Lemonade and Lies (Peridale Cafe Cozy Mystery Book 2)

by Agatha Frost

  “She’s family,” Jessie said, offense loud in her voice. “The Lord of the Manor’s daughter. Isn’t that right, Julia?”

  “Mr. Wellington?” the woman snapped, looking Julia up and down, her wide eyes somehow continuing to widen. “Mr. Wellington only has one daughter, and this is certainly not her.”

  Julia was glad there was nothing wrong with the elderly woman’s eyesight. She would hate to be mistaken for Katie Wellington.

  “What Jessie was trying to say, is that I’m Brian’s daughter,” Julia said, applying her best smile and offering forth the Victoria sponge cake. “Mr. South?”

  “I know whom you’re talking about,” the woman snapped, shaking her hand, then stepping to the side. “You had better come in. Funny, I never knew he had a daughter.”

  “He’s got two,” Jessie said, stepping over the threshold without wiping her feet on the doormat. “Nice gaff you’ve got here.”

  “The correct thing to say would be ‘he has two daughters’, not ‘got’. And it is a ‘manor’, not a ‘gaff’, whatever that means,” the woman said bitterly, hurrying Julia into the house so she could close the door. “You really should teach your daughter proper English.”

  “She’s not my mum,” Jessie said casually as she spun around on the spot, looking up at the crystal chandelier in the centre of the grand entrance. “Are they real diamonds?”

  The old housekeeper grumbled under her breath, then disappeared into the depths of the house, leaving Julia and Jessie standing at the foot of the sweeping mahogany staircase. Through an open door to the kitchen, Julia could see caterers and waiters running around making final preparations for the garden party. It was all a little excessive for Julia’s tastes, but it seemed like the right amount of extravagance for Katie Wellington-South.

  Julia turned in time to see her dad ducking out of a room as he buttoned up his cufflinks. He didn’t seem to have noticed her. She didn’t doubt that he thought she was just another member of staff blending into the walls. When he spotted her, his eyes bulged as wide as the housekeeper’s.

  “Julia,” he said, the surprise loud and clear in his voice. “You came.”

  Brian walked across the mahogany floorboards, his Cuban heels clicking with each step. His skin was tanned and weathered, nodding to his numerous holidays a year. Glistening oil slicked his greying, but still thick black hair off his face. Some of that hair prickled his broad chest, which could be seen through his open collar. It seemed to be open an extra button lower every time Julia saw him. A chunky gold watch, which she didn’t doubt was twenty-four karat, hung from his wrist, and the cufflinks he was fiddling with looked to be solid diamonds. He looked just like the man Julia had come to know as her father, but nothing like the man who had worn comfortable jeans and moth-eaten jumpers she still held onto in the depths of her memories.

  “I made a Victoria sponge cake,” Julia said meekly, her cheeks burning scarlet.

  “My favourite,” he said, ducking in for a quick kiss on Julia’s cheek, filling her nostrils with his overpowering musky aftershave. “You’ve always remembered that.”

  He accepted the cake tin and cast it onto a table, which was creaking under the weight of a vase overflowing with white lilies. Brian’s eyes wandered over to Jessie, and it was obvious he was immediately judging her well-worn red Converse, ripped up skinny jeans and baggy jumper. The hairs on the back of Julia’s neck stood defensively on end.

  “This is Jessie,” Julia offered before he asked. “She’s been staying with me for a while.”

  “Like a lodger?” he asked, one of his dark brows darting up. “Is money tight? You know you only have to -,”

  “She’s also working in my café,” Julia interrupted, not wanting to get onto the conversation of money. “Aren’t you, Jessie?”

  “Mmhmm. Was homeless before Julia took me in.”

  Julia enjoyed the shock in her father’s eyes, but it also broke her heart. The man she was clinging onto in her mind wouldn’t have looked at somebody in need like that.

  “How is that little café of yours doing?” he asked, turning his attention back to Julia.

  “It’s doing fine. Very busy, in fact.”

  “I keep meaning to pop in,” he said. “I’m always hearing good things.”

  Julia knew he wasn’t going to ‘pop in’, just as much as he did. Ever since she had returned to Peridale and told him that she was going to open a café, he had treated her dream with amusement, as if the whole thing was nothing more than a hobby to keep Julia occupied and distracted while her divorce raged in the background.

  “This announcement must be something pretty big if you’ve invited the whole village up here,” Julia said, eager to discover the truth.

  “Any excuse for a garden party,” he said with an uneasy laugh. “You know what Katie is like. I can’t stop and chat. I promised her I would check on how things are going outside. Is your sister coming?”

  “She’s coming later with Gran.”

  “Mum’s coming?” he said, his eyes glazing over a little. “Of course. I’ll see you later. Jessie, it was nice to meet you.”

  “Yeah,” Jessie said, her dark eyes narrowing to slits as her arms folded tightly across her chest. “So nice.”

  Brian hovered for a moment, his eyes briefly meeting Julia’s. His heels let out a small squeak against the freshly polished wood as he turned and headed in the direction of the garden. When they were alone, Julia and Jessie looked at each other, neither of them seeming to know what to say.

  “Well, he seems like a real old -,”

  “Maybe coming here wasn’t a good idea,” Julia interrupted, cutting Jessie off before she let out an expletive. “Every time he sees me he looks like he’s going to throw up.”

  “I noticed that too,” Jessie agreed as she sucked the air in through her teeth. “Will there be food at this thing? I’m starving.”

  In the next hour the rest of the villagers arrived, including Julia’s sister and gran. They mingled in the entrance hall sipping champagne and eating tiny canapés, which were being handed out by handsome men in tuxedos carrying silver trays.

  “I wanted proper food,” Jessie mumbled under her breath. “Not this posh finger stuff.”

  “I’d usually tell somebody your age not to be so ungrateful, but I’ll agree with you there,” Dot, Julia’s gran, said as she nibbled at the edge of a canapé. “What is this?”

  “Smoked salmon,” Sue said, tossing one whole into her mouth. “I quite like it.”

  Dot shot Sue a sharp look as she pushed up her tightly wound curls at the back of her head. She peered around at the faces in the crowd looking as uncomfortable as Julia felt. If Julia felt like her relationship with her father was strained, it was nothing compared to her gran’s.

  “I didn’t raise him this way,” Dot muttered under her breath. “All of this excess is bad for the soul. It will rot him from the inside out.”

  “You know it’s all her,” Sue said, grabbing another smoked salmon canapé off a passing tray. “She’s a Wellington.”

  “And he’s a South!” Dot said, her lips pursing tightly. “Your grandfather would turn in his grave if he knew your father had married into this ghastly family. All of this for a silly announcement? It’s beyond belief!”

  Sue caught Julia’s eyes, and for a moment, both of the sisters knew what the other was thinking. They quickly looked away, neither of them wanting to acknowledge the elephant in the room.

  “I heard she was pregnant,” said Emily Burns, who lived in the cottage next to Julia’s. “It’s been all around the village.”

  “I heard they were getting divorced,” added Amy Clark, the village’s organist at St. Peter’s Church.

  “Who has a party to announce a divorce?” Emily bit back. “That’s preposterous. Mark my words, it’s a baby! Evelyn from the B&B said so, and she has the sight, you know.”

  “A baby at his age?” Amy said, rolling her eyes. “Rubbish.”

&nb
sp; Julia caught Sue’s eyes again, and it was only when she saw her own worry in her sister’s eyes that she realised she had stopped breathing. She shook her head and let out a long breath, her cheeks flushing red. Dot and Jessie were both staring at her with worry in their eyes.

  “Will you excuse me?” Julia said, already turning around. “Nature calls.”

  Before any of them could say anything, Julia pushed through the crowd and hurried up the mahogany staircase, and straight into the bathroom. She remembered where it was from her infrequent visits to the manor house. She slammed the heavy door into its frame and dragged the lock across. It nipped the skin on her left index finger. She cried out and crammed the bloody cut in her mouth, closing her eyes and trying to calm herself.

  She walked over to the mirror hanging over the sink and assessed her reflection. Her cheeks were plump and naturally rosy, framing her delicate nose and wide green eyes. Her brows and lashes were dark and shapely, matching her dark curly hair in hue. She rarely wore makeup, but today she had opted for mascara and a little berry lipstick. It was the only thing stopping her from splashing cold water on her face.

  Since she had read the invitation, she had only been able to think of one thing. It had been spinning around in her mind, tormenting her every waking thought. She had hoped she was overthinking things, but she saw the same worry in her sister’s eyes. Hearing Emily say the words she had been afraid to say out loud made her stomach tighten.

  Could her father be having another baby? She wanted to laugh at the suggestion, but she knew it was more than possible, what with Katie being the much younger one in the relationship. She had always wondered if this was where things were heading for her father and his new wife. It hadn’t seemed like a possibility until yesterday.

  She looked her reflection dead in the eyes and asked why she was so bothered if he was to have another baby. Her mind answered instantly, and much quicker than she had expected.

  Julia was now the same age her mother had been when she had died. As a twelve-year-old girl, she hadn’t realised just how young thirty-seven was, but as it looked back at her in the mirror, she knew she had so much life left in her. Her father had lived his life, and now that he was in his early-sixties, the thought of him bringing another life into the world, a possible brother or sister for Julia, sounded outrageous.

  She immediately felt jealous of this invented younger sibling, who would no doubt benefit from her father’s years of making mistakes. When her mother died, her father was physically there, but he wasn’t mentally, leaving Julia and Sue’s gran to pick up the pieces and raise the girls as if they were her own children.

  Their father danced around the country dealing antiques, rarely visiting Peridale, and growing more and more distant from his daughters. He would bring them extraordinary gifts from his travels, but eventually they faded away. It hadn’t taken Julia long to realise they were just a smoke screen for his lack of caregiving. With Sue being the younger daughter, it took longer for her bubble to burst, which explained why she was more defensive of his actions than Julia cared to be.

  By the time he finally moved back to Peridale and settled, Julia was living in London and Sue was already married. He was a stranger to both of them, and their interactions had become nothing more than polite exchanges when they happened to see each other. He was a shadow of the caring and loving man Julia remembered from before her mother’s death. She wondered if Sue even remembered that version of their father.

  Turning her attention back to the present, Julia shook her curls out and acknowledged that the announcement could be one of many things. She washed her hands, dried them on a fluffy towel adorned with the Wellington family crest, and headed back to the door, her heels clicking on the exposed floorboards.

  At the top of the grand staircase, she was surprised when she didn’t hear the chatter of the party below. It seemed they had moved through to the garden without her. She didn’t mind. It would give her a little longer to gather her thoughts. Just as she was about to descend the staircase, a raised man’s voice ricocheted down the hallway, catching her attention. She turned to look in the direction of the voice, her foot hovering over the top step. It was coming from a slightly open door at the end of the hall. She listened to the raised voice, not quite able to make out what he was talking about. She would have left it, but she heard the distinct high-pitched squawk of Katie Wellington-South, and it sent a familiar shiver running down her spine.

  Peridale village was renowned for its gossipers, and even though Julia rarely engaged in the gossiping, the intrigued villager within her itched to know what the shouting was about. Backing up the hallway, she slowly crept towards the open door.

  “This has nothing to do with you!” Katie screamed, her shrill voice piercing through the air like nails down a chalkboard. “This is my decision!”

  “This has everything to do with me!” the man cried back, matching her volume.

  If Julia had recognised the man’s voice as her father’s, she would have promptly retreated because she didn’t want to overhear something so private. As it happened, she didn’t recognise the man, so she crept closer.

  “You’re always interfering!” Katie yelled. “Always trying to ruin things for me. You’re never happy unless I’m miserable.”

  “Miserable?” the man cried, laughing sarcastically. “You don’t know the meaning of the word! You have everything! Dad has let you live in this house all your life, and yet I was tossed out at eighteen to be shown the harsh realities of the world. What did you do? You messed around with your stupid modelling career, and then when that didn’t work, you ran back to Daddy and held your hand out. What did Dad do? He tossed every coin you could catch at you. And now this! Are you really that bored that this is what you want to do with your time?”

  “I need something too, Charles!” Katie cried. “I’m stuck here all day, going out of my mind looking after Dad. He can barely get out of bed these days. Do you know how difficult it is for me?”

  “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?” Charles cried back. “Because I don’t. I never will. You’re still the spoiled little brat you always were. It never mattered that I was the oldest. You’ve always been his little princess, regardless of what you do. All you care about is getting your hands on my inheritance.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “So why are you doing this? This is all I’ll have when he’s gone. This house was my ticket into the green. Do you know how difficult it is running my own business? People aren’t buying like they used to, but you wouldn’t know that. You’re up here, playing with his millions, while I’m struggling to keep my own roof over my head.”

  The arguing stopped for a moment. Julia thought she was about to be outed. She heard footsteps heading towards the door, but they turned back as if someone was pacing. Reaching into her handbag, Julia pulled out a small compact mirror, and placed it against the edge of the open door. She fiddled with the angle for a second before she landed on Katie, and then on the man, who she was sure she recognised.

  “The old man will never give me the house now,” Charles said, shaking his head. “You’ve got him right where you want him.”

  “It’s not like that, Charles.”

  “It’s always like that with you, Katie,” Charles said, before turning around, his eyes almost looking straight at Julia in the mirror. “You’re no sister of mine.”

  Julia jumped back into the shadow of a doorway just in time. She stared into the mirror, pretending she was fixing her hair. Charles stopped and looked directly into her eyes, before shaking his head and running down the staircase, taking them two at a time.

  Julia heard the click of Katie’s impossibly high heels heading towards the door, so she ran as quickly as she dared back into the bathroom, resting her ear against the wood until she felt it safe to venture out. The last thing she wanted was for Katie to take her anger out on her, or even worse, try and engage her in a conversation.

  When the c
oast was clear, Julia left the bathroom, made her way down the staircase and towards the garden, the knot in her stomach only growing tighter with each step. Everything she had heard from the Wellington siblings had only confirmed her suspicions about the ‘big announcement’.

  Julia joined Jessie, Sue and Dot in the garden. They were all sipping large glasses of freshly squeezed lemonade, which were being handed out on trays. Julia grabbed one and crammed the straw in her mouth, needing the sugar rush.

  “Where have you been?” Dot asked, glancing around the crowded garden. “I was about to send out a search party. Everybody in the village is here!”

  “I got lost,” Julia lied, hoping that would wash.

  Her gran arched a brow, letting her know it certainly didn’t wash, but she didn’t push it. Julia wondered if her gran could sense the worry in Julia’s eyes, and she was just choosing not to acknowledge the baby shaped elephant in the room because she couldn’t bear the thought of it being true.

  “Detective Inspector Brown is over there,” Sue whispered in Julia’s ear after jabbing her in the ribs. “He’s talking to psychic Evelyn.”

  “I wonder if he’s asking her when you’ll say yes to him asking you out on a date?” Dot added, standing on tiptoes to look over to where Barker was, as though she would be able to hear what he was talking to Evelyn about. “It’s been nearly a month since he asked you. ‘Maybe’ won’t cut it forever, you know.”

  Julia’s cheeks blushed. She took a long sip of the lemonade, which tasted as fresh as a summer’s day. Barker caught her gaze across the crowd and sent a little wave in her direction. A smile took over her face as she sent a small wave back.

  “Your face has gone all red,” Jessie said unsubtly. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “She’s in loooove,” Sue said, making sure to drag out the word for as long as possible.

  “Give it a rest, will you?” Julia said, dropping her hair over her face. “I wouldn’t exactly call it that.”