Deadly Ever After by Eva Gates (distant reading .txt) 📗

comes with the job. The commute can’t be beat and neither can the view, but it’s a long way from town, and it’s barely large enough to accommodate one person without a lot of stuff.

Charlene let out a long sigh and pushed herself to her feet. “This has been great fun, but I’d better be off. Josie promised to save me some treats to take home to Mom.”

“How’s your mother doing?” I asked.

“She’s doing great, Lucy. Thanks for asking. I see a small improvement every day, and her doctor’s extremely pleased with her progress. She would have loved to come out today, but”—Charlene nodded toward our surroundings—“she can’t manage the dunes and the soft sand.”

“Tell her I say hi.”

“Not to talk about work,” Ronald said, “but …”

“Not to talk about work,” Bertie said to Eddie, “means they’re about to talk about work. In order that my staff can complain about me without me listening in, let’s join Ellen and Amos.” She gathered her skirts in her hand and started to stand. Theodore leapt to his feet like the true southern gentleman he is and gave her his arm. Once Bertie was standing, Eddie struggled to push himself off the ground, and Theodore gallantly extended a hand to the older man.

“Believe me, Bertie,” Ronald said, “We have no complaints about you. I want to ask Charlene how things are going with those researchers she’s working with.”

“Good,” Charlene said. “Although they scarcely need my help. They’re both so totally competent. James in particular.” Perhaps only I noticed a touch of color creep into Charlene’s cheeks.

“What are they working on?” Eddie asked.

“Immigration patterns between Britain and the Carolinas in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.”

“Interesting stuff,” he said.

“And,” Louise Jane said proudly, “because so much of immigration has to do with ancestors and family stories, I’ve been helping them.”

“Louise Jane,” Bertie said. “Please don’t tell me you’ve told a pair of researchers from Oxford University that you can speak to the ghosts of these immigrants.”

“Give me some credit, Bertie,” Louise Jane sniffed. As though Louise Jane wasn’t constantly trying to contact what she called the spirits. That she failed every time never seemed to dampen her enthusiasm. “No, I simply told them that my grandmother and great-grandmother might be able to help them sort through the wheat to get to the chaff, so to speak.”

“Louise Jane is being helpful,” Charlene said. “For once. She does have a wealth of contacts, and James and Daisy are interested in hearing the local legends and family stories. Legends, as we all know, often have a basis in fact.”

Louise Jane threw Bertie a smug look that said so there.

“James and Daisy?” Theodore said. “Two of them?”

“James and Daisy Dalrymple,” Bertie said. “Both are professors of North American history at Oxford University in England.”

“James and Daisy Dalrymple.” Theodore chuckled. “You can’t find a more English name than those.”

The color in Charlene’s cheeks deepened, and she ducked her head. I hadn’t been working the day Professors Dalrymple first arrived and were shown around the library, but I had subsequently been introduced and had greeted them on several occasions as they passed through the main room of the library heading for Charlene’s office or the rare-books-and-maps room. Daisy was cheerful and friendly and sometimes stopped briefly to chat about the weather or ask my advice on where to go for dinner, but James’s focus on his work never wavered. He greeted me with a grunt and didn’t slow his march directly for the stairs. Or, I now thought, was he eager to see Charlene? If so, that would not turn out well.

None of my business.

“We’re off, dear, and wanted to say our good-byes.” Marie and Fred McNeil appeared at the edge of the umbrella. I leapt to my feet and gave my future in-laws big hugs. “Thanks so much for coming.”

“Don’t thank us,” Fred said. “I never need to be forced into eating Josie’s food.”

Marie gave her husband a light slap on the arm. “Oh, you,” she said in a tone that carried years of fond teasing.

I gave them both a smile. I liked Connor’s parents a lot, and they’d been delighted to hear of our engagement. Connor clearly took after his mom, adding a masculine strength to the beautiful wide blue eyes, thick dark hair (in her case, touched up every three weeks at the hairdresser’s) with a slight curl, prominent cheekbones, and strong jaw. Both of Connor’s parents were tall and slim, and all three of them towered over me. I’d been pleased to see Mr. and Mrs. McNeil chatting with my parents and Aunt Ellen and Uncle Amos. It mattered to me that all the members of my family—the old and the new—got on well.

“I can’t believe I haven’t given you a hug yet, Lucy.” Stephanie Stanton wrapped her arms round me. For once, I was being hugged by someone shorter than me. I liked the feeling. The next person to envelop me in an embrace almost forced the breath out of me. Steph’s boyfriend, Butch Greenblatt, was not—to put it mildly—short.

“I’d stay to help clean up,” Butch said, “but my shift starts soon.”

“Any excuse to get out of the dishes,” Steph said.

“Got that right,” he said.

“I heard that,” Josie interrupted, “but it’s not necessary. Your brother ordered me to relax and enjoy this party and to pretend my own staff aren’t catering it.” Josie held a half-full glass of champagne in her hand, and I smiled to see it. I hadn’t believed she’d be capable of letting other people do all the work. Maybe marriage to Butch’s brother Jake was helping my cousin let go, if only a fraction. Then again, Josie’s Cozy Bakery was a huge success; she shouldn’t have to work so hard anymore. To make things even better, Jake had come to the party. He owned his own restaurant, where he was also the head chef, and he usually missed family events because of his schedule.

“Remind me again, Lucy, what book we’re supposed to be