Page 1 of 2 Books in One Bundle
Awoken by Revenge
Kali Anthony
CHAPTER ONE
ANAMPHIBIANWASgiving her trouble. Louisa pushed her glasses up her nose, staring down at the recalcitrant creature she’d sketched. Her illustration brief had been clear. He was meant to be a cute frog with a golden crown. The perfect frog prince for a sweet children’s story. Instead, he sat there on the page, crown jauntily askew. His froggy little mouth turned up into a kind of smirk. Arms crossed, as if in some way judging her...
Louisa could never accept that. No judgement was allowed anywhere in her life, any more.
Though it was a familiar smirk on that mouth of his. Sly, knowing. Recognition niggled in the recesses of her memory, yet she still couldn’t place it. Louisa blew out a slow breath. Sometimes your characters worked against you and today was that day. She tried sketching him again, this time with a billowing cape. A rakish wink.
Although surely frogs in children’s stories shouldn’t be rakish, should they?
‘Play nicely,’ she said to the frog on the page. She could have torn the paper out, tossed him away and shown him who was the real boss, yet something about his familiar smile forced her to keep him for now. Louisa turned to a fresh sheet of crisp white paper. She would get him right. Shewould. She had a deadline for her illustrations, and she never missed a deadline. Timing was everything. She lived by it.
Instead of challenging herself with misbehaving frog princes, she immersed herself in the world of the story. A verdant, magical forest, with fairies and animals come to life on the page. A mythical world where she didn’t have to think about a gleaming coffin lowered into sodden ground in a snowdrop-carpeted cemetery. A grave in the English countryside her great-aunt Mae had loved and would lie in for ever.
Louisa rubbed at the yawning ache in her chest. No. She didn’t have to think of grief. Right now, she could think about another world entirely. A world of make-believe. Her favourite place.
She inked a watercolour wash of green, the detail of leaves. It was as if she were in that picture, strolling through the forest like a lost princess with the breeze whispering through her hair. Possibility abounding as her brush slicked across the page and her heart tripped along at themystery ofdiscovery.Half in reality, half out of it. Picking up some blue because in this world she created the sun always shone and the sky remained a perfect hue...
A clanging gong sounded in the distance. She tried ignoring it, even though the doorbell could challenge Big Ben for loudness. A ringing doorbell couldn’t be right. It was Wednesday, and no one was due today. The house empty, staff on one of their days off. Just her and her work, in what should be blissful silence. Of course, tourists would occasionally drop by on days the home wasn’t open to the public, but a polite sign on the door usually saw them on their way. Anyhow, since Mae’s passing Easton Hall had been closed, which was made clear on the house’s website. No. Everyone in the area knew the home’s schedule, and none would be impolite enough to disturb it. She could ignore the demanding sound with impunity...
Yet the knowledge that there must be a stranger outside gnawed at her consciousness like a worm in an apple. Louisa stilled. Her brush held above the page, a splat of blue dripping onto it as she was rudely wrenched from the world of her illustration into cold, hard reality.
She looked down at the livid blue blot now bleeding over the page, marring her picture. At least it was only a working drawing, and not the final copy. The error wouldn’t put her behind her schedule. Louisa loathed the idea of missing her deadline almost as much as she loathed unscheduled strangers at the door. In recent times those kinds of strangers hadn’t meant anything good.
That infernal doorbell gave another chime. Whoever it was wasn’t going away. Since Mae had been laid in the ground, a number of people had visited the property. Buyers’ agents, mostly. Looking to see if Easton Hall was for sale, given the owner’s passing. All vultures, as if the estate were some kind of carcass to pick away at, rather than a loving home.
She could try to ignore them, yet they were known for their doggedness and the housekeeper, Mrs Fancutt, and her two Pomeranians weren’t here to help her evict them. Right now, she was alone.
It was her job to see the intruders off the property.
‘There’s more to the world than you’ve experienced, Louisa. Be brave.’
The last words Mae had spoken to her. Tears pricked Louisa’s eyes, but she blinked away the burn. Her great-aunt had lived a long and eccentric life and had loved Louisa fiercely. Swooping in when one medical professional hadfinallyrefused to believe her mother’s lies. Giving her a home when her mother had died just prior to a trial that would have laid ugly secrets bare.
That Louisa wasn’t sick all those years as her mother had claimed.
Mae had ensured she’d gone to school again, trying to give her a normal life. Getting her the help she’d needed when her mental scars had threatened to overwhelm her. If Mae’s last message to her was to be brave, that was what she’d be. In her twenty-four years, she’d fought bigger demons than strangers on her doorstep.
Louisa washed her brush. Pulled her long hair back into a rough ponytail and stomped to the front door. Realising as she peered through the spyhole to an amorphous blur that she’d forgotten to take off her reading glasses again. But what did it matter? She’d be working again in no time and sometimes the world was better when everything was a little soft focus. She took a deep breath, turned the giant iron key, and yanked the ancient oak door open.
A man in dark clothes stood on the gravel drive with his back to her, seeming to survey the land before him as if he owned it. Whilst he was at an inconvenient distance for her glasses, his silhouette could only be described assharp.His hair like a blot of ink on his head. Something about him made the heat creep up her chest and prickle her cheeks.
Everything about his demeanour screamed authority. She wanted to say something, but she feared her voice was trapped and all that would come out was a croak. Then he turned. Began to move towards her as if he were made of liquid, his movements so rolling and fluid. The only thing making her realise he had solidity and weight was the heavy crunch, crunch, crunch of his shoes on the gravel drive. And she had to say something because he’d get to the stairs soon and she had a wild premonition that if he made it to the top, he’d never leave...
She held up her hand. ‘Stop right there.’
He did. Closer now, a little less soft focus. The corner of his mouth quirking in a way that seemed all too familiar. That sensation of recognition overcame her. Give him a billowing cape, a jaunty crown and a rakish wink and this man was her frog prince made human.
It was as if she’d drawn him to life.
Her heart thumped an uncomfortable rhythm. She should take off her glasses, but she didn’t want him to think that she wanted to get a better look at him, even though she did.
Desperately.
‘You haven’t answered any of my lawyer’s correspondence.’
