A fatal feast at bramsfo.., p.14
A Fatal Feast at Bramsford Manor, page 14
Bunny had heard as much before, but it got her thinking. If Marcus had uncovered an unsavory bit of information on someone at the manor, he could have been blackmailing them. Otherwise, what was the point of prying into people’s private lives? Giggles? Gossip? It didn’t sound right. This person, who might have had something to hide, would have known Marcus’s role at the manor and could have even staged the murder to appear that it was somehow connected to the Mistletoe Bride legend. That way it would shed suspicion on Sir Charles, and even on them, the team of Food & Spirits. It would be an easy deception to pull off, and a clever one. Bunny made a mental note of it.
Then there was also the suggestion that Marcus Bean was a player. Maybe he had dallied with the wrong woman or had broken some poor lady’s heart. The old quote, Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned, sprang to her mind, reminding her that the playwright William Congreve knew all too well that love could be a dangerous, deadly game. Also, she considered the fact that Brett didn’t believe Marcus Bean and Betsy Copperfield were merely “work” friends. For one, Betsy had been very distraught. She also claimed to have overheard Bean talking about this mysterious big reveal. What did it all mean? As possibilities and theories swirled in Bunny’s mind, there was something about the look on Sir Charles’s face that stopped her in mid-thought. Maybe it wasn’t so much a look, she mused, than a premonition. She took the last sip of her whiskey and set down the glass.
“You know who Marcus Bean was having an affair with, don’t you?” This was met with a forcibly blank look. Bunny wasn’t buying it. “You should tell us who it was, Sir Charles. As it stands, Marcus Bean’s murder doesn’t look good for you or for us. If we can find another suspect, it might help to clear your name and ours.”
“Whoa there. I thought you three were merely here to investigate the dead, not the living.”
“We are,” Giff assured him with a cheeky nod. “We’re prepared to launch a full paranormal investigation tomorrow night. There’s a rich tapestry of departed souls in this place, and we will get answers. Speaking of answers, the young bride—Ann’s her name, I believe?—she’s calling to me now. She’s here, in this room, and she’s crying.” He closed his eyes. Bunny could tell he was about to launch into a bout of paranormal folly when Brett, thankfully, stopped him.
“Save your gift for later, buddy,” he told him, placing a hand on Giff’s arm. Giff peeled one eye open and stared.
“Right. Don’t wish to waste them. We’ve talked about this, but in my defense, when the voices come . . .”
Bunny, seizing her opportunity, took the reins of the conversation again. “What’s her name? All we need is a name.”
Sir Charles huffed and stood from his chair. “That, I’m afraid, is the problem. Her name is Morgan. My sister.”
Chapter 20
“I honestly didn’t see that coming,” Brett admitted as they left Sir Charles’s vast apartments. “His married sister was having an affair with his historian friend, and he knew about it. There’s a very good chance that Mr. Green, Morgan’s husband, knew about it too. Maybe we should talk with him.”
“We know nothing about him, or where he lives,” Bunny reminded them. “But he would have a motive if what Sir Charles was telling us is true.”
“I say we go straight to the horse’s mouth with this one,” Giff added. “In other words, we need to pay the lovely Morgan Wallingford-Green a visit. Let’s see if we can get her to talk.”
“Let’s put her at the top of our list for tomorrow,” Bunny offered with a sigh. “Right now, I’m not only starving, but I’m tired as well. I didn’t get much sleep last night, if you can imagine.” This was true. It had been a series of long days followed by a night in a small jail cell and interrogation. Odd as it seemed, Bunny was looking forward to a long, dreamless sleep in the giant bed in her room, even if that room was rumored to be the most haunted in the manor. Granny Mac was here now, and she’d be staying there with her. If any restless spirit felt inclined to visit in the wee hours, Granny Mac would set it straight.
“Bunny’s right,” Brett said. “We should all get a good night’s sleep, especially since we’ll be conducting our investigation tomorrow night. We’ll let the fellas know the good news at dinner.”
After a short rest in the large four-poster bed, Bunny got dressed for dinner. She was still tired but found that she was looking forward to being a guest in the hotel’s renowned dining room rather than working in the kitchen behind the scenes. Being a chef, Bunny had a vast appreciation for food and loved experiencing not only long-established restaurants but other highly rated or trendy food establishments as well, including offbeat cafés, food trucks, and diners. Often local diners were the most satisfying places of all. She felt it was a necessary part of the job, to sample the extraordinary dishes created by others and to keep up with the local trends. Whenever she’d taste an interesting combination of spices or sample a creatively prepared dish, it would kick her brain into high gear, causing her to think of other ways to use the spice or to think of different ingredients that might either enhance or work better with the dish. Often, as in the case of good ingredients, simplicity was the best measure. Other times, clever ingredients and a progression of complicated steps could create a masterpiece. Certainly, there were many times Bunny suffered diner’s remorse—the very real regret at having ordered a subpar dish that she herself had made many times over and many times better—but that was just one of the pitfalls of being a good cook. Tonight, with a limited menu at the hotel that included bangers and mash—one of her favorite comfort foods—she knew she wasn’t going to be disappointed. In fact, just thinking about it made her mouth water.
After staring at the handful of nice dresses she’d thought to pack for just such an occasion, she happily traded in her jeans and sweatshirt for a vintage cocktail dress in emerald green. It matched her eyes and set off her bright ginger curls to perfection. Diamond stud earrings, a delicate gold necklace, and a pair of two-inch black heels completed the transformation. She knew she had chosen the right dress the moment she walked into the dining room. It occurred to her, as she looked at the confused faces of her dinner guests, that the lads had never seen her in anything other than comfortable clothing and an apron. Her gran was the exception at the table.
“Sorry I’m late,” she apologized.
“No. No problem at all. You look . . .” Brett swallowed, then added, “beautiful.” He then stood and pulled out her chair. This simple yet chivalrous act, she noticed, caused her grandmother to smile.
“I agree.” Giff, smiling, nodded his approval. “Our Bunny sure cleans up well. Nice of you to join us. Since there’s only one thing on the menu tonight, we took the liberty of ordering for you.”
“Why, thank you very much.”
“Ella ordered your booze,” he jauntily added, raising his thumb like a hitchhiker and thrusting it at Granny Mac, who was sitting next to him.
“Just wine. A full-bodied red our server suggested. Said it would pair nicely with pork sausage. Imagine that?” Granny Mac grinned at the notion.
“Server?” Bunny was stuck on that one word. She then scanned the dining room for the first time. Only half the tables were occupied, and she recognized most of the people dining. There were the three couples that had opted to stay at the hotel and another couple who were on holiday with two older children. DCI Standish was also in attendance, dining with a woman Bunny believed to be his wife, or perhaps a girlfriend. There was another couple with them, the other man she recognized from the police station as well. She glossed over a few of the other tables until her eyes settled on a table in the far corner of the large room.
Sir Charles was sitting at the head of the table with his sister, and three other guests. The middle-aged man, Bunny surmised, had to be Morgan’s husband. Either that or another lover. The bleached blond woman, pretty in a manufactured way, was laughing at something Sir Charles said, while the other young lady, with the same color hair as Morgan, sat with her back facing them. Bunny’s gaze continued moving through the room until she spied Betsy Copperfield heading toward them. However, the moment she caught Betsy’s eye, the girl stopped abruptly, turned, and disappeared back into the kitchen. Just then a thickly built young man with light brown hair and a pleasant smile on his face took her place, appearing from the swinging door with a tray full of drinks.
“I take it Betsy is not our server tonight?”
“Pretty Betsy?” Cody remarked. “Nope. I think you two scared her away. No worries, though. We have young Lewis instead. He was a fan of Ghost Guys. Go figure. Lewis, my man!” Cody greeted the server as he approached the table with a grin.
Lewis? Bunny mused, studying the young man. So, this was the Lewis Betsy was talking to in the kitchen when Rodger had overheard them. He was a tad awkward, a tad clumsy, and a tad overzealous in his movements, but he was also undeniably charming.
“The Ghost Guys!” he said with a grin. “And girl. Chef, I mean. Sorry, miss. I . . . um, have your wine.” After offering Bunny an apologetic grin, he looked at his tray and carefully selected the glass of red wine. Bunny watched as he gingerly placed it on the table before her.
“Thank you,” she said. “Tell me, Lewis, did you know Marcus Bean very well?”
As she asked the question, the young man, about to wrangle the tall gin and tonic on his tray, fumbled and knocked it instead. For a split second it looked as if he was about to lose the entire tray, until he miraculously got a hold of it once again. He breathed a sigh of relief and set the drink before Cody. Once his tray was empty, he looked at Bunny and replied, “Ah, yeah. I mean, not well. But he used to come here all the time for tea and lunch. He liked a good gin and tonic on occasion too. It’s gutting, what happened to him. Dying like that in the old chest.” As Lewis spoke, his chin began to quiver, and his eyes grew moist at the thought. He cleared his throat before adding, “He was a really good man.” Lewis folded the empty tray under his arm, bent his head, and with a deflated demeanor, informed them that their dinners would be up shortly.
“Way to go, Bunny,” Cody chided. “Scaring away the only other server in the dining room. If you keep this up, we’ll be serving ourselves. I like Lewis. He’s a good kid.”
“He appears to be,” she admitted. “However, Lewis was the young man Betsy was heard talking to in the kitchen about Marcus’s big reveal.”
“They’re friends, dear,” Ella reminded her granddaughter before taking a sip of her wine. “They both work here, and they both knew Marcus Bean. You told us that Betsy admitted to not knowing what this big reveal was about, so neither would Lewis. Not everyone’s a suspect.”
“Sorry,” she apologized to the table. “This murder business is getting under my skin.”
They were enjoying their drinks and making small talk when Granny Mac said, “Brett has told me the good news. I hear Sir Charles is allowing you to conduct your investigation tomorrow night. In light of all that’s happened, I say that’s good news.”
Bunny, for her part, was not overly excited. “The murder has put a damper on things, but we don’t want the series to fail. We also learned something else today.” Bunny chanced a glance at the table in the corner. Sir Charles caught her eye, and she had no choice but to wiggle her fingers at him in greeting. As the blond woman whispered something in his ear, he grinned and waved back at her.
“What was that?” Granny Mac leaned in and caught the man waving at her granddaughter. “Is it Sir Charles? He’s smiling at you, and that woman hanging on his arm is half his age, for shame. Do you think he had a reason to murder his historian?”
“It’s certainly a possibility,” Brett said, setting down his glass of dark beer. “Only we need to figure out what exactly it was that Bean stumbled across. However, Sir Charles told us something else interesting.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Gran. He told us”—Bunny lowered her voice before sharing her news with the table—“his sister, Morgan, was having an affair with Marcus Bean.”
“What?” Ed blurted, momentarily forgetting his cider. His dark Italian gaze shot across the room at the speed of light, homing in on the table in question. “Damn,” he uttered in appreciation. “The randy rascal.”
“Shhh,” Giff hiss-whispered. “She’s right over there, with her husband, the cuckold.”
“We don’t know that!” Bunny admonished, fighting to keep her voice down. Men! What was wrong with them? Unfortunately, at that moment another man, DCI Standish to be exact, was staring straight at her. Again, Bunny smiled and wiggled her fingers at him. She noted with a ripple of satisfaction that the woman seated next to the detective was frowning at her. That was the power of a great-fitting dress!
“You’ll need to talk with Morgan in private,” Granny Mac said with a pointed look. “See if she’ll give you a straight answer. Matters of the heart can turn deadly. I don’t mind telling you that I’m sensing a storm of internal conflict from their table, only I can’t put a finger on just who it’s coming from.”
“Morgan Wallingford-Green is first on our list tomorrow, Ella,” Giff informed her.
As the bangers and mash arrived, they continued to talk in muffled tones about the murder of Marcus Bean. The meal was simple yet divine. Bunny was thoroughly enjoying it, yet she couldn’t shake the thought that Betsy, the server, knew something that she wasn’t telling them. The young lady was doing a good job of avoiding them as well. As for Sir Charles, Bunny found it interesting that he admitted to learning about the grand discovery Bean had stumbled across, only he swore that he didn’t know the nature of it. None of them claimed they did, yet many had known about the big reveal. Sir Charles had also hinted at the possibility that Marcus might have been blackmailing somebody, while also admitting that he knew that the man was having an affair with his married sister. What a tangled web it was swiftly becoming.
Giff stabbed his fork into the last delicious morsel of sausage on his plate. As he savored this last bite, he suddenly held up his empty fork and blurted in what looked to be an ah-ha moment, “Alex Bimsby!”
“Come again?” Mike looked at Brett for support. Brett was at a loss as well.
“Grimsby,” Giff clarified, once he had swallowed his mouthful. “Alex Grimsby. I almost forgot. Yesterday morning, after wandering the manor with Brett and Marcus, getting an earful about history and the unfortunate ghost bride, I went out to the oak grove to meditate in the fall sunshine. It’s how I hone my abilities as a medium.”
“Save it for the camera, bro!” Frank heckled with a grin.
“Right. Tough crowd. Anyhow, as I was saying, I was in the oak grove, preparing for the night’s investigation. The oak grove, my dears, is conveniently located near the stables. That’s where Alex Grimsby, the ruggedly handsome stableman works. While I was quote-unquote meditating”—here he inserted a pair of air quotes as he spoke—“and working up my nerve to approach Mr. Grimsby, Morgan returned from a ride. She was all windblown as she handed her sweaty horse to Grimsby and stalked off in the direction of the manor. Shortly after she left, Bean showed up and wanted a word with Grimsby. Of course, I was all ears. I strained to listen to what they were saying, but the leaves overhead were rustling so loudly in the breeze, I only caught snatches of the conversation. However, the conversation soon turned heated, and they took it inside the stable office. I’m not sure what they were talking about, but I think we should follow up on that as well.”
“An argument in the stables between Bean and this Grimsby fellow? You bet we’ll follow up on that. Good work, Giff,” Brett added sincerely. “Looks like we have our day cut out for us. Everyone should get a good night’s sleep tonight. We’ll meet back here at eight tomorrow morning for breakfast.”
“Sounds good to me,” Bunny said. She then turned her attention to her grandma.
“Are your bags still in the hotel office, Gran?” she asked the older woman.
“Why no, dear, they’re in my room.”
“Your room? I thought you were staying with me. I have plenty of room in mine.” Why did this thought make her sweat. She could feel tiny beads of perspiration forming on her brow. She lifted the heavy fall of her hair to cool her neck. It wasn’t working.
“The hotel is nearly empty. And I thought . . .” Here Ella MacBride covertly shifted her gaze to Brett then back to her granddaughter, and whispered close to Bunny’s ear, “I just assumed, being a lovely young woman in the company of so many handsome men, that you’d like your privacy.” The mere notion set fire to Bunny’s fair cheeks. Where did she get that idea, and why, dear heavens, had she voiced it? Utterly inappropriate yet typical for Granny Mac, she thought.
“Grrran,” she admonished in a like whisper. “This is a business trip! And . . . we don’t really know one another very well yet.”
“Crivens!” Granny Mac replied with a wily look as she leaned back in her chair. “Also, I thought that you might be tired, after your night in the village jail. You’ve only got the one bed, as do I. One large, spacious bed. At least we’ll get a good night’s sleep, m’ dear.”
She looked at her grandmother, hoping she was correct. In fact, at that very moment, Bunny couldn’t think of anything she’d like more than a blissful night’s sleep in the big, canopied bed. For her sake, she prayed that all the rumors regarding her haunted hotel room were just barmy rumors.
Chapter 21
Why was she so nervous to retire to the Fleur-de-Lys suite? It was ridiculous. Bunny had spent a perfectly good night in there two days ago, snuggled beneath the quilts on the big old bed with hardly a care in the world. Sure, she had stuffed her ears with cotton to blot out the noise Brett, Giff, and Marcus Bean were making as they stomped through the hallways in the wee hours, filming backstory and chasing down ghostly legends. Boys will be boys, she supposed. Yet as far as she knew, they had come up empty-handed regarding ghosts. Which was just fine by her. And there were none in her room now, she told herself, as she quickly pulled a flannel nightgown from the closet, being careful not to look in the dark corners. Flannel, she mused, was the perfect choice for chilly autumn nights, especially ones spent in drafty old manor homes.
