The Lost Bee (9 page)

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)

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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)

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oOo
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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

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

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.

“M
r. 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?”