A Midsummer at Rosewood

By Linda Niehoff

When Daphne's invited to be the thirteenth at a séance, she falls for Edward. Not a guest but a ghost. Can it last?

 

This short story can also be found in the short story collection The Ghost You Know.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dread Moon Press
• Release date: Jun 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215266724

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A Midsummer at Rosewood

A Midsummer at Rosewood

A Short Story

Linda Niehoff

Dread Moon Press

Copyright © 2023 by Linda Graziano-Niehoff

Cover design copyright © 2023 by Linda Graziano-Niehoff

Cover art copyright © Fotolit2/Depositphotos

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All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Contents

A Midsummer at Rosewood

Afterword

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About the Author

A Midsummer at Rosewood

Imet Edward at a séance. He wasn’t one of the guests. He was the ghost.

I was ostensibly there in search of my late husband, but I was almost certain the medium was a fraud. Most of them are according to Edward. Many people believe in them. I’m the kind who wants to believe but never really does.

And yet here we are.

But Lady Petunia Went-Fitworth, Petty to friends, had invited me to be her thirteenth. I had spent some of my childhood with her and her two brothers at Rosewood Hall, though we weren’t close. But one more guest was needed and I had suffered a loss. Besides, Petty was the type to give unsolicited advice and had told me that I needed to seek my late husband’s permission to remarry. I intended to do no such thing, but I did have unfinished business with him, though I’d never have done anything in front of an audience. But I was curious. So I accepted her invitation.

Edward showed up, appearing underneath the table where we sat. I’d dropped my husband’s cuff-links. Of course, I’d done it on purpose, as skeptical as I am, intending to seek out the levers underneath the table and prove the woman a fraud. I did find the levers. And I found Edward. Shaggy black hair and deep green eyes and a wide grin on his face. I let out a scream and had to be revived with smelling salts.

So did the medium.

I don’t like a fuss. And there was plenty of one. Along with everyone there thinking I’d now gained a second sight.

It turned out the medium was after the Went-Fitworth jewels. She was in league with a group that moved as spirits through dark houses during the séance itself. So that if anyone heard bumps or movement, they wouldn’t question it. They were told the noises were manifestations. When the medium and I fainted, the men moving about the house were found out and the police called. Several notable jewels from various notable families were found back at the medium’s lodgings.

It wasn’t the last time I saw Edward, though I told everyone it was.

He appeared again, thankfully less dramatically. I would not speak to