Echoes in Stone Read Free

my fire. Instead, I find my foyer sullied with muddy strangers. If you will be so good, kindly remove this rubbish.”
    Captain Dashiell Tremayne, master of Tremayne Hall, whirled away, and with the haughty grace only a drunken man could achieve, stalked to a doorway across the hall, entered, and slammed the door.
    The sound reverberated in the cold entry, echoing in Jessa’s equally chilled heart. Two things remained clear.
    Lily had been right to fear Dashiell Tremayne.
    And Holly needed to be removed from his keeping as quickly as possible.
     

 
     
    3.
     
    …some witch or hell born spirit…
     
    DASH STOOD IN the center of his book-lined study. The roaring fire provided the only light. His chest heaved as hard as if he’d run a footrace with the devil. He clenched and unclenched his hand, trying to ease the tingling burn. The rain-sodden wind that had blown through his front door with that female creature had helped to blow away a few of the cobwebs the whiskey had spun in his brain.
    What had the girl done to him?
    Not a girl. A woman. Though her fair skin had the dewy look of a mere chit, not even her ugly gray excuse for a dress had been able to hide the undeniable curves of a full-grown female.
    He retrieved the crystal decanter perched on the corner of his desk, pouring a sizable splash of whiskey into the glass he’d already filled too many times tonight. His impulse was to pour it down his suddenly dry throat, but he forced himself to sip it instead. He drew a deep breath, waiting for his galloping pulse to slow.
    He moved to stand in front of the fire. He was wet to the skin from having held the sodden woman against him, but molten heat coursed through his veins. He raised his hand to examine it, half expecting to see angry, red scorch marks on it.
    Nothing.
    But he’d not been mistaken. When he’d gripped the girl’s bare wrist, something hot, pulsing had arced through him. Blood had raced to his stomach, then pooled lower in his groin.
    Six months ago tonight, fire of another kind had seared him. Six months ago tonight, screams spiraling into a night sky had set him free and cast him into hell in the same moment. Instead of chasing away his ghosts, the whiskey he’d been downing all evening had called one of them forth. Lily—or her doppelganger— had stood in his foyer.
    In normal circumstances, Winston would have been the one to answer the door, but he’d stepped out to answer nature’s call. No other servant would be awake this time of night. There was no need. No one came to Tremayne Hall. No one.
    “So, who is the woman?”
    Dash swiveled to face the man seated in the gold and black-striped chair in front of the desk.
    “You don’t know, do you, Dash? You were so busy berating the poor little thing, terrorizing her, accusing her of being—I believe your words were ‘some witch or hell-born spirit’—you never even got her name.”
    Winston Evers, the senior male staff member in this household—sometimes majordomo, sometimes valet—casually crossed his legs, lit a cigar, then blew out a lazy smoke ring. The long relationship between the two men, the nearest thing Dash allowed to friendship, permitted the familiar tone of speech, as did the fact that Winston was a distant—albeit financially strapped—cousin.
    “So. You saw all that? Yet you made no move to assist the poor little thing ?”
    “When I returned to the study, the door to the entry was open. I watched from there.” Winston took another puff of his cigar, then studied the bright ember on the end of it. “I must say, Dash, watching you make a damn fool of yourself is more entertaining than a London play.”
    Dash swayed, leaning against the chimneypiece for support. The half-decanter of whiskey he’d consumed burned in his belly. He snorted at Winston, but made no other response.
    “Had I realized you would actually assault the chit—”
    “Damned female shows up on my doorstep in the middle of night,