Belmary House Book One by Cassidy Cayman Read Free Book Online

was she still standing, let alone traipsing along behind him? With every empty room and every passing minute, her hope dwindled. It was too late now, far too late. She wasn’t going home. The idiot American had gone upstairs and Ashford must have taken her by mistake.
    As much as she tried to feel compassion for the girl, who had to be frightened out of her wits, her blood boiled at her lost chance. Yes, she had to cling to that. Anger was so much easier to deal with than heartbreak.
    “She’s not here,” he said. “She wouldn’t have just left without telling me, and she’d answer her phone if she could. I should call the police, right?”
    She grabbed his phone out of his hand, surprising him. “Listen to me,” she said, taking his shoulders and giving him a shake. “We’re not going to call the police. Your cousin’s gone, but they won’t be able to get her back.”
    Oh, that wasn’t right. He now looked completely terrified, so much so that he began to back away from her. She almost laughed, but it died in her chest, far from making a sound. She covered her face with her hands.
    “Let’s sit down somewhere. This is a bit of a sit down sort of thing.”
    “Bloody hell, Miss Saito, I’m not going to sit down. What’s going on? Where’s Tilly?”
    Now the laugh did come out, but rough, not at all a happy sound. “She’s very likely still in this house,” she said. “Just not in this time. Your cousin has gone to another time.”
    He slid to the floor. Well, she did try to get him to sit first. He looked up at her with his big brown eyes, blinking rapidly. He didn’t believe her, and she was so tired she almost left him sitting there, not wanting to be in the house anymore. But he was a good researcher, a good kid. She flinched inwardly at thinking him a kid, when he was probably only a couple years younger than her. And really, chronologically, in this time she’d been stuck in for over a year, she was only eighteen.
    At any rate, he deserved a full explanation. He’d need it to keep from having the police swarming the place. The last thing they needed was more bad press for Belmary House. She’d expected to be safely home well before its demolition date, but now this. What would happen now, if she couldn’t get back before the house was leveled? No, she couldn’t think of that right now.
    “Are you all right?” she asked, nudging him with her toe.
    He gripped her ankle, looking up at her, shaking his head. “Say it again,” he said. “I don’t think I heard you properly.”
    She wrestled her ankle out of his grasp. Poor thing. “You did hear me, perfectly well. Now stand up, let’s go downstairs. I’ll pour you a drink and explain.”
    To his credit, he stood up, and as she led him down the stairs by the arm, he muttered, “She thought she saw the ghost of Lord Ashford last night. Is Belmary House really haunted?”
    Last night? Ashford had been here the day before as well? He hadn’t mentioned that in his most recent letter to her. That letter hadn’t said much at all, just the terse instruction to be ready at a specific date and time. She checked the room where she’d been flung backwards through time on a regular basis, but hadn’t received any new instructions since. Goosebumps crawled up and down her arms that she might have got it wrong somehow. No, she couldn’t think that way or she’d go to pieces. Taking a breath, she looked up at Dexter, who was practically shaking in his shoes.
    “Not haunted, no. Maybe cursed, though. And she probably did see Ashford, just not his ghost.” She flinched again, this time at her bang up job of explaining things. Well, in her defense, it wasn’t an easy thing to explain.
    They made it to the main work room where she poured him a glass of the brandy she wasn’t supposed to know all the researchers drank. He barely took a sip before letting loose with a string of questions. She sifted and settled them in her mind while taking a healthy