mr. Babington? You said that he looked and sounded unlike himself.”

Olivia nodded. “That is true. It was...eerie. It was Babington, and yet it wasn’t. Still...”

“I know,” Stephen said. “I cannot accept it, either.”

“Yet we can scarcely deny what our own senses have told us,” Olivia argued. “It is hard not to think that we have been drawn into this centuries-old struggle between a couple in love and her husband.”

“It makes no sense. And even if it were true, how are we to stop it?”

“I have one idea,” Olivia began tentatively. “The other time when I touched the casket, I—for want of a better word—saw Lady Alys and her husband. What if I were to hold the casket again? Maybe we could see more. Maybe we could find out what really happened and what we could do to stop this haunting.”

“No,” Stephen said quickly. “I won’t allow it. You remember what happened to you last time you held the casket. It made you ill. You fainted.”

“It was the shock,” Olivia argued. “I was not prepared for it, but this time I will be. I am sure it won’t affect me so badly. Please, we must try it.”

They argued the point back and forth for several minutes, with Great-uncle Bellard coming down on Olivia’s side. Stephen was unconvinced, however.

“You didn’t see what it did to her,” he pointed out to the older man. “I did. I don’t want to have her hurt again.”

“But it is my choice, isn’t it?” Olivia asked. “And you will be there to help me, should anything happen. I had a headache afterward, but that was all. I think that would be a small price to pay to find out what is going on.”

At that point, Rafe appeared in the doorway, looking a little uneasy. “Now the daughter is gone.”

“What?”

He shrugged. “I can’t find her. I looked in her room and then in Babington’s. A maid said she had been in there earlier, that Irina had told the maid to leave and she would stay with the patient, but she’s gone now.”

“Damn. Well, I suppose we had better set up a full-scale hunt for her.”

“Stephen...” Olivia went over to him. “I think it’s even more important that we try our experiment. What if Madame Valenskaya is telling the truth? No matter how much we don’t want to believe in the idea of her daughter conjuring up some evil and setting it loose in the house, I think it is scarcely something we can ignore. Please, let me try.”

Reluctantly Stephen gave in.

Rafe and Great-uncle Bellard left to search for the missing Irene, and Stephen and Olivia made their way up the stairs to the bedroom leading to the secret room, where a footman still stood guard.

They stepped inside, and Olivia cast an uneasy look toward the wall where the secret door was now closed, indistinguishable from the rest of the wall. She did not want to step back into that room where Pamela had died.

Stephen, seeing the direction of her gaze, said, “Don’t worry. We won’t do it in there. I’ll bring the casket out here.”

“I am surprised you left it here,” Olivia replied, relieved that she would not have to go into the secret room. Even before Pamela had died in there, she had found it almost unbearable to enter it.

“I wasn’t sure what else to do with it. I expect that Pamela did not tell ‘Irina’ how to get into the room. She would have wanted to keep the treasure all to herself. Besides, with the guard outside, no one could enter here. I can’t keep the footman on guard forever, of course. I presume I shall have to move the treasure down to the safe, which I obviously should have done much sooner than this.”

Olivia sat down beside the bed, and Stephen went over to the wall and opened the door into the inner room. He emerged a moment later, leaving the door into the room open. He walked over to where Olivia sat and set the golden box down on the bed.

The two of then looked at it for a moment; then Olivia stood up and put her hands on the box. Nothing happened. She stood that way for a moment, feeling slightly foolish.

“Perhaps if you touched one of the pieces inside...?” Stephen suggested.

“All right.” Olivia undid the clasp and opened the lid. She hesitated for a moment, then reached in and picked up the rosary.

As her fingers curled around it, a jolt ran through her, shocking her. Stephen saw her flinch, and he reached out instinctively, his hands curling over hers. He, too, felt the shock of sensation, the warmth that suddenly flowed into him.