by Laura Childs
But when Theodosia came crashing through the front door, she was greeted not by a frantic Drayton, but by a placid-looking Drayton.
“Hello,” said Drayton. “How was the funeral?” He lounged casually behind the counter, sipping a cup of tea. In his brown tweed jacket and yellow bow tie, he looked like a gentleman of leisure, except for the half dozen tea tins that lined the counter. It would appear he was still mulling over his final choices.
“It was good,” Theodosia responded. “Well, not good good. Really kind of sad.” She blinked. “Is everything ready to go for the funeral luncheon?”
“See for yourself.”
Theodosia glanced around. Tea lights flickered in small glass holders, the tables were set with their Royal Albert Old Country Roses china, and the floral bouquets from last night had been repurposed into smaller, more sedate arrangements set in simple milk glass vases.
“It looks lovely,” said Theodosia.
Drayton smiled. “Thank you. Well, you can thank Haley, too. She did a lot of fine-tuning.”
“I take it you didn’t run into too much trouble with people showing up this morning to find us closed?”
“It was nothing we couldn’t deal with,” said Drayton.
“Well . . . okay. Then I guess we really are ready.” Theodosia grabbed a long black apron off a peg, pointed to an easel that hadn’t been there before, and said, “What’s that?”
“One of the Datrex minions dropped it off right before the funeral,” said Drayton.
“Okay,” said Theodosia. She draped the apron around her neck and peered at the poster on the easel, which had obviously been created to memorialize Edgar Webster’s life. There were photos of Webster playing golf with his buddies at Coosaw Creek, photos of Webster posing in a sunny garden with a smiling Charlotte, and photos of Webster looking large and in charge behind an enormous desk, a photo she assumed had been taken in his executive office at Datrex.
But no photos of Webster with Cecily. No, there wouldn’t be, would there?
Of course not, since Charlotte had probably micromanaged this entire tribute and selected only the most flattering and appropriate shots.
Dozens of cards and condolence notes had been tacked beneath the photos. All seemed to profess extreme sympathy and grief for Webster’s passing. Many of the notes were from Datrex employees, one was from the museum’s board of directors, and one note was even from a Shanghai art dealer. Probably, Theodosia decided, it was the overseas dealer who’d helped arrange the purchase and shipment of the tea house.
“Hey,” said Haley as she slipped out through the celadon green curtains, “how’d it go?”
“Okay,” said Theodosia. “How are you managing with the tea sandwiches? I really appreciate your doing a big event right on the heels of last night.”
“No problem,” said Haley. “Today’s luncheon isn’t that much different from any other Monday morning.”
“Except we might be a little more busy,” said Drayton.
Haley walked to one of the front windows and pulled a chintz curtain aside. “Yeah, and I’m starting to see people heading this way. Probably coming from the funeral.”
Drayton glanced at Theodosia. “Do you know, is this luncheon by invitation only? Do I have to collect cards or something?”
Theodosia thought for a moment. “I don’t think the guests will be carrying formal invitations. I think there was just a kind of blanket announcement at the end of the ceremony.”
“Ceremony?” said Haley.
“Um . . . funeral service,” said Theodosia.
“So I should just let everyone in?” said Drayton.
“Until every seat is filled, I suppose,” said Theodosia.
“And give preferential seating to all the people dressed in black?” said Drayton.
“They’re all dressed in black,” said Haley.
• • •
It was pretty much the same rogue’s gallery that Theodosia had seen at the funeral service twenty minutes ago: Charlotte and a handful of Webster relatives. Roger and Dolly Greaves, accompanied by several Datrex employees. Elliot Kern with Harlan Duke and a couple of museum board members. And a bunch of people from the Historic District who Theodosia knew or vaguely knew.
Drayton gave Charlotte and her party preferential seating at the large round table, then seated the rest of the mourners as best he could. When there were maybe only three or four seats left, Delaine and Aunt Acid came straggling through the door.
“Were you at the funeral?” Theodosia asked Delaine. “Because I didn’t see you there.” She didn’t think they were crashing. Then again . . .
“Yes, I was there,” said Delaine, frowning. “You must have come in late. Were you late?”
“Not particularly.” Theodosia regarded Aunt Acid. “Nice to see you again.”
“Hello,” said Aunt Acid, throwing her a slightly sour look.
“I see you still have your guest,” said Theodosia, though she really wanted to say, I see you’re still stuck with the old bat.
“Don’t I know it,” said Delaine.
“I can seat the two of you by the window if you’d like,” said Theodosia.
“Thank you,” said Delaine. She walked a few steps, pointed to a captain’s chair, and said, “Sit,” to Aunt Acid. The old lady plopped down.
“How are things at Cotton Duck?” Theodosia asked. “Now that the weather’s cooled down some, are you selling tons of fall and winter merchandise?”
“It’s been crazy good,” said Delaine as she spread a napkin in her lap. “Any shipment of cotton sweaters comes in, they just completely blow out the door. Same with slacks.” She made a ka-pow sound. “We can’t keep those in stock, either.”
“A good problem to have,” said Theodosia.
“Mmn. Theo, speaking of sales and merchandise, I hope you haven’t forgotten about your participation in the Hunt and Gather Market.”
“No, of course I haven’t. When is that again?”
“Tuesday.”
“This Tuesday?” said Theodosia. “You mean tomorrow?”
Delaine shook her head. “I knew it. You did forget.”
“I didn’t really forget. It just slipped my . . .”
“I have an eight-foot table reserved for you,” said Delaine. “So you have to show up. Fifty percent of the sales go to charity, you know. To three different, very worthwhile animal organizations!”
“I’ll be there,” said Theodosia. “You can count on me.” But what she was really thinking was, Holy crap, how am I going to pull a rabbit out of a hat?
“Theodosia?” Drayton was standing directly behind her.
Theodosia turned. She knew she’d kind of checked out for a few moments.
“Time to serve our fruit salads.”
“I’m on it,” said Theodosia.
She tucked the Hunt and Gather Market issue into the back of her brain for the time being and focused on getting the food out to their guests. Haley had prepared gorgeous little salads—field greens with slices of mandarin oranges, apples, and pears—for the first course. To accompany the salads, Haley’s fresh-baked honey scones were stacked on plates, one plate for each table, and passed around to be enjoyed with Devonshire cream.
Drayton had finally settled on Nilgiri and Moroccan mint tea, so Theodosia made the rounds, a teapot in each hand. She filled teacups, refilled teacups, and accepted compliments on the salad and scones.
“I can’t believe how well this is going,” Theodosia said to Drayton when she circled back for refills on her tea. “And I was kind of jittery about pulling it off.”
“Piece of cake,” said Drayton. “And the tea sandwiches will be just as easy. Haley is going to arrange them on tiered tea trays, so our guests can just help themselves.”
“I think I’ll go check on the sandwiches,�
�� said Theodosia. “So . . . maybe you could handle the refills?”
“Consider it done,” said Drayton.
Haley had everything under control in the kitchen as well.
“Just place the large trays on the larger tables and the smaller trays on the smaller tables,” Haley instructed. “That way everybody can help themselves. And, if we need more, I made up a few dozen extra sandwiches just in case.”
Haley’s tea-sandwich repertoire consisted of chicken salad on whole wheat bread, cream cheese and crushed walnuts on pumpkin swirl bread, and roast beef and Cheddar cheese on dark bread. She’d made her sandwiches assembly-line style, then sliced off all the crusts and cut the sandwiches into triangles. Now, arranged on the tiered tea trays with a few bright red strawberries and some edible flowers sprinkled in, they looked elegant and appealing. Perfect enough to be photographed for a magazine spread.
Charlotte caught Theodosia by the arm just as she placed the last tea tray on one of the tables.
“This is just wonderful,” Charlotte burbled. “I knew I could count on you.”
Theodosia studied Charlotte’s froufrou black skirt and high-necked black jacket. She didn’t look exactly funereal, more like an expensively dressed vampire.
Interestingly, Harlan Duke had seated himself right next to her and was carefully ministering to her every need.
Theodosia touched Charlotte on the shoulder. “My condolences again. Helping with your luncheon was the least we could do.”
“You are such a dear,” said Charlotte. She turned and smiled at Duke. “Isn’t Theodosia a dear?”
Duke beamed a solicitous smile. “She certainly is.”
Theodosia had just grabbed a pitcher of ice water when she noticed the front door opening a crack.
Oh dear, I hope it’s not folks looking for afternoon tea. Not this early.
No such luck. Because the woman who slipped soundlessly into the shop and looked around tentatively was none other than Cecily Conrad!
17
Theodosia’s heart lurched inside her chest.
Oh no. This has major disaster written all over it.
She scrambled toward Cecily like she was a sprinter heading for the finish line. Water splashed, chairs were bumped, a few people turned to stare.
“What are you doing here?” Theodosia hissed at Cecily. She wanted to head her off, turn her around, and get her out before something dire happened.
“I wanted to . . .” Cecily’s voice sounded raw and dry.
“What do you want?” Theodosia was still hoping to stave off disaster. If she could just shepherd Cecily back out the door, tactfully oust the woman before too many people noticed . . .
But Cecily’s feet seemed welded to the floor. And Theodosia tugging on her arm didn’t seem to budge her, either.
“I wanted to be part of it,” Cecily coughed out. “After all, I was . . .”
“You! What are you doing here?” a shrill voice rang out. It belonged unmistakably to Charlotte.
Theodosia’s shoulders slumped. Oh, great. Now Charlotte’s going to get into the act. Here comes a full-blown three-ring circus.
“How dare you show your face here!” Charlotte screamed. She scrambled to her feet, red-faced and indignant, and pointed a finger directly at Cecily. Now that she’d alerted all of Western civilization, every eye in the room turned toward Cecily.
“She was just leaving,” said Theodosia. She was aware of indignant murmurs and the sound of chairs being slid back from tables. Were people getting ready for a knock-down, drag-out fight? She hoped not.
“You have to leave,” Theodosia told Cecily. “This instant!”
But Cecily was staring at the easel that stood in the entryway. “Did she do that?” she demanded. “Because she never cared about him before.”
Now Theodosia heard the clack, clack, clack of high-heeled pumps heading toward them. Which, to her, was the sound of impending doom. Then Charlotte’s face bobbed like an angry pink balloon alongside Cecily’s face.
“Get out, you little hussy!” Charlotte screeched. “Get out of here before we throw you out!”
“Please,” said Theodosia, plucking at Cecily’s sleeve. “It’s time to leave.”
“I’ll leave with my dignity!” Cecily rasped at Charlotte.
Taken aback, Charlotte blinked as if she’d been slapped in the face. Then, eyes bulging, mouth pulled into an ugly pucker, she hauled her right arm back, swung it around in an arc, and punched Cecily right in the face!
It wasn’t exactly a championship knockout; the blow glanced off at the last moment. But Cecily, caught completely unaware, staggered backward. She made an indelicate noise that sounded like ptew or phu, wobbled for a millisecond, and then collapsed to the floor like a cheap card table.
“Do something,” Delaine screamed. “Somebody do something!”
Stunned beyond belief at the mayhem that was unfolding around them, Theodosia and Drayton both sprang into action. Drayton encircled his arms around Charlotte’s waist and pulled her away from the scrum. Theodosia knelt down, wrestled an arm around a shocked and tearful Cecily, and basically hauled her up onto her feet.
“Get her out of here,” Charlotte seethed. She sounded dangerous, like a hissing cobra.
“Consider her gone,” said Theodosia. She pushed and prodded a shaken-up Cecily back through the curtain, past the kitchen, where Haley gazed in amazement, and into her office.
“What was that all about?” Theodosia asked Cecily. She was fuming, just this side of exploding.
But Cecily was wiping at her bloody nose, smearing the blood horribly, and trying to brush away a constant stream of tears at the same time. Then she gingerly pressed her hand against the side of her red, puffed-up face. “She hit me,” she sobbed. “Did you see that? She hit me.”
“Sit down,” said Theodosia, grabbing Cecily by the shoulders and pushing her down onto the tuffet chair. She flew into the kitchen, grabbed a towel and some ice, and was back. “Put this on your face. It’ll help knock down the swelling.”
Cecily accepted the towel and touched it to her face. “Hurts,” she murmured.
“I’m sure it does,” said Theodosia. She felt sorry for Cecily. But, at the same time, knew that Cecily had gone out of her way to provoke Charlotte. She gazed at Cecily. “This was all so unnecessary, don’t you agree?”
“I didn’t mean to cause trouble,” Cecily grumped. She wiped at her face again, smearing more blood.
“Sure, you did,” said Theodosia. “Why else would you have come here? Come on, dab that towel under your nose,” she instructed, then sighed heavily. “You’re a problem child, you know that?”
Cecily hiccupped loudly. “That’s what my daddy always said, too.”
“Well, guess what?” said Theodosia. “It’s time to grow up. Time to act like an adult.”
Cecily peered at her. “Huh?”
“Listen to me, Cecily. You’ve been smacked to the ground twice in three days. Does that tell you anything?”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe you should start keeping a slightly lower profile,” said Theodosia. “Stay out of the way for a while.”
“I just . . . I just . . .”
“You just what?”
Cecily sucked in air and hiccupped again. “I went to Edgar’s funeral, thinking it was out of a sense of duty. Then I got there and the songs and the eulogies sort of . . . Well, all the old memories came flooding back. And I guess I had kind of a meltdown.”
“You both reacted badly,” said Theodosia. “You and Charlotte.”
Cecily looked up at her with a sidelong glance. “Do you think she killed him?”
“Do I think . . . ?” Theodosia suddenly snapped her mouth shut. Because one part of her still thought that Charlotte might have had a hand in her husband’s death. And
another part of her wasn’t letting Cecily off the hook, either.
“I know the police have been talking to her,” said Cecily.
“And I know the police have been talking to you,” said Theodosia.
The girl’s mouth fell open in shock. “You can’t think that I . . . ?” Then her chin quivered and the waterworks started up again.
Theodosia handed Cecily a couple of tissues and waited patiently while she cried for a couple of minutes. Finally the girl sniffled, wiped at her tears, and said, “My eye and nose hurt like crazy.”
“I’m sure it does.”
She wiggled the bottom half of her face back and forth. “Do you think we should call the police?”
“You know what?” Theodosia gestured at the towel and the ice. “You can take that with you. And I think it’d be a smart idea if you left via the back door. Okay? Okay.”
• • •
When Theodosia ducked back into the tea room, order seemed to have been restored. Tea was being sipped, the decibel level had returned to normal, and the funeral guests were munching their brownie bites and lemon bars. Even Charlotte looked relatively calm.
Drayton saw Theodosia and raised his eyebrows. “Is she gone?”
“Hopefully never to darken our doorway again,” said Theodosia.
“That was something you don’t see everyday.”
“Except on WWE SmackDown.”
The bell above the front door da-dinged.
“Now what?” said Drayton.
It was Bill Glass. He stepped inside and glanced around, a slightly suspicious look on his face.
“Did I just miss something?” Glass asked.
“Hmm?” said Drayton.
“Not really,” said Theodosia.
“Because I would’ve sworn I saw Cecily Conrad dragging herself down Church Street,” said Glass, “looking like she’d just been in the biggest cat fight of her life.”
“Gee,” said Theodosia. “I wouldn’t know.”
Glass edged closer to her. “Seeing Cecily looking so bedraggled . . . something feels a little fishy. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say something went down in here.”