Deathly Ever After Read online

  When he left, followed by Marian, Charles laughed wickedly. A moment later, he told her, “You don’t need to start with my office.’

  “I do, though,” Georgette countered, filling his coffee, and returning to her toast and the seat by his side. “If your sanctuary in construction zone is what it should be, the rest of the process can be lingered over while I get it right. It won’t be fun for you, but I’ll enjoy it.”

  Charles examined Georgette and then said, “I would prefer if you focused on the master bedroom after my office. Did you see it? It’s as if someone went mad in there. Or perhaps a duo of wild dogs took up residence. They’ll have to replace plaster before they paint and possibly the flooring. It’s a large job.”

  Georgette nodded and said, “Plan number one—darling Charles’s office.”

  Charles snorted at the ‘darling.’

  “Plan number two—our bedroom.”

  He sniffed but didn’t argue. Her grin was the wicked when she added, “Plan number three—if I’m not incorrect—the nursery.”

  It took Charles a moment to register what she’d said. His head cocked and his brow furrowed. His gaze moved over her, landing on her stomach. To be honest, it was quite a bit rounder than it had been when he’d met her, but it had been concave and starving then. Now, she just had a bit of outward curve that couldn’t be called fat. He stared at her stomach for far too long for such an educated man and then repeated—rather like a hoarse toad, “The nursery?”

  “Yes,” Georgette said. “It’s early days yet, but I always have been quite regular. I suppose anything could happen.”

  His skin had paled, and he set his coffee cup down with a tremble, making it clank against the saucer. “The nursery.”

  “Early days yet,” Georgette told him. “I believe it’s rather common for there to be issues with the baby before you’re very far along. Perhaps this one won’t settle well.”

  He’d turned and pressed his hand against her forehead as though she might have a fever instead of being with child. “Baby.”

  Georgette nodded, letting his hand linger on her forehead.

  “My heavens,” he said and pulled her onto his lap. He leaned forward, once he had her situated, letting his head land on her chest. “Baby.”

  It was another hoarse whisper and Georgette couldn’t quite tell how he felt. She wasn’t worried. She had that list he’d made when he was still trying to get her to agree to marry him. It was engraved on her heart.

  It read:

  -Convince Georgette I love her.

  -Convince Georgette to marry me.

  -Convince Georgette to find a house for us.

  -Find a house with

  -an office so I can work from home at least half the time

  -an office for Georgette so she can write dozens more books

  -room for children

  -room for too many books and more to come

  -a garden for smoking pipes in

  -a village that has an excellent pub

  -create a happily ever after?

  -convince Georgette to share her troubles

  -convince Georgette to find a village that will work for Joseph and Marian as well

  Really Georgette thought, she felt as though she could adjust that list quite nicely to:

  -Convince Georgette I love her.

  -Convince Georgette to marry me.

  -Convince Georgette to find a house for us.

  -Find a house with

  -an office so I can work from home at least half the time

  -an office for Georgette so she can write dozens more books

  -room for children

  -room for too many books and more to come

  -a garden for smoking pipes in

  -a village that has an excellent pub

  -create a happily ever after?

  -convince Georgette to share her troubles

  -convince Georgette to find a village that will work for Joseph and Marian as well

  His list wouldn’t have referred to children if he didn’t want them. The sudden burden of one, however, might be more than he could handle without a few minutes. She let him lay his head on her chest and think while she played with his hair. All that was left was to create their happily ever after. That wasn’t something they could cross out.

  It was a process—a journey. If being single and alone for so long had taught Georgette anything, it had taught her that happiness was made in decision after decision and the attitudes you kept with those decisions.

  You decided to be happy about having milk for your tea. Happiness was when you found puppies and loved them. It was made when you dared to trust and love another. Happiness was made when you had an issue—like being sick of your beloved’s presence—and admitting it and working through it. Happiness was wanting what you had and working for what you wanted with an emphasis on enjoying the current.

  “I’m going to meet with the fellow coming, Georgette.” Charles stood, lifting her and setting her back on her own chair as though she weighed nothing. “I’ll walk through the house again and make note of all the structural things. Darling, you choose the paint. Do you want the children in the attics?”

  Georgette shook her head.

  “Then we’ll turn one of the larger bedrooms into a nursery. Or perhaps two. I think, if we have more than one, they’d rather be together, don’t you? I always wished for that.”

  “I did too,” Georgette admitted.

  For a moment, their younger selves seemed to peek out from behind their eyes and greet the other. Lonely children that had found happiness in books. It was one of those things they'd discovered on their honeymoon. The fact of their solace in books had been obvious upon reflection.

  Georgette hadn’t had any siblings. Charles had two, but he’d lost one, and the other lived in the Caribbean Islands of all places. He’d been so much younger than his brothers that they’d been at school long before he was born.

  “I can take care of it,” Georgette told Charles. “It isn’t like I can’t ask you for help if I’m uncertain of what to do.”

  “I’ll do it,” Charles said. “This work is going to be done before you can’t see your feet.”

  Georgette’s gaze narrowed at that idea, and Charles’s shout of laughter brought Marian back into the breakfast room. Charles raised an inquiring brow and Georgette shook her head. No, Marian didn’t know. Georgette wanted to keep it between them for a while, and Charles understood for he said nothing.

  Chapter 4

  GEORGETTE DOROTHY AARON

  The teashop was not what dreams were made of if they were being dreamed by Georgette. It was quaint, it had pretty little teapots. The baked goods smelled like they’d been made by angels. The woman who seated Georgette and Marian had been utterly delighted to meet a new resident and a future resident. She’d bustled over with a teapot.

  It was filled with a quiet delightful lapsang souchong. Georgette added too much milk, to the lifted eyebrows and then hastily slapped on smile of Bernadette Coach. Mrs. Coach upgraded their requested plates of scones to a tiered offering with petit fours, biscuits, tarts, and scones. It did not, however, have odd little teas with the scent of coffee or the combination of cocoa and coffee. Georgette would endeavor to persevere.

  Mrs. Coach then lingered long enough for Marian to say, “Oh, Mrs. Coach, do you have the time to sit with us? I confess, we’re rather desperate to hear about Harper’s Hollow. Especially since it’s so—”

  “Oh, dear, call me Bernadette. It is rather dreary and empty in here, isn’t it? We’ve a bit of an outbreak, you know?”

  “Outbreak?” Georgette demanded.

  “Scarlet fever,” Bernadette said. “It’s the most terrible thing, you know. I fear that Dr. Fowler told poor Mrs. Halpert that her Jimmy had chicken pox.”

  Georgette blinked as she tried to file the names away. Getting gossip about people you didn’t know was so much more work.

  “Only—” Marian asked.
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  “It was scarlet fever! All of Mrs. Halpert’s children have it. She has seven children, you know. And Mrs. Smitty brought her children over to expose them to chicken pox while school was out of session. Only—well, now they have scarlet fever too.”

  “Oh my goodness,” Marian gasped. “Oh how horrible.”

  Georgette’s jaw had dropped open. She was mostly sure that she was growing a baby, and never had she felt such an instant certainty that if it had been her children, she might have run Dr. Fowler down in Charles’s auto for making such a mistake. To have all your children get such an illness! It was the worst thing Georgette had ever heard.

  “Can we do anything for them?” Georgette asked, her mind still on her own baby. She’d had scarlet fever as a child, but had Charles?

  Georgette sipped her really very excellent tea with disappointment and listened to Bernadette gossip for a good quarter of an hour before the woman asked, “Now where do you live?”

  “We bought a rather old, large house that was quite rundown. I’m not sure if it had a name. Nor, to be honest,” Georgette admitted, “am I sure of who owned it before. It’s on Persephone Street.”

  “Oh,” Bernadette said carefully. There was something in that oh, but whatever gossip went with Georgette’s house was not revealed. Georgette kept her smile even though she very much wanted to cross-examine the woman until she revealed the secrets of Georgette’s house.

  “And you, my dear?”

  “We haven’t purchased one yet,” Marian said. Her gaze was searching, but Bernadette didn’t pick up on the opening to discuss whatever there was to know about Georgette’s house.

  “Where are you looking, my dear?”

  Marian shrugged as she lied, “We’re still deciding and really, Joseph does prefer to make that decision. I’m sure wherever we choose will be lovely. What can you tell us about the history of Georgette’s house? Were many children raised there?”

  “Oh certainly since it was built,” Bernadette said, succumbing to the direct question. “I’m afraid the last owner didn’t have any children of his own. His wife died rather suddenly, and he left Harper’s Hollow. I don’t know if he ever remarried, but I doubt a child has lived in that house since—well, since, Victoria was queen.”

  “Really?” Georgette gasped. “Has it been empty so long?”

  “Oh no,” Bernadette shook her head. “The last mistress died. Oh, I don’t know? A few years ago. Perhaps as many as five. It was just the two of them and their housekeeper for years before she died.”

  Georgette felt certain that there was more to the story. Once again, she glanced at Marian and then they finished their tea and left Bernadette to her shop.

  “Someone was captured and held captive in your house,” Marian announced as they walked towards Georgette’s home.

  “Maybe the last person died there.”

  “You’d expect that,” Marian said with a scoff, “in a house that old. Dozens have probably died there.”

  “That seems an excessive number.”

  Georgette’s mouth twisted. Marian wasn’t wrong. The house was so old it had both a music room and a billiards room. There was no question that people had died there many times over the course of its life.

  “Maybe the people who lived there before were criminals.”

  Marian shook her head and they hooked arms. “Either way, I do love your house. It’s like—this will sound silly.”

  “Tell me anyway,” Georgette ordered.

  “Well, it’s like in Bard's Crook, you were like your cottage. You were little, quaint and overlooked. Did you see how she treated you? Bernadette Coach treated you like a real person. Now, you’re like your house. You aren’t going to get away with being overlooked anymore. I wager you’ll hate it half the time.”

  “Well yes,” Georgette agreed. “All I really wanted was a few people. I have that now. Charles and you. The dogs.”

  “That doctor though,” Marian exclaimed. “Can you imagine? We need to stop by the vicar and send something to that poor suffering family. I won’t be using that Dr. Fowler, I can tell you that. Thankfully London is so close. It won’t be all that hard to get someone to look after us who isn’t Dr. Fowler.”

  Georgette blinked very rapidly and knew that she was either going to take a suite in London when her baby was expected or she was going to see if Harper’s Hollow had more than one doctor. Perhaps Charles could persuade one to set up shop here. After misdiagnosing those children, Georgette and Marian couldn’t be the only ones who didn’t want Dr. Fowler near their children.

  They walked to the vicar and spoke to him, introducing themselves. Their offering was taken so gratefully, Georgette immediately followed up with a duplication of it for a few days later. Especially when he said that little children were suffering and all they could be persuaded to eat was broth and fresh fruit. Broth and fresh fruit, Georgette thought, they would have.

  They passed three teenagers in the garden. They were sitting together in an unmoving row, and Georgette wanted to give them a cricket bat and a ball. They really did look as though they needed sleep, food, and exercise.

  They reached the house just as the men who had been hired to fix it were leaving with Charles walking them out. He hooked Georgette’s hand and they left Marian as Charles told Georgette what he’d ordered. She nodded, without objections, and then revealed her afternoon.

  “Something about our house?” he asked when she told him of Bernadette’s cagey reply. “The last family living here was probably unmarried or something, darling. Nothing to worry over.”

  “Oh, I’m not worried,” Georgette confessed, “I’m curious. I am, however, worried—” She told him of the doctor, the sick children, and the donations.

  “Yes, yes, whatever those children need. My heavens, Georgette, we must find another doctor for you.”

  “I was thinking just the same thing,” Georgette confessed, telling him of her rage for her baby who was just an idea at the moment. A real child? One in her arms? One she’d longed for years? Georgette could not imagine any greater horror than the ones poor Mrs. Halpert and Mrs. Smitty were facing. All their children sick with an illness that could kill or maim them.

  They circled their garden and Charles lit his pipe while Marian had gone for the dogs. They were chasing around the green as Marian passed through the back gate with a wink and wave. Georgette noted the pad of paper in Marian’s hands and guessed that her friend was going to make the list of what she wanted to do to her own house alone. Should Georgette chase after her?

  No, she thought, it was just before teatime and Charles would soon be at work during these hours. She wanted to spend the day with him as much as she could. It didn’t matter that she’d gotten sick of him on their honeymoon, she was going to miss him once he was back in the office more.

  They walked through the house again with Charles explaining what he’d ordered. He’d left all of the paint, carpeting, and papering to her and ordered only the necessary repairs that would return a room to functional if somewhat hideous. He had, in fact, taken away all the things she hadn’t really wanted to do and left her with the fun part of turning their house into something more.

  The master bedroom would be repaired first and then they’d remove the wall from the room that Charles and Georgette were currently using, and prepare it for a nursery. “I thought this one,” Charles explained, “because the windows let in so much light. It seems like a happy place, but we can change it to another pair of rooms if you desire?”

  Georgette shook her head. He’d chosen perfectly, and she was unsurprised. As they discussed colors for the walls and things to buy their baby, they heard the dogs return. Marian returned, but she was met in the garden by Joseph. Georgette and Charles watched from the upper window as Marian squealed and threw herself in Joseph’s arms.

  “Their offer on that house must have been accepted,” Charles told her.

  She grinned at him and then said, “You know, she’ll
be here all the time.”

  “Her children and ours will play together. It will be like we had a dozen children without actually having to feed, raise, and educate a dozen.”

  Georgette laughed, and they joined their friends for a late tea. Marian needed to return to her parents’ home in London that night but would be back for the next weekend when Joseph would also be able to join them, barring issues with a case. He intended to move into the house as soon as his offer was officially accepted, as Mr. Stripes had said he didn’t believe the owners would mind if Joseph took early possession.

  Georgette curled her fingers through Charles’s as they watched their friends leave. It would be an often thing, she thought, in this happily ever after they were creating. Only, in the future, they’d be walking Joseph and Marian to the back gate, knowing they’d be finding their way through the wood, through their own back gate, and into the snug little house that would soon be theirs.

  Chapter 5

  GEORGETTE DOROTHY AARON

  Georgette escaped her house four days later when the sound of the pounding hammer had driven her quite mad. She’d been trying to write while the workmen came and went, but Charles had paid them to work quickly. A team had come and worked on the master bedroom and the new bath while Georgette had tried and failed to write for days.

  Could she, she wondered, write at the local library? Or perhaps at one of Bernadette’s back tables? The master bedroom was being papered with maroon paper, striped with silver. The stripes were a bare pin’s width and subtle in the extreme. The floor had already been refurnished and Charles’s furniture was more than adequate for her wants. It was a large bed with a heavy carved frame. The only thing she’d done was buy new bedding that matched the maroon of the walls.

  The bedroom had two dressing rooms off of it with room for plenty of clothes. Charles, to Georgette’s delight, had filled his completely. She, on the other hand, had a few dresses, blouses, and jumpers. She hadn’t taken up even a quarter of her dressing room. Charles had taken one look at her closet, cursed, and told her to go shopping.