by Carol Miller
“We don’t have enough potatoes for dinner,” she declared, a bit too chirpily.
“Georgia—”
“And we wouldn’t want anyone to go hungry,” she added with equal blitheness, spinning on her heel toward the cellar door.
The stairway leading down to the cellar was on the opposite side of the kitchen chimney. It was a true old-time country cellar, rather than a modern concrete or cinder block basement. The narrow stairs were steep and rickety. The walls were mortar and stone. And the ground was bare dirt. There was absolutely nothing decorative or finished about it. But it held all the inn’s essentials—baskets of onions and potatoes; jars of jams, jellies, and assorted pickled products; oil lanterns with gallon bottles of the necessary fuel; and a veritable stockpile of rusted gardening implements and cast-iron cookware.
Georgia tugged at the glass knob on the cellar door. Over the years, the door had warped, so it tended to stick in the frame and was difficult to open. Nevertheless, the door was always kept closed. Otherwise in winter, the drafts from the cellar made the kitchen too cold, and in summer, they made it too damp.
“Georgia—” Daisy began once more.
She stopped tugging.
“What Drew said earlier … I really am a good listener…”
Her brow furrowed, and she rubbed her arms again, harder this time.
“If you ever feel like chatting or whatever,” Daisy went on lightly. She could see from the way Georgia had tensed—both earlier with Drew and now with her—that although she was clearly unsettled by something, she also wasn’t comfortable discussing it. “If not, that’s okay, too. No pressure. Just thought I’d mention it.”
Georgia’s mouth opened. She started to respond but then evidently thought better of it, and her lips clamped shut.
“Well, I’m here if you change your mind,” Daisy concluded with a shrug.
Meeting her gaze, Georgia shrugged back at her. It seemed like a shrug of futility—an aged, world-weary futility—and in that moment, Georgia looked exhausted and many decades beyond her years. A second later, she gave the cellar door a determined yank. It wrenched open, and she inelegantly went half skipping, half skidding down the steps, suddenly not so mature, after all.
CHAPTER
7
“It’s late. I know. I’m sorry.”
Balancing the teacup and saucer in one hand and a plate stacked with a generous serving of shortbread in the other, Daisy pushed open the slightly ajar door to her mama’s room with her shoulder.
“Hi, honey.” Lucy Hale smiled warmly at her daughter from the bed. She was lying under a large patchwork quilt, her neck and shoulders propped up by a quartet of thick feather pillows. “There’s no need to apologize. I woke up just a little while ago, and Beulah’s been keeping me company.”
Beulah greeted her from the yellow painted rocking chair at the side of the bed, her stocking feet propped up on the edge of the mattress after a long day of cuts and colors. “You need any help?”
“I’m good. Thanks.” Daisy had not the least difficulty walking, talking, and carrying hot beverages all at the same time. Once a waitress, forever a waitress. “But I am surprised to see you up here. How did you manage to sneak into the inn past the lovely group in the parlor?”
Tucking an unruly red curl behind her ear, Beulah grinned. “No sneaking necessary. I came in the front, and the door squeaked like it always does. Except Lillian Barker was, well, barking so loud that no one heard it. I was going to stop and be all polite, but then I realized that no one heard me either. Lillian and Henry Brent were too busy sniping at each other like a couple of wet ferrets.” The grin grew. “I figured they didn’t need me interfering in their business, so I went right by and came upstairs.”
“Smart girl,” Daisy complimented her.
“Lillian’s here?” Lucy asked, astonished.
Daisy grimaced in affirmation.
“Oh, dear.” Lucy looked at her daughter with concern. “I assume that she’s her usual charming self? Has she said anything about—”
“About Matt?” Daisy supplied, when her mama hesitated. “First words out of Lillian’s mouth, practically. She was even delusional enough to think that he might be coming to the party this weekend. And she keeps trying to stare down Drew, as though he were committing some mortal sin just by standing next to me. I should really go and rescue him, but…”
She let the sentence trail away with a sigh.
“Drew will be just fine without you for a few minutes,” Beulah assured her. “From what I saw, he was entertaining the Fowler sisters quite nicely. I don’t think they’ve had that much attention from a man—let alone a young and handsome man—for a good many years.”
Lucy chuckled. “You’re probably right about that, Beulah.” As her daughter neared the nightstand that served double duty as a small eating table, she raised her head to get a better look at the contents of the plate in Daisy’s hand. “Shortbread! My favorite. Thank you, honey.”
“And also your favorite tea.” Daisy set down the dishes. “Henry Brent said that I should make it a hot toddy instead.”
She chuckled some more. “Let me guess—he suggested corn whiskey?”
“Of course, with rum and rye as suitable alternatives. Well-established advice from his meemaw, apparently.”
“I shouldn’t laugh, really,” Lucy said. “If I recall correctly, his meemaw was only two days shy of her one hundred and second birthday when she passed. And Henry isn’t too far away from that. So it could very well be excellent advice that I should be heeding.”
“But not with the cough medicine that you’re taking,” Daisy reminded her.
As if on cue, Lucy coughed. It was a deep, rasping cough, and her face contorted with pain.
“Isn’t it getting any better?” Daisy asked anxiously, when her mama had regained her breath. “Is the medicine not working at all?”
“The doctor said that it might seem like it’s getting worse before it gets better.”
Daisy frowned doubtfully.
“He did,” Lucy insisted. “And it happened like that before. Do you remember when I had that terrible cold a year ago Christmas? It was awful—and it kept getting worse—and then all of a sudden, it got better. It went away almost overnight.”
The frown remained. “I don’t care about before, Mama. I care about you getting well now.”
Lucy reached out a thin hand from under the quilt and patted Daisy’s arm. “Don’t worry, honey. I am getting well now.”
As much as Daisy wanted to believe that, her mama’s appearance told a different story. It wasn’t just her hand that was thin. It was her entire body. She was gaunt and frail. Her skeletal neck and shoulders seemed to disappear into the downy pillows. And everything about her was pale. Her skin, her hair, even her teeth and eyes had a ghostly, almost otherworldly translucence about them.
Seeing the distress in her daughter’s face, Lucy patted Daisy’s arm once more and deftly changed the subject. “So tell me all the gossip from downstairs. Who’s there, and what’s happening?”
“Well…” Although Daisy was still uneasy about the cough, she played along. Belaboring her mama’s ill health wasn’t going to do either of them any good. “Kenneth Lunt wants to buy the inn.”
“What!” Beulah exclaimed. She had been leaning back in the rocking chair, but at Daisy’s announcement, she suddenly snapped to attention. “He wants to buy the inn? But where would we live? And what would happen to my salon?”
“That was my reaction, too,” Daisy said.
“How about Aunt Emily’s reaction? She must have been stunned at the idea. And appalled!” Beulah’s grin resurfaced. “I wish I would have been there. I bet she put him in his place good.”
“She might have been stunned, but she definitely wasn’t appalled,” Daisy corrected her. “For a few minutes, she seemed to be considering the idea pretty seriously.”
The grin vanished. “I—I can’t believe it.”
> “I can,” Lucy countered, taking the teacup from the nightstand.
Both Daisy and Beulah looked at her in surprise.
“Of course Emily would never sell this place,” Lucy told them with a gentle confidence. “It’s her home. And she considers it our home, too. But she likes to dream just the same as the rest of us. What it would be like not to have to worry about the taxes and the constant upkeep and the guests and all the bills.”
“Kenneth did promise that she would be well compensated,” Daisy remarked.
Her mama nodded. “I’ve heard him discussing it with his wife.”
Beulah’s hazel eyes widened. “You have?”
Lucy smiled. “Old Southern houses and their ridiculously thin walls, my dear. And the fact that Mr. Lunt booms like a bull elephant when he talks. They’re in the Pickett room right next door.”
“But he was discussing it with Sarah?” Daisy was thoughtful for a moment. “That’s interesting, because when he made the offer to Aunt Emily, Sarah acted as though it was a new idea to her.”
“It most certainly wasn’t,” her mama replied. “I distinctly heard them talking about the size of the property.”
“Odd. Maybe I misunderstood.”
“Or maybe the wife isn’t the shrinking violet that she makes herself out to be,” Beulah retorted.
Daisy turned to her. “You think she’s pretending?”
Beulah shrugged.
“Whenever I’ve seen her, she’s always been mousy and sort of hesitant about everything,” Daisy said.
“Too mousy and hesitant to be even half believable,” Beulah responded. “Last night when we were having supper she couldn’t make up her mind whether she wanted bread or not. We were passing the basket around the table like we always do, and she stopped and just held it in her hands, staring at it for what must have been five minutes. They were dinner rolls, for criminy sake. No one was asking her to decide if she should eat the family pet hen.”
Lucy smiled again. “Oh, Beulah. You forget that not all women are quite as independent as you.”
“They should be! You can’t spend your life sitting around and waiting for a man to tell you whether or not you should eat a dinner roll.”
Daisy laughed. “If I had done that with Matt, I would have starved and been drunk all the time. He would have just kept handing me more beer.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” Beulah gave a little snort. “Well, Sarah didn’t finally make up her mind until Kenneth made it up for her and reminded her to keep the basket moving—”
“Was Georgia there?” Daisy interjected suddenly.
“Huh?”
“Was Georgia with you yesterday at supper?”
Beulah scrunched up her nose. “No. She wasn’t. Why?”
“She walked into the dining room this afternoon while everybody was there and dropped a tray of glasses.”
“A whole tray?” Lucy shook her head. “Poor Emily.”
“Poor Georgia,” Beulah chimed in. “That girl has a bad clumsy streak.”
“Except I’m not sure that it was clumsiness,” Daisy said. “At least not this time. I think that she might have recognized one of the guests and dropped the tray in surprise. I’m trying to figure out who it was. She’s seen the Lunts before, hasn’t she?”
Lucy took a sip of her tea. “I’m afraid I’m the wrong one to ask, considering that I’ve barely been out of this room since they arrived, which was three days ago.”
“Have they been here only three days? It seems a lot longer.”
“That’s because Kenneth talks so much,” Beulah commented dryly.
“But in three days Georgia must have seen them, right?” Daisy said.
Scrunching up her nose some more, Beulah considered it. “Not necessarily. She always eats breakfast alone. Then she spends most of the day either in the kitchen or cleaning the rooms with the door closed. And lots of evenings she eats alone, too. I’m trying to remember if she was at the dining table the night before last.”
“The Lunts went out to eat the night before last,” Lucy replied. “I know because they came back late, and I couldn’t help overhearing. It was some place down in Danville, although I didn’t catch the name.”
Daisy nodded. “I heard part of their conversation when they were coming down the hall. Sarah liked it, but Kenneth didn’t.”
Beulah gave another snort. “No great secrets of national security could ever be kept here.”
“But our little secrets are so much more fun,” Lucy rejoined, reaching for a piece of shortbread.
“So it’s possible,” Daisy returned to the more pertinent point, “that Georgia hadn’t seen the Lunts before this afternoon.”
“It’s possible,” Beulah agreed.
“Although it’s probably more likely that she was surprised to see someone else,” Daisy went on.
“Maybe Henry Brent,” Beulah suggested. “And maybe instead of being surprised, she was shocked. That burgundy-striped seersucker of his is enough to blind you.”
Lucy stopped chewing. “He’s wearing the burgundy seersucker?”
“It matches the burgundy velvet draperies in the parlor perfectly,” Daisy answered, deadpan.
Her mama chuckled. “Henry always was a snappy dresser. But somehow I doubt that was what made Georgia drop a tray of glasses.”
“She was staring hard at the person afterward,” Daisy told her. “And then she was staring at Aunt Emily’s Remington in the kitchen.”
“Hmm.” Lucy took a contemplative bite of shortbread. “I always thought there could be more to Georgia than met the eye. She’s very secretive.”
“That’s what Drew said, too.”
Stretching out in the rocking chair, Beulah put her feet back up on the bed. “I’m not sure that I trust her.”
“Why not?” Daisy asked.
“For starters, we know nothing about her.”
Daisy couldn’t argue with that. She had thought the exact same thing only a short while earlier.
“She also doesn’t give me my phone messages,” Beulah added somewhat peevishly.
“That was only one time,” Daisy reminded her. “It was on the inn’s phone line, so she got confused about it being a guest.”
Beulah responded with a dubious grunt.
“Well, we can find out more about Georgia tonight,” Daisy proposed. “You can help me watch her at dinner. See who she reacts to, or doesn’t react to.”
“Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll have the eyes of a hawk. But not tonight. No can do.”
Daisy looked at Beulah questioningly.
She squinted back at her with impatience. “I have my date!”
“You have a date? Since when?”
“Since Wade’s schedule changed. He’s driving through the area this evening, so I agreed to meet him.”
Lucy set down her teacup. “Beulah, dear, are you sure that’s safe? You don’t really know this man, do you?”
“That’s why I picked somewhere public to get together. Friday night at the General is always busy, so there will be plenty of people around in case things turn sour.”
The General—a tribute to Robert E. Lee, a recurring theme in southern Virginia—was the local roadhouse. The place was old, damp, and crumbling, but it had a pleasant, comfortable atmosphere and was viewed fondly throughout the county.
“Good choice,” Daisy said. “But I can tell you that Aunt Emily won’t be overjoyed with you skipping out this evening. I know that she was counting on you to be charming and entertaining with the guests.”
“She doesn’t need me. She has you.” Beulah batted her eyelashes. “You can be plenty charming and entertaining for both of us.”
“Golly, thanks.”
“Sorry, Daisy, but I’ve already cancelled on Wade three times. I can’t cancel again. And he doesn’t know when he’ll be back this way.”
Wade Watson Howard III was a long-haul trucker based in Tennessee. He was the cousin of a neighbor of a customer of
Beulah’s. She had several antediluvian customers who insisted that she was much too pretty to still be single—they also insisted that no woman could be truly happy unless she was married—and they were continually trying to set her up with their friends of friends and extended relations. As a result, Beulah went on quite a few blind dates, but so far, none of them had stuck.
Daisy shrugged. “Good luck with it. I hope he’s better than the last.”
“You mean the one who refused to wear shoes?”
Lucy blinked at Beulah in amazement. “He didn’t wear shoes?”
She nodded. “Wouldn’t put ’em on. Ever. No matter what.”
“Why on earth not?”
“He said that he was training his feet.”
“Training them for what?”
“That, he wouldn’t say.”
Lucy could only shake her head and take another bite of shortbread. “You poor girls. It all seemed so much easier back in my day. What strange frogs you have to kiss to find your prince.”
Daisy and Beulah looked at each other. “There’s a prince?”
CHAPTER
8
Henry Brent let out a low whistle as Beulah—dressed and ready for her date with her potential prince—came down the stairs and entered the parlor. “Lookin’ mighty fine there, Beulah.”
Parker agreed with an affable little woof.
Lillian gazed at Beulah appraisingly, and from the way her string-bean body sat rigid and erect on the gold-brocaded settee, it was clear that she didn’t share the gentlemen’s admiration. “Not appropriate,” she declared, like a cranky old judge banging a gavel and pronouncing a verdict.
Daisy ignored her. “Gorgeous,” she said to Beulah from the scuffed leather smoking chair. “As you always are.”
Beulah’s antediluvian customers were right about one thing—she was very pretty. She had thick, naturally auburn hair, fiery hazel eyes, and flawless porcelain skin. Beulah also had a good figure and knew how to accentuate it by picking the right clothes to match her curves.
“So who is—” May began with enthusiasm.
“—the lucky fellow?” Edna concluded.
Raising her chin in exaggerated pride, Beulah responded affectedly, “Wade Watson Howard III.”