1,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: via tolino media
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
England in the Victorian era. As a travelling author, Leigh takes lodgings in a London tavern. The cosy atmosphere is just the thing to wind down the evenings after his research and write down his impressions. Mentally, he already sees his new crime novel in the shop windows of the bookshops, but the tavern keeper of his lodgings is an unusually great distraction and awakens more and more forbidden longings in him. In the thick of things, yet lonely. As a bartender in a respected pub, Tane's life is dominated by the usual routines. He always puts his own desires on the back burner, because it seems much more important to him to satisfy everyone else. But despite recognition, an emptiness remains inside him that he cannot fill. When he meets the mysterious as well as melancholic writer, he begins to fathom his own needs and quickly realises: he must prevent Leigh's approaching departure!
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Ähnliche
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Acknowledgement
under Pressure
By Kaiden Emerald
Imprint
Copyright © Kaiden Emerald, 2021
Layout: Kaiden Emerald
Images used for the book cover (image licenses purchased): © Shutterstock, © beti bup (TheBookCoverDesigner)
Layout designed by © Kaiden Emerald
Font cover page: Monotype Corsiva (royalty-free font)
Editing: The „Korrifeen“ – Mel, Mims & Flash
Production/ Printing: Tolino Media
Original edition, published 05/2021, edition 1
Translated from German into English.
Kaiden Emerald
Holderäckerstr. 8
70499 Stuttgart
Germany
All rights reserved.
This work is protected by copyright. Any exploitation without the consent of the author is prohibited. This applies in particular to electronic or other reproduction, translation, distribution and making available to the public.
All persons and names in this e-book are fictitious. Similarities with living persons are purely coincidental and not intended. The historical facts of this short story have been researched to the best of our knowledge and belief, but do not claim to be one hundred percent accurate.
Foreword
Sometimes, when we least expect it, we are torn by fate from the familiar pattern and confronted with a completely new, unprecedented situation. Suddenly, things are on the horizon that we have never thought about. Tempting, beguiling and frightening all at the same time. We feel like Adam in the Garden of Eden, just pondering whether to bite into the apple. It's that one urgent second left to decide and overcome the lethargy that holds you captive for the moment.
What do you think would happen if we let the opportunity pass and simply fell into our old patterns? And what might life have in store for us if we didn't do just that? Would we otherwise miss what the mind will forever hold against us with 'what if' questions. Or would it be good not to have taken this step, had it only ended in a fiasco? To go forward or to go back? To take a risk or to trust in the old familiar? What does the heart want?
Chapter 1
"What are you doing?" The waiter regarded Leigh with a skeptical look.
"Oh, I'm ... just taking some notes to record the impressions of the day," he replied, setting the fountain pen aside for the moment.
"Ah, you mean you keep a diary?"
"Something like that."
"How can you keep a diary 'something like that'? Do you end up writing down something completely different?"
"At times, yes," Leigh admitted.
Curious, the waiter leaned forward, propped his hands on the oak top of the table, and probed further. "Are you a clergyman, by any chance? Do you take notes on your sermon?"
Does he think I'm a priest? Actually, he didn't like to reveal himself to a stranger as a freelance letter-acrobat, but he couldn't compete with the young man's thirst for knowledge, so he felt compelled to confess. "I'm a writer, a novelist."
"A real writer? I never thought I'd meet one! That's ... I'm speechless!"
I wish that were so, my friend.
"A writer! I don't believe it!"
Don't you want to shout it around even louder? I don't think the people at the back tables have noticed yet.
"I don't even know what to say."
Then how about just nothing at all?
"I'm James, my grandfather owns the pub," the waiter spoke, extending his hand.
"Leigh," the author also introduced himself and returned the greeting, whereupon his hand was shaken overzealously.
"What do you write, sir?"
"Crime novels - violent crimes and their solving."
"You mean ...," the man leaned over further across the tabletop and now began to whisper, "really with murders?"
"Yes."
"You certainly have plenty of excellent locations here in London for inspiration."
And just a young man who qualifies more and more as a victim for the next story. "Yes, there are already interesting corners."
"Well, I won't bother you any further."
Thank you, how gracious. Leigh nodded in forced friendliness and turned back to his notebook.
"May I get you another drink, sir?"
"If you would be so kind, an Earl Grey, please."
"Of course."
Leigh looked up, but only to see if James was actually moving away.
He liked the quaint pub in the heart of the British capital. There he could go about his work even in the nights with freshly brewed tea or a mug of dark draft beer. He liked to watch the socializing of the others from his seat at the very back of the pub.
When all the guests had gone, he sat down by the open fire, enjoyed the warmth of the fire and recorded the last lines of the day in writing.
That he preferred to keep to himself and was not too interested in conversation, the regulars had already accepted after three days. The prostitutes, who made their living in the evenings, had been more persistent, since every man was a potential suitor and cash cow. After a week, however, even they had given up.
At the moment he was writing about a crime of jealousy.
A man who had caught his wife with a lover, whereupon he tortured them both to death and now wanted to dispose of their bodies in the Thames.
Soon he would send investigators hunting for him. A young and an older policeman, who of course were nothing more than friends. Just as they should be.
Where would one go to think otherwise or even read between the lines? Something that possibly not every person understood. A little exaggeration of the characters. A touch too much and yet too little to be able to accuse him of immorality.
The slight hint of a fact that sometimes still came up in the confessionals of the cathedrals: the feeling of being attracted to one's own sex. Not to the body's own, in which case this was probably also tantamount to a sin, but to someone who was also a man.
In the end, the criminal would be convicted by a scrap of cloth from his wife's dress.
A masterpiece that was just waiting to be printed in the bookstores so that the ladies of high society would have a new topic for their tea parties and perhaps, behind closed doors, could read into it one or two romantic vibrations between the two main protagonists.
James finally snapped him out of his thoughts as he set the cup down on the table next to his book. "Good luck, sir."
"Thank you." Leigh refrained from sipping the tea right away, having scalded his mouth on it often enough. Instead, he looked after the fellow with the thoroughly handsome back view.
I'm here to work, he reminded himself.
