The Witching Hour by Morgana Best

Author:Morgana Best [Best, Morgana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781925674934
Publisher: Best Cosy Books

Chapter 9

Douglas and I had driven back the other way to High Wycombe town itself and now we were driving up a straight road to West Wycombe.

There are straight roads everywhere in Australia, some many kilometres long, so I was surprised when Douglas told me that long, straight roads are unusual in England. I was also surprised that Douglas had spoken. There had been a lengthy and uncomfortable silence after his disclosure of yesterday.

I had shown him out of the house and then spent the night dreaming. They were not nice, sane dreams or even the nightmares to which I had grown accustomed. Instead, I dreamt that Douglas turned into a vampire. In my dream, Douglas wanted to drink my blood to rejuvenate his face rather than paying for botox as it wasn’t covered by his health insurance. Oh well, dreams can be weird. I also awoke with scratches from Merlin, who objected to me tossing and turning when she was trying to sleep on my legs.

Douglas was speaking in an ice-cold tone and was in Tour Guide mode again. “In the 1750s, Sir Francis Dashwood had the caves excavated on the site of an ancient quarry to provide farm workers with employment because the harvest failures had left them in a bad way. The chalk that was excavated was used to build this main road. Look up there.” He pointed to the Dashwood Mausoleum in the distance, perched up the top of a hill.

I’m into Feng Shui, so remarked, “In Feng Shui, straight lines are bad, but curved lines are good.”

Douglas answered in a monotone. “Generally, straight lines build up power. Some say Sir Francis used this straight road to gather power and send it to the Mausoleum.”

“Why would he do that? Mausoleums are for, well, dead people.”

Douglas just shrugged.

We drove along the A40 through West Wycombe again then turned right up a short, steep hill and turned right again into a car parking area.

The engine was still running. “Misty, I’m going to have to bail on you, I’m afraid. A business concern has come up, so I’ll drop you here and pick you up in two hours. That will give you plenty of time to see the caves and have a clotted tea, and then meet me back here in the parking area in two hours.”

Business concern, indeed. Things were uncomfortable between us for some reason, so Douglas was indeed bailing. Nevertheless, the sound of clotted tea left me aghast. “Clotted tea? What on earth’s that? It sounds like the cream has gone stale and clotted!”

Douglas almost grinned. “You would call it a Devonshire tea—scones, cream and jam, or do Aussies say ‘jelly’ like Americans? And with a nice cup of hot tea. You don’t mind about today, do you?”

“No, not at all.”

I walked up the hill, handed over five pounds for my entry at the Caves café and picked up a free pamphlet. It said stuff about Sir Francis that I already knew, such as him being the founder of the Hellfire Club.

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