The Lord and the Banshee (Read by Candlelight #13) - Gillian St. Kevern Page 0,51
with a furrowed brow. “I wish you’d gone to stay with your aunt. She never objects to you visiting.”
“And leave the two of you to face this trouble alone? That isn’t how family works.” Julian flung salt around with abandon. “Besides, the moment I showed up unannounced, you’d have Pippa haring around to see what the excitement was.”
Thomas felt his chest swell. Julian had not entertained the thought of leaving for a second. Neither had Pip. “I, for one, am glad of your presence.” He looked to the pile of books set to one side of his cot. “Is this research?”
Pip was busy nailing a horseshoe above the library door. “I fancy we will need some means of occupying ourselves tonight, especially if the weather is as bad as Julian predicts. I do not think we will pass a very comfortable night in the library.”
Julian straightened, dusting off his hands. “That’s the entire room.”
“The rest of the house is next.” Pip picked up his hammer and sack of horseshoes. “Don’t leave the room, Thomas.”
He nodded, picking up the top book from the pile and setting into his chair. “I’ll be right here.”
Soon after that the wind picked up, roaring through the park trees, the branches beating against the walls of the house and scratching against the window panes. At first, Thomas tried to ignore it, focusing on the book he read. But the printed word could not compete with his fears for Pip and Julian, outside in the gathering wind. Eventually he closed the book, hands resting on the cover as he waited, ears strained for any sound of his companions.
After what seemed like an age, he heard a door close, and footsteps on the tiles of the entrance hall. The library door opened to admit Pip and Julian, red-cheeked, hair and clothing wind-tousled, but in abundant spirits.
“Even if the door didn’t have a horseshoe over it, there was no need to scale the drainpipe to reach it. I was intending to do the balcony once we’d completed the downstairs,” Pip scolded, unwinding himself from a voluminous scarf.
Julian seated himself on the rug before the fire. “I secured the door. Isn’t that the important thing?”
Pip huffed at him. “The door might be secure, but your father nearly had a fit! Seeing you dangling from the balcony, and in this wind!”
Thomas could imagine what had transpired. “I take it your precautions were successful.”
“Well, they’re laid at least. Whether they’re successful remains to be seen.” Pip peered at the windows. “Anything?”
Thomas shook his head. “All quiet.”
As if to make him a liar, a voice somewhere out in the dark sang a patch of song, then broke off into harsh laughter.
Thomas flinched. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Julian raise his head, his gaze resting on the library windows. It was the gaze of a cat watching a mouse hole.
Pip patted Thomas’s shoulder. He drew his armchair up beside Thomas’s chair. “How far did you get with your reading?”
“I uncovered nothing that I fancy you did not already know.” Thomas’s shoulders ached, stiff with tension. He rubbed them. He could not escape the gnawing sensation that something was about to go wrong.
“Well, if nothing else, we know that we are on the right track.” Pip continued to talk. It wasn’t his words so much as the tenor of his voice. Calm, confident and determined—very determined. He did not falter, even as the wind rose, growing in force until the window panes rattled, and the house shook, as if it was not wind but a train driving straight at them.
The tension in Thomas’s chest ebbed, replaced by a warmth that eased the pressure he felt. How had he delayed from telling Pip for so long? They were strongest together.
No—that had not been his choice, but Dian’s. Thomas’s brow furrowed. Had his purpose been to isolate Thomas, to make possession of him easier? Or was it Pip himself that he feared? No one knew more about the supernatural than Pip…
Brightness flared through the gap in the curtains, a lightning strike. The burst of thunder was a heartbeat after it, crashing over the house with the force of Judgment Day.
“My word, that was close!” Pip got to his feet. “That sounded like the park. Do you think we’ve been hit?” He pulled back the curtain.
Thomas saw movement in the window pane, a mouth drawn back in a triumphant smirk. He surged to his feet. “Get back!”