Enchanted August by Brenda Bowen Read Free Book Online

groceries—there’s a market
boat
every Monday! He also tells how to get the generator going if there’s a power outage. Oh, I hope there’ll be a power outage!”
    â€œI don’t.”
    â€œHere’s the social calendar. Can you imagine, a social calendar? There’s so much stuff going on this month. A cocktail party and a kids’ play! Robert SanSouci is adorable. Maybe he’s gay?”
    Rose remembered how he’d looked at her at the City Bakery. “I don’t think so,” she said. She reached up to the high shelves to see if there was a hidden coffeemaker somewhere. There was not.
    Lottie consulted the book. “‘The water from the springs is the water you should drink. There will be springwater in the cooler in the pantry.’” She wandered into a little room off the kitchen. “He’s got everything in here. He must have come right before we arrived. Use this water, Rose.”
    They filled the kettle with crystal clear water. “From our own spring.”
    â€œEither he was just up here, or he asked someone to get it all prepped for us. Maybe our mysterious ferry driver,” said Rose. That would make more sense than Robert’s traveling to Maine to put milk in the fridge, surely. The stove was about thirty years old but the electricity was working again and it ticked to life. Lottie picked at blueberries in the fridge as the kettle boiled. “They’re so tiny. Is this what everyone raves about?”
    Rose tried a small handful. “They taste like blueberry jam.” She picked up the kettle before it started to screech. She could tell it would be an aggressive whistle.
    â€œCome on. Let’s go upstairs.”
    They walked up the wide staircase, mugs in hand. She hadn’t drunk this kind of instant coffee since she was in grad school. It was better than she thought it would be. When they got to the top they found themselves in a dark hallway with at least a dozen doors, all closed.
    â€œThis is so incredible,” said Lottie. “Which one do we open first?” She tried a door at the near end of the hall. “Look, Rose, this is the turret!” she cried. “It’s round!”
    As she walked through the rounded bedroom, Rose was a little surprised that the bed was so haphazardly made up, especially as her little room downstairs was immaculate. But she forgave all when she stepped onto the room’s tiny porch, some six feet by four. This vista was much broader; you could see more islands and a gray obscurity far away—a distant island, or a storm way out at sea? She and Lottie stood there, drinking in the sun, the heat, the scent, the million diamonds on the water. And almost at the same time, they noticed that they were not alone.
    â€œWelcome to Hopewell Cottage,” said Caroline Dester.
    Â â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢Â 
    It was a little disconcerting that Rose and Lottie had burst through Caroline’s bedroom and onto her porch without even a knock. But Caroline supposed she could forgive them this once, as they might not have realized she was already in residence. She was surprised to see them looking so much younger than she had imagined them, though perhaps that was just because they were not in Park Slope clothes. In fact, they were barely dressed at all.
    Caroline herself was having a violent reaction against beautiful clothes and the tyranny they imposed on her. You don’t take your clothes to events in her line of business; they take you. When she got to the cottage, she realized, to her relief, that here she could wear her favorite French linen shift and nothing else. It was what she had on right now. She instinctively turned to catch her best light and the sun etched her elegant profile.
    â€œGosh, I didn’t realize you were
so
pretty,” said Lottie.
    Caroline shut that line of conversation down. “Our plane was heading this way yesterday,” she said;