Beautiful Whispers (Ausmor Plantation Book 1 - Romance/Suspense)

by Alice Ayden

  “Jane, are you alright?” Mrs. Kiness asked.

  “Anything I can do for you?” Byron asked.

  I stared at both of them and slammed the door shut. I had to steady myself. Things were out of whack. Out of order. I grabbed my head. “Stop!”

  Someone knocked on the bathroom door.

  I grabbed the wall. I didn’t want to pass out. Didn’t know where I’d end up. I looked at the bracelet and tried to yank it off my wrist. Things focused. The glass beads with swirling colors of reds, blues and yellows. The stables. The hedge. That kiss. “Alexander.”

  “It was my mother’s.”

  I jumped and looked around. I was alone.

  Everything came back like a cappuccino finally free of all that choking foam. “Alexander. He gave this to me.” My stomach stabbed me. Byron. Johnston in the garden. He grabbed me. Threatened me. He was going to allow Johnston…

  I yanked open the bathroom door scaring Mrs. Kiness. “Where is he?”

  “Well, Byron is right here.”

  “Where’s the man I’m in love with? Alexander.”

  Byron lost most of the coloring in his face.

  Mrs. Kiness smiled then stopped when she glanced at Byron. “I will get him.” She fled out of my room and down the hall.

  I turned my attention to Byron.

  He stepped back. “Jane, listen to me.”

  “Shut up.” I moved towards him. “What did Johnston do to me?”

  “I—”

  “What did you let Johnston do to me?”

  He shook his head. “Jane, I’d never allow him to hurt you.”

  “What did he do?”

  He flinched. “Jane, I—”

  “Stop using my name every five friggin seconds.”

  He put his hands up. “He didn’t hurt you.”

  “I have scars.”

  “I’d never let him touch you.”

  I didn’t believe him. “Why?”

  Byron’s ego deflated. He sat down. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why!”

  “I...” Byron started to speak but shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  I rushed towards my door.

  Byron stood up. “You’re all I have.”

  I stopped.

  “Please, Ja… You’re everything to me. I had to do it. You’re the only one who understands me. The only one who gets me.”

  I turned around. “You call what you did love?”

  He stared at the ground. “I couldn’t lose you. Not to him.”

  I sighed. “It’s never been about me, has it?”

  “I knew you’d forget if Johnston threatened you. A risk, but I’d never let him truly hurt you. You just had to believe he would.”

  “What a guy.”

  He turned around. “I’m sorry. It was stupid. I know. I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you. I can fix it.”

  “I can’t believe I ever loved you. How’d you know it would work? What Johnston did?”

  He swallowed hard, and I prepared for more bullshit.

  “It always does.”

  I slipped. My head pounded. I grabbed for something as I lost my balance and pulled back from Byron’s reach. “I don’t want to see you again.”

  I raced down the side stairs. I had to find Alexander. Had to make him understand what happened. Would he forgive me?

  I rushed towards the connecting door and heard Mrs. Kiness on the other side.

  “Jane.” She jumped when she opened the door and saw me waiting for her. “Alexander is gone. He has taken all his things.”

  “No.” I lunged out the side door. “Where would he go?” I stopped when I heard something towards Bitty’s outdoor kitchen. “Alexander?”

  I saw someone open the outdoor cellar, but that hadn’t been used in years. “Karenda?”

  She didn’t hear me before slipping inside. Then a man dove in after her and slammed the door shut.

  “Was that?” The cellar had been abandoned for decades.

  I tiptoed towards the overgrown brush and opened the chipped door. Darkness loomed at me. Had I imagined seeing Karenda? No, I thought. The cellar door was unlocked. She’s down here.

  I slipped on the stairs but kept going. My eyes adjusted, and I saw in the shadows things I didn’t want to see. She reached out to me. I remembered seeing her picture on the news. The missing girl. I slipped on something. The metallic smell of blood was so strong I gagged. I reached out for the light, but he found it first.

  The lone bulb illuminated the space. Dirt floor. Stone walls. Cold enveloped everything. And he was there. So was she. I wished he hadn’t turned on the light. All the pieces fit.

  It all made sense. Whole again, I turned around to run. I had to get help. I didn’t want to know this. I didn’t want to remember this. Someone grabbed at me. The pain pierced through me. I couldn’t stop them. I couldn’t help her. I knew why I couldn’t remember. I didn’t want to remember.

  I watched them, but I couldn’t move. The pain. I reached out, but it was too late. I rocked back and forth. “Can’t know this. Can’t remember this.” I let myself slip. I willed the memories away. After a few minutes, I didn’t remember anymore.

  ...Read the first two chapters of Missing 6. The thrilling conclusion to Beautiful Whispers.

  Missing 6 Chapter 1 - Jane

  Jane listened for whispers as she crept from the safety of her room and rushed to the stairs. “Is it safe?”

  The dreaded floor board burped making her jump. Hardwood floors were notorious tattle tales refusing to shelter a secret. Jane slinked her way down careful that her boots didn’t knock against the bare wood. At the bottom step, Jane glanced at her watch. She lived with her family at Ausmor Plantation - an old northern Virginia plantation named after the Austen and Morgan families who were related by blood and a weird marriage. “The tours will start soon.”

  Jane marched to the New Wing’s living room and scanned the massive oak coffee table sandwiched between pink flowered couches. She introduced herself to the bouquet of coral roses Mrs. Kiness, the head housekeeper, regularly placed in each room and paused as their sweetened aroma seduced her. She glanced at the crystal bowls overflowing with ripe green apples and oranges.

  Footsteps reverberated above her. “Not yet. I need more time.”

  Jane sped up the pace as she flung open each cupboard searching past extra pillows, blankets, notepads, batteries and flashlights. Only one cupboard remained. Jane whispered a prayer. She quickly yanked open the doors: two hazelnut and milk chocolate bars lingered. She grabbed them and meticulously unwrapped the blue tinfoil with the precision of a world class heart surgeon.

  A thud above Jane’s head rattled the ceiling fan as if jarred by an earthquake. Jane didn’t notice. At a small side table jammed against the wall, the scent of hot peppermint tea lured her, and she studied the collection of mismatched tea cups Mrs. Kiness had randomly collected over the years. While her sister and cousins usually grabbed the closest cup, Jane’s decision influenced the rest of her day. A plain, utilitarian cup missing a saucer induced a drab day. Jane smiled as she poured the steaming tea into a gold trimmed white cup punctuated with bright red roses.

  “Okay, I’m ready.”

  More footsteps pounded above her, and Jane prepared for the worst. Careful with the abnormally teeny teacup handle, Jane quickly alternated the bar and sip as the heat melted the chocolate into a sugary energy jolt. She reveled in the last few moments before chaos swirled. Even as a child, Jane collected calm.

  As footsteps machine gunned down the stairs, the calm evaporated like the delicate foam on a cappuccino. Jane hastily shoved the rest of the chocolate in her pocket as she waited to be interrupted. Jane was generous, but she never shared chocolate. Only the family and Mrs. Kiness lived in the two story New Wing, but some tourists disregarded the ‘private’ signs leading from the original house and wandered around like elephants at a new watering hole. Jane suggested glue traps, but that produced gasps and clutching of hear
ts as if she demanded an asthmatic sniper or indiscriminate poisonings.

  Lillia Morgan, Jane’s younger eighteen year old cousin, skipped into the living room dressed in her usual retina protesting yellow from hat tip to shoe bottom. Her antebellum dresses and oversized, spiky blond Shirley Temple on acid curls helped the tourists obsessed with the Civil War era. The only vision of Lillia that didn’t scream Antebellum: her thick black felt tip eyeliner.

  “Jane!”

  “Hey, Lillia.” Jane greeted with zero enthusiasm. “Eye gouging dress.”

  Lillia waited for Jane to correct herself. She didn’t. “Cool nails!”

  Jane held out her hand. The light caught the bright blue polish: a favorite of some but an irritation to most.

  “And your hair’s finally growing back.”

  The frizzies had unionized Jane’s hair, and she waited patiently for their demands. Jane’s hair was wild and unsupervised - everything she wished she could be.

  “Can’t really see your scar when that one curl is all done up.” Lillia picked up an orange and scrunched her nose to the sweetness. She curled her face into what looked like a squished child’s squeaky toy. “Something’s wrong. I can feel it.”

  Jane peered around the large room and listened for any noises upstairs. “A tourist? The Bitty? What?”

  “More Jane, please.”

  Jane sighed. Even though the family name was Austen, Jane’s mother wanted to name her daughter after the middle name of her favorite aunt. Jane loved her name so much she digested everything the writer wrote, including the unfinished works and letters, at least twelve times. The family capitalized on the name as tourists flocked to ‘meet’ Jane Austen. ‘Talk like her. Dress like her. The real Jane could have visited Ausmor and written letters back to her sister, Cassandra.’ Jane complied.

  Lillia flashed Jane her normal open mouthed, closed eye expression as if she were a sea lion demanding a treat for the newest trick performed successfully.

  Jane had a reputation as a Jane Austenaholic, and people expected her to Jane it up twenty-four seven. “I am but fine myself, but I have to admit that I am fine on most mornings of this nature, do you not agree?”

  Lillia clapped and giggled like a crazed monkey toy banging the annoying cymbals. Jane liked it better when Lillia had ‘lapsed into a most congenial unconscious state of Lillia.’

  Footsteps down the hall vibrated closer. Jane motioned for Lillia to be quiet as they slid along the hallway to snoop.

  Lillia smothered a giggle. “We’re doing that Eva straw ping?”

  “Eavesdropping.” Jane hoped the real Jane approved. The footsteps stalled as Mrs. Kiness murmured.

  Lillia giggled again, but Jane silenced her with a strangulation gesture.

  “Everything looks the same,” the man said.

  Jane frowned. His voice was so familiar.

  “How’s she been?” the man asked.

  Lillia pointed to Jane to tell her what she already knew: they were talking about her.

  “Pay no heed to the rumors,” Mrs. Kiness said. “There have been several incidents concerning Jane. Many have complained.”

  “Many have complained?” Jane asked. “Was there a town meeting?”

  “Shush.” Lillia made her own exaggerated strangulation gesture.

  “Why do I keep coming back here?” the man asked.

  Jane waited for an answer. When she didn’t hear anything, she assumed Mrs. Kiness must have rolled her eyes or shrugged. Jane hoped Mrs. Kiness used the shrug. Her eye rolls were ominous.

  Mrs. Kiness’ rosy cheeks and gray bunned hair turned the corner first.

  “How are you this morning, Mrs. Kiness?” Lillia twirled in between questions. “We were just thinking. Jane and I. Jane and I were thinking. At least I think we were thinking. When are the tours starting? We’re having tours today, aren’t we?”

  Jane wondered if Lillia needed medication for her rabidity.

  “Miss Austen. Miss Morgan.” Mrs. Kiness folded her hands behind her barely brown skirt and morphed from head housekeeper to confession chasing detective. She x-rayed Jane’s jeans and recognized the offending chocolate bar lodged in Jane’s pocket.

  Jane stole a deep breath and attempted aloof, but, unsure of aloof’s requirements, she smoothed her hair back behind her ears and hoped it didn’t look like she used a bent spoon as a comb. She glanced down at her black sweater, shifted her boots and hoped her eyeliner hadn’t aggressively raccooned her.

  “How many?” Mrs. Kiness asked. “How many candy bars, dear? And answer without cheek.”

  “One.” Jane cringed. Her shaky voice betrayed the lie. “Four.”

  “Four! Just this morning?” Mrs. Kiness groaned. “Do you not believe that to be rather excessive?”

  “I need to eat more chocolate,” Lillia said. “Or cheese. One or the other. Or both. Or maybe fish.”

  Mrs. Kiness stiffly held out her hand as if she were taking tickets at the movies. Jane and Lillia stared at it. “Hand it over please.”

  “I had to get more. I gave my last share to Lillia.”

  “That’s true.” Lillia nodded. “Yesterday was an ass of a day.”

  Jane wanted to persuade Mrs. Kiness that she would eat one useless bit of scrambled egg for every three bites of chocolate. Jane regurgitated how chocolate supplied enough nutrition and vitamins to sustain life, but Mrs. Kiness needed more scientific proof. “But it was a hidden object chocolate mystery, and I found them without hints. She used the blue wrapper!”

  “Oh!” Lillia looked at Mrs. Kiness as if that should make the difference. “Those are the best. Hazelnut.”

  “You two do not amuse.” Mrs. Kiness’ slight British accent, long hidden from decades of living in Virginia, emerged. Her hand remained outstretched waiting for the chocolate. She thought she could wear Jane down by narrowing her eyes like a predator. Silly thing; she underestimated Jane’s commitment.

  The man Mrs. Kiness had been talking to turned the corner. Jane caught her breath. “Alexander?”

  Chapter 2 - Alexander

  His lips covered me, and his fingers brushed the hair back behind my neck. Our bodies locked together, and I knew he was mine. “Don’t stop,” I said, afraid he’d push me away or reason with me.

  Alexander rested his forehead against mine. His fingers gently touched my lips. “I’ve waited so long.” His accent - gravely and slow. His hushed words slowly dripped.

  I could listen to him all day. Forever.

  He took my face in his hands and looked deep into my eyes. “You remember me now?”

  My heart stopped. It was like the first time we kissed but felt like the hundredth time he said those words. I froze.

  Jane shook herself from the trance and sheepishly smiled at Alexander.

  Lillia leaned close to her. “A memory?”

  “I hope so,” Jane whispered.

  Alexander smiled.

  “Mr. Ravenswirth.” Lillia jumped up and down. “You’re back. I knew you’d be back. Didn’t you know he’d be back, Jane? I knew it. Did you know it, Mrs. Kiness?” Lillia leaned in towards him. “Love your what do you call it? Scruff? Beardy thing? Goat tail?”

  “Goatee, child,” Mrs. Kiness sighed.

  Mr. Ravenswirth’s iridescent green eyes lingered on Jane before answering Lillia. “Thank you, Miss Morgan.” His southern accent spilled smoothly like warmed maple syrup.

  Jane loved the southern accent. She was born and raised in Virginia, but the accent eluded her.

  Mr. Ravenswirth introduced Jane to his easy, crooked smile. Jane allowed her eyes to follow his coppery curls as they cascaded behind his ears.

  “I like your bracelet,” he said.

  Jane glanced down at the bracelet on her left wrist. “It’s my favorite.”

  “It’s different. Where’d you get it?”

  Lillia giggled like a five year old in church as she continued her twirling.

  The royal blue flower in each red glass bead wo
uldn’t confess. Jane didn’t stall; she couldn’t remember. She didn’t know the who, what, where, when or why. Long story short. Jane fell down the stairs at the Christmas party and hit her head. A scary brain bleed and fractured skull introduced themselves, and it had only been three months since her hospital release. The bracelet hid in the big bag of stuff the hospital gave her of what she wore at the time of the fall.

  Jane couldn’t remember the missing six - July through December - before the fall. According to the doctors, her temporary amnesia required time and patience. Jane visualized the missing six as a destructive tornado refusing to release anything of use from its grip.

  “Mr. Ravenswirth is quite an expert at fixing things,” Mrs. Kiness said.

  He studied the floor as Mrs. Kiness detailed his various skills. Jane heard about fixing the drywall, making a ceiling energy efficient but still historically accurate, and something about banisters or windows or a door or a wall. Instead of his skills, Jane focused on his jeans, his brown cowboy boots, his denim oversized over shirt, his bright white t-shirt, his black belt, his—

  “Jane thinks you’re cute,” Lillia interrupted. “Don’t you think he’s cute, Jane?”

  “Didn’t The Bitty need you for something?” Jane asked.

  Lillia gawked at Jane as if she had just been told her execution time neared when she assumed she had time for tea. “The Bitty?” She curled her lip. “Good God! I hope not. You think he’s cute, don’t you?”

  Jane thought she should have said, ‘Yes, I do find his piercing green eyes and slightly curly burned honey hair which he allows to dangle ever so dangerously around his pleasing countenance to truly captivate me.’ Thinking about it, Jane had to admit it sounded better than, ‘Yeah, he’s like so hot.’

  Jane couldn’t remember the details, but something about Alexander calmed her. Or excited her. Or unnerved her. She couldn’t decide which.

  Read Missing 6 on Kindle or Paperback now – the thrilling conclusion to Beautiful Whispers.

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