She walked up the steps to the great hall, then simply stood there with the key in her hand for far longer than she should have. Her hand was trembling, something she tried without success to ignore. It was ridiculous. This was her home, and she could walk inside and still breathe normally. The fact that she’d been hyperventilating the last time she’d come out the door was something she didn’t need to think about—
A sudden growling behind her—a noise that belonged to the sort of dog that could stand up and put its paws on her shoulders before it made a snack of her nose—almost sent her lurching face-first into the heavy wooden door. She whirled around on the top step, desperately wishing she had something more to use as a defensive weapon than harsh language. She took a firmer grip on her backpack strap just in case she was afforded the opportunity to offer it as meal instead of her face, then looked at her would-be attacker.
Mr. Beagle, the guard dog of the gift shop’s proprietress.
Mrs. Tippets stood just behind her tiny terrier, wearing a frown that bespoke serious irritation indeed. Tess would have smiled in relief, but she didn’t imagine smiling would improve matters any. She had no idea what she’d done to inspire such antipathy in Mrs. Tippets, but she’d definitely done something.
Mrs. Tippets ran the castle’s gift shop with an iron fist and a dour expression, not even cracking a smile at the delivery of her paycheck. Tess supposed it was a wonder anyone left the premises with any sort of souvenir. Tess didn’t open the castle every day for visitors and she did limit even those excursions into her home to the lower floor and the outside, but the gift shop was open five days a week. When it came to keeping Sedgwick in the black, every bit pence helped.
“You’re back,” Mrs. Tippets said, her frown not dissipating.
“Well, yes,” Tess said faintly, trying to look less unnerved than she was. She attempted a wave at the dog but only had another growl in return. “I don’t suppose you could call off Mr. Beagle—”
“And I suppose you’ll be holding another of those hoity-toity events soon,” Mrs. Tippets continued, with no small bit of suspicion and disapproval. “All those people eyeing my wares more closely than I like.”
Tess bit her tongue, because her aunt had pounded into her the adage that if she didn’t have anything pleasant to say, she should confine herself to comments on her companion’s health and the weather.
And yes, she held events because it kept the lights on. And given that Mrs. Tippets’s job was to keep the gift shop open so the attendees at those events could splash out for a few souvenirs, the woman should have perhaps been a little more interested in when those events would be happening and how many people would be indeed looking at her wares. But since Tess couldn’t think of a polite way to say as much, she settled for a deep breath.
“Lovely weather we’re having,” she said politely.
Mrs. Tippets looked at her as if she’d lost her mind, then without another word took her yipping terrier and turned away.
“Your sister came back this morning,” she threw over her shoulder as she marched off toward the gates. “Without a key, of course.”
Tess nodded, then turned back to the door and put her key into the lock. She turned it, then froze.
Her sister was back?
She found it difficult to breathe all of the sudden. She’d just talked to Peaches in Seattle that morning. Cinderella was also stateside, busy being Botoxed and writing a book about adventures Tess was sure she was making up, and Moonbeam and Valerie were both employed in very useful work of their own across the Pond.
That left just Pippa . . .
Tess pushed the door open, dropped her backpack, and was halfway across the hall before she realized that the sister coming toward her was not her younger sister, but her twin.
“Tess,” Peaches said, breaking into a run suddenly and catching Tess by the arms, “what is it?”
“I narrowly escaped . . . an assault . . . by Mr. Beagle,” Tess said, hoping that would be enough to justify how she couldn’t seem to catch her breath. “And when I talked to you this morning, you were in Seattle. So I thought Mrs. Tippets might have been talking about—well, never mind what I thought.”
“I called you from your kitchen,” Peaches said with a faint frown. “I said as much.”
Tess pushed away from her sister. “I wasn’t listening.”
“Apparently.”
“And I’m fine,” Tess said, trying to sound as if she hadn’t just had the wind knocked out of her.
“I didn’t say you weren’t,” Peaches said, her frown deepening. “But now that you bring it up—”
“I’m okay,” Tess repeated. “Really.”
“Then where have you been for the last month when you led me to believe you were here at the castle?”
“I was at Cambridge,” Tess said. “Doing, ah, research. Important, time-sensitive research.”
Peaches’s frown turned into an expression of profound skepticism. “Tess—”
“I just needed to get away for a few days,” Tess interrupted, pasting a bright smile on her face. “That’s all. So I went and passed many delightful hours in a musty old library.”
“If you say so. I’ll go make you some green juice.”
Tess thought she might have needed something a little stronger than one of her sister’s ultra-healthy concoctions, but she wasn’t going to argue. She retrieved her backpack from where she’d dropped it by the front door, then made it halfway across the great hall before she found herself standing in one place, unable to go any farther. That had happened to her regularly over the past year of owning the castle, so she didn’t suppose anyone would think it strange if she just stood there and gaped.
Sedgwick was, she had to admit, spectacular. The hall wasn’t an enormous thing such as one might have found in a more substantial castle such as Artane, but its height made her feel small and fragile just the same. The tapestries that lined the walls and the enormous fireplaces were enough to convince her that she’d walked back in time hundreds of years.
Only in her castle there were rugs on the floors, a fridge big enough to hold all her party platters, and a lovely Aga stove to warm her toes by in the kitchen. She didn’t want to think about the fact that while she had a glorious castle that had been lovingly restored decades ago thanks to a man with buckets of money and enormous amounts of time on his hands, her sister Pippa had a castle that wasn’t in such nice shape.