“No, I . . .” She waved her hand dismissively.
“What a handsome dog,” Andre said. He was crouched down beside Freddy, admiring him, while Freddy sniffed his hand. “I bet he could win best in show at the upcoming dog show.”
Aunt Betty blinked. Her sadness was forgotten. “Do you really think so?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’ve actually been hired to take pictures at the PAWS dog show this weekend. From what I’ve seen, not that I’m an expert, Freddy has the right stuff.”
“Shut up!” I said. “You’re working the dog show? Aunt Betty and Freddy are entering the dog show.”
“Maybe,” Aunt Betty said.
“Wait,” I said. “What’s happened? You were so excited to enter.”
Aunt Betty glanced up and her eyes filled with worry. “I’m nervous.”
“What? Why?” Viv cried. She was standing behind us and moved to break into our tight little circle. “How can that be? He has hats!”
“Hats?” Andre and Nick asked together.
“Yes, and they’re spectacular,” Viv said.
“We’ve seen them.” Harry gestured between us. “They’re top-notch.”
Viv visibly calmed down.
Harry turned back to his aunt. “Can you tell us why you’re worried? Has something happened?”
“Richard Freestone, among other things,” she said. Her brown eyes narrowed and her lips tightened.
Harry raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t he the man who won last year?”
“And the year before that and the year before that,” Aunt Betty said. She sounded glum.
“Well, then it’s absolutely time for someone else to win,” Nick said. “No worries, your handsome lad there is a shoo-in.”
Aunt Betty took a shaky breath and nodded. “You’d think so but today when I turned in our application, Freddy and I went to the office just like we always do—”
“Oy, Worthless, are you playing or what?” one of Harry’s teammates yelled.
He turned around and shook his head. “I need a minute. Call in Cal to sub for me.”
The player gave him a sharp nod and turned back to the game.
Harry took his aunt’s arm and led her over to Nick and Andre’s picnic basket. “Here. Have a seat and tell us what happened.”
Nick popped open the top of their basket and neatly poured Aunt Betty a glass of chardonnay. She accepted it graciously while Freddy, having filled up on my sandwich, sprawled down on their blanket for a nap. Much to my amusement, Aunt Betty lifted her glass in a toast to us all and then downed it in one long swallow.
Harry didn’t look surprised. Nick looked like he was choking back a laugh as he refilled her glass, but I knew from glancing at Andre that my face likely had the same look of amazement as his. The woman was tiny, built like a songbird; she was going to be schnockered.
“All right, here’s what happened,” Aunt Betty said. She waved her glass while she spoke but her voice was clear and her eyes held a look of ire, which was much preferable to the sad expression she’d worn just a few moments earlier.
“Freddy and I went to register this afternoon at Finchley Park and we ran into Liza Stanhope,” she said.
“Socialite Liza Stanhope?” Harrison asked.
“That’s the one,” Aunt Betty said. “She’s the director of the PAWS committee, you know.”
Harry nodded as if he did know, but I was pretty sure this was brand-new information. I had never heard of Liza Stanhope, which was weird because most of London’s finest came to Viv for their hats. The fact that she had never graced our shop with her presence I found a bit off-putting. Who did this Liza Stanhope think she was, anyway?
“She was there when I filled out my registration and she actually curled her lip at Freddy,” Aunt Betty said. “And then she said with a sneer that a corgi would never win best in show, not if she had anything to say about it.”
Aunt Betty reached down and patted Freddy’s head. She was clearly rattled and I wondered if that had been Liza Stanhope’s plan all along, to cause Aunt Betty to be filled with self-doubt.
“Oh, Aunt B, she’s just the director, she’s not a judge,” Harry said. “You can’t let her get into your head like that.”
“I know, but you didn’t see her face,” Aunt B protested. “And that’s not the worst of it.”
I was all ears. This was what I was certain we were waiting for.
“When I arrived home before coming here, I found a note in my postbox that was handwritten and . . . it said . . .” She paused as if trying to compose herself before she continued, “‘If you persist in competing in the dog show, I will poison your dog.’”
There was a collective gasp.
“That’s horrible!” Nick declared. “What sort of evil person does that?”
“Someone who does not want Aunt B competing,” Harry said. He frowned and studied her face. “Any idea who it might be?”
She shook her head. “The cocktail party that kicks off the three-day competition is tomorrow night, and I’m worried that someone will try to slip Freddy something. I can’t risk him but I hate that I’m being intimidated.”
“Will Freddy be attending the cocktail party?” Harry asked.
“Of course,” she said. “All the dogs go. They have dog-friendly mocktails, it’s adorable and Freddy loves it.”
“Well, then Scarlett and I will go with you and make sure nothing untoward happens,” Harry said. “Don’t you worry, Aunt B, we’ve got your back.”
“Nick and I will be there, too,” Andre said. “I’m the official event photographer, after all.”
“That’s perfect.” I turned back to Aunt Betty. “See? We’ll all be there to protect you and Freddy from harm. It’s probably just an idle threat. We should see if anyone else got the same note. Also, we should bring it to the police.”
“She’s right,” Harry said. “Did you save it, Aunt B?”
“I did,” she said.
“Then we’ll follow up at the party tomorrow and visit the police, too,” Harry said. “Everything is going to be just fine.”
“Thank you, my dear.” Aunt Betty smiled at all of us. She reached down and patted Freddy’s head. “Did you hear that, Freddy-bottoms? You are going to have an entourage.”
“Exactly!” Harry said. “With all of us there, what could possibly go wrong?”
He kissed my head and then jogged back to the pitch and I felt a shiver start at my spine and ripple all the way through me. I refused to believe it was anything more than a response to the cold. Certainly, it was not my intuition warning me that things were about to go catawampus, or would that be dogawampus?
Chapter 4
“I don’t see why I have to go,” Viv said. “It’s not as if I’m entering a dog in the show.”
“No,” I agreed. “But Freddy is wearing your hats and having you there might give him the profile boost Aunt Betty needs. And besides, given the threat to Freddy, we need all eyes available.”
“If I’d known a public appearance was involved, I would have charged Aunt Betty more for the hats,” she said.
“You made them for free,” I said.
“Exactly.”
We were walking toward Notting Hill Gate, to catch the train that would take us to Finchley Park, where the cocktail party and the dog show were being held. It was just on the other side of Kensington, in a slightly posher neighborhood than ours—okay, a vastly more posh neighborhood, but why quibble?
It was a cocktail party so we were in our favorite minidresses under our thick wool coats. Mine was a royal blue number that fit at the hips and flared at the knees. Viv had insisted I wear a matching blue cocktail hat with an ostrich feather that curled around the back of my head. Fabulous! Viv was outfitted in red, a deep blue–toned scarlet red that she enhanced by wearing a matching fasc
inator with an explosion of tulle and shimmering beads coming out of it. Her lipstick was on point in the same shade of red as well. Judging by the heads that swiveled in her direction as she strode onto the train, she was killing it.
Even in the bright blue dress, I felt thrust into the shadows next to Viv. When I was younger, I would have envied her extraordinary beauty, but now that I was older, and wiser, I wouldn’t change a thing. Not being a knockout, I had learned to get by on my personality, and I knew that was ultimately what had turned Harrison’s head my way.
He’d crushed on me when we were kids because of my overt friendliness, and when we’d reconnected as adults, that was what brought him back to me. If I had grown up looking like Viv, tousled long blond hair and delicate features, I most likely never would have developed my essential people skills, which would have been tragic. Because unlike Viv, who was an artist at heart with a marketable skill set as a milliner, I am hopeless in the creative arts. I simply do not have the imagination or the attention span for that sort of thing. Managing people is my gift and I love it.
Viv cleared a path onto the train and two men jumped out of their seats to offer them to her. She nodded her thanks and we took their seats with our backs to the windows as the train shot through the tunnels of the Underground.
“Who knows,” I said. “Maybe we’ll win over Liza Stanhope and she’ll come to our shop for her next hat.”
Viv shrugged. It was clear she could not care less. This was a part of her artist charm. She didn’t give a flip who bought her hats. She was all about the creation. The forms, the fabric, the shape, the embellishments, these were the things that twirled through her head in a constant kaleidoscope. She had no use for the people who bought her hats. That was my job. To keep up the publicity, the public awareness and the fawning over our clients. Good thing I liked that sort of thing. I am an excellent hat ambassador, if I do say so myself.
Weirdly, I hadn’t started out as the manager of our millinery empire—okay it’s one shop but a girl can dream, can’t she? My arrival in London had actually begun on the heels of my life’s greatest humiliation, because you can never really succeed until you have failed spectacularly, or at least that’s what I like to tell myself.
About three years ago, I was working for a resort hotel in Tampa, Florida, using my hospitality degree to its maximum potential as a manager. I was also dating the owner of the hotel. It was a glorious relationship, or so I thought. Because while I was under the impression that my beau was divorcing his wife and planning to make me his missus, he was contentedly married and considered me his side bit. How did I find out? Well, I inadvertently crashed the extravagant fifth-year wedding anniversary party he planned for her and ended up fastballing anniversary cake at him, which unbeknownst to me had a seventy-five-thousand-dollar diamond necklace in it. Oops.
Naturally, these being the times we live in, someone got video of the episode and I went viral, dubbed as the party crasher. I essentially had to flee the country to get away from the bright hot spotlight of the paparazzi. Viv reached out to me and sent me a one-way ticket to London, insisting that I take up my half of the hat shop our grandmother Mim had left to us when she passed. I agreed and the rest, as they say, is history.
We jostled along on the train. People got on and got off. Viv acquired more looks and stares of appreciation, and I enjoyed watching her completely ignore them all. Men did some pretty amazing things to get her attention. There was one man who was so impressed with his own bum, he made sure to stand so it was right in her face. Viv turned to me with a look of disgust.
“Really?” She didn’t bother to lower her voice when she gestured to the empty air around us and asked, “Does he not see all of the available space?”
“I think he’s trying to impress you with his glutes,” I said.
She frowned. Then she took her umbrella out of her lap and pointed it right at his behind. “Well, I’m not impressed and he’s in for a hell of a poke if he leans back.”
The man, clearly eavesdropping, glanced over his shoulder. When he noticed the business end of Viv’s umbrella pointed at his posterior, he let out a small yelp and moved away.
You’d think the other men in our car would get the idea. Nope. Into the vacuum left by the bum guy stepped a charmer who locked in on Viv and asked, “Can I sit in your lap because my knees are suddenly weak?”
Viv didn’t deign to answer him. She just frowned and made a shooing motion with her hands. With an indignant huff and a softly muttered insult, he gave up and moved away.
“Honestly,” Viv said. “Are there no decent single men in the entire city of London?”
I looked at her. To meddle or not to meddle, this was the question.
“What about Alistair?” I asked.
“No.”
“What do you mean, ‘no’?” I asked. “He’s the whole package. Hot, employed, brilliant and he adores you.”
Truly, it boggled how she could turn up her nose at the man.
“He is relationship material,” she said. “I am not looking for a relationship.”
I glanced around the train car to see if the men were about to attack. “Say that a little louder, why don’t you?”
She waved a hand dismissively.
“Viv, what’s wrong with a relationship?” I asked.
“I’m not very good at them,” she said.
“Just because your husband—”
“Don’t talk about him,” she said. “I can’t bear it.”
I studied her face. Despite her eccentric artistic temperament, Viv’s emotions ran close to the surface and the pain on her face was genuine. She’d had a rough patch in the relationship department, no doubt, but that was no reason to shut down a guy who was one in a million, was it?
“But Alistair—”
“Asked me out last night after the rugby match, and I said no,” she said. “So, that’s dusted and done. Let’s move on.”
She brushed off the lower half of her wool coat even though there was nothing there and turned away from me, indicating that this conversation was over. Honestly, it was as if she didn’t even know me! There was no way I was going to let it go. Men like Alistair were rare, like super rare, up there with spotting a unicorn or a yeti. I would be failing in my cousinly obligation of not letting her screw up her life if I just let it go.
That being said, I know Viv, and when she decides she isn’t going to listen, there is no making her hear what you have to say. No, changing her opinion about Alistair had to be done in a sneaky underhanded covert-op sort of way, which meant I absolutely needed a consult with my besties, Nick and Andre, to determine how best to go about changing Viv’s mind.
Before I could get a good brood about it going, our stop came up. When the train slowed and the doors whooshed open, we hurried out. Standing on the platform, I glanced up to get my bearings but Viv was already off and moving through the crowd. Thank goodness she was in red, so I could follow her like a cat tracking a laser.
She crossed the platform and headed through a door that took us to another waiting area. I glanced up and read the digital display sign that showed the arrival time for the next train was in two minutes. I stood beside Viv, pulling my own coat more tightly about me. February in London was damp and chilly—oh, who was I kidding? Pretty much every month in London was damp and chilly, but February was particularly rude about it.
The train arrived and this time we went only two stops before hopping out and climbing the stairs to the neighborhood above. The wind swept down the street and we both clapped a hand onto our hats to hold them in place.
“Finchley Park, right?” Viv asked.
“Yes.” I nodded.
She turned on her spiky heel and strode toward a small green at the end of the street. When we arrived, I saw the park was bigger than it appeared. It was completely fenced in with thick hedges insid
e wrought iron with an imposing gate. At one side of the park was a large redbrick building where events were held, in this case where the dog show would take place. PAWS had signs all over the side of the building, advertising the show.
Viv pulled the gate and held it open for me. I paused, waiting for her to shut the gate behind her so that we could stroll up the walkway together. As we approached, a door opened in the building in front of us and out through the wooden door shot a white dog with brown spots, who was wearing a frilly little pink dress with sparkles on it. Despite the skirt, she hit the grass like a firecracker was attached to her backside and she flattened herself low to the ground as she ran in big loops around the yard, her tiny legs eating up the turf as she sped by.
“Coco!” a woman called to the small dog. The woman was dressed in a deep purple coat with a jaunty scarf tied around her neck. She had short, silver hair which was pushed back from her face by a pair of eyeglasses that perched on her head like a hairband. “Coco!” she cried again. The dog paid her absolutely no mind. The woman sighed and turned to us.
“I could have had a cat,” she said. “Or a fish. But no, I picked her.”
I laughed and glanced at the dog, who wore the happiest expression I’d ever seen. “True, but you’d never get a cat in a dress.”
“Or a fish,” Viv said.
“Fair point,” the woman agreed. The dog, done with running, came back and collapsed at her feet.
“I’m Scarlett and this is my cousin, Viv. Do you know if the PAWS cocktail party is in there?”
“Yes, it is,” she said. “I’m Sue, by the way, and this is Coco.”
“Nice dress,” Viv said. She pointed to Coco’s outfit. Sue scooped the dog up into her arms and Coco propped her chin on her shoulder and blinked at us, the picture of innocence.
“Do you think so?” Sue asked. “I was thinking I should have put her in her blue dress, but pink just seemed so cheerful, plus it’s her favorite. Of course, I don’t suppose it matters since Betty Wentworth and her dog, Freddy, are in matching hats. Matching bowler hats, no less, can you believe it? Who could compete with that?”
Buried to the Brim Page 4
