Death Witnessed

by Beth Byers

  Georgette’s mouth twisted, and she realized what she was seeing as she said, “Oh, of course, the signup sheet.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your cousin revealed himself and Mrs. Baker saw an opportunity to access him.”

  “She’s at least a decade older than him!”

  A bout of laughter burst from Georgette. “Avarice cares less for age than innocence, my love.”

  CHARLES AARON

  “There she is,” Joseph said.

  Charles followed Joseph’s gaze and saw it was on Marian Parker. Next to her was the slender figure of Georgette Marsh. She was laughing, revealing a rare glimpse of just how lovely she was. It was unusual, he realized, to see her laughing.

  “Should we go over there?” Joseph asked.

  Charles shot his nephew a look. “Supposedly we’re in love.”

  Joseph growled in his throat and then huffed. “Supposedly we’re full grown men who aren’t afraid to greet friends who are passing by.”

  Neither of them moved. Finally, Charles stepped onto the street, and Joseph followed. Marian saw them first, but Charles wasn’t surprised to see Georgette’s gaze fixed farther down the road. An auto had parked near the library, and a rather tall, broad man was getting out of the vehicle.

  Georgette said something to Marian, who glanced down the road and waved. She turned Joseph’s way a moment later, those honey brown eyes fixated on him. She gave him the quietest smile and started to step towards him, but he held up a hand and crossed with Charles.

  It was awkward only for a moment until Georgette, in her sweet, low voice said, “Mr. Aaron! Detective Aaron! What a surprise.”

  Marian shifted enough to reveal that the ladies had heard of their arrival. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Miss Hallowton, who kept the house where they had taken a room, seemed the type to share the news of arrivals.

  “We were hoping to run into you,” Charles said as the young man from the auto started down the street towards them. “Would you care for an evening ramble?”

  Marian bit at her bottom lip before answering. “Oh, no, we can’t. We’re going to a writing group.”

  Charles paused, glancing at Georgette with a frown. “Are you…are you intending to let your neighbors tinker with—”

  He cut off his statement when the man from the auto joined them. “Marian, love. Hello again, Miss Marsh! So nice to see you.”

  “Mr. Parker,” Georgette said, her eyes dancing at the sight of the fellow. Charles’s own gaze narrowed on the bloke. Just who was this fellow and why was he here?

  Marian grinned at the man, resituating herself to put him nearer Georgette as she glanced at Charles and Joseph. “Mr. Aaron, Detective Aaron, allow me to present my cousin, Harrison Parker. He works at my father’s company but has the office nearer to us.”

  Charles noted that he was younger, more in line with Joseph and Georgette than youthful Marian or older Charles. To his irritation, Charles also saw he was one of those sporting types with broad shoulders and rather vivid blue eyes. After a day in the office, the man had a bit of stubble about his jaw. One would think that he’d shave before appearing in public looking quite so ragged.

  “Hullo there!” Mr. Parker said, holding out his hand and shaking both of theirs heartily. “Are you going to the writers group as well?”

  “Yes,” Charles and Joseph said at once, neither needing to look at the other.

  “We do need to be going,” Georgette said quietly, avoiding Charles’s gaze as she glanced towards the library. “I have received strict instructions that I must be early as I volunteered to bring the refreshments.”

  She gestured with the basket, and that Parker fellow took it from her before Charles could offer. The man offered his arm and Georgette took it, casting a smiling gaze behind her at Charles and Joseph.

  Charles followed at Georgette and Parker’s heels as she hurried towards the brick building and up the steps. Just before the man could open the door, Charles reached past her to open it himself. Georgette thanked him quietly, and he had to shake himself. The last few times he’d seen her, she’d been in London. He’d forgotten this quieter version of her. She was so firmly entrenched in her Bard’s Crook persona, he felt as though he weren’t seeing her at all, but a shadow of her instead.

  Regardless, however, Parker seemed to be rather intrigued by quiet Georgette.

  “Mr. Aaron,” Miss Hallowton said as he appeared, frowning past his shoulder as she said again to Joseph, “Mr. Aaron. We were just about to start our writers group. Is there something wrong with your room?”

  “We’ve decided to join the group,” Joseph said. “Small town charm, pursuing our passions. Charles works with books, you know.”

  Charles cleared his throat and lied. “Only peripherally.”

  “This is a group for serious writers only,” Miss Hallowton replied.

  “Oh, we’re serious,” Joseph replied, moving past her before she could stop them. Charles followed quickly, approaching Georgette where she was laying out a basketful of refreshments for the group.

  Before he could reach her, Harrison spoke to her. “My cousin tells me you like to dabble with writing as well.”

  Georgette blushed brilliantly and looked down to the arrangement of her scones and jam.

  What a nincompoop, Charles thought. They were attending a writers group. Surely everyone attending was interested in writing.

  4

  GEORGETTE DOROTHY MARSH

  “Why are they here?” Georgette whispered to Marian as she joined her friend at the table. Marian had saved Georgette a seat next to Harrison, but he was trapped at the refreshments table with Virginia Baker.

  Miss Hallowton cleared her throat at the head of the table. “I hope you all brought your writing samples. As I have explained to each of you, this is a group for aspiring writers who wish to help each other improve.”

  Virginia sniffed and pulled a few pages from her handbag. Georgette focused on those sheets of paper. Surely Mrs. Baker did not truly wish to write? Georgette’s gaze traveled from Mrs. Baker to Laurieann Schmitz, who had moved to Bard’s Crook sometime after the ruckus of Georgette’s first book. She had yet to meet the newcomer. Perhaps Georgette should have sought her out when she arrived, but after Charles and Joseph had returned to London, Marian had spent some weeks with her family, and Georgette simply hadn’t the will.

  Georgette had been left alone in Bard’s Crook with a village who still saw her as the same she’d always been, and she’d been relegated to being the mix of the old maid and village idiot. It hadn’t fit her as well, and Georgette had found solace in writing The Secrets of Harper’s Bend and Josephine Marie.

  The fact that Josephine Marie was purely imaginative wasn’t quite true. It was far more imaginative than the Harper’s Bend stories, but Josephine Marie was also where Georgette had grappled with how she felt about the murder. She was very much afraid that the pieces of herself she’d put in Josephine Marie would reveal her as Joseph Jones. Even the name was something of a clue and that was before the reader discovered the plot of a woman who had innocently caused the death of another. In truth, Josephine Marie was a self-reflective look into Georgette’s heart that revealed her for anyone who cared to see.

  Georgette’s fingers trailed over her own pages, her gaze following her fingers until she glanced up. Charles was directly across from her. She told herself to return to calling him Mr. Aaron. Those early days of their friendship had passed, and despite what Marian and Eunice said, the Misters Aaron were either in Bard’s Crook for the reason they’d stated or they were here to get to know Marian better.

  Georgette found that Charles’s gaze had turned to hers while she’d been lost in her thoughts, entirely missing whatever Miss Hallowton had said. Georgette glanced around the group and saw that people were taking notes. She really must stop getting lost in her thoughts. It had become something of a terrible problem since she had written that first book.

 
He tilted his head at her and then said to Miss Hallowton, cutting into her lecture on how things would work, “I will provide feedback to Miss Marsh.”

  Miss Hallowton’s mouth dropped. It was evident she was upset that she’d been interrupted but also baffled by Mr. Aaron’s claim.

  Harrison shifted next to Georgette, and she glanced his way. He looked perturbed, but he might have actually believed Marian’s tales that Georgette could somehow help him with his stories.

  “Unless,” Charles said, “you were intending to already work with someone else this week?”

  “No,” Georgette said vaguely. “No, of course not.”

  “Yes, well,” Mrs. Baker cut in, “now that we have that worked out, I am counting on you, my dear Harrison, to assist me with my little story.” She laughed lightly, echoed by Marian who wasn’t even trying to hide her snicker. “Oh, did I say something funny?”

  “I’d be happy to work with you,” Harrison agreed, though his tone didn’t quite convey his statement as truth.

  Georgette glanced down at her hands to hide her twitching mouth. Harrison must have realized that Mrs. Baker had turned her acquisitive gaze his way and was unsure he wanted to succumb. She was rather older than him.

  “Who will work with me?” Miss Schmitz asked, holding up a pile of papers. “I’ve decided to take note of this Joseph Jones and write about Bard’s Crook.”

  The room fell to stark silence, dramatized by Marian giggling into her hand. Georgette elbowed her friend when no one was looking their way, but Marian just whispered a tearful, “I’m sorry. It’s just…it’s just…”

  Ridiculous in the extreme, Georgette thought.

  “Why would you want to duplicate that fiend?” Miss Hallowton snapped. “Sending good British women off on adventures. I had to assure my superior I had no intentions of packing my bags and heading to…to…Albania.”

  “I believe he sent you to Cypress,” Marian added, pretending to helpfulness as Georgette carefully sipped her tea. The devil was in her gaze when she turned to Miss Schmitz and asked, “Why do you care what Joseph Jones did? You moved here after the books.”

  “The first book, yes,” Miss Schmitz said. “I am clearly Caroline Hardport in the second book.”

  Georgette sat up straighter at that and wasn’t quite able to bite back, “I’m sorry?”

  “Surely you see it?” Miss Schmitz asked. “We’re both new to the town, independent, observant women.” She grinned as she added, “Of course, Mr. Jones took some liberties with my character, but artistic types don’t see the way we mere mortals do.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t see it,” Marian replied between giggles. “Miss Hardport was the new librarian. You aren’t a librarian.”

  “But I am the only new person in Bard’s Crook who isn’t one of the boarders.”

  “Miss Hardport listens at doors and entangles herself in the affairs of the new Alvin family along with several other families. She’s something of a bedeviler,” Marian said. “Why would you see yourself as the villain in the piece?”

  “Clearly Mr. Jones took liberties with more than just where Miss Hallowton might travel. If you do leave, my dear Miss Hallowton, I would be interested in your position. These are hard times and we do what we must. I’m sure my people never imagined I’d be needing to work someday.”

  “That was fiction, and I have no intention of leaving Bard’s Crook!” Miss Hallowton snapped. “Enough of this nonsense about that…that damned book. Impetus though it might be for this group, we need not linger our thoughts or energies on it.”

  Georgette nibbled her bottom lip at that statement, staring in surprise at Miss Hallowton and fighting the urge to ask for clarification. Charles saved her the trouble. “What do you mean that the book was an impetus?”

  “Whoever this Joseph Jones is,” Miss Hallowton said waspishly, “he is one of us. If he can do it then why not us?” Her gaze flicked from Mrs. Baker to Miss Marsh and then she amended, “Well, those of us with the wit and the will.”

  Georgette smiled vaguely, but inside she was flabbergasted. Was Miss Hallowton daring to pursue a dream because of Georgette’s success? Was it possible that she hadn’t only caused a murder but given a few rays of hope? There was something about seeing someone else’s success at a similar dream and think, If that person can do it, so can I. If Georgette were a little kinder, she might have reached out to Miss Hallowton to provide encouragement, but it seemed Georgette wasn’t quite that kind.

  “Ah,” Charles said, clearing his throat. “Surely we aren’t just going to discuss that book and whoever you think you might be in it? I should very much like to continue on. I assume we trade papers and then discuss the piece? Miss Marsh, shall we?” He rose and held out his hand and Georgette followed, taking his arm while he led them to a table in the corner of the library.

  A few steps in, and she returned for her teacup and scone with a grin at Charles. He was the only who could see it, and he’d heard of her tea indulgences since he’d bought her first book. In the meetings since their first, he’d taken to asking her about her latest splurges.

  They sat across from each other with her piece in front of him. “Is this the third book?”

  “It’s something new.”

  “How is the third book going?”

  She pressed her lips together. “I—”

  His head cocked. “Have you talked yourself out of the reviews being accurate? You’re worried about it? Really, Miss Marsh,” he chided, “after two books that the world loves?”

  She shrugged. “Each book makes it more and more—” she glanced over her shoulder and then whispered, “fictional. I have little faith in my ability to write without their help and yet…I suppose I must. It is too painful for them when I write about this village. It was never supposed to be like that. I never imagined they’d see what I’d done or recognize themselves in it.”

  “I think you’ll discover that you were always writing without their help, my dear Georgette. Eventually, you’ll have faith in what you have done. Surely you trust me to tell you what I think? I promise that my affection for you will not affect the businessman you see before you.”

  “I—”

  He smiled at her, a gentle thing that no one had ever given her. It was as though he saw her and saw she was something that needed to be protected. She wasn’t, in fact, all that sure he was accurate there. She had been surviving all this time with only Eunice. It just seemed when it was the two of them, like this, discussing her books, that she brought out that gentleness in him.

  She shook off the silly thought and imagined that he was rather kind and cajoling with his newer authors.

  “Now what have you been up to?”

  She blushed. “I have two books done. A few shorter things while I was trying to find my footing with something that was entirely invention.”

  “But the books?”

  She paused. “The Secrets of Harper’s Bend and one I named, Josephine Marie.”

  “Georgette, have you been keeping secrets from me?” Charles glanced down in utter delight at the manuscript in front of him. “Is this it? Is this Josephine Marie? Oh heavens, woman, I didn’t dare to hope even for a full third book by now. And you were going to let them tinker with these? I could wring your neck.”

  “They’re a writers group, Mr. Aaron. I’m hardly a skilled author. I’m an…an…inexplicably successful dilettante, and no, that is one of my short pieces.”

  “Who said you were a dilettante and why did you believe them?” He shook his head to answer himself and said with surprising earnestness, “Trust me, my dear Georgette, I have read the musings and attempts of thousands of dilettantes. You might not be a very experienced author, but you are a very good one. One of the best it has been my pleasure to come across, and if I have to snatch these books away from you to keep them from this group of dabbling, unaccomplished amateurs, I will do so.”

  Georgette would have smiled if she were a little more comfortable
. She’d have apologized for the wild gaze in Mr. Aaron’s gaze but assumed all that worry was for the book he needed for his business.

  Another thought struck her, and she shook it off. She was still hearing the echo of Eunice and Marian swearing that Mr. Aaron had come to Bard’s Crook to pursue some sort of relationship with her, and she couldn’t believe such nonsense. She wouldn’t entertain the folly of such idiocy and allow herself to be distracted by ridiculous fantasies.

  Mr. Aaron leaned back, lifting the pages she’d brought, and began reading. Georgette stared at him, then rose. If she watched him, she’d analyze every move, every twitch on his face, every expression. If he laughed, she’d want to desperately wonder what part he was laughing at and if it was the situation she’d created or poor writing.

  She left him at the table, and he didn’t seem to notice. He was absorbed into what she’d written with a small smile on his face. Georgette nibbled her thumb as she walked away. Nothing about this evening—that she’d been almost terrified to attend—was going as she expected. Could she trust Mr. Aaron to give her feedback on her writing? She needed to…she wasn’t sure.

  She needed more tea and would have preferred some of the new blend she’d purchased with the coffee beans and cocoa beans. She had been thinking since she’d finished her first cup that she really did need another.

  “What are you doing over here?” Marian hissed as Georgette poured herself another cup of the very good Earl Grey tea she’d brought along. She made herself a second scone, putting too much clotted cream on it to go with the too much cream in her teacup.

  “You know I don’t like to watch people read my stories,” Georgette whispered back, glancing around the library. Miss Schmitz was working with Miss Hallowton. Mr. Hadley, the herbalist, was the odd man out, looking after Miss Hallowton with a distressed gaze. “That is what true longing looks like.”

  “You put that in your book,” Marian said. “That longing. It made me weep more than once.”

  “Everyone feels that longing. You weep because you recognize it and feel it yourself,” Georgette replied. “As though some piece of yourself is missing. I think it’s why people believe in love.”