Bewitched and Betrothed Read online

  PRAISE FOR

  NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  JULIET BLACKWELL

  AND THE WITCHCRAFT MYSTERIES

  “A smashingly fabulous tale.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Victoria Laurie

  “It’s a fun story, with romance possibilities with a couple of hunky men, terrific vintage clothing, and the enchanting Oscar. But there is so much more to this book. It has serious depth.”

  —The Herald News (MA)

  “Blackwell has another winner . . . a great entry in a really great series.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “I believe this is the best of this series I’ve read. . . . Juliet Blackwell is a master . . . but truly, reading the entire series is a pleasure.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “[Blackwell] continues to blend magic, mystery, and romance in this sixth novel that shines with good humor and a great plot.”

  —Kings River Life Magazine

  “This series gets better and better with each book. . . . A good mystery that quickly became a page-turner.”

  —Dru’s Book Musings

  “An enticing, engrossing read, a mystery that’s hard to put down, and wickedly fun.”

  —MyShelf.com

  “Sparkles with Blackwell’s outstanding storytelling skills.”

  —Lesa’s Book Critiques

  “Funny and thoughtful . . . an easy read with an enjoyable heroine and a touch of witchy intuition.”

  —The Mystery Reader

  “A wonderful paranormal amateur sleuth tale. . . . Fans will enjoy Lily’s magical mystery tour of San Francisco.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  “An excellent blend of mystery, paranormal, and light humor.”

  —The Romance Readers Connection

  Also by Juliet Blackwell

  The Paris Key

  Letters from Paris

  The Lost Carousel of Provence

  THE WITCHCRAFT MYSTERIES

  Secondhand Spirits

  A Cast-off Coven

  Hexes and Hemlines

  In a Witch’s Wardrobe

  Tarnished and Torn

  A Vision in Velvet

  Spellcasting in Silk

  A Toxic Trousseau

  A Magical Match

  THE HAUNTED HOME RENOVATION MYSTERIES

  If Walls Could Talk

  Dead Bolt

  Murder on the House

  Home for the Haunting

  Keeper of the Castle

  Give Up the Ghost

  A Ghostly Light

  BERKLEY PRIME CRIME

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019

  Copyright © 2019 by Julie Goodson-Lawes

  Excerpt from A Ghostly Light by Juliet Blackwell copyright © 2017 by Julie Goodson-Lawes

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks and BERKLEY PRIME CRIME is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN: 9780451490629

  First Edition: June 2019

  Cover art by Victor Rivas/Shannon Associates

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Contents

  Praise for Juliet Blackwell

  Also by Juliet Blackwell

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Author’s Note

  Excerpt from A Ghostly Light

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  A salty, heavy shroud of fog obscures the night.

  Frigid waters close over my head. Sparks of silvery moonlight dance on the surface of the bay, calling to me. I flail and kick, struggling to lift myself, to breathe sweet air, my arms and legs numb with cold and exhaustion. The cheerful lights of San Francisco peek through the fog, tantalizingly far away; the island behind me is closer, but gleams and pulsates in the light of the full moon like a living, malevolent thing. The Golden Gate is the third point on the triangle, and I am in the center.

  A foghorn sounds in a mournful cry.

  Strong currents wrap around my legs, tugging at my feet, pulling me toward the Golden Gate and out to the vast Pacific Ocean. Lost at sea. Lost forever.

  I can’t go on.

  I fear drowning, but remind myself: Witches don’t sink.

  At least I don’t. I had been in the bay once before and popped up like a cork. But . . . what about now?

  Icy fingers grip my ankles, drawing me down. The water closes over my head again, and I try to scream.

  “Mistress!”

  I struggle toward the surface. Fighting, flailing. I have to.

  I have to.

  “Mistress!” a gravelly voice called again. “Are you all right? Why are you all wet?”

  I opened my eyes. I was in my own home, in my own bed. Safe.

  Oscar, my ersatz witch’s familiar—a shape-shifting cross between a gargoyle and a goblin—perched on my brass bedstead, leaning over to peer at me. His fearsome face was upside down and his breath smelled vaguely of cheese.

  Soaked and shivering, I let out a shaky sigh. I wasn’t sweaty from fear, but dripping wet—and smelling of brine—as though I had, indeed, just emerged from the San Francisco Bay.

  “I had a nightmare,” I said.

  “Yeah, no kiddin’. That’s one heck of a nightmare if you’re manifesting in your sleep. Were you swimming or something?” Oscar waved a handful of travel brochures under my nose. “Hey, check these out. I think we should go to Barcelona first, maybe.”

  “Oscar, I cannot discuss my honeymoon plans with you at the moment.” My brain felt fuzzy. I sat up and glanced at my antique clock on the bedside table. Its hands glowed a mellow, comforting green that cut through the darkness. City lights sifted through my lace curtains, but even raucous
Haight Street was hushed at three o’clock in the morning.

  “But it’s the witching hour,” Oscar whined.

  “Ideal for spellcasting, not for making travel plans.”

  Oscar cocked his head. “What better time is there?”

  “In the morning. After coffee. When normal people are awake.”

  “But we’re not ‘normal people’—like we’d even want to be, heh!” He chuckled, a raspy sound reminiscent of a rusty saw.

  I’m Lily Ivory, a natural-born witch from West Texas who wandered the globe for years, searching for a safe place to settle down. On the advice of a parrot named Barnabas, whom I had met in a bar in Hong Kong, I had come to San Francisco—specifically, to Haight Street—where a witch like me could fit in.

  I love it here. For the first time in my life I have friends, a community, a home.

  If only the beautiful City by the Bay weren’t so chock-full of murder and mayhem.

  Oscar was right, I thought, plucking the soggy nightgown away from my skin. It was unusual to manifest during a dream, to bring a physical object—in this case, water from the bay—from the realm of slumber into the waking world.

  I shivered again.

  “Just saying, we’re both awake right now,” Oscar continued. “And not for nothing, but you might want to dry off and maybe put a towel down before you ruin your mattress.”

  Throwing back the covers, I hopped out of bed and headed to the bathroom to take a shower. Washing away the waters of the bay with lemon verbena soap, I lingered under the hot spray until warmth settled down deep in my core.

  I emerged from the bathroom to find that Oscar had gone. He had left the travel brochures fanned out in a semicircle atop my comforter, and on the nightstand was a steaming mug of chamomile tea. He had also managed to dry the bed, somehow, and to make it up with fresh sheets.

  Oscar might not be a typical (read: obedient) witch’s familiar, but he definitely had his moments. Not to mention he had saved my life on more than one occasion.

  I sat on the side of the bed, sipped the tea, and picked up a brochure with a glossy photo of Barcelona’s famous Sagrada Família. The next brochure featured the Eiffel Tower, and the last the Voto Nacional de Quito, in Ecuador.

  I had promised Oscar he could tag along on my honeymoon so that we could search for his mother, a creature suffering under a curse that transformed her into a gargoyle. The problem was he had no idea where she might be, only that “gargoyles live a long time.” I reminded myself to discuss this with my fiancé, Sailor, so that we could come up with a targeted approach before Oscar whipped up an entire world tour for us. Recently it had been difficult for Sailor and me to find the time—and the peace of mind—to talk about much of anything, much less gargoyle-guided tours.

  I yawned. Speaking of honeymoons, I had a bucketload of decisions to make before the wedding, and more than a few wrinkles to iron out. My grandmother’s eccentric coven had recently arrived in town; I was about to be married to a beautiful but secretive man—an attachment to whom, I had been warned, might weaken my powers. Oscar kept disappearing to search for his mother even though he was supposed to be helping secure the perfect venue for my upcoming wedding, and recently I had come to realize that instead of one guiding spirit, I had two, and they weren’t getting along, which was messing with my magic. And finally, my beloved adopted city of San Francisco was facing a frustratingly nonspecific existential threat that primarily involved a cupcake lady named Renee.

  I took another sip of tea. I also still needed to find just the right vintage bridesmaid dresses for my friends Bronwyn and Maya. Under any other circumstance I would have said “Wear what you like!” but the style editor for the San Francisco Chronicle was planning to do a feature on our antique bridal wardrobe, which would be great publicity for my vintage clothing store, Aunt Cora’s Closet.

  I may be a witch and a soon-to-be bride, but I’m also a small-business owner vying for customers on increasingly competitive Haight Street. I needed the exposure.

  I also needed some rest.

  Grabbing an in fidem venire praesidii amulet off the dresser mirror, I held it in my right hand and walked the perimeter of the bedroom in a clockwise direction, chanting:

  I have done my day’s work,

  I am entitled to sweet sleep.

  I am drawing a line on this carpet,

  over which you cannot pass.

  Powers of protection, powers who clear,

  remove all those who don’t belong here.

  As I lay back down and switched off the light, waiting for sleep to take me, I couldn’t shake the sensation of the waters closing over my head.

  It wasn’t like me to have a nightmare. Much less a manifesting nightmare.

  It was enough to worry a weary witch like me.

  Chapter 2

  The next morning Aunt Cora’s Closet was bursting at the seams with witches.

  Fourteen elderly women—an entire West Texas coven, plus my mother—crowded the aisles of my shop, searching for glittery garments to rival the silver bugle bead jacket my grandmother Graciela had nabbed from my inventory a few days ago.

  “The sparklier, the better,” said Agatha, pawing through a rack of ’80s-era, padded-shoulder flapper-revival tops.

  “I want one exactly like Graciela’s, except in blue,” said Kay, her thick tortoiseshell glasses magnifying her rheumy eyes to a comical extent as she tilted her head back to examine a royal blue sequined jacket through the bottom of her bifocals. Her beaded glasses chain clicked. “Blue brings out my eyes.”

  “No two vintage items are the same, that’s what makes them so special,” MariaGracia said, then added in a loud whisper: “If you want that silver one you can win it from Graciela on pagan poker night.”

  My mother, Maggie, was flipping listlessly through a rack of 1950s sundresses, listening to the goings-on with a slightly bewildered expression. Not only was my mother not part of the coven, she had only very recently come to approve of magic at all. I couldn’t imagine what the long road trip from Texas had been like for her, given her boisterous, opinionated travel companions.

  “This one’s nice,” said Winona, holding up a bolero jacket encrusted with gemlike rhinestones known as crystal chatons. Their facets reflected the late-morning light streaming in through the store’s street-front display windows. “It’s purple, that’s my color.”

  “That’s not purple, it’s eggplant,” said Caroline in an imperious tone, tucking her subtly highlighted blond hair behind one ear as she studied a full-length silk charmeuse evening gown.

  “Purple, eggplant, what’s the difference?” Winona shrugged.

  “And that, my dear, is why you’ve never mastered color magic,” quipped Caroline.

  “Well, at least I can work with a pendulum without breaking a black mirror,” muttered Winona, slipping some cheesy crackers to Oscar, who was currently in his public guise as my pet Vietnamese miniature potbellied pig.

  The thirteen coven members were women of a certain age: Darlene, Winona, Betty, Caroline, Iris, Kay, MariaGracia, Nan, Pepper, Rosa, Viv, Agatha, and, of course, my grandmother Graciela. They represented all sizes and colors and temperaments; sort of a witchy United Nations drawn from the far-flung corners of our dusty West Texas county. I had grown up with and around these powerful, stubborn, quirky witches and was overjoyed to have them with me now.

  I needed them with me now, given everything I was facing in San Francisco.

  Even if they were helping themselves to some of my best sparkly inventory, for which I would not, of course, allow them to pay.

  “My mom—Lucille—can add a little bling to just about anything, if that’s what you’re after,” offered Maya. “Her shop’s right next door; you could get things altered, or even custom-made. All the glitter you could ask for.”

  A chorus of “oohs” and �
��aahs” greeted this suggestion.

  Graciela, secretly delighted that her discovery of the silver bugle bead jacket had caused such a sensation, was investigating a rack of gauzy negligees, muttering racy comments. She spoke in a spicy mixture of Spanish and English that I was unwilling to translate for my coworkers.

  Bronwyn and Maya were helping to rehang items, but were mostly, with good-natured fascination, observing the chaos on the shop floor.

  The coven had been hitting the touristy highlights when they stopped in for jackets to ward off the summer chill. Nan and Iris already had donned garish sweatshirts purchased from the ubiquitous street vendors that catered to the tourists who flocked to town, ready to enjoy all this city had to offer but ill-equipped for its microclimate. People often equated “California” with “warm,” only to discover that San Francisco had little in common with Los Angeles or San Diego. Here, a day might start out chilly and damp, soar to eighty degrees by lunchtime, then plummet into the fifties with the arrival of a thick blanket of afternoon fog. Locals learned to dress in layers.

  I yawned. I’m usually not bothered much by lack of sleep, but the memory of last night’s dream troubled me. Could it have been a prophetic vision, or simply random snippets of worry and anxiety forming themselves into a story line? Or was someone—or something—harassing me by sending mares to disrupt my rest? I considered consulting the coven about it, but decided to wait for a more appropriate moment.

  As I fiddled with the antique engagement ring on my finger and watched the druzy stone glitter under the shop lights, I hoped that whatever the nightmare signaled wouldn’t interfere with my upcoming wedding.

  Me. Betrothed. I still couldn’t quite believe it.

  At last, their hands clutching purple Aunt Cora’s Closet bags filled with new-to-them clothes, the coven—and my mother—clambered back aboard the ancient yellow school bus to resume their tour of the city. Wendy, Bronwyn’s coven sister and a San Francisco native, had offered to be their tour guide on the condition that she pilot the old bus. Impressed but concerned that Agatha had managed to drive them all the way from Texas, Wendy had suggested tactfully that, since San Francisco’s famously steep hills were a bit of a challenge for even the most skilled chauffeur, it might be best for a local—and, as Wendy pointed out quietly to me, someone with 20/20 vision—to be behind the wheel.