Bishop Takes Knight

  Bishop Takes Knight

  Redclaw Origins, Volume 1

  McKenna Dean

  Published by Redclaw Publishing, 2019.

  Bishop Takes Knight

  Copyright © 2019 by McKenna Dean

  Published by

  REDCLAW PUBLISHING

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and places are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictionally in the writing of this story. Any resemblance to actual persons, either living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Any resemblance to events, businesses, or locales is likewise coincidental.

  Cover art by Reese Dante

  Cover art is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted in the cover is a model.

  All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. Any e-book format may not be loaned, reproduced, or transmitted by any means, electronic or mechanical, without the written permission of the publisher.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Bishop Takes Knight (Redclaw Origins, #1)

  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

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

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  Also By McKenna Dean

  Dedication

  THE SAYING GOES IT takes a village to raise a child, and I think that’s true of producing a book as well. I know that this story would never have seen the light of day if not for the rigorous input of the lovely people in my crit group, who hold flames to my feet to encourage me to write a stronger sentence while at the same time shore up my flagging confidence.

  The same goes for my wonderful beta readers Pam, Margarita, Missy, and Michelle, who cheered me on and helped me realize I had something special with this story, as well as the fabulous MJ, who is the Continuity Queen and helped keep my timeline straight.

  I dedicate this story to you guys. You’re the best.

  Chapter One

  Having tea with Emmaline was my first mistake. Her insistence on taking me to lunch indirectly led to my botched interview, and that’s how I wound up working for a super-secret agency.

  Given how things turned out, it was far from my only mistake.

  The day had dawned dank and dreary with the promise of snow in the air. Though the year was well into its third month, spring seemed far away.

  We met at our old haunt, the Blue Moon. I had just enough bus fare to get to my job interview after lunch, so that meant I’d have to make do with a cup of tea and pretend to be slimming again. I hoped Em wouldn’t hear my stomach growl. Since it wasn’t possible to sustain life on the sheer odor of food alone, I’d have to drown my tea in sugar to avoid an unladylike faint. With luck, the sugar would carry me through lunch.

  The first time I’d laid eyes on Emmaline Prentiss was at Bryn Mawr. When I entered my dorm room at the college, I’d discovered Em already entrenched, lounging in a lacy negligee while popping a chocolate cream between her pink, plump lips. A fuzzy mule slipper hung off one foot as she bounced a leg. The other foot was bare.

  The jiggling stopped when I walked in and set my suitcase down. I’d swept the small room with a glance, flabbergasted by the way my new roommate had converted a soulless box into a decadent boudoir. The study lamps wore frilly shades, and half a dozen bouquets lined one of the desks. The room smelled like a florist. Another pair of fluffy mules lay on their sides where they’d been kicked off, and an expensive mink coat spilled across the chair beside them. When my gaze fell back upon Em, her hard assessing stare seemed quite at odds with her brunette bombshell appearance. All at once her expression had softened, and she’d given me the most beatific smile.

  She’d stretched out a hand with languid grace. I have no idea why I stepped forward to take her soft, white fingers in mine, but I did. I’d hoped she didn’t expect me to kiss her knuckles. I drew the line at that. Not to mention, I might break a tooth on all those rings.

  “I was worried when I saw you at first, but now I know we’ll be such good friends.” She had given my hand a little squeeze and then sank back onto the chaise lounge to select another chocolate from the open box. Since chaise lounges didn’t come standard in dorm rooms, I wondered what piece of furniture she’d sacrificed to make way for it.

  “Worried?” I wasn’t sure what intrigued me more—that she might somehow have had concerns about my rooming with her or that something about my appearance had alleviated them.

  Her eyes had opened wide with the same candor as her tone. “Well, you’re just so lovely.” At the time, I thought it was a well-practiced act, but it hadn’t taken long to realize Em always spoke her mind. Perhaps because there was so little else to occupy it. “I mean, look at you,” she continued. “You’re a knockout. But that’s okay. The men that go for you won’t be the ones that go for me.”

  “Thanks. I think.”

  She’d set the chocolates down and hurried over to envelop me in a chiffon-laden hug. “Oh, don’t be silly, dear. I’m Jane Russell and you’re Katharine Hepburn. If she were a blonde, that is. You’re elegance and smarts while I’m S.A., pure and simple. Two different audiences.”

  I blinked at her. “S.A.?” I repeated myself a lot around Em in those first days.

  She’d laughed, low and breathy. “Sex appeal, darling.”

  I’d grinned back at her. It had been the start of a beautiful friendship, despite us having so little in common. As Em had predicted, we didn’t end up competing for the same men. After four years, I had a degree in English Lit, which hadn’t prepared me for anything in life, and Em had attained the coveted “Mrs. degree” that most of my classmates had pined for, even if they hadn’t been willing to admit it.

  Her invitation today was to celebrate the formal announcement of the engagement of Emmaline Prentiss to Edgar Stanley Hardcastle III. Try as I might, I hadn’t been able to come up with a good excuse for turning down her suggestion to meet for lunch. She had assured me she had Hardcastle ‘in the bag’ when we’d parted at the end of school, and the new ring on her finger meant that in the ten months since graduation, she’d had achieved her lifetime goal. I don’t know what my lifetime goal might be, but at the moment, my attention was transfixed by the waitress walking past with a tray of mini-quiches, the pastry so light and flaky they melted in your mouth. Jean-Claude, the Blue Moon’s pastry chef, once confessed to me that adding vodka to the dough was the secret to perfect crusts.

  The idea of eating anything, especially something laced with vodka, sounded heavenly.

  Our waitress appeared at our table, dressed in a perky pink uniform with a stiffly starched white apron. “May I take your order?”

  Oh, if only. Managing somehow not to sigh, I said, “Just tea for me, please. Oolong. With sugar.”

  Em lowered her menu to fix me with a gimlet eye and then bestowed a bewitching smile upon the waitress. Unlike most beautiful women I knew, Em used her charms on both men and women alike. “Could we have just another moment, p
lease?”

  The woman almost curtseyed as she strove to oblige. “But of course, Miss. I’ll be right back.”

  As soon as the waitress turned away, Em laid down her menu. “Darling, it’s no use pretending with me. I saw you sniffing the air like a bloodhound when you came into the restaurant. So stuff your pride for once. Order what you like. Dear Eddie’s paying.”

  That was the problem.

  “I’m dieting.”

  Em’s laugh was still charming and breathy. “My dear, if you get any thinner, you’ll blow away like a leaf on the wind. Turn you sideways, and someone might mistake you for a playing card. Even your shadow is thicker than you are.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at that one. “I highly recommend the ‘no money, no food’ plan of weight loss, by the way. Very effective.”

  “Yes, but the food here is to die for and I intend to eat. I can’t very well do that if you’re sitting across from me practically fainting from hunger.”

  “It’s just a temporary setback.” The image of the last can of soup at home in the kitchen cabinet flashed in my mind. That, and a packet of saltines, were all I had to live on until the next paycheck came in. Given the fact I’d been fired yet again, who knew when that would be? Still, pride is hard to abandon when you’re a Bishop. When you were taught to believe honor meant something.

  At one time, it did.

  “I have an interview lined up this afternoon. After I leave here, as a matter of fact.”

  The Dragon Lady in charge of handing out potential interviews to those of us desperately hoping for work, any work, had given me a tight-lipped smile along with the slip of paper containing the directions to the agency.

  “Maybe this one will do for you, Miss Bishop. It’s a two-week assignment, so perhaps you can manage to stay through the contract this time. At least when you lose this job, it won’t be anything out of the ordinary.”

  In return, I’d given her a smile dripping with honey. As I’d started to leave, clutching the directions in gloved hands and hoping the hole in the fingertip didn’t show, she’d stopped me with her trilling little voice.

  “Oh, and Miss Bishop? If you get fired or quit this position, I’m afraid we can no longer assist you. We do have a reputation to maintain.”

  As tempting as it had been to tell her exactly what I thought of her, I hadn’t. My father had raised me better.

  But I wasn’t sure I could watch Em devour tiny sandwiches and delicate cakes with the same fortitude.

  Em obviously thought the same. Like all predators, she excelled at sensing weakness. “If you have an interview this afternoon, then it behooves you not to pass out from starvation. You want to make a good first impression, right?”

  She had a point. Besides, as she said, Eddie would pick up the tab. Good old Eddie. Though it wasn’t as if Em didn’t have the money. When we’d been roommates, we’d taken turns paying for each other’s meals. We’d been on almost equal footing. What I’d lacked in outright funds compared to her father’s wealth had been more than made up by my standing in the social register, at least in her father’s eyes. The Mayflower antecedents. The long-dead great-great-great uncles who were signers of the Declaration of Independence. A few generals on the right side of the Civil War. To Em’s parents I represented everything they’d ever wanted for their little girl and the one thing they couldn’t buy: social standing.

  Traveling the world with my father, I’d missed my presentation as a debutante until I was almost on the shelf, and my mother despaired of ever making a lady of me. She’d put an end to my globe-trotting days, insisting I attend her alma mater in the last ditch hope of turning me into a proper socialite and, more importantly, marrying me off to the highest bidder. Almost twenty-five when I graduated, I was considered long in the tooth by society’s standards when it came to the marriage mart. I’d failed in that respect. Em had not.

  Em’s parents basked in second-hand glory as Em wore Edgar Stanley Hardcastle lll’s enormous engagement ring on her finger, the only ring Em wore these days. When the sunlight caught the massive diamond, the flash could render anyone in striking distance temporarily blind.

  From our recent phone conversations, there could be no doubt Em took her position as the future Mrs. Hardcastle as seriously as though she had been preparing for it her entire life. I suppose she had. She fully intended to put her days as the campus bombshell behind her and be the best wife Eddie could ever imagine—tending to his every need while feeding his fantasy of having captured the most alluring woman on the continent. She would fill her days with shopping, homemaking, and tennis matches at the country club. In a year or so, she’d produce a little Edgar IV.

  I couldn’t think of anything more incredibly tedious, but I was pleased for Em. She deserved whatever made her happy. She was one of the few people who hadn’t either dropped me or turned catty and cutting after the death of my father. Her persistent friendship touched me.

  Besides, who knew when I’d eat so well again? Pride was all good as far as it went, but it didn’t fill your belly.

  “By all means.” I opened the menu again. “Let’s eat.”

  We ordered a ridiculous amount of food, platters of all of our old favorites. I listened as Em nattered on about her wedding plans, her trousseau, and where they were going for their honeymoon—Paris, of course, though I would have preferred Tuscany or Corsica. I murmured at the appropriate moments and concentrated on the heavenly food, trying not to embarrass myself with little moans of appreciation.

  Despite allowing Em, or at least Eddie, to be the benefactor of the feast, I didn’t want her to know just how tight things were. The thought of Em insisting the staff box enough food to last me several days was mortifying, so I waited until she had made use of the ladies’ room to stuff the sleeves of my coat with the rolls from the bread basket. I’d worn my Chanel suit for the interview to come. Though it was cold out, I thought I could walk out of the café with my coat folded over my arm, and no one would comment. I’d used this method of smuggling food out of restaurants in the past, and no one had caught me yet. The downside? A chilly journey lay before me on my way to the interview. Ah well, Mother always said a true lady never felt the heat or the cold.

  I’d wrapped my napkin around several ham paste sandwiches to slip them into my purse when Em returned. As decadent as the pastries had been—and I hadn’t been shy about eating them—meat was what I craved at the moment, it being rather scarce in my diet of late.

  All of which meant I was a little distracted when Em spoke.

  “I’m sure it will be a relief to you, but I’m not asking you to be my maid of honor.”

  “You’re not?”

  Emotions are a tricky thing. I’d practiced a little speech as to why I couldn’t accept the honor in anticipation of Em asking me to perform that very same role, and here she was, saying the job would go to someone else.

  “No. I decided to ask Eddie’s sister, Milly, instead. She’s such a mousy little thing. She’ll enjoy the spotlight for a change.”

  “Are you sure that’s wise? Mightn’t she wish to make you look bad?”

  Eddie’s family hadn’t exactly embraced Em. In the post-war industry boom, Mr. Prentiss had done well for himself with his various factories, and was wealthy enough to purchase an estate in the Hamptons and maintain a penthouse apartment in the city. He’d wanted nothing but the best for his precious daughter. That meant a university education at one of the finest colleges for women, though given the choice, Em would have been far happier eating bon bons and playing tennis six days a week. Although Em’s family had money, it was new money, and while they belonged to country clubs, they weren’t the right country clubs. Attending Bryn Mawr introduced Em to men who belonged to society’s upper echelon, and she’d achieved one of her father’s goals for her, marrying into a family with old money and prestige. I hoped he didn’t realize the disdain with which society held him and his daughter.

  “Oh, the dears no longer
think I’m a gold-digger. Not once they realized how much Daddy’s worth.” A feline smile stretched Em’s wine-red lips. As in the cat-got-the-cream smug. “Now I’m just a social climber. I’ve been working on Hardcastle senior, who thinks I’m an angel now. Of course, Eddie believes I can do no wrong.”

  Which just left the female contingent of the Hardcastle household up in arms.

  “Much as they’d like me to show my vulgar roots, it is their dear Eddie’s wedding, after all. The mother I won’t win over until I have children, but with Daddy footing the bill for the ceremony, Milly is thawing out.” Em grabbed my hand across the table and squeezed. “I know if I’d asked you, everything would have been simply divine, darling. You would have arranged things with deadly efficiency, and it would have been beautiful and elegant and so full of stinking class, people would’ve talked about it for years to come. Daddy would’ve wept with joy. But I don’t think you would have enjoyed it much, would you?”

  For all that Em had gadded about during her four years at the college like a mindless, gaudy butterfly, she could be remarkably astute when it suited her.

  “You know me too well,” I said. Under the cover of dropping my gaze into my lap at the admission, I transferred the ham sandwiches into my purse and closed the snap.

  “Yes. I do.” She sat back in her chair. A playful archness highlighted her expression as she continued. “I do expect you to be a bridesmaid. There’s no getting out of that.” She stopped me before I could protest. “Daddy’s paying for this wedding. All expenses.” She emphasized the word “all” and smiled. “You needn’t worry about a thing. Now we just need to get you suitably situated.”

  She acted as though my current poverty was a temporary aberration, one I could cure with a simple engagement. In theory, she was right. I’d made my bed and so now had to lie in it, but I could change my mind if I swallowed my pride.

  “Why don’t you come out with us tonight? We’re going clubbing. My treat. Everyone from the old gang will be there.” She added with a mischievous smile, “Maybe some of your class will rub off on me.”