A Deadly Dedication, page 24
And the chance to get away from everyone’s expectations—her mother’s, her sister’s, and even her publisher’s. It had crossed Penelope’s mind that her decision might have looked to some as if she was running away, but she immediately dismissed the thought. She was having an adventure, and wasn’t that what life was meant to be?
Penelope had thought of herself as well prepared for life in an English village. She was an avid reader of British authors—she knew her Miss Marple inside and out—and she never missed an episode of The Crown or Victoria.
She didn’t expect to be homesick. Homesick for what? An unsatisfactory romantic relationship? Her overpriced Manhattan walk-up?
There’d been objections, of course. The road was never smooth sailing as far as Penelope was concerned. Her sister, Beryl, insisted that this “sabbatical,” as she called it, wasn’t going to get Penelope a career. Despite Penelope’s publisher springing for a full-page ad in the New York Times, her sister didn’t consider book writing a viable occupation. According to her, what Penelope ought to do was apply for an academic position at a prestigious university.
Penelope’s mother had objected, too, telling Penelope that she’d never meet anyone in Britain, and, even if she did, all the men there had bad teeth and if she thought she was going to meet Prince Harry or any prince at all, she was sadly mistaken. And as far as breaking into British society was concerned, she could forget all about that. Besides, what about her boyfriend, Miles?
Miles had seemed mildly put out that she wouldn’t be on hand to grace his arm at the annual Morgan Fund investor’s dinner but, in the end, he’d been the only one who hadn’t vigorously objected to Penelope’s upping the stakes and moving overseas.
Fortunately Penelope was used to doing things that others objected to—she’d been doing them all her life—so that didn’t stop her from accepting the Open Book’s offer.
No, she was going to make a go of this opportunity, because really, she had no choice. And—she could hear her grandmother’s voice in her head—the Parishes aren’t quitters.
And thus it was that Penelope had arrived on the shores of Merrie Olde England with her laptop and her battered suitcases and how she now found herself driving down the wrong (wrong in her opinion, anyway) side of the high street in Upper Chumley-on-Stoke two weeks later.
Today Chum, as Upper Chumley-on-Stoke was affectionately known to its residents, was a beehive of activity. Tomorrow was the annual Worthington Fest.
Banners, adorned with the Worthington crest and announcing the fest, hung from every streetlamp along the high street and fluttered in the mild breeze. It was a brisk October day, but the sky was cloudless and the sun warmed the air enough so she could get about nicely with just a light coat or a heavy sweater.
Upper Chumley-on-Stoke was a charming village within commuting distance of London. It was the real deal—a well-preserved medieval town that even the bright, shiny new Tesco and the curry takeaway on the outskirts of the city couldn’t spoil. The quaint cobblestoned streets were the delight of tourists even if they were a nuisance to the residents, who found them rough going in any footwear other than thick-soled walking shoes.
Buildings of brick, worn over the years to a rosy hue, followed a bend in the road until they petered out and gave way to a narrow road bordered by hedgerows that cut through the grassy green fields beyond and into the countryside.
Penelope found the town enchanting. She felt as if she had stepped into a storybook, and even the inconveniences didn’t bother her—Wi-Fi that was spotty at best, narrow streets instead of wide modern roads, an absence of large chain stores and shopping malls, save the Tesco that had opened in recent years.
The Open Book was equally enchanting. It was fusty and musty in the best possible way, with books spilling willy-nilly from the shelves and arranged according to Mabel Morris, the proprietor’s, unique shelving system, which Penelope soon discovered made finding a volume more of a treasure hunt than the usual cut-and-dried affair.
There was a low ceiling crisscrossed with wooden beams and a large diamond-paned front window where Penelope could imagine Charles Dickens’s newly published A Christmas Carol might have been displayed while men in greatcoats and women in long dresses walked up and down the sidewalk outside, occasionally peering through the glass at the array of books.
Penelope negotiated the roundabout at the top of the high street and was admiring a red sweater in the window of the Knit Wit Shop when a horn blaring close by made her jump.
She returned her attention to the road and was horrified to see another car coming straight at her. She jerked the steering wheel, overcorrected, bumped up over the curb, slammed on her brakes, and came to a stop within an inch of a cement planter filled with bright orange and yellow mums.
Her heart was beating hard, her palms were sweaty, and there was a haze in front of her eyes.
The other car, a Ford, had stopped in the middle of the road and the driver was now standing next to it.
Penelope took a deep breath, opened her door, and got out.
“What do you mean driving down the wrong side of the street?” she said, still slightly breathless as she approached the other driver.
The driver looked amused. He wasn’t handsome, but had a kind, open face that was very appealing. He was an inch or two shorter than Penelope’s six feet. Penelope had sprouted up early and there had been hopes that she would follow in her mother’s and sister’s footsteps to model; but although she was attractive enough, the camera didn’t love her the way it did them. Besides, Penelope had no interest in parading around having her picture taken.
The fellow still looked amused. She knew she needed to rein in her indignation but it was her default setting and not easy.
“You scared me half to death,” she said, pushing her glasses back up her nose with her finger.
“You’re American,” the fellow said. He had a slight Irish lilt to his voice.
Penelope raised her chin slightly. “Yes.” She was about to say what of it when a horn honking made her jump.
A line of cars had formed behind the driver’s Ford Cortina and a red VW Golf was attempting to pull around it.
Penelope’s hand flew to her mouth as the realization hit her. “I was on the wrong side of the road,” she said in a horrified voice.
“Exactly.”
“I’m so sorry. I forgot . . . I thought . . .” Penelope stuttered to a halt. “I’m so terribly sorry. You’re not hurt . . . or anything . . . are you?” She swayed slightly.
“I’m fine,” the fellow said, his face creasing in concern. “But I’m worried about you.”
“I’ll be okay.” Penelope took a deep breath. “It’s only that I think I forgot to eat lunch.”
It used to drive Penelope’s sister crazy that she had to constantly watch her diet to maintain a slim figure, while Penelope could go a whole day without even thinking about food, then devour a meal worthy of a linebacker and still never gain an ounce.
“As long as you’re sure . . .”
Penelope waved at him. “I’ll be fine.” She gestured toward the cars lined up down the road. “You’d better get going. That mob looks ready to attack you.”
He smiled. “I guess I’d better.”
* * *
* * *
Mabel Morris, whose Miss Marple–like appearance and demeanor belied her former career as an MI6 analyst, was behind the counter when Penelope pushed open the door to the bookstore.
She was all rounded curves and had fluffy white hair that tended to want to go every which way and pale powdery skin. Her blue eyes, however, had depths that suggested she wasn’t unacquainted with tragedy and the seamier side of life.
“My sainted aunt,” she said when she saw Penelope, “you look like you could use a good strong cup of tea.”
“A shot of whiskey is more like it,” Penelope said as she slumped against the counter. “Not that I’m in the habit of drinking in the middle of the day.”
“This is strictly medicinal.” Mabel pulled a bottle of Jameson and a glass from under the counter. She poured out a generous splash of whiskey and handed it to Penelope. “Drink up and then tell me what’s having you look like Hamlet’s father’s ghost.”
Penelope tossed back the whiskey and sighed as the warmth traced a path down her throat, to her stomach, and out to her limbs. She felt her shoulders and neck relax and her agitated breathing slow.
“I very nearly had an accident,” she said, putting her glass down on the counter.
Mabel inclined her head toward the glass. “Another?”
Penelope shook her head. “Not on an empty stomach.”
“You haven’t eaten?” Mabel looked alarmed.
“I’ll be fine,” Penelope reassured her. “Thank goodness the other fellow was able to stop in time.”
“What happened?”
Penelope sighed. “I’d like to say it was the other driver’s fault, but I’m afraid I forgot where I was and ended up on the wrong side of the road.” She felt her face color. She didn’t like making mistakes.
“This is how many near misses now?” Mabel turned and put both hands palms down on the counter. “Maybe you should consider giving up the car. You can walk to the Open Book and if you need to go any farther than that, you can hire a taxi.”
“That’s very tempting,” Penelope said, briefly reliving the horror of seeing another car headed straight at her. She raised her chin. “But I’m determined to nail this driving on the other side of the road if it’s the last thing I do.”
Mabel raised an eyebrow. “That’s what has me worried—that it will one day be the last thing you do.”
Gladys Watkins wandered up to the counter. She handed over a copy of romance novelist Charlotte Davenport’s latest, The Fire in My Bosom, which featured a rather long-haired, bare-chested man on the cover and a damsel whose look of considerable distress seemed to match Gladys’s own.
“I can’t begin to imagine what the queen thinks of it,” Gladys said as Mabel dropped some coins into her outstretched palm. “I imagine the poor thing is simply beside herself.”
“One can’t quite imagine the queen being beside herself,” Mabel said as she turned toward the register and ripped off the receipt. “She’s made of sterner stuff than that.”
“That’s certainly true,” India Culpepper said. She’d casually sidled up to the counter in order to join the conversation. “What with all that nonsense about Charles and Camilla she’s had to endure. You know, stiff upper lip and all, that’s her majesty’s motto.”
“Yes, no doubt that’s embroidered on the throw pillows in the drawing room at Buckingham Palace,” Mabel said dryly.
“High time the Duke of Upper Chumley-on-Stoke settled down,” Gladys said, her brow furrowed fiercely. “Driving up and down the high street in that sports car of his and getting drunk at the Book and Bottle, causing no end of embarrassment to the royal family. He’s very nearly forty, after all.”
“It’s the red hair.” India nodded sagely. “Everyone knows gingers are bound for trouble. Comes from his father’s side. His great-grandfather was known to cheat at cards and”—she lowered her voice—“run around with loose women.”
Penelope frowned. “Oh, pooh. That’s an old wives’ tale. Redheads aren’t any more prone to getting into trouble than anyone else.”
India looked far from convinced.
Penelope quashed the sudden desire to dye her brown hair red to prove them all wrong—although she was hardly the right person to challenge their assumption. Her father had often said that trouble was her middle name.
“But an American!” Gladys said, clutching her book even more tightly to her ample bosom and piercing Penelope with a laser-like stare.
Penelope stood up taller and straightened her shoulders. “Americans have become quite civilized, you know. We don’t live in covered wagons anymore.”
Gladys sniffed. She was as round as an apple with a ruddy complexion and large, guileless blue eyes.
“I agree with Gladys,” India said, looking quite surprised that for once she and Gladys found themselves on the same page. “Most unsuitable. Of course, Arthur is barely in the line of succession, but still.” She said that last as if it was her final word on the subject and that was that.
India was to the manor born as the saying goes, and even though the family fortune had slipped through numerous fingers before reaching her in a significantly diminished amount, she comported herself as the aristocrat she considered herself to be.
“And not just an American,” Gladys was continuing, “but Charlotte Davenport—an American romance novelist.” She said that last as if it left a bad taste in her mouth.
India stared rather pointedly at the book in Gladys’s hand, but the significance of India’s glance was lost on Gladys.
“Charlotte Davenport is actually quite a lovely person,” Pen said firmly.
Gladys’s eyes goggled. “You’ve met her?”
“As a matter of fact, I have,” Pen said. “It was at a writers’ conference—my first. I was positively terrified and Charlotte very graciously took me under her wing. She was already a bestselling author and my book hadn’t even come out yet. I was scheduled to appear on a panel she was moderating—I don’t even remember what the topic was but I do remember being horribly nervous.” Penelope shuddered to think about it. “I developed a sudden case of stage fright when someone in the audience asked me a question and Charlotte managed to coax an answer out of me.”
“Still . . .” India let the word hang in the air.
Mabel turned to Penelope and winked. “How is the book coming? Do tell us.”
Penelope suddenly found three pairs of eyes trained on her. She was more than grateful for the change of subject, but she really wished it had been changed to something other than her nearly nonexistent book.
“It’s coming,” she said as firmly as possible. “I just need to find a reason to compel my main character, Annora, to go against all her best instincts and search this creepy castle basement alone in order to find a chest that’s hidden down there.”
Penelope thought of some of the pickles she’d gotten herself into growing up—climbing a tree and then not being able to get down, sneaking out her bedroom window the time she was grounded and falling off the roof and breaking her ankle, hitchhiking home her freshman year in college with a knife she’d taken from the cafeteria for protection—but even she knew better than to go into a basement alone with a killer on the loose.
“That’s a tough one,” Mabel said.
Penelope nodded. “Tell me about it! I can’t have a heroine who is TSTL.”
This time three sets of eyebrows were raised in unison.
“Too stupid to live,” Penelope explained. “It’s the sort of thing that makes a reader want to throw the book across the room.”
“Quite.” India fingered the yellowing pearls at her neck.
Penelope looked at her watch. “Ladies, it’s almost time for our meeting of the Worthington Fest marketing committee. Shall we sit down?”
“Regina’s not here yet.” Gladys looked around as if expecting Regina to magically appear in a puff of smoke. “She’s always late.” She made a sour face.
“Let’s get settled. I am sure Regina will be along shortly.”
Penelope herded everyone to the table and chairs Mabel had set up in a cozy nook at the back of the store. Penelope used it for her writing group, although her book group tended to array themselves in the mismatched overstuffed chairs and sofa that Mabel had also furnished the nook with.
The Open Book was to have a stall at the fest, and Penelope had offered to head the marketing committee with the help of India and Gladys. Regina Bosworth was the chairwoman of the fest itself.
“Shall we start without Regina?” India said, looking around the table for confirmation.
“Let’s give her a few more minutes,” Penelope said decisively.
It was now nearly ten minutes past the hour. Penelope opened her mouth to begin the meeting, but just then a voice rang out from behind one of the stacks.
“I’m here. I’m coming.”
Regina rounded the corner, flapping her hands furiously. “So sorry, ladies, couldn’t be helped. I’ve had such a busy morning. There’s masses to get through yet before the Worthington Fest opens tomorrow. The Duke of Upper Chumley-on-Stoke had me positively running off my feet.”
Penelope noticed India roll her eyes. Hardly anyone referred to the duke by his title—around the village he was Arthur Worthington or simply Worthington and was often greeted familiarly by the patrons of the Book and Bottle, where he was known to regularly pony up for a round or two, as Worthington, old chap.
He and India were vaguely related. Penelope couldn’t remember how, but she thought it was through India’s mother’s line. Of course, while India lived in somewhat straitened circumstances in a cottage on the grounds of the estate, Worthington had inherited the castle itself along with a substantial amount of money.
Regina took her seat. She straightened the Hermès scarf at her neck—the queen had one just like it, she never failed to point out—opened her Louis Vuitton handbag, and spread out her things—an expensive notebook with an embossed leather cover and a blue lacquered Mont Blanc fountain pen.
“Now, Penelope,” Regina said in an officious tone, “would you like to make your report?” She folded her hands on the table in front of her.
India and Gladys turned to Penelope expectantly.
“You’ve all seen the banners along the high street,” Penelope began, and the others nodded. “We’ve placed posters in all the shops along the high street as well.”
Gladys nodded. “We have one in our window.”
Gladys’s husband owned the Pig in a Poke, Upper Chumley-on-Stoke’s butcher shop.
