by Fiona Grace
KILLED WITH A KISS
(A Lacey Doyle Cozy Mystery—Book Five)
FIONA GRACE
Fiona Grace
Debut author Fiona Grace is author of the LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY series, comprising nine books (and counting); of the TUSCAN VINEYARD COZY MYSTERY series, comprising three books (and counting); of the DUBIOUS WITCH COZY MYSTERY series, comprising three books (and counting); and of the BEACHFRONT BAKERY COZY MYSTERY series, comprising three books (and counting).
MURDER IN THE MANOR (A Lacey Doyle Cozy Mystery—Book 1) is available as a free download on Kobo!
Fiona would love to hear from you, so please visit www.fionagraceauthor.com to receive free ebooks, hear the latest news, and stay in touch.
Copyright © 2020 by Fiona Grace. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright Helen Hotson, used under license from Shutterstock.com.
BOOKS BY FIONA GRACE
LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY
MURDER IN THE MANOR (Book#1)
DEATH AND A DOG (Book #2)
CRIME IN THE CAFE (Book #3)
VEXED ON A VISIT (Book #4)
KILLED WITH A KISS (Book #5)
PERISHED BY A PAINTING (Book #6)
SILENCED BY A SPELL (Book #7)
FRAMED BY A FORGERY (Book #8)
CATASTROPHE IN A CLOISTER (Book #9)
TUSCAN VINEYARD COZY MYSTERY
AGED FOR MURDER (Book #1)
AGED FOR DEATH (Book #2)
AGED FOR MAYHEM (Book #3)
DUBIOUS WITCH COZY MYSTERY
SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF MURDER (Book #1)
SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF CRIME (Book #2)
SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF DEATH (Book #3)
BEACHFRONT BAKERY COZY MYSTERY
BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A KILLER CUPCAKE (Book #1)
BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A MURDEROUS MACARON (Book #2)
BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A PERILOUS CAKE POP (Book #3)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
Lacey hung the final picture frame on the wall in the low-ceilinged corridor of her cottage and stepped back to admire her handiwork.
“There!” she said, proud of her most recent DIY accomplishment.
Chester, her English shepherd, was sitting patiently beside her. He barked.
“Thanks,” Lacey said, smiling at him. “It does look great, doesn’t it?”
Lacey had recently invested in several antique paintings to decorate her home with. She’d been inspired by the home decor of an elderly antiques collector she’d met on vacation, whose beautifully decorated home made her realize just how woefully lacking in the personal touch her own cottage was. She’d also come into some money after selling a rare Roman-era gold coin (for an eye-wateringly high sum she was almost embarrassed to admit). After putting half the money in a college fund for her nephew, Frankie, paying off a chunk of the mortgage, and buying a thank-you gift for her friend Gina (a fancy hydroponic system for her greenhouse), she’d promptly set about splurging for her home. Her first purchase had been a hallway runner, a genuine antique Indian Amritsar in earthy red and terracotta colors that had once adorned the corridor of a New Delhi hotel. Then she’d set about sourcing some artwork for the walls—a nineteenth-century John William Gilroy oil painting of a fishing boat on the coast, a gorgeous depiction of azaleas by Francis B. Savage, and a Harry Williams landscape dated 1860. There was still a large empty space beside the big window on the second-floor landing, but Crag Cottage was finally starting to look like her own.
Lacey was surprised by just how different it looked from her old apartment in New York City. In her prior life as an interior design assistant, she’d adopted a minimalist, sleek, contemporary style, so it had come as something of a shock to her to realize her actual, personal, unfettered taste was this hodge-podge of chintz and patterns and bright paintings, in a higgledy-piggledy old cottage by the sea.
“I think that’s enough for one day,” Lacey said to Chester. “I can’t wait to show Tom.”
Her boyfriend was coming over later that evening for a well overdue date, and Lacey was very much looking forward to showing off all the changes she’d made to the cottage’s decor. The summer had been incredibly hectic for them both workwise. Tom’s patisserie and Lacey’s antiques store were both located on the busy High Street of Wilfordshire, England, where the footfall seemed to increase exponentially in tandem with the sunshine. Added to their busyness, their one chance at a getaway over a long weekend hadn’t exactly panned out the way she’d hoped. Though Studdleton Bay had offered Lacey all the charms of the British seaside she loved, her family tagging along, and a murder during their visit, had put a damper on anything romantic.
Chester trotted behind Lacey into the kitchen, his claws making a soft clickety-click on the tiles. Here, too, Lacey’s newfound enthusiasm to personalize her cottage was on glorious display. Inspired by the old appraiser’s crockery collection, Lacey had decided to begin collecting teacups. There was nothing more representative of her new English life than a cup of tea, after all, and Tom had a collection of teapots, so they matched. So far, she’d amassed a grand total of three cups: an iconic Wedgwood Renaissance style cup in cream with gold trimming and matching saucer, a fuchsia rose patterned Queen Anne English bone china cup, and an Irish Belleek Porcelain Tridacna textured shell cup in cream, yellow, and pale green. They were proudly displayed on her recently installed shelf—a beautiful relic made from an old train sleeper and exposed metal. She’d discovered it in a junkyard during one of her and Gina’s stock trips to Spitalfields Market in London.
Just then, there was a knock at the back door. Since the only person who had access to that part of Lacey’s property was Gina—her neighbor, employee, stand-in-mother, and best friend in Wilfordshire—that could only mean it was her.
Chester started barking with excited anticipation as Lacey went over to the barn-style back door and unlatched the top hatch. She swung it inward, revealing the beaming face of
Gina.
Gina’s cheeks were ruddy, her gray hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun. Beside her, her English shepherd, Boudica, sat obediently, panting in the summer heat.
“Just back from your walkies?” Lacey asked.
Chester immediately started yapping in response to the W-word.
“Oops, sorry, boy, I didn’t mean you,” Lacey told him, patting his head. Then to Boudica, she said, “I suppose you’ll be wanting some water?”
She unlatched the bottom part of the door, and Boudica came bounding into the kitchen like she owned the place. She promptly began slurping water from Chester’s bowl like she owned that, too. Chester paced over to her, his tail a-wagging, his nose a-sniffing, excited that his best friend had popped over, even if she was completely ignoring him and hogging the water bowl.
Lacey was excited to see her best friend, too. It hadn’t even crossed her mind yet to ask why Gina had dropped around unannounced. She was so used to spending most of her waking hours with the older woman it seemed completely natural for her to just suddenly be in her kitchen. Which was why she was surprised when Gina said, “Don’t you want to know why we’re here?”
“For coffee?” Lacey guessed.
Gina shook her head.
“Tea?”
Gina scrunched her face as if to express that Lacey was getting closer.
“Long Island Iced Teas?” Lacey said, suggesting the boozy cocktail the two friends had recently acquired a taste for.
“No! To give you this!” Gina grinned widely and removed her satchel from her back, placing it on the kitchen counter. Then she opened it up and pulled out a china teacup.
“A Le Creuset!” Lacey exclaimed, immediately recognizing the iconic design.
“Now, I know it’s not an antique,” Gina began, “but…”
“It’s in the discontinued Elysees Yellow color!” Lacey exclaimed.
Gina nodded. “Exactly.”
“Oh, Gina! I love it,” Lacey cooed, as she took the cup and held it up to the light, turning it around in her hands like a precious diamond. “Did you know Marilyn Monroe had a set of Elysees Yellow that Sotheby’s sold at auction for over twenty-five thousand dollars?”
Gina nodded. “Of course I do, darling. I work with you.”
Lacey blushed. Of all the things to be a geek about! This must be how her Scotland-obsessed nephew, Frankie, felt every time he saw a person with ginger hair.
“It will look gorgeous on my shelf,” Lacey told Gina, as she hurried over to add it to her collection. She was proud to now have four! “There. Doesn’t that look wonderful?”
“Beautiful,” Gina said. Then she removed a bottle of rum from her bag, followed by gin, tequila, and orange juice. “Now, did someone say Long Island Iced Teas?”
Lacey laughed. “Cocktails? I wish. But Tom is coming over today. I don’t think it would be polite to be sozzled before he gets here. Take a rain check?”
“Rain,” Gina replied, as she began reloading the liquors back into her bag of magic tricks. “I don’t see much sign of that these days.”
She was right. The late summer had been even more glorious than Lacey had expected for England. That old stereotype of it being a gray and rainy country had been well and truly dispelled.
Just then, Lacey heard her cell phone ping. Chester barked, as he always did, just in case she hadn’t heard it. She picked up her phone from the counter and saw a message had come in from Tom. Her heart did its usual dum-durum-dum at the sight of her beau’s name.
She opened the message and read.
Lacey, I’m not going to be able to make it tonight. Something’s come up at work. I’m so sorry! I’ll make it up to you, I promise. Love you. Tom.
“What?!” Lacey cried, her heart plummeting. “Tom’s cancelling on me!”
She looked over at Gina, aghast. Her friend simply removed the array of liquors from her satchel one by one, lining them up on the kitchen counter.
“Make mine a double,” Lacey muttered.
*
Gina topped up Lacey’s Yellow Elysees Le Creuset cup with more Long Island Iced Tea from the pitcher, then lifted her Wedgwood Renaissance cream and gold cup from its saucer to her lips. They were sitting at the kitchen table by the large bay windows, watching the sun setting over the cliffs.
“You never told me what happened about your Canterbury lead,” Gina said, looking solemnly over to Lacey. “Did you follow it up?”
At the mention of Canterbury, Lacey’s stomach dropped. She’d recently made some inroads tracing her long-lost father, Francis, or Frank to his friends. She’d been following clues ever since moving to Wilfordshire, the place she last remembered her father being happy on a vacation many moons ago. Following leads from a variety of contacts in the antiques world, she’d learned that her father had, at some point in his two-decade absence from her life, put down roots in the English city of Canterbury. When he’d done so, Lacey couldn’t be certain, though the clues seemed to suggest he’d been there recently, possibly still working in the world of antiquing, possibly even having opened a new store.
Of course, the logical thing for her to have done was travel to Canterbury, go to the first antiques store she found, and start asking around. But instead, she’d dragged her heels. There were other things she needed to do—sell the coin, run her business, decorate her home—but in her heart Lacey knew she was just making excuses. What if she went to Canterbury only to discover her father was no longer there? Or worse, what if she went and discovered he’d put down roots and had constructed a whole new comfortable life for himself without her in it?
“It was a dead end,” Lacey fibbed. The last thing she needed was cajoling from Gina. As much as she loved the woman, she wasn’t always the most patient person in the world, and Lacey needed more time to process it all.
Gina patted her hand. “I’m sorry, dear. Hopefully you’ll find a new lead soon.”
Lacey felt guilty for lying, but she forced a smile onto her lips. “Maybe it’s for the best. I have a lot of things on my mind at the moment.”
“Do you mean Tom?” Gina prompted.
Lacey let out a wistful sigh. “I just feel like ever since that first month, I’ve moved down his list of priorities,” she lamented woefully. She was a little tipsy, splashing some cocktail from her cup onto the kitchen tiles as she gesticulated. Chester and Boudica immediately got into a nudging match to be the one who got to lick it up.
“What about the vacation?” Gina asked. “I’m sure he wouldn’t have booked that if you weren’t his priority?”
“Don’t get me started on the vacation!” Lacey exclaimed. “You know our first romantic getaway was a complete disaster.”
“I know it turned out to be a disaster, but that obviously wasn’t Tom’s intention. All those clues he sent you, and the lighthouse inn he booked. Those aren’t the actions of someone who doesn’t think of you as a priority.”
Lacey slurped her drink. Gina was probably right, but she wanted to stew in her irritation for a little longer.
“And anyway,” Gina continued, “it’s not like he’s always your priority either.”
“Oh?” Lacey challenged. “What do you mean by that?”
“The Lodge,” Gina said, eyebrows raised. “The whole time you were working on its interior design you didn’t have time for anyone. Me included.”
“Please,” Lacey huffed. “Let’s not drag up that old argument again. I need your unflagging support right now, Gina, not a lecture.”
“I’m your friend,” Gina said, patting her hand with equal parts affection and insistence. “That means I tell you hard truths about yourself and keep you in check. And in this situation, I think you and Tom both have a lot going on, and prioritizing your businesses over one another is sensible. Your business is forever, after all.”
Lacey paused as Gina’s words sunk in. Then she folded her arms. “Are you implying that our relationship is temporary?”
“I’m just sayi
ng it’s still young and….” Gina stopped her sentence early.
“Go on,” Lacey said. “It’s young and…”
Gina hesitated. Then she blurted, “….and weren’t you one another’s rebound relationship? I mean he was a couple years ahead of you in divorce terms, but you’d only just signed on the dotted line of your divorce papers if I recall correctly.”
Lacey pursed her lips. “David and I separated months before the divorce was finalized. And I’m not a rebound for Tom, either. Taryn came between his ex-wife and me.” She huffed. “We’re very much in love.”
“You are?” Gina said, sounding surprised.
“Yes!” Lacey exclaimed. “We told each other after Dover.”
The switch in Gina was instant. “In that case, that changes everything! What’s the point of being in a relationship if you’re not one another’s priority?”
Her complete about-face made Lacey dizzy. Or maybe that was the Long Island Iced Tea.
“The point,” Lacey said, “is that this is hopefully a temporary blip. In a couple of weeks the tourist season ends and we should have more time to see one another.”
Gina sat back and sipped her cocktail, a smirk on her lips. “And that, my dear,” she said, “is called reverse psychology.”
Lacey, realizing what Gina had done, rolled her eyes. “Very good,” she said, dryly.
But she did appreciate it. Gina had managed to flip the conversation on its head, putting her in the position of defending her relationship.
Gina looked thoroughly proud of herself as she topped up their drinks. “So you just have one more week of summer to get through. And since it’s the busiest, it’ll be over in the blink of an eye and everything will go back to the way it was.”
“Why will it be the busiest?” Lacey asked.
“Because of the festival.”
“What festival?”
“The Summer Equestrian Festival!” Gina exclaimed. “Don’t tell me no one’s told you about it? It’s the highlight of Wilfordshire’s calendar.”
