Frankenstein's Guide (Book 1, the LiteraTours Cozy Mystery Series)

Chapter 5: For whom the Bell tolls - Part 2

The image is by Samuel Zeller from Unsplash. 

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The chocolate melted in Gary's mouth, a short moment of culinary bliss that helped him to forget this afternoon's trials and tribulations. The next moment he felt guilty once more.

"This is delicious. Can I be outrageous and keep a slice for Jon? I think he can do with a bit of comfort food."

Aline laughed, and Lorna busied herself with shaving three slices off her latest creation. How the woman stayed so slim despite all the food she produced was beyond him. But then all he had ever seen her eat was tiny morsels and tasters, never the finished product. That all went to friends and to Aline, who was as cheerfully stout as Lorna was lean. She had been an old friend of his parents. Somehow, he had inherited the woman together with the crumbling ruins of his ancestral pile at the South Devon border, where the boundaries to Cornwall were so blurred, even the smugglers of old had got confused and occasionally hid their ill-begotten loot in the wrong cave.

Not that he visited much these days. Other than the land that safeguarded the crumbling shell of the house, not much was left of former glory. Just the portraits in the attic and some cracked porcelain in the Welsh dresser Emma had insisted on buying. The family silver had been sold a long time ago, presumably at the turn of the last century when the inheritance taxes owed after the deaths of three heirs in rapid succession had crippled the Sands family for posterity. His title these days was just enough to cow Jon's teachers into submission.

Admittedly, it looked good in the brochure.

"How is your tour coming along?" Aline drained her cup and placed it on the smoky glass of the coffee tabled. Stained by many overlapping rings, it was another proof he ought to scout for another cleaner, but he didn't have the energy. Plus, the good ones charged a boatload of money.

"Our tour. You've sunk quite a bit of capital into that little venture, and I'm grateful for that."

Lorna had wrapped Jon's cake in a napkin and waved him off. "Rubbish. It was the least we could do. And it's so exciting. After a lifetime of being librarians, we're suddenly entrepreneurs. Isn't that nice?"

Her eyes, chocolate-brown like the cake, peeped at him over her rhinestone studded-glasses.

Gary sipped his tea, but it had gone cold. "That makes you sound like timid old ladies. I dare to disagree."

Aline laughed delightedly. "No, can't say we ever were guilty of that crime, especially not when we were young."

That was quite the understatement. They had outed themselves when a lesbian relationship was not quite a common as it was nowadays. When same-sex marriages had become legal a few years ago, they had been among the first to rush to the registrar's office. He still had the official wedding photo on the mantelpiece, with Aline in one of her elegant tents, Lorna in a pantsuit and Emma and Jon beaming from among the guests.

Aline drew more tea from the old-fashioned Samovar, another heirloom. It wasn't made of silver, probably the reason it survived. "You did the right thing when you took that girl on board."

"She's no girl. A bit butch, if you forgive me for saying so, and uncouth are the words I would use. In combination with horrid fashion choices, it becomes a bit much to bear."

"Now you're unkind. I mean, I only saw her once when we signed, but I quite liked her. Determined. Reliable."

"A bowling pin." Lorna nodded to herself.

Gary was intrigued. "Bowling pin?"

"Yes, they get knocked over all the time but always rise again to stand as tall as before. Jessica—was that her name?—is one of those. You can knock her over. But she'll be back, believe me."