To Kill for a Ghost: 1: Ryn's Rural-Lit by Ryn Shell

Author:Ryn Shell [Shell, Ryn]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Dreaming Billabong Books
Published: 2014-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Trying not to look at the sneering figure leaning in the doorway, Alan helped Charlotte dress. Then he dressed himself, escorting her outside, where he kissed her goodbye with a chaste, formal peck on the cheek before he returned to face her kid brother.

It enraged him that Raymond had defiled the moment of rapture he’d shared with Charlotte. Moreover, this gaunt-looking teenager had violated their secret meeting place. Alan stared into the pasty face of fourteen-year-old Raymond. How could a child so young be the cunning, sly brother Charlotte sometimes spoke of?

The boy rocked on his feet. The lamplight revealed glaring eyes, sunken in his face; the eyelids were part closed.

Meeting Raymond’s eyes, Alan decided to bluff a calm reaction and try to intimidate the kid with his maturity. He’d react in a way the boy would least expect. Alan broke the silence with a display of good manners. “Good evening!”

“Good evening.” Raymond’s half-smile became a deepening sneer. “I don’t have a father to do this, see. So, I’m the man of my house. That’s why I come.”

“I’ve heard you perform your role of provider superbly,” Alan said. “Everyone knows how hard you maintain and fire the bread ovens.”

“You been talking to my sister?”

“I probably heard it around town.”

“Liar. I know everything about you two. Sweet little love nest you got here.”

“It isn’t like that.”

“She ain’t got no dowry,” Raymond said. “You know that, don’t you?”

Alan removed the lead weighted cover from the pitcher and poured two cups of water.

Alan’s feigned calmness made the boy nervous; he was painfully unaccustomed to holding a conversation such as this. Alan was curious about what Raymond would say next. He had a general idea that news of his parent’s friends planned arrival in the town would have reached everyone in Fife Springs. By now, the information that the new settlers had a marriageable age daughter and an established friendship with the Fife Family would have fuelled speculation. What else could it be about? This setting, in a shed in the middle of a storm, on low land threatening to flood, made the whole scene as farcical as a duel would be. Alan turned and handed Raymond the cup of water, pleased that his own hand was incredibly steady.

Raymond grasped the cup and spilt some.

“Sit down in that chair,” Alan invited.

The homemade chair threatened to collapse when the boy plopped roughly into it. With shaking hands, Raymond slurped the water.

“How did you get here?” Alan tried to appear calm. “I didn’t see the cart.”

“I walked.”

“Be careful you don’t drown going home. I can lend you a horse. I assume you ride.”

Raymond nodded his head. “She ain’t got no dowry, I tell you.”

“I’d never expected her to own such a thing. I know all your income goes into your family’s bakery business. Our family helped your mother set it up.”

“We ain’t poor. I ain’t asking for charity, either. We work hard. It’s just there’s no—nothing left over for her glory box or dowry. The butcher, he don’t mind no glory box, that’s her stuff, but he wants her to have a dowry.

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