Read Miss Spelled (The Kitchen Witch 1) for Free Online Page B

urge to cry.
    Thyme smiled. “Trust me.”
    “All right,” I said. I couldn’t see how it would be okay.
    “You’re seeing your house for the first time this afternoon, aren’t you?” Thyme continued.
    “Yes, Ruprecht will be here any minute. I’m going to follow him there.” That thought cheered me up. I didn’t care what the house looked like. The main thing was that Aunt Angelica had owned it outright. I never thought I’d own my own house, not in a million years.
     
     

 
    Chapter 7
     
    I couldn’t believe my eyes when Ruprecht slowed his car and pulled into a driveway. It was the same house I had seen the day before, the Victorian home on one floor, with the tin roof. There was that charming little porch on the side, and the front of the house was partially obscured by pretty blue wisteria in full flower.
    Ruprecht parked and got out, and I pulled up alongside his car so he would be able to get out when the time came.
    “Here it is,” Ruprecht said with a smile, waving an age-spotted hand toward the home. “What do you think?”
    “I love it,” I said, as I clasped my hands together. I was overcome with delight. “I saw it yesterday, and I loved it then. It had a pull with me.” I didn’t feel the need to tell Ruprecht about my GPS malfunctioning, and how it had brought me past my destination and right to this house.
    As I made my way to Ruprecht, past the heavenly scent of the lilac-flowered buddleia trees, he held out a key to me. “Do the honors,” he said.
    I took the key and laughed, momentarily forgetting that a man had died in my cake store that day, on the first day I had ever worked in it. I slid the key into the lock that sat above the gold door handle, and turned it to the left. There was a satisfying click as a thick deadbolt slid out of place. I turned the handle and went inside.
    I gasped. It was magnificent. The hallway was grand, the typical hallway of an Australian Victorian home that ran from the front to the back door in a straight line. The ceilings were twelve feet high, all pressed metal. The cornices were truly ornate. The floorboards looked like the original tallow wood boards. They were polished and covered in part by a long carpet runner in an arabesque pattern of blues and greens. The paint on the upper part of the hallway was salmon-pink: not to my taste, but hey, I was hardly going to complain. I was still pinching myself that I had a roof over my head, and a mortgage-free one at that.
    Ruprecht gave me the tour. The first door on the left opened onto the living room. There was a wide bay window overlooking the front lawn, and an open brick fireplace sat at a funny angle across the far corner. At the back of the room was a door leading into a dining room. This room was smaller, but large enough for the huge table already in it. I was so lucky that the whole place was furnished.
    Several bedrooms ran off the right side of the hallway. I think I counted four. Aunt Angelica’s old bedroom was on the left of the hallway at the back of the house, so I thought I’d claim the bedroom at the front of the house as my own. It had a beautiful leadlight window and a small bay window overlooking the front garden. It didn’t have an en-suite bathroom, although the main bathroom was right next to it.
    The main bathroom had a delightful claw-foot bath and white tiles. It had clearly been renovated in recent times. The ceiling was again pressed metal, complete with a magnificent ceiling rose.
    “And this is the library,” Ruprecht said, opening a door off the hallway. He gasped. “My mistake; I must be thinking of a different house.” He shot me a funny look.
    “There’s a library?” I asked.
    Again the funny look. “Um, err, I don’t remember,” Ruprecht said, hurrying on down the long hall.
    I was pretty sure he was lying, but I had no idea why. It made no sense. Was he suffering from memory loss and not wanting to admit it?
    The kitchen was the second to last room on