Pride and Premeditation

by Steffanie Holmes

  Pride and Premeditation

  Nevermore Bookshop Mysteries, book 3

  Steffanie Holmes

  Bacchanalia House

  Copyright © 2019 by Steffanie Holmes

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  From the Author

  Nevermore Bookshop 4

  Want more reverse harem from Steffanie Holmes

  Other Books By Steffanie Holmes

  About the Author

  To all the book boyfriends

  who keep me up at night.

  “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”

  – Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

  Chapter One

  “I have my doubts about the sagacity of this plan,” Morrie said as he hitched a pile of pillows under his arm.

  “If your sagacity is so offended, you don’t have to come with us,” I reminded him, tying back my hair and smoothing down the front of my Snoopy pajamas. “You could go back downstairs and finish off that display I started for the Argleton Jane Austen Festival.”

  “Don’t joke, gorgeous. This room has confounded me since I arrived in your world. I won’t be tying ribbons around frivolous books while the rest of you discern its secrets.” Morrie reached under my shirt and rolled my nipple between his fingers. “Besides which, the opportunity to spend the night with you should never be overlooked.”

  “Jane Austen isn’t frivolous,” I shot back, grabbing his wrist and twisting it, so his hand slid off my nipple and I could think straight again. “You shouldn’t say things like that around Argleton right now. The whole village has gone Austen-mad.”

  It was true. Ten years ago, a famous local scholar by the name of Julius Hathaway discovered a record of Jane Austen spending a Christmas at Baddesley Hall, the grandest of the grand stately homes overlooking Argleton, now owned by the Lachlans. Ever since the discovery of their famous temporary resident, the village has celebrated with an annual Regency Christmas festival that has grown ever more elaborate over the years. There were tea parties, dramatic readings, a costume promenade, and a Regency-style dance at the community hall, as well as a book drive where villagers donated reading materials to poor children.

  This year, the Lachlans were even hosting the Jane Austen Experience – an academic conference and immersive event where guests paid hundreds of pounds to stay at Baddesley Hall for a weekend, dress up in silly costumes, attend fancy balls and tea parties, and go about proposing marriage to each other. This year, the famous scholar Professor Hathaway himself was the guest of honor.

  Of course, Heathcliff wanted nothing to do with the Jane Austen Festival. He rebuffed all my clever ideas – hosting Professor Hathaway for a free public lecture in the World History room, putting together a Pride & Prejudice quiz night, dressing Quoth up in a tiny bird-sized bonnet (actually, Quoth was the one who vetoed that one). Heathcliff’s blatant lack of mercantile interest was probably why he’d suggested the eve of the festival to make good on my idea to spend the night in the magical room and attempt to discern its secrets.

  “I’ll say what I please,” Morrie winked at me as he affected a posh accent. His hand slid beneath my shirt again. “You haven’t minded before.”

  No, I don’t mind at all. Morrie’s lips fluttered along the edge of my neck. His hand cupped my breast, the fingers pinching and teasing my nipple. If this is any indication of what tonight might offer, the past better watch out—

  “Out of the way, lovebirds,” Heathcliff bellowed from his bedroom. A moment later, an enormous brown duvet sailed through his doorway and slammed into the wall above our heads. I tore myself from Morrie’s embrace and leaped away as it slid to the floor to join the large pile of Heathcliff’s stuff already piled against the door.

  He’s hoping we don’t emerge again until next week.

  “We’d better take this elsewhere, in case Sir Pricklyton starts throwing his whisky bottles.” Morrie led me aside, his hand skimming the small of my back in a possessive way that made my heart flutter.

  Morrie’s lips had barely grazed mine when we were interrupted again. Quoth clattered down from his attic room with his gear. As usual, he wore the minimum amount of clothes – in this case, a pair of black boxers that left nothing to the imagination. I wet my bottom lip. How was I going to survive the night with all three of them without things devolving into a Bacchanalian orgy?

  Why did the thought of a Bacchanalian orgy with the three of them make heat pool between my legs?

  Remember why we’re doing this. Don’t get distracted by Quoth’s beautiful eyes or Heathcliff’s strong hands or Morrie’s wandering tongue—

  “This is all I need.” Quoth handed me a bag of berries. I tucked it into my snack pack and emergency supplies.

  “You sure we should bring along all this gear?” Morrie frowned at the tote bags I’d stuffed with dehydrated food, a camping stove, water bottles, emergency flares, and boxes of tampons. Heathcliff wasn’t the only one in Girl Scout mode. “It’s not very conspicuous, or very historical.”

  “There’s no telling what we’re going to encounter on the other side and how long it’s going to take us to get the door open again into the present day. I want to be prepared for anything.”

  “Agreed.” Heathcliff stumbled out of his room. Under one arm, he carried three bottles of whisky and a package of Wagon Wheels. Under the other, a long, pointed sword with an elaborate hilt.

  “What are you going to do with that thing?” Morrie frowned at the sword.

  “Roast marshmallows,” Heathcliff grunted. He shoved his bottles into my bag, tucked the sword into a scabbard on his belt, and pulled out his key. “Are we doing this or not?”

  I nodded. We needed answers, and the only way to find them was to unravel the secrets of Nevermore Bookshop, starting with the room that traveled through time… or something.

  Morrie smoothed down the collar of his Armani pajamas. “Which room do you think we’ll see on the other side? I propose a wager – the loser has to clean the bathroom. I’m hoping for a Regency boudoir, complete with Edward VII’s infamous Le Chabanais sex chair.”

  “I vote the empty attic,” Heathcliff said.

  “Of course you do.”

  “I want Herman Strepel’s offices,” I added. “But I’m not participating in this bet, because there is no way in Hades you’re getting me to e
ven step foot in that bathroom.”

  “I’m hoping for dinosaurs,” Quoth added.

  “You’re hoping for dinosaurs? You’re an idiot. Good thing Heathcliff has his sword.” Morrie grabbed the key from Heathcliff and shoved it in the lock. I blanched at his insult, although Quoth didn’t seem to care. The last couple of weeks, Morrie’s comments to all of us – usually friendly teasing – had become more barbed. It was as if he wanted to keep reassuring all of us he didn’t really care about us, that he thought himself superior in every way. It was starting to wear me down a little, especially when he did it to Quoth, who never snapped back and seemed to internalize every comment.

  The door turned with an ominous click. Morrie stepped back and gestured to the door. “After you, gorgeous. This was your clever idea.”

  Yes, it was. And if it gets us closer to figuring out what’s happening in this shop, you’ll be thanking me.

  I sucked in a breath and pushed the door open.

  Chapter Two

  The door swung open, revealing an elegant four-poster bed bedecked in rich fabrics and a lounge suite covered in white dropcloths, like ghosts lounging in the window. Heavy velvet drapes hung from every curtain rod, and through an open door on the other side of the bed I made out the edge of the claw-foot bath in the center of the octagonal bathroom. It was the bedroom I’d seen when I first entered this room over a month ago, before I knew what the room really did.

  “Phew,” I let out my breath. “At least we got a decent bed.”

  “And no dinosaurs.” Heathcliff stalked around the room, using the tip of his sword to lift the drapes and check under the chairs.

  “It doesn’t look as though robot overlords have taken over the world yet,” Morrie said, peeling back the velvet drapes to peer out the window.

  “The windows still give us a view of the present day, remember?” Satisfied no velociraptors were hiding under the bed, Heathcliff leant his sword up against the wall. “It’s only inside this room where we exist out of time.”

  “I knew that. I’m not stupid,” Morrie snapped. “I judge us to be in the late Victorian era, based on the weave of these drapes.”

  “Well, aren’t we an expert on soft furnishings,” I smirked as I went to help Quoth drag our supplies through the door. Morrie was already on my nerves, and the good sensations he’d created in my body while we were waiting for the others had faded completely.

  “Meeeow!” As I lifted Heathcliff’s duvet, a bundle of black fur bolted out from underneath and dashed between my legs.

  “No, kitty!’ I spun around in time to see Grimalkin throw herself at Heathcliff’s trousers, sinking her claws into his thigh. He roared and grabbed her by the scruff of her neck, hauling her off. RIIIIP. Ribbons of his trousers came away with Grimalkin’s claws, and probably a not insignificant amount of flesh as well.

  I raced across the room and grabbed Grimalkin. She swung her paws in the air, trying to fight me. “We’re not putting you in danger. Out you go.” I turned to place her back outside, but as I took a step toward the door, it slammed shut.

  ‘Meow!” Grimalkin exclaimed in triumph.

  Quoth grabbed the knob and tugged. “It’s stuck fast. We’re not getting out of here.”

  “All our emergency dinosaur supplies are still on the other side,” Morrie pointed out helpfully.

  “And my Scotch,” Heathcliff grunted.

  I cradled Grimalkin to my chest. “You silly cat. We put out several days of food for you downstairs. I didn’t even pack so much as a morsel of fish for you.”

  Grimalkin purred and nuzzled my cheek, apparently unconcerned about the lack of cat food in our immediate vicinity.

  I set Grimalkin down on the windowsill. Outside, the village in the present day wound down for the night. The only people in the streets were stumbling home from the pub. The pale orb of the waxing moon glowed like a streetlight over the thatched roofs and Tudor buildings. Across the street, I could make out a square of light at Mrs. Ellis’ window. I hoped she was doing okay. It had been only a few weeks since her close friend Gladys Scarlett had been killed, and her cousin Brenda Winstone was now awaiting trial for murder. Given Brenda’s state-of-mind, I suspected she’d end up in psychiatric care rather than prison.

  When I turned from the light of the window, my vision blackened. It was as though someone had thrown a blindfold over my eyes. Curiosity gnawed at my stomach. I wanted to search every corner of the room and figure out this mystery. But I could barely see my own fingers wiggling in front of me. I could hear the boys shuffling around, but I couldn’t see any of them.

  I hate this. I hate being so useless.

  From my pocket, I drew a lighter. I lit one of the candles I’d brought with me. I fumbled along the wall to locate the sconce I remembered from last time. The candle slotted in easily, but beyond the faint circle of its light I could barely make out the shapes in the room. I lit another candle and shoved it into a silver holder. I held it up near my face and navigated my way to the bed, listening to the boys as they explored the room from top-to-bottom, searching for clues. If we’d come in the daytime, I could have searched, too. But we’d thought it less likely someone from the past would catch us if we stayed the night.

  “I found some more candles,” Quoth announced from somewhere in the shadows. He came over and lit the candles from my flame, then placed them in sconces about the room. It still wasn’t light enough for me to search, but at least now I could make out the figures of my boys and some of the basic furniture shapes. At the small desk, Heathcliff held up a letter to a nearby candle. “You guessed correctly about the period,” he told Morrie. “This letter is dated 1896. Do you have another candle, Mina? I’ll read through this correspondence. Perhaps it might offer an identity to our room’s current occupant.”

  I fumbled through my bag and found a second candle, which Heathcliff set on the desk beside him. I lit it from my flame, leaning against the edge of the desk to observe him at work. The light illuminated the edges of Heathcliff’s face, flickering over his wild beard and dancing eyes. My heart skipped as he bent his head to read, arrested for a moment by his feral beauty.

  What answers might we find in this room? All of my boys had been plucked from their novels and thrust into the world, and we still had no idea why. If this room could tell us that, if it could give them answers, then maybe Heathcliff would be able to forgive himself for who he was in his book, Morrie would be able to let go of his need to control everything, and Quoth… maybe Quoth would find the freedom he truly craved.

  As I watched my boys, a base hunger rising inside me, another question crowded out the last. What might happen while the four of us are together and there was only the one bed?

  I know what I wanted to have happen, and also what I was terrified of happening. If we cross that line together, we can’t go back. And as much as I told myself it was just sex, and it was perfectly fine for me to sleep with whoever I wanted while I mourned the loss of my eyesight, a niggling sensation at the back of my neck and an ache in my chest when I wasn’t near the guys suggested my feelings for them were deeper than that. If I had to make deductions, I’d conclude that maybe, possibly…

  … maybe I was falling hard. For all three of them.

  A grunt from the bathroom distracted me from my thoughts. I stood and thrust my candle into the room. Morrie’s shoulders strained as he held up the bath while Quoth fiddled around with the primitive Victorian plumbing. “I’m curious as to where the ancient stops and the modern begins,” Morrie explained when he saw me watching.

  “I can’t see a thing.” Quoth set aside the mobile phone flashlight app he’d been using, transformed into his raven, and poked his head down the ripe. “Croooooak!” he called into the darkness below.

  “Hurry up, bird, this bath ain’t light,” Morrie complained.

  Quoth hopped away. He transformed back into a human, clamping his hands over his nose. “It reeks down there.”

  “What did yo
u see?”

  “Not much. It all looks pretty ancient. And disgusting. Whoever owns these rooms has never cleaned out the drain.” Quoth went to the jug of water at the wash basin to splash his face.

  Leaving them to investigate the rest of the bathroom, I wandered into the closet, running my hands through the racks. Luxurious silk, chiffon, velvet, and linen slid through my fingers. Fine lace and sumptuous trims adorned collars, sleeves, and hems. Bustle pads and fashionable hats adorned with lace, mesh veils, silk flowers and strings of pearls hung from a rack by the window. Victorian fashion was so sensual, so extra. I could enjoy the tactile impact of the clothes, even though I couldn’t see the colors or shapes.

  I pulled a particularly fine silk and damask dress from the racks and held it up against my body. Corset ribs rubbed against my skin. Morrie watched me from the doorway with an evil grin on his face as I twirled around, admiring the way the heavy skirts fanned around my legs. “Isn’t it odd that the desk is full of letters and this closet bursting with clothes, yet the chairs by the window are covered up, as though they’re not to be used?” I asked.

  “Not necessarily,” Morrie replied. “This might be a room reserved for guests. Covering the furniture would help to keep it free of dust.”

  “That’s not it,” Heathcliff called from the office.