The Lord and the Banshee (Read by Candlelight #13) - Gillian St. Kevern Page 0,14
in death.”
Thomas blinked. Julian was apt to be literal. This was the most poetic he’d ever heard him. “I do not wonder now that you insisted on leaving.”
Julian’s mouth drooped. “It’s gone now, but when I reached this spot last night, that’s all I could smell. Decay and death.”
Thomas inhaled. He smelled nothing more than the grass, warmed by the sun, and the breeze carrying with it the mossy forest scent. “Have you smelled it elsewhere?” Such a distinctive scent would be easily traced.
Julian’s jaw tightened. “The closest thing I’ve smelled to it was you on the train.”
Thomas stared at him. “What are you saying?” Julian had seen Thomas on the terrace. He knew he could not have travelled across the lawn in that short time.
Julian scowled, his shoulders hunched. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense, but I know what I smelled.”
Thomas watched his adoptive son grind his shoe into an undeserving clump of grass. “Did you mention this to your father?”
“That the smell reminded me of the catacombs? Yes. No more.”
At least Julian had that much sense. “No one in the house has this scent?”
Julian shook his head. “No. At least, no one I’ve met so far.”
Thomas stroked his beard, eying Connaught Castle. “It’s possible that what you’re picking up is not a person, but a place. You mentioned the catacombs. There might be a church vault or a crypt around here where our banshee stores her costume.”
Julian’s frown deepened. “It’s possible, I suppose, although it does not explain why the grass was undisturbed.”
“First, we identify our culprit. Then we can investigate how they pulled this off.”
Julian glanced at Thomas. “You think the household has something to do with this?”
Thomas tilted his head to one side. After a moment, he inclined his head. Who could he tell if not Julian? “Mrs O’Flaherty’s theatre background would give her a knowledge of costume and theatrical effects, knowledge her daughter, with her interest in a career as an actress, might share. Either of them, working alone or in tandem, might be behind the banshee’s appearances.”
Julian nodded, his fingers busy with his tie (mid-brown with coffee coloured stripes. Cross had not enquired what it represented). “Mrs O’Flaherty was on the terrace with father when he saw the banshee.”
Thomas nodded. “We must find out where Miss O’Flaherty was.”
“The problem with Mrs and Miss O’Flaherty as the banshee is that they’ve got no reason to want to put the fear of death into father. Apart from, you know, having met father.”
Thomas used his most repressive glance. “That is not sufficient motivation.”
Julian grinned at him, unrepentant. “Well?”
He nodded. “If they thought he planned to discredit their banshee appearances, then this attempt to scare off your father would make sense, but it should be obvious to even the most casual acquaintance that your father is the banshee’s most enthusiastic supporter.”
The breeze ruffled Julian’s hair. He smoothed it back, glancing towards the woods. “I find it hard to imagine anyone crediting father a threat—” He stopped, eyes widening and his mouth falling open.
Thomas spun around. He scanned the fields for whatever threat Julian had spotted.
A man approached, pushing a wheelbarrow full of plant clippings. He wore a shirt, the collar open, and thick boots over his rough cambric trousers. A pair of suspenders, a tweed cap, and thick leather gloves, cracked and stained from use, completed his outfit.
Thomas frowned. A gardener? Could this man be the source of the catacomb-like scent Julian had discovered? He breathed in as the man approached, but could smell nothing more than fresh cut branches and grass.
As the man drew even with them, Thomas saw that he was in his late twenties, tall and broad shouldered, hair just on the cusp of ginger and trimmed into a short beard. He had clear brown eyes and touched his cap to them in a gesture that conveyed respect without humility.
Thomas nodded in return, a sinking feeling in his stomach. He glanced at Julian, saw that he stared open-mouthed after the man, his fingers knotted in his tie.
Thomas felt the beginnings of a headache. “Staring is not polite.” This was the last thing they needed—Julian developing one of his infatuations for Lord Connaught’s gardener!
8
“His name is Liam. Liam Malone.” Julian had dragged one of the armchairs in Cross’s bedroom over to the window and was now curled up in it. “He’s the under-gardener. He’s twenty-seven years old, and he’s lived in Connaught all his life. And he likes dogs.”