The Medium

Chapter 5, Part 1

CHAPTER 5

Maree's knife was inches from my face. I screamed, or maybe she did, and then I was shoved aside by one of Jacob's big hands. I hit the wall and slid to the floor, landing with a thud on my rear. My hat slid down over my eyes. Jacob removed it and drew me into his arms. He supported my head with one hand and my back with the other and held me against his solid chest. It felt good, safe and...perfect. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, telling myself I wasn't unnerved by the lack of a pulse or warmth in his body.

I was completely unhurt, of course, apart from a sore shoulder where I'd hit the wall, but Jacob cradled me as if I were an injured kitten.

"Emily? Did she cut you?" He brushed my hair off my forehead. All that violent thrusting about had dislodged not only my hat but my hair from its pins. "Emily, answer me!" His lips were so close I would have been able to feel his breath on my cheek if he could breathe.

Or I could have kissed him.

I wanted to kiss him. Wanted to feel the softness of his lips even though I knew they would be cool, tasteless, and it was a most improper thing for a young lady to do. I didn't care. Blood pounded in my veins, rushed into my head, and I could think of nothing but him. It was madness.

I was mad.

He massaged the back of my neck and the cool strength of his fingers shocked me out of my daze. I looked into his eyes but his gaze darted over my face, assessing, and he didn't notice my scrutiny.

"Emily?" My whispered name seemed to hover on his lips for an eternity.

I remembered I hadn't yet answered him. "I'm well," I whispered.

His Adam's apple bobbed furiously and a muscle high in his cheek throbbed. He nodded once, a small movement that I would have missed if I hadn't been watching him so closely. "Good," he said thickly. "Good, good." His eyes suddenly shuttered. Where before they'd been wide and urgent, now they were distant, cold. "Good," he said again, stronger this time.

He let me go, quite unceremoniously, so that I almost fell to the floor a second time. "Jacob, what's wrong?"

The maid who'd let me in the door suddenly appeared. She put her hands to her cheeks and gasped. "Oh lordy, lordy, lordy. Is you all right, miss?" She helped me to my feet. "It was that girl's fault, weren't it? I knew she was trouble, I did. Told Mrs. Crouch the 'ousekeeper to watch out for her. Gone has she?"

"Uh, yes. Thank you." I watched Jacob climb the stairs up to the street outside. "Please don't tell your master about this," I said to the maid. "Just tell him Maree decided to leave his employment."

"What's all the fuss about down there?" came a woman's voice from the back of the service area. "Who's making all that noise?"

"Mrs. Crouch," the maid said to me.

I hurriedly thanked her again, picked up my hat, and left before the housekeeper arrived. Outside, Jacob was waiting at the top of the stairs.

"Are you all right?" I asked him quietly so as not to alarm anyone within earshot.

He stared off into the distance. "I think that's my line." When I didn't answer him, he turned to me. "Well? Are you all right?"

"Is that a genuine question?" I started walking, wanting to put distance between myself and the Culvert house. "It's difficult to tell considering the way you dropped me in there."

We rounded the corner and a policeman in uniform stepped out of the recessed doorway of a coffee house and into my path, startling me. "Everything all right, miss?" He looked over my head, saw no one, and raised his eyebrows. "Who you speaking to then, eh?"