“Good word for him, Helen, lascivious,” Martha added, with one eye on Piers’ face. “That comment about steak tartare.”
Martha rolled her eyes. “You know, I was thinking about today while I was soaking in the tub. It reminds me of something that happened to me as a young girl.”
Not waiting for encouragement, Martha jumped into her story. She leaned in to talk more intimately with Helen and Piers.
“There was something predatory in Brickstone’s nature. You have to be careful with those types. When I was about seventeen, there was this man who used to come into the Ben Franklin store where I worked. He had this floaty way about him even though he was a large man and he wore this necklace with only one big eye painted on a medallion. One day, he’d been breezing around the aisles taking his time picking things up and putting them back down when the only other customer in the store left. He made a beeline straight to me, but I saw him coming and got the counter between us. He towered over me and leaned across the checkout counter. I backed up close to the tall shelves behind me. In this slithering tone, he told me to look at his necklace hanging around his lumpy neck. I did what he asked because I was alone in the store, and I didn’t want to antagonize him. I remember he leaned in closer and with garlic breath whispered, ‘I’m a warlock and very powerful.’”
“What happened?” Helen and Piers said jointly, leaning in as Martha’s voice dropped for effect.
“I know. It was creepy. I played dumb because I thought that was the best way to put him off the scent. So, I said to him in a sweet, upbeat way, ‘That’s neat, Mr. Chambers. I’ll tell my dad. He was saying the other day he’d like to find someone who can help him clean all his guns’.”
“What?” Piers asked, befuddled.
“Yeah, that was the exact expression of old weirdo Chambers. He stood there across the counter looking at me like I’d slapped him across the face. As he started to try to explain to me what a warlock was, the tiny bell over the front door tinkled, signaling that another customer was entering the store. He shuffled around the aisles a while longer and I saw that he was thinking hard about what I’d said. Finally, his intelligence caught up with his ego and he realized the significance of my last four words.”
“Which were?” Helen asked, her eyebrows knitting.
“Clean all his guns,” Martha replied, giggling at her own story.
Piers burst out laughing. “I bet he found his way out of the store without attempting to enlighten you further, Martha.”
“The sad thing is how long it took him to put two and two together. He must not have been an effective warlock if he was that slow on the uptake.”
The waitress appeared at their table and asked if they were ready to go into the dining room.
“I haven’t seen Lord Percy since my days at Eton,” Piers said as they stood to go into dinner. “He was an associate of my father’s and they served on a banking board together. Come on, ladies, I’m famished.”
“Me, too,” Martha said. “Let’s begin with a cheese plate.”
Chapter 11
“EXCUSE ME, MR. BRICKSTONE,” DENISE said, as she entered the room.
“Yes, Denise,” he answered not taking his eyes off a magazine article about private islands for sale in the Caribbean.
“Miss Sutherland has been calling. She wishes for you to please come to your uncle’s room.”
Sighing, the heir of the manor put down his glossy magazine and stood up. Without a word to Denise, he walked out of the room. The Lord was housed on the opposite side of the house. It was quieter that way. Brickstone reflected on how the walk would be a good after dinner exercise.
This venture was proving to be extremely profitable and the manuscript he’d shown the two women today might buy him his own beautiful green island swimming in an azure sea. Selling off different valuables from the estate required time and patience, though. Getting through all the rooms would likely take another year. The library was a treasure trove.
As he walked, he considered his situation. It was surprising how tough Farthingay was, despite his eighty years. Even with the constant dosing of his food with sedatives, he still managed a good row once a week. The rants were getting tiresome, though, and it might have been wiser to get rid of him altogether.
“Not adding murder to a rap sheet, well not unless I have to,” Brickstone mumbled to himself, as he took a quick look over his shoulder to make sure he was alone.
He’d chosen Melissa to manage the real owner of Greenwoods because controlling women, in Brickstone’s opinion, was much easier than dealing with men. In his many years of work, he’d always found that his charm kept women from becoming long-term problems. If you found the right kind of simple female, she was putty in your hands. Sex, pretense at love and a few trinkets, kept them wanting to please you. Men, on the other hand, wanted their fair share.
Finally, he arrived at an area of the house not used in many long years. At one time, it must have been the quarters for the kitchen staff. His steps echoed in the empty corridor. At the far end of the hallway was a solid looking door and he heard a man’s voice arguing with a woman’s. Once there, he knocked and the voices ceased instantly.
A lock moved on the other side of the door, and soon a female face with eyes lined in black peeked around the edge.
“Melissa, it’s me, Ricky,” Brickstone whispered. “What’s gotten into you?”
“You alone?” the woman asked softly, trying to see around him and down the long, tight hallway.
“All alone, baby. Having a tough time with Lord Fartingay?”
“Ah, Ricky, that’s real funny,” Melissa said in a whiny voice beginning to grow more tremulous with each passing second. “It’s getting to me, Ricky, keeping him in here all the time. I keep hearing things. How much longer have we got before we can leave this wretched, moldy place. I don’t want to play nurse to this old goat any longer.”
“Is that you, Brickstone?” a man’s voice croaked from inside. “You can’t hold me here much longer. My real nephew in Auckland visits in January and he’ll want to see me. I’m not dead!”
“Not yet anyway! But that can be handled!” Ricky yelled roughly back.
Ricky turned his attention back to the young woman.
“Better find a way to keep him quiet, Melissa. This place is stuffed from floor to ceiling with priceless gems. It may take another six months or more to unload it all. Why don’t you increase his medication? Keep him asleep until May for all I care.”
“It’s too dangerous, Ricky. It might kill him, he’s so old,” Melissa replied with a shiver of disgust. “I don’t want him to die. I’d feel terrible.”
“Well, it’s up to you, baby. This place is a gold mine and I’m not leaving until every last farthing is squeezed from it.”
Melissa slipped through the door and wrapped her arms around Ricky’s neck. She squirmed up against him. “Can I buy anything I want? You promised me I could when we get this job done,” she cooed.
“Anything,” he said reaching down and giving her a slap on her backend. She giggled and shut the door between them and Lord Percy, tied to his bed.
“Denise said we had visitors today. Two women came. Were they pretty?” Melissa asked, her eyes searching his for truth in what he would say.
“No, baby,” he lied, not flinching at his perjury. “Those two are going to sell something so valuable, I’m thinking about buying an island with the money from it.”
Melissa squirmed and set a puckered pout to her mouth. “How will we keep the nephew from Auckland away?”
“I’ve been reading all Farthingay’s emails. The nephew believes the old man is going to visit a friend in Hawaii and pretending to be Farthingay, I wrote telling him to visit next June instead. It’s all taken care of, but don’t tell him. Better to keep it quiet.”
He gave her a deep kiss while running his hands up and down her back. Melissa softened and relaxed. Even while he kissed her, his mind was on Martha. Someth
ing about her wouldn’t quit nagging at his brain. She definitely wasn’t his type. It was the way she’d kept staring at him like he was dirty somehow. The comment about her being a paralegal swam up into his thoughts.
Like a bolt from the blue, it hit him. His mouth froze on Melissa’s as the answer came to him.
“We might be in for some trouble,” he said dropping Melissa like a dishrag.
“Why?” she practically cried, her lipstick smeared around her thin-lipped mouth.
“I remembered where I’ve seen one of those women who came today.”
“Where?”
“Court. I saw her in court. She was working with one of the solicitors years ago when I was brought up on fraud charges after pulling that deal at the bank where I worked.”
“Oh, God, Ricky!” Melissa exclaimed, “Do you think she recognized you?”
“Nah, I don’t think so. We may need to wrap up our gig soon, baby,” he said. “Might need to get out of here.”
“Fantastic, I hate it here,” she said, her eyes bright with hope.
Ricky was already half-way down the hall. “Better get back to work.”
Melissa called after his retreating figure, “Come see me in the morning, right?”
“Get back to the old man, Melissa. Keep him quiet, but alive. We don’t want any deaths on our hands.” He heard her door close as he walked away. Under his breath and with a crook of a smile, he added, “Not yet, anyway.”
Chapter 12
JOHNS WAS RELIEVED TO HAVE some time to think over the Saundra situation before telling Martha. He knew she would be upset. Saundra had fought their divorce for so long and now he understood why. Legally, she had a right to half of what he owned, and, of course, she wanted it.
He’d awakened that morning aware of how alone he was and the real cost of Saundra’s narcissism. His mother, Polly, was watching Martha’s furry children at Flower Pot Cottage. The thought of Polly made him throw one arm over his eyes to block out the morning light from his bedroom window. Once she knew Saundra was back in town, it was likely she’d brew up a storm of her own. Polly hated Saundra with a passion. Both women had always gone at each other with everything in their arsenals. His thoughts were dispelled by his phone ringing on his bedside table.
“Johns,” he answered.
The voice on the phone was bright and cheerful. “Good morning, Chief. It’s Constable Waters speaking. We’ve got everything ready for a run through on the pies. What time do you want to start?”
Waters was one of the Chief’s favorite constables. She worked hard, never complained and was a fantastic cook. He counted on her to stay calm and cool even when elbow-deep in difficult-to-make pie crust.
“Be there in about twenty minutes, Waters. Let’s use the kitchen in the constabulary. Are Sam and Michael there yet?”
“Yes,” Johns heard the exasperation in Water’s voice. “Sam needs to be brought around to my way of thinking, so expect a sullen teenager when you get here.”
“Tell him Celine Rupert is also in this Bake-Off. That should do the trick,” Johns said, with a touch of humor.
“Oh, yes, that should brighten his cheerless self considerably.”
Johns’ phone made a beeping sound indicating another call was coming in. He quickly glanced at the screen and saw it was his solicitor.
“Hey, Waters, I need to take this incoming call. I’ll be there soon.”
He tapped ‘end call’ and ‘accept’. “Hello, this is Merriam Johns.”
“Good morning, Merriam, would you like the good news first or the expensive news,” a gruff voice said on the other end of the line. Simon Graves, Johns’ solicitor, and favorite fishing buddy, sounded like he was jogging on a treadmill.
“I’m ready, Simon. Hit me with the expensive news first.”
“Saundra is asking for half of the farm’s worth which her solicitor says is in the region of seven to seven and a half hundred thousand pounds.”
Johns sat back down on the bed. The first wave of emotion was sheer disbelief at the amount she was asking for, the second wave of emotion was a slow-growing anger.
“Hope the next piece of information you’ve got for me Simon is good or you’d better send someone over here to the farm that knows how to use a defibrillator.”
“Well,” Simon said huffing for air while his feet thumped rapidly in rhythm with the hum of the exercise machine, “if you sell the farm, you won't get a million-five in this market, so they’re throwing out a big number in hopes of settling for a much tighter one. I think we should low-ball them.”
“This is the good news, right?” Johns asked. He wasn’t sure what constituted positive and negative in Simon’s legal world. “I don’t want to sell my home and I don’t want to give Saundra her blood money.”
“I’d like to tell you, old Trout (Simon’s nickname for Johns) there’s a way to get out of paying her the money, but I can’t see how. She’s entitled, and you’re going to be writing a check for around three to four hundred thousand, that is, if I do my job right.”
“Simon, how long do I have?”
“Ten days, Trout. She’s got a firm from London, real heavy hitters. Better talk with your mum and decide. I think you should put the farm up for sale. It’ll buy you some time.”
“Thanks, Simon. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Johns tapped ‘end’ on his phone and laid it down beside him on the bed. Putting his head in his hands, he sat for a moment, trying to take in what it meant to lose the farm. Generations of his family had called it home. Polly, his mother, worked her brewing business out of one of the old dairy barns. Centuries of hard work raising cattle, generations of children’s height marks on an oak post in the kitchen, and worn stone floors from hundreds of feet treading throughout the old house were all testimonies to the number of Johnses who’d called the farm their home.
Looking out between his fingers, his gaze fell on the floor. He’d have to tell Polly today, no way around it. The idea of her having to leave her home made him heartsick. Getting up, he turned on the hot water in his shower. First things first. He needed to get to town and make a pie.
AFTER A DELICIOUSLY DECADENT SLEEP, Helen was already up and dressed. She and Piers were going Christmas shopping. He’d promised to take her into the nearby village where she could pick out gifts for everyone on her list. What was promising, she thought to herself, was that Piers seemed as excited as she was about spending the day browsing through quaint shops.
“Helen!” It was Martha clambering to be let in through the adjoining door.
“Hey, what’s up?” Helen asked, swinging the door open to reveal a flannel-robed Martha.
“Would it be a problem to head home late this afternoon?” Martha asked.
“No, that’s fine. We could leave after Piers and I get back from shopping. Around three o’clock?”
“Thanks, Helen. Polly sent me a text with her thoughts on the first round of competition. I want to do a few practice runs and if we get home tonight, Polly and I can work on it.”
“Sure, am I also doing a pie in the first round?”
“No, you’re on for puddings, but we all have to work on the tea section which is the second day’s competition.” Martha gave Helen a good look up and down. “You’re stunning, Helen. I like your sweater—very pretty.”
“Thanks,” Helen replied. “What are you up to this morning?”
“I’m going to get a massage, a pedicure and a facial today. I’ll catch up with you about two-thirty.”
“I’ll be ready to go. Enjoy yourself.”
“I will.”
The door shut behind Martha, and Helen grabbed her purse and headed downstairs. At the reception area, waited Piers. He was wearing comfortable walking boots, a mid-length coat and a festive red muffler. Upon seeing Helen, he gave her a bright smile.
“Are you ready, m’lady?” he said reaching for her hands.
She offered both of hers to his and, like two people who are in
love, their gaze locked for a brief moment. She blushed like a young girl and he leaned in to kiss her but remembered they were in a public place, so only brushed his lips against her warm cheek.
“Come on, I’ve got a treat for you,” he said, his excitement showing in his voice. “I’m glad you dressed well. It’s not far to the village, but it did snow last night, so…”
He opened the front door of the hotel and there in the courtyard waited the most enchanting two-man sleigh that Helen had ever seen. Painted green with gold trimming, it looked like something out of a fairytale. An elegant bay mare waited patiently at its front.
“How wonderful, Piers!” Helen exclaimed. “I love it! It is a treat indeed.”
He helped her in and covered her with fur robes and quilts to keep her warm. Settling himself, he took the reins and gave the horse the signal to trot. People smiled and waved as they pulled away from the courtyard. Helen snuggled up close to Piers and they didn’t speak a word between them. They didn’t need to. Their thoughts were on each other as the sleigh glided like a dream into a winter wonderland of a snowy Yorkshire countryside.
Chapter 13
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU saying, Merriam?” Polly practically growled. “That woman is in this village? And a judge?”
“Yes,” Chief Johns said briefly. His mother was only slightly over five feet tall, but she packed a wallop when she wanted to.
“I won’t participate. It would be a farce for me to do so. She’ll never give my team a fair chance,” Polly said, banging the large lump of piecrust dough down on a breadboard.
“Mum, it’s more than that.”
Chief Johns had deliberately picked this moment to talk with his mother. He’d already been to the Constabulary and worked with his team on their pies and menus for the competition. Afterwards, he headed over to Martha’s cottage where his mother was trying to perfect her piecrust recipe.
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