CHAPTER ONE
“Did you hear that the police found a dead body in the bushes by the clock on the town square?”
I jerked my head around to look at Aunt Cat. “Come again?”
“You’re spilling the milk, dear.” She sashayed into the kitchen with her floral skirt twirling about her lower legs.
Oh, balls. So I was.
I quickly righted the milk bottle and put the top back on before I made anymore of a mess. I was almost entirely sure that the new housekeeper didn’t like me, and I was desperately trying to get on her good side, so I plucked a cloth from the Belfast sink, ran it under the tap, and wiped up my mess.
“Isn’t that Emily’s job?” Aunt Cat asked, peering over the top of her newspaper from the large kitchen island.
“Yes, but I don’t think she likes me, and she has a radar for when I make a mess.”
“I can fire her if she doesn’t like you.”
“Me being so messy I piss off the staff doesn’t give you grounds to fire them,” I reminded her, rinsing the milk from the dishcloth. “It’s just milk. It’s no big deal. Talk to me about this dead body. Who is it?”
“We don’t know. The police cordoned the area off rather early.” She wrinkled her face up as her eyes scanned the paper.
“You seem disgruntled.”
“Of course I’m disgruntled, Gabriella. I want to know who was stabbed and left to bleed out over the tulips.”
I held up my hand and closed my eyes. Normally, I shared my aunt’s love of murder and the macabre, but I hadn’t had my breakfast yet and I’d had one too many glasses of wine at my friend’s dinner party last night.
“Can I have my breakfast before we get into the details, please?” I put my bowl on the island countertop and opened the drawer for a spoon so I could eat my cereal.
“I must say that I agree.” Our butler, Arthur Fredericks, walked into the kitchen with a stack of newspapers under his arm. “It’s far too early for your morbidity, milady.”
“Nonsense,” Aunt Cat mused. “It’s never too early for murder. Is there tea in that pot, Gabriella?”
“Yes. Would you like a cup?”
“I would.”
“I’ll handle that.” Arthur set the newspapers down on the table like he did every morning in preparation for my father’s morning cup of tea. “You have your breakfast, Lady Gabriella.”
“Yeeees,” my aunt said slowly. “You were out quite late last night at the Holmes’, weren’t you?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Helena insisted on post-dinner drinks. I was outvoted.”
“Hmm.” She watched Arthur as he retrieved a mug from the cupboard and picked up the teapot. “I wonder about Helena. She can put her liquor away, can’t she?”
I rolled my eyes. “No more than any other twenty-something aristocrat in the public eye.”
“So, you.”
“Please,” I replied, making sure the slice of banana was perfectly situated for me to scoop it up my Weetabix. “You know I avoid the media. There are enough party-loving upper-class people they can rip to shreds in their opinion pieces without me offering myself up for their amusement.”
Besides, I preferred to be in the garden, much to my father’s frustration.
“Agreed. Best not to rile them. Look at Amelia Hughes. Her wedding in Sicily to that nice Italian bloke was essentially sponsored by a designer and the media did not like that.” Aunt Cat took her tea from Arthur with a quiet thank you and turned her attention to her newspaper. “Very tacky, flashing those designer labels about the place.” She sniffed and flipped her page. “Back in my day—”
“Good morning!” My father strolled into the kitchen while tying the belt on his dressing gown. “Oh, Arthur, excellent timing.”
“Of course, my lord.” Arthur bowed his head. “I’ll get you your tea.”
“Thank you. What’s in the news today?”
“Please don’t ask,” I muttered.
“Dead body in the town square,” my aunt replied, nonplussed. “Bled out all over the tulips. Just as well, if you ask me. It’s the end of their season and they were looking a little miserable, so all that blood appears to have livened the square up a bit.”
Arthur coughed.
“And there goes my breakfast.” I abandoned my morning Weetabix and disposed of it.
Daddy glanced at me. “Really? Who died?”
“Nobody knows,” my aunt replied. “Those bloody police taped off the area and nobody can get near.”
“That is their job, Catherine.”
“I don’t care. I want to know who was stupid enough to get themselves stabbed.”
I paused.
Daddy eyed her. “This is why you’re not allowed to talk to the media, Catherine.”
“I don’t want to talk to the media, Henry. I want to look after my goats without those heathens wondering if Queen Victoria or Prince Albert have escaped to the public gardens again.”
He sighed as he spooned sugar into the cup of tea Arthur had just set down in front of him. “Perhaps, if Victoria and Albert stopped breaking into the public gardens and terrorising the visitors, nobody would have to wonder.”
“It’s not my fault the fence doesn’t hold.”
Actually, it was, but I wasn’t getting involved in this argument. Not again. Last time, she’d ignored me for a week for pointing out that she was legally required to keep the goats secure.
“It is, and you know it is,” Daddy replied. “Why don’t you ask Miles to reinforce it?”
“That whippersnapper? What does he know about gardens?”
He cast his gaze toward Arthur. “Thank you, Arthur. I won’t subject you my sister’s ramblings any longer this morning. Will you prepare my office for my meeting this morning?”
With the assurance he would, Arthur bowed once again and silently disappeared.
“A lot. He’s an extremely qualified gardener, and exceptionally talented. You know he worked at Kew Gardens for five years.”
“He’s also about ten.”
“Thirty,” I muttered.
“What?” Aunt Cat looked at me, eyes sparkling.
I was pretty sure she knew I had the hots for the gardener. “He’s thirty,” I replied.
Daddy frowned. “How do you know that?”
Here we go. “Well, see, there’s this thing that human beings do when more than one are gathered together. It’s called talk.”
“Hardy-har-har. Very funny.”
“You asked.”
He cradled his cup of tea. “What are you doing today?”
I shrugged. “I was going to eat breakfast, but Aunt Cat put that idea to bed with her gruesome gossip.”
She raised her teacup to me. “You are welcome.”
“I wasn’t thanking you,” I pointed out. “Otherwise, I don’t have plans. The weather is nice so I might go out and wander about the garden for a while.”
“How was the dinner party last night?” Daddy asked.
That was what he said.
It wasn’t what he wanted to know.