by Tamara Berry
As he hasn’t let go of my arm yet, I’m finding it difficult to comply with this request. I discover why when he transfers his touch from that of gallant escort to a serious, stern man clutching me by both hands. “I mean it this time, Ellie. No sneaking out the back. No climbing out the roof. Come find me. I’m not leaving here unless you leave with me. I never will.”
Flooding sensations of guilt and desire move through me. He has every right to be annoyed with me, since I’ve done nothing for the past few days but push him aside, but I’m not familiar with the protocol in situations like these. He’s done so much for me, is so much to me. Forget things like the money I owe Penny and the roofers. The real question is, how are you supposed to pay back a man who wants to give you the world?
“Nicholas, I—”
I’m prevented from saying the words on my lips by a sound from inside the stables. At first, I think it might be Winnie again, but there’s nothing human about that cry. There’s nothing canine about it, either, which is my other guess.
“Beast?” I ask, turning on my heel. I’m almost ashamed of how quickly I forget about Nicholas, but I can hardly help myself. That was a meow I heard. Several of them, in fact.
I pass the first stall, heedless of my surroundings and the distant scent of long-decayed hay. “Beast, are you in here?”
I pass the second stall, too, barely noting that the door to that one looks as though it was ripped off its hinges. “Was Nicholas right this whole time? Have you been fattening yourself up on defenseless baby mice?”
I reach the third stall, this one dark and gloomy and the perfect setting for my kindred spirit to hide. “You’d better be injured. You’d better be missing a leg and an ear. You’d better be—”
I drop to my knees almost at once. There isn’t nearly enough light in here for me to make out the exact condition of my cat’s health, but there’s no mistaking the luminous yellow glow of her eyes. Or that she appears to be surrounded by wriggling, squirming bundles of fur, each one mewling a little bit louder than the one next to it.
They’re defenseless babies, all right, but they aren’t mice. And from the proprietary way Beast licks each one, I’m guessing she has no intention on eating them anytime soon.
“One, two, three . . .” I count each tiny head as I encounter it. All three kittens are sleek and dark like Beast, save for the weird little one Winnie demanded I not name after her. Not that there’s too much weird about her. A crooked hitch to her tail and a twisted white tip on each ear might not make her a pedigree, but the moment I lift the tiny creature in my hand, cupping it like the MacDougal house, I know she’s perfect. And not just because a small pink tongue dashes out and kisses my hand.
At least, not only because of that.
“Two seconds in, and she’s already shown me more love than you ever have,” I accuse Beast, but there’s no malice in my voice. There’s only low crooning and a creeping sense of contentedness I didn’t know was possible.
Three kittens, three little miracles, triplets born in a cozy bed while murder and mayhem blazed around them. I’d been so worried that Beast had made a foolish mistake, allowed herself to be caught in a trap or by a werewolf’s claws, when all she’d done was take herself off to have her babies in peace.
“And you went with her, Winnie, didn’t you?” I ask. “This whole time, you’ve been right here keeping watch.”
When she doesn’t reply, I drop a gentle kiss on the white-tipped kitten’s head. “I don’t care what she wants,” I say. “Your name is Winifred, and you’re going to be as snuggly and trainable as any silly old puppy.”
As if aware of her new role, the kitten gives a small yawn and snuggles herself deeper into my palm. That alone would be enough to make me feel the comfort of my sister’s presence, but a breeze picks up and moves through the stable, carrying with it the light scent of Nicholas’s signature bergamot scent.
That’s not the only thing that comes with it. Understanding follows not too much later.
Nicholas Hartford III, rich and powerful though he may be, is out there waiting for me to finish what I need to do. He’s standing watch for me until I’m safe at home again. He’s giving me the time and space I need to realize that of all the wild and mysterious things I believe in, a man caring about me shouldn’t be the most fantastic of them all.
It is, though. It’s fantastic and wonderful and, apparently, mine for the taking. All I have to do is reach out and accept.
As much as it pains me to abandon these precious bundles now that I’ve found them, I set the kitten down next to her mother, leaving them to their bath. I know they’ll be safe here. Like that brothel madam overseeing her domain—or like Oona MacDougal fighting for the children she knows are her own—Beast will ensure they come to no harm.
After all, she was smart enough to flee the damp and the danger to carve herself a safe space to call home. That, more than anything else, is what everyone needs in this world.
Including me.
Chapter 22
“Two dozen hand-pressed notebooks from Margaret Piper, as promised.”
General von Cleve drops a box on the table in front of me, his face red with the exertion of his errand. He pauses to extract a handkerchief from his pocket and wipe the beads of sweat gathering on his brow.
Sometime in the past three weeks, Sussex decided it had deluged us long enough. Almost overnight, we went from cold rain to a sun so painfully bright that every woman walking down the street has been transformed into a walking garden party. I’ve never seen so many wide-brimmed floral hats in my life.
“Are you really going to sell these at the fête?” Nicholas asks as he picks up one of the notebooks and turns it over in his hand. He’s “helping” me inventory and price the donated goods, by which I mean he’s mostly standing outside the vicarage questioning my decisions. For a man so determined not to participate in the village’s customs, he’s been spending an awful lot of time at the planning meetings lately.
Then again, it could just be that he enjoys the pleasure of my company. According to him, it’s the only way he has a chance to see me anymore. I’ve been in quite a bit of social demand lately.
“And for fifty pounds apiece?” he adds with a tsk. “That’s a bold choice.”
I stick a price sticker on the box without batting an eyelash. “These are the infamous witchcraft books that uncover murderers and lay werewolves to rest, thank you very much. I already have preorders for most of them.” I turn to the general with a sweet smile. “I hope you remembered to thank Margaret for her contribution.”
“You can thank her yourself,” the general says with a thumb hooked over his shoulder. “I saw her milling around the village square on my way here.”
I’m not surprised. Something about the sunshine—or the fact that the infamous fête takes place tomorrow—has brought just about everyone out of doors and into the community spirit. I have no idea who’s going to buy the massive stack of doilies and homemade tea cozies that have been piling up, but at least we won’t run out of goods. My elderberry cordial is likely to make a big hit. Annis uncovered another box of ancient candles to be put up for sale. And Penny has donated not just one, but two of her chocolate cakes.
Her real chocolate cakes, only slightly sooty on the outside from baking pans that will probably never get clean again.
Even the MacDougals stopped by earlier to wish us luck. Oona, Lenora, and George aren’t venturing out too much in public yet, but I like to think it’s because they’re busy at home snuggling with their new kitten. They named her Eleanor, but to avoid confusion, she goes by Nora. William, the only boy of the litter and already showing signs of turning into a menace, is slavishly devoted to his new owner, Mr. Worthington.
As for Winifred—Freddie for short—well, she’s staying with me and Beast. Beast is terribly possessive of the little thing. I doubt I could give her away even if I wanted to.
“Wait,” Nicholas calls as the general shoves
off in the direction of the pub. “One of these books already has writing in it.”
“Oh, that’s probably just Mrs. Brennigan’s mystery novel.” I put a hand out to accept the book from Nicholas, but he’s busy flipping through the pages, his brow pulled tight. “It’s good, right? I think she might be onto the start of a great new career.”
“Uh, something tells me this isn’t a novel.” He allows the pages to fall open to the front, where the familiar scrawl of a lumpy pentagram reaches my eyes.
“No way.” Instead of waiting for him to hand me the book, I jump to my feet and snatch it out of his hand. After the night we caught Ian MacDougal, I assumed the notebook would show up somewhere in his personal effects, but it’s remained stubbornly missing. Inspector Piper says that it was a good thing Ian confessed, or my carelessness may have cost him the case. “I knew I didn’t lose it! This is it, Nicholas—the original. All the markings are here. You and your mother, Penny, Old Man Petersham, the MacDougals . . . Wait a minute. There’s one missing here.”
I hold the book open to showcase the jagged-edged remnant of a page removed from somewhere near the front. I’m afraid I’m going to have to take a full catalog of the villagers to know for sure which one it is, but I happen to glance up at the general’s rapidly retreating form and realize I don’t need to go that far.
“That miserable sneak,” I say, unable to suppress a short laugh. “I knew he wasn’t there to repair my roof just out of the goodness of his heart. Green tea, indeed.”
Nicholas looks a question at me.
“He helped himself and the roofers to tea when I came to get you, remember?” I ask. I make another quick flip through the notebook but, as expected, find nothing resembling the markings of war. No matter which way I look at it, the general’s page isn’t here. “He must have taken the notebook from my bag then. That whole thing—the thatchers and the story about me being the daughter he never had—it was a cover to get access to the notebook so no one would discover the truth about him.”
“I didn’t know the old man had it in him,” Nicholas says. Neither did I, but I imagine that given the opportunity, he’d have made a great military tactician. “What are you going to do with the book now?”
I turn it over in my hands and sigh. “Give it to Inspector Piper and tell him I found it under a couch cushion or something. Oh, dear. He’ll never let me live this one down.”
Nicholas lifts one amused brow. “Couldn’t you just tell him the truth?”
“How could I? The general never did let me pay him back for the roofers. Turning him in now would only make me the worst kind of snitch.”
“Are there different levels? How interesting. Which snitches are the acceptable kind?”
I ignore him, as per my usual custom. If he doesn’t understand the subtle nuances of my personal moral code by now, I doubt he ever will. “Well, that solves one of the mysteries that’s been bothering me. That only leaves poor Regina. Ian never did confess to killing her, you know. The Gilfords’ dog, yes, and the cat he left on my hill. A few of the other cats found by Animal Control lately, too, but he drew the line at small mammals.”
“What’s that, love?” Aunt Margaret makes her way up to the table. “I see you got my notebooks delivered safe and sound. Mind you don’t sell those to just anyone. They’re from my special batch and should be handled carefully.”
Nicholas pauses in the act of stacking them together and glances at his hands. “Er . . . your special batch?”
Margaret’s trill of laughter reaches the top of the church bell tower. “Not that kind of special, young man. Peter made me move all of my poisonous plants to a locked greenhouse. No more accidents, he said. He doesn’t think his credibility can take it.”
“Then what makes them special?”
She winks. “I danced naked under the full moon for two hours. The lunar goddess is a very powerful force, you know.”
Nicholas coughs and shoots me a glance. That glance is tender and loving and, yes, mocking. It’s the look I like best, the look that lets me know that although we haven’t gotten all the kinks sorted out between us just yet, there are still plenty of full moons left.
“Alas, I don’t know,” he says. “There always seems to be a murder or kidnapping that gets in the way.”
“Or a wind chill factor,” I point out.
“Well, expect a lot more where these came from,” Margaret says. “My garden hasn’t been this abundant since, well . . . Let’s just say my begonias have never looked so good. This year promises to be a prolific one.”
“Your begonias?” I echo. Why do those sound so familiar?
“The Gilfords have been experiencing a good spring so far, too. And the Humboldts. And don’t even get me started on what’s happening over at the Cherrycove farm. The asparagus are already shooting to the skies.”
“Wait a minute.” I close my eyes and picture the evergreen crossroads, which have lately started showing the tender green flax shoots, as I predicted. I don’t know all the farms bordering that area, but if I recall correctly, those are all within a stone’s throw.
Or a wayward pig’s wanderings . . .
“Margaret, no.” My eyes snap open again, my stomach like lead. “You didn’t. You wouldn’t. Her heart.”
She blinks benignly at me. At least, I think it’s a benign blink. That theory undergoes a dramatic change when, as if from out of nowhere, a crack of lightning splits the sky and rolls of dark clouds circle in from the horizon. The rumble of thunder precedes an onslaught of sudden rain by only a few seconds.
Nicholas jumps to action almost immediately, grabbing boxes and running to hand them to Annis’s waiting arms at the vicarage door. Half of the wares are going to be ruined after this, but I find myself too mesmerized to help him, my feet rooted as if planted into Mother Earth’s very veins.
“The pig’s heart,” I repeat, softer this time. Even though I’m soaked almost all the way through from the deluge, I swear Margaret remains untouched, her puffs of silver curls still perfectly dry.
“Well, of course, love,” Margaret says as she unfurls an umbrella and places it over her head before anyone else can notice the way the rain splits around her. “How else was I supposed to absorb her power?”
Keep an eye out for
More adventures featuring
Ellie and her friends
Coming soon from
Tamara Berry
And don’t miss
The first in the series
SÉANCES ARE FOR SUCKERS
Available now from
Kensington Books