Stitches and Witches: A Paranormal Cozy Mystery (Vampire Knitting Club Book 2) Read online

  STITCHES AND WITCHES

  VAMPIRE KNITTING CLUB BOOK 2

  NANCY WARREN

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  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

  Also by Nancy Warren

  About the Author

  INTRODUCTION

  Stitches and Witches, Vampire Knitting Club Book 2

  A Paranormal Cozy Mystery

  Here’s what readers are saying about The Vampire Knitting Club:

  “A terrific read - witches, vampires, knitting and a great plot. What more could you ask for?” Krystyna

  “The Vampire Knitting Club breathes new life into the genre.” PW Amazon Reviewer

  “A fantastic, fun, and very well written cosy mystery.” Bella, Amazon Reviewer

  CHAPTER 1

  T he gentleman who walked into Cardinal Woolsey's Knitting Shop that October morning reminded me of a character actor. Not one you can immediately put a name to, but one who plays generals and titled English gentlemen. He’d have had bit parts in Downton Abbey and Jane Austen adaptations with his white, wavy hair, perfectly trimmed moustache and twinkling blue eyes. He was tanned as though he’d spent the last few months in the south of France. He wore a tweed sports jacket, gray flannels and sported a silk cravat around his neck.

  My first impression of him was that he was quite tall, but when I looked again I realized it was his upright bearing that made him seem taller than he was. The term larger-than-life went through my head. He didn't appear to be a knitter but, as I’d discovered through running Cardinal Woolsey's for the last few weeks, knitters came in all shapes and sizes, ages and sexes.

  Some were even vampires.

  "Good morning," I said, stepping out from behind the counter.

  When he saw me, his face lit up as though we were old friends, even though I was certain I’d never seen him before. His teeth were quite large, white and straight. "Good morning," he replied. “And it's a good morning indeed when I’m greeted by a beautiful young woman."

  He said the words in a casual way as though he paid extravagant compliments to every woman—young or old, pretty or plain. I was about to ask him if he was handy with the needles, when he said, "I've come to throw myself on your mercy."

  I blinked at the choice of words and then from the twinkle in his eye realized he wasn’t serious.

  He took a deep breath. "It’s about a woman who used to live next door at the Elderflower Tea Shop. Her name was Florence Watt."

  I sensed intrigue. Florence and Mary Watt were spinster sisters who had been running Elderflower Tea Shop next door for a long time, probably since tea first came to England. I got the feeling this man had known Florence many years ago. Did he think perhaps she had married and changed her name?"

  I put him out of his misery. "Miss Watt is still next door. She and her sister, Mary, run the tea shop."

  He put a hand to his heart. "And is it possible that Miss Florence Watt is unattached?"

  It was strange to think of either of the Miss Watts as having a romantic life, and yet, it seemed at one time there must've been one. I tried not to look nosy but I don’t think I succeeded.

  "You’ve guessed it, of course. I loved Florence fifty-five years ago and I've never been able to forget her."

  I’d read of such cases. High school sweethearts who reunited in their golden years, couples who’d been kept apart by circumstance and got together late in life. I was excited to play even a small role in a golden age romance.

  Even though it was difficult to imagine the practical and efficient Florence Watt as a young woman in love, I was a romantic at heart and wanted to think she might still find love.

  I was curious, and he seemed eager to talk about his affairs. Since it was a quiet morning in the shop, I’d be quite happy to put off doing inventory for another few minutes. "You must have been very young.”

  He nodded, and gazed in the direction of the tea shop. “Hardly more than a boy. But there was something about Florence that I had never seen in another girl. We fell in love, and I believed I’d found the woman I would spend the rest of my life with.” He shook his head, sadly. “But, I was unfortunately called away.” He lowered his voice and made certain we were alone. “The Official Secrets Act makes it impossible to say more.”

  Naturally, I was intrigued. The Official Secrets Act? Was he a spy? Even spooks must get pensioned off at some point. Shouldn’t he have retired some years ago? “Have you been living the secret life all this time?”

  He smiled, revealing those wonderful teeth again. “No. Life intruded and I found myself married and living a very different life. But I never forgot Florence. And now, my wife has passed away, and I wondered if it was possible that Florence still remembered me as I remember her.”

  It was a very romantic story and the man in front of me glanced quickly at my face as though checking that I, too, was swept away by stirring emotions. In fact, I was that most delightful British word, ‘gobsmacked.’ The Watt sisters were spinsters of indeterminate age. It was easy to imagine they’d sprung fully formed from tea balls and spent their entire lives serving up raisin scones and crustless sandwiches in our little corner of Oxford. To think of either of them having a date, never mind a man carrying the torch for them, was almost more than I could take in.

  I said the only thing I could think of. “As far as I know, Florence Watt is next door at the tea shop now. Perhaps she’s the one you should ask?”

  He nodded, looking relieved. “I thought I’d stop in here and see if her neighbors knew anything that might stop a man from making a fool of himself.”

  My mind boggled at the possibilities. Miss Watt with a husband and five children? Not even Miss Watt anymore, but Mrs. Somebody-or-other. “No. I imagine she’d be pleased to see an old friend.”

  He glanced around my shop, crammed as it was with wools, knitting books and magazines, crochet cottons, needles and hooks and all the assorted notions, plus the completed sweaters, shawls and cardigans that hung on the walls or from racks. He looked toward my back room, though I kept that part of the shop curtained off. I used it to hold knitting classes, but in the floor was a trap door used by my downstairs roomies—a nest of knitting-mad vampires.

  When I’d first met them, after I moved here from Boston, I was scared they’d eat me. Now that I understood them better, I’d become quite fond of them. Still, I kept that curtain shut during shop hours as my grandmother, the newest vampire and one who suffered from insomnia, had once or twice shown up in the shop during the day.

  “This is such a cozy shop, it makes me want to take up knitting.”

  “You should. It’s a very relaxing hobby.” I don’t know how I kept a straight face, saying things like that. Knitting was a diabolical exercise in frustration. Most everything I tried to knit ended up looking like something from the hedgehog family. Still, it wouldn’t look good to admit that the person running a knitting shop couldn’t knit, so I’d picked up a few pat phras
es. He nodded, still looking around. “You weren’t even born when I was last here. Another woman used to run this shop.”

  “Yes. My grandmother, Agnes Bartlett. She passed away a few months ago. I’m her granddaughter, Lucy.”

  “I’m sure she’d be very proud to know you’re doing such a wonderful job.”

  “Thank you.”

  He pulled his shoulders back like a soldier about to go on parade. “Well, Lucy, wish me luck, won’t you?”

  “Yes, of course. Good luck.” As he walked out I saw him glance at his own reflection in the windowpane of the door. I suspected it was insecurity rather than vanity that had him checking his appearance and I found the gesture rather charming.

  Naturally, I was dying to discuss this very strange turn of events with my grandmother but, at this time of day, she’d be sound asleep. Fortunately, the vampire knitting club was meeting that night.

  SHE NEARLY ALWAYS CAME UP AN HOUR OR so before the meeting so she and I could prepare the back room and have a visit before the others turned up.

  I glanced at the big clock on the wall. It was ten-thirty in the morning. I had some time to wait. I wondered if there was anything in my witch’s book of spells about moving time forward, then decided against consulting my grimoire. It would be a frivolous use of my newfound powers. Besides, with my luck, I’d push the clock forward fifty years or something instead of a couple of hours. I had only recently discovered I was a witch, and more recently than that, discovered the old grimoire, my family’s book of magic spells that had been added to for centuries.

  There were spells in there for curing rickets and restoring moonlings, for warding off demons and cursing your enemies. I’d treat the book as harmless fun, like those old cookbooks that tell you how to make jellied calves brains or nettle pudding, except that I’d tried to get the kettle to boil without plugging it in. After memorizing the spell and putting my whole concentration into it, I’d made the kettle explode and put a hole in the ceiling. Magic, I’d discovered, wasn’t harmless fun. It was volatile and tricky. Frankly, I was terrified of it. The less I needed to poke around in that old grimoire, the better.

  The two things I’d tried that I was the least talented in were knitting and witching; just my luck those were the two occupations in my new life.

  My beloved grandmother, who used to be a witch but was recently turned into a vampire, insisted all I needed was practice. Every time I felt the urge to open that grimoire, which wasn’t often, I looked up at the new plaster on the kitchen ceiling and reminded myself of how much it had cost to repair.

  Turned out, there was no spell to make bills disappear.

  Instead of magicking away my time, I spent an hour on the computer putting in an order for woollen supplies. It was quiet in the shop, so I had plenty of leisure to wonder what was going on next door. Had the aged beau met up with Miss Florence Watt? Was their old love even now rekindling?

  I had my back to the door and was counting crochet hooks when the bell rang indicating I had a new customer. I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. A chill began at the nape of my neck and traced down my spine like a cold raindrop sliding down a windowpane. I knew it was Rafe Crosyer.

  Rafe was also a vampire, but an extremely sexy one. I had a bit of a crush on him, truth to tell, even though he scared me most of the time. He was like a barely-tamed wolf. Magnificent and sleek, but I was never entirely certain he wouldn’t revert to a hungry animal at the most inopportune moment.

  I dropped the hooks into the basket, immediately forgetting how many I’d just counted and turned to greet the vampire.

  He looked tall, cool and elegant as always. His black hair was recently cut and emphasized the chiselled leanness of his cheeks. He wore black woollen trousers with a gray cashmere sweater and over it a tweed jacket. He looked like a particularly sexy Oxford Don, although much younger and better dressed than most of them.

  Rafe rarely seemed to sleep. I got the feeling he survived on cat naps. As usual I felt both drawn and repelled by him.

  He looked as though something very bad had happened. He stood, silent and staring.

  “Can I help you with something?”

  “Have you heard the news?”

  I don’t know how he did it, considering that he tried to keep a low profile, but Rafe always seemed to know everything that was going on, not only in Oxford, but in the world at large. “You mean about Miss Watt?”

  His ice blue eyes narrowed on my face. “Miss Watt? What about her?”

  I felt mildly pleased. “I know something you don’t know. For once.” I recounted my meeting with the older gentleman who had come to romance Miss Watt.

  His long, fastidious nose wrinkled. “How banal. No, something much more serious is happening.”

  “What?” I pictured bad vampires coming from another town, a powerful and evil witch come to challenge me to some kind of witch’s duel, which I would certainly lose. Plague, pestilence or at the very least a bad weather forecast.

  He said, “A toyshop is opening in the next block. You know what that means, don’t you?”

  “More foot traffic? Increased business?” I tried to be hopeful and look on this new development in an optimistic fashion.

  Rafe shook his head at my naïveté. The disdainful look deepened. “Children.”

  “What’s wrong with children?” I’m hoping to have a couple myself one of these days.

  “Noisy, destructive little demons.” Like vampires were the peaceful sort.

  He would’ve passed through into the back room that led down to the tunnels below the shop, where most of the local vampires lived. Though I don’t know what he was going to do down there, since most of them would be asleep.

  I had an idea. I suppose I was as much of a romantic as a woman suffering a recent heartbreak could be, and I was dying to know what was going on next door in the tea shop.

  I glanced at my watch. It was five to eleven. My new assistant was due to start work at eleven. “Would you like to go next door and have a cup of tea?”

  He glanced at me, oddly. Then I realized that he most likely didn’t drink tea. I felt foolish, but before I could say ‘never mind’ he glanced around. “But, who will look after the shop?”

  “Agatha, my new assistant, starts at eleven. Her name is really Agathe. She’s French.”

  “Never mind her nationality. Is she a psychopathic liar likely to get herself murdered, like your last assistant?”

  Poor Rosemary had indeed been killed and in this very shop. I shuddered at the memory. “That wasn’t my fault. Gran hired Rosemary. Anyway, Agatha had excellent references. She worked in a lingerie shop on the Champs Elysees before coming here.”

  “Good experience. But can she knit?” Since I couldn’t seem to grasp the whole knit one purl two thing, it was imperative I hired assistants who were more talented.

  “Yes. She went to convent school and the nuns taught her. The only thing is, I think she despises knitting and looks down on women who wear hand-knitted garments.”

  He looked significantly at the cardigan I was wearing. It had a cream-colored background covered with individual knitted flowers. Daisies, roses and peonies flopped and fluttered down my front in sickly oranges, reds and pinks. A sweet vampire, Mabel, who had been turned during World War II had knit it for me. The vampires in the knitting club all took turns making me things to wear in the shop. It gave them something to do and usually the sweaters, scarves and dresses they knit me were works of art. But poor Mabel, while a proficient knitter, didn’t have the artistic eye of some of the vampires.

  When I’d put the sweater on this morning and looked in the mirror, I’d been forcibly reminded of a knitted toilet paper cover.

  He picked up a crochet hook I’d dropped on the floor and placed it in the basket. “If you want a cup of tea, why don’t you go upstairs to your flat and plug in the kettle?”

  First, I hadn’t replaced the one that blew up. Second, what was going on next
door was bound to be more interesting than my quiet flat. Quickly, I filled him in on the full story of the lovers who’d been separated for half a century and how badly I wanted to see how the reunion had gone. I suppose, in vampire time, a separation of fifty-five years is equivalent to a couple of weeks to humans, but he agreed to accompany me.

  Agatha walked in exactly at eleven. She was forty-ish, thin and incredibly chic in a black dress and heels. She wore her dark red hair in a simple bob. Somehow, watching her move, I was convinced she was wearing the fancy lingerie she used to sell.

  She took one look at my sweater and said, “Mon Dieu.” I couldn’t really blame her. She was wearing pure silk lingerie and I was wearing a very large toilet paper cover.

  Before I could explain that we were going next door, the cheerful bell rang as the door opened. I put on my ‘how can I help you?’ expression and then my smile went natural when I recognized my cousin, Violet Weeks, and her grandmother, Lavinia. They were both witches, but I didn’t hold that against them, as I was one myself.

  They greeted me with cheek kisses and friendly smiles. Since the two families had been estranged for many years, I wasn’t completely sure I trusted them, but they seemed to come in peace. Lavinia carried a package wrapped in pretty flowered paper with a bow on it. Since it wasn’t my birthday or any holiday I was aware of, I raised my eyebrows when she presented it to me.

  “Open it.” When a wrapped gift was in my hands I tended not to argue with orders to open it. I tore through the wrapping, and, when I saw the gift, a tiny sound of mixed pleasure and sorrow escaped me. Nyx, my cat, jumped from her usual spot curled in the basket of wools in the front window, to come and investigate.

  The gift was a framed photograph of my grandmother celebrating her fiftieth year running Cardinal Woolsey’s. That had been about five years ago and, if possible, she looked even better now. Vampires continue to look the age they were when turned, but become sleek and strong.

  “I found the photo in that box of pictures you gave me and I thought how nice it would look in the shop.” She’d had it framed and a window was cut into the mat with the words, “Agnes Bartlett, Proprietor of Cardinal Woolsey’s Knitting Shop,” and the dates of Gran’s birth and death. I guessed that the customers who remembered her would enjoy seeing such a nice memorial and, since Gran was still in my life, I wouldn’t feel sad when I saw her picture on the wall. I was pretty sure Gran would also be thrilled when she saw it. Since Lavinia knew as well as I did that Gran was still around, I suspected the picture was a peace offering to her sister.