This is the third book in the The Merriweather Witches. If you missed the other excerpts I posted, you can still read The Witch and the Wolf and The Witch and the Vampire.
This is a romance series that combines two of my favorite genres, historical and paranormal. This series follows a family of witches in Regency-era England as they discover romance and love, as well as some otherworldly complications to their lives. I hope you enjoy!
The servants led him in several directions. Each had seen her in one room and then another that day. Even Aunt Petunia was certain she’d seen her walking into the conservatory at one point. But in each room Basil searched, he saw no sign of her.
At last, while walking by the drawing room, he heard a muffled curse behind the closed door. He paused, leaning close to listen. A few more oaths and rather loud whispering. Julia’s voice to be sure, but with whom was she speaking?
Basil turned the knob without knocking to alert her of his presence. He didn’t know why he would do something so ungentlemanly, but he let his instinct lead him.
It had never failed before.
The door swung open on quiet hinges and revealed a most peculiar scene. Julia, on her hands and knees, peering under Aunt Petunia’s favorite sofa. Basil’s breath hitched in his chest at the sight of his beloved’s derriere posed invitingly in the air. He paused at the doorway, stunned to find Julia in such a position.
Although he was not surprised by his rather masculine appreciation.
“There’s nothing under here,” Julia proclaimed, and wriggled her bottom again as she swept her hand back and forth. Basil nearly bit his tongue. His breeches began to feel tight.
“Do you think it might be in another room?” Julia asked.
Did she speak to him? Basil narrowed his eyes as he peered more closely into the room. There was no one else in sight. He opened his mouth to respond, but something alerted her to his presence.
“I know we searched here before, but—wait, what did you say? I did not hear—oh!” Julia looked out from beneath the sofa. She must have seen his booted feet standing by the door. She bumped her head as she wriggled out from beneath the sofa to quickly stand and brushed the non-existent dirt away from her skirts.
“I-I-I did not hear you come in,” she stammered, a rosy blush blossoming on her cheeks.
“No, I suppose you did not. You were much too busy in conversation with someone who is no longer present.”
Julia’s gaze darted toward the window. His gaze followed, but he saw no one. When he looked back, she was busy wringing her hands together. Basil’s eyebrow lifted. During their younger days, he always knew how distressed she was by the way she wrestled with her hands while speaking.
He shoved the door open farther then went to her. He took her clenched fingers into his own and lifted them to his lips. While he placed precise kisses on each of her knuckles, her eyelids fluttered closed, and he found her blushing for another reason. The warmth that spread through him had nothing to do with brandy or wine, but was purely his physical response to Julia Grey.
“Julia,” he said, holding her hands between them. “With whom were you speaking?”
She stiffened. “No one.”
“Then what were you looking for beneath the sofa?”
She bit her lip and hesitated before saying, “Nothing.”
He tilted his head and grinned. “Why do I feel like Cook when we were children and were just caught sneaking into the pantry to steal sweets?”
Instead of the smile he expected, Julia tugged her hand away from his and took a step back, placing space between them. The gap widened in more than simple physical distance.
He frowned.
“I, ah, misplaced my needlework,” she said, still not looking at his face. Her gaze remained locked on some patch of carpeted floor a few paces away. “I thought I might have left it here.”
Unless she had practiced a great deal, he knew Julia had no talent with a needle. She proved that once when she attempted to mend a tear in his favorite shirt. The shirt was irreparable after her good intentioned efforts.
“Julia,” he said. “What are you looking for? Truly.”
Her gaze wandered to the window. She shook her head and whispered, “No.”
“No? What do you mean? You do not plan to tell me?”
Her head jerked up in surprise as if she just realized he stood in the room. “No? I mean…I have no idea. Why you would…that is…why would you think I wasn’t looking for my needlework?” As she stumbled through her excuse with him, her bottom lip trembled.
His heart hammered in his chest. His gut told him something was very wrong.
“Oh, do you know?” she said, raising one farcical finger to tap thoughtfully on her chin. “I do believe I left that needlework in my room. Why do I not go check? Silly of me really to assume I left it here. Yes, yes, it must be there.”
As she babbled, she moved to walk around him, but Basil’s hand jerked out and grabbed her arm, stopping her momentum. She halted, and her gaze flew to his.
“Something is wrong, Julia. Why won’t you tell me?”
She shook her head. A tingle began on the back of his skull, and shivers sluiced through his shoulders. With one hand on her arm, he turned around quickly, looking throughout the room for an intruder. He saw no one. But, he felt…something.
“Basil?”
Basil shrugged, wishing he could brush the eerie sensations away.
“I...” He looked around again, certain his eyes deceived him.
There was someone in this room. Someone other than Julia and himself.
“Basil?”
“I feel as though someone is watching me.” He felt foolish to admit such a thing. It appeared obvious to them both there was no one else in this room, and yet, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end.
Julia leaned on his arm. He looked over to see her releasing her pent up breath in a huge sigh. Then she focused on something in the center of the room and shook her head infinitesimally.
He looked back and forth between the center of the room and Julia, confused by her reaction to vacant space.
“Julia, what is going on?”
This time when she looked into his eyes, he saw a world of expression. A secret, a devastating secret. Something with which she was reluctant to speak. She wanted to tell him, he could see that plainly with her look of desperation, but something held her back.
The brief moment of vulnerability vanished. She straightened and shook her head.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Basil sighed then turned to look back in the room. He scanned over the furnishings and in the corners, but the sun shone brilliantly, the rays reflecting off of the newly fallen snow to brighten the room so no shadows remained. There was no sign of anyone.
And yet…
Basil closed his eyes. He took a deep controlled breath and grew still. He opened his senses to scan the room, searching for any sign of magical means.
There was spellwork in this room. Strange spellwork. Such as he had never sensed in this house. It left a sour taste in his mouth.
His eyes flew open, and he released Julia’s arm as if stung.
“Julia, what did you do?”
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The Merriweather Witches series:
The Witch and the Wolf (Book 1)
The Witch and the Vampire (Book 2)
