The wedding witch, p.1
The Wedding Witch, page 1
Dedication
For Tessa and Holly
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
January
May
November
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
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise for the Graves Glen Series
Also by Erin Sterling
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
Last Christmas Eve
Queen’s Head Pub, London
Elves really were dickheads.
Not the one currently grinning at Bowen from the chalkboard near the pub’s entrance, a wee little guy sketched out in red and white, grinning dementedly next to the evening’s special of venison lasagna and something called merry yule nog!
That fella, with his jaunty cap and overly big eyes, seemed like he might need to lay off the caffeine a bit, but tonight Bowen’s grudge was against real elves. The wankers with their long white robes, mysterious mountain homes in the wilder parts of Scandinavia, and nearly indecipherable language that he had just spent the better part of a bloody week trying to read, only to realize what he’d spent hours poring over in a dusty back room of the British Library was actually a recipe for fucking mead, something that didn’t seem to require more than a hundred pages of text, and yet.
Bastards had better be glad they all fucked off about five hundred years ago, he thought darkly as he sipped his pint and watched passersby hurry down slick streets as Christmas lights twinkled overhead and cars threw up sheets of freezing water.
Over the pub’s speakers, a singer warbled about chestnuts and open fires just as a group of shoppers burst through the front door, laughing and talking all at once, and Bowen felt his shoulders creeping up closer to his ears.
A week in the city was about six and a half days too long for Bowen’s taste, but he had one more little bit of business in London tonight before he could head back to his house—well, “hut” was a better word—in the mountains of Wales. It would be freezing and dark and lonely, and he would be far, far more comfortable.
Of course, now that this elf thing had turned out to be such a waste of time, he’d have to go back to the drawing board on Declan’s spell, but that would be all right. He was always happier when he was working anyway.
Thinking of work had Bowen glancing back at his phone: 4:58 p.m.
They were supposed to be here at five, but you never knew with these types. Bowen had dealt with more than one “Acquirer” in his day—humans who sold magical artifacts. It was a shady business, deeply secretive by requirement, and too many of them didn’t take the time to actually learn about what it was they were selling. Bowen had once bought a crystal goblet from an Acquirer. It had been crafted sometime in the thirteenth century, and it had the ability to poison any drink within a fifty-foot radius.
The idiot had been keeping it with his coffee mugs.
So no, Bowen didn’t have the highest opinions of humans who meddled in things they didn’t understand, but he couldn’t deny that they were useful. Unlike witches, they weren’t tempted to keep the things they acquired, and there was no history with these kinds of people, no tangled family feud from centuries back that could lead to issues.
And the one he was meeting tonight, this “TLB Acquisitions, Ltd.,” had been especially good. Thanks to their work, for the past year or so, Bowen had gotten his hands on a grimoire no one had seen since 1832, a tarot deck that had once belonged to the sorcerer John Dee, and an album that could cause an outbreak of St. Vitus’s dance.
All of it done quickly, discreetly, and, yes, fucking expensively, but worth it as far as Bowen was concerned.
Which was why he’d asked for a meeting with T from TLB. Thankfully, it turned out they’d both be in London at the same time, and now, as the clock ticked over to five, he glanced toward the door.
As though Bowen’s thought had summoned him, a man strode through the door, jangling a bell overhead. He was wearing a smart suit, his bald head gleaming under the lights as he shook off an umbrella there in the vestibule. With his shiny shoes and rimless glasses, he looked like a banker, which meant he was almost certainly an Acquirer.
They all looked like that.
Bowen lifted his chin, but the man only glanced briefly at him before his face broke out into a wide smile as he waved at someone off to Bowen’s right and hurried to a table of other similarly dressed men.
Bowen watched him pass with a frown, then heard the bell sound again and looked back to the door just as a small figure that seemed to be made entirely of white fur came barreling in. A gust of wet sleet rattled on the slate floor before the door slammed closed again, and the human-sheepdog hybrid shook itself slightly as it reached up to unwind a tartan scarf from around its head.
Soft brown hair spilled out over the white fur, and the woman turned, her eyes searching.
They landed on him.
And . . .
Fuck.
It was like a battering ram to the chest.
A tankard to the temple.
A . . . Christ, he couldn’t come up with any more similes, because this absolute vision in fake fur was now smiling at him and walking to his table, St. Bugi’s balls and all his other bits.
As she approached, he could see that her eyes were the same rich brown as her hair, and she had dimples in each cheek, deep ones, and Bowen was suddenly very glad he’d decided to grow a beard all those years ago, because he was pretty sure he was blushing.
Blushing—kill him now.
His thighs bumped the table in his hurry to stand as she approached, but she didn’t seem to notice, offering him a gloved hand that he took without thinking.
“Bowen,” she said, and how did she know his name?
Had he died? Was this pub heaven? No, he’d done studies of the afterlife in various cultures, and he didn’t think he’d ever heard it described as a pub anywhere, and she had an American accent, which seemed odd for an angel in a Welshman’s heaven, but surely such things are possible, and—
“Tamsyn Bligh,” she went on. “So nice to finally see the face behind the emails!”
Then her eyes moved over him, and she frowned a little.
“Well, the beard behind the emails,” she said, and he knew he was supposed to laugh at that, or at least acknowledge that it was a joke, but his brain was still hung up on emails and Tamsyn, and . . .
This was T.
This was the Acquirer he’d been working with for over a year now.
And he was . . . holding her hand.
Giving it a quick shake, Bowen nodded and stepped back a little, gesturing to the table. “Right. Um. Have a seat.”
“Thank you,” she said, and he pulled out her chair for her, catching a whiff of rich, citrusy perfume as she sat down.
The pub suddenly felt too warm, too crowded, and he heard himself say, “Let me grab you a drink,” before turning and heading to the bar, nearly smacking into a man wearing a very loud Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer jumper and singing along to “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”
The jumper may have been to blame for what happened next.
That and the panic he felt when the bartender looked at him expectantly, and Bowen realized that he probably should’ve asked her what she actually wanted to drink instead of flailing off toward the bar like an absolute tit.
He could’ve gotten her a pint.
A glass of wine.
Even a plain old gin and tonic.
Instead, he had pointed at the little easel on the bar reading rudolph’s rosé, £7 and said, “I’ll have that.”
A few minutes later, he was back at the table, and Tamsyn turned slightly in her chair, a smile already on her face.
It faded as she looked at what he was holding.
“The, um, the . . . glitter wasn’t advertised,” he told her as she took the drink with wide eyes.
“And the light-up curly straw?”
“No.”
“The fact that it looks like blood?”
“No. Or the, uh . . . the tree.”
Picking the huge sprig of rosemary out of her drink, Tamsyn gave the tumbler an experimental sniff before taking a sip.
Terrible as the thing looked, it must not have tasted bad, because Tamsyn drank again and then gave a shrug. “If you can’t drink a tacky holiday cocktail on Christmas Eve, when can you?”
Bowen had just slid back into his seat, but now he frowned, looking outside. It was still sleeting, but he could see the little shop on the corner had already closed for the night, and there was a family making their way past the pub dressed in various patterns of Christmassy tartan, the father carrying a bottle of wine underneath one arm as he laughed at something the mother was saying.
Tamsyn set her drink down and leaned forward, folding her arms on the table. “Did you not know it was Christmas Eve?”
Bowen absolutely had not, but after Rudolph the Nightmare Rosé, he needed to cling to a little bit of dignity here.
“Witch,” he reminded her. “We celebrate Yule, and that was a few days ago.”
Not that he had celebrated it. He’d been too busy with the elves—bastards—and their mead, after all. In fact, Bowen wasn’t sure he could remember the last time he’d participated in Yule. Ten years ago, maybe? Before everything with Declan. Before he’d made fixing this fuck-up his life’s work.
Which was why he’d made this meeting with T.
With Tamsyn.
Who was now watching him with those bright eyes and a slightly quizzical smile, like she was trying to work him out. She’d taken off her coat and gloves while he’d been fetching that abomination currently sparkling and blinking in front of her, and the deep green turtleneck she was wearing brought out golden lights in her dark hair.
Her name suited her, pretty and soft, but there was something about it that was ringing a faint bell. Had she used it in any of their emails? She couldn’t have, or he wouldn’t have been so surprised she wasn’t a bloke. Maybe he’d read it somewhere else or heard another witch mention her.
“I have to say,” she said, resting her cheek on one hand, “I was really surprised you’d want to work with me, much less want to have drinks with me.”
“Why?”
She blinked at him. “Because . . . you’re Bowen Penhallow?”
Bowen grunted in the affirmative, and she looked even more confused.
“And . . . your family hates me?”
Now Bowen frowned. “What?” Like any magical family, the Penhallows had grudges and feuds that went back centuries, but Bowen couldn’t remember anyone named “Bligh” ever being a part of those. Unless . . .
“Do you mean my da? Simon Penhallow? Because he hates everyone.”
Including all three of his sons at the moment, he added silently. Bowen hadn’t spoken to Simon in over a year, and the saddest part of that was how sad Bowen wasn’t about it. It wouldn’t have surprised him one bit to learn his father had started some kind of magical beef with an Acquirer, especially one as talented as Tamsyn.
But she just shook her head. “Rhys, actually.”
“Rhys doesn’t hate anyone,” Bowen replied automatically, but then a thought occurred to him, one that made his stomach drop and his hands go a bit sweaty on his pint glass. “Are you . . . did the two of you . . . ?”
Of the three Penhallow brothers, Rhys was the youngest and—much as Bowen and their oldest brother, Wells, hated to admit it—the only actual charmer in the family. Bowen definitely couldn’t blame Rhys for being interested in a woman as gorgeous as Tamsyn, but after the Katie Evans War back in ’07 (and also ’09 and then again in 2013, which put an end to it until hostilities unexpectedly resumed in 2016), the brothers had all agreed never to date the others’ exes.
Not that this was a date, of course. It was a business meeting, which was why it was absolutely fucking ridiculous for him to feel this disappointed at the idea that she might have dated Rhys.
Even worse, though, was how thrilled—how bloody elated—he felt at the look of horror that crossed her face at the very idea of her and Rhys.
“Oh my god, no,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “No, no, no, he was very much attached when I met him.”
Sighing, Tamsyn took another sip of her drink, and Bowen got the impression that she was steeling herself.
“I might,” she said, tilting her head to one side, “have been trying to acquire a certain . . . item, using . . . less than aboveboard means, let’s say.”
And now he remembered why her name had sounded so familiar.
Rhiannon’s tits.
“Tamsyn Bligh,” he said, nodding. “Pretended to work for the College of Witchery in Graves Glen, gave Rhys and Vivienne a Eurydice Candle to—”
“To capture a ghost so that I could sell a possessed candle to a very lucrative client, yup!” she finished up brightly, like if she said it nicely enough, it wouldn’t sound that bad. “But then the ghost was way more dark energy than I was prepared for, your brother and his girlfriend had to save my ass, and I left Georgia a reformed woman. And now I am the very professional, very not-shady Acquirer you see before you now!”
Holding both hands out to the side, Tamsyn wiggled her fingers with an implied Ta-da!
“Huh” was all Bowen found he could say. And then: “She’s his wife now. Vivienne. Not his girlfriend.”
“Congrats to them. I’ll send a gravy boat. Now”—Tamsyn placed both hands flat on the table, patting out a quick rhythm—“It’s Christmas Eve in London, and you’ve brought me out in the freezing rain for what, exactly? I assume a job?”
Bowen took another sip of his Stella, trying to get his thoughts in order. From the moment she’d walked in, he’d been playing catch-up, and if he wasn’t careful, he was going to say this all wrong.
“I want you for me.”
Fuck fuck fucking fuck, mate.
“I want you to work for me,” he clarified as Tamsyn’s eyebrows vanished beneath her heavy bangs, her lips slightly parted. “As an Acquirer, obviously, that’s . . . that’s the job I’d be hiring you for. The job that you do already. Only you’d do it for me, as in there are certain things I need—magical things, nothing weird. Well, weird because they’re magic, but nothing dangerous, and you could . . . acquire them. How you do now, but . . . different? Not different in the means you’d use, that is, but—”
“You’d like to offer me an exclusive contract to acquire magical artifacts for you and only you,” she interrupted, and Bowen closed his eyes briefly, blowing out a deep breath.
“Yes. That.”
She studied him in silence for a few beats, long enough for Bowen to wonder how many Rudolph’s Rosés he’d have to drink before the memory of these last few minutes was permanently swept away. Five? Half a dozen? Maybe he’d try ten just to be safe.
“Why?” she asked, and when he didn’t answer right away, she gave another careless shrug. “I just mean I’ve been acquiring for you for over a year now on an as-needed basis. What’s changed?”
What had changed was that Bowen had the sense he was running out of time. Ten years now he’d been trying to find a spell that would save Declan, and he was no closer than he was the day he started. He couldn’t waste time running down every piece of every spell that might work, and no other Acquirer he’d ever worked with had been as good at the gig as Tamsyn was.
But no one knew what it was Bowen had been up to for the last decade, and he wasn’t ready to start sharing now.
“Does it matter so long as my checks clear?” he asked, and Tamsyn rocked back in her chair, grinning.
“Now you’re speaking my language, Bo. Can I call you Bo?”
“Please don’t,” he said, to which she chuckled, folding her arms over her chest.
“Fine. Bowen. How much?” she asked, and Bowen sat up straight, relief coursing through him.
This part, he’d been ready for.
He said a number.
She said a different, bigger number.
He said a number smaller than that, but bigger than the first offer, and after a few more back and forths, they settled on a price that made them both happy, even if Bowen’s savings account would undoubtedly be wincing.
It would be worth it, though.
The sleet had let up some, and both their glasses were empty as Tamsyn reached for her coat. Bowen stood up, too, grabbing his beat-up leather jacket from the back of his chair. The pub wasn’t nearly as crowded now, so there was no need, really, for him to put his hand lightly on her lower back as they maneuvered their way to the door, but Bowen found he was doing it anyway. She was close enough to him that if he lowered his head just the smallest bit, he could smell her hair.
Luckily, even a man who’d spent most of the last decade alone on a Welsh mountainside was more civilized than that.
Barely.
As they reached the vestibule, Tamsyn suddenly turned, looking up at him. Once again, Bowen got the sense that she was trying to figure him out, her brain whirring behind those big brown eyes.
“So that’s that?” she said, fluffing her hair out from under the collar of her coat and hitting him with another wave of that perfume that somehow smelled like Christmas. Warm, spicy. Like clove and orange. “No paperwork? No contracts? We just shake hands like gentlemen, and boom, I work for you?”
