Belling the tigeress, p.1
Belling the Tiger(ess), page 1
Table of Contents
Excerpt
Praise for M. Culler
Belling the Tiger(ess)
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Epilogue
A word about the author…
Thank you for purchasing
“Mr. Warwick. There you are.” A yellow patch of light spilled onto the walkway as the lady of the house opened the door.
“A pleasure to see you, Miss Mumford.” Augustus trotted up the steps and squeezed her hand for a moment longer than he needed, unable to keep the smile off his face. “I’ve just seen Tiger. Or…whatever you call that one.” He winked.
She gaped at him. “Wh-what do you mean?”
Augustus, emboldened by admiration and the prospect of earning her trust by keeping her secret, pulled her from the house and gently let the front door fall shut behind her. “I know, Miss Mumford. I know your secret.”
She said nothing, her skin losing its creamy tone and fading to sickly gray, the pallor emphasized by her black dress. With a stagger, she clutched the doorframe, bosom heaving.
“Oh! Oh, please, don’t worry. I only just figured it out, and I won’t tell a soul. I think it’s brilliant!” He squeezed her hands, both of them in both of his. A current of electricity ran up his arms and down his spine.
Praise for M. Culler
“M. Culler has done it again with this beautifully woven tale. The blending of sweet and funny is achieved to a deeply satisfying effect and will hold you spellbound from the first page to the last.”
~ Best Selling Author, T Wells Brown
“A magical, old-fashioned romance where opposites attract and love blossoms. I loved this story and couldn’t put it down.”
~ Award Winning Author, D.A. Nelson
“Delightfully enchanting, witty, and charming.”
~ LoLo Paige, Award Winning Author of the Blazing Hearts Wildfire Series
Belling the Tiger(ess)
by
M. Culler
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either 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.
Belling the Tiger(ess)
COPYRIGHT © 2023 by Mary Culler
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com
Cover Art by The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com
Publishing History
First Edition, 2023
Trade Paperback ISBN 978-1-5092-4932-9
Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-4933-6
Published in the United States of America
Dedication
To my writer brothers and sisters. The list keeps growing, and all of you are so dear to me. Thank you to Judy, Rachelle, Dawn, Terry, Lolo, Michelle, Sofia, Harry, Steven, and David.
To the man who loves me no matter what, who I will always love no matter what, Phillip.
To my biggest little blessings, Malcolm and Morgana.
To Gladys Felice. Every book is for you.
To my parents, who always find ways to support me. I couldn’t ask for better.
Soli Deo Gloria.
Chapter One
Spring, 1910
Rowena dressed simply. Lived simply. Despite possessing a considerable amount of wealth and a lovely home of her own, she never flaunted her well-to-do status. She was quite content to be a spinster and to let the neighborhood children whisper behind their hands that she was a witch.
They were right, in a way. Weren’t they?
She must be a witch, or at least have close-enough associations to have been cursed by one. How else would she be afflicted with this horrid secret—a secret that would have surely seen her burned at the stake just a few centuries ago.
Not the affliction of being clever. More and more, women wanted to study or work (provided they weren’t married, naturally). It might not be considered entirely proper, but at least it was somewhat accepted.
“Good evening, Miss Mumford.”
“Good evening.” Rowena nodded to Mr. Chesterton as he stepped off the trolley.
It was time for the nightly parade. There were no cymbals, no carriages, no bunting-covered Oldsmobiles. There were just men.
Thin ones, tall ones, rotund ones, short ones, graying widowers, and young dandies flushed with pride over their first jobs as shopkeepers or law clerks. Despite the wide array of men passing the Mumford house, they all had something in common. They were all thinking of matrimony.
She had heard it whispered that any decent eligible man in Cedar Point, Massachusetts, thought of matrimony when he saw Rowena Mumford watering her geraniums at twilight.
Rowena had uniquely good hearing, a trait passed down on her mother’s side. Her ears had caught many comments, whether whispers behind her back or admonitions directly to her face.
Why, in the last week alone, she could count at least three different urgings to the noble estate of matrimony—and none of them were from suitors.
“Not Christian that a woman so lovely should fail to do her duty of becoming someone’s wife,” hinted Mrs. Chambers, the minister’s wife.
“Darling, you’re not getting any younger. You’re nearly twenty-seven.” That was Cousin Isadore, who already had four strapping children under the age of six.
“Do you want to die alone?” screeched Granny Nesbitt, who had an endless stream of devoted grandchildren and grandnieces and grandnephews dancing attendance upon her.
Rowena stopped musing as some of the “parade” did more than simply smile and doff their chapeaus from the neat redbrick sidewalks.
Mr. Ruger, a very nice man with a thick German accent and even thicker mustaches, presented her with a crock of pickles. “I heard you were fond of pickles, Fraulein Mumford. My mother made these. She has her own recipe, and the larder is full of them.”
Professor Trilby rushed to give her his article that was to be published in the Cedar Point Gazette. (“You are a woman who reads. I have no objection to a wife who reads. In fact, I’d encourage it.”)
Matthew Raine was the last caller of the evening. He swaggered up to her in breeches too tight and a smile too wide, smelling of clove and hair pomade. He swept to her porch railing with a bouquet of drooping lilacs. (“They smell heavenly, but not as heavenly as your roast beef or your potted plants, Miss Mumford. How is it that such a capable woman hasn’t accepted a suitor yet?”)
At six on the nose, Rowena shut and locked her front door and let out a tiny scream. She had been courted with pickles, papers, and flowers.
“Not one of those men would love the real me, warts, whiskers, and all,” Rowena moaned, looking at the portrait of her late parents. Their smiling likeness, done in oils, hung over the fireplace, which was cold and dark.
Rowena preferred the kitchen. She wrote her essays there, publishing them under the name of Robert Mumford, Esq., correspondent for the Cincinnati Speculator. Between teaching piano, French, and writing, she kept the towering old family home in good repair.
“It’s frustrating to know that they see me as such a simple creature, Tiger.” She stroked her beautiful black cat (who admittedly didn’t help the witch rumors). “They see me as a beauty, and who knows why a man should only want that in a wife? I shudder to think of life with someone who only likes the sight of me.” She tossed her hair, removing a swarm of pins and letting her mane tumble free in thick blue-black waves. Tiger promptly started sweeping pins off the counter with his paw. Rowena didn’t notice, still in mid-lecture. “If it’s not for beauty, it’s simply for utility. A wife is a commodity to most of the men in Cedar Point. Marriage means securing someone to cook, clean, warm their beds, and bear their sons.”
“Mrowr?” Tiger thrust his head determinedly under her chin, purring. Was this comfort for his mistress, or mere pride because he’d managed to knock every single pin to the floor?
Rowena chose to believe the cat’s actions were for her benefit.
“You’re right,” she mused, pretending that he’d said something beyond a happy mew. “There are a few who try to appeal to my intellect. Professor Trilby is certainly an accomplished man and a kind one…but I fear I’d be a widow not long after I was a bride. Tonight is the third time I’ve seen him reading as he walks home. He’ll meet a messy end under the trolley if he’s not careful.”
Tiger hopped from the counter to the table, scattering the papers which bore the signature “Robert Mumford, Esq.” With a bold swish of his opulent tail, he sent them soaring off the table.
“Tiger! You vain, infuriating thing. I need to edit th
A thoughtful frown settled on Rowena’s beautiful face, which was gently rounded with pink, glowing cheeks and deep sky-blue eyes.
“You are vain and infuriating. You knock over the dustbins. You stole Mrs. Hill’s salted cod. You knocked over Granny Nesbitt’s peppermint oil and ruined her slippers.” The frown turned to a thoughtful smile. “I dare say everyone in town knows what a menace you are.”
Tiger gave his paw an insolent lick. It was only when he sat still and allowed you to really study him that one could see the black-on-black lines that ran through his coat. A black-striped tiger, a convenient household version.
“I don’t like being alone, you know,” Rowena murmured. A trace of the softness that she hid from most flowed easily around her confidant.
Tiger stopped his grooming ritual to take up his treasured post as Guardian of the Mumford Family, Nuzzler of Sad Cheeks, and Giver of Affectionate Nips. He rolled over onto his broad, black back and showed his tummy. As soon as Rowena stroked it, he wrapped his front paws tightly around her wrist and nibbled on her thumb.
“You’re very sweet, and yes, I do have you. But it’d be nice to have someone human to chat with. Someone who likes to do the same things I do.”
“Mrow?”
“Besides eating and sleeping, you naughty thing.” Rowena gave the cat a solid scritch under the chin and freed her hand. “Work to do. Must get on.” Any thoughts she’d had about ways to winkle out a potential mate from the horde of well-meaning (but boring) suitors vanished.
Chapter Two
Augustus Warwick leaned in the doorway of his shop. He loved this moment. Though the early spring meant longer days, the city of Cedar Point hadn’t yet changed its nightly routine. At 7:00 Post Meridiem, on the nose, the tungsten electric streetlamp directly in front of Warwick’s Whimsies flickered and flared to life. Each time, he let out an appreciative chuckle, which did not fully obscure his father’s grunt of irritation.
“Should have left the old naphtha gas lamps. Why bother with this newfangled electricity in the street? You know it’ll make the taxes go up.”
“It’s a very efficient light source, Father.” Augustus walked back to his counter, leaving the door open, hopefully to invite courting couples and young married ones in, along with the soft April air. “Can you smell the lilacs? They’ve started blooming early this year. That good, warm snap we had.”
His father answered with another grunt before taking his stick and hat in hand. “Good night, Augustus.”
Augustus pushed his wayward tumble of auburn hair out of his eyes. “Oh. Good night, Father.”
“Will you be coming home this evening?”
Warwick the Younger smothered a sigh. He had a flat above the store-cum-workshop. In the front, facing Main Street, was Warwick’s Whimsies, the only confectioners in Cedar Point. In the back, facing Turnbridge Alley, was Warwick’s Bicycle and Instrument Repair. “Father, I am home.”
“Not much of a home. No wife. No proper meals. No grandchildren to dandle on my knee.”
“You never dandled an infant in your life. You had me marching to breakfast when I was three.”
“I could have gotten you into West Point. You’ve got the brains, the bearing, the lineage…” Colonel Warwick, late of the Massachusetts Cedar Point 77th, Artillery Command, banged his stick on the floorboards as he limped toward the open door.
“Yes, I know.” Augustus ended his comments there. He was tempted to launch into a litany of things he did not possess, things that were essential for a good soldier. Things that his father was not slow to remind him of when the mood struck him. But why argue?
Colonel Warwick paused, eye to eye with his son. Even in his sixtieth spring, the deep-blue orbs hadn’t faded or lost their sharpness. “They would have fixed your hair for a start.” His hand rose as if to brush back a buoyant lock from his son’s forehead, then fell swiftly, ostensibly to fumble with his pocket watch.
“I doubt that. There are some things that not even the United States Army can save.” Augustus tugged on his bangs, resistant to every sort of grease or pomade.
Colonel Warwick smiled in spite of himself. He might give his only son a hard time, but he loved the lad and wanted the best for him. It was hard for a military man of rigid views to understand how his son could turn down the glory, order, and usefulness of the military for a lifetime of making candies, pumping up rubber tires, and tuning people’s pianos. “You should pop home. Your mother misses you.” His voice dropped, no longer the stentorian tones that had terrified dozens of young cadets.
“I’ll be home for Sunday supper, as always.”
“Could bring a girl home, as well. Pretty enough lasses in town,” the elder Warwick remarked, eyes squinting into the sunset.
Augustus barely contained a bray of laughter. What sort of girl would want Augustus Warwick, the man who constantly was letting the caramel burn, who was running about with a spanner sticking out of his trouser pockets, or was half-buried under a piano in a stranger’s parlor? What sort of girl would want to be the wife of a man with graceless feet, nimble hands, and a brain that had no sense of timing? Why, at least four nights of the week, he woke up before first light, consumed with ideas for a new confectionary delight, and blundered down to the sweet shop kitchen in his pajamas.
Not to mention the hair.
Knowing that his father could keep silent indefinitely, Augustus cleared his throat and tried to explain why he would be showing up to dinner unaccompanied for the foreseeable future. “Yes, I know there are a number of beauties in town, but I—”
“Ah, well, at least your vision hasn’t been totally obscured by that curly mop.” His father gave a hearty laugh. “As I see it, you’re well-placed for courting. You’ve got all the chocolates and sucking candies a woman could desire. Like catnip to a tabby! Must be a dozen girls in your shop each night.” The colonel rubbed his hands together, warming to his clever idea.
“Yes. Easily.” Augustus hesitated, then decided it was better to dash his father’s hopes sooner rather than later. “But they’re all being courted or already married.”
“What, all of them?” Colonel Warwick clucked his tongue. It was clear from the frown beneath his walrus-like mustache that his boy just wasn’t trying hard enough. “What about that…oh, what’s her name? Clever girl? Parents died abroad a few years back?”
Augustus knew exactly who his father meant, but he refused to take the bait.
His father kept fishing. “Big house? Gives lessons in…some foreign language. She’s eligible, wealthy, got a bit put by in the brains department—”
“Honestly, Father,” Augustus hissed.
“Manford. Rowena Manford.”
“Mumford.”
“Ah, you know her.” His father’s satisfied smile let Augustus know he’d been had.
“I have to tune her piano this week. She teaches piano, not ‘some foreign language.’ ”
“She teaches French, too.”
Augustus gaped at the smug-looking man before him, rocking on his highly polished bootheels. “How do you—”
“Your mother likes her. She said the other day that the poor thing was lonely. She’s an odd woman, that Rowena. Pity, really, what with her being so pretty and the house being so big and empty.”
As Augustus groped for a suitable reply, his father continued, mowing down any spluttering objections, just as his cannons would have mowed down the enemy.
“She’s a strange woman, you’re a…a…”
“Crackpot?” Augustus supplied with a soft groan.
“If you’d like. She must like sweets. Why don’t you take her a box of those pink sugar things when you go to tune her piano?”
“Because—” Augustus took his father firmly by the elbow, his stumbling tongue replaced by solid reserve. “—that isn’t how I would treat any other customer, and because Miss Mumford has no interest in any man in town, let alone the laughingstock of Cedar Point. Now—” He smoothed his apron, surprised at his own outburst. “—you’d best get home before Mother gets worried.”
The old soldier sighed, his spine ramrod straight as he marched into the lavender-colored twilight. “You’re very stubborn, boy!”
