Excerpt from Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"I  know." She sighs, not  relishing the thought of returning to the hot, crowded  city.

"If you wanted to do something non-wedding-related?" His  voice is disarmingly soft.

 She smiles, puzzled. "Sure.  What sort  of thing?"

 "Well,   I  thought if  there   was  anywhere of ... significance  you wanted  to visit?" The words fall awkwardly.  He clears his throat, seeks her dark  eyes in the driver's mirror.

Lorna  won't  meet  his gaze.  Her  fingers  are  loosening her  hair  so that  it swishes down,  hiding the  flush  of her cheeks. "Not really," she mumbles. "I  just want to see Pencraw."

Jon sighs, changes  gears, lets the subject go. Lorna wipes the scrib­ ble of a house  off the clouded  window  and  peers  through the cleared porthole, nose to the cold glass, looping in her own thoughts.

"So. The reviews?" he asks. 

She hesitates. "Well, there  aren't  any reviews. Not  exactly" He raises an eyebrow. "But  I did  phone  and  speak  to a real  live human being,  the  lady of the  house's  personal assistant or something. A woman called Endellion."

"What sort  of a name is that?"

"Cornish."

 "Are you going to use that  as an excuse for everything?"

 "Yeah,  yeah." Lorna laughs,  slides  her feet  out  of her  silver  flip­ flops  and  rests  them  on  the  hard  gray plastic  of the  glove compart­ ment,  pleased  by the  tan  marks  and  that  her  pale  pink  nail  varnish hasn't  chipped. "She explained that  it's a private  house.  First year it's been hired  out.  So no reviews. But nothing dodgy, promise."

He smiles. "You can  be such a sucker sometimes." "And you can be so bloody cynical,  my darling."

"Realistic, realistic." He  glances  into  his  mirror, eyes hardening.

"Jesus."

"What?"

 "That tractor. Too close. Too big."

 Lorna tenses  in her seat,  twists  a strand of hair  around her finger. The  tractor does look menacingly large for this  narrow road, which  is more like a tunnel now, sealed by steep verges of solid rock and a roof of interlocked tree canopies.  She grounds her feet on the floor of the car.
"We're going to stop at the next field gate and see if we can manage aU-turn," Jon says, after a few more tight  minutes.

"Oh, come on ..."

 "It's dangerous, Lorna."

  "But-" 

"If it's any  consolation, the house  is sure  to be like all the  others, some  B and  B chancing it. A dodgy conference center. And  if it's any good we won't  be able to afford  it."

"No. I've got a feeling about  this house." She tightens the coil of hair, pinking her fingertip. "A hunch." "You and your hunches."

"You were a hunch." She puts a hand on his knee  just as the sinews of his muscles contract and  his foot slams down on the brake.

 It all seems to happen at once: the squeal  of rubber, the skid to the left, the dark form  leaping across the  road into the  bushes. Then terri­ ble stillness. A clatter of rain on the roof.

"Lorna, are  you  okay?"  He  touches her  cheek  with  the  back of his hand.

 "Yeah,  yeah.  I'm fine." She  runs her  tongue around the  inside  of her mouth, tastes  the  metal of blood. "What happened?"

Excerpted from Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase. Copyright © 2016 by Eve Chase. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.