Tea & Treachery. Vicki Delany

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      Chapter 3

      Breakfast finishes at nine. The last guests came down at quarter to; I plated the final two meals, and Edna carried them into the dining room.

      Rose had prepared a proper English breakfast—called the full English—for my late grandfather every Saturday, Sunday, and holiday of their married life. A traditional full English has everything except the baked beans fried in a couple of inches of bacon fat: eggs, bacon, sausage, tomatoes, mushrooms, even the bread.

      With a nod to modern ideas of healthy eating, I prepared each guest their choice of eggs, fried the sausages and lightly sautéed the tomatoes and mushrooms in olive oil, and toasted the bread in the toaster. No one ever complained they wanted more fat.

      Except for Rose.

      But Rose never eats breakfast, anyway, so I ignore her. She pretends not to notice.

      I checked the clock on the wall and was pleased to see that breakfast had ended early enough to allow me time for a short break before I had to walk up the driveway to the tearoom.

      I have the world’s best commute. I live in a cottage on the grounds of the B & B, close to the bluffs overlooking Cape Cod Bay, between Rose’s house and our nearest neighbor, the property to the south, the one I’d been telling Bernie about yesterday. My cottage would have been a guesthouse or perhaps a residence for the family of a senior member of staff back in the day. It’s tiny—one bedroom and a small living room—but I’ve lived in apartments in Manhattan, and I can handle tiny. The kitchen isn’t much more than a sink, a microwave, and a two-burner hot plate, but as I make my living cooking for other people seven days a week, I don’t cook much for myself.

      The cottage’s best feature is the wide porch that runs across the front of the building, overlooking the bluffs and the waters of the bay crashing onto the rocks below. I hadn’t brought much with me from New York, and once I arrived, I’d bought the best outdoor furniture I could afford. White wicker chairs, all-weather blue-and-white-striped cushions, a small iron bistro table painted turquoise with two matching chairs. I got several large terra-cotta pots and filled them with an abundance of colorful annuals and tall grasses. A small enclosed yard is off the side door, where Éclair can be let out without needing supervision. She was well trained and generally good around the guests, but I didn’t let her run free on the property without me.

      I poured myself one more cup of coffee, grabbed a muffin, hung my apron on the hook by the door, and shouted good-bye to Edna. I slipped out the kitchen door of the main house and climbed the three steps up to the ground level. It was a day full of promise: the sun was a huge yellow circle in a pale blue sky, and the lightest breath of wind carried the scent of salt off the ocean.

      I planned to go home and finish my coffee and eat my muffin on the porch while watching the activity on the bay. The tearoom opens at eleven, and if I get enough prep done the night before, I look forward to a precious half hour of peace and quiet before leaping back into the fray of a busy kitchen: rolling dough, stirring batter, slicing fruit, icing cakes, making sandwiches. As I got closer to home, I heard shouting. Rose’s tiny figure stood at the edge of her property, not far from the bluffs, her long multicolored skirt blowing in the wind as she waved her cane in the faces of the three men facing her.

      Oh dear.

      Instead of going inside, I broke into a run and headed for the neighboring property. Happy for the exercise, Éclair ran on ahead. Two of the men arguing with Rose were the ones who’d come into the tearoom yesterday, but I didn’t recognize the third. He was older than them, well dressed in the Tommy Bahama–type clothes wealthy New Englanders wore on vacation. He had a deep tan, his thick gray hair was expensively cut, and his nails manicured.

      “Please calm down, madam,” he was saying as I ran up.

      I could have told him that was a mistake.

      “Calm down!” Rose waved her cane with renewed vigor. “Don’t you give me that cheek, you patronizing little twit. I’ll calm down when you’ve taken your ridiculous plan and driven away.”

      Éclair sniffed at the men’s pant legs. They ignored her.

      Three vehicles were parked in the weed-choked driveway at the side of the neighbor’s house: a gleaming blue Audi, a sleek Lexus SUV, and a black Toyota Camry. The house itself could be used for a Halloween display. The windows were covered in plywood; the Victorian gingerbread trim ripped and sagging, the paint coming off in strips; some of the gutters threatened to crash to the ground; and weeds invaded the cracks in the porch and foundations of the house. A privet hedge lined most of the property line, keeping the house out of view of many of the rooms in Victoria-on-Sea. The hedge was neat and trimmed on one side, a ragged mess on the other.

      The hedge ended close to where the land dropped to the beach as well as at the point farther toward the road where the two driveways almost touched. Grass as lush and well cut as could be seen on a golf course was on our side; the weeds and beach grasses on the other were as high as the men’s knees.

      The weeds reached my grandmother’s thighs. Meaning she was on their property.

      “What seems to be the problem here?” I asked, trying to keep my tone light and friendly.

      “Allow me to handle this, Lily,” my grandmother said.

      One of the men held his hand out to me. “You were in the tearoom yesterday. Sorry we didn’t get a chance to chat. I’m Jack Ford.”

      I took his hand in mine. His grip was strong, too strong, as though he was engaged in some sort of dominance display. He held my hand a fraction of a second too long as he stared into my face in a way that made me feel uncomfortable. I pulled my hand free. “Lily Roberts. This lady is my grandmother. What’s going on here?”

      “You need to take your grandmother home,” the third man said.

      Rose drew herself up to her full five feet, two inches. “I am not a dog nor a small child, to be taken home so the adults can talk in peace.”

      “Peace,” the third man said, “would be nice.”

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