by Ruby Loren
Poinsettias and the Perfect Crime
Diana Flowers Floriculture Mysteries
Ruby Loren
Contents
British Author
Books in the Series
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1. The Ghost of Christmas Past
2. Fallen from Grace
3. Beating the Bully
4. Cinderella
5. Murder at Midnight
6. A Nasty Proposal
7. The Pharaoh’s Curse
8. The Indian Connection
9. An Interesting Invitation
10. Winter’s Bloom
11. Fun for all the Family
12. The Conspiracy to end all Conspiracies
13. Rivals
14. A Debt to the Community
15. The Conspiracy King
16. The Third Man
17. The Elephant in the Room
18. Happy New Year!
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Books in the Series
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Also by Ruby Loren
British Author
Please note, this book is written in British English and contains British spellings.
Books in the Series
Gardenias and a Grave Mistake
Delphiniums and Deception
Poinsettias and the Perfect Crime
Peonies and Poison
The Lord Beneath the Lupins
Prequel: The Florist and the Funeral
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1
The Ghost of Christmas Past
It was two days before Christmas when someone knocked on my door. To the average person, that might sound like a weekly, or even a daily occurrence, but my life is a little different. For one, I live out in the middle of nowhere (as close to ‘nowhere’ as you can get in South East England) and two, I’m not exactly a social butterfly. I’m friendly enough to sell my flowers to florists, or at my regular market stall, but I’ve never really sought friendship. Not since the big career change that saw me leave my nine-to-five job.
My mother was still referring to my cut flower business as my quarter life crisis - apparently without realising that her friends liked to gossip as much as she did. But I didn’t mind what she, or anyone else thought. I was happy growing flowers and, so far, things were going pretty well. I certainly didn’t miss my old job working as a chemical analyst in a laboratory.
It was that thought that made me smile when I walked to answer the door. That thought and the one that followed that whispered it was probably Fergus popping round for a surprise visit. I’d last seen my conspiracy-minded friend at a one-day course I’d booked us on, in order to pay Fergus back for his dubiously generous gift of a flower arranging course. I’d hoped that it would prove less eventful than the flower arranging we’d done together, but while it had been less deadly, it was no less dramatic.
The course was supposed to have been about debunking conspiracy theories. My tongue had been firmly pressed into my cheek when I’d booked us on the day, knowing that Fergus was crazy about conspiracies. I had hoped that hearing how most theories were falsified, straight from the mouth of a scientist who specialised in debunking them, would encourage Fergus to support his own theories with some hard evidence. I was fed up with hearing about evil minerals and negative energies without seeing anything scientific to support those assertions.
With hindsight, I shouldn’t have been surprised by how spectacularly it backfired.
The scientist who’d led the course had been as knowledgable and well-informed as the course guide had suggested. I was also sure that he was normally a pretty nice guy. Unfortunately for him, me, and the rest of the attendees, Fergus had something the scientist didn’t have - charisma. In bags. The moment the conspiracy debunker had asked ‘any questions?’ he’d lost all control. Fergus’ hand had shot up… and I was still trying to figure out what had happened next… One moment, Fergus had been raising a perfectly reasonable point. The next moment, the scientist had been rocking on his haunches in the corner of the stage, pulling his hair out and muttering ‘How could I have been so wrong? It’s real. It’s always been real!’.
Okay, so perhaps a few things had transpired in-between those two points, but I was still struggling to believe just how quickly Fergus had poked holes in a science based argument and sown enough seeds of doubt to infect the entire room.
I hadn’t remained silent. In fact, the course had mostly consisted of me taking up the lecturer’s mantle and debating Fergus fiercely on his supposed belief in an old ‘Time Cube’ conspiracy theory. It set out a pseudo-scientific argument that four days simultaneously occur around the world in the one day we are able to measure from the one corner we live in. The most annoying thing about the theory was that the theory’s creator had offered a reward to anyone who could disprove what he was saying… and that reward remained unclaimed. I’d pointed out that I could claim that a flying spaghetti monster existed and Fergus wouldn’t be able to disprove it.
That had backfired, too.
Now everyone on the course, including its leader, believed in Time Cube theory and the flying spaghetti monster. I certainly hoped Fergus never decided to start a cult. He could definitely convince more than a handful of people to join him. For some reason, I was immune to his poorly evidenced arguments. Perhaps that made me devoid of imagination (Fergus thought so) but I believed it meant I was his perfect antidote. Whenever he got carried away, I’d be there to bring him back to reality.
I just couldn’t say the same for the course attendees.
When we’d left, I’d silently vowed to never ever go on a course with Fergus again.
It might sound hard to believe after all of that, but I missed Fergus and was pleased by the prospect of a visit. It was yet another thing that I couldn’t entirely put my finger on, but we’d become fast friends. Since the birth of my new business, and the drift away from old school friends and colleagues, I would even go so far as to say that Fergus had become my best friend.
It was that which made me smile when I opened the door, expecting to see his face looking back at me.
“George!” I said, my smile falling off faster than melted butter on a corn-on-the-cob.
My ex-boyfriend was standing on my doorstep.
“Diana,” he echoed, minus the surprised exclamation. To be fair, he’d probably known that I would be the one answering my own door. What I couldn’t figure out was how he knew that I lived here. Or why he would come for a visit.
“What are you doing here?” I was immediately on my guard. George and I hadn’t left things in the best of states when our relationship had come to an end. He’d called me a workaholic, and I’d called him a cheater. Both of these claims could be substantiated by evidence, but this had been one incident where evidence only makes things worse.
“I wanted to see you,” he said, looking wistfully into my eyes.
What the heck was going on? George didn’t do wistful.
“Why? And how did you even find me?” Since breaking up with George I’d moved back to the village I’d grown up in, started a job at a local laboratory, quit that job and started my own cut flower business in the property I’d been given in a will, and then moved for a second time to my current house. Even I struggled to keep up sometimes. It was surely nothing short of a miracle that George had been able to trace me here.
“I, uh, met your mother in Merryfield,” he confessed, looking abashed for
the first time.
That much at least made sense. My mother had always been in favour of my relationship with George. It had fitted in nicely with her plan to push me towards a solid career that would end when I found an equally solid man and settled down to produce the next generation.
Currently, I wasn’t on track for any of those things.
“As to why I am here…” George cleared his throat, not looking any more comfortable. “I wanted to ask if you would consider taking me back - in a relationship, I mean.”
I stared at him. For a second, my hand tensed on the edge of the door, ready to slam it in his face, but I stopped myself, if only for old times’ sake. “No… no thank you.” I was surprising myself with my politeness today.
“Why not? Your mother said you were still single.”
He looked genuinely puzzled. I noticed the way he’d emphasised the word still. I probably had my mother to thank for that, too.
“Let’s see… you hated that I was promoted above you, and to get me back for it, you decided to go behind my back with another woman. And then on top of that, you were the one who broke things off with me!” I hated to admit it, but it was true. I’d probably have been happy enough to string along behind George for several years to come, if he hadn’t finished our relationship. It wasn’t something I was particularly proud of, but George had been like a comfort blanket you didn’t want to let go of - even though it’s not healthy to keep carrying it around.
“I just mean that you clearly haven’t moved on,” he said, his grey eyes serious when they looked into mine.
I blinked his look away. “But I have moved on. I’ve started my own business, and it’s going rather well,” I added, proud that I was able to say that and know that it was true.
George raised his dark blond eyebrows. “Aren’t you growing flowers, or something like that? Your mother said…”
“I know what my mother said,” I cut in before he could parrot one of her thoughts at me. “I am the owner of Diana Flowers Blooms. I grow flowers and then sell them as bunches and bouquets to florists and at markets. I also produce flowers for events like weddings… and funerals,” I hastily added, not wanting George to imagine that I was thinking about anything wedding-like during this conversation. Because I definitely wasn’t.
The eyebrows remained in their upward position. “That seems like a nice hobby, but I know she’s worried about you. I am, too. I thought you came back to work in a rural laboratory? I knew it was a step down from what we do in London, but it suited you.”
I bit down on my tongue. It had been so long since I’d spoken to George that I’d forgotten this habit of his. He liked to wrap his putdowns up in niceties and hope you missed what he was really saying. Once upon a time, I must have gone along with it.
I had no idea why.
“I thought it suited me, too,” I confessed. That much was true. It had suited me because I’d been running away from George and the mess my life had become. “But that was before I found what it is that I’m supposed to do with my life. Grow flowers,” I tacked on when he looked completely blank.
“But you’re trained in chemistry. You’re a scientist! Not some… gardener!” He said the word like it was an unforgivable insult - a job title reserved only for those who failed their A levels. I knew that it wasn’t true. A love of horticulture and floriculture didn’t mean you were a complete dunce, and even if more academic qualifications had eluded a person who chose to invest their talents in nurturing plant life, I was done with being part of the school of thought that liked to believe that those people somehow weren’t good enough for anything else.
“Actually, a knowledge of chemistry helps a great deal in my business. The soil acidity affects which plants are likely to flourish, and a lot of my work at the local laboratory was focused on analysing the composition of industrial farm fertilisers. I wouldn’t say that it encouraged me to use the chemicals they use, but it certainly helped me to make informed choices when I did pick out some less environmentally destructive alternatives.” I still felt a knot in my stomach when I considered some of the fertilisers I’d approved for use on giant food farms. The effects on the water course were hugely detrimental, but as long as the fertilisers had passed all of the current regulations, they’d been approved. It didn’t matter that the regulations weren’t tough enough, or that they were constantly playing catchup to ban all of the new and toxic insecticides that were forever being developed, primarily to get around this set of rules.
“You really are having a quarter life crisis!” George said, looking horrified.
See? I told you that was what my mother had been telling everyone. So far, George was the only one foolish enough to believe it.
“I’m not. I love growing flowers and I love having my own business. I was fortunate enough to have a helping hand with my first property and flower fields, but things have gone really well since I moved out here. I had a really profitable summer and my winter is much busier than I predicted on my cashflow forecast.” That was about as smug as I could afford to be when it came to the winter. In a business that specialises in fresh, local flowers, English wintertime doesn’t exactly inspire thoughts of brightly coloured bouquets. My business definitely dipped during the colder months, but I’d always known that it would and had planned my spring and summer in accordance with this. Even so, I was genuinely busier than I’d been expecting. I’d made and sold close to a hundred Christmas wreaths at the past few markets I’d attended and I was nearly inundated with requests for more to be made. A few festive bouquets had also been ordered, some courtesy of my new online bouquet ordering service (it was still early days yet with that idea) and most surprisingly of all, I’d been asked to create some festive, floral displays for the Wrexton family’s annual winter ball at their property, Merryfield Manor. Christmas was looking far cheerier than it had appeared in early November when the final flush of summer blooms had ended.
“You’ve got to be joking,” George said, looking around in the direction of my flower fields. They did look pretty barren at this time of year. I’d done some planting of bulbs ready for the spring, but most of my flowers were in the polytunnels, receiving a helping hand. The only thing on show was all of the greenery that I was selling to the local florists I had contracts with. But even if George had been looking at the Garden of Eden itself, I was certain his response would have been the same.
“I’m not joking. Speaking of business, I have a large order of Christmas wreaths to be getting back to. If you’ll excuse me…” I made to close the door, but George’s hand shot out and clung to the edge of it. I considered ignoring the hand but if I inflicted actual bodily harm on George he might never leave.
“I’m sorry. This has all just come as a surprise to me.” He shook his head and smiled, as if I were the one who’d sprung something ridiculous on him. “Come for a drink with me. I know you’ve got some thinking to do, and I don’t want to put you under any pressure. I’ll pick you up tonight?”
“I can’t. My sister is coming back to town for Christmas. We’re having a family dinner tonight.”
George looked hopeful, but I kept my mouth firmly shut. There was no way on earth I was inviting him to a family dinner.
“Tomorrow then?” he suggested.
I realised I hadn’t said ‘no’ clearly enough. “There’s nothing to think about, George. I don’t want to be in a relationship with you. I’m actually grateful that you did break up with me because it helped me to deduce what’s really important in life. I found what it was that I needed to be doing and I’m finally happy with my life. Nothing feels pointless any more.” I lowered my gaze to meet his, sharing something serious with him - something I hoped he would remember when reflecting upon his own life. Perhaps chemistry was what George truly enjoyed, or even the enjoyment of getting ahead of others - both of those things were understandable, but if he had any doubts at all, I really hoped he’d explore them. You could never be certain of what might change
in your life if you just gave it a chance.
“But you’re still single. You haven’t been with anyone else since we broke up. That’s correct, isn’t it?” He looked genuinely confused.
“That is correct because that’s the way I want it. I’m not hunting around for a man.”
“It’s because you never really got over me. You can’t move on because you know what we had was special. I know that it was special.” He was doing his ‘serious eyes’ thing again.
I reached up and prised his fingers off of my doorframe. George looked surprised by the amount of force I was able to use. He had dandelion roots to thank for my increased finger strength.
“I am not interested. Please leave me alone.” With his fingers free of the door, I shut it without slamming it. I silently congratulated myself on keeping my temper so well, and then I tried to put the entire surreal episode behind me. I had wreaths to make and a family dinner to endure.
2
Fallen from Grace
“Charlotte! It’s so nice to see you,” I said when my sister answered the door of my mother’s house later that evening. We bent forwards and kissed each other on the cheek. “Where’s Garrett?” I asked when we walked through to the front room and I found it was empty.
Charlotte’s face immediately let me know I’d put my big fat foot in it.