The Medium (Emily Chambers Spirit Medium Trilogy #1) by C.J. Archer Read Free Book Online Page B

be noticed for all the right reasons. It made a pleasant change to the suspicious
glances usually cast my way by those neighbors and shopkeepers who knew I could
speak to ghosts. The stares were something I'd not yet grown used to, even
though we'd been in business for over a year. I wondered if there ever would be
a day when I'd enjoy the attention.
    Oh dear. It
sounded like I resented being a medium and wished I didn't have the gift. Sometimes
I did, true, but on the other hand I liked being able to reconnect people with
their deceased loved ones. I just wished those same people wouldn't treat me
with such wariness.
    I had to hold
onto my hat until I turned off Druids Way and the strong wind eased to a gentle
breeze. The sun came out from behind the clouds, briefly, but did little to
brighten the day, covered as it was by London's smoky haze. I knew how to get
to Wilton Crescent so my thoughts were left to wander. And they didn’t wander
to the demon or the dangers it posed but to Jacob. The way he'd noticed me in
the dress, and how he watched me with such intensity when he thought I wasn't
looking.
    But there was
something troubling him too, something that had nothing to do with the demon. Despite
telling me he didn't care what people thought of him, he seemed to bristle at Celia's
assessment of his ungentlemanly conduct. And he avoided all questions about his
life and what it had been like.
    Was he ashamed
of it? Or was there something else, something he was hiding?
    Whatever it was,
his behavior was very confusing, but then he was a ghost so I suppose he could
do what he wanted.
    I wished he'd
accompanied me on the walk. The twenty minutes it took to reach Wilton Crescent
would have given me ample opportunity to find out more about him. But then I
would have drawn many unwanted stares by seemingly conversing with myself. The
mere thought made me cringe and I lowered my head, not wishing to encounter any
ghosts that happened to haunt the streets. I'd seen only two over the years
who'd met with a road accident and had not progressed to the Waiting Area, having
chosen to maintain the negative emotion tying them to this world. I never understood
why anyone would choose to linger where they couldn't be seen or heard. Perhaps
I would think differently if I were dead.
    I turned into
Wilton Crescent and strolled along the elegant curved street until I reached
number fifty-two. It looked like the other grand houses in the crescent-shaped
terrace with its cream stucco façade and colonnaded porch. The main difference
I could see was the brass knocker on the door. It was shaped like a large paw.
    A footman
answered my knock and showed me into a spacious drawing room on the first floor
crammed with furniture and knick-knacks. Aside from the usual piano, sofa and
chairs, there were tables. Many, many small tables—a console table, a sofa
table, at least three occasional tables and a sideboard. Scattered on top of
them all were framed daguerreotypes, figurines, vases, busts, decorative jars,
boxes and other little objects that seemed to have no use whatsoever except to
occupy a surface.
    I was admiring an
elaborate display of shells arranged into the shape of a flower bouquet when a
tall young man entered, smiling in greeting. He was handsome but not in the
masculine, classical sense like Jacob but more angelic, prettier although not
feminine. Definitely not. Blond hair sprang off his head in soft curls and his
pale skin stretched taut over high, sharp cheeks. He wore small, round
spectacles through which gray eyes danced. He looked younger than Jacob and if
I hadn’t known they went to school together and were about the same age, I'd
have thought him my own age or younger.
    "Miss
Chambers?" He glanced around the room, perhaps looking for a chaperone. Eventually
his gaze settled back on me, or rather my hips, before sweeping up to my face. His
cheeks colored slightly. "The footman said you wished to see me and not my
mother?" It was