by Sara Rosett
I wasn’t sure that Inspector Byron would fall in with Elise’s confident assertions, but I was glad she’d slightly backed off her alibi hobbyhorse. I was all for doing some location scouting. It would be good to delve into work.
Elise checked her watch. “The preview party begins at seven. We will all attend,” she said in a tone that meant there would be no debate about the subject. She stood. “You all have received your tickets? Good. I will see you then.”
Alex and I spent the day visiting hotels. We stood still in guest rooms as we listened for street noise, and toured the various amenities of the properties—pools, spas, bars, restaurants and less glamorous features like parking garages. By the time four o’clock rolled around, we had two hotels left. “Better split up,” Alex said, “since they are on opposite sides of town.”
“Sounds good. That will give us time to get back to the hotel, change, and grab some dinner before the preview party.”
“Change? Why would we need to change?” Alex asked.
“It’s formal…not black tie or anything, but you have to dress up. You brought a suit jacket, right? You do own a suit jacket, don’t you?” Alex’s style was casual, running along the lines of jeans rather than suits.
He grinned suddenly. “I had you going there. Of course, I own a suit jacket. My father is in the diplomatic service. I know how to dress for the occasion. See you at the hotel.”
We parted, and I made my way over Pulteney Bridge to Laura Place, thinking of Lady Dalrymple and Persuasion. I stopped to take in the exterior of what was once the Sydney Hotel, but is now a museum, wishing I had more time and could tour the building. Sydney Gardens was beyond the museum, but I didn’t have time to stop there. Sydney Gardens also made me think of Cyrus, and I wondered if there was a way to find out where he’d gone in the Gardens. I didn’t have time to check into it, and surely Byron was pursuing that question.
I found the hotel, but a quick tour showed me that it wouldn’t be a good fit. There were plenty of rooms and they were quiet, but only a few of them were singles. I marked it off the list and headed back to the hotel along Great Pulteney Street. Before I reached the bridge, I trotted down a set of stone steps for a quick detour, following a sign to the riverside walk.
I made my way through a little park area for a closer look at the Avon, the river that partially encircled Bath. I paused at a viewing point near the water and leaned on an iron railing. When I looked back at Pulteney Bridge, the reflection of the arched bridge supports in the water created the illusion of complete stone circles. The water flowed flat and smooth under the bridge, then rushed over the Weir, a series of stepping-stone-like curves below the bridge. The curves were designed in an oval shape, which I thought was appropriate for Bath because so many of its architectural features were circles, crescents, and curves.
After taking several pictures, I pushed away from the railing and retraced my steps, then climbed back to the street. As I crossed Pulteney Bridge, I glanced in the shops that lined it. I moved around a pair of women admiring a display of necklaces in the window of a jeweler, then stopped as a couple stepped out of the store directly into my path.
“Excuse—oh, Kate,” Alex said.
“Hi,” I said, glad that we’d met up again. “I thought you were over near Camden Crescent…oh, hi, Viv.”
“I was,” Alex said, “but the last hotel was a washout. I finished early.”
“Me too.”
Alex shifted his feet and darted a glance from Viv to me, not looking at all like his usual relaxed and easy-going self. In fact, I realized, he definitely looked uncomfortable as he said, “I was heading your way—”
“When I saw him.” Viv bounced on her toes. “The bike shop where I work is only a few blocks away. I saw him come in here and had to pop over and say hello.” Today she wore a slouchy large weave sweater over a pair of black leggings with running shoes. Some of her long auburn hair was tucked under a knit beanie, but most of it trailed around her shoulders. Viv smiled and shot a glance at Alex. “I managed to catch up and join him for a bit of shopping.” She placed an extra emphasis on the last word, and her eyes sparkled with an I’ve-got-a-secret vibe.
What was it with Viv showing up everywhere we were—correction, everywhere Alex was? And that special smile she was flashing at Alex—I took a breath when I noticed Alex’s face. I knew that look. Polite on the surface, but underneath, he was irritated. I’d seen that look often enough when we were bogged down with work and someone wasn’t pulling their weight. He was annoyed—and it wasn’t with me. I made an effort to not let the exasperation I felt with Viv show on my face. It was childish, this selfish desire to wish she was far away from Alex.
“I thought I’d swing by and see if you were still around here,” Alex said to me.
“I went down to see the river.”
“Oh, sorry I missed that. I’d like to see it, too,” Alex said.
“I don’t think there’s time now,” I said. “With the…ah…plans we have for tonight.” I held back from mentioning the preview party, afraid that if I said something about it, Viv would want to tag along there, too. It was an entirely selfish thought, but I couldn’t help it. Her bright smile and the way she constantly focused on Alex’s face irked me.
“Right,” Alex said, reaching out to take my hand. “We have to go. See you around, Viv.”
“Okay. Sure. I’m at the bike shop again tomorrow after lunch. I’d love for you to drop in,” she called at our retreating backs. “Anytime would be great.”
Alex waved and gave her a half smile, but kept up his quick pace. When we reached an arcaded shopping area, he glanced back over his shoulder and slowed down. “I was walking along the street, on my way to look for you, and the next thing I knew she was in the street behind me, calling my name. She said she was on her dinner break and would walk with me. I couldn’t get rid of her.”
“Alex, you don’t have to explain.” We worked our way through a knot of tourists gathered outside the Roman Baths and the Pump Room.
“I don’t know what’s up with her,” Alex said.
I thought I knew exactly what was up with her, but I kept that thought to myself. As we neared the turn for the street with our hotel, we slowed our steps. Two policemen stood beside a small area that was blocked off. Police tape had been stretched around two barriers, creating a square. I couldn’t see much inside the square, except that an iron grate had been removed from the street. One man in a hard hat leaned over the opening, sweeping a flashlight back and forth.
As we turned down the pedestrian walkway to go to the hotel, Alex said, “Viv wasn’t like this when I knew her before.”
He looked so rattled, and, secure in the knowledge that he didn’t want Viv’s attention, I couldn’t help poking a little fun at him. “Maybe she’s stalking you.”
“That’s probably going a little far,” he said. “But she does keep turning up.”
“Like a bad penny,” I said and by then we’d reached the hotel.
“She sounds barmy to me,” Melissa said as she stepped into her black stilettos a bit later in our hotel room. Tonight she was dressed as conservatively as I’d ever seen her. She wore a dress with a fitted black bodice and a gray skirt with deep pleats that fell to above her knee. The fact that the bodice was covered in a pattern of silver sequins in lighting bolts gave it her usual quirky edge.
I hunched over the vanity, adding an extra layer of mascara. “I don’t know if I’d go that far. Aggressive, I’d say.”
“That, too.” Melissa picked up her beaded purse. “Look, Alex is a sweet guy and all, but he is a guy. You might have to make it clear to her that he’s off the market.”
I screwed the mascara wand back into the tube and tossed it in my makeup bag. “That would be going too far, I think.”
“I’m telling you, girls like that don’t play by the rules. She’s obviously making a play for Alex. I know he’s crazy about you and all,” she brushed aside my protest. “Yes,
he is. Anyone who looks at you two together can see it, but when a girl like Viv is on the prowl, you can’t be too polite.”
I shook my head. “I’m not going to do that.”
“Why not? I’ve seen you fix problems like that on the set,” she said with a snap of her fingers.
“Because this is different. That’s work. This is…personal.”
“So you’re going to sit back and just trust Alex.”
I thought about it for a second and realized there was only one answer to the question. Despite our time apart and the initial bumpiness of being back together, deep down I didn’t doubt him. “Yes. I do trust Alex.”
Melissa’s combative stance dropped away. She rolled her eyes to the ceiling and said with a grin, “Okay, now you’re the barmy one.”
Chapter 18
“IT MUST BE ALONG HERE somewhere.” I looked at the numbers on the doors along the street. Alex and I were laboring up Gay Street, which was one place where Jane Austen had lived in Bath. She actually had several different residences in the city, but Gay Street was on the way to the preview party, and I couldn’t resist looking for her house.
Like most streets in Bath, Gay Street was elegant. Three-story terraced houses with mansard roofs and Ionic columns lined each side. Wrought iron railings enclosed staircases that disappeared below ground to basements, the area that would have once been the servant’s entrance while the main entrances to the houses were on the street level.
Earlier, I had met Alex in the hotel’s parlor and was relieved to see that his easy manner had returned. He wore a black jacket with a silver gray tie. Melissa would have given a wolf whistle, but I settled for saying, “You do clean up well.”
“My embassy training comes through again. You look lovely,” he said as he held my gaze, and I wondered why I had wasted a minute of my time worrying about Viv when he looked at me like that. He had offered his arm, and I slipped my hand through his elbow, vowing to be less irritated the next time Viv popped up—as I was sure she would.
We had dined at a restaurant that served huge portions of rotisserie chicken. The subject of Viv didn’t come up, but I almost expected to see her peering in the window, hands clasped around her eyes. Thankfully, it was just Alex and me for dinner. No unexpected guests. I was stuffed by the time we finished dinner and wanted to walk off some of the meal before we hit the party with its heavy hors d’oeuvres, so I had suggested we stroll up the street where Austen had once lived.
On our way up the steep street, we’d already passed the Jane Austen Center with its rather intimidating mannequin in Regency costume, which I thought looked more like Fanny Dashwood in Emma Thompson’s film version of Sense and Sensibility rather than any image of Jane Austen that I’d seen.
“Here it is.” I stopped before a door with an iron fence on either side of it. “Number Twenty-Five.” I read the gold plaque beside the door. “It’s now…a dentist office.”
“Rather prosaic.”
“I think Austen would find some humor in that situation,” I said, and we turned to toil up the rest of the incline to the Assembly Rooms at a quick pace because of the chilly night air. Alex had photographed the Assembly Rooms on our first day in Bath, but I had never seen them.
The exterior resembled a temple from classical times with columns supporting a pediment, but along simpler lines than most temples from antiquity. No frieze ornamented the peak over the entry. As we joined the line at the door, I thought of Austen’s description of Catherine Moreland’s first visit to the Assembly Rooms, in which their male escort abandoned Catherine and her chaperone for the card room and left them to enjoy “the mob” by themselves. In the book, Catherine and her chaperone fight their way through the press to the top of the room, but still can’t see anyone because of the crowd.
By Regency standards, the crowd for the preview party would have been viewed as a tepid turnout—one mark of a successful Regency party was that the event was so crowded you could hardly move through the rooms—but I was glad we didn’t have to fight our way inside.
We were swept into the modest tide of people arriving and carried downstairs to the basement floor where the Fashion Museum was located. I caught a quick glimpse of Elise. She wore a cocktail dress—black, of course—but she’d taken time to put actual combs in her hair. It was confined to a tight bun and only a few strands of hair had escaped.
Alex and I meandered around the rooms, marveling at the outrageous court gowns from the Georgian period with their skirts that stuck out sideways from the hips.
“That is just ridiculous,” Alex said.
“But the height of fashion in the 1700s,” Melissa said, joining us. “Did you have a nice dinner? Anyone drop in on you?” she asked, eyes wide.
Alex glanced at her sharply. I said, “Oh, look at Paul over there by the wall. Elise has abandoned him while she schmoozes.” Paul was also turned out in a suit and tie and was sans pencil tonight. “You should go talk to him,” I said to Melissa and gave her a little push in his direction then waved to get Paul’s attention. He moved toward her, a relieved look on his face.
Alex said, “Playing matchmaker?”
“Only on a very small scale. Nothing Emma-like, I assure you.”
Alex grinned. “I’ve seen the movie, but not read the book, but I do get the allusion.”
We moved around the room, checking out the permanent display of Georgian costumes then strolled through the Regency exhibition with its high-waisted fashions for women and cutaway coats for men. “They all look so tiny, don’t they?” I said.
“Yes, that’s why the talent is always on a diet on set—to fit into clothes like this.”
Eventually we moved back up the stairs to the ground floor. The building lacked a grand exterior, but the interior of the rooms more than made up for it. The ballroom was in use for another event, and I only had a glimpse of a row of massive chandeliers and ornate molding on the room’s pale blue walls before we moved through an octagon-shaped room into what had been the Tea Room during the Regency.
More Regency clothes were displayed in glass cases arranged around the edges of the spacious room. The Tea Room wasn’t as large as the ballroom—it only had three glittering chandeliers—but it was still impressive with a lofty coved ceiling and a colonnaded balcony.
I spotted Annie chatting with a group of people, her crutch leaning on a tall round table beside them, but Dominic wasn’t with her. The table next to her came open, and we wandered toward it. Annie gave us a quick smile and lift of her head as she saw us, but she appeared deep in conversation, so we didn’t join her.
Somehow Elise had beaten us upstairs and now had another knot of people cornered. “…so you can see how these productions contribute to increased interest in preservation of actual artifacts,” Elise said, “not to mention the uptick we see in the historical genres associated with it. When the first episodes ran, we saw an increase of twenty-four percent in visits to…”
“I’m glad my job doesn’t involve talking up our project.”
Alex said, “Elise may be…ah—challenging, let’s say, to work with, but she does whatever is needed to get the job done.”
“Spoken like the son of a diplomat,” I said lightly, but then turned serious. “She’s one of the few people who doesn’t have an alibi for either Cyrus or Mia’s death,” I said uncomfortably. No matter what was happening the two deaths weren’t far from my thoughts. “It doesn’t matter how much effort she puts into trying to find someone to give her an alibi, you know that Byron has to be looking at her pretty hard.”
“Her and Felix.” Alex raised his eyebrows, indicating I should look over my shoulder.
“I thought maybe he skipped out.” I pivoted and scanned the room. But he was in attendance, looking as polished and well-groomed as he had the night before.
“With someone, too,” Alex said as the crowd around Felix shifted and revealed a blond woman in a beautifully cut pink cocktail dress beside him. “Is that…?”
I had a better vantage point than Alex and could see her face. “Yes. That’s Octavia.”
“Ah,” Alex said. “The woman who tossed him over for a richer man.” During our hotel research earlier in the day, I’d told Alex all the details I’d heard from Melissa.
“Much richer, according to Melissa,” I said.
Alex said, “Looks like he’s still besotted, poor guy.”
Felix had that same dazed expression on his face that we’d seen at the restaurant. “I have a feeling he’s in for a world of hurt,” I said. “You’d think that since she’d dumped him once, he would be more cautious.”
Alex covered the back of my hand, which was looped through his elbow. “But not all of us are as cool-headed about love as you are.”
I looked at him sharply, but it wasn’t a dig. His tone wasn’t critical. But there was a trace of…what?…sadness, maybe.
“I’ll get us a drink,” Alex said. “Can’t be at one of these affairs without a glass in your hand. Back in a moment.”
I watched his broad shoulders as he moved deftly through the crowd.
“Why the frown?” asked a voice beside me, and I turned to see Felix and Octavia. “No frowning allowed at these events,” Felix said. “Or at least, don’t let Elise see you looking like that. Happy, happy, happy. We love our job. Best job in the world,” he said in a falsely bright voice, then returned to his normal tones. “Can’t convince people to support your projects if your workers look like they’re going to a funeral.” Felix flushed, glanced quickly at Octavia, and cleared his throat. “Sorry, my dear. Didn’t think.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Octavia waved her glass. “It’s no use pretending that I’m upset about either Cyrus’s death or his funeral. I’m not. I won’t be a hypocrite about it.”
“This is Kate,” Felix said, belatedly. “Location scout with the production. Kate, this is a good friend of mine, Octavia Blakely.”
