by LK Rigel
This ship was about to take Leopold Singer away from her forever. Like the Duchess of Gohrum, Susan would have her own revenge. She would do Leopold Singer the greatest violence possible: she would forget him.
“Those Jack-tars are admirable men. They’ve saved us an hour,” Matthew Peter said. “Let’s walk a bit before getting back to the ‘manse,’ as you call it.” He smiled at her the way Leopold had smiled at his wife.
“We had better go back now,” she said. “The duchess wants the carriage for morning calls.”
At Gohrum House the downstairs was in a state. Amy, the latest girl assigned to bring the duke his coffee, had left her position without notice. There was gleeful speculation as to the details of her disgrace. Oh, the oppressed pettiness of Susan’s world! Servants’ gossip and a few hours of freedom every two weeks seemed all she had to look forward to.
“Miss Gray,” Mr. Peter said. “Now that his grace’s guests are gone, your services as a lady’s maid are no longer required.
Susan inwardly groaned. The duchess had likely devised some fresh torment for her. She should follow Amy and leave Gohrum House, but Matthew Peter patted her shoulder and looked at her with such compassion that her heart softened.
“You’re to be under-housekeeper again,” Mr. Peter said. “This comes from his grace, himself.”
That settled that. She wouldn’t repay the duke’s kindness by walking away. She suffered the duchess’s little tortures and thought of Leopold less and Matthew Peter more.
She and Matthew Peter went on in a kind of stasis for days, weeks, and months. He nearly did propose marriage once, but she got away from him before he could get the words out. After a year and a half with no further mention, she assumed he’d changed his mind.
Then the duke’s maid Cecily went the way of all the duke’s maids.
Their graces returned from Millam Hall, and the downstairs was busy with kitchen maids chopping and kneading and footmen polishing and counting plate. The duchess herself came down to the kitchen and cast her cold gaze over them all.
“Gray,” she said. The raucous clanging and banging stopped. “You will take Cecily’s place with the duke. Someone with your experience might be better suited to this task.” She said experience with a sarcastic twist.
That afternoon, Susan picked up the duke’s tray in the kitchen. There were two cups. “There you have it,” Cook said. “He likes his coffee with company, if you know what I mean.”
“Susan.” Matthew Peter touched her elbow.
“Don’t say a word or I swear I’ll cry.”
“I will.” He took the tray and set it aside and put his hands on her shoulders. “I will say a word.” She had forgotten how good it felt to be touched by a man who cared for her. “I have watched him, Susan. The duke is not a grasping sort. He won’t force you, I don’t believe. Be strong, as I know you are.”
He replaced the tray in her hands, and she went upstairs. She would remind Millie who she was. At least, she would remind him who her father was.
“Thank you, Fenton.” His grace dismissed his man as Susan set the tray on a table near the fire and poured his coffee.
“Pour a cup for you too, my dear,” he said. “Sit. Sit here by the fire. It must feel good against the chill.”
The heat was indeed lovely, and the coffee smelled of nutmeg and The Lost Bee. The good fires Leopold used to keep for her came into her mind, and she pushed the image away.
“Cecily has left us, I understand.”
“Yes, your grace.”
“I have never thanked you, Miss Gray, for bringing Cook this coffee. I do so enjoy it.” He knew her name, and that she had told Cook about the coffee. He chuckled. “I see you believe the stories, that I am an old debaucher who has his way with the upstairs maids. That makes me sad, Miss Gray. I had rather thought we were friends.”
“Your grace, I…”
“Now you know my secret. I indulge the duchess and pretend to be pleased with the girls she sends my way. We enjoy our coffee and gossip about the inmates of the house. It’s how I find out what goes on around here. Fenton does his best, but I find a female perspective is more, ah, complete.”
“Your grace.” She was stunned, not quite sure what to say.
“I am not unaware of my wife’s faults. Her gambling, her dalliances with other men, her intrigues. It is my great failing.”
“Your failing.”
“I’ve never been able to relieve my dear Delia of her fears. I watched her grow up, you see. I think I’ve loved her since she was a child. But I’m too old for her. I always was. I was wrong to marry her. I thought I could save her.”
Over the next few days, the duke told Susan more about the duchess’s wonderful qualities. She was put so at ease that she confessed in her case those virtues were not so easy to see.
“Why don’t you marry our Matthew Peter and go back to Carleson Peak?” he said.
“I suppose for the same reason I haven’t accepted a coronet.” She smiled. “Neither the proposal nor a position in the country is on offer.”
“Now there you may be wrong—on both counts.” He paused as if debating whether to tell her something. “I still think of your father, you know. Wasn’t he someone’s son?”
“Estranged son.” How she missed Papa still! Had he lived, her life would have been entirely different. “His family objected to my mother.” She wouldn’t have met Leopold Singer. But then, there would be no Persey.
“Yes, well. You see to your young man.” There was mischief in the duke’s expression. “And very soon, you might be receiving some other good news.”
Apparently the duke put a good word in one or two ears, and a few days later Matthew Peter asked Susan to marry him. This time she let him complete his proposal. This time she said yes. She and Matthew Peter were to take positions in Carleson Peak at Laurelwood, Squire Carleson’s estate, and live in the great house there.
It was a mere ten miles from John’s cottage, and Persey.
The opportunity came the old-fashioned way, through random events. Someone Susan didn’t know made a casual, thoughtless remark to another person she didn’t know who passed it on as a matter of chit-chat to someone she did know and who happened to think of her.
Mrs. Carleson of Laurelwood had been widowed and left with a young son. She had recently told Lady Branch she wanted a new housekeeper and wished to find a woman of good character with a brain in her head. The baroness had thought brains an odd requirement and mentioned it to the duke as a bit of amusing gossip.
The duke knew just the person.
Susan and Matthew Peter were married at St. James Church in April after the Banns were satisfied. The duke himself came to stand up with Susan, as ostentatious a gesture as one could imagine.
“I’m not sure his grace isn’t having a laugh, Susan,” Matthew Peter whispered as the rector opened the Book of Common Prayer.
“It is rather grand for us,” Susan said. “But he is quite the romantic, I’ve discovered.”
She loved being married at the exquisite, small church, reportedly Wren’s favorite design. She stole glances at the ornate wood carvings and the stained glass windows. This was exactly the kind of place where she would have been married had her father lived.
As the rector cited the gravity with which one should enter into the holy estate of matrimony, she inwardly shuddered then gave her word before God and everybody to love and obey Matthew Peter.
They went back to Gohrum House to collect their belongings, and Mr. Peter went with them to The Lost Bee where they’d catch the coach to Carleson Peak. Susan had never gone into The Bee without Leopold. For so very long, Susan had been a lost bee herself. Thanks to Matthew Peter, all that was past.
There were only a few other customers, and Mr. Peter ordered a round of drinks for everyone. “To the happy couple!”
The proprietress joined in the salute with no sign she recognized the bride.
Susan pressed Matthew Peter’s
forearm tenderly. There was no thrill in the connection, but she would make herself love him yet. And if she ever heard the white lady begin to sing, she would shut up her ears.
The Lost Bee (Singer and Gray 1)
L.K. Rigel
***
Coming soon
The Other Side of Desire (Singer and Gray 2)
Sign up for notification of new releases
Also by L.K. Rigel
Contemporary Romance:
Kiss Me Hello (bonus first chapter follows below)
Fantasy:
Give Me – A Tale of Wyrd and Fae (Tethers 1)
Bride of Fae (Tethers 2)
Science Fiction/Fantasy:
Space Junque (Apocalypto 1)
Spiderwork (Apocalypto 2)
Firebird (Apocalypto 3)
-oOo-
Kiss Me Hello
Copyright © 2013 L.K. Rigel
Published by Beastie Press
Cover design by eyemaidthis
Print cover design by TERyvisions
Cover background stock by wyldraven
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work.
Kiss Me Hello
When Sara Blakemore inherits a haunted mansion on the northern California coast, a ghost forces her to confront problems in her marriage she’s long tried to ignore. She must reconsider what she wants and what she deserves. Sara fights to save her marriage—and discovers the real threat may be to her life.
There was a mystical power in the bell that transcended the worlds of the living and the dead. It was dangerous.
She laughed at herself. A week ago, the only mystical powers in her life were things she read in books. Now she was haunted by a real ghost, a handsome and interesting one at that. A man who was—or had been—thoughtful and kind. This was not good. Every minute she spent thinking about Joss Montague and his finer qualities was time she wasn’t thinking about her husband. Her living, breathing husband.
She took the bell to the barn and hid it at the bottom of the steamer trunk under the fine clothes and pushed the trunk against the wall. As she picked up the saddle to replace it on top of the trunk, she thought heard a sound from overhead, like a snap, but there was nothing in the rafters but a few extra bundles of vine stakes.
She hoisted the saddle on top of the trunk and turned to go. Another noise came from overhead, a creepy sound of metal sliding against metal. She looked up to see a several loose steel stakes shooting out of the rafters—and flying straight toward her.
Kiss Me Hello
L.K. Rigel
Table of Contents
Prologue
He Pushed Her
Wake Up
Where Are We Going?
A One-Off
Bonnie
Dreaming
Coffee Spot
Skeleton Key
The Journal
Dinner, Dolls, & Dollars
Lullaby
Murder Weapon
Snowdrops In May
Ghost Screamer
Issues Oriented
Whispering
The Opposite of Dying
The Things We Think We Have
This Old House
Corazon
Memorial
We Can Have It All
Intensive Care
Some Rest in Peace
Residual Effects
Song of Songs
Kiss Me Hello
L.K. Rigel
Prologue
From the Journal of Joss Montague
Lahaina, island of Maui, Territory of Hawaii December 6, 1941
Last night I won my soul in a game of chance.
At least that’s what the Chinese fellow tried to tell me. He offered up a broken brass bell as collateral when I raised the bet on a pair of jacks. The pot had swelled to almost three hundred dollars, more than enough to haul my trunk down to the port and go home to Olivia.
It didn’t hurt that the two boys had three pretty ladies on their arms.
The Chinese was the only one left in the game. The others—a pineapple plantation overseer and two naval officers over from Pearl Harbor—had folded.
The pot was mine; all I had to do was refuse the bell. No one would think me a bounder. It was broken, even if it was a pretty thing. But I allowed the bet, not because I’m such a great guy, and not because the Chinese was raving on with a sad story about the rape of Nanking, but because the bell was etched with snowdrops and it reminded me of Turtledove Hill.
I promised what gods there be that if I won the pot I’d head home the next day. It was time to face Olivia.
The Chinese had three aces, and he laid them out in gleeful triumph. The poor sucker turned white as a ghost when I turned my three ladies over on the two boys.
“That bell save your soul,” he said, so woeful I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
“I can always use a life insurance policy,” I told him as I raked in the pot. “Even if it’s just Oriental superstition.”
“Not save your life. You fool. That bell save your soul one day. You mark my word now.”
I’ve packed the bell at the bottom of my steamer trunk. Whether or not it saves my soul remains to be seen, but it will make for an interesting story in years to come.
1 - He Pushed Her
“Mr. Rochester pushed Bertha Mason, but it wasn’t murder.” The ghostly voice came from Sara Blakemore’s favorite student Mona in the back of the room. “It was temporary insanity.”
Sara laughed with the rest of the class. She was getting a kick out of the lively debate: The Death of Bertha Mason, Accident—or Murder?
Murder. Blood. Guts. Subjects sure to intrigue youthful passions while—Sara hoped—something of Jane Eyre’s devastating social commentary seeped through. That was her theory, anyway, and she was sticking to it.
“It’s stupid.” David rolled his eyes. “Why didn’t the Prometheus guy just divorce the crazy lady in the attic?”
The Prometheus guy.
He meant Michael Fassbender, the actor who played Mr. Rochester in the 2011 movie version and who was also in the movie Prometheus.
“The fabulous Mr. Fassbender notwithstanding,” Sara said, “no screenplay out there is entirely faithful to the novel’s narrative structure.” She cast a dubious eye over the class. “If you rely on a DVD to study for the final, I promise you tears when you get back your grade.”
“But it was stupid, Ms. Blakemore,” David said. “Why didn’t he just divorce her?”
“He had morals,” Mona said. “In those days people believed in the sanctity of marriage.”
Poor Mona. All year she’d been the object of a brutal custody fight in her parents’ divorce.
There’s a special hell for those who divorce. Dad’s voice popped into Sara’s brain uninvited.
“But they tricked Rochester into marrying her!” David said.
“Show of hands.” Sara glanced at the clock. She didn’t want to waste precious minutes on how Rochester was tricked into his marriage. “Who thinks he pushed Bertha off the roof during the fire?”
Hands shot up from all the boys plus Mona, all stabbing the air with certainty. In the same instant, a chill crawled over the back of Sara’s neck. She felt dizzy and leaned against her desk for support.
“No?” She raised an eyebrow at the doubting girls, trying to focus on he discussion. “He had motive, and here was his chance. In those days, until death us do part was more than morality—it was t
he law. Divorce was possible, but so expensive only the very rich could afford it.”
Her stomach turned with a twinge of nausea, and for only a second she saw Mr. Rochester—her Mr. Rochester—standing in the corner at the back of the room.
“Rochester was rich,” David said. “He could afford it.”
“But Bertha was insane.” Sara blinked, and the vision was gone. “And there’s the rub. An insane person couldn’t be divorced. She didn’t have mental capacity to understand the proceedings so Rochester was stuck with her. The fire at Thornfield Hall offered the perfect opportunity to be rid of the wretch who ruined his life.”
“But Mr. Rochester is the hero,” David said.
“He was going to save her, but something inside him clicked,” Mona said. “Bertha tried to kill him before. She’d try again. No one would know. He pushed her.”
“That’s more believable than the other thing,” David said. “No way Jane Eyre could imagine Mr. Rochester calling her name at the exact moment he’s actually calling her name hundreds of miles away.”
Sara looked at the corner, but there was nothing there. Yet he’d looked so real—and distressed.
