Spectral Strains by Amanda DeWees

Author:Amanda DeWees
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Victorian mystery, Victorian ghost story, Victorian Christmas, Christmas ghost story, ghost story, historical mystery, mystery series, supernatural mystery, romantic mystery, women sleuths, spirit medium, Christmas romance, the turn of the screw, haunted violin, Christmas cozy mystery romance
Publisher: Amanda DeWees
Published: 2018-10-30T16:00:00+00:00

AS SOON AS POSSIBLE we joined the professor and Mrs. Lovelace. Both were full of praise for our performance.

Sybil, her eyes still shining, drew old Mrs. Lovelace into her arms for an impulsive embrace, and the old lady looked touched and pleased. While the two chatted together, the professor drew me slightly aside.

“What a performance, my boy!” he said in an undertone. “You and Sybil are magnificent together. Aurora believes you succeeded.”

“So does Sybil—and so do I.” When he shook me heartily by the hand in congratulation, I added in a low voice, “Does Mrs. Lovelace know the whole story yet?”

“No, my boy. I have not yet found the right time, but perhaps it may come tonight.”

“Well, Sybil and I were planning to take supper in our rooms and retire early. But if the two of you would like to join us...” I didn’t complete the invitation, for at the moment the only company I desired was my wife’s.

To my relief, the professor was shaking his head. “It is most kind of you, but Aurora and I are going to have supper on our own. We find that we have much to talk about.”

Startled, I was still trying to find a response when Sybil slipped her arm through mine.

“Of course you must,” she said to the professor. “Have a lovely evening. We can talk tomorrow about dining together soon, the four of us.”

There was a flurry of parting kisses and handshakes, and before I knew it Sybil and I were on our way back home in a hackney carriage. She vetoed a hansom since the doors would crush her sumptuous dress, and I liked the greater privacy of a hackney in any case.

“I must say I’m a bit surprised at the professor,” I commented. “Keeping an elderly lady out late at night can’t be good for her health. But I suppose he wants to find the right moment to tell her about the ghost so that he doesn’t give her a heart attack.”

Sybil laughed until her earrings danced. “I can think of a number of good reasons why a widower might take a charming widow to supper.”

“You don’t think...”

“Oh, but I do.” She laughed again at my bewilderment. “Don’t tell me the bohemian Roderick Brooke is becoming conventional,” she said teasingly.

“But they only met each other yesterday,” I said, uncomfortably aware that I did in fact sound awfully conventional. I had never known the professor to show any interest in courting, but perhaps that was simply because our time together was always taken up by music... or by my concerns.

Sybil was watching what I could only suppose was an interesting play of emotions over my face. Now her dimples appeared. “Perhaps instead of fretting over what the professor and Mrs. Lovelace are doing,” she said, “you should concentrate on what you and I will be doing.”

Now, there was a sentence fit to distract a man from any other train of thought. I drew my wife closer. “And what will that be?” I murmured.

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