Free A Dance in Blood Velvet by Freda Warrington Page A

circumstances.
    Ben and Holly comforted each other. Later, as she began to recover, Holly said, “I’ve had an awful notion, ever since Deirdre came to say goodbye. I thought, ‘If anything happens to her, it will prove her right.’”
    “About what?” Ben said thornily.
    “Being persecuted by Lancelyn.”
    He shot to his feet. “Don’t be ridiculous! She was upset, not in her right mind!”
    “I don’t want to believe it either,” Holly said in a low voice. “But we have to consider the possibility, at least.”
    “I’m going to work,” Ben growled.
    Numb, Holly watched him walk out; tall, long-limbed, fair-haired. Always full of energy; a strange mixture of kindness and single-minded ambition. She worshipped him. That was why he could hurt her so easily.
    When he’d gone, she went into the kitchen and made a cup of tea to calm herself. Two of your friends die, she thought. You suspect that your own beloved father - father-figure, at least -as good as murdered them. What in the name of God are you supposed to do?
    Another image. A white envelope in a gloved hand. A letter on its way...
    She pushed away the vision. Her psychic ability was a burden, not a gift. The random images were capricious, unreliable. They never presaged anything good.
    Lancelyn and Benedict might possess higher powers to touch the astral world, but she had a simple clairvoyance that they lacked. As a medium, she was invaluable to them. The process made her uncomfortable, but she submitted out of a desperate need to be useful. Her own parents had regarded her weird gifts as unacceptable. So to be accepted and needed by the men she loved meant everything to her.
    It was through her visions that they’d found the ancient Book. Why she’d had that particular vision, she’d no idea, unless Lancelyn had projected his complex desires onto her. “We need an earthly key to the astral realm, a link,” he had said. Then he had hypnotised Holly, and she had seen the heavy volume on a table in a tiny cell that was thick with mildew, candlewax, soot and cobwebs. The cell was in a tunnel, deep underground, where no human had passed for centuries.
    Further hypnotism and research helped them locate the tunnel. It was on a private estate in Hertfordshire, which meant, strictly speaking, they were trespassing. But, Lancelyn reasoned, if the owners were unaware of the tunnel’s existence, how could taking the Book count as theft?
    Holly hadn’t gone with them, but on their return they described the place exactly as she’d pictured it. They’d broken into the cellar of a derelict house to find the entrance. A cold, subterranean place, full of death and ghosts. The lair of a mad hermit, long since dead.
    She was profoundly shocked to hear that her vision was so accurate. Why do I see such things? she asked herself. Why can I never control or understand them?
    She hated the Book at first sight. Something deeply malevolent lingered within it.
    No sooner had Ben brought the tome into the house than he’d summoned that ghastly, groaning corpse. Holly hadn’t felt safe since. And now Deirdre. Impossible to be objective, when her deeper instincts screamed, This is evil. You are right to be afraid.
    She went into the parlour and forced herself to open the Book. Cramped writing on yellowing pages. Paper, ink, leather. Nothing to be afraid of...
    A terrible resonance flowed out and she slammed it shut, feeling ill. As she stood glaring at the slate-black cover, Sam snaked around her legs, mewing for attention. She gathered him in her arms, absorbing comfort from his warm, hairy weight. He seemed imperturbable.
    “The Book doesn’t trouble you, does it?” she said. “The evil’s not directed at you, Sammy. But it’s searching for... someone.”
    A knock at the door made her jump. Holly put Sam on the rug and forced herself to answer. The woman on the doorstep was Maud Walker, their bookshop assistant. Sighing inwardly, Holly asked her in.
    “Mr Grey