PRE-ORDER An Uncanny Bargain (eBook)

Excerpt

“Time and again I warned Rupert, and now look at us!” the voice continued. “Him now dead six months and me... stuck in this indeterminate state, while this Carterprice hussy sleeps soundly. It’s not to be borne, I tell you!” 

At this, Edith’s eyes popped open to find an attractive, amber-skinned man with flopping black hair and a pair of spectacles perched on his angled nose. The faint glow emanating from his presence, and his whited-out pupils, did little to assuage her alarm at seeing him so close to her person. And while in bed! 

With a shuddering gasp, Edith flailed for her glasses on the nightstand. “I beg your pardon!” 

Now it was his turn to fall back, frightened. “You can see me?” 

“Of course I can see you,” she snapped. 

He shook his head, and Edith saw he squatted in a most ungentlemanlike manner, with his elbows resting on his knees and his brown bare feet flat on the threadbare rug beneath her bed. 

“No one has seen me in six months.” 

Edith blinked at the baffled sorrow in his tone. He had called her by name. Well, her last name. And he had named her departed sister’s fiancé. Dread pulled at Edith’s gut as she cleared her throat to ask, “Who are you to the Carterprice family?” 

He stood, towering over her. 

Edtih refused to be cowed, even as an embarrassed heat sprinted across her collarbone, up her neck, and into her cheeks as she watched him study her.  “Who are you to Rupert Ludgate?” she insisted. 

His whited-over eyes narrowed, and the sudden glint of moonlight on his glasses revealed a heightened color to his cheeks. "Only your latest victim. How comfortable you are, conversing with a man in your bedroom!"

Before Edith could recover from her sputtering, he dashed to the window, pointing at the sadly wilting flower in its dry pot. "And! You can't even keep a simple Jasminum officinale alive!" His fingers passed through the pot. Of course he couldn't grab it.

Edith pressed her lips, forbidding herself to care about the ghost's bereft expression. He deserved no such empathy. "Well, this has been absolutely awful, thank you so very much. Awakened in the middle of the night by a ghost who just wants to accuse me of—of licentious habits and… and improper plant care."

He stiffened at the word 'ghost,' and returned to her bedside. "Ghost! So you've thought this as well. I wondered when I first woke in this state, but it's… it's preposterous. Ludicrous. Clearly a shared delusion brought on by toxic plant emissions. Possibly Datura stramonium, but the symptoms don't quite match…"

"Oh?" Edith said. Having had enough of him talking down to her, she clambered out of bed, snatching her wrapper and tying the waist tight. "And are these toxic emissions pervading all of England? How can you say such things, you just admitted your family hasn't seen you for six months. I have no idea what Datura is, but I assure you, it's highly unlikely to both be poisoning your family and my bedroom air. And it certainly doesn't explain your rude midnight visit. I'd like to sleep, sir, please go on your way and come back in the morning."

"If you'd just allow me to posit a reasonable explanation for all this!"

She couldn't stop her rather dramatic eyeroll. "More reasonable than the entitled ghost floating through my bedroom furniture?"

He looked down, aghast to find the lower half of his body obscured by her bedside table. He jumped away, visibly shaken. "This is obviously a case of miasma-induced consciousness projection, some sort of sensitivity brought on by the shock of finding my cousin and that Carterprice girl in the river—Don't shake your head at me, you cannot simply dismiss science! How did you survive the crash, anyway?” 

Edith closed her eyes. Oh no. Well, at least she knew why he was being so rude with her. Her sister Eloise had always encouraged such borderline behavior. Living on the absolute edge of propriety had been Eloise's manner. And if he were, in fact, Rupert Ludgate III's cousin…

As she licked her suddenly dry lips, his gaze flickered to her mouth, which only seemed to incense him further.

“You’ve got the wrong Carterprice,” Edith said.

"Madam, to even suggest there is more than one Carterprice offends all reason."

She threw her hand to her chest, with an entirely manufactured and affronted gasp. "Says the ghost."

They glared at one another. Edith's mind buzzed with an invigorating energy, very unlike the usual dull exhaustion she felt while communicating with spirits.

Perhaps it was because this one was so very insistent on being so very annoying. For there he was, trying to ever so subtly float another inch or two higher so that he might maintain his ability to look down his rather shapely nose at her.

A giggle escaped Edith, the pettiness striking her as comedic. She motioned at his floating feet. "Really, sir?"

His scowl turned almost petulant. "I will return, and you will reverse this… this state of being."

"Delightful," she said. She wiggled her fingers in the direction of her bedroom door. "Do attempt your next visit at a more civilized hour."

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