The Bandalore Read online

  ‘Regretfully, yes.’ The Baron frowned his concern. ‘Though he hopes to join us at the Savoy later in the week as planned. Now, Mr Silas Mercer here is a spiritualist, and a most esteemed member of the Order of the Golden Dawn, please make him feel welcome.’

  The room erupted in unexpected applause, rather more gregarious than decorum might dictate. No thanks in part to the chilled bottles of champagne dotted about the room.

  ‘Please, please.’ Silas held up broad hands, which were far more roughened than any of those around him. ‘Thank you, but his lordship does flatter me far too much. It is I who is honored to be in such esteemed company.’ Before the ball, Jane had offered a smidgen of advice, flatter the bloody hell out of them. Her own words.

  There was a titter of approval, a raise of one or two fans and eyebrows. The woman by the piano had eyes to match her dress, a stunning shade of blue, and they were fixed on him. Silas tugged at his bothersome cravat, conscious that they were far from the only eyes upon him. The Baron gestured to the large oval blackwood table set in front of a fireplace low with embers.

  ‘Shall we be seated?’ he enquired. ‘Will this suffice for you? Is there a direction you should be facing?’ He patted the chair that sat with its back to the fire.

  In truth, Silas would have preferred his direction to have been towards the door. Marching right through it preferably. He offered the bright-eyed baron a smile.

  ‘This will be quite perfect.’ Silas took a long sip of the champagne. What had Mr Ahari been thinking? Silas was sure to erode the Order’s reputation in one fell swoop here.

  ‘Wonderful.’ The Baron touched his arm, and giggled in a most childish way. ‘I don’t know if I am excited or terrified.’

  ‘There is nothing to fear, your lordship.’ Except perhaps disappointment.

  Silas took his seat, thankful the fire had not been stoked higher. He had no desire to drip with sweat any more than he already was. At the moment the dampness lay trapped beneath his undershirt, though how long before unsightly stains appeared he could not say. His chair was moderately comfortable, a wood frame with a cushion inlaid in the seat of the same plum colour as the rug, but it was, by the barest fraction, too small and the arms pressed into his hips. Silas studied the table, as the guests studied him. He viewed its contents with some dismay. At the centre of the table an Ouija board had been laid, with a tiny crystal glass at its heart, set upside down. At the ready to relay messages from the dead. He was afforded a moment of amusement though when he thought on the irony of it. A dead man sat at the head of their table and they were none the wiser.

  Those in the room with him, ten in all, hurried in a rustle of silk and adjusting of coats to take their seat. He found himself watching each for sign of their shadows, and was pleased to note that all were as they should be, dark silhouettes at their backs and heels, moving in unison with the human who cast them. The Baron took a seat to Silas’s left, and when all other guests had settled there remained two empty chairs at the far end of the dining table.

  ‘Are there more guests to come?’ Silas enquired of his host.

  The Baron Faversham rolled his eyes, laughing. ‘Well yes, but honestly it is anyone’s guess when Tobias might grace us with his presence, occupied as he is.’ He gestured to the butler, who stood at the ready by the door. ‘Geraldton, see that Mr Astaroth joins us, I don’t care if he is cock deep.’ The room rippled with titters and laughter, the guests non-plussed by the Baron’s vulgar instructions. Silas managed to push a wry smile to his lips, lest they believe him the prude Jane declared he was.

  The butler exited on silent feet, and the Baron Feversham patted the slender hand of the red-haired woman at his side. She bit at her lip, shaking her bosom in an exaggerated shiver. Her silver gown was cinched so tight at her waist Silas marvelled at her ability to draw breath.

  ‘I’m so excited, Albert.’ She spoke to the Baron, but Silas felt her gaze upon him. ‘and yet, I do believe I’m quite afraid.’

  ‘But oh my Clare, isn’t it delicious?’ He shrugged his shoulders with shared excitement. ‘A good night’s sleep awaits me, I can feel it. Mr Silas shall rid this house of its hauntings, I have no doubt. He is quite formidable don’t you think?’ He lifted her hand, pressing it to his lips, and they huddled against one another, the two of them as giddy as children.

  ‘Such a pity that Edward could not make it,’ the woman, Clare, whispered, though not low enough to offer any real privacy. ‘Is it another of his turns?’

  ‘I fear so, my love.’ The Baron’s excitement faltered. ‘He sent his apologies only a few hours ago, but would not elaborate why. I fear the latest treatments are not successful. Poor dear.’

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  Silas had not taken notice of the man to his left, until now.

  ‘Pardon me?’ He asked of the slender man.

  ‘This.’ The bespectacled man fluttered his fingers. ‘Removing spirits, I mean. For that is what you intend to do, is it not? Exorcise those dastardly fiends from this world. How elaborate shall your show be then? I’ve witnessed a medium fairly expel her eyeballs from her head, such was the violence of her efforts. Shall we see such a performance today, my dear chap?’

  His smirk was more bemused than ill-meaning but it was plain he wished Silas to know he was a cynic of today’s gathering. His shrewd eyes were an intense amber and locked upon Silas’s own. This man assumed him a charlatan, and in this instance he was likely correct. Silas rubbed at his chin, turning his gaze to solitary candle beside the Ouija board. It sat, unlit, in a silver holder which had been carved to resemble a tulip. He was not certain what was intended for it, but it was certainly not for illumination as the room abounded with already flickering wicks.

  ‘I hold no concern for the retention of my eyeballs. I can assure you.’ Silas eyed his half-empty glass of champagne. ‘And I am not here as a showman, I am to investigate the haunting that plagues his lordship.’

  To his great surprise the man burst into vigorous laughter, and slapped a hand to his back.

  ‘Of course you are.’ The man lifted his spectacles to wipe at a jovial tear. ‘I understand the Order has a remarkable reputation, but despite the fact you are a bloody great giant of a man I’d wager that if a real ghost were to show itself you would quite soil your trousers. If you don’t mind me saying so, you look as though you are quite terrified. How many of these have you done, exactly?’

  Silas’s cheeks flushed warm, but he was thankfully saved from giving any answer at all by the clatter of heels upon the staircase, and the high-pitched squeal of a woman. It was not a sound of ill-content however, rather a trill of excitement. Goosebumps rose along Silas’s arms, and a most peculiar sensation came across him, as though feathers brushed at his hands. He shifted, startled by the sudden prickle of skin. But not even the inquisitive man took any note. All eyes were on the doorway. Several of the men began to clap, while the women suppressed coy smiles.

  ‘About bloody time, Tobias.’ A ruddy-cheeked man spoke around his cigar.

  ‘Mr Astaroth, for heaven’s sake.’ The Baron called out. ‘Do button up your trousers faster, we’d like to begin.’

  A woman stepped through the doorway first, adjusting loosened strands of black hair back into her chignon. Her cheeks were touched with smudges of rouche, and her lips were a pronounced shade of red. Those lips held a coquettish smile, the woman not abashed in the least with their welcome. Lines about her eyes suggested she was not young, but her age suited her well.

  ‘Calm down, calm down.’ She held a throaty voice for a woman, and it was filled with amusement. ‘Mr Astaroth wished me to read him his tarot, these things can’t be rushed.’

  Her response drew a round of laughter but Silas did not join them. The peculiar sensation in his hands was quite distracting, as though he dipped the tips against a bed of pins.

  ‘Victoria was very thorough, both I , and my cock, can assure you. Good grief, why have you not begun?’ A rather pretty g
entleman, sharp featured, pale and fine, stepped into the room with a flourish of widened hands, his tousled light brown hair wild about his shoulders, eyes so green it were as though emeralds had been pressed into the sockets. Silas’s stomach did a most peculiar turn. ‘Let the amusements begin…or should I say…continue.’

  His velvet coat, a red almost as bold as the woman’s lips, was unbuttoned, revealing a black shirt with silver brocade of Chinese dragons upon it. An elaborate ruffling of silk tumbled from the collar and covered a good portion of his chest. His choice of trousers was equally curious, a rather outdated fall-front style in black silk. Silas could not recall ever seeing a man quite so striking.

  The Baron groaned, but his smile was ever-present. ‘Good god man, we thought you two would never be done.’

  ‘Perfection takes time, does it not?’

  ‘Take your seat, you rascal, and stop your showmanship, at least just for a moment.’

  Silas scratched absently at his right palm. Attempting to stymy the prickle. Though Silas could not be certain of his own age, he knew himself to be inclined towards youth, in his late twenties most likely, and he would assume similar for the man who had just swept into the room.

  Mr Astaroth tilted his head, pursing lips that held a near perfect cupid’s bow. ‘Am I to stand aside so another showman can perform?’

  ‘Exactly,’ the Baron declared.

  As Mr Astaroth made his way to his seat with his companion, he had a notable effect on those in attendance. The ladies all at once seemed incapable of deciding how they should adjust their gowns upon their seats, the men were equally as fidgety, and all of them were fixated on Mr Astaroth’s procession across the room. The man had not spared Silas a glance as yet, even when he was deriding him, and Silas had no issue with that at all. He was not sure he’d enjoy the pierce of those green eyes upon him. Though he could not deny there was indeed something mesmerising about the lad, the sway of his hips, the coiled tension in his body that gave the impression he might suddenly leap in any direction, unannounced.

  Mr Astaroth stopped to take a glass of champagne from the tray offered by a somewhat flustered young footman. The liquid wobbled in its crystal confines, and the boy’s eyes darted so quickly between the floor and the man before him it were as though he’d lost control of his eyeballs.

  ‘Thank you, kind sir. What a wonderful job you do.’ Mr Astaroth’s smile was discomfortingly suggestive, his whispered appreciation of the boy’s offering far too intimate, and the serving boy barely stumbled over his own feet to move away.

  Pitch was slender, not remarkable in height, and the angles of his face were delicate to the point of being named feminine, but he held a presence that quite overwhelmed the room. Silas’s gaze moved down the length of the man’s body to his feet. He wore heeled boots, which meant he was shorter than first impressions allowed. The glean of polished leather distracted Silas from what became startlingly obvious a moment later. Silas tensed. And closed his eyes a quick moment. As though that might change things. But alas it was not to be.

  The ground at the Tobias Astaroth’s feet held no shadow.

  Whoever this man was he was not, for all intents and purposes, human. Silas took hold of the arms of the chair, filled with the sudden desire to depart. He’d been told to look for sign of his true nature, and no one had thought to instruct him on an encounter such as this.

  ‘Stop frightening the help and get your arse on a chair.’ Declared the bespectacled man at Silas’s right. ‘We know how you hate to have attention diverted from you, so do try and behave, Pitch old boy.’

  Evidently the group knew the man well enough to have endowed him with a nickname. Silas could only imagine its origins.

  ‘Oh Brenton,’ Victoria, Mr Astaroth’s companion, said. ‘As far as I’m concerned Tobias has been on his best behaviour all evening.’ She had taken her seat leaning her elbows upon the table, utterly at ease.

  ‘Thank you, my dear,’ Mr Astaroth said. ‘You are as sensible as you are extremely talented in the art of, what were we calling it? Tarot reading.’ He tilted his glass towards her, before turning to Silas. The air quite vanished from Silas’s lungs beneath the daggers of his emerald stare.

  ‘How very nice to make your acquaintance, Mr Mercer. I do hope we are in for a wonderful show.’

  It took an enormous effort just to inhale.

  ‘Th…thank…thank…’

  Pitch raised fine eyebrows, and not a wrinkle formed upon his brow. ‘Are you quite all right?’

  ‘I think you’ve rather got him riled up.’ The bespectacled man, Brenton, determined.

  ‘Oh dear, that does seem to keep happening. How absolutely dreadful of me.’ Dirty undertones lurked in Mr Astaroth’s reply.

  The sharp tingle in Silas’s fingertips grew more intense, his face was aflame. All told, he really felt quite unwell. With the distraction of his painful hands combined with Mr Astaroth’s unsettling presence, Silas considered a departure. Making hurried apologies, perhaps citing ill health. How was he to know he was not in danger? That the pinpricks upon his fingers were not a warning of some kind. Is that what they had been in the library? There was no apparition to speak of here, only the disconcerting supernatural watching him from the far end of the table.

  Silas’s underarms were slick with sweat, his upper lip damp. The sanctity of Holly Village seemed a world away, and Silas was terribly far from its gated shelter. He cursed Jane. She’d been more concerned with having him join her and her paramour in bed, than instructing Silas on more valuable lessons that might give him ease when a man like Tobias Asteroth appeared. Just as Silas braced to rise from his seat, Tobias’s attention shifted, and his radiant gaze fell upon the Baron.

  ‘The Lieutenant, wasn’t he to attend this evening?’ A blankness fell upon Mr Astaroth’s features as he spoke, the bemused smirk no longer on his lips. ‘I thought you said this whole affair was his doing?’

  The Baron waved off the question. ‘It was. But the silly sod took his leave of us. I only got word a short time ago, while you were indisposed.’

  ‘Did he say why he could not attend?’ Mr Astaroth lifted his glass, and ran a slow finger around the rim, his voice low.

  The Baron’s laughter came from his belly, but Silas noted that Clare was not so amused, placing a hand upon her partners arm, as though in warning. One the Baron ignored. ‘He’s escaped your clutches has he? Surely you’ve bedded the man before now, you’ve tried well enough.’

  Pitch slammed his champagne upon the table, snapping the delicate stem and spilling the liquid across the blackwood. There were several gasps, quickly stifled. The only movement in the room came from the fire which had birthed flames at the most inopportune time.

  ‘I asked a simple question, dear Baron,’ Pitch fairly growled, head lowered so that his hair covered his features.

  The Baron took a notable breath before answering. ‘The Lieutenant was unwell. He has struggled with ill health for quite some time now, as you know.’

  Pitch’s fingers splayed against the wetness on the table, and he nodded. ‘Indeed I do. Does he suffer?’

  The Baron leaned towards his companion, perhaps regretting not heeding her warning. ‘I don’t believe so. Fatigue mostly, he does not sleep well.’

  The group was rigid, soldiers to attention. No one daring to so much as blink.

  Pitch lifted his head, his hair falling back to reveal the smile crawling up his cheeks. ‘Look at you all,’ he laughed, sharpness evident in the sound. ‘So very easily rattled. As though I care an iota what state the Lieutenant is in. Baron, if I wanted him beneath me, there would be no stopping it. Mr Mercer you shall have no fear unsettling this merry bunch. They are frightened of their own shadows.’

  The look he sent Silas’s way could have pinned a butterfly upon a display board. And he was in no doubt that Tobias Asteroth saw Silas for what he was.

  ‘Pitch, you really are a bastard,’ the baron declared, and the room exhaled. Victo
ria collapsed against Mr Astaroth giggling with barely concealed nerves. The man to his left slapped the table and remarked on how terrifically terrifying the ruse had been. The host leapt from his chair, snapping his fingers to summon a footman. The man was inordinately fast in his arrival with a fresh bottle of champagne, one the Baron now took from him, hurrying to fill Pitch’s half-empty glass.

  ‘Would you expect any less, dear Albert?’ Mr Astaroth licked the spilled drink from his fingers.

  ‘I’d be worried about you if you weren’t being a cad.’ The Baron left the bottle with Pitch, and returned to his seat. ‘Let us begin then, Mr Mercer. Take no notice of our exuberant friend here, Mr Astaroth does enjoy playing at drama. His acting does rather keep us on our toes, as it were.’

  Play? Silas was not so sure that was what they had just witnessed, but he wasn’t about to offer any challenge.

  ‘I’ve simply warmed up your audience for you, Mr Mercer.’ Pitch’s emeralds found Silas once again. ‘My apologies for the delay. Won’t you let the show, that is to say, the seance, begin?’

  Begin, and end, Silas thought to himself. The sooner he was back in the silent company of Isaac and on his way home the sooner Silas would be at ease.

  ‘No apology necessary, sir.’ Silas coughed, adjusting a cravat that sat perfectly well. All he could rely on now was that Gilmore’s rough instructions on conducting a seance were not about to make Silas the laughing stock of the Baron’s party. ‘Now, I will ask you all to join hands. And we shall see what truly disturbs the Baron.’

  He declined the Baron’s outstretched hand, not eager to have anyone touch his irritated skin. ‘I will need to remain untouched.’

  The baron nodded firmly, and reached right across the table so he might take Brenton’s hand. The two men had to lean against the table to make contact, it hardly appeared the most comfortable of positions but it would have to do.

  ‘We will begin.’

  Silas took a last gulp of champagne before he closed his eyes, took a breath, and allowed words of utter nonsense to fall from his lips.