DEAD AND GONE

Gwen’s Ghosts #2

by

J.R. RAIN

&

H.P. MALLORY

Gwen’s Ghosts

Dance with the Dead

Dead and Gone

Dead of Night

Other Books by J.R. Rain

VAMPIRE FOR HIRE

Moon Dance

Vampire Moon

American Vampire

Moon Child

Christmas Moon (novella)

Vampire Dawn

Vampire Games

Moon Island

Moon River

Vampire Sun

Moon Dragon

Moon Shadow

Vampire Fire

Midnight Moon

Moon Angel

Vampire Sire

Moon Master

Dead Moon

Lost Moon

Vampire Destiny

Infinite Moon

Vampire Empress

Moon Elder

Wicked Moon

Winter Moon

Sasquatch Moon

Wild Moon

Moon Magic

Moon World

Vampire Deep

Moon Matador (coming soon)

SAMANTHA MOON ADVENTURES

Banshee Moon

Moon Monster

Moon Ripper

Witch Moon

Moon Goddess

Moon Blaze

Golem Moon

Moon Maidens

SAMANTHA MOON CASE FILES

Moon Bayou

Blood Moon

Parallel Moon

SAMANTHA MOON ORIGINS

New Moon Rising

Moon Mourning

Haunted Moon

Other Books by H.P. Mallory

PARANORMAL WOMEN’S FICTION:

Haven Hollow

Misty Hollow

Gwen’s Ghosts

Midlife Spirits

Trailer Park Vampire

PARANORMAL ROMANCE:

Witch and Warlock

Vampire Esquire

Ever Dark Academy

FANTASY ROMANCE:

Dark Destinies

Gates of the Underworld

Lily Harper

Dulcie O’Neil

PARANORMAL REVERSE HAREM:

My Five Kings

Happily Never After

CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE:

Age Gap Romance

SCI-FI ROMANCE:

The Alaskan Detective

TRILOGIES:

Dragon’s Birthright

Crown of Lies

The Dark Circus

Midlife Mermaid

Chasing Demons

Dungeon Raider

Here to There

Arctic Wolves

Wolves of Valhalla
Lucy Westenra

Dead and Gone

Published by Rain Press

Copyright © 2023 by J.R. Rain & H.P. Mallory

All rights reserved.

Ebook Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Reading Sample: The Man With the Violet Eyes

About H.P. Mallory

About J.R. Rain

Dead and Gone

Chapter One

Upstairs, Downstairs

There’s a potential murderer in my house.

In my bed.

And I just had sex with him.

Wow, I really knew how to pick them.

With the benefit of comfortable hindsight, I might have decided there wasn’t necessarily any reason to suspect Bastian of murder just because he’d been sleeping with Victoria. And there was considerable reason to suspect he’d been doing just that; the distinctive, imported condom wrapper beneath the fridge speaking volumes. Not only had they most likely done the deed, but the evidence strongly suggested that they’d been doing it in the kitchen, which was going to play on my mind when it came time to make breakfast.

But right now, all I could think about was that Bastian had been here before—when Victoria had lived here—when Victoria had been living. And more than that—I had a feeling he’d been the shadowy figure Joanne had seen entering her friend’s house at night.

Bastian must have kept the relationship (if that was the right word for it) secret—because, as far as I knew, I was the only one who know the truth about Victoria and Bastian. Joanne certainly hadn’t known it or, if she had, she hadn’t said anything about it. And as for Bastian—hmm, it was a curious thing that he would have kept the relationship quiet because as far as I could tell, keeping things quiet was something he seldom did with the women he bedded. He was more a man who liked to wear his victories. Not to mention that keeping things hush-hush was something that was hard to do in a town filled with gossip. And all of that put together? Well, maybe it was coincidental or maybe it wasn’t.

All I knew was that Bastian had a pre-existing sexual relationship with a woman who’d been murdered, and he’d kept that relationship secret. And I imagined it was no accident that the unquiet spirit of Victoria had roused me from my bed while Bastian slept beside me. Not only had she roused me, but she’d purposely brought me down the stairs and into the kitchen to show me the evidence beneath the fridge.

It was then that I heard the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs and my heart about started to gallop in my chest.

There was no hiding from him.

Furthermore, this was my house and it would be weird if I just suddenly vanished—either outside or into the broom closet or something.

No, Gwen, you aren’t going to just disappear! I told myself. As far as Bastian knew, I didn’t know anything about Victoria. And that meant I was safe—well, I thought it might mean I was safe. For now, anyway.

I needed to calm down and act normally—act like I hadn’t just discovered his brand of condom wrapper underneath the fridge. Truly, he had no reason to harm me, and if I started treating him differently now, then I might give him one.

Bastian entered the kitchen, smiling that cocksure smile of his, though the smile wasn’t the first thing I noticed about him. He was naked, and from the looks of it, ready to pick up where we’d left off.

“Ready for round two?” he grinned. “Technically round three, I suppose, but I didn’t want it to seem as if I was bragging.”

“Because that would be so out of character.” I tried for sarcastic and I was pleased to note that I succeeded.

On the bright side, I’d needed something to distract me from the whole Victoria-murder-thing and a naked Bastian was definitely distracting. And impressive. Even surprising with how impressive his, ahem, girth and length was.

Are you really considering round three with a would-be murderer? God, my judgement had seen better days. Good thing Petra wasn’t here, or I’d really hear it.

So, while there was an upside in that my attention was distracted, the downside was that I now had to find a way to say ‘no’ to round two or three or seven or whatever it was, because I couldn’t distract myself enough to forget what Bastian had done (or might have done). And turning him down might look suspicious because, thus far tonight, ‘no’ had been conspicuously absent from my vocabulary (while ‘yes’ had been almost over-represented).

“Come here,” Bastian suggested in a growly sort of way that did still manage to give me a flutter in my lady parts.

“Why don’t... you, uh, come here?” Maybe playing hard to get would buy me some time.

He frowned at that and then shrugged his overly generous shoulders. “Honestly? Because your kitchen floor is damned cold and I have bare feet.” His grin broadened as he glanced down at himself and made his appendage jump like he thought he needed to draw my attention to it. He really didn’t because it was hard enough as it was not to focus on the thing. “Bare feet among other things.”

It wasn’t just that I wanted him out of my bed, I wanted him right out of the house, which at just after four in the morning was a pretty hard sell. A very hard sell, actually. Which meant I needed a reason for him to leave and right at the moment, I was seriously struggling to think of one. In fact, a treacherous little corner of my brain kept saying, ack—why not? What’s one more time? You don’t know if he killed anyone and it would be a shame to waste such a... firm and incredibly large—

“Something wrong?” asked Bastian, his voice concerned but his ardor noticeably unflagging—I could have hung a pot from it.

“No. No, nothing.”

Much as I’d enjoyed tonight, especially after such a long dry spell in my sexual department, I still had enough common sense (just barely) to know that returning to bed with Bastian wasn’t an option—just the thought of him and Victoria together in this room was really starting to creep me out (and if he were fully clothed, I imagined I’d be fully creeped out).

I also thought that if I said ‘no’, then he’d accept that, if only because part of his legend was that women wanted him at least as much as he wanted them (but usually more). That meant he’d never force himself on a woman or even apply any verbal pressure on her. I did believe that when it came to sex, Bastian was one of the good guys—albeit a very well disguised one (the husbands of some of his conquests might have debated the word ‘good’). But I was still fairly sure that if I turned him down, he’d wonder why.

Maybe I was too panicked to think clearly, but right at that moment, I was terrified that anything I did or said might send him into the same murderous frenzy he’d experienced when he’d pushed Victoria down the stairs.

He didn’t necessarily push Victoria down the stairs! I yelled at myself. Innocent until proven guilty, remember?

And, yet, Victoria’s ghost made it a point to wake you up and point out the condom beneath the fridge...

Things that made you go hmm...

“So, you’re going to force me onto the cold floor just to prove who’s in charge?” Clearly, Bastian thought this was all still a game. Well, that was good and a relief that he wasn’t picking up on my tone (his brain was probably getting a reduced blood supply at this point), but what was my plan from here on out?

“I think... twice or three times or whatever it was... was enough,” I managed with a smile. “It’s been a while for me, Bastian, and you can’t just expect an old, unused motor to turn over and start running perfectly.”

Yes, I was comparing myself to an old motor which wasn’t at all fair to me or true, but he didn’t need to know that.

“Gwen,” he started, and shook his head. “Don’t ever refer to yourself as ‘old’ again. You know how beautiful I find you—”

“I just—I’m tired,” I interrupted him with an apologetic smile.

Bastian deflated a bit (everywhere except where it counted). “Well, okay... I understand.”

There it was; that suspicion in his voice. He knew something was wrong. Had he guessed I knew what he’d done (or might have done)? Or was he just arrogant enough to be puzzled by any woman turning him down? What was going through his mind right now?

“Another time?” he added.

“O-of course.” This time, I was unable to hide the anxiety in my voice.

Bastian frowned as his eyes narrowed. “There’s something wrong, isn’t there?” He took a step forward, wincing slightly as his bare feet touched the cold tiles of the kitchen floor.

“Something wrong?” I repeated with a weird laugh as I shook my head.

“Tell me what’s going through that gorgeous head of yours.”

His words weren’t said in any sort of malevolent way, but in my current state of mind I couldn’t help hearing them as a threat.

Another step.

“Why are you up so early?” Petra suddenly blipped into existence as if from nowhere, glancing at me with interest. “You never rise so—” Then she turned her attention from me to the naked Bastian in my kitchen and I watched her gaze shift from his eyes down to his... “Oh, my word, I hope he has a license for that thing.”

“I thought I heard a noise,” I blurted out, Petra’s sudden appearance giving me options for my conversation with Bastian.

“A noise?” They both said in unison.

I kept my attention firmly on Bastian as I watched Petra float over to him and then drop down on her hands and knees beside his manhood as she inspected it like she was inspecting a curiosity at a museum.

“This truly is the largest maypole I’ve ever seen!” she turned to face me, her eyes and mouth wide. “Is there something wrong with him? Perhaps he’s got that elephantiasis disease? Have any doctors taken a look at him?” I did my best not to give her a look, but she just carried on as if this was normal conversation. “I do believe he could join the circus—well, of course, no respectable people would be comfortable looking upon him without his clothing but...” She lost her train of thought as she turned to look at me. “And you! Why, you were able to host such a staff?!”

I cleared my throat and forced my attention to the naked man who was looking at me curiously, since I hadn’t answered his question about the purported noise I’d heard.

“That’s why I got up,” I insisted, taking a deep breath. “The noise I heard—well, it uh just put me on edge, you know?”

“On edge?” he repeated, smiling at me like he found me amusing. “What sort of a sound was it?”

“Like a knocking noise,” I answered.

His ‘staff’ had started to lose its excitement, and Petra appeared to lose her interest in it as she floated back over to me.

“And at the thought that there might be someone else in the house...” I continued, being careful to keep my gaze on Bastian, but I hoped Petra would catch on. From my peripheral vision, I watched her fade away. Either she’d gotten the point that I needed her help or her Victorian sensibilities had finally reached the point of offense by Bastian’s nudity.

He took another step towards me. “You should have said something, darling.” Then he gave me a charming chuckle. “I wouldn’t allow anyone to hurt you, you know that.”

I swallowed hard at that and gave him a smile that I was sure was wobbly.

“Well—if there’s something or someone in your house or on the property, we’ll look together,” Bastian continued as he turned back towards the stairs. “Just let me get some…” His head snapped around to face me then. “Did you hear that?”

I had, and it was all I could do to stop myself from grinning. Petra had come through for me—this time in the sound of a knock on the upstairs bedroom wall.

“It sounded like it came from upstairs that time,” I nodded.

“Hmm, it did,” said Bastian, nodding as he furrowed his thick eyebrows. “A knocking sort of sound.”

“Right.”

“I’ll just grab my trousers. It’s starting to get chilly.”

In the event of a genuine emergency, Petra wasn’t a lot of use, but having her in the house made me feel strangely safer. No, she couldn’t stop Bastian from doing anything to me, but she could make all sorts of sounds and maybe she could launch a lamp or something at him—if she tried hard enough.

“Now it’s coming from downstairs again.” Bastian shook his head as Petra banged on the wall in the far side of the living room. “If it’s a burglar, then they’re playing with us.”

“Hmm.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Maybe it’s just the old house creaking.”

“I still want to check.”

“Well, I’m coming with you.” I needed to keep him moving, keep him busy, keep him occupied so murderous thoughts didn’t enter his brain. Basically, whatever it took to keep his mind from murder or sex... the latter probably being a Herculean task where Bastian was concerned.

Petra moved from room to room, pushing a creaky door here, knocking over a pile of books there. Upstairs and downstairs we went, following her phantom noises.

“Maybe a cat got in?” suggested Bastian.

As if a cat could make such a ruckus. “We’d better find it then. I don’t want my neighbors wondering where their cat is.”

Back upstairs again.

“I hate to say it, but have you considered the possibility of mice? It’s an old house and these things happen.”

Mice? Petra was actually banging on the walls! “The noises seem too loud for mice.”

“Then I hate to say it even more, but have you considered ra…”

“Don’t say it!” I had a thing about rats.

“I won’t say it, but it does happen. This is the country, Gwen...” He craned his neck at Petra’s next sound. “Was that from the bathroom?”

Petra was only able to interact with the real world in a fairly limited way; she could push things, pull them to some extent, but nothing as dexterous as picking Bastian up and depositing him outside the house—or better still—in a jail cell. Still, the limited abilities she had did prove very useful. And as far as Bastian was concerned, I didn’t think it was so much the fear of an intruder that kept his attention, but more the mystery of what the sounds were and why they kept moving all around the house.

By the time we gave up, a glow of dawn was starting to filter through the curtains into the cottage, and I was very happy to see it.

“Well… that wasn’t how I expected to spend the night with you,” mused Bastian, standing on the landing with his hands on his hips. “I say we give it up as a lost cause and head back to bed.”

Truly, you couldn’t keep the man down, but Petra had provided distraction long enough that time had provided a better solution.

“It’s pretty much morning now,” I pointed out and motioned to the yellowing of the sun that was infiltrating the house.

“Not a fan of morning love-making then?” Bastian came closer, and I tried to stop myself from shrinking back. “I can turn you around on that. So, to speak.”

“Ha ha,” I managed. “Wasn’t it Ben Franklin who said ‘early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise’?”

Bastian chuckled. “You Yanks and your colonialisms.”

I wasn’t even sure what a ‘colonialism’ was and figured he’d just made the word up, but, regardless, he wasn’t getting the point.

“It’s more that…” I sighed in mock reluctance. “I’m new to this town, to Morley-on-Avon, and if you wait much longer to leave, everyone’s going to see you go and…”

“And what?”

“And while I’m not ashamed about what we did last night—”

“I should certainly hope you wouldn’t be!”

“Right.” I gave him a nod and a smile. “But I’d prefer it if people thought I was here for at least a week before jumping into bed with a man fifteen years younger than I am.”

Bastian held up a finger. “Eleven, my dear. Clearly, your math isn’t what it should be.”

“Even so.”

He grinned boyishly and nodded. “Fair enough—I understand your reservations. Believe it or not, this won’t be the first time I’ve been asked to sneak out before sun-up.”

I smiled at that. “Shocking.”

He collected his clothes, and I found that, while I was eager to get him out, I’d also be sorry to see him go (well, as long as he wasn’t a killer). The truth was that last night had been fun, and I had a hunch this morning would have been as well.

It was strange, but it felt like there were two Bastians; the one I’d started to get to know last night, one who’d managed to alternate genuine sweetness with genuinely rocking my world, and the one who might have killed the previous occupant of this house. Maybe I should have given the first Bastian the benefit of the doubt, but, sadly, a woman doesn’t have to live very long in the world before learning that the men who seem the nicest can be ugly misogynists behind closed doors.

At the door, on his way out, Bastian turned back to face me and he was wearing a genuine smile. “I really had a great time with you, Gwen. And I don’t mean just upstairs.”

“I had fun with you, too.”

He nodded and glanced down at his feet and for a second, I thought he seemed a little... nervous? But then he looked up at me again and that cocky smile was back in full effect. “I’d love to do it, and you, again soon.”

I laughed at that and, giving him a look, shook my head. “You really know how to sweet talk the ladies, Casanova.”

He chuckled. “I’m playing—but in all honesty, I do hope we can get a drink together again sometime. Maybe dinner—if you’re up for it?”

That sounded uncharacteristically like a date—not something I would have expected from celebrated womanizer Bastian Chambon. But tonight had been full of surprises, good and bad.

Of course, the answer to his question was ‘no’ but what I said was, “I’ll definitely think about it.”

He smiled, maybe still a little suspicious about why I’d undergone such a change of attitude halfway through the night. I closed the door as he walked away into the gathering dawn.

“Of course,” said Petra, as she appeared beside me, “he might be saying such things so he can get you alone and finish you off like he did Victoria.”

“You figured all of that out?”

“I surmised.”

There was a pause between us.

“So, he spent the night,” said Petra, finally.

“Much of it.”

“And then…?”

Even though it seemed like she’d already cottoned on to the fact that Bastian might have been responsible for Victoria’s fall down the stairs, I still gave her a brief rundown of Victoria’s nocturnal appearance, how she’d led me downstairs and what she’d led me to in the kitchen. At hearing the word ‘condom’, Petra went every shade of red (which was really saying something considering she was mostly see-through). Truly, her Victorian ideals made it difficult to discuss sex but over the last ten or so years, she’d started to come around a little. Now, it was easier to discuss such things with her.

“El Toro Grande?” she repeated and gave a little laugh. “Goodness, what a thing for a lady’s ears!”

I nodded. “Nothing but the best for Bastian Chambon.”

“I hope he lived up to that billing. Breakfast?”

“I might jump in the shower first.”

“You know, you haven’t said thank you!” Petra called up the stairs after me. “I might very well have saved you from an untimely and murderous death!”

“Thank you, Petra!”

“One more question.” Petra reappeared beside me at the top of the stairs. “If you hadn’t discovered what you discovered… what exactly were your intentions with young Bastian?”

I didn’t think it was necessary for her to hit the word ‘young’ quite so hard.

“Whatever I intended with him, I did it last night. End of story.”

“Hmm,” Petra responded, nose in the air. “With a story as... well-appointed as his, I doubt there is an end!”

Chapter Two

A Plan of Action

It wasn’t something that I liked doing but, after breakfast (at which Petra was politely silent on the subject of Bastian and me), I headed to the local police station to make a very embarrassed report about the events of the night.

Obviously, I left out the supernatural content, but I had no choice but to include how I knew that the condom wrapper was the favored brand of the town’s resident playboy.

“I see,” said the large local bobbie (Petra assured me that such was what they called cops on this side of the Atlantic) behind the desk, registering interest but no surprise. “We shall take this new information under advisement.”

“That means he’s going to do damn-all,” judged Petra from the corner.

When we returned home, we found Victoria’s apparition falling down the stairs again, over and over. Apparently, she was still unable to get beyond that moment, though I had to wonder how she’d seemed to break the cycle the few times she had. Even so, this particular instance seemed to hold her captive, torturing her even in death. Maybe she didn’t even fully understand that it had been real, that it had happened, that she was dead. Maybe she was still waiting to wake up. Or maybe I had no idea what I was talking about.

Our return seemed to snap Victoria out of it, and as I made myself a sandwich for lunch and Petra sat at the kitchen table (or at least hovered above one of the chairs), Victoria flitted up and down and around the room. With the way she was flickering, it seemed like maybe she was angry.

“Does she seem pissed off to you?” I asked Petra who turned to look at Victoria who was blipping in and out of viewing.

“Yes, she seems quite furious—no doubt because she’s well aware the bobbies aren’t going to do anything.”

“I wish I’d known that before I’d gone there,” I muttered, murderously hacking my way through the loaf of bread. “At least then it would have saved me some embarrassment.” I shouldn’t have been embarrassed (at my age, maybe I should have been proud). Furthermore, an older man bagging a younger woman wouldn’t have been embarrassed at all, but I was.

“You did the right thing,” said Petra. “They’re in the wrong, just ignoring your evidence.”

“You think?” I stopped what I was doing and turned to her. “It all seemed very clear and very suspicious last night and I was terrified but… now, in the cold light of day, what does it really add up to?”

“What does what really add up to?”

“A condom wrapper.” I shook my head. “I don’t think we can blame the police for not treating that as evidence of foul play (bearing in mind they still think Victoria’s death was an accident). And even if they were able to tie the condom wrapper to Bastian, what does that really tell them?”

“What does it tell them again?” Petra appeared perplexed.

“That he had sex with Victoria!”

“Oh, right, right,” she answered with a quick nod. Then she looked around herself. “In this very room.” She faced me again. “Enjoy your sandwich.”

“Thanks.” I’d cleaned thoroughly, but the knowledge of what had gone on in this kitchen still didn’t sit well with me.

“And—you know—well done to Victoria,” I continued, “for getting the younger man. Something women of our age shouldn’t be ashamed of or shamed for. She felt the need to keep their relationship a secret, but I think that says more about society than it does about Bastian.”

Victoria’s ghost continued to storm up and down.

“Do we know that she was the one who wanted to keep it secret though, Gwendolyn, dear?” asked Petra.

“Well, we know she didn’t tell her best friend Joanne.”

“Perhaps she was too afraid to tell Joanne? Or anyone?”

“Maybe.” That did sound possible. “But it’s all guesswork. And for what? To say that two people—two single people—slept together. So what?”

“Hmm, are you talking about Victoria now, dear, or yourself?”

“Both of us!” I answered and threw my hands into the air. But then, deciding I didn’t want the spotlight on me, I went back to my previous conversation. “We know Victoria habitually kept her personal life secret, so no surprise she did the same with Bastian. And we also know that Bastian talks about sex like it’s going out of fashion.”

“What does that mean?”

“That he has a big mouth.”

“He’s also got a big—”

“Petra, can you concentrate on the particulars, please?”

“You never answered my question about elephantiasis.”

“Right, and I’m not going to answer it now, either.” She gave me a look. “Maybe the police’s reaction is right on the money; ‘Bastian Chambon sleeps with woman’ isn’t big news. I mean, it’s not evidence of guilt, is it?”

“I’m not answering your questions if you won’t answer mine.”

“Oh, for the love of God! Bastian doesn’t have elephantiasis!”

She frowned at me. “There, was that so hard?”

“Yes, it was!” I shook my head and silently counted to ten. Then I took a deep breath. “The point is: there’s nothing to connect that condom to the murder.” A sentence I’d never expected to say in my life, but there it was. “It could have gotten there any time.”

“Was there a lot of rubbish under the refrigerator?” asked Petra, casually.

“No,” I admitted.

“Then it’s cleaned regularly enough that other rubbish is gone, yet that single article remained.” Petra rocked her head back and forth. “That suggests the ungainly thing found its way there very shortly before the murder.”

The apparition of Victoria flashed maroon every time the word ‘murder’ was spoken.

“Still doesn’t prove anything,” I argued.

“Because you don’t want it to be him,” accused Petra, shaking her head. “Because you’d quite like to have a repeat performance.”

“That is not true.”

“Which bit?”

I thought for a moment. “The second bit. You’re right, I don’t want Bastian to be the murderer, but a ‘repeat performance’ isn’t the reason why. Whether or not I want to go to bed with him again is irrelevant.”

“Do you have to describe it so bluntly?”

I frowned at her. “We’re no longer living in Victorian times so, no, I’m not going to refer to sex as ‘convivial society’ or ‘amorous congress’ or any other of your ridiculous terms for it.”

“Sheesh—you don’t have to get so cross.”

“You keep changing the topic and it’s making me cross!”

“Very well, I will remain on topic.”

“God, now I can’t even remember what I was talking about!”

She further frowned at me. “You were spelling out the reasons why you did not want Mr. Chambon to be guilty.”

“Right—I want him to be innocent because he’s a nice guy.”

“I doubt many people would describe him in such terms.”

“Once you get to know him, you realize there’s a good person under all the Casanova stuff.” Then I sighed. “But all of that’s irrelevant too. I’m just saying there’s no proof that links Bastian to Victoria’s murder.”

Petra shook her head. “You’re kidding yourself. On all of the above.”

“What about motive?” I finished making my sandwich, then walked over to sit at the kitchen table but hesitated. I couldn’t help but wonder where the two of them might have done it and maybe they’d done it right here and I’d forgotten to Pledge the table. I settled for eating while leaning against the counter where sex looked the least convenient or comfortable.

“What about motive?” asked Petra.

“I’ve written enough mysteries to know that a killer needs a motive. And Bastian doesn’t have one.” I felt that I was on surer ground here.

“Why doesn’t he have motive?”

I cocked my head to the side as I considered her question. “He’s independently wealthy. He’s literally the man who has everything. And everyone. And he’s shallow enough that that’s all he really wants out of life. He gains nothing by killing her.”

“That presupposes that he planned it,” said Petra, shaking her head. “You saw—sorry to bring it up again, Victoria—she was pushed down the stairs.”

“So what?”

“So—that’s not pre-meditated.”

I nodded. “Good point.”

Petra sat up a little taller. She always liked getting compliments. “So... if it wasn’t pre-meditated, it could have been an argument that went awry?”

“A lovers’ tiff?”

She nodded. “He probably didn’t mean to kill her. But the fact that he didn’t call an ambulance or the police once he’d done the job makes him just as culpable.”

“You’re guessing.”

“So are you.”

We both paused, looking at each other.

“That’s sort of the problem, isn’t it?” I admitted. “No actual evidence.”

“True,” acknowledged Petra. “And I’m not sure where you’re going to get any. Frankly, it’s fairly remarkable that the... ahem, wrapper, was still there, beneath the refrigerator. I doubt you’d get that lucky twice. That’s the sort of thing that only happens in books.”

“Not my books.”

“No, of course not. But rubbish books.”

“Trash.”

“Exactly.”

I thought for a moment. What if this had actually been a book? What would my lead character do next? How would she handle all the evidence (or non-evidence) facing her?

“Evidence like condom wrappers doesn’t turn up that often,” I was thinking out loud now. “And it doesn’t tell you anything definite when it does.”

“It tells you that Bastian and Victoria were… intimate,” said Petra, more primly than usual, maybe because of the ghost still storming up and down.

“But no more,” I said. “No context. The real evidence is all around us.”

“It is?”

I nodded. “The town. The people. They all knew Victoria. And they know Bastian too. You heard what Joanne said; this place is lousy with gossip. And that means the truth is out there.”

“Ugh, have we gone into the realm of extraterrestrials now?”

I looked at her and frowned. “What?”

“The truth is out there! Wasn’t that the tagline of that show you watched ad-nauseum quite a few years ago?”

Oh, the X-Files, right.

“Getting back to the subject which decidedly is not aliens, if you talk to enough people, then you’ll hear all of it, the whole truth, I mean. Of course, you’ll also hear a lot of lies and nonsense and stories, but if you sieve through it all, then what you’re left with is the truth. Means, motive and opportunity. It’s all out there somewhere.” I took a breath. “I just have to ask.”

“You make that sound very easy,” said Petra, shaking her head. “But you’re forgetting an important piece of the equation.”

“Which is?”

“Why in the world would these people talk to you?”

Again, she had a good point. Petra usually did, and having someone to talk things out with, to tell me where I might be going wrong, was as useful to this subject as it was when I was writing one of my books.

“Because I’m an author,” I smiled as the thought occurred to me. “An almost famous one. And people like famous people—even if they’re only almost famous. Plus, I’m here partly to write my new book and I’m basing it in England, in this area, an area I don’t know much about. Why wouldn’t I have some questions for the townspeople?”

“That actually adds up,” admitted Petra on a shrug. “You could tell them you’re setting your next book in a local village like this one and you want to put in some genuine local stories to give it…”

“Color.”

“Yes. They won’t want their names included, of course, and they’ll say ‘Oh I couldn’t possibly tell you that’, but then they’ll tell you anyway and swear you to secrecy.” She shook her head. “By the end of the day, you’re going to have a whole heap of local scandal, most of which will have nothing to do with Victoria.”

“That’s where the sieve comes in.”

“Still…”

“I can tailor my questions.” This was a good idea—I could feel it. This was going to work. “Maybe I can tell them that since moving here, I’ve become fascinated with Victoria’s story…”

“That wouldn’t be far from the truth.”

“And that I’d like to base the book around her in some way. Maybe dedicate it to her memory when it’s published.”

“That’s good.”

The apparition continued its up and down, around and around, occasionally pausing to look at me and flash a furious red as if she didn’t like this idea at all. Well, it was the only idea I had so I was going for it.

Victoria paused and gave me another angry look, before shaking her head. Hmm, did she even understand any of what we were saying? It was so hard to be sure. Whether she did or she didn’t, she didn’t seem to be happy about any of it.

“This is going to work,” I said with confidence. “It’s not going to be easy, but it’s going to… what’s wrong?”

Petra looked suddenly pensive, frowning down at the scarred surface of the old kitchen table.

“What if he finds out what you’re up to?”

“Who?”

“Bastian Chambon, that’s who!”

“Hmm...” That was a good question.

“What if he finds out that you’re going all over town asking questions about him and about the woman he killed?”

“Might have killed.”

Petra waved away my objection. “Let’s say for a moment that he did do it and he is guilty.”

“Okay.”

“What’s his reaction going to be when you start drumming it all up again?” She looked up at me. “If he attacks you, like he did her, there’s nothing I can do to stop him. I can’t keep you safe, Gwendolyn.”

I shook my head. “You’re still making the assumption that he’s guilty when there’s just no evidence of it, and the more I think about it, the less likely I think it is.”

Petra held up a warning hand. “Think of it this way; yes, there’s no direct evidence that Mr. Chambon killed Victoria. But there is direct evidence that he was... paddle-boating with her.”

I frowned. “Paddle boating?”

She nodded.

“You mean having sex with her?”

“I do.”

I just breathed out a long breath at that. “There’s nothing wrong with them having had sex, Petra. Good for them.”

“But,” Petra went on, “if he was giving her the heave-ho, then now he’s just done the same with you, in the same house, in the same room, in the same bed…”

“I brought my own bed.”

“Okay, just in the same room,” Petra allowed with a shrug. “But still. Think about that for a moment.”

“Think about what?”

“That the woman he was canoodling with just a month earlier died here, and he’s comfortable doing the same to you, not ten feet from where she died? Whether he killed her or not, that is highly unpalatable.”

It was hard to argue with that and so I said nothing, because there was nothing to say.

The mood had suddenly turned very solemn.

But then again, who thinks about stuff like that when you’re with someone you’re attracted to and you’re both in the mood? You don’t think about the where, you just think about the when. The cottage had just been convenient.

Then again… when Bastian had come down the stairs after I’d woken up, that hadn’t been spur of the moment. Naked and aroused, he’d knowingly walked down the staircase—walked down the same one on which his ex-lover had fallen to her death. That did seem unnervingly ghoulish, now that I stopped to examine it.

But I still found myself able to dismiss it—maybe Petra was right about me not wanting Bastian to be guilty.

“Don’t worry. I can look after myself,” I said softly.

Petra still looked pensive. “I wonder if Victoria thought that exact same thought.”

Chapter Three

Lies, Damn Lies and Gossip

If I’d wanted a firsthand, practical demonstration of the effectiveness of the rumor mill in Morley-on-Avon, then I got one.

By the time I’d finished my first interview/informal chat with Maisie and Keith next door, word seemed to have gotten around town that the famous author in their midst was writing a select few of the town’s inhabitants into her next book. Now people were lining up to be interviewed in the hope of being immortalized in print.

Of course, this was also a timely demonstration of how the rumor mill had gotten the broad strokes right, but messed up some of the details, because I hadn’t intended to include anyone in my book and I’d never claimed as much (although I wasn’t about to deny it now either).

This was the nature of gossip; you learned some stuff that was true but most was invariably glossed and glitzed with extra wings and ribbons added by everyone through whom the rumor had passed. The more people who heard the rumor, the more it was embellished, everyone putting their spin on it, making it more dramatic or adding their own personal flourish. In the end, it was a story that bore scant relation to where it had started, and I had to be aware of that.

My advantage was that I wasn’t currently looking at any specific rumor, I was just trying to learn about Victoria Willis, and maybe a little about Bastian Chambon too, if he came up naturally in the course of the conversation.

That said, there were still a surprising number of inconsistencies, even on such an uncontentious subject as when Victoria first moved to the town.

“Must be at least ten years ago now. Maybe more. Maybe less. Probably more.”

“Twenty years.”

“Twenty sounds about right. Perhaps twenty-five. No more than that.”

“Born here. Went to the local school. Remember her well. Spotty child.”

“I don’t know. Wasn’t she married when she came here?”

“I suppose it must be fifteen, twenty years now. Something like that.”

“Thirty years, as I live and breathe.”

“I’m not sure now. When did old what’s-his-name die? You know who I mean. The one with the face.”

“Must have been twenty because Herself was in Bluebells before. She was the one who named it. Had that affair with old Cedric (some say it killed him). What was her name?”

“I don’t care what they say, they’re all wrong. I remember her at the school. Spotty child. Victoria… No wait, I’m thinking of the wrong Victoria.”

“I suppose twenty years or thereabouts.”

“Can’t be more than that because my John was only… Actually, now I stop to think about it…”

“Fifteen years. Maybe twenty. Time’s funny isn’t it? And pandemic years don’t count.”

“Victoria… Marsh! That was it. That’s who I was thinking of. Victoria. No, wait… Alice Marsh. That’s it. Spotty child. Whatever happened to her?”

By a general consensus, Victoria had arrived in Morley-on-Avon around twenty years ago, had bought Bluebells and lived there ever since.

“Bought it outright, as I recall. And that was when a place like that was really worth something. Not like now. Know why? Cars. Every house needs two-car parking spaces and Bluebells doesn’t even have one (well, of course, I don’t have to tell you—irritating, isn’t it?). People didn’t care so much twenty years ago. Expensive place it was.”

“Needed fixing up, as I recall. Not gone to rack and ruin, but when she moved in, Victoria was a young woman (not exactly old when she died) and the woman who lived there before had been more mature, as they say. It was all chintz and antimacassars, if you know what I mean. A doily under every coaster. Wallpaper that had been there since the seventies, at least, and furniture that was older than that. But not nice old, if you get my meaning. All had to go. I don’t know what she spent putting it right.”

“Was there structural work? Might have been. So long ago now.”

“As I recall, it wasn’t a long project. She just moved in and got it all done. Paid the necessary.”

All of which begged the ever-present question; where had this money come from? What had Victoria Willis done for a living?

“I never recall her working. Not as in having a job. Kept busy. Heavily involved in local organizations. Few charities. Just local, but still. She always had time to help out. But then I suppose you would if you didn’t have to work.”

“I always heard she was well-invested.”

“Family money.”

“Won a court case. That was the word at the time. Divorced before she came here and won a big settlement. Married to some titan of business and took him right to the cleaners.”

“I never heard of her working. I think she had a job before coming here. Some place up north.”

‘Up North’ was another recurring feature of the interviews. No one seemed to know anything specific about Victoria’s origins—where she’d grown up, lived and worked before relocating to the west country, beyond that generic compass direction.

“I understood she had a job up north. Don’t know why she didn’t need one down here. Maybe she had a lottery win. Or an inheritance.”

“Invented something. Made a fortune. I understood it was a new type of ironing board.”

“Stocks and shares.”

“Something in business, though I never got the impression she was very high up, so I don’t know where the money came from. Barely more than a secretary was the impression I got, though she never talked about the specifics, so to speak.”

So, she was well-invested. Someone who was in a position to live comfortably if not extravagantly off the dividends of those investments. But where had the money for the initial investment come from? Had she been born wealthy and got richer?

“I don’t think so. I mean… I suppose I don’t know, but she never gave that impression.”

“People born rich have a certain smell, you know? She didn’t have that.”

“I always thought she came from a rich background. Because she must have. Mustn’t she?”

“Rich people always want to get richer. Vic wasn’t like that. She was happy to have enough to live. To not worry. That’s the attitude of someone born poor and someone who still remembers what it was like to have struggled. But I’m guessing. She never talked about it.”

“Didn’t her father give her an allowance? Or an ex-husband? Something like that, I always thought. Or maybe that was just rumor.”

A lot of it was rumor. In fact, there weren’t two facts that I could rub together to start a fire. Although there were occasional areas of mass consensus that were almost as good as facts.

“Something in numbers.”

“Accountancy.”

“Bookkeeping wasn’t it? If it wasn’t, it should have been. She helped me with the bar accounts one year and you should have seen her tidy up those columns of figures. She made them dance.”

“Always kept score when we played Scrabble, or darts, or snooker, anything like that. She could keep it all in her head, but preferred to write it down. I think she liked seeing numbers written down. As if that was where they rightly belonged.”

Even those who didn’t specifically claim that Victoria Willis had had some sort of job in bookkeeping or accountancy prior to moving to the town, all still mentioned her head for figures. Her mental arithmetic was legend, but what most seemed to recall was her habit of jotting down figures in clear and distinct columns. When dining out with friends, she calculated the bill on a napkin long before it arrived and could divide it up to everyone’s satisfaction, factoring in the tip as she went.

The people I spoke to were a motley bunch, a cross-section of village society, though I figured I still had the typical problem of every survey-taker; in the end you solicit the opinions of those who want to give them and have the free time to do so. That said, in Morley-on-Avon, everyone had an opinion—it seemed to be your birthright as a member of the community. So, I spoke to teens who slouched against the wall of the parking lot by the station—they seemed sullen and uncommunicative types, cursing their luck that someone as cool as them had been born somewhere as uncool as Morley-on-Avon, but determined that they’d make this unassuming hamlet the center of the UK rap scene. But when I got them talking, they were as gossipy as their parents—a comparison I was sure they would’ve hated.

I spoke to stay-at-home grannies who got their news by leaning over the garden fence and talking to the woman next door in what amounted to their own private language where one would say ‘I saw her the other day’ and the other would respond ‘You never?’, instantly knowing to whom ‘her’ referred (‘She was with him’ ‘What in broad daylight?’ ‘Bold as you like’ ‘Well, he’s never been the same since his trouble’).

I spoke to pub room philosophers; middle-aged men who looked older than they were and elderly men who seemed younger than they were, as if the wear of weather and strong cider equalized ages. And, of course, there were a lot of ‘people’ who were just people, but you quickly learned if you were a writer, that there was no such thing as just ‘people’—everyone had a story, every background character could be a treat for the reader if you presented them correctly.

Certainly, everyone in Morley had a story, and I encouraged them to tell it. Naturally, most of these stories were of no use to me, but the longer they talked, the more I gleaned and the conversations began to intersect; a seemingly innocuous fact in one interview linking to another and making something potentially more interesting.

When it came to Victoria Willis, there was one thing on which everyone seemed to have an opinion, and one subject which everyone came to without any prompting from me.

“A man?”

“A boyfriend?”

“A gentleman?”

“A lover?”

“A bit of rough on the side.”

“Well…”

“One doesn’t like to pry.”

“You mean recently?”

“I always got the impression of her as a loner.”

“There was Colin, of course, but I wouldn’t call that recent.”

“What was his name? Colin. But he left town after they split up. How long would they have been together?”

“A year or thereabouts. A long time. Certainly, for her.”

“I got the impression that she was the one who ended it. As ever with Vic, I couldn’t tell you for certain, but that was the impression I got. Couldn’t tell you why. Maybe he just got too close.”

“I thought she tired of him.”

“She was a natural loner. He wanted more and she wasn’t prepared to give it. I don’t recall her shedding a tear over the breakup, though. Maybe she was a little down for a while, but I don’t think men ever played any major role for her. She certainly never needed one.”

“Other than him…”

“Well, there have been other men…”

“Maybe more than a few.”

“One doesn’t like to pry.”

“I got the impression that she treated men like socks. Wear ‘em out, then get another pair. Though of course, one isn’t secret about one’s socks and Victoria was very secret about her men.”

“Gossip would probably put the number much higher, but you mustn’t listen to gossip.”

“I don’t know. Perhaps she didn’t want people to think she was a ‘loose woman’. But then I don’t think she liked to be thought a prude either. In the end, Vic was private about everything, so why not this?”

“But someone recent?”

“Well, it wouldn’t surprise me. She was a handsome woman for her age. Not that her age was… you know, so great. And not that women of your age—her age, I mean—not that women of that age aren’t attractive. Fine-looking. Matured like a wine.” Pause. “You’re a fine-looking woman, yourself. Are you busy later?”

“There could have been someone, but I don’t know of anyone.”

“I suppose she’d been a bit secretive these last few months, but then no more so than usual.”

“I don’t know.”

“I couldn’t say.”

“I wouldn’t like to guess.”

“One doesn’t like to pry.”

“Bastian Chambon?”

I introduced the subject in as casual a way as I could, letting them lead me there. It was probably worth noting that not one of the people I spoke to suggested Bastian as a possible lover for Victoria without my prompting. Then again, once I’d planted the idea…

“Well, obviously it wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Now you come to mention it, that makes a lot of sense.”

“That would certainly explain the smile on her face—that Bastian Chambon might be a cad, but he’s certainly a pleasing one to look at.”

“Do you know? I thought I saw him leaving hers a few months ago. I mean, I didn’t think it was him at the time, but now you say the name, it could have been him.”

“There’s only so many women in town. He was bound to get around to her, eventually.” Pause. “So, what do you say to a drink later, eh?”

“Then again, the fella I saw might have been a bit tall for Bastian.”

“I’d have said she had too much sense, but that little sod’s got a way of winning around women.”

“Or then again, maybe he was a bit short.”

“Yes, yes, almost certainly they were doing it. No wonder she wanted to keep it hush-hush. No one likes to be the last apple in the barrel.”

“Actually, I couldn’t even swear it was a man I saw. But if it was, then it could have been Bastian. If he was a little taller. Or a little shorter.”

“I hadn’t thought about it, but now you say it, they make an obvious pairing; she wouldn’t care if he knocked about with other women and he wouldn’t care that she didn’t care. Neither of them interested in a relationship, you understand. Just a bit of fun. Yes, yes. Makes perfect sense.”

And once I’d introduced Bastian into the conversation, then that subject ran away and out of my control. If nobody seemed to know anything about Victoria, or at least nothing definite, then everyone seemed to know plenty about Bastian and they all seemed very definite about it, which wasn’t to say that any of it was true. But all of a sudden, my contention that Bastian couldn’t have been the killer because he didn’t have an alibi started to look decidedly shaky.

“Well, you’d have to call it hypocritical. Someone who’s trimming so many other men’s hedges (if you catch my meaning) has no right to be jealous, but I saw his face when the young Gilles’ girl started dating that sharp lad from up the college. Bastian wasn’t happy. Even though they hadn’t been ‘steady’—or whatever the kids are calling it these days. Even though she wasn’t the only girl he was seeing. Hypocritical. But then jealousy can be like that. Out with another girl tonight, you know. Booked a table in town.”

“Well, obviously the family’s minted—all that property and the hall itself—but it’s all in the red, you know. Oh, yes. The cupboard is bare.”

“Only two interests, that boy. Women and horses. And what he’s doing to one, the other is doing to him. Terrible gambler. In both senses. Total addict and he’s lousy at it.”

“Debts like the British government. Trouble is, if you grow up with money, then you just get used to it, don’t you? (Not that I’d know—we work for a living in my family.) You never think about where it comes from and you never think of there being a finite supply and you certainly never think about doing anything to top it up. He spends money like water—always has. Clothes, cars, boys’ toys, expensive food and drink. They say he shows a girl a good time and I don’t doubt it, but that money’s got to come from someplace and he hasn’t done a day’s work in his life.”

“Not a drinker? What about dinner? My treat.”

“Card games up at the hall. Unsavory lot. I wouldn’t be surprised if they recognized a kid with more money than sense and took him for all he had. They say he’s been quietly selling off the family heirlooms, so he doesn’t get his fingers broken by some of the toughs out of Bristol way.”

“Cards, dogs, horses, any sporting event and, of course, the city casinos. He’d bet on anything. And you can’t win all the time—that’s why they call it gambling. And from what I’ve heard, he doesn’t win any of the time. Unlucky at gambling. Lucky with women, though. If he had half the luck at betting he had with women, then he’d be able to buy out Elon Musk. Though, of course, some would say that’s not luck. ‘Course with women he knows how to quit while he’s ahead.”

“I wonder what happened to Victoria’s money.”

There was a question that I would have to do some research into, but of course Morley had opinions of its own.

“I heard they kept it hush-hush because she left it to a man. Someone from her past.”

“A lover no one knew about.”

“Ex-husband got the lot.”

“She had a son living out in South America.”

“If it went to anyone in Morley, I didn’t hear about it. But then you wouldn’t say anything, would you?”

And so the conversation flowed back to Victoria again, and it was almost suggestive how easily it went from a discussion of Bastian and his women and his problems into Victoria, and still darker rumors about the woman who had lived at Bluebells before me.

“You must have heard about the safe?”

“The safe.”

“The safe.”

“Oh, yes, the safe of secrets.”

“Don’t know anyone who’s seen it.”

“You must have had a hunt about when you moved in, didn’t you? I would have.”

“Wasn’t there before she built the place. That was part of the building renovations she’d done. All kept very quiet, but she had a safe installed—not a big one or anything, something small and easy to hide. No one knows where it is or what she kept in it, but if you ask me…”

“Cold, hard cash. Didn’t trust banks.”

“She had dirt on someone—don’t know who though. That’s where she kept the proof of whatever it was she used to blackmail them. That’s where her money came from.”

“Stuff from her past. Gotta be a reason she never talked about it. Dark secrets. Stuff she probably ought to have thrown away, but it can be tough to throw away your own past, can’t it?”

“Odd to think, isn’t it? Someone she saw every day; a knowing smile. And her holding all that over their heads. You never know your neighbors.”

“You know, there aren’t that many single men in this town and I’d love to show you a good time.”

“‘Course, it’s all just rumor.”

It was all rumor. Of all the people who told me about Victoria’s secret hidden safe and the dark secrets from her past or from someone else’s past that she kept in that safe and potentially (probably) used to blackmail someone, not one of them could justify it with a single fact. It was always something they’d heard from someone, somewhere. But… there was no smoke without fire. Was there? Or was that how rumors started? How would a story like that ever start if there wasn’t some basis in fact? At the very least, maybe the safe was real, even if what was in it was just speculation.

And on the subject of speculation, the two topics of conversation now mixed again.

“You know, you were talking about Bastian Chambon earlier…”

“Well, you were the one who brought him up…”

“I never thought of him and Victoria, but when you suggested it…”

“And if anyone has secrets…”

“In some ways, he lives his life out loud; everyone knows what girls he’s going out with and which other men’s wives he’s staying in with. But there’s always stuff that doesn’t make the papers, if you know what I mean.”

“I always thought there was more to him.”

“A backstory.”

“Nobody lives their life like that unless there’s something in their past that made them like it.”

“Some failed romance.”

“Prison, I’d guess.”

“Or maybe this thing with Victoria was just because he thought he could get his hands on her money? He does need it.”

As the interviews went on, I realized that I was witnessing the birth of a rumor. Yet another practical demonstration, this one in how a rumor can start and find solid grounding in a complete absence of fact. I’d asked questions about Victoria and got some gossipy answers. Then I’d moved the conversation towards Bastian and, largely on the basis of my suggestion, the two names had been connected. From that connection, people had independently made a further link, from the money problems of one to the unexplained fortune of the other, via a secret safe and a lot of clandestine sex. None of it held up, and yet person after person made the same link without any help from me.

Did that mean it was possible?

The problem was that it was all possible. They all knew the protagonists better than I did. Maybe it was only a matter of time before someone voiced out loud what seemed the natural endpoint of this domino run of rumor.

“If she left her money to him, to Bastian—which she might have done if they’d been together on the down low—then her death must have been a big relief for Bastian. I’m sure he’d be sad but… that’s a lot of debts forgiven.”

If such debts even existed.

If she had left her money to him.

But someone had said it. And someone positing the very thing I’d feared in some repressed corner of my own mind made it suddenly more plausible.

“Well?” asked Petra, who’d sat quietly by during the interviews, taking it all in alongside me.

“Well, what?”

“You said Bastian Chambon didn’t have a motive. What do you think now?”

“I think there’s a whole bunch of ‘ifs’. We don’t know that he’s got money worries or a gambling problem. It’s just rumor.”

Petra shrugged. “As far as any of these people are concerned, Mr. Chambon and Victoria’s affair is just rumor.”

“It’s not an affair if neither of them are married,” I snapped.

“But it’s true,” said Petra, with finality. “We know it’s true. None of them thought it until you brought it up, but then they all agreed how possible it sounded and so it became rumor. But they were right. Rumor is rumor but in a place like this, where everyone knows each other, then it can oftentimes be true as well.”

“Your bias is showing again.”

“Yes, well, so is yours.”

That was, as usual, hard to deny. Though I definitely hated myself for it, spending the morning listening to people detailing the indiscriminate love life of Bastian Chambon had irked me. Who was I kidding? It had made me jealous. I’d known that last night was just what it was, and that this was something he did with many women, but knowing it and hearing other people talking about it were two different things.

In some silly, girlish corner of my brain, that had no business existing, maybe I’d hoped I was in some way special to this man, more than ten years my junior, and that… Well, who knew what I’d thought would happen next, but it clearly wasn’t going to. I was just one in a line of women who probably all thought they were special to him, that they could change Bastian Chambon.

But he hadn’t led me on, hadn’t let me think last night was about anything more than it was, and I guessed that was the same for all those women. He might have left a few wistful hearts in empty beds as he went, but he didn’t seem to break those hearts and didn’t seem to make many enemies.

No, because he was a nice guy.

Straying from the point.

“Let’s talk to some more people.”

Petra sighed. “What do you expect anyone to say that hasn’t already been said?”

“I don’t know,” I reasoned, “that’s why I have to keep on asking.”

“If I had feet, they’d be aching.”

I frowned at her. “Well, luckily for you, you’re ectoplasm.”

There wasn’t a response which was just as well because I’d settled my sights on a woman who was standing just beside the front door of the Swan, looking like she was waiting for someone.

“Okay. That woman over there—we’ll talk to her and then we’ll call it a day.”

“Fair enough.”

With Petra wafting along behind me, unseen by all but a cat that hissed as she passed, I crossed the town green towards the pub and approached the woman with dark hair who stood near the door—waiting for someone. She was probably around my own age, well-dressed, though not expensively. She was a beautiful woman with porcelain skin, big dark eyes, full lips and a pert nose. And her figure was lithe and lean, no doubt something she’d kept through yoga or maybe jogging.

“Hi. Sorry to bother you, my name’s Gwen Dance…”

She gave me a smile but it was one of those smiles you give someone when you’re secretly taking stock of them. Even now, I could see her eyes shifting as she took me in from head to toe.

“You’re the one who moved into Bluebells. I’ve heard such a lot about you.”

Even as I was collecting rumors, I was becoming one myself.

“Nothing too awful, I hope,” I smiled.

She laughed and it was a nice sound. “No, nothing awful at all.”

“So, you’ve probably heard that I’ve been chatting with lots of people around town as research for a new book I’m writing.”

“Yes, I have heard that.”

“Well, I was wondering if you might have a few minutes to spare? I’d be happy to buy you a drink while we talk.” I glanced at my watch, then back at her again. “It will only take a few minutes.”

“I’d like that very much,” the woman nodded, but as she looked at me, there was something cold in her gaze. I wasn’t sure why. “I’m just waiting for someone—my husband—but I’m sure he’d be happy to talk to you, as well.”

“Absolutely,” I nodded. “The more the merrier.”

“Excellent,” the woman lifted her expertly shaped eyebrows. “Ah—here he comes now.”

Rounding the corner, Leo was brought up short by the sight of me talking to the woman who I belatedly realized was his wife.

Chapter Four

The Meaning of Awkward

“Oh, bloody hell,” Petra swore as she looked at me. “Are you okay, Gwendolyn, or are you about to go to pieces?”

I managed to ignore her—my way of saying I was okay. Instead, I put all my attention on Leo, who looked like he was about to go to pieces. After another moment of shock, Leo recovered—well, as much as he was able to anyway. The man wasn’t very good at not showing his emotions.

“I’m glad you two have met,” he lied.

“Well, only just,” smiled his wife. I couldn’t help feeling that the smile was a little tacked on. But maybe I just wanted it to be. The same way I wanted Bastian to be innocent of killing Victoria. I was really living through my fantasies where men were concerned today.

“Who would have thought that you’d run into his wife like this,” Petra continued, shaking her head. Then she looked at me. “If I had energy at the moment, I’d give her a good zap.”

I was just happy Petra lacked the energy, because I didn’t imagine Leo’s wife deserved a good zap. But with the way she was appraising me yet again, maybe she did.

“Oh, well…” Leo held out his big hands, introducing myself and his wife as formally as if he were presenting us at a royal ball. “Gwen Dance, this is my wife, Shona Tanner. Shona, this is Gwen, who I mentioned to you that I met the other day and took her up to Joanne’s.”

I got the impression that Leo was adding these last details, so I knew what he’d told his wife—everything except the kiss we’d shared, or so it seemed. God, I hoped she didn’t know about the kiss...

“Ohhhh, he mentioned you, did he?” Petra asked, shaking her head like she was the only one who knew what was up. “And what exactly did you mention to her, Leo? How you were very happy to be locking lips with her, eh?”

If I could have vacuumed her up, I would have. Instead, I did my best to pay attention to Mr. and Mrs. Tanner.

“Yes, thank you, Leo,” said Shona. “I remember. It was only yesterday, after all.” Then that icy smile at me again and something in those dark eyes—something that said she was well aware that I was attracted to her husband. And the husband in question was still sweating bullets. Jeez, Leo, pull it together!

“Yes, of course.”

Leo did that shy, fumbling thing that I found so much less adorable when it was caused by his wife rather than by me.

“Gwen here,” Shona went on as she turned her attention back to Leo, “is interviewing people around town as background for her next book…” (I saw Leo shoot a glance at me, as if he suspected there was more to my interviews than simple research), “… she’s offered to buy us a drink. And I’ve accepted.”

It’s funny how your opinion of a person’s behavior can change based on knowledge of them, even when the behavior, itself, doesn’t change. Suddenly, Shona had gone from being confident to being a bit imperious. I didn’t like the way she spoke to Leo. But then, he had said they’d been having marital problems and who was I to say whose fault those problems were? The fact that Leo had… well he hadn’t kissed me exactly. I’d kissed him, but there was a difference in kissing someone who didn’t kiss you back and kissing someone who did. And I wasn’t imagining it—Leo had most definitely kissed me back. And Petra had even said he’d closed his eyes. And according to a Victorian ghost, that meant a lot.

Not only had he kissed me back and closed his eyes during said kiss, but he’d kept his wife a secret from me for a long time—well, from the moment I’d met him to the moment I’d kissed him and he’d kissed me back and closed his eyes. So, as far as I was concerned, Leo was a little culpable. For all I knew, he was as bad as Bastian, cutting a swathe through the women of Morley-on-Avon. Maybe I had a taste for lady-killers? Ugh, I really hoped not.

But one look at Leo dispelled all those thoughts. He was definitely handsome enough, for sure tall enough (like almost to the point of Big Foot tall) and strong enough to be a hit with the ladies, but he was also shy and self-effacing and simply too nice. And most women didn’t seem to go for the shy guy, no matter how much he looked like a lumber jack. I’d said that Bastian was a nice guy, but when it came to nice, Leo owned the game.

Then again, Bastian had been completely upfront with me about his wild and wanton ways while Leo had misled me. And, yes, now that I really thought about it, Leo had definitely misled me.

There were two men in my life and neither of them looked like suitable prospects for long-term happiness—more like long-term complication.

But I did like them both, in their very different ways.

***

The Swan took on a different aspect during the day, lighter and airier, more geared to family lunches, but the warm welcome and pleasant atmosphere remained. The three of us, led by Shona, took a seat by the window, and I tried to look comfortable sitting opposite the man I’d kissed only yesterday and his wife.

“Where shall we start?” asked Shona.

“How about with your marriage and why it’s on the rocks,” Petra said.

Thank God neither of them could see or hear her. It was bad enough that I could.

“Well, I’m sort of collecting general background information,” I hedged, trying to keep things broad, as I had at the start of all my interviews. “Small town life, interesting characters, noteworthy events.”

“So, this isn’t a continuation of your ‘investigation’.” The air quotes were as noticeable as the tone of amusement in her voice when she said the word. And the tone of amusement was definitely condescending. Now that she’d met me and realized I was the woman Leo had helped, she didn’t like it. Not one bit.

Leo’s face was a mix of guilt at having told his wife something I might have wanted to keep secret and suppressed anger at her condescending tone.

“Shona.” Quietly spoken but firm.

“What?” demanded Shona as she turned to face him and gave a little shrug. “I’m just asking how Gwen’s ‘investigation’ is going.” The first set of air quotes could have been written off, but the repetition was just pure passive aggressive and, again, I saw the spasm of irritation cross Leo’s face. Which made me wonder if I was the even Shona’s target in the first place. Was she mocking me or deliberately winding up her husband? Which, in turn, asked another question; why was she doing either? How much had Leo told her about me? Had she guessed there was more? Was she suspicious that something might be going on between her husband and me? Or had their relationship deteriorated to the point where this sort of childish point-scoring was an everyday occurrence?

God, my hands were getting clammy and that only happened when I was nervous.

“Oooh, I don’t believe I like her much,” Petra said. I almost answered, ‘neither do I’, but managed to keep my feelings to myself.

Suddenly, I felt less bad about kissing Leo. In fact, I would have liked to kiss him again now—at this very moment. And if Shona kept up those damned air quotes, I was going to straddle her husband right here in the bar and ask, ‘What are you going to do about it?’

Well, obviously, I really wasn’t going to do those things—because I was sort of a lady, I supposed, but the real reason was more along the lines that I lacked the balls to do such a thing. Swallowing back my instinctive reaction, and reminding myself that, whether she knew it or not, this woman actually had a pretty good reason to be rude to me, I ignored Shona’s tone and treated her question like a genuine inquiry.

“Well, I’ve heard a lot of gossip, so I don’t know what to rely on and what to take with a grain of salt.”

“I’d take it all with a grain of salt,” said Leo, gently, and was it me or had he not taken his eyes from me since he’d first walked up? Hmm, hopefully Shona hadn’t noticed. Or maybe he was looking at me so intently because he didn’t want me to let it be known that he and I had gotten as close as we had?

“Is that so?” I asked, smiling demurely at them both but putting most of my focus on Shona, just so things didn’t look as awkward as they felt. And they felt pretty damned awkward.

Leo nodded. “Some of the things you hear around this town, you wouldn’t believe. And none of it’s true.”

Shona laughed and shook her head at him. “Darling, just because you don’t want to believe it, doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

I tried not to shudder at her term of endearment for him. Which was just as well, because he shuddered enough for the both of us. Or maybe it was the way she said the word—whatever it was, it sounded forced.

“I prefer to think the best of people unless I know the facts,” said Leo, stoutly.

For the first time, Shona gave him what I would have called a genuine smile. “And that sweetness is what I love about you.”

Suddenly, I felt slightly sick. A marriage in trouble, two people who still loved each other but were obviously struggling to reconcile, and I hadn’t made things easier. And from the looks of Leo, who still hadn’t taken his eyes off me, I was continuing to not make things easier. Well, damn me.

“If you ask me,” said Shona as she brought her attention back to me, “most of the rumors around here have some sort of grounding to them.”

“Some of them contradict each other,” I pointed out.

She nodded. “Just proves my point; they come from the same source, but there has to be a source.”

That was one way of looking at it.

“Hmm, she appears to be quite observant,” observed Petra, while nodding at me. “No wonder your inappropriate crush married her.” I turned to glare at my ghost roommate but managed to stop myself. There were certainly times when it was really irritating not to be able to smack Petra around the back of the head.

“You mean, not all the rumors are true,” I started, “but the fact that they exist means they came from somewhere?”

Shona nodded. “Basically. What sort of rumors are there about Victoria?” She sounded uninterested, but I recognized the flicker in her eye that all gossips get when they’re hoping to hear something juicy.

“Oh, I’m not sure if I should repeat rumors.”

Shona shrugged. “Aren’t you planning to put them into a book?”

Hmm, she was certainly argumentative. No wonder Leo found her difficult. Or did he find her difficult? I couldn’t remember what his exact words were for his marriage but I would have guessed he found her difficult because that was a good word for her. “I’ll change everyone’s names—for legal purposes.”

“Oh, of course,” Shona smiled at me prettily. And that was something I couldn’t deny her—she was pretty. And seated next to Leo, the two of them were well suited to each other—something which depressed me further.

“My main question is where Victoria came from,” I continued. “She moved here—as far as I can tell—about twenty years ago, from somewhere up north. But no one seems to know where up north or what she did before coming here or how she survived here without having a job. I don’t suppose you’d know?”

The couple shook their heads.

“We only moved here five years ago,” Leo said.

“He seems sad,” Petra observed as she stuck her face right in front of Leo’s and he started to bat at her, as though he thought she was an errant fly. Hmm, that wasn’t a terrible comparison, actually.

“Though Leo lived here before,” Shona explained, looking up at him as she put his hand down as if to say his batting at the invisible fly was annoying her. “Grew up here, actually.”

That made sense. I’d been so surprised to learn that Leo hadn’t lived here all his life, the fact that he’d grown up here, moved away and came back again accounted for that discrepancy.

“Town only needs one blacksmith,” smiled Leo. “And there wasn’t really anything else I wanted to do.”

“No ambition.” Shona said the words with a smile and a look you might almost mistake for loving. But both look and tone had needles in them, and her smile wasn’t convincing. Not to mention the fact that a wife saying such a thing about her husband wasn’t exactly kind. I swallowed hard. And there was an almost imperceptible narrowing of Leo’s eyes, but it was there, all the same.

“Oh, marriage troubles alright,” Petra said as she reappeared beside me, nodding all the while.

“I suppose I don’t have much ambition as I’m pleased to just be a blacksmith,” admitted Leo as he gave me an embarrassed smile and then looked down at his lap. “I enjoy working with my hands.”

“I wouldn’t call that no ambition,” I said, not caring if I pissed off his wife. I just didn’t like the way he suddenly looked... ashamed of himself? “Blacksmithing is an art,” I finished softly.

Leo looked up at me then and smiled and the expression was a genuine one.

“And Gwendolyn saves the day,” Petra said.

“My father was blacksmith here,” Leo started in that deep, heavy timbre of his. “And the two of us... well, there was always enough friction that we couldn’t work together.”

“Friction?” I repeated.

“Oh, really, Leo, do you think a famous author is interested in this?” Shona demanded.

I held a hand up to her. “No, I am.”

Leo nodded at me as Shona arched a brow. “Friction in a smithy ends with someone flattening their thumb,” he continued. “So, I moved away and found a place in Somerset—not far from here, but to someone in Morley, it’s almost another world. That’s where we met,” he smiled at his wife then and Shona smiled back and I smiled at them both, and I wasn’t sure whose smile was the least convincing. “After Dad passed (we were married by then), I moved back and took over the forge. There’s no better place in the world to live.” This time, his smile was genuine.

Shona’s smile was not. “Like I said; no ambition.” She looked at me. “I suppose you’ve lived in more exotic places?”

“New York. Pretty much exclusively,” I admitted.

New York had always just been home to me—nothing special. But to see Shona’s eyes light up at the name, you’d think I’d claimed to have lived in Narnia or Middle Earth. It doesn’t matter where you are, ‘Somewhere Else’ is always bigger, brighter, more fabulous. For me, that place was here. For Shona, it seemed to be anywhere but.

“And no one knows where Vic came from?” asked Leo as he shook his head. “That seems incredible.”

“Actually, it seems deliberate,” said Petra, accurately.

“It does, doesn’t it?” I asked, replying to both of them.

“But presumably, you’ve found out more than the fact that no one knows where she’s from?” pressed Shona.

“I don’t know if I’ve found out anything,” I admitted on a shrug. “But a lot of people think she had a safe hidden in the house somewhere.”

“I’ve heard that too,” nodded Leo.

“And you haven’t noticed one?” wondered Shona as she looked at me and I shook my head. “Sounds like there isn’t one if it slipped past you and the estate agents and whoever cleared the house after she died.”

“All good points, although I can’t say I’ve actually looked for one. I’m going to have a good look for it when I get a chance.”

“I don’t blame you.” Leo sounded excited at the idea. “A hidden safe. There could be anything in it. Like Al Capone’s vault.”

“There was nothing in Al Capone’s vault,” pointed out Shona. “Famously empty.”

“Yes, but there could have been something in it. There could have been anything in it,” repeated Leo.

“But there wasn’t. Anything.”

“Still sounds like fun,” smiled Leo and this time, his smile was all for me. “Hunting for a hidden safe—almost like hunting for treasure.”

It was then that that boyish charm entered his voice and expression and I found myself swallowing hard. God, what was it about this man that attracted me so much? Even when his wife was sitting right beside him! I really needed to get out more, maybe take up a hobby.

“I would love to find a hidden safe,” he continued.

I wished I could ask him to help me look, but I couldn’t do that. Our adventuring days, however short, were now over.

“I must say,” said Shona, in that tone of voice that people use when there’s something they want to say rather than something they must say. “I don’t really follow why you think anything happened to Victoria beyond her falling down the stairs?”

“Well, I—”

“Why do you have this idea that it’s anything other than an accident?” Shona interrupted me. “Leo explained it to me, but he didn’t do a terribly good job.”

I didn’t like the fact that Leo had told her anything about what I thought about Victoria’s death and by the look in his eyes, he could tell I didn’t like it. “It just seems a little unlikely.” I fell back on my ‘she’d lived here for ages, the stairs aren’t slippery, there’s nothing to trip on’ argument, which I’d barely believed myself the first time I’d said it and which Shona clearly thought little of when I blared it out now. I couldn’t blame her for that.

“Please don’t be offended, but is it possible that a mystery writer sees mystery where none exists?” she asked, shaking her head as she gave me a smile that said she thought I was full of it and then some. “An accident seems far more likely.”

“Yes,” I agreed with a smile I didn’t really feel. “I suppose it does.”

“Did you uncover anything today that suggested foul play?” Shona continued, and I started to get irritated with the thought that she was trying to discredit me or discount what I was trying to do.

“Nothing specific,” I admitted.

“But?” she pressed.

“But there’s something mysterious about Victoria. About her life. This hidden safe is a great example. Or her past, which no one seems to know anything about. Or where her money came from.”

“I think I’d just quit while I was ahead,” muttered Shona.

“Did you find any clue to the mystery boyfriend?” asked Leo.

“That did sound interesting,” admitted Shona. “The shadowy figure in the doorway. Any clue to who it might be?”

“Nothing concrete,” I hedged a little.

Shona made a face. “In a town like this? They say there’s no smoke without fire, but equally if there’s no smoke, then there probably isn’t a fire. You can’t have a secret relationship around here without people at least talking about it. Hell, around here if you’re not having a secret relationship, then they’ll probably still make something up just to make life more interesting. If you found nothing, then I’d just let it go. The whole thing.”

Her dismissal was starting to get under my skin. Which was stupid because she was right; I didn’t have any evidence that I could share with them, and if our positions had been reversed, I’d probably have been equally dismissive about Victoria’s death. But, reasonable though it was, Shona’s attitude irritated me and I couldn’t stop myself from snapping back, “I didn’t say I found nothing.”

“Really?” Shona leaned forward again.

“Really? You did?” Petra asked and I couldn’t help it this time—I frowned at her, but luckily, she was floating over Shona’s head so it looked like I’d just frowned at Shona. And by God, that woman deserved a frown and then some.

“Whom do you suspect?” Shona asked.

“It’s not a question of suspect.” I shouldn’t have said anything, because now I was back on the defensive again. “Even if there is a secret boyfriend—and I can’t be sure there is—there’s no evidence that said secret boyfriend is Victoria’s killer.”

“There’s no evidence that there is a killer at all,” Shona pointed out, eyebrows reaching for the sky. “All this is speculative (which is code for nonsense) so why not speculate?”

Irritating though she was, Shona was another inhabitant of Morley-on-Avon, which meant her opinion was as valid as anyone else’s. Maybe I could test a theory now?

“Well… you live in the town. You’ve heard as much gossip as anyone else, I guess you can’t avoid it living here. So, who do you think might have been secretly seeing Victoria?”

Shona sat back, smiling slightly. “You want to see if I say the same name as everyone else has?”

“I’m as interested in your opinion as I am in everyone else’s.”

Leo’s eyes flicked back between me and his wife. He was clearly uncomfortable and no doubt wishing this visit had never even been suggested. I was right there with him.

“Well…”

Before Shona could finish, our drinks arrived, delivered by the Swan’s ever-smiling landlady, whom I’d talked to earlier in my inquiries.

“Well…” Shona repeated after the landlady had gone and we’d all picked up our drinks.

“I can’t claim to have known Victoria very well, but knowing the runners and riders around town, I could hazard a guess at one name who fits the bill.”

“Oh?”

She nodded. “Bastian Chambon.”

I tried not to show that the bottom had dropped out of my stomach, because Shona was the first person to come to that conclusion without my prompting. Did that mean the rumor I’d inadvertently started had already gained legs? Or did it mean the rumor had already existed before I’d ever started it? That there had already been talk? And these rumors all came from somewhere.

“I don’t think it would be him,” Leo shook his head, surprising me.

“And why not?” Shona insisted, clearly not liking the fact that he wasn’t agreeing with her.

“You should have seen him here the other night. People say a lot of vicious things about Bastian, but I think they exaggerate. He’s always struck me as a good sort. A little off the rails maybe, but I think if any of us had all that money, then we might make a few silly mistakes. But he’s basically a decent sort. People are jealous of… his life and so they make stuff up about him that makes him sound bad.”

Shona shook her head. “You really are a silly fool at times, Leo. Believing the best of people is all very well, but you’re just ignoring what’s in front of you.”

Leo said nothing more and I wanted to smack her for calling him a silly fool. He wasn’t silly or foolish—he was kind and self-effacing and sweet.

“Which I suppose,” Shona went on in a more subdued tone, “is better than inventing something that’s not in front of you.”

That little snippet had clearly been targeted at me and there was a sharp sound as Leo put his drink down on the tabletop and looked at his wife. There was anger written all over his face and it was the first time I’d seen him in such a way. Strangely, I liked it. Maybe because Shona deserved it.

“That was unnecessary.”

“It probably was necessary,” I interrupted, not wanting to be the cause of any trouble between husband and wife—or any more trouble between husband and wife. “I may be just making up mysteries where none exist.”

Shona shrugged. “You’re not going to let it go though, are you? I can sense that about you.”

I shrugged back. “I guess that’s just the type of woman I am, one who doesn’t give up easily.”

Shona replied with her best pasted-on smile. “Neither do I.”

Oh, no. Did she know the truth about Leo and me?

Chapter Five

An Odd Sock

I wasn’t sure how seriously to take rumors about a hidden safe in Bluebells, but I figured it was worth a look.

“We certainly had many hidden rooms in my house when I grew up,” commented Petra. “And most of the houses we visited—friends and family—all had secret doors, hidden chambers, priest holes, and so on. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were hidden safes as well, but you don’t tell visitors about such things, for obvious reasons.”

“Hmm.”

“A safe doesn’t take up much space, and it’s easy to hide behind a picture or a section of paneling,” continued Petra, knowingly—although how she could know as much was beyond me because, as far as I knew, Petra hadn’t much ventured outside the confines of her home or those of her friends and neighbors. In the Victorian era, women didn’t have much to do, it seemed.

“Hmm,” I commented, figuring this was another of Petra’s exaggerated tales.

She nodded. “Most of my friends were in too high an echelon of society to live in a pokey little place like this,” Petra could be a proper Victorian snob at times, “but I suppose the principle is still the same. And there’s certainly space here to hide a safe.”

“Well, that’s true enough.”

Petra looked at me. “Do you know that in life, I was the society cat burglar known as the Sphynx?”

And here we went.

“No, I didn’t know that.”

She nodded and then sighed like being the cat burglar known as the Sphynx was all a big shame, now that she looked back on it. “I was the scourge of people who had more money than sense, Gwendolyn. These people had more jewelry than they could ever hope to wear and more possessions than they knew what to do with.”

“Then what—you stole from the rich and gave to the poor? Like Robin Hood? Petra Hood?”

She gave me a face. “Yes, I stole from the rich, but I never thought about giving it to the poor because it was more a hobby than an avocation.”

“I see.”

I’d found that, in general, it was best to simply agree with Petra when she went off on one of these tangents rather than tell her I didn’t appreciate her ridiculous stories. I’d learned that if I just agreed with her, she’d eventually give the ridiculous tales up and move on to the next subject.

“I was pretty good at it, though. At least, I was never caught. Though I had fallen off a roof during what proved to be my last venture.” Then she sighed as she scrunched up her eyebrows. “Pity that.”

The real pity was that Petra couldn’t remember exactly how she’d died. But I was fairly certain that living a life of burglary and thievery that ultimately led to an untimely death wasn’t the answer.

“Well, back to the subject of the safe,” I started. “Since you’re the expert, where should I look?”

Petra glanced around herself one way and then the other, all the while bobbing her index finger against her lower lip. “In my ‘expert’ opinion, you should start in the last place you would look.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that if Victoria had any sense, then she would have placed the safe somewhere no one would ever put one.”

“Hmm.”

“That’s the great thing about safes. They can go anywhere, within reason, of course.”

“Hmm.”

Her eyebrows lifted into the air as she continued my education on the proper placement of safes. “You call me an expert, but for all the robberies I committed, it’s most unfortunate that I never robbed a safe.” Then she sighed. “I spent ages practicing safe-cracking on the safe in my father’s office (thank God he never caught me), but I could never find one in someone else’s house to try out my skills. Complete waste of time.”

I sighed. “Well, then, I guess we just go from room to room, knocking on walls.”

“Perhaps if it would bring you any satisfaction, but I doubt you’re going to find much that way.”

“Can’t you just wander through the walls and tell me if something’s there?” Or otherwise make yourself useful?

Petra gave me an arch look. “Firstly; I do not like going through walls, Gwendolyn, and you well know that! Not only does it feel funny, but it smacks of lazy stereotyping of the post-living community.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“Secondly, yes, I can walk through a wall, but it’s dark in there! Which means I could walk straight through a safe and never even know it.”

Which left only the boring room to room wall knocking, which proved as fruitless as Petra had said it would. We covered every room in the house, though I had to admit I was looking a lot harder in the beginning. By the end of the expedition, I’d lost all interest and hope.

How hard could it be to find a hidden safe? Turned out the answer was ‘very hard’, because, as Petra had said, it could be anywhere. Knocking on the walls didn’t guarantee the safe would reveal itself and that whole subject pre-supposed that the safe was in the wall in the first place, something which wasn’t a given. It could have been in the floor, disguised by a flagstone or floorboard. It could have been in the ceiling. It could have been in some of the older furniture, which had come with the cottage because it was built into it. The point was: there were lots of options.

“I guess I’ll check the floors tomorrow,” I said morosely.

“Won’t that be fun,” muttered Petra on another longwinded sigh. “What I will say for you, Gwendolyn, is that you’re much better company when you’re not investigating a murder.”

“I thought you’d have more sympathy for Victoria.”

“Well, I suppose I don’t have much sympathy. Being dead’s nothing to moan about.” She was silent a moment. “What are we expecting to find in the safe? Or are we expecting to find nothing because Bastian Chambon has cleaned it out—either of money or of evidence of the big, dark secret in his past.”

I didn’t know, really. “I just want to find it and see what’s in it—if anything’s in it.”

“Well, that’s first choice,” nodded Petra as a smile took over her pretty face and she nodded even harder. When Petra got excited, it was usually because she was getting ideas. And those ideas were usually ones I wouldn’t like.

“Don’t get carried away,” I warned.

She shook her head and then started nodding again. “If you can’t find the safe, and you suspect that something has been taken from it, then the next best course of action is to find the thing that’s been taken—because that is, in the end, what you were looking for.”

“What?”

Petra was growing more excited by the moment. “The existence of this safe is meaningless if it didn’t have something incriminating in it, correct?”

“I guess.”

“Something incriminating as in: something the murderer wanted badly enough to kill for.”

The idea that this could just have been an accidental death in the heat of a lover’s argument seemed to have been left aside some time ago, but I kept listening—mainly because I didn’t really have another option. Once Petra started on something, she was like trying to stop a train.

“Unless the murderer is a fool—and if we believe Mr. Chambon to be that murderer, I wouldn’t necessarily term him a fool.”

“I wouldn’t say he’s a fool, either.” And I also wasn’t sold on Bastian playing the part of murderer but it seemed that argument had already sailed off.

“So, whoever the killer is, and supposing they aren’t a fool, then they wouldn’t have killed Victoria until they knew they could get into the safe, yes?”

“I guess.”

“So, by the process of elimination, we can assume they killed her, then went through the safe.” This was why I usually tried to avoid getting Petra involved in my mystery books—because she always managed to come up with outlandish ideas. Yet, I supposed this one wasn’t too outlandish.

“We haven’t got any evidence that points to any of this, but I guess it’s safe to say we could assume what you’re saying.”

She nodded again. “So, whatever was in the safe, the murderer now has. Whether that thing is money or legal papers or photographs or love letters—whatever was in there is now no longer in there, Gwendolyn.” She took a deep breath, as if she’d just figured the entire mystery out. “Whatever it was in the safe, it’s now in their possession. And we have a suspect.” I raised a hand but she shook her head at me. “Don’t argue, Gwendolyn, I didn’t say he definitely did it, just that it’s most likely.”

During the course of the conversation, Petra seemed to have drifted closer to me, so she was now right in my face, her slightly transparent eyes gleaming proudly.

“So, now that we agree on all of that.”

“I’m not sure we agree on it.”

“Now that we agree on it, the next steps are clear.”

I frowned. “They are?”

“They are.”

“And what are those next steps?”

“We break into Chambon Hall and search for what Mr. Chambon might have stolen when he killed Victoria.”

“Um, what?”

She frowned at me. “Which part didn’t you understand? Really, Gwendolyn, you call yourself a mystery author and yet you appear baffled by my quite clear explanations.”

“Just playing devil’s advocate here—”

“The devil has nothing to do with this.”

“Why would Bastian keep incriminating evidence around... er, if he was the killer?”

She shrugged. “Depends what it is. We don’t know. But maybe we would know it if we saw just what that incriminating evidence was, hence why we need to go to the source—to Chambon Hall.”

Why wasn’t I immediately throwing this idea out in the garbage where it belonged? Maybe listening to Petra’s ridiculous ideas had finally taken a toll on me and I was just too exhausted to argue. “Maybe.”

“Only one way to find out.”

I shook my head. “I’m not breaking into Chambon Hall.”

“It’s easier than it sounds,” said Petra, airily. “I can show you the basics.”

“In case you weren’t aware, household security has changed since your day.”

“I know.”

I frowned at her. “You know?”

She nodded. “I like to keep abreast of these things.”

“Why?”

Petra shrugged. “Call it a hobby.”

This whole thing was genuinely crazy. We had no definite evidence against Bastian, no definite evidence of motive, no definite evidence the safe existed, no definite evidence that, if it did, Bastian’s motive was contained within it. And, furthermore, we had no reason to suppose that Bastian would have kept whatever he might have taken out of it, if he’d taken anything out of it and if the thing even existed in the first place. We had next to nothing to go on!

But we also had nothing else.

“We have no other leads, Gwendolyn.”

“And so we should just leave it to the police.”

“And what have the police done?” Petra threw her hands into the air. “Nothing!”

Okay, she had a point there. And I did want to try to solve this mystery—if for no other reason, so Victoria would stop haunting my house. It was bad enough living with one ghost. Not only that, but if something bad had happened to Victoria, I wanted whoever was responsible to be brought to justice. And there was another part of me that really wanted to prove Bastian was innocent.

“If I do this,” (was I really considering it?), “and we find nothing, then will you stop assuming that Bastian is the killer?”

Petra shook her head. “Of course not.”

“Why not?!”

“Because absence of evidence is not proof of innocence. Take it from one who knows. There was never any evidence against me and I was one hundred percent guilty.”

***

The whole thing still seemed crazy to me when we parked in the woodland that surrounded Chambon Hall. It still seemed crazy when we hopped the wall and hurried through the grounds under cover of night towards the house.

The whole place was dark and deserted, which was a relief as it backed up what I’d been told during one of the interviews earlier: that Bastian was out with yet another woman tonight. That would give me time to look around—and there was probably a fifty-fifty chance he’d be out all night, depending on how the woman answered the question, ‘Your place or mine?’

That thought made me irritable, and I tried to ignore the needle sharp shard of jealousy that once again worked its way into my brain. He could date whoever he wanted. He could sleep with whoever he wanted. He owed me nothing, just as I owed him nothing. Furthermore, it had nothing to do with me. We’d enjoyed one night together, there had never been any suggestion that it would be anything more than one night and given the way I’d ushered him out in the morning when he’d clearly had other ideas, I’d given him no reason to think I was the least bit interested.

And yet I still felt peeved at the thought of him out with someone else, dining with someone else, sleeping with someone else (someone younger, prettier and perkier, no doubt). It was irrational, but it was how I felt.

Petra stared up at the hall. “Memories…”

“You getting wistful?”

While Petra might not have remembered the particulars about her death, she did remember that she’d died here, at Chambon Hall. It had been the same place I’d first met her all those years ago, when I was just a child on a family vacation to England and Petra had decided to attach herself to me.

“It ended badly, but it was a good night,” she said with a quick nod. “I went through the rooms after dark and stole a few choice pieces here and there. I got a nice ruby brooch. Lady Constance Carrington never even noticed it was gone.”

When Petra was done reminiscing or simply making up more tales that didn’t have an ounce of truth to them, we turned our attention to the window.

“It can’t be this easy.”

“I’m afraid so.”

I shook my head. “But won’t an alarm go off when I open it?”

“That’s why you cut the wire.”

Right. I had cut a wire at Petra’s prompting. And as to why I’d actually trusted her in the first place when her stories about being a burglar were nothing more than her imagination? Because I figured she’d been doing quite a bit of studying on security systems. It wasn’t like Petra had much to do and when she got a bee in her bonnet about some or other subject, she did have the tendency to learn everything she could about said subject.

“But it can’t be this easy.”

Petra sighed. “Sorry to shatter your cozy illusion of security, but the only thing standing between you and true, proper burglars is your ghastly taste.”

“My ghastly taste?” I whispered back at her, clearly affronted.

She nodded. “You’ve got nothing worth the effort of taking. Now open the window.”

The sash slid up noiselessly.

“It can’t be this easy.” I was overcome with the urge to run home and make sure all my possessions were still where I’d left them.

“All locks are a courtesy,” said Petra with a quick nod. “They’re there so you can say to the insurance company that you did all you could and so you can know that at least you made the thieves (people like me) work for their loot. The fact is that you can get the most expensive lock in the world, but I can still hurl a brick through your window.”

Trying not to think about everything Petra had just told me, I clambered in through the window. When I was in my early twenties, I went on a major health kick; running every morning followed by yoga and then the gym every evening. Well, that had been the plan, anyway. And I’d mostly kept up with the yoga on a semi-regular basis, but that was about it. I think I’d walked into the gym and then promptly walked back out again and thus was the extent of my membership. My entry into Chambon Hall, therefore, lacked something in the way of athletic grace. I looked more like an arthritic gibbon as I dropped to the floor.

“Nicely done,” said Petra with a little laugh. She looked around. “Do you think there are servants?”

“Apparently not live-in ones,” I whispered back. “Bastian said it was a bad look for the twenty-first century and now he just hires home help like normal people.”

Petra nodded. “I remember friends who used to say that back when I was alive. It usually meant the creditors were at the door and bankruptcy beckoned.”

“Things have changed since your day.”

“Do you think Mr. Chambon gives a fig about how things look in the twenty-first century?”

I didn’t, and this was yet more evidence that Bastian had money worries. How far would he have gone to solve them?

“If there are no servants, then why are you whispering?” wondered Petra.

“Because I’m breaking into a house, and whispering is what one does when one is breaking and entering.”

“Fair enough. Where do we start?”

“I’m thinking his bedroom.”

The hired help presumably had access to all areas of the hall, but I had a hunch that they might be a bit cautious going into their employer’s bedroom without permission because they could never be sure what they might find in there. That made the bedroom the obvious place to hide anything incriminating that Bastian might have taken from Victoria’s safe, including large piles of unexplained cash.

That said, and though I’d never have admitted it out loud to Petra, I was also curious to see inside Bastian’s bedroom—where the magic happened, so to speak.

“I wonder if it has a revolving door,” suggested Petra, a mischievous smile on her face, which was slightly luminous in the dark.

“Very funny.”

“Or perhaps a chute out the back to dispose of the last course. You know; pull a lever, the bed shoots up into the wall and the lady goes down a slide and into the duck pond.”

“Bastian is very courteous towards women,” I replied through gritted teeth as we crept up the stairs.

“I imagine he gives them a gift bag when they leave.”

“Quit it.”

“After they’ve signed the visitors’ book.”

“Petra…”

“‘Had a lovely time. Hoping to come again. And again and again and again.’”

“Since when did you become so much more okay with bedroom talk?”

“Since you insisted I stopped being so ‘prudish’, I believe was the term you used.”

“Hmm, I’m regretting that conversation, because I can honestly say I liked it better when you simply disappeared as soon as sex discussion came up.” She gave me a look and I gave it right back to her. “Now, make yourself useful: do you remember where the master bedroom is?”

Petra nodded. “You don’t forget the house where you died.”

Though we’d mostly talked about me, one of the things Bastian had told me about himself on our night in the Swan was that his parents had, three years ago, relocated to Canada, where they planned to live out their twilight years in comfort and solitude (and maybe away from debt collectors?). Though he’d always been a wild child, it was then, according to local gossip, that Bastian had really gone off the rails, into debt, and straight through the female population of the county. His parents hadn’t exactly been strict, but with them gone and the whole hall to himself, he’d done what any good-looking, young and oversexed man would do; he took advantage.

“This is it. Or at least it was,” said Petra. Even she had started whispering now, although no one but me could have heard her, even if there had been anyone around to hear.

Gingerly, I pushed open the door. Bastian had presumably had a different room before his parents left, but had adopted the master suite to impress those he brought back here, no doubt.

“Nice room,” I murmured, my flashlight picking up the high ceilings with plasterwork overlaid in gold leaf.

“Bit of a state,” judged Petra.

“Well, maybe he wasn’t expecting guests,” I pointed out. “A person’s bedroom is entitled to be in a state. It’s private.”

“I don’t think it’s that private,” said Petra, looking around.

Now that I looked closer, I had to admit she might be right. The unmade bed revealed two dents in the mattress, glasses of water sat on both bedside tables, one of them with lipstick on the rim, a packet of El Toro Grande brand condoms lay on one table, hastily torn open. And recently; a strip of carboard from the box still lay on the floor by the bed, not far from a discarded wrapper. Bastian Chambon had warmed up for his date this evening. Whether or not his warmup was with the same woman I couldn’t say, of course, but I would have guessed not.

“What are you doing?” I asked Petra, who had stooped to look under the bed.

“I wondered if the springs were heavy duty or if the frame had been reinforced.”

“Ugh.”

It was irritable how much the scene before me bothered me. I didn’t want to be bothered by it. Bastian wasn’t even my type—he was too young, too entitled, too much a playboy. Maybe I just didn’t want to be another notch on his bedpost—although if Bastian were to actually carve a notch in his bedpost for every conquest, then I was fairly sure it would endanger the stability of the bed.

I stooped to look under the bed, flashing my light around—I didn’t think Bastian was dumb enough to hide evidence here, but maybe if he’d been in a hurry…

All I found was a single sock, too small for Bastian. A woman’s sock then, another memento of the afternoon’s activities. The sock had cats on it and it bothered me more than all the other details put together because it was so personal and so average. In my mind, Bastian’s other conquests had been clad in stockings and suspenders—they were almost inhuman. But a sock with cats on it was something worn by a real person, someone like me.

Again, there had been no promises made or broken, and it was me who forced him out when he’d clearly wanted to stay. And, of course, there was still the looming possibility that he was guilty of murder. I now found myself almost hoping he was guilty, because then I’d lost nothing.

Which was a truly terrible thing to think and I told myself as much.

“Chin up,” offered Petra. Much as she might have fun at my expense, she must have recognized that Bastian had gotten under my skin and she was a supportive friend when I needed one.

“Let’s see if we can’t find the contents of that safe.”

It was always going to be a hard search, given that we didn’t really know what we were looking for, but before we could even get going, both Petra and I started up straight.

“Did you hear that?” I asked.

“Did you?”

I frowned at her. “Of course, I did. That’s why I’m asking.”

“Well, if you heard it, then why are you asking me?”

“So, we both heard something?”

“Perhaps we should stop talking.”

Making sure to turn off my flashlight first, I rushed across the room and opened the door as quietly as I could to peer out in the direction of the landing that overlooked the front hall. There was a dull glow, as if someone had turned on the light downstairs, and as I stared, I heard the sound of a door being slammed shut, followed by the sound of a voice.

“Yeah, just getting in now…”

It was Bastian, talking to someone on the phone.

My heart dropped to my feet and then started racing like it was suddenly plopped into a marathon.

“Come on,” I hissed back at Petra—which was pretty dumb; it wasn’t her who was going to be spotted.

“Okay, yeah, just give me a minute.” The phone call continued below as I stole my way along the corridor towards the landing.

What the hell was Bastian doing back? I glanced at my watch. It was barely past nine! Had the great Bastian Chambon struck out? Or (much worse for me) had he brought his date back here to continue the evening? In which case, they’d be coming upstairs without delay and I would very shortly require a place to hide.

Whose idiot idea had it been to break into Chambon Hall in the first place?

“No, I just wasn’t feeling it,” Bastian continued.

At the end of the corridor, I was able to peer around the corner down into the hall beneath, where Bastian was seated, kicking off sneakers that probably cost as much as my first car. He seemed to be alone.

“Didn’t even get to the restaurant,” he continued. “I gave her a call and cancelled… Who are you talking to? Like that ever stopped me. Give me fifteen minutes and a Red Bull and I’m ready to go again…”

Presumably referring to his afternoon date? He sounded... frustrated?

“That’s a good question.” Bastian got up and wandered across the hall, heading for one of the other rooms. “I don’t know. Dana’s pretty enough—more than pretty enough, actually. Good to go. When I called, I got the definite feeling I was on a promise and… What? No. She was giving it away and—what can I say? I wasn’t interested.”

He left the hall, and I was no longer able to eavesdrop.

“I think he’s gone into the kitchen,” said Petra. “Or in that general direction. I don’t know for sure where the kitchen is, though.”

“I thought you never forget the place where you died?” I hissed back at her.

“It’s not as if I went into the kitchens, Gwendolyn,” said Petra with distaste. “I had standards back then.”

Wherever he’d gone, he was gone, and I made a run for the stairs, very aware that the lights were now on and I could be seen clearly. All he had to do was come back in.

I made it down the stairs but before I got to the window (which still stood open), I heard footsteps beyond the door and just had time to throw myself behind a large sofa that Petra helpfully identified as a ‘Chesterfield’ before Bastian re-entered, eating a protein bar which he dipped into a glass of scotch.

“Honestly? I think it was this other woman… I said woman… No, not her. She’s… well you know the deal there. This one—I mean, this other one…” he started up the stairs, tossing the protein bar wrapper to one side and peeling a banana, which he also dunked in scotch. His eating habits certainly left much to be desired. “She’s a bit different.”

As he reached the top of the stairs and turned towards the master bedroom, his voice again passed from earshot.

“That was lucky,” observed Petra. “Come on.”

But I was already creeping back towards the stairs.

“You must be joking,” snapped Petra. I looked at her and shook my head. I wanted to get the last of his conversation and maybe it was stupid—actually, it definitely was stupid—but it also was what it was.

“You’re going to get us both caught!” Petra yelled at me.

“And what are you worried about if we get caught?” I yell-whispered back.

“It was a good night,” Bastian continued.

He was in his room by the time I got back up the stairs and I crept along the corridor, listening to his voice from beyond the door, heart in my mouth, thumping against my tonsils.

“I’d go so far as to say that it was a great night actually,” he continued. “But I’ve had better. Sexually, I mean.”

Well, that seemed an unnecessary kick in the teeth. If he was talking about me, that is. And why I thought he was talking about me just pointed at my own vanity. Hmm, maybe I needed to work on that.

“I mean, I’ve had better as in wilder and Holy God was that sex, an earthquake or the apocalypse? No, this wasn’t that. It was different—not like mind-shattering but... sweet. Stop laughing at me. My point was: it wasn’t just about the sex… No, you heard me right.”

I held my breath, my mouth dry as I listened.

“Hey, I’m as surprised as you are but—you know; there it is. There was just something about her. And it’s not that the sex wasn’t good—it was, but it wasn’t that that I was thinking about afterwards. It was... her.”

Was it possible? Or was I behaving like a love-struck teenager twenty-five years after I was entitled to do so?

“Yeah. Seriously. I was driving out to meet Dana tonight. Dana! She’s the hot, twenty-two-year-old with—well, I sent you her picture, didn’t I?... Didn’t I? Well, I will. Point is: she’s got a body that’d make you sit up and beg for it. But driving to meet her, all I could think about was this other woman. Just about chatting with her and just… being with her—you know?... I’m not saying she isn’t pretty—she is. Actually, I think she’s beautiful. No, I’m not turning into a girl... No, I’m not telling you her name—not with your big mouth—everyone would know about the two of us come the morning and I... I won’t do that to her.”

Hmm.

“It’s weird,” Bastian went on. “I’m not sure I like it. Maybe I just need to bang someone else to get her out of my head.”

Did I really like this guy—a guy who said the word ‘bang’? I mean, truly, there was an awful lot to dislike about him.

“Yeah, yeah, I guess. Should have kept the date with Dana. But it just didn’t feel right… Okay, yeah, well, yeah, point taken, I still spent the afternoon with—yeah. But she’s different. That wasn’t so much a date; more a demand… Well, I quite like demanding women. They know what they want, and it’s usually me… Well, who can blame them?”

The identity of the mystery woman with whom Bastian had cancelled his date with ‘hot, young Dana’ remained a mystery but I decided I’d probably pushed my luck far enough.

“About time!” snapped Petra, as I turned to leave.

But then, from below, came the sound of a doorbell.

“Okay, mate, I gotta go. Someone at the door… No, I won’t tell you her name!... Because you’ll Facebook stalk her.”

Oh, no: he was coming this way, he was opening the bedroom door!

I threw myself at the nearest door, trying to open it in time as Bastian opened his bedroom door, which hopefully covered the noise of me opening the other. The room I entered was filled with ghostly shapes of furniture covered by dust sheets and I hung close to the door, listening for his footsteps, hoping he was walking straight by.

The doorbell rang again.

“Alright! I’m coming! Bloody hell, hold your horses!”

Bastian passed my door and I let out a low sigh of relief at the sound of his footsteps jogging down the stairs.

“You’ve only yourself to blame for this,” pointed out Petra.

“I know,” I breathed.

But now I was curious about who was at the door. Dana? The other mystery woman who had been here this afternoon? The one with the cat sock? Some other of Bastian’s till-dawn-do-us-part lovers?

“No!” growled an irritable Petra, as I headed out the door again to go listen at the top of the stairs.

I heard the door open and then…

“Oh. Good evening, officer.”

“Good evening. Mr. Bastian Chambon, is it?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Inspector Lean, this is Sergeant Ford and Constable Wyler. We have a warrant to search these premises.”

Oh, shit.

Bastian was in trouble.

And if they found me here, he wasn’t the only one.

The End

~~~~~

Gwen and Petra return in:

Dead of Night

Gwen’s Ghosts #3

by J.R. Rain and H.P. Mallory

Pre-order now!

Amazon Kindle * Amazon UK

Return to the Table of Contents

Also available:

The Man with the Violet Eyes

Crown of Lies #1

by J.R. Rain and H.P. Mallory

(read on for a sample)

Chapter One

The Master

The first time I saw Master Nicolo, he was striding down the corridor that led from the Prince’s Tower to the Great Hall.

I had, of course, already heard of him. It was impossible not to have heard of him. Not with a reputation such as he had.

Regardless, I remained focused on my work, dusting the frame of one of the royal portraits that lined the corridor. A maidservant who was caught doing anything but working was asking for trouble from Mistress Rosana, who governed the maids with an iron hand (and a bamboo stick), but I allowed my eyes to drift in Nicolo’s direction anyway. Truth be told, I couldn’t help it.

My gaze lingered on him as he passed.

Nicolo was very tall, broad and muscular, with unruly dark hair that curled around his ears, ending at the point where his neck met his shoulders. It was almost but not quite black and in the right light, could almost look as though streaked with blue. In general, he always had the appearance of not having shaved for at least a few days, his strong jaw rough with stubble. His clothes were always black—darkness seemed to be the image he wanted to project.

He wore a soft leather jerkin, black, that terminated mid-thigh, a silk shirt buttoned up to his throat, also black, and stretched hose that clung to the contours of his strong legs. Those, too, were black as were the high leather boots that hugged his calves. He strode with an easy confidence, not as if he owned the place, but as if it didn’t matter that he didn’t.

His eyes, which remained focused straight out ahead of him (though I got the sense he noticed everything happening around him), were violet. I’d heard about his violet eyes before, as rumors have a way of persisting, but I never really believed it until I saw them for myself. And truly, they appeared as two gems inserted into his face, glistening and sparkling amethyst.

Yes, Master Nicolo was an arresting sight.

But my first impression of the man was based more on how everyone else reacted to him. When in his presence, maids, like myself, suddenly became deeply focused on whatever task they were doing; soldiers standing guard found a point in middle distance and stared blankly at it. No one wanted to meet that violet gaze, afraid if they did, he might notice them. And that was exactly what you didn’t want—Master Nicolo noticing you.

Members of the nobility deferred to him, got out of his way and bowed as he passed, as afraid to meet Nicolo’s eye as were the servants, because who knew what the consequences might be? Technically Nicolo was their social inferior, but that didn’t matter because he was still and always would be: Master Nicolo.

Still more fascinating was how everyone reacted after Nicolo passed, when they all wore their relief to be out of his gaze—no doubt pleased to be less liable to cause unintended offence. Every eye surreptitiously followed him, of course. They all feared Nicolo, so that made sense. But their interest went beyond mere fear—people couldn’t help but be drawn to him, as they are drawn to power and to danger.

To his face they called him ‘Master Nicolo’, but in the whispers behind his back, he was known as ‘The Terrible’.

***

The second time I saw Master Nicolo was in the banqueting hall of the Great Castle that sat in the middle of the vast, multi-castle complex of Woodfall Gath.

I’d served the lower tables before, but this was my first time waiting on the horseshoe of grand tables on the raised dais, looming down on the rest of the hall. It was unusual for a newcomer like myself to be trusted with such a responsibility (one slip of the ladle and both I and Mistress Rosana would be in trouble) but I only had myself to blame. It had become a simple matter of being at the wrong place at the wrong time—I’d walked in on an argument among the other girls.

“I did it last time,” said the redheaded maid. I believed her name to be Elsie.

“That’s not how it works,” said the pockmarked one. Perhaps Trudy? Or Katy?

“She knows that’s not how it works.” No, that one was Katy.

“We draw lots,” said another of them, whose name I’d missed.

“Can’t we choose differently this time?” asked Elsie.

“We’ve always drawn lots, that’s how we’ve always done it,” this said by the pockmarked one. Yes, I did believe her name was Trudy.

“Yes, but I did it last time! And if someone did it most recently, that person should be excused from drawing this time!” Elsie yelled.

“You’re only saying that because you drew ‘the Terrible’,” Katy pointed out.

“No, that’s not why.”

“Regardless, it’s how we’ve always done it,” Trudy said.

“Done what?” I asked, joining the conversation.

The five girls having this debate all looked at me sharply (the newest girls were decidedly lowest on the totem pole). “We’re deciding who waits on the royal family for the banquet tonight,” Katy said.

“We’re deciding who waits on Master Nicolo,” another girl corrected. I’d never seen her before.

“Why don’t you want to wait on him?” I asked, frowning at them both.

They all looked at each other before looking at me, their expressions revealing that I’d just asked the stupidest question they’d ever heard.

“It’s the master,” Elsie said.

“The Terrible,” Trudy added.

“Yes, so I’ve been told he’s called,” I answered on a shrug, doing my best to keep my smile to myself—there was a certain sense of mirth to be taken from others’ shock.

“Then you would know why none of us wants to wait on him.” Hmm, I’d have to find out this one’s name.

“Oh, actually, I don’t,” I answered, chewing on my lip and offering them an expression of ignorance.

“Do you know what he might do to you?” Elsie asked.

“No,” I admitted, frowning on another shrug. “But do tell because owing to your expressions, it must be quite scandalous?”

“Whatever he wants,” the girl nearest me, Jurval I thought her name might be, replied. Or perhaps it was Surval? Burval?

It sounded to me as if they didn’t know what they were scared of, and they were just scared on principle. As far as I could tell, everyone was scared of ‘the master’ and I still had no idea why.

“I’ll serve him.”

They didn’t waste any time before accepting my offer. In fact, their relief was palpable and I was quite certain both I and my idiocy would be the subject going round the scullery maids tonight.

Regardless, that night, I found myself standing just behind and to the right of Master Nicolo’s chair, where he sat at the head table, beside the heir to the throne, Prince Balduin. As far as I understood things, Nicolo was Balduin’s closest friend, and also the only reason Balduin was even alive.

The prince, himself, sat to the right of the Old Queen. Though she was officially titled ‘Queen Nell’, everyone referred to her and thought of her as the ‘Old Queen’, the only monarch most could remember.

Women weren’t permitted to rule—apparently the Great God had some sort of issue with it—but when King Moros had died young, his death was kept a closely guarded secret by Queen Nell and the immediate court, partly to avoid civil war over an unclear succession, partly because Queen Nell wasn’t planning on going anywhere.

For five years she ruled as regent, while the king’s ‘ill health’ prevented him from appearing in public. By the time his death was finally admitted to, everyone had gotten accustomed to Queen Nell being in charge, and she’d clung to that power through plots and coups ever since.

The Old Queen had born two daughters of her own (both situated some way down the table, reflecting their place in the succession). Of those two, only Princess Maeve had had children, and after five daughters, the question of the succession had loomed again. Then she gave birth to Balduin, and the future of the throne was safe.

Or so it seemed at the time.

Master Nicolo raised his hand and I was instantly beside him to refill his glass. I took the opportunity to get a closer look at him. What I’d glossed over that first time I’d seen him in the corridor was just how truly handsome he was, in a rugged, rough-hewn sort of way. But even in his good looks there seemed an edge of danger, a darkness to the undeniable sexuality that hung about him.

Or maybe I was getting carried away.

There was something about Nicolo that made me feel as if I were just like all the other girls, both anxious and unintentionally admiring. The difference was that I’d always tended to run towards the things that scared me, to touch them, to try them, to get over my fear in the most direct way possible. But, in this case, it would have been a breach of social etiquette for me to touch Master Nicolo, however much I wanted to run my fingers along that strong, rough jawline, or catch them in the curls of hair around his ears.

Almost as if he were privy to my thoughts, his violet eyes flashed in my direction and held my gaze. There was surprise in his—surprise no doubt owing to the fact that he’d never seen me before, as I was new here. But soon that surprise yielded to something else—admiration. I could see as much in the way the ice in his gaze melted just so and a heat overtook it.

I allowed myself what I hoped was a teasing smile.

He smiled back but the expression on his face wasn’t a kind one. No, there was nothing generous or gentle about that smile—it was the devil’s own—the sort of expression that belonged to the ultimate of predators. For an instant, his eyes flicked down to my bosom—the maid’s uniforms were designed to lift and enhance, because the men of the court liked entertainment while they ate. Because I’d been graced generously in both my upper and lower departments, the uniform was quite snug in both areas. And I’d adjusted my blouse to reveal even more, because I wanted Nicolo to notice me.

And that was exactly what he was currently doing.

His eyes lingered on my cleavage long enough for me to be quite convinced he liked what he saw. When his eyes found mine once again, they further thawed.

“Is there anything else you desire, Master?” I asked, my tone of voice deep and sultry. It was something I’d practiced—along with the lowering of my eyes so as to appear submissive, the slight breath through my open lips and the slow sweep of my eyelashes.

His eyes remained on my face. “Step back.”

It was the first time I’d heard that low, husky voice. It sounded like the taste of dark liquor, rich and smoky. But above all, it was a voice of command, and one not to be disobeyed.

“Apologies, Master.” I bobbed a curtsey, staying down a beat longer than necessary to allow him another eyeful of my cleavage.

Before I drifted back out of earshot, Master Nicolo returned to his conversation with Prince Balduin.

“I’m not convinced of his loyalty,” he said.

“He’s a Duke, Nicolo,” the prince responded.

“Does that automatically make him loyal?”

The prince tossed a grape into the air and caught it in his mouth. “He knows which side his bread is buttered.”

“You need to be careful,” Nicolo argued.

Balduin patted his friend on the shoulder. “You’re careful enough for the both of us.” He looked around, and I hurriedly shuffled back so they wouldn’t realize I’d been eavesdropping, keeping my head lowered all the while.

When I brought my gaze back up again, I found both Prince Balduin and Master Nicolo staring at me. I swallowed hard, something which wasn’t an act.

The Man With the Violet Eyes

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About H.P. Mallory:

H.P. Mallory is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. She writes paranormal fiction, heavy on the romance! H.P. lives in Southern California with her son and a cranky cat.

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About J.R. Rain:

J.R. Rain is the international bestselling author of over seventy novels, including his popular Samantha Moon and Jim Knighthorse series. His books are published in five languages in twelve countries, and he has sold more than 5 million copies worldwide.

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