"You like it." Mr. Culvert seemed genuinely pleased.

"It's wonderful," I said on a breath. "Are they all works dedicated to demonology?"

"Not all. Only half of that wall there." He indicated the wall opposite the door, the only one where the shelves weren't interrupted by windows or the fireplace. "The rest are volumes on other supernatural phenomena, and there's a few novels and medical texts too. My father's tastes were eclectic."

Even Jacob looked impressed. He went straight to the demonology books and scanned the shelves. "This might be a good one to start with, Emily."

I came up beside him and extracted the book he indicated. "An Introduction to Demonic Phenomena."

Culvert pulled out a chair at the large central table. "Would you like to sit while you read?"

"Thank you, Mr. Culvert."

"Please, call me George."

I smiled at him. "And you shall call me Emily."

"That's a little informal on such short acquaintance, don’t you think?" Jacob said, suddenly standing behind me.

I wanted to retort that he and I had dispensed with formalities on an equally short acquaintance but I couldn't alert George to his presence. Not yet. And I suspected Jacob would tell me the normal rules didn't apply to him anyway because he was a ghost.

I sat in the chair—I was right, the leather was soft and welcoming—and flipped to the table of contents. Jacob returned to browsing the shelves while George closed some books he had open on the other side of the large desk and tidied his notes.

"George!" came a shrill voice from outside the room. "George, do you have your nose buried in a blasted book again?" A striking woman dressed in a burgundy satin gown with excessively puffed sleeves and a cascade of ruffles on the skirt strode into the library. She stopped abruptly when she saw me and fixed me with a glare that could have frozen the Thames in summer. "Oh. You have a guest." She didn't sound pleased although she seemed surprised.

I lifted my chin and gave her a sweet smile in return. It was a tactic I'd seen Celia use at our séances. Whenever she was faced with a skeptical audience member, she would charm them. It worked most of the time. "Emily Chambers," I said, rising. "Pleased to—."

"I wasn't addressing you."

I plopped back down in the chair. So much for charm.

I felt rather than saw Jacob move up beside me. "Would you like me to pull the pins out of that ridiculous hair style and poke them one by one into her ear?"

I laughed then tried to stifle it but only ended up making a horrid snorting sound. Mrs. Culvert's glare—for I'd guessed it to be her—turned even frostier. I could not, however, quaver anymore, not after Jacob’s offer. She did indeed have a rather ridiculous hairstyle, scraped back so tightly it made her eyes slant. The ridiculousness was amplified by her tiny hat with the very tall feathers shooting straight up from the crown in a V-shape. I'd not seen anything like it.