Jane Austen's Ghost by Jennifer Kloester

Author:Jennifer Kloester
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ghosts, womens fiction, supernatural, feminism, literary fiction, regency, regency romance, jane austen, ghost romance, mashup fiction
Publisher: Overlord Publishing

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

SILENCE reigned as my father and I stared at Oliver in disbelief.

Olive Trewell! Oxford professor, Austen expert, feminist, activist, author of the best-selling Kings Must Die fantasy novels and… Oliver’s mother! I could hardly get my head around it.

He didn’t tell me. I could hardly get my head around that either. I mean, we’d included Oliver in our quest to free Jane Austen’s ghost, so it was pretty weird that he hadn’t mentioned his mother was a world-famous Austen scholar. Here I was, enduring torture just so I could ask my father one simple question and all this time Oliver could just as easily have asked his mum. Much more easily, probably. I only needed four of Jane Austen’s possessions; Olive Trewell probably had that many at home. I’d come all the way to Meryton House and endured this hellish lunch for nothing. If only Oliver had told me. The words hammered in my head and for a split second I wished we were alone so I could tear a few metaphorical strips off him.

‘Your mother?’ My father’s voice brought me back to the present.

He stared awestruck at Oliver, then he lowered his voice to a reverent whisper. ‘Olive Trewell, Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford, is your mother?’ For a second I thought Father might actually bow.

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re her son.’

‘So she tells me,’ said Oliver, grinning.

‘Ah.’ For the first time in my life, I witnessed my father at a loss for words. Hardly believing what I was seeing, I watched him deflate: all his pomposity, superiority, and hideous condescension vanished as respect dawned in his eyes. The look on his face was almost worth all the hurt and humiliation he’d inflicted on me that day. On so many days. As I watched, the anger that Oliver’s revelation had ignited in me died away and suddenly I wanted to laugh. No one had ever met my father on home soil and out-manoeuvred him before. But Oliver had beaten him – even better, he had humbled him. An unfamiliar wave of satisfaction washed over me and I let myself wallow in the incredible feeling of having seen my father bested.

I could have kissed Oliver for doing it.

I wished someday I might do it, too.

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