The Legend of Nimway Hall: 1940-Josie
The Legend of Nimway Hall
1940: Josie
Linda Needham
Big Scrumpy Press
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE LEGEND OF NIMWAY HALL
1940: JOSIE
Copyright © 2018 by Linda Needham
ISBN: 9781940904030
Cover design by Big Scrumpy Press, LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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Big Scrumpy Press, LLC, North Plains, OR, USA
Contact: https://lindaneedham.com/contact/
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Contents
1940: Josie
The Legend Of Nimway Hall
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
Other Books In The Nimway Hall Series
Also By Linda Needham
About Linda
1940: Josie
USA Today bestselling author Linda Needham
brings you the fourth story in a series of romances
touched by magic as old as time.
A courageous young woman is just managing
to keep up with her family’s vast, wartime farm
when a handsome Lt. Colonel takes command of her home.
A private war ensues between them,
and the couple soon learns that resistance is futile
when it comes to love in the heat of battle.
World War II has come to Nimway Hall, and with it an endless series of wartime challenges that its lady and guardian, Josie Stirling, must overcome. As passionate and courageous as each of the guardians who have come before her, Josie is fiercely determined to defend her family’s ancient and beloved estate from all possible threats. But with the recent evacuation of Dunkirk and the bombs of the Blitz raining random terror all across Britain, even the once-pastoral manor farm of Nimway have become as dangerous as any battlefield.
Loved and respected by everyone in her circle of care, Josie is knee-deep in evacuee children, Land Girls, the local Home Guard, a much-reduced estate staff, two cranky tractors and her widowed father she has just rescued from the London Blitz. Her days and nights, and even her dreams are chock-full of wartime charity fund raisers, meeting the strict requirements of the Ministries of Agriculture and Food, organizing knitting circles, leading her local WAS, tending the acres of orchards, the mill, and fields of grain. And even with every tillable square inch of Nimway planted in crops for the war effort, her beloved Balesboro Wood is being threatened with destruction by the Timber Commission.
And to add to her problems, not only has the military requisitioned an entire wing of Nimway Hall, they’ve sent the most arrogant officer in the entire army to command the unit and impose his orders on the finely-tuned workings of her estate. A man as arrogant as he is handsome. Not that Josie has time in her life to notice!
The very last post Lt. Colonel Gideon Fletcher ever wanted was to be holed up in the wilds of Somerset, in an old manor house, far from the front line. But he was seriously injured on a secret mission early in the war and has recovered just enough to command of a team of Royal Engineers, commissioned to build Operational Bases for Churchill’s new Secret Army. Once a highly respected intelligence officer, Gideon resents his demotion to the “Home Front” and has little respect for the so-called civilian army he’s been assigned to recruit and train. War is waged by soldiers in the field, not by farmers and factory workers.
A sentiment the contentious lady of Nimway Hall disputes at every turn. She seems to believe that her work for the war effort is as critical as his. Though the woman’s opinions are seriously wrong-headed, she is as beautiful as she is devoted to her people and he can’t help admiring the firm and resourceful way she manages the estate. Can’t help noticing her fiercely green eyes and the sun-blush of her cheek. Not that he should be noticing such distractions. Not now. Not with a war to win and contact to make with a secret agent named Arcturus.
As the war between the sexes heats up, so does the ancient magic of romance. Josie and Gideon may not be looking for love, but at Nimway Hall they’ll soon discover that love has come looking for them.
Fourth book in the series. A historical novel of 75,000 words, entwining romance, mystery and the magic of love.
Praise for the works of Linda Needham
“Trust Linda Needham with your heart–you’ll never regret it.” Lisa Kleypas
”Linda Needham has the ability to mix laughter with tears to touch a reader’s heart.” — “Romantic Times”
”Ms. Needham has a knack for drawing her readers from page 1, and not letting go even when the story ends — “ New and Used Books
The Legend Of Nimway Hall
A love invested with mystery and magic
sends ripples through the ages.
Long ago in a cave obscured by the mists of time, Nimue, a powerful sorceress and Merlin’s beloved, took the energy of their passion and wove it into a potent love spell. Intending the spell to honor their love and enshrine it in immortality, she merged the spell into the large moonstone in the headpiece of Merlin’s staff. Thus, when Merlin was far from her, he still carried the aura of their love with him and, so they both believed, the moonstone would act as a catalyst for true love, inciting and encouraging love to blossom in the hearts of those frequently in the presence of the stone.
Sadly, neither Merlin nor Nimue, despite all their power, foresaw the heart of Lancelot. A minor adept, he sensed both the presence of the spell in the moonstone and also the spell’s immense power. Driven by his own desires, Lancelot stole the headpiece and used the moonstone’s power to sway Guinevere to his side.
Furious that the spell crafted from the pure love of his and his beloved’s hearts had been misused, Merlin smote Lancelot and seized back the headpiece. To protect it forevermore, Merlin laid upon the stone a web of control that restricted its power. Henceforth, it could act only in response to a genuine need for true love, and only when that need impacted one of his and Nimue’s blood, no matter how distant.
Ultimately, Merlin sent the headpiece back to Nimue for safe keeping. As the Lady of the Lake, at that time, she lived in a cottage on an island surrounded by swiftly flowing streams, and it was in her power to see and watch over their now-dispersed offspring.
Time passed, and even those of near-immortality faded and vanished. The land about Nimue’s cottage drained, and the region eventually became known as Somerset. Generations came and went, but crafted of spelled gold, the headpiece endured and continued to hold and protect the timeless moonstone imbued with Nimue’s and Merlin’s spells…
Over time, a house, crafted of sound local stone and timbers from the surrounding Balesboro Wood, was built on the site of Nimue’s cottage. The house became known as Nimway Hall. From the first, the house remained in the hands and in the care of a female descendant of Nimue, on whom devolved the responsibilities of guardian of Nimway Hall.
As decad
es and then centuries passed, the tradition was established that in each generation, the title of and responsibility for the house and associated estate passed to the eldest living and willing daughter of the previous female holder of the property, giving rise to the line of the Guardians of Nimway Hall.
THE GUARDIANS OF NIMWAY HALL
Nimue — Merlin
Through the mists of time
1720: Moira
(to come)
1750: Jacqueline
by Stephanie Laurens — available now
1771: Olivia
(to come)
1794: Charlotte
by Karen Hawkins — available now
1818: Isabel
by Suzanne Enoch — available now
1839: Miranda
(to come)
1862: Georgia
(to come)
1888: Alexandra
(by Victoria Alexander; to come)
1926: Maddie Rose
(by Susan Andersen; to come)
1940: Josie
by Linda Needham — available now
Chapter 1
SEPTEMBER 24, 1940, NIMWAY HALL, SOMERSET
“Halt there, miss! Stop your vehicle and present your identification card.”
Not believing her eyes, Josie Stirling leaned her elbow out the driver’s window, nudged her aviator glasses down to the end of her nose and glared at the freshly-minted young soldier who was barring her van from passing through the entrance gate to Nimway Hall. “Who are you?”
The soldier straightened, saluted. “Sapper Mullins, miss, of the Royal Engineers.”
Bloody hell, the invasion and occupation of Nimway Hall by the Royal Engineers had begun nearly a month before the schedule that she had confirmed with the War Office only last week.
“How long have you been standing at this gate, Sapper Mullins?”
“Posted here this morning. Six a.m.”
“By whom?”
“My commanding officer, Lt. Colonel Gideon Fletcher. He ordered me not to let you pass, miss, without you show me your papers. If you please.”
She didn’t please. Wasn’t pleased at all and wouldn’t be pleased until she had it out with the arrogant colonel who seemed to think it was within his charge to forbid her entry to her own home.
“What’s my registration plate, Sapper?”
“Your what?”
She pointed to the front of the van. “Affixed to the bumper. The metal plate with the numbers. What does it say?”
“Ah.” He stepped to the front of the van and bent down to give the plate a good look, placing himself in great peril had she been an enemy agent rather than a friendly, if irritated, one. “YC2346.”
“And the make of the van?”
“Looks to be a Bedford—”
“A 1938 Bedford PC delivery van. Tomato red. Her name is Bess. Easy to recognize. Do you note any other distinguishing markings on the vehicle? Say, scrapes or dings, perhaps bold lettering on the side panels that might identify her as belonging to Nimway Hall?”
Mullins stepped around to the driver’s side of the van, pressing his backside against the bramble hedge in order to read, squinting at the gilded advert on its tomato red field. “Says… Nimway Hall, Balesborough, Somerset, Farms & Orchards, by Royal Warrant to His Majesty King George, since 1673.”
“That’s me, Sapper Mullins. I am Nimway Hall. That’s my house up on the hill. You’re standing in my gateway. Now let me through.” She’d been away four days, and, by the looks of things, all hell had broken loose in her absence.
Mullins shook his head slowly as he sidled around to the front bumper again to block her way. “I still gotta see your papers before I can let you pass. Miss—”
“Miss Jocelyn Regina Stirling, owner, manager and guardian of Nimway Hall, and if you don’t step aside and let me though this minute, I shall run you down, flatten you like a digestive biscuit. I suggest you memorize my face, my van, my registration plate and my ire, so you never again make the mistake of stopping me at the entrance to my own home. Do I make myself clear?”
The sapper’s face bore the pinched look of the soon-to-be-strangled but he held his rifle pike-like and parallel to the ground, clicked his heels together and tipped his chin to the sky. “Miss, by orders of Lt. Colonel Gideon Fletcher, I am standing here to protect you from an invasion force—and from your good self—during these dangerous times on the home front. I will see your identification papers as I have been instructed to do, or I will gladly die in the attempt.”
“The boy seems to be honestly trying his best, Daughter.” Josie’s father had emerged from the back of the van where he’d been napping on his old upholstered chair for the past hour, surrounded by boxes and chests of his most prized possessions. He slipped between the front seats into the passenger seat and tapped her arm with his own identification card. “Be kind.”
Josie ignored the card and her father’s famously charismatic smile and glared out the windscreen, past the stonework gate posts and the old gatehouse, up the long winding drive lined with ancient ash and beech, toward the forecourt of Nimway Hall just visible on the rise. So close and yet so bloody far.
“They weren’t supposed to arrive for another month, Father. I’m not ready to be invaded by anyone.”
“I wasn’t ready to abandon Stirling House to Hitler’s bloody Blitz, either, dear girl, but you convinced me of the folly of staying a day longer, and so here I am, at old Nimway—bless its mystical heart—with all my worldly treasures stuffed into the back of this rattling old van.”
“Bess isn’t old.”
“Nevertheless, you need to give the nice young sapper our identity cards immediately, and I need to pee.”
Out of habit in these days of rationed petrol, she’d turned off the ignition the moment she’d stopped Bess at the gate. Now she turned the key and the van rumbled to a start. Glaring at her father because she knew he’d make good on his threat to water the hedgerow, she reached into her jacket pocket, stuck her and her father’s ID cards out of the window with a stiff arm and wagged them at Mullins.
“Make no mistake, Sapper, I submit my card to you under protest, and only after your assurance that you will never stop me again.”
“I shall take up the matter with Lt. Colonel Fletcher.”
“You do that, Sapper.” If this Colonel Fletcher yob was like any of the other officers left behind to defend the realm against a Nazi invasion, the man was gray, grizzled and pushing seventy. Fought heroically alongside Baden-Powell in the Boer Wars, was under siege in Mafeking, where he was starved, stabbed, and escaped capture on the strength of his wits alone and hadn’t stopped elaborating on his war stories to anyone within earshot since the Armistice. From buck private thirty years ago, to Lt. Colonel in the Home Defense Forces today, Fletcher was just the sort of old soldier to press his authority beyond the limit of his orders and abilities.
Let him try.
Mullins examined both ID cards closely, flicking his attention from Josie to her father to the cards and back again, as though there was any more information in the documents than their handwritten names and addresses and the pre-printed identification numbers. He raised his eyes, his nervous gaze moving past her to her father.
“Before you ask, Sapper Mullins, this man in the seat beside me is my father. Until this morning he was living in the heart of London where, nightly, the bombs of the Luftwaffe have rained down around him. For his safety, I fetched him home to live with me for the duration. We shall register his change of address with the proper authorities in short order. And if you dare hold us for another moment I will make sure that your time here at Nimway Hall is the stuff of your nightmares. Now stand aside.”
Josie snatched back the cards and gunned the engine. Bess gave a victorious pop and the Bedford leaped through the gates, missing Sapper Mullins only by the swiftness of his reflexes, and throwing her father back against the seat.
“Who the devil are those hooligans, Josie Bear?�
�� Her father was pointing out the passenger window as she motored up the drive. “They’re plowing up your perfectly good badminton court!”
“It’s September, Father; we’re planting winter wheat. And those young women are members of the Women’s Land Army, hardly hooligans.” Relieved to see the rows of rough furrows being turned up in Nimway’s once expansive front lawn, she paused to exchange a wave with the four young women. Maureen on the tractor, Francie and Trina standing on the cross bar of the harrow, keeping their eyes on the spinning disks just below their boots, churning up the ground, and Patsy directing them toward her from the far end of the field. The rows weren’t as straight or deep as when she herself drove the tractor, but pound for pound, the women were a net benefit to the farm and generally easy to manage.
With any luck, a moderate winter, and a healthy crop of wheat come spring, along with the other one-hundred acres of arable fields now planted on the estate, she might not be forced by the Ministry of Agriculture to clear-cut her beloved Balesboro Wood and plant barley or turnips. Losing Nimway’s legendary wildwoods to an unreasonable wartime requisition was as inconceivable as it would be heartbreaking.
If she’d learned anything in her twenty-three years on this earth, it was that if she wanted something done correctly, completely, with the highest standards, and in a timely manner, she’d best do it herself. Best that this crusty old Lt. Colonel Fletcher understand her mind straight away.
Gravel sprayed as she pulled Bess into the forecourt of the Hall below the wide steps and four columns that held up the portico. She yanked on the brake, set the gear lever into park, killed the engine, threw open the heavy door with her shoulder and stepped out. Winnie came bounding up the hill from the stables, her wavy black ears bouncing, the flag on her tail curled over her topline, wagging like the wind, Josie’s haying gloves flapping in her mouth.
“My Winnie dog, how I missed you!” She dropped to her knees and retrieved the gloves. “Thank you, girl! Come along with me.” She gave the dog a skritch on her chest and a kiss between her deep brown eyes. She fetched her leather satchel and gas mask box from behind the driver’s seat then slammed the door. “As for you, Father, your room is ready; first floor, the old nursery in the east wing, as you requested. The library is also yours, for as long as the Ministry of Mayhem allows us to keep the books on their shelves and not have to use them to heat the hall. Now, you’ll have to forgive me, you need to pee and I need to find the colonel.”