The Medium (Emily Chambers Spirit Medium Trilogy #1) by C.J. Archer Page A

and
everything will be all right. Tell me who made you steal the book."
    She shook her
head. "No. No." Tears streamed down her face and her nose oozed a
thick green sludge. "Leave me be. Go away!"
    "Maree—."
    "I said go
away!" She ran at me, teeth bared, cap falling to once side. A knife in
her grasp.
    She hadn't been
ringing her hands in her apron, she'd been polishing the blade.
    I gasped and put
my arms up to cover my face.
    "Emily!"
Jacob's shout sounded strange in my ears, not like him at all. High, strained.
    Scared.
     
    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,