Love Like the Dickens: A Heartswell Harbour Romance

by Mavis Williams

  The fleeting feeling fled.

  Fun to Agnes was a hot cup of tea and a Liz Gilbert novel.

  Belinda gently unknotted Anges’ fingers from her sleeve and darted away, leaving her standing awkwardly in the aisle clutching her script.

  “Right then.” Mrs. Crawley raised both arms in benediction. “Begin!”

  Agnes groaned.

  The first few groups were magnificent. Agnes watched from the seats as people laughed and gestured on stage, having fun with the words and playing with each other in unrestrained ease. No one looked the least bit nervous. She was certain she was the only new person in the group, and definitely the only one without any experience.

  Paisley moved about on stage, accompanied by an extremely tall man with a beard who seemed to be measuring the space. He must be a stagehand, she decided, pleased that she at least knew some theater vocabulary. She watched him curiously, enjoying how his long limbs moved with the awkward grace of a teenage boy, like he hadn’t quite grown into his arms and legs yet, even though he was obviously older than she was by a good ten or twelve years.

  “Young lady. Yes, you.” Mrs. Crawley called out and Agnes jumped to her feet like it was roll call in high school. “You’re new.”

  It wasn’t a question, and it wasn’t unkind, but Mrs. Crawley’s observation carried a definite hint of displeasure, as if Agnes had made an error by not introducing herself.

  “I’m Agnes.” Her voice shrilled as everyone turned toward her. She twisted her pendant in one hand and waved her script awkwardly with the other. “I’m, um, a librarian.”

  “Not tonight, you’re not, my dear.” Mrs. Crawley gestured her toward the stage. “Tonight you are a thespian! Take the stage!”

  Agnes felt like she was being called to battle. Should she charge the stage to prove her valor? Except that she had no valor. None. She dragged herself on stage with two other women who smiled and showed her the correct page on her script.

  “Oscar. Mr. Lake? Oscar?” Mrs. Crawley demanded from the floor, craning her neck as she sought her prey. The tall man emerged from behind the curtain to Agnes’ left, standing silently in the wings very much like the figure of time. “Mr. Lake, you will indulge my fancy, I am certain?”

  He took a step closer to Agnes, the stage lights gleaming on the copper highlights in his beard. From this close, Agnes could see his eyes were the color of cinnamon.

  “Indulging your fancy is a full-time job, Mrs. Crawley,” he said quietly. “How may I be of service?”

  Mrs. Crawley simpered a bit, like a coy schoolgirl about to ask for a hall pass. “Will you be a dear and read the part of Bob Cratchit for this scene?”

  “I have no interest in auditioning, Irenia, as I have stated quite clearly to yourself and to my daughter.” He glanced around, but Paisley was behind him poking her head of the curtain and grinning like a cat. Agnes stifled a smile. Paisley reminded her of Savannah, all impish goodwill and devilry.

  “Mr. Lake, you know full well that no one can do the Grim Reaper like you.” Mrs. Crawley stated the fact as though the deal had already been made. “Your haunting presence gives us all chills, without even trying.”

  “You flatter me, Irenia,” he said. He glanced at Agnes with a shrug.

  “Be a dear, read the part.” Mrs. Crawley was obviously used to people obeying her directives.

  “Bob Cratchit is the antithesis of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. It will do immeasurable harm to my character-study should I attempt it,” he said. She loved how droll he was. How not a smile crossed his face as he teased the older lady.

  “Aha!” Mrs. Crawley trumpeted. “So you will accept the role. I knew you would. It gives me shivers to picture you draped in the black grave shrouds of fate, pointing one terrifying long finger at his grave…”

  Agnes watched in amazement as Mrs. Crawley staggered, zombie-like, across the floor with one lavender colored arm outstretched and a grimace on her bespectacled face. She stopped abruptly as she bumped into the edge of the stage.

  Belinda sat in the front row with an open binder on her lap. Agnes was certain she saw her roll her eyes.

  “Read Bob Cratchit, Oscar. These young ladies need a man in the scene, and you’re it.”

  Agnes could see him hesitate. He even took a small step backward, but Paisley darted out from behind the curtain and thrust an open script into his hand, looking up at him with impossibly impish eyes. Agnes had a feeling that saying no to Mrs. Crawley wouldn’t upset him in the least, but to Paisley it was simply not an option.

  Agnes studied her script as he stood beside her. He smelled like cedar, and she felt sheltered under his tall shadow.

  The other ladies on stage read the lines of Tiny Tim and the other Cratchit children, and Agnes read Mrs. Cratchit diligently, enunciating carefully. She didn’t move, but stood rooted to the floor, her eyes glued to the script. Oscar moved gracefully across the stage, reading his lines with his deep baritone voice as if he were the only person in the room. Agnes dearly wished he was.

  “No, no, NO.” Mrs. Crawley interrupted. “Madam, you, the librarian!”

  “Agnes,” she croaked, relief flooding right to her fingertips. They were letting her go. She began to walk off the stage. “Thanks.”

  “So, your legs do work after all?” Mrs. Crawley said. “Use them. Move! Embrace the stage! Make it your own! Passion, people. I want to see passion on that stage!”

  And that’s when it happened.

  Agnes was not a woman of intense emotion. She tended to plod through her life, evading conflict and dodging uncomfortable situations, which was why the sudden rush of resentment that flooded her was so overwhelming. She felt like Savannah’s ghost stood over her, shaking her finger at her and demanding more.

  She was here.

  She was doing what she promised.

  She was trying, dammit.

  Agnes glared at Mrs. Crawley and flung her script to the stage. She turned, intending to storm out but instead, without thinking, she crossed the distance between herself and the towering figure of Oscar Lake in three long strides.

  She grabbed him by his shirtfront and dragged his face down to hers. She caught the look of surprise in his dark eyes seconds before she kissed him.

  ∞∞∞

  He had no choice but to wrap his arms around her to stop himself from toppling completely on top of her.

  Agnes.

  Her name flashed through his mind as her mouth landed warm and demanding on his. Such was the depth of his surprise that he immediately kissed her back, as one would when one was being kissed by a very attractive woman who had just launched herself into ones’ arms.

  She pressed herself against him so aggressively that he was forced to bend deeply, dipping her to the stage floor like they were dancers executing a graceful move they had practiced dozens of times before. Her lips were soft and warm, and she smelled like trees after the rain. She sighed softly against his mouth. He wrapped his arms more tightly around her, drinking in her warmth and the scent of her hair.

  She finally broke the kiss, looking at him with glistening eyes the color of moss.

  “My name is Oscar,” he whispered, still holding her in a steep dip, her head mere inches from the stage floor.

  “Agnes,” she whispered back. Her eyes roamed his face like she was reading a map she had found in a bottle.

  They were startled back to standing by a wild ovation from the gathered thespians surrounding them. Oscar lifted her upright and pulled his hands away from her reluctantly. She tasted like caramel. He blinked at the applauding crowd and the blood rushed to his cheeks in a flaming surge. He hastily took a step backward.

  “Well, my heavens.” Mrs. Crawley gathered herself from a slack-jawed gape. “The actions!”

  Agnes shook her head, as if she had been sleepwalking. Her eyes grew round and her cheeks blushed pink. She was lovely. A green-eyed angel, out of place and out of her element. She seemed to come to some sort of agreement wit
h herself as he stared at her, the crowd fading into the background.

  “There,” Agnes said, her voice sounding much more certain than her eyes looked. “I can do passion.”

  She certainly could. He swallowed the heat that ran deep into his stomach. It had been a very long time indeed since Oscar had felt that kind of heat.

  Agnes squared her shoulders and slapped him on the arm like they had just beaten the opposing team, startling him back a step. She marched off the stage, speaking over her shoulder as she went.

  “Thanks for this. I’m marking it off the list. Nice to meet you all. Good-bye.”

  And she was gone. Out the exit door, leaving Mrs. Crawley speechless with one hand raised in the air as if to conjure her back.

  Paisley appeared at Oscar’s elbow, blinking up at him with the kind of expression she had when she was a child and she found an Easter egg a week after Easter was over.

  “You ok, dad?”

  “I think so.” He was trying very hard not to run off the stage and chase the kissing woman into the parking lot before she disappeared forever.

  “How was it?”

  “What?”

  “The kiss, Dad, come on! You look like you liked it.”

  He shook himself slightly and brushed his hands over his shirt like he was dusting himself off after a busy day. He had liked it. Very much, indeed.

  “Just doing my part, Paise. The show must go on, and all that.”

  He turned and walked off the stage feeling younger than he had in years.

  Three

  Agnes slammed through the back door of the Book Nook and stomped up the stairs to her rented Airbnb apartment. She hurled her purse onto the floor and looked around for something else to throw. There was a vase of flowers on the table and she picked it up, satisfyingly heavy in her hand.

  She couldn’t. Even her current pique wouldn’t allow her to completely lose control. She groaned, reliving her distress as she had stood on the stage, punch-drunk with stage fright.

  She put the vase back down, her hand shaking.

  She wasn’t just scared. She was angry.

  Even as she admitted it to herself, hot tears of shame welled up in her eyes. She was angry at Savannah.

  This wasn’t the first time she had been overwhelmed by a white-hot rage that bubbled out of nowhere to consume her normally rational mind. It happened at the funeral. It happened at the reading of the will. There were days when she felt it the moment she opened her eyes in the morning, but she fiercely stuffed it down, deep underground inside of her darkest heart, willing the shame of it to wash it away.

  She couldn’t possibly be the kind of person who would rage at her dead sister.

  Who was that person?

  Savannah was dead. Gone. Forever. It was so, so very wrong to seethe with this hidden anger that lurked outside of the nice tidy box Agnes had constructed to cope with her loss. The box where she put her grief and her fear and her loneliness.

  She obviously needed stronger hinges on the box.

  She wiped her cheeks with her sleeve. She was drained, the anger flooded out of her as quickly as it arrived.

  Why had she thought she could get on stage and even attempt an audition? She was barely able to speak up at staff meetings at work, never mind pretend to be a fictional character in front of a group of strangers.

  One of whom she had kissed.

  Aggressively.

  On the lips.

  “Oh, my sweet Aunt Fanny,” she moaned. Then she giggled. Then she put her hands on her knees and laughed in great gasping heaves.

  Rage, grief and hysteria. She had it all.

  She had kissed a complete stranger, impulsively and— she gasped to catch her breath, the hysteria subsiding as she admitted, yes, passionately.

  More passion in that one moment than Agnes had experienced in a very long time.

  She stared out the window over the dark rooftops of Heartswell as she remembered the warmth of his lips, and the surprising softness of his beard. Her eyes widened.

  He’d kissed her back.

  He had held her tightly and pressed her to his long body and kissed her back. For an older man he was certainly a good kisser.

  She blushed crimson, lost in a trance as she touched her lips with the tips of her fingers. She had crossed off #4. She hadn’t thought about it at the time, but it must have been lodged in her subconscious, placed there by Savannah’s impulsive nature and written in looping script on a folded sheet of paper tucked securely in Agnes’ purse.

  #4 Kiss a complete stranger.

  Terrifyingly dangerous. Risky and unnecessary. Why would her sister be willing to put her in a dangerous situation, just to realize the whimsy of a bucket list?

  She smiled. It wasn’t so bad. Maybe Savannah was right. Maybe taking risks did have some value, even though it could be terrifying. Her thoughts flitted back to the feeling of being on the stage, staggering through a few lines and feeling like her entire body was made of lead.

  But she had done it.

  She didn’t get the part, so she wasn’t technically fulfilling the Bucket List item, but she felt a certain amount of pride that she had stepped up. She had done it, and if this complete sense of relief that it was over was the end result, then she’d take it and call it good.

  “Two birds with one stone,” she said aloud. The audition and the kissing.

  It had been a big day.

  She looked around the cosy apartment and frowned. She now was in possession of this rental for the next two months because she had anticipated being involved in the play for that long. Now; no play, no need to stay on in Heartswell Harbour. Would she be able to back out of her agreement? She hadn’t even met the landlord yet and wouldn’t until Monday. It was early Saturday evening.

  She was suddenly exhausted, wrung out by her barrage of emotions and not wanting to make any decisions at all until she’d had a cup of tea and some time to journal to sort out her rambling thoughts.

  She put on her pajamas and curled up on the comfy sofa, relaxing for the first time in days. She was making progress through the list, surprisingly fast progress actually.

  It was after writing in her journal for an hour that it hit her like an oxford comma falling out of the sky.

  The Book Nook.

  It was Saturday night, the shop located directly beneath her apartment would be closed Sunday morning, and here she was hoping she could cancel her lease and leave town on Monday. It was perfect.

  She leapt to her feet, a flush of triumph rising in her chest.

  #5. Spend the entire night in a bookshop.

  She would cross off number five, then get the hell outta Heartswell before she kissed anyone else!

  ∞∞∞

  Agnes giggled throughout her entire break-and-enter preparations. The panic of nerves she had felt at the theatre had smashed open a door and released a giddy schoolgirl; a side of herself she barely remembered from when she and Savannah were little. One part of her still stood stiffly to one side, chastising herself for being silly and impulsive, but for the first time Agnes didn’t let that part of herself drive the bus.

  This bus was driven by spontaneous Agnes, smashing through stop signs and running over pigeons in her headlong dive into the life of a criminal mastermind.

  She dug a pair of black leggings and a black long-sleeved shirt from her suitcase. Black socks. She wished she had a black toque, but a tight bun twisted to the nape of her neck would have to suffice. She had always wished for Savannah’s prairie grass hair, straight as a line of golden wheat, but her unruly dark curls would help with her disguise tonight.

  She dug around in the apartment, under the sink and in the small closet by the front door, looking for a flashlight. She was rewarded with a small penlight in a drawer in the kitchen, where she also found a bag of hard candy and a pizza delivery flyer.

  “Criminals gotta eat.” She found her phone and ordered delivery. Garlic fingers too. Go big or stay home.

&
nbsp; She was startled by the sound of voices rising from the stairwell. Footsteps approached her door. There was a knock.

  She froze.

  She looked around wildly for something to throw over herself to hide her ninja outfit. She grabbed an apron hanging on a peg by the kitchen table, tugged it over her head and opened the door.

  “Oh, it’s you!” Paisley’s bright smile faded slightly as she took in Agnes’ clothes. Snug black lycra under an apron covered with pink watermelon slices. “You’re our renter!”

  Agnes smiled weakly, wiping her hands on the apron. She looked past Paisley to the woman standing behind her. “Come in, please, um… I was just…”

  “This is Agnes, Nora.” Paisley spoke over her shoulder to a very pregnant young woman whose cheeks were flushed pink. “She’s the one I told you about. She’s the drive-by kisser.”

  Agnes choked on a laugh, stuttering into silence at the severe look on Nora’s face. Paisley ignored them both and walked into the kitchen. She glanced at the pile of items on the countertop. Agnes’ journal, a flashlight, a bag of candies and a folded blanket with a pillow resting on top.

  “Looks like you’re going camping.” Paisley tilted her head to the side like a curious puppy.

  “I don’t usually kiss random strangers,” Agnes blurted, desperate to draw attention away from the criminal pile of break-and-enter supplies. “It was just… acting.”

  “Well, by all accounts, you inspired Mrs. Crawley almost to distraction. I’m sure our father was considerably less impressed.” Nora pressed both hands on the small of her back and arched her pregnant belly. She was Paisley’s sister, Agnes realized immediately. They had the same dimples and the same dark eyes as their father.

  “Oh.” Agnes didn’t know what to say. Where Paisley was warm and open, Nora seemed simply annoyed.

  “Don’t fool yourself, Nora,” Paisley bubbled. “Old Poppa Bear ain’t dead yet.”

  Nora looked Agnes up and down, frowning. She shifted uncomfortably, leaning one hip against the kitchen counter. “Well, he’s definitely too old for shenanigans like that.”