Rafe, what are you doing?
This situation is out of control. I see Celeste moving through the crowded shop towards us. People at the other tables are frozen like me, coffees and cakes halfway to their lips as they listen in on Veronika’s tirade. I long for an eldritch entity from the city beyond the sea to open up the earth beneath me and turn me into a crazed cultist. Anything would be better than facing my husband’s mistress in a crowded teashop.
“Aww, look at you, Autumn, you’ve gone all pale.” Veronika licks salted caramel sauce from her finger in a vaguely threatening way. “You pretend to be the sweet, innocent housewife, but you knew. Warrick said he was telling you that morning that he was going to leave you for me. We were just waiting for payment on a new product line to come through so we could start our new life together. Only I waited for him at the airport, and he didn’t show up, because you caught him, and you killed him. And I’m here to prove it.”
She spits in my tea and storms off.
Twenty pairs of eyes pointedlydon’tlook at me as a tea room filled with British people frantically pretend to be doing anything but eavesdropping.
Rafe reaches across the table and prises my fingers from around my fork. I didn’t even realise I’d been jabbing it into my palm. “We’re leaving.”
Rafe pulls me through the adjoining door to our shop. The chemically paint smell itches my nostrils. He pulls me against him in a warm hug. “You’re shaking,” he says, resting his chin on my head.
“I’m a cliche.” Tears I didn’t realise I’d been holding back topple down my cheeks. “The frumpy housewife whose husband cheats on her with his busty assistant. I’m basically the opening credits for aMidsomer Murdersepisode.”
“Except for the fact that you didn’t murder your husband.”
I burrow my face deeper into Rafe’s chest. His heart thuds against my cheek, steady and sure. “How can I open a meadery now?Everyone heard what she said. The whole village is going to know about Warrick’s cheating. They’ll think I had something to do with his disappearance.”
“The village knows you.” Rafe strokes my hair. “They know you wouldn’t do this.”
“But that’s just the thing with British Murder Villages! It’s always the one person you don’t expect, the meek little honey witch who cracks and clonks her husband with the frying pan or drowns him in a mead vat,” I sniff. Rafe smells so good, like fresh cut grass and wisteria.
“Fine, yes, they are going to think you murdered Warrick and buried his body in your compost pile, but so what? The grand opening of the Bee-Witching Brews Meadery will be the talk of the village. You’ll be so popular, you’ll have to turn people away.”
“Why are you so nice to me?” I murmur, and then I remember – because I promised that I’d help break his curse.
All of this helping me, comforting me, it’s for his own ends.
I’m never anyone’s first choice.
I pull back, wiping my eyes. “We should get started on that final coat of paint. And we have to look at your curse?—”
“That can all wait. We’re not done with our celebrating.” Rafe squeezes my hand. “I have an idea to get back at Veronika, but it will need to wait until this evening.”
“Is it devious and dastardly?”
“What kind of cat do you take me for?” He grins. “Of course it is.”
IX
Celeste: I got word from my friend Lilac, who works behind the bar at the Rose & Wimple, that Veronika is definitely staying there, and she’s not their favourite guest. Apparently, she was irate that the pub doesn’t have a spa attached and demanded Lilac go to her room to give her a massage.
“Ican’t believe I let you talk me into this,” I murmur as I crouch in the bushes underneath the window of Veronika’s room at the Rose & Wimple.
It’ll be worth it, trust me. Just wait there.
Rafe’s back in his cat form, the flame-point on his face and ears aglow in the moonlight. He trots off across the green and disappears down the alley between my shop and the post office. A few moments later, he streaks out again, periscope tail swinging jauntily, the world’s largest rat hanging by its tail from his mouth.
“Where did you find that?” I gasp. I don’t like to think there are rats that size hanging out around my shop.
Can’t talk now, I’ve got to concentrate on my calculations. I have a different weight-to-velocity ratio.
Rafe bounces twice on his hind legs, his gaze fixed on the windowsill above my head. He leaps, landing with a soft thud inside the room. The rooms at the Rose & Wimple don’t have air conditioning, which means that most people who stay there sleep with their windows open in summer. Including Veronika.
A momentlater?—
“Arrrrgh!”
