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An Accidental Love Spell
Sandra Sookoo
Author’s Note
Since we all needed to pick a ghostly movie as the basis for these stories, I immediately had trouble because I don’t watch Halloween movies nor am I super into ghosts or horror or hauntings, etc. I’m more a lover of the shivery sensations, the burn of bonfires, the smell of autumn in the air, the sweet cinnamon in pumpkin pies, the potential for romance, the mysterious “what ifs” that come from All Hallow’s Eve.
So, I picked the movieA Ghost Waits, which apparently came out in 2020. It’s about a man whose job it is to clean a house that is haunted. While trying to exorcise the ghost, he falls in love with her.
I took large poetic license with my story because thereissome house cleaning and thereisa ghost and a romanceisincluded, but not in that way.
I hope you enjoyAn Accidental Love Spell.
Chapter One
October 10, 1819
Landover Manor
Bedfordshire, England
“Well, tea andcrumpets, I think I have found a spot just for me.”
Emmaline Francine Shaw Hasting had to remind herself that she couldn’t skip for joy in the corridors of her father’s manor house. If someone knew what she was about, they might forbid her from doing it, and that she wouldn’t allow; she needed one thing that belonged only to her. Excitement buzzed at the base of her spine, for she’d discovered a previously unknown and dear little cottage in the woods near the border of her father’s property and the neighboring land.
And it had apparently been abandoned for years.
“Papa and Mama will try to stop me, so I might not tell them immediately,” she whispered to the potted fern that rested on a table beneath a lovely oil painting of the sea outside of the drawing room.
Well, heradoptivefather’s property—Baron Landover—for her parents and everyone she’d ever loved had perished in a horrible house fire eight years before. With nowhere to go and no other relations, she and her older sister Anna had norecourse… until the baron and his wife came along and took them in, raised them along with his four daughters.
Now they were widely known in the Bedfordshire area as well as London as the youngest Hasting sisters, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Unfortunately, her father’s mind had been dwindling along with his faculties for the past couple of years. He no longer recognized the people around him and if hewasable to speak, he either chose not to or couldn’t turn the words over in his brain. She feared he wouldn’t be long for this world.
Her throat tightened, for she’d already lost her real father, and soon she would lose her adoptive father. Life was sometimes horrid. It was one of the reasons she’d refused to leave the manor house, well that and being terrified of being trapped in a fire again, but since her sister Gigi had married two years before, she’d practiced showing bravery by exiting the manor once a month.
Of course, having Gigi’s children underfoot at any given time had made it easier—and with the new baby it was even more so—but she was still frightened, especially since life had continued to change as her sisters continued to marry over the past two years. All except Nora and Anna, who still lived in the manor with their parents. Currently, Nora was studying a form of sign language invented by Benedictine monks, from a gentleman who their oldest sister Mia had secured to help her communicate with their family.
After studying for just over a year, it was wonderful to finally converse with Nora, who couldn’t verbally talk. Neither could she hear, but with these new skills, a whole other world had opened for her sister, and Emmaline was so happy for her. As for Anna, Emma’s biological older sister, she had taken various positions as a companion since the baron’s finances were in a horrible mess and the family needed funds.
Inside the drawing room, she went directly to her usual chair on the opposite side of the room where she’d left the book she’d been reading, as well as her embroidery and reticule. She wanted those things to add to a bigger bag which she intended to bring with her to the newly discovered cottage.
“Ah, Emma, I’m glad to find you here.”
With a gasp and a hand to her rapidly beating heart, Emmaline whirled about so fast the hem of her skirting flared about her ankles. “Mama! I thought you’d gone into the village.”
“I changed my mind and instead wished to spend time with your father.” Sadness clouded her mother’s blue eyes. Silver strands in her hair glinted in the autumnal sunlight that came in through the windows—much more than there had been two years ago. “Could I have your help with Gideon? He’s quite a handful just now, and I simply don’t have the energy to chase after him, especially with your father so ill.”
Confliction filled Emmaline’s mind, for she wished to get on with her find, and there was always something tugging at her attention. Gideon was her nephew, belonging to her sister Mia and her viscount husband. They had gone to London for the week and had left the boy at the manor house, and though she adored the little blond cherub, she did need to think about her own future; her sisters would always have children and their own worries.
“To be honest, Mama, I am unavailable at the moment. Ask Nora or Anna, since she’s between positions.” At five and twenty, she was determined to make something of her life outside of her family. She might be new to spreading her wings and leaving the house, but that didn’t mean she shouldn’t be granted the time to explore.
“Unavailable, how?” Her mother frowned. “Gideon likes you more than your sisters.”
Emmaline shrugged. “I am aware of that, but I have discovered a dear little cottage tucked away in the woods, and it is abandoned besides.” Best have out the full truth and make a clean break of it. “I mean to take up housekeeping and perhaps become a healer since I have spent the past few years studying plants and flowers.” Already, a friend and a couple of the maids had implored her to do just that in the stillroom, for one of them had a need of a tea that would usher in romance from a man she fancied.
