Belmary House Book One (2 page)

He turned and grinned at her, opening doors and sweeping his eyes around the rooms, hallooing that they were about to leave. “There are stories of course, but I’ve never seen any evidence of it,” he said with a shrug.

“Well, what are the stories?” she asked, as they searched the ground floor, then made their way upstairs.

“The main one is that one of the owners, an earl, went mad and murdered someone here.”

“Who did he murder?” she interrupted, receiving an impatient look.

“Probably no one. But one says it was a woman, another says it was his archenemy. Some say he married someone who wasn’t part of his class and that caused trouble for him. So, it could have been malicious gossip over the years.”

“Is that what you think?”

“I think people like to flap their gums, yes. Everyone loves a ghost story. It was all good fun until that actress disappeared.” When she widened her eyes at him, he slumped a little. “You know I don’t mean it that way. Of course I’m sorry for her family. But it couldn’t have been a ghost who stole her away, yeah? Why should this place have to get torn down?”

Tilly patted his arm comfortingly, and pointed to the room she’d last seen the researcher. He threw it open and leaned in to take a look. She peeked in under his arm. The room was empty as before, but no longer felt cold.

“So, you don’t believe this house is haunted at all?”

He stopped and leaned against the paneled wall. “I’m a scientist—”

She made a disparaging snerking sound. “I’m more of a scientist than you are, Dex.”

“Well, I’m an historian, an educator. Not like these naff literary history majors who come in here looking to support all the wild claims. I only believe what I’ve actually seen with my own eyes, and that’s precious little as far as a ghost goes.”

He paused and looked around the hallway as if expecting something to swoop in and smite him for what he was about to say. She shivered and scuttled closer to him, earning her a raised eyebrow.

“The thing is, though, I swear I saw a document saying Lord Ashford had married a woman who was his neighbor up in Scotland, who was most definitely of his class, and it would have debunked that one theory. I was going to make a big stink about it the next day since there isn’t much— well, plenty of junk to be sure, but no hard facts about Ashford’s life. But when I read the same paper the next morning, it was gone. It was the same document but that paragraph wasn’t what I remembered it being.”

“And that makes you believe in the ghost?”

He sighed. “It did make me question things. But I was probably just tired. I work quite late, as you can see.” The next door he opened was the elusive stairway leading up and she hissed irritably. So close.

“You got lost, didn’t you?” he asked with a smile.

She nodded, knowing he wouldn’t believe her if she lied, and that he didn’t care anyway.

“Me too, the first day I worked here.”

She knew he said it to make her feel better, that he would have memorized the floorplan before he ever set foot in the massive old mansion, but appreciated the attempt. He liked putting people at ease, and even though they hadn’t actually seen each other for a couple years, they were still as close as siblings.

They flew through the third floor and the musty attic without finding anyone and he shook his head at her. “Maybe we better skip any more drinking tonight. It looks like that and the jet lag is making you see things.”

“And hear things,” she said indignantly. “I spoke to him! Or, he spoke to me. I was too flustered to say anything back.”

“What did he say to you?” Dex headed back down the stairs and she hurried after him, in no way wanting to stay alone in the attic.

She wracked her brain to remember. “Uh, he was sorry, but it wasn’t time yet. Or something.”

Dexter burst out laughing. “That’s perfect, Til. Just cryptic enough.”

“Shut up,” she muttered, but thinking perhaps she had imagined it all.

She did feel laggy and she did have that glass of brandy in her. But the man had been so unghostly and solid looking. Really solid looking. She was about to ask him out before he disappeared. If he’d been there at all. Because if he had been there, they would have found him in one of the rooms. By the time they were back downstairs in the main work room, she was convinced she’d imagined the tall, handsome man in the tight breeches.

“Let me get these miniatures put away and we can be off.” Dex moved to a stand of tiny paintings and began putting them in individual cloth bags. “I was going to finish cataloging them tonight but I can just do it tomorrow.”

She rolled her eyes at his none too subtle way of telling her she’d wasted a bunch of time, and begrudgingly began to help. Anything to get out of that house quicker. She barely looked at the portraits until the haughty glare of one subject caught her eye and she hurriedly moved closer to the desk lamp. Holding the intricately framed oval miniature in the pool of light, she leaned over it, taking in the dark hair, the chiseled jaw, the haughty scowl, and silver grey eyes of the man in the picture. Her vision got hazy and she gripped the edge of the work table to keep from sinking to the ground.

“Who is this?” she asked, her heart beating heavily as she thrust it under Dex’s nose.

He took it from her and studied it, then broke into a wide grin. “Why, that’s Julian Alexander, 2nd earl of Ashford and Happenham. That’s the supposed ghost of Belmary House.” He placed the miniature back in her outstretched hand, his smile sliding off his face when her legs gave out and she sat down hard. “What is it?”

She wrapped her fingers around the portrait, feeling weak. “This is him. This is the man I saw upstairs.”

Ashford stood rooted to the spot, clinging to the brick wall in front of him, fighting the heart thumping panic that made him want to flee recklessly into the night. He never panicked, but the siege taking place around him shattered his normal reserve. He ducked into an alley and squeezed his eyes shut as another crash reverberated somewhere east of him, far too close. The sirens set his teeth on edge, such an ungodly sound, and after several breathless moments, he made his way stealthily back toward the house, where he prayed he’d finally find an exit from this hell.

For more than two weeks, he’d been stuck in 1940. He’d been several years ahead before, so he’d seen the aftermath, the heartbreaking remains of the city he’d grown to love, but being smack in the middle of it getting torn to shreds was an entirely different matter. He didn’t like it one bit.

He should have stayed in the house after the effort he’d made in convincing the two remaining retainers that he was a long lost family member from Scotland, which was technically the truth after all. Thankfully, they’d believed him and let him move in, though it was clear they thought he was thicker than mud for coming to London from the relative safety of Scotland, when his aging antecedents and current owners of the house had fled to the country weeks ago. That was fine with him, as it always gave him chills to see someone he might have been directly responsible for being alive.

He only had a block to go, but he’d run out of comfortingly dark alleys to scuttle along. The rest was open boulevard, then the freakishly long driveway. There were no lights save the terrifying explosions that seemed to fill the sky like a frightened pack of rats scuttling in a sewer. He shouldn’t be here, and the fact that he was worried him more than the bombs, and the bombs worried him quite enough. As far as he knew, his house never got hit, but just being here could change things. It wasn’t his planned destination, it wasn’t even on his schedule, so why was he here?

He sat down under a boarded up window and leaned against the grimy shop wall, staring at the vast expanse of open space he’d have to cross to get home. The lovely trees that lined the street didn’t seem like much cover. He hoped he could make it, not just to the house but to where he needed to be. He had people counting on him …

A dreadful droning whistle led to another crash, this time further away. He looked up to see the eery white lights raining down into a glowing ring of pink and orange. Something was on fire. He watched until the area darkened again, shaking his head at the thought of the poor souls who had to live in this time, rushing to put out the flames. The possibility of being stuck here made his blood run cold.

It might have been coincidence that he ended up in such a hellish point in time, but the fact that he couldn’t get out after nearly three weeks, and he was beginning to feel put upon. What little he could remember of his mother, she always told him to think the best of people, and never assume malice. But the one person he knew who could possibly tamper with the portal was nothing if not malicious.

Solomon Wodge had been wanting him dead for years, and since the slimy bastard wasn’t clever enough to find him and face him like a man, could he have done something to muck up his schedules? Wodge was the reason he’d ventured out of the house, thinking if the madman was here in this same time with him, he could perhaps draw him out, see what he really wanted once and for all.

Ashford had gone looking for someone he knew from a previous visit to 1912, see if he’d been approached by Wodge, but the old contact was dead some years now. He’d tarried too long in talking to the man’s widow, and got stuck out after dark.

It was one thing for Wodge to inconvenience him, and possibly get him buried in rubble, but he needed to get a teacher who found himself stuck in 1671 back to his proper time, and poor Miss Saito had been waiting none too patiently for more than a year to get back to hers. All the unfortunate people who found themselves lost because of his cursed house were his responsibility.

Ashford felt the weight of Belmary House and its strange time portal as if he held all its chimneys on his own shoulders. Standing up, he pulled his knit hat low on his brow, tucked up the collar of his dark blue pea coat, and stuffed his hands into his sleeves. Taking a deep breath to shove down the unfamiliar feeling of panic that threatened to burst open his chest, he put his head down and ran.

No sooner had he left the false security of the alley, another crash reverberated behind him. Certain if he turned back he’d see a gaping chasm where the closed up shop had been, he ducked lower and kept racing toward the gates to his house. He swore he felt flames licking at his heels and almost laughed at his absurd imaginings, except with a renewed wail of sirens starting up, it didn’t seem so absurd.

The second he got in through the kitchen entrance, he slammed the door behind him, pulled all the shutters closed and sank to the shiny tiles. He let out a stream of curse words and tossed his hat across the room. It landed with an unsatisfyingly soft plop on the stove. After a moment, his heartbeat returned to normal and the loneliness of the dark kitchen began to weigh on him. He hoped the servants were safe, wherever they were. Heaving himself to his feet, he headed upstairs, praying the portal would open soon.

He’d had to cajole and finagle the housekeeper for the use of the bedroom, since throughout the ages, it had always been kept closed up, some years they didn’t even bother to furnish it. He doubted anyone knew the reason anymore, but he was glad they stuck to tradition, certain he’d go mad if guests were allowed to stay in it, to get hurtled through time left and right. Quite enough managed to go astray as it was, due to clumsiness or nosiness or sheer bad luck.

 The sparse furnishings were barely visible in the dim light of his one candle, well shaded at the end of the bed. To make sure even that tiny bit of light wouldn’t show from outside, he double checked the blackout curtains, then changed into his own familiar clothing. He didn’t mind the sturdy, loose trousers of this time, and he thought zippers were fantastic, but it made him feel more hopeful with his own clothes on. As if he had a better chance of getting back to his own time if he kept something from then close.

He sat on the floor and leaned against the footboard. So far the bombs hadn’t hit anything too close to his family house, but he could still hear the crashes, and the droning of the planes as they passed each night. He wanted out. With gritted teeth he peered at the notebook that held his schedules, the dates and times he’d been meticulously recording for almost fifteen years now, and that had never failed him before.

If a portal was open at a certain time, it was always open at that time. He’d been moving relatively effortlessly through the ages since he was fifteen, all thanks to his notebook. And now it had failed him. Or rather, it hadn’t failed, he merely didn’t have any good data leading to or from this time, which made it all but useless. He’d have to wait for an opening and step into it blind, something he hadn’t done in a while.

What was even more disconcerting was that there hadn’t been an opening at all in three weeks and if he didn’t get to a time he could navigate from, he’d lose his chance to help the teacher stuck in the seventeenth century. As it was, with all the time lost here, he’d have to do some serious jumping around in order to get back on track. His frustration level rose to the point he nearly cracked a tooth he was grinding them so hard, and he stood up to work the kinks from his back.

A sudden drop in temperature lightened his dark mood and he stood still, letting the sensation of an impending portal opening wash over him. As he tugged on his boots, he felt a bit bad about the two servants who’d think he was lost in the blitz, but couldn’t help grinning with anticipation as he hurriedly snuffed the candle. He stepped into the corner, and out of hell.