by V. M. Burns
“Is that a real cigarette?” I was stunned. It had been such a long time since I’d been around anyone who smoked a real cigarette, let alone inside a restaurant.
“Sure is.” Nana Jo grinned.
Frank walked over to Lydia Lighthouse. He discretely whispered, but he might as well have saved his breath.
Lydia stared at him as though he’d just landed from an alien spaceship. “What do you mean I can’t smoke inside? What kind of establishment is this?”
Frank gritted his teeth. “It’s actually illegal to smoke inside of restaurants in this state.”
Lydia made an elaborate motion of flinging her lighter down. She huffed and then collected herself and plastered on a smile. “Oh, well, when in Rome.” She smiled. “Would you please get me a glass of champagne,” she ordered rather than asked.
Frank hesitated for a moment but smiled and gestured to one of the waitstaff, who promptly brought the whirlwind a drink.
Unlit cigarette dangling from one hand and glass of champagne in the other, the whirlwind stood at the head of the table. “A toast.”
Everyone stood and raised their glasses.
“To the happy couple, may they enjoy many years of wedded bliss.” Lydia raised her glass.
We all raised our glasses and toasted Mom and Harold.
Lydia sipped her champagne.
“Who the hell are you?” Nana Jo asked the question that was dancing around inside all of our heads.
Lydia looked up in surprise. “I thought I’d introduced myself.” She smiled and spoke loud and very slowly as though Nana Jo was hard of hearing and losing her faculties. “I’m Lydia Lighthouse.”
Nana Jo narrowed her eyes and stared. “I heard you the first time you gave that ridiculous name. What I mean is why are you here? This is a private party. Who invited you?”
Lydia’s smile froze and her icy-blue eyes grew as cold as Lake Michigan right before a storm.
Margaret must have noticed the temperature drop and a quick headcount had to tell her she was drastically outnumbered if a brawl started. She hurried to intervene. “I was just explaining that Lydia Lighthouse is the premiere wedding planner in the country and she’s agreed to help plan Grace and Harold’s wedding.”
You could have heard a cricket chirp in the silence that followed.
“Now, who is the bride?” Lydia looked around the room. Her gaze rested on Emma and Zaq and her brow furrowed. “I always tell my couples how important breeding and pedigree are.”
Emma colored and Zaq started to stand, but Emma restrained him. His eyes were stormy and he looked ready to explode.
I could see Jenna bristling. However, Lydia continued, oblivious to how close she was to being tossed out on her ear. “I breed Yorkies. You have to be really careful of the bitch because you never know what you’ll get in the end.” She laughed.
Nana Jo stood. “What in the name of God are you talking about and you’d best be careful because you’re pretty close to getting stabbed.” Nana Jo fingered her knife.
Lydia looked at Nana Jo, puzzled. “I was talking about the importance of breeding. Weddings are a union. What you put into this union will determine what you get out of it.” She stared at Margaret, who looked embarrassed and blushed. “For example, my entire family is full of blue-eyed redheads with a fiery temper. Me, my brother, my husband, my parents, my grandparents—nothing but redheads. So, you always know what you’re getting.” She laughed, but when no one joined in, she sighed. “However, when you combine a loving, generous man and a sweet, caring woman, you will have a union that overflows with love and is able to survive anything.”
Nana Jo sat down and muttered something that sounded like “crazy witch.”
“Who’s the bride?” Lydia looked around.
Mom raised a tentative hand. “I am.”
Lydia waltzed over to my mother. “You just leave everything to Lydia. I’ll make sure your wedding is the event North Harbor Michigan will never forget.”
Chapter 2
“I’m not wearing that!” Jenna’s voice took on the tone she used when she went into full-blown lawyer mode. Watching her was akin to watching an old-fashioned percolator when the coffee was ready, or the pressure cooker Nana Jo had many moons ago. It bubbled and bounced right before the lid blew off and exploded a chicken all over the kitchen.
“It will be perfect for a Christmas Eve wedding.” Lydia ignored the rumble in Jenna’s voice that signaled danger.
Nana Jo leaned close and whispered, “ ‘Danger, Will Robinson.’ ”
I raised an eyebrow and nodded. We both scooted forward in our chairs and made ourselves comfortable.
Lydia Lighthouse looked from Jenna to my mom. “What do you think, Grace? It’s your wedding. You’re the bride after all.”
Mom looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a car. “I don’t know . . . I think Jenna might have a point. I mean, tartan plaid does seem a bit . . . well, a bit too much like a theme wedding,” she said softly.
“Theme?” Lydia huffed. “Excuse me. I was only trying to provide the best wedding I could on a shoestring budget and with zero timeline.” She flung the tartan plaid monstrosity at her assistant, April.
“Five bucks says she puts on the waterworks next,” Nana Jo whispered in my ear.
I nodded my acceptance of the bet.
Lydia pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and turned her back. “I’m sorry if you don’t like any of my ideas. I was just trying to make this wedding something the people of North Harbor would talk about for the next twenty years.”
I reached in my pocket and pulled out a five-dollar bill and handed it to Nana Jo, who folded it and stuffed it down the front of her shirt.
“Lydia, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you,” Mom pleaded. “You’re doing a fantastic job.” She turned to Jenna. “Now, Jenna, maybe you could at least try it on. You may feel differently once you—”
“I will not. I refuse to try on that tablecloth, and I definitely will not be wearing anything that remotely resembles a tartan tablecloth. So, if that’s what you want, then you’d better get Sam to wear it. I’ll sit this one out,” Jenna said with granite in her voice.
“Oh, no you don’t.” I sat up straight. “If Jenna isn’t wearing the tablecloth, then I certainly won’t be wearing it either.”
“Girls, really. It’s not a tablecloth.” Mom walked over to April and took the dress and held it up.
Jenna paced, with her hands behind her back, twice around the area in the back of my store, where we were sitting, and then suddenly spun around and faced Nana Jo. “Do you or do you not have a tartan tablecloth.”
Nana Jo nodded. “I do. I pull it out every Christmas.”
Jenna turned and glanced from Mom to Lydia and then sat down. “I rest my case.”
I had to stop myself from applauding. It was very Perry Mason–esque.
Lydia folded her arms across her chest. Her eyes were narrow slits and she practically fumed. She reminded me a great deal of Smaug, the dinosaur from The Hobbit.
Nana Jo leaned across and whispered, “You can just about see the steam coming out of her nostrils, can’t you?”
Mom’s gaze went from Jenna to Lydia Lighthouse, as if she were watching a tennis match. She must have decided blood was thicker than water. She looked at the dress. “It does bear a resemblance to Mom’s Christmas tablecloth.” She looked around in a confused state. Straddling the fence wasn’t easy.
“Looks exactly like the tablecloth I’ve used for Christmas dinners for the past thirty years. I’ve got matching napkins too,” Nana Jo said with pride. “Maybe you’d like to use them as hats for the girls?”
Lydia sputtered and huffed, then took a deep breath. “Fine. Forget the dress.” Lydia Lighthouse snatched the dress out of Mom’s hands and tossed it to the floor. She paced back and forth. Her six-inch heels clicked hard with each step. “If you think you can do better with two weeks until the wedding, fine.” She clicked and cl
acked across the floor like a Clydesdale horse and then turned to her minion. “Make a note to have the photographers from Great Lakes Bridal, Wedded Bliss, and Midwest Bride Magazine all omit pictures of the wedding party and focus only on the bride and groom.”
Lydia Lighthouse’s assistant, a mousy woman with mousy brown hair, bushy eyebrows, thick glasses, and an overbite, which a dentist could use as the poster child to induce parents to spring for braces, scribbled furiously on the tablet she kept with her constantly.
If Lydia thought being excluded from photographs was a punishment, she obviously didn’t know our family very well. Jenna reached over and we high-fived, which caused the wedding planner to huff again, roll her eyes, and click-clack harder across the floor.
“That woman needs to switch to decaf,” Nana Jo whispered loud enough for that woman to overhear.
Lydia turned quickly and glared at Nana Jo, which was a waste of energy.
Nana Jo stuck her thumbs in her ears and wiggled her fingers as she stuck out her tongue. Yep, nothing but class in our family.
Lydia rolled her eyes and turned away.
I almost felt sorry for her. In fact, I was about two seconds away from agreeing to wear the dreaded tablecloth when she turned around and snapped her fingers. The mouse rushed over to the table and picked up the second of the garment bags she’d lugged into the store. She scurried back to Lydia and handed her the bag.
Lydia looked at her as though she were gum she’d scraped off the bottom of her shoe.
The assistant’s face flushed red. She mumbled an apology and unzipped the bag and removed a gold lamé lace tablecloth on a hanger.
Lydia turned to my mom. “Now, Grace, I know you’re a woman of taste.” She sneered at Jenna and me before she turned back to Mom. “This is the latest creation from Paris. Gold is in this year, and everything is about lace.”
Mom stared at the dress with a face that I’d once used as Lady Macbeth in a middle school rendition of Macbeth. Mom’s “Out, damned spot!” face put my acting to shame. She looked at Lydia. “It’s lovely. Is it for the bridal table?”
Lydia’s face cracked and her smile slid to the floor. “Of course not. Your family is obsessed with tablecloths.” She took a deep breath and plastered her smile back in place. “It’s your wedding dress. Isn’t it lovely?”
Mom’s eyes grew large and she stared at the lace garment. “It’s . . . lovely, but I’ve already picked out my wedding dress,” she whispered.
Lydia flipped her hand in the air. “Oh, that rag might have been okay for a wedding in a hovel, but I could never permit one of my brides to be seen dead wearing something off the rack. Lydia Lighthouse’s brides wear only the finest gowns from the best designers.” She was so busy smiling, she hadn’t noticed the crestfallen look that flitted across my mom’s face. Instead, she continued plowing forward like a steamroller. “Gold is the trend for weddings this season. Gold and lace are big. I was ecstatic when I found a gown that married the two items together so well.” She smiled at her pun. “All this loveliness for a quarter mil, I practically stole it.”
Nana Jo must have been swallowing when she spoke because she began to choke, and I had to pat her back a few times before she was able to speak. “A quarter MILLION WHAT?”
Lydia smiled. “Dollars, of course. Harold told me money wasn’t an object as long as Grace was happy, so . . .”
“So, you decided to milk the poor man like a cow?” Nana Jo practically screamed.
A flush rose up Lydia’s face. “Harold told me he was paying for the wedding, therefore I assumed he was my client. My job is to please my client. He wanted ‘a wedding.’ ” She used air quotes. “That would show off his beloved bride to all the world. He did not tell me that, in addition to pulling a rabbit out of a hat and producing an elegant and beautiful wedding in less than one month, I would have to answer to an overbearing, tasteless, argumentative, quarrelsome cat and two ungrateful, spoiled brats who care more about their own needs than those of their mother.” She clicked and clacked as she ranted.
“Whoa, Nellie. You might want to back that cart up a pace or two before I roll you over with it.” Nana Jo rose to her feet and stood, towering down like a tree.
Tears formed in Mom’s eyes.
I rose from my chair. No one made my mom cry and got away with it. I glared at Lydia. I was so intent on figuring out what kind of knot was in Lydia’s scarf so I could use it to strangle her that I didn’t hear the bell indicating someone had entered the shop.
“What’s going on here?” Harold’s normally low voice boomed.
I turned to see Harold and almost didn’t recognize him. The normally jovial, ever-patient Harold looked furious. “What have you done to Grace?”
In all of the chaos, I’d lost sight of Mom. At Harold’s words, I turned and looked at my mom, who was sitting in a chair with tears streaming down her face.
Jenna and I walked over to her and tried to comfort her.
“Well?” Harold bellowed.
We pointed at Lydia.
Harold glared at Lydia. “Did you do this?”
Lydia screeched, “Me? You think I’ve done this?” She took several deep breaths and then burst into tears. “All I’ve done has been to try to provide an elegant Lydia Lighthouse wedding, and I’ve been thwarted at every turn.”
Harold stared from Lydia to Mom and then to Jenna, Nana Jo, and me. He walked to Mom and squatted down in front of her. “Grace, dear, please don’t cry. Let me take you home.”
Mom rose and permitted herself to be led out.
At the door, Harold stopped and turned and faced Lydia. “I’ll deal with you later.” Then he and Mom walked out of the store.
Chapter 3
Later, I made myself a cup of tea. Ever the glutton for punishment, I replayed the scene over and over again in my head. Lydia Lighthouse had poor taste, but that didn’t necessarily make her a bad person. Perhaps, with more time to plan and prepare, she would have created a wedding any bride would be proud to have. I wasn’t exactly an expert on weddings. Leon and I had gone to the courthouse and gotten married over our lunch hour. I think I wore blue jeans and a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt. Jenna and Tony had gotten married in the living room of their first apartment. They’d both just graduated from law school and were more concerned with saving the world than planning a large, elaborate wedding. Neither of us had provided my mom with the opportunity to plan the elaborate weddings she’d dreamed of for her daughters. Maybe Lydia was right. Maybe we were being selfish. If wearing a green tablecloth would make my mom happy, what difference did it make? It was one day. Honestly, as ugly as the tablecloth was, it was better than any of the dresses I’d tried on at the bridal shop.
Decision made, I took my tea and went to my upstairs office and sat down at my laptop. Owning a mystery bookstore had been a dream my husband, Leon, and I shared, but my dreams went beyond merely selling books. I also dreamed of writing them. After Leon died, I realized how short life was and sat down and started writing a British historic cozy mystery. It had taken a while for me to feel comfortable sharing the fact I’d written a book with anyone except my family and closest friends. In fact, I didn’t even have the courage to send my manuscript out to agents. It was Nana Jo who sent my manuscript to the second cousin of one of her friends, Pamela Porter, who also just happened to be a literary agent. Pamela loved my book and was preparing to send it to an editor at one of the New York publishing houses. I tried not to think too much about that because my stomach contracted and I started feeling lightheaded. Instead, I focused on Pamela’s last email, which had said to keep writing. So, I fired up my laptop and prepared to do just that.
Wickfield Lodge, English country home of Lord William Marsh—December 1938
“Daphne, you can’t be serious? There’s no way you can plan a wedding in three weeks.” Lady Penelope Carlston, formerly Marsh, stared at her sister.
“Well, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” Daphne lifted her ch
in in the determined way she had.
Lady Elizabeth looked from one of her nieces to the other. Casual observers might not have realized Lady Penelope and Lady Daphne Marsh were sisters. The two young women were as different as night and day. Lady Daphne Marsh was a blond-haired, blue-eyed beauty with creamy skin and a perfect figure. Lady Penelope Marsh was a raven-haired, dark-eyed woman, with a sharp mind and athletic physique. However, the two sisters shared the same determined streak, which was reflected in Daphne’s eyes.
“But why?” Lady Elizabeth sat on the sofa of the comfortable drawing room and knitted. “Why the rush, dear?”
“James has to go abroad in January, and I have every intention of going with him.”
James FitzAndrew Browning, 15th duke of King-fordshire, Daphne’s intended, leaned against the fireplace and smoked. “I told her it was a crazy idea.” He looked around the room. “I hoped all of you would talk her out of it.”
Lord William read his newspaper and smoked his pipe from a cozy chair with one leg propped atop an ottoman. “Dashed inconvenient timing. No way to get a proper wedding in that amount of time, especially with everything going on in the world. There’s a killer on the loose in Halifax, the Halifax Slasher.” He puffed.
Lady Elizabeth knitted. “I don’t believe there is a Halifax Slasher. It’s just some trick to sell newspapers.”
“Besides, even if it were true, Halifax is a long way away.” Lady Penelope smiled.
Lord William leaned forward. “It’s not just this slasher business.” He tapped his newspaper. “Jews are having to ship their children out of Germany and Poland to England to protect them, and Britain’s instituted the national register for war.” He shook his head.
Lady Penelope’s and Lady Elizabeth’s gazes locked. In that glance, a resolution was established and acknowledged by a nod so subtle and brief, it was barely visible.