by Morgana Best
He was wearing a leather jacket and a scowl. “Name?” he snapped.
“You splashed mud all over me!” I said angrily, my initial attraction to him vanishing in an instant at his manner.
“That’s a long and unusual name.” He raised his eyebrows.
I did not find the remark remotely funny, and the man hadn’t even bothered to apologise. “What do you want?” I said, none too politely.
“Is this Mugwort Manor?”
By way of answer, I pointed to the partly concealed sign nearby.
The man looked at the sign, and then walked up the flagstone path to the door, ignoring me completely. I stormed after him.
I knew this was a big mistake. I wasn’t a people person and I hadn’t enjoyed any of my jobs in the hospitality industry, so how did I think I would cope with rude customers at the B&B? I assumed this man was a customer, but I reminded myself he could be anything. I just hoped he wasn’t a debt collector.
The man was already pressing the brass doorbell incessantly. “You need to give them time to answer,” I said.
He ignored me and rang once more.
Aunt Maude flung the door open, looked the man up and down, and then spotted me. “Valkyrie!” she said with delight. She pulled me into a big hug. I managed to extract my head from her ample bosom only with some difficulty.
The man clearly wasn’t accustomed to being ignored. He cleared his throat loudly, and said, “I’m Lucas O’Callaghan. I’ve booked.”
Maude ignored him. “Dorothy, Agnes, Valkyrie’s here,” she called over her shoulder.
Dorothy appeared in the doorway. “Oh, Val, you’ve gotten taller.” She was looking directly at the man.
I groaned. “I’m over here, Aunt Dorothy.” The aunts did not look related to each other. Aunt Maude was happily plump, as she put it, with a shock of white hair, while Aunt Agnes was stick thin. Her hair was as red as a fire engine, and she wore red, bat-wing, thick-rimmed glasses. On the other hand, Aunt Dorothy wore no glasses at all, and that was a problem. Her hair was salt-and-pepper at the roots and sported masses of frizzy split ends. Her eyes were a piercing cornflower blue, as were the other aunts’ eyes, but that was all they had in common.
Aunt Agnes pushed past Aunt Dorothy and the man. “Put your glasses on, Dorothy. Hello, you must be Mr O’Callaghan. You need to come inside and register.” Her voice was harsh, but all three aunts hated men. I had never found out why—perhaps they were all jilted in their youth. I would have to address this if the business were to succeed. She continued in a kinder tone. “Maude, get Valkyrie’s suitcases and take them to her room.”
“Um, you said I could live in the Assistant Lighthouse Keeper’s Cottage,” I said hastily, following the aunts into the foyer. Mugwort Manor creeped me out, and the aunts’ collective eccentricity was wearing.
At any rate, the foyer was a grand affair. The parquetry floor would have been quite something in its day, although the extensive wood panelling on the walls looked medieval. The wide panels next to the strong oak entrance door had once been glass, but were now boarded up with heavy oak wood panels to match the walls. The place somewhat resembled a fortress, albeit a heavily decorated one. Two identical bronze statues of women in Grecian drapes and mounted on fluted column pedestals flanked the door.
The room would have been impossibly dark, only for the skylight in the vaulted ceiling and the huge window high over the door.
“Nonsense, dear.” Aunt Agnes looked at me over the top of her bat-wing bifocals. “You need to settle in first, and we have so much catching up to do.”
“I’m used to living alone,” I pleaded.
Lucas O’Callaghan made a sound that sounded suspiciously like, ‘No wonder.’
“Did you have something to say?” I snapped.
He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Sorry, Valkyrie.” His tone held more than a hint of derision.
“My name’s Pepper,” I said, exasperated.
“Her real name is Valkyrie,” Agnes said primly. “It’s her legal name.”
Dorothy nodded. “I asked her mother to call her Valkyrie Chooser of the Slain who Shall Enter Valhalla, but she refused, for some reason.”
I resisted the urge to scream. “Aunts, everyone else calls me Pepper. The agreement was that if I returned to help, you would call me Pepper, and I could live in one of the cottages.”
“Have it your own way then, Valkyrie,” Agnes said waspishly.
The man crossed his arms. “Ladies, can I just register and get out of here?”
And that was when a body fell through the skylight.
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About Morgana Best
Best selling Aussie author, Morgana Best, grew up leaving Tim Tams for the fairies at the bottom of her garden. Now she lives with a half-blind Chocolate Labrador who happily walks into doors, a rescue Dingo who steals zucchinis from the veggie patch, and a cat with no time for nonsense. A former college professor, Morgana enjoys big bowls of pasta, not working out, and visiting the local lighthouse, where she tries to spot the white humpback whale.
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www.morganabest.com