Tangled Echoes by Meghan Ciana Doidge

Author:Meghan Ciana Doidge [Doidge, Meghan Ciana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9781927850572
Goodreads: 34737072
Publisher: Meghan Ciana Doidge
Published: 2017-05-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

I could smell the cinnamon buns even before I descended the stairs. Apparently, Rose had brought in breakfast. Forgoing the kitchen, I crossed the foyer into the dining room beside the front drawing room, where a breakfast buffet had been laid on the tall sideboard. Rose was still treating us as guests instead of family, which I knew shouldn’t have irked me as much as it did. I’d asked for professional courtesy, after all.

My aunt, dressed head to toe in pink silk and wool, was sitting two chairs from the head of the dark oak table that sliced through the center of the long, narrow room. Declan, in a black T-shirt and jeans, was across from her, though one seat closer to the head of the table.

Rose looked up as I entered, offering me a tentative smile.

“Good morning,” I said, crossing to the sideboard and flipping the lid on a carafe of coffee. I leaned over, eagerly inviting the heavy, slightly burnt aroma to fill my senses.

“Good morning, darling,” Rose said, sounding utterly delighted. My aunt had a way of putting all confrontation behind her as quickly as possible, whether or not an issue had actually been resolved.

Declan grunted a greeting, then flipped a page of the newspaper he was holding like it might have been a barrier between him and Rose.

He’d cleared his plate. Rose was nibbling on toast spread with red berry jam.

The dining table was set with charger plates, coffee mugs, and utensils. I selected a small white china bowl from a stack on the sideboard and served myself some fruit salad, completely intending to come back for a double helping of the scalloped potatoes I’d spotted in one of the warmers.

“We need to go to the manor,” Declan said, not looking up from his newspaper. “I’m not waiting around to hear back from some vampire. Whether or not he’s in town doesn’t mean he isn’t involved.”

Apparently, I hadn’t been the only one whose thoughts had strayed to Jasper the previous night.

“I know,” I said as I picked up the carafe of coffee, then carried it and my fruit salad to the seat across from Declan. I chose to sit beside Rose, leaving the head of the table where Jasper would have sat during a full family gathering vacant.

Rose glanced back and forth between Declan and me. “I haven’t collected much information on the vampires. Or contacted some of the out-of-town coven members yet. Give me a few more hours.”

Declan closed the paper. Folding it and tossing it on the table, he reached for his half-full coffee mug and settled back in his chair, staring steadily at our aunt.

He looked utterly out of place surrounded by fine china and delicate furniture. And he wasn’t actually blood related to anyone in the dining room. For some reason, both observations brought a smile to my face. Declan wasn’t a Fairchild.

Rose dropped his gaze, glancing over at me instead.

I carefully placed my bowl of fruit salad on the charger plate set before me.

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