by H. Y. Hanna
“Relaxing—!” Cassie choked on a bit of chocolate fudge and berry trifle.
Dora laughed softly; it was a pleasant sound. When she was smiling like this, her eyes warm and happy, she looked like a different person.
I said earnestly, “I don’t know how to thank you enough, Dora. You saved us! These are going to go down a treat at the gallery party!”
“It’s nothing,” she said gruffly. She waved towards her empty plate and teacup at the other end of the table. “It’s the least I can do…”
I hesitated, then said nervously, “Can I offer you some reimbursement for your time—?”
“Certainly not!” Dora snapped. “I’m happy to help.”
“Okay,” I said, quickly retreating. “But won’t you take some more of our leftovers from today? Just so it’s not wasted,” I added hastily. “And you can tell us how we might improve.”
Dora accepted this and left, bearing a large paper bag of buns and muffins. As soon as she had gone out the door, Cassie gripped my shoulders and said:
“We found our chef, Gemma! You’ve got to hire her! Tomorrow!”
I smiled. “Do you think I can get her to agree without thinking I’m offering her charity?”
“Bloody hell, at this stage, she’d be the one giving us charity!” said Cassie, flopping down onto a chair. “I’m absolutely knackered! Baking is the most stressful thing ever. I never want to go through another afternoon like this again.”
I laughed, then gave her arm a sympathetic squeeze. “I’m sorry, Cass—it wasn’t fair to put this all on you.”
She waved me away. “Hey, I volunteered. I thought it looked a lot easier than it actually is. Your mother certainly made it look easy… oh, by the way, have you heard from her?”
I gave a smile of relief. “Yeah, finally! I got a text from her this morning. It seems that she had sent a text to me after they arrived in Jakarta but then she discovered that she had only typed it out but had forgotten to press ‘Send’.” I rolled my eyes.
“Well, at least she’s safe and sound,” said Cassie. She looked around the kitchen. “And maybe by the time she gets back, we’ll have a new chef in the tearoom!” She grinned at me. “I think I’m safer sticking to my paintbrushes.”
“Well, you make that look a lot easier than it actually is,” I said with a smile. “You can produce a beautiful landscape in the time it takes someone to draw a stick figure.”
“Guess we all have our talents,” Cassie agreed. She grinned at me. “Yours is sticking your nose in people’s business.”
“It’s not!” I said, horrified. “You’re making me sound like the Old Biddies!”
“No, no, not like them,” Cassie assured me. “I meant that in a good way. I mean… I think you’ve got a knack for solving mysteries, Gemma.”
“It doesn’t seem to be helping Seth much at the moment.”
At the mention of Seth, Cassie’s face fell and I wanted to kick myself for ruining the mood.
“Gemma, you don’t really think he’s going to end up being charged for the murder?” Cassie said, her face worried.
“I don’t know,” I said miserably. “At the moment, it doesn’t look good.”
“Why don’t we get together with him tonight after we drop these things off at the gallery and go over the case again?” suggested Cassie. “Maybe we can come up with a new angle.”
I blushed slightly. “I… Actually, I’ve got a date tonight.”
Cassie raised her eyebrows. “I thought you hadn’t forgiven Devlin for what he said yesterday? You said you weren’t talking to him again until he apologised.”
“It’s… it’s not with Devlin, actually. I’m going out with Lincoln. He rang this morning and asked if I’d like to have dinner with him tonight.”
Cassie said nothing but she gave me a look.
“Hey, I’m a free agent, still. I can go out to dinner if people invite me,” I said defensively. “And Lincoln’s great company.”
My best friend leaned forwards. “Do you like Lincoln, Gemma? I mean, seriously?”
I hesitated. “I… I could, I think. I mean… he’s not Devlin but… well, it’s nice being with him. We’re not always fighting and arguing all the time, and we don’t have this painful history between us—it’s just… pleasant. And Lincoln’s so calm and solid and dependable… He doesn’t make me furious all the time…” I sighed. “Oh, Cassie, I don’t know. I’m so confused!”
Cassie’s face softened. “Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to get to know him better—before you decide which one to choose.”
“Cassie!” I gasped. “It’s not like deciding what to order from a menu!”
“Why not?” she said with an impish grin.
I rolled my eyes, then I said forlornly, “I just… I don’t want to hurt anyone…”
“Someone always gets hurt when people fall in love. You can’t think about that. You have to listen to what your heart says and be true to yourself. Even if it scares you. Even if it isn’t the easy way. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them otherwise.”
“Since when did you become Ms Love Guru?”
Cassie gave me a smug smile. “I’m an expert on relationships. I can see things.”
Yeah, well, you can’t see your own feelings about the boy who has always adored you and who is under your very nose, I thought. But I kept my thoughts to myself. Things were awkward enough with Seth without me making things worse by opening the subject up with Cassie. I started to carry some of the cakes out of the kitchen.
“You know I expect a full report tomorrow,” Cassie called after me. “Especially on what kind of kisser Lincoln is.”
“Cassie!”
Her teasing laughter followed me out of the room.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Whenever I had gone out with Lincoln in the past, I had always taken great pains to stress the “non-date-ness” of our outings, that we were simply going out as friends. And I had dressed accordingly, going for a casual girl-next-door look, so that Lincoln wouldn’t think I was making any special effort for him. Tonight, though, I hesitated in front of my wardrobe. If I was going to give Lincoln a fair chance, then I had to act like it was a date, instead of working overtime not to see him in a romantic light. Maybe Cassie was right: I needed to embrace this fully to really know my feelings.
It was so easy, now that I was back in Oxford, visiting the old haunts, reliving my student days, to just fall back into old patterns of behaviour. Devlin had been my whole world then and I had loved him with the single-minded, all-consuming passion of first love. But I didn’t know if what I felt for him now was simply an echo of those feelings or something real that had stood the test of time. Maybe if I let myself fall for another man, with no doubts or reservations, I would know at last what my true feelings were.
Besides, just because Lincoln didn’t make my heart race when I saw him… so what? Did it have to be felt so intensely for it to be considered “real love”? Could you love someone just as much if the feeling grew from respect and liking instead of an instant attraction and intense passion?
I wished I knew the answer.
When Lincoln arrived to pick me up, I saw his eyes light up in surprise and appreciation as he saw me. I had chosen a navy silk dress with an empire line waist and flowing skirts, and placed a jewelled barrette in my short pixie crop. I felt very grown up and elegant as I allowed him to help me into my coat and escort me out the front door.
Thank God my mother was away. It had been hard enough dealing with her heavy-handed matchmaking when I had maintained an offhand attitude. It would have been impossible if she saw that I was making any kind of effort with Lincoln.
“You look beautiful,” said Lincoln, as he opened the door of his car for me.
“Thanks,” I said lightly. “Where are we going?”
“I’ve booked a table at Gees.”
“Oh! I haven’t been back there since I left England,” I said enthusiastically.
&nb
sp; Gees was one of the top fine dining restaurants in Oxford, which was saying something. In a city with the kind of spectacular architecture that Oxford has, you were pretty spoilt for choice when it came to looking for a picturesque place to dine, from a former castle prison complex to a mediaeval Grade-II-listed building, from a quaint boathouse to a converted chapel church… Gees offered a posh option mixing the modern with the historic. It was housed in an enormous Victorian glass conservatory, with a spacious interior filled with potted trees and marble-top tables, spread out across the chequered floor. It was the place you went to for special occasions—the wedding anniversary dinner or graduation celebration with your parents.
We were shown to our table by an unobtrusive waiter and seated in a corner of the conservatory. I looked around with interest: the place had been refurbished since my student days at Oxford and some things had changed—the iconic chandeliers, for example, had been replaced by modern feature lighting—but overall, it had the same elegant ambience combined with a sort of restrained rustic charm.
As we perused the menu, ordered, and then waited for the food to arrive, Lincoln chatted lightly about his work and the new developments at the hospital. I found myself enjoying the evening much more than I had expected and liking Lincoln the more time I spent with him. I eyed him surreptitiously as we tucked into our main courses. His soft brown eyes were twinkling as he recounted some humorous story from the hospital and his long-fingered hands—doctor’s hands—gestured as he illustrated his story. I thought of Cassie’s teasing comment and wondered suddenly what it would be like to be kissed by him. Would he make my heart pound the same way Devlin did? Would I be swept away on a wave of feeling so intense, it made me forget everyone and everything? Didn’t I owe it to myself to find out?
“Gemma?”
I started and realised that I had been staring. “Sorry, my mind wandered for a minute…” I blushed and looked down, hastily cutting up an artichoke.
“What do you think of the new menu?” asked Lincoln, as he forked up some of his fettuccine with venison ragout.
“Great so far… but I’m looking forward to their pudding menu.”
“Yes, I would have thought that as a tearoom owner, it’s their pudding menu that would interest you the most. See how their desserts compare with yours.”
I laughed. “I could hardly hope to compare with an institution like Gees!”
“Oh, I don’t know…” said Lincoln with a smile. “Your Little Stables Tearoom’s reputation has been growing. I’ve heard quite a few people talk about you at the hospital.”
“Really?” I said, delighted.
He nodded. “People telling others they must go or saying that they took friends and relatives and everyone loved it. You’ve done really well, Gemma, in such a short time too. How long have you been open?”
“Just over four months, ,” I said, surprised now that I actually thought about it. In a way, it felt like a lifetime had passed since I had returned to England.
“Well, I think you’re doing a fantastic job.”
I felt a warm glow at the praise. “Thanks.”
“By the way, how’s Seth? How are things going with the murder investigation?”
I sobered. “Not so good. I think it’s getting Seth down a bit.”
“Don’t the police have any other suspects? What about that tramp that you were interested in last time? Weren’t we doing that recreation to check that the timing could have worked for him?”
“Yeah, but I’ve since learned that Professor Barrow sent a text message at 12:17 a.m.—which means that he was still alive then. And since Jim was seen outside the college at 12:23 a.m., that only leaves a gap of about six minutes which—”
“Which he couldn’t have managed, especially with a limp,” Lincoln finished for me.
“Yes.” I fiddled with my fork. “The problem is, there are other suspects but none of them are as strong a suspect as Seth. There’s Dr Leila Gaber, who’s a colleague of Barrow’s and hated him. There’s Barrow’s own sister who benefits by a lot of money from his death—and there wasn’t much love lost between them either. And then there’s that head porter we met—Clyde Peters—he seems to have been in the Cloisters a bit too conveniently the night of the murder and I’m sure he’s hiding something, although on the face of it, he doesn’t seem to have a motive or benefit from Barrow’s death…”
Lincoln shook his head in sympathy. “What a crummy situation. I’m really sorry…” He paused, then mused, “Dr Leila Gaber… That name sounds familiar…”
“She was at that Oxford Society of Medicine dinner.”
“No, that’s not it… I think I heard some gossip about her at the hospital.”
I sat forwards. “Really? What?”
He gave me a sheepish smile. “I have to confess, I don’t pay much attention to hospital gossip. It was just that the name was unusual so it stuck in my memory.” He furrowed his brow, thinking. “From what I can remember, I don’t think it was very complimentary… but then, what gossip is?” He grinned. “It’s never any fun unless you’re talking about scandals and misdemeanours. People aren’t interested in the nice stuff. They want to hear your deepest dirty secrets.”
“Mmm…” I would have given a lot to hear Leila Gaber’s deepest dirty secrets. “I wonder who might know… ”
“You could try her colleagues at the Department of Ethnoarchaeology,” said Lincoln. “Those who work with her would have the best knowledge about her background, I should think. And Leila Gaber is the kind of woman who would get herself talked about,” he added with a wry smile.
He was right. With her larger-than-life personality, Leila wasn’t the type to be ignored: you either loved or hated her. And I was pretty sure most of the men loved her, and probably a lot of the women too. Even I found myself reluctantly liking her. There was something so charming about her blunt, vivacious personality.
The waiter came quietly to remove our empty plates and I excused myself to go to the Ladies. As I made my way across the conservatory, I scanned the tables absentmindedly… Then I did a double take as I passed a table where a little old lady in a bright floral dress and pink cardigan was sitting.
It was Glenda Bailey. And facing her was Clyde Peters, the head porter of Wadsworth College.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Glenda!” I cried in surprise.
She started and looked up, whilst Clyde Peters stopped speaking abruptly. They had been leaning forwards across the table, heads together, talking earnestly, and from the furtive look they sent me, I wondered what they had been talking about.
“Oh, it’s you, Gemma,” said Glenda, looking none too pleased to see me.
I was surprised. The Old Biddies were usually so warm and friendly towards me—if slightly too friendly. They treated me like an honorary great-niece or grand-daughter and delighted in meddling with my life. So I had never seen one of them look at me with as much displeasure and annoyance as Glenda was looking at me now.
I stole a glance at the man opposite her. Clyde Peters was sitting back with a bland smile on his face, his expression shuttered. From the way they were dressed and the romantic setting, it was obvious that they were on a date, but why would Glenda Bailey suddenly be going out with the head porter of Wadsworth? What was she up to?
I scanned the restaurant again and saw something I hadn’t noticed before. In the far corner, behind one of the large potted trees, was a table with three little old ladies. They were huddled over their plates, pretending to be pre-occupied with their food and obviously hoping not to be noticed, but I recognised them instantly: Mabel Cooke, Florence Doyle, and Ethel Webb. The rest of the Old Biddies. What were they doing here? I glanced back at Glenda suspiciously. This was no ordinary date. This must have been what they had left the tearoom early today to prepare for.
“Fancy seeing you here,” I said to her. I glanced at Clyde Peters, then looked back at her expectantly.
“Er, yes… Gemma, this is Cly
de. He’s the—”
“I’m just a friend,” he interrupted quickly.
So, he didn’t want to raise the subject of Wadsworth College. Did he think I wouldn’t recognise him? There was an awkward silence. It was obvious Glenda wanted me to leave.
“Well, I’ll leave you to get on with your meal,” I said at last. “Nice to bump into you.”
Glenda murmured something similar in reply although I could tell she didn’t mean it. I continued on my way to the Ladies, pondering what was going on. What were the Old Biddies up to? Their attempts to “help” investigate a murder usually ended with me stuck in some embarrassing situation. I shuddered to think what they were involved in this time.
I didn’t have much chance to find out any more about it. By the time I returned to the conservatory, Glenda and her companion had gone. I looked quickly across the room. The other table was empty as well. They must have all left in a hurry. I frowned. What on earth was going on?
The little interlude kept me preoccupied for the rest of the dinner, in spite of the delicious sticky toffee pudding with toffee sauce and pecan pie with caramel ice cream that we had for dessert.
“You’re very quiet,” Lincoln remarked, as he walked me to the front door of my parents’ house.
“Sorry.” I gave him an apologetic smile. “I’ve been really rude. It’s just that this case with Seth… It’s been worrying me and I can’t seem to stop thinking about it…”
“Ah. As long as it wasn’t because I was boring you to death.”
“No, no, of course not! I really enjoyed tonight.”
“Then… maybe we could do it again sometime?” said Lincoln.
I knew what he was asking. I looked up and read the intent in his eyes as he stepped closer to me. My heart pounded. I could still diffuse the situation—step away and make some light remark, pretend to fumble with the key in the lock—or I could let Lincoln kiss me.
My mind whirled. I didn’t know what I wanted. He came even closer and leaned towards me. I held myself still, my breath in my throat… and then—