Death at an English Wedding

Book 7: Murder on Location

by Sara Rosett

Genres: Cozy Mystery; Female Sleuths; Amateur Sleuth; International Crime & Mystery; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

Tying the knot was never so deadly . . .

Wedding bells are ringing for location scouts Kate and Alex in a ceremony at one of England's most elegant stately homes, but when a guest is murdered and suspicion falls on those closest to Kate, she and Alex must put their plans for happily ever after on hold. If they can't figure out who sabotaged their big day, their honeymoon may be over before it begins.

Death at an English Wedding is the seventh installment in the popular Murder on Location series from USA Today bestselling author Sara Rosett, which features an English village and quirky characters along with dashes of humor and romance.

Release date: June 30, 2017

Publisher: McGuffin Ink

Print pages: 228

Sample

CHAPTER 1

 

 

THREE WEEKS UNTIL THE WEDDING

 

“Seating charts are enough to drive someone to murder.” I stared at the large sheet of poster board covered in sticky notes that rested on my kitchen table. I flicked another sticky note against my fingertips. I’d written the name of the latest RSVP, “Toby Wintergarden and guest” on it, but I had no idea where to put it on the circles that covered the poster board, which represented the tables for our wedding guests.

 

“Then I’ll set this coffee down here,” Alex said, “and back away quietly.” He took a few steps backward, but he was smiling so I knew he wasn’t serious about escaping.

 

I seized the thick mug with my free hand and inhaled the rich aroma of dark roast. “Exactly what I needed.” I reached out my other hand—sticky note and all—toward Alex. “Don’t leave. I need you to help me figure out where to put Toby.” I waved the sticky note on my finger.

 

Alex pointed to an open space. “Why not here, beside Freya?” “Because that table is documentary people,” I said, referring to the crew from the Jane Austen documentary that Alex and I had worked for during the last year. “Toby won’t know any of them. Shouldn’t we put him at a table with at least one familiar face?”

 

Alex bent his dark head over the poster board. “Sure, that sounds good. What are the other options?”

 

“We don’t have any other options. That’s why I’m so frustrat‐ ed.” I took a long sip of the coffee then frowned at the geomet‐ rical designs on the paper. “The rest of the tables are packed. We have a few open seats, but it’s like a giant jigsaw puzzle, except there isn’t an image on the box to look at. I can’t move Toby without moving his ‘plus one’ as well, which means that he can’t go anywhere else.”

 

“Then let’s ask Malcolm to add another table and reshuffle.”

 

I twisted around in the chair and looked at him. “We can’t do that.”

 

“Why not?” “We just can’t.”

 

Alex pulled out a chair and sat beside me. “Kate, this isn’t like you. What’s going on?”

 

I tapped my mug, considering how to word my reservations. “I don’t want to ask for another table.”

 

Alex pointed his coffee toward the schematic of tables and chairs. “Think of it as a logistical problem on a shoot. You’ve sorted out things much worse than this. Remember the Garden Shed Debacle?” Alex asked, shifting into a falsetto British accent to imitate Elise, our producer on the project. She always referred to the incident with a shudder and somehow managed to convey capital letters when she spoke about it. He returned to his normal voice as he said, “When that storm blew up out of nowhere you had to move something like half the cast and crew into that little shed. You got it done, and we were able to get what we needed on film that day.”

 

Alex was right. I could shift and sort people, lights, and gener‐ ators, no problem. I could wheedle, plead, and threaten as needed

 

when it came to pulling off a location shoot. “But that’s work. The wedding venue is a gift. I don’t want to ask for more.”

 

Lady Stone and her husband, Sir Harold, had offered to host our wedding at their stately home, Parkview Hall. The country manor was open to the public for tours during the summer and also hosted various weddings and events throughout the year. Adding our wedding to the schedule free of charge and covering the cost of the venue was their gift to us.

 

It seemed a perfect solution to the question of where we would get married. Alex and I had spent quite a bit of our time during the last year filming at Parkview in our role as location scouts. We’d lived in the nearby village of Nether Woodsmoor in two cottages. Getting married at Parkview meant our local friends could come to the wedding, and most of our extended family were thrilled with the idea of traveling to England for a wedding at a beautiful country manor.

 

“Beatrice won’t mind an extra table,” Alex said, referring to Lady Stone by her first name. She didn’t stand on ceremony and preferred to be addressed informally.

 

“Malcolm will. He won’t say anything, but he won’t have to.” Malcolm Stewart had a way of expressing disapproval without saying a word. It was something to do with a long silence combined with a slight pinching of his lips as if he was working hard to keep his words inside. Malcolm was the head of event coordination at Parkview. I knew Beatrice thought she was doing us a favor by assigning him to personally handle our wedding, but I would much rather have worked with Parkview’s more junior publicity assistant, Ella Tewkesbury. I’d met Ella when I stayed at Parkview during one of their country house weekend parties and gotten to know her well.

 

Alex took a sip of his own coffee then angled the seating schematic so he could see it better. “Okay, what can we do?” He stared at the paper for a few moments then waved his hand over the diagram. “Take off all of these sticky notes and start over?”

 

“No! That would be ludicrous.”

 

My voice must have been a little sharp because he gave me a concerned look. “Kidding. I was kidding.”

 

“I know it’s crazy to get so worked up about these little details,” I said. “But you try dealing with them for days on end and also having to work with a finicky person like Malcolm and see how you react.”

 

Alex hitched his chair closer. I watched his dark chocolate-colored eyes as his gaze tracked back and forth across the poster board. Finally, he leaned back. “I’ve got it. Let’s get rid of assigned seating.”

 

For a second I couldn’t actually respond. I finally said, “We can’t do that. That’s worse than starting over.”

 

“Why can’t we do it?”

 

“That’s not how it’s done here.” The note with Toby’s name was still stuck to my fingers, and I used the heel of that hand to rub my forehead. “I’m starting to sound like Malcolm. That’s his favorite thing to say—that’s not how it’s done—and in that exact condescending tone. ‘This is England,’” I said, hitting on his stuffy tone. “‘This is an English wedding. Certain traditions must be observed.’ That’s an exact quote from Malcolm, by the way. He’d be perfect as a snooty butler in a period drama.”

 

“I agree that he may have missed his calling, but that’s not the point. What Malcolm thinks is irrelevant. English tradition—as great as it is—shouldn’t be the focal point of our wedding. We’re American. No one expects us to follow tradition. Why can’t we have open seating if we want? There’s not some sort of rule book written in stone.”

 

“I do believe there is—Parkview’s event contract. And Malcolm is quite adept at quoting from it, but…” I pressed my fingertips against the adhesive of the sticky note then pulled them away. “I could probably convince him to have open seating for everyone else during the reception as long as we kept a seating plan for the head table.” I stared at the chart for a moment. Perhaps I was letting Malcolm’s expectations overrule what would work for Alex and me. The absence of place cards shouldn’t be this big of a deal. “Yes, let’s do it. You’re right. I’ve been letting Malcolm push me around, and I shouldn’t do that.”

 

I pressed the sticky note with Toby’s name into the white margin of the diagram, pressing down with a little more force than was necessary. “Okay, the seating is set. Now I have to convince Malcolm that it won’t cause the stars to come out of alignment.”

 

“I’ll take care of that,” Alex said.

 

“Great. I’ll write you a note.” I grabbed a pen. When I’d first met Alex, I’d been surprised to find the dashboard in his car covered in sticky notes. I’d never understood how he could use the random bits of paper to keep track of his appointments, but I learned that the system worked for him.

 

“Don’t need one,” he said. “You’re sure?”

 

“Yes, I’ll go by there tomorrow on my way to photograph Dale Court.”

 

I dropped the pen and turned to him. “They’re interested?” I asked, immediately diverted from wedding arrangements.

 

“Yep, asked if they could have my first available opening.”

 

I pushed back my chair so that I could face Alex. “That’s wonderful. You know what this means, don’t you? We’re in double digits.” Alex and I had opened an online directory of stately homes for location scouts. With Dale Court, Elegant Locations would have ten country homes with full profiles of each location: multiple photos of each interior room with measurements as well as extensive photos of the grounds. Even outbuildings like stables and gatehouses were included. Our goal over the summer had been to convince owners to list their prop‐ erties with us. Eventually we would have a full membership site, a one-stop shop for location scouts searching for everything from elegant drawing rooms perfect for Victorian dinner parties to gargoyle-encrusted manors on lonely moors ready for a Heathcliff.

 

“I think a celebration is in order.” Alex held out his hand, pulled me to my feet, and dropped a quick kiss on my mouth. “Let’s take a break.”

 

I looked back to the kitchen table. Beyond the poster board, my laptop glowed with a pre-wedding checklist. I was on item three of twenty-seven. “I have so much to do. Weddings don’t plan themselves, you know.”

 

He leaned back, but still held me in his arms. “I could plan this wedding in a few minutes. A quick trip to the Register Office, and we’re done.”

 

I shook my head. “Tempting, but we can’t.” “I’d even do flowers,” he added quickly.

 

“I think we’ve passed the point of no return. Half the guests are flying in from out of the country. They’d be pretty disap‐ pointed to arrive and discover the wedding already took place.”

 

“We could show them jolly old England. That should be enough, right?”

 

“I don’t think that would cut it, especially with my mom.” “Surely she has a few long-lost British cousins. She can look them up.”

 

Alex and I had flown back to California and visited my mom after we announced our engagement to our family and friends. “He is good looking,” my mom had whispered on the way to the car at the airport, “but since you seem so determined to snag a man in England, you should have at least aimed for one with a title.” Alex had pretended not to hear her and worked to charm her with his good manners. He didn’t interrupt her convoluted stories about multitudes of unknown people distantly related to us that she had discovered as she researched her family tree. And Alex’s ability to carry two suitcases at once up the stairs to her condo—“so manly and strong” Mom had said—had impressed her so much that she had him rearranging her living room furniture. Alex’s endless patience as he moved the couch and chairs back and forth had won her over completely.

 

“Genealogy will take a back seat to the wedding,” I said. “She’s been planning it since the day I was born.”

 

“Okay, I know when to cut my losses,” Alex said. “Manor house wedding it is, then.” He looked over my shoulder and checked his watch. “You can take a half-hour break, can’t you? Get away from all these charts and lists. We can go by Parkview. I’ll tell Malcolm about the seating change—he wants to talk to me about the ushers anyway—then we can take a drive in the coun‐ tryside.”

 

I had been hunched over the table, focused on wedding minu‐ tiae for hours. “Getting outside sounds wonderful.” I left the wedding preparations spread across the table, and in a few minutes, we were cruising along a country lane. Tall hedgerows on either side of the road were dotted with the red berries, rose hips, and blackberries of autumn. Alex had lowered the top on his convertible MG Midget, and the brilliant September sun beat down on us while the wind whipped my hair over my eyes. I’d been surprised to see only one sticky note on the dash. It was held on with an extra layer of tape so that the wind didn’t whisk it away. It fluttered back and forth in the breeze with the words “Parkview” and the date of our wedding, three weeks away.

 

At the gates of Parkview, we paused to speak to the man at the ticket kiosk, who waved us through when Alex said we were meeting Malcolm Stewart about wedding plans. We zipped down the oak-lined drive. The trees on either side were already showing hints of topaz in their leaves. Parkview, built with the local honey-colored limestone, came into view with its elegant architecture. A divided staircase rose to a portico with Corinthian columns. Two wings stretched out behind the central block of the house, creating a U-shape.

 

Alex parked in the area reserved for tourists, which was located behind a tall hedge that concealed the rows of cars and tour buses from the stately home. Parkview was on their summer season and was open every day. In a few weeks the schedule would shift to weekends only for the winter season.

 

The tourists followed the signs to the entrance, but Alex and I took a gravel path that ran along the west wing of the house. Beatrice and her staff worked in a suite of rooms at the end of the west wing. The estate office area was more low-key than the rest of the house—no heirloom furniture or priceless art—but it was still imposing. A chandelier glittered in the middle of the ornate plaster of the ceiling, and drapes, heavy with fringe, framed tall windows.

 

The oversized panel door at the end of the room, Beatrice’s private office, was dark, which I knew meant she was probably overseeing some activity at Parkview or participating in a local village event. If she’d been here, Beatrice would have taken a few moments to speak to us. Desks with computers ranged around the room, but they were empty, except for one at the far end of the room, where Ella sat. Most of the guides and managers were out, escorting tourists and supervising the day-to-day activities of the house.

 

Ella was turned away from us, but I recognized her reddish-brown hair and slim figure. In her early twenties, Ella had been a waitress at one of the local pubs, then she’d taken a job working at Parkview as a maid during one of their recreations of a Regency country house party, which was where I’d gotten to know her. It wasn’t long after that weekend that Beatrice had hired her to work as a publicity assistant, along with the also newly hired publicity director, Malcolm. When I’d met her, Ella was set on getting out of Nether Woodsmoor and moving to London, but then she happily settled into the job at Parkview. I thought part of her new contentment with village life had to do with the fact that she enjoyed her job, but a certain young police constable was also part of the equation. Lucas Tally worked in the neighboring town of Hedgely, and I’d seen Ella and Lucas together several times in the pub and around the village.

 

Ella closed a file drawer and turned. I said hello, but a mechanical roar came from the back of the room, drowning out my words. I hadn’t seen Malcolm in the little alcove, which contained a few cabinets, a small refrigerator, a hotplate, and a blender beside the sink. After a slight break in the noise, Malcolm, in his signature tweed jacket, pushed a button on the blender a few more times, causing the noise to pulse through the room. The racket continued for almost a minute. Ella rolled   her eyes.

 

I settled for waving at Ella as I made my way through the desks toward her. When I reached her, Malcolm switched off the blender, but my ears rang with an echo of the noise in the sudden quiet.

 

I said hello, and Malcolm swiveled his upper torso around to us. “Oh, I didn’t hear you come in, Kate. And, Alex, too.”

 

Malcolm’s sweater vest of the day had a green-and-gray pattern. He always wore a sweater vest under his tweed jacket. He was as tall as Alex, who was over six feet. But while Alex was lean with wide shoulders that narrowed to a flat stomach, Malcolm’s paunch pressed against the wool of the vest. I wondered if the layers were because he was cold. Stately homes were not known for their toasty rooms. It was only September and the office had a distinct coolness to it. Ella informed me that if they had a big event Malcolm added a bow tie. I’d never seen him wear one, though, so she might be pulling my leg.

 

Alex said to Malcolm, “I got your message about the ushers. If you have a few minutes, we can talk about it and another issue that’s come up.”

 

“Of course. Always a delight to discuss the wedding with you.” Malcolm’s tone conveyed the opposite of his words, but he nodded, causing his fringe of pale brown hair that frizzed out around his ears to tremble. His hair was receding from his forehead, and in the time I’d known him, I’d noticed that as his hair‐ line marched backward, he let the fringe of hair that remained grow longer. “Just let me finish this.” He disconnected the blender and poured a slushy lime-green substance into a tall plastic glass. Malcolm raised the blender and looked back to us. “Would you like a smoothie? I have more than enough for everyone to have a sample. It’s my own blend of kale, sweet grass, spinach, and fruit.”

 

Behind his back, Ella mouthed the word, “No,” with an emphatic shake of her head.

 

I stifled a grin. “No, thank you. Kind of you to offer.” Malcolm’s formal way of speaking always seemed to rub off on me. With his fussy adherence to tradition and his prim manners, I felt like I was dealing with someone from another era and was happy that Alex was along today and had promised to take the lead on the conversation about the seating chart.

 

“I make it a practice to never drink anything green,” Alex said, and Malcolm inclined his head, silent disapproval in every line of his body. Malcolm plunged a straw into his concoction then gestured for Alex to take a seat at his desk. I dropped into a seat beside Ella’s desk.

 

“So how’s everything, wedding-wise?” she asked, her attention focused on a printout.

 

“Coming along. Why are you frowning so fiercely at that stack of papers?”

 

She quickly closed a file. A neon pink sticker with the words Flower Arrangement Options was stuck to the front. “Is it that noticeable?” Her gaze darted around the room’s empty desks then settled briefly on Malcolm.

 

“Well, yes,” I said. “You don’t usually look so stressed. Is every‐ thing okay?” Ella had a cheerful personality, especially when it came to her work at Parkview.

 

“Everything is fine with the wedding.” She scanned the room again, and for a second I thought she looked almost afraid, but then she smiled brightly. “It’s nothing about that.”

 

“Can’t talk about it now?”

 

“No.” Her phone buzzed with a message. “I have to go to the entry hall. The guests for Greenways Cottage have arrived, and I’m covering for Carl.” She locked the file in a drawer.

 

“How is Carl?” I asked. Carl Buxby handled all  of Parkview Hall’s lodging from the guest rooms in the house, which were available to book for overnight stays, to the holiday cottages that were scattered around the estate grounds and the village. “I heard he’s in the hospital.” Louise, my friend and the owner of  the  White Duck  pub, heard  all the gossip around Nether Woodsmoor. She said Carl had passed out last week. The staff at Parkview couldn’t  bring him around, so they called for an ambulance. I looked toward Carl’s desk, which was covered in its usual mass of binders, printed pages, and magazines. An assortment of pens, paper‐ clips, and “while you were out” messages were scattered across the stacks. It surprised me that Carl, who always looked immaculate in person, thrived in such a disorganized work area.

 

“Doing much better now that they’ve sorted out that he fainted because he has an irregular heartbeat.”

 

“That sounds bad. He seems so healthy. It’s hard to imagine him in the hospital.” As far as I could tell, Carl spent all his leisure time on the numerous bike trails that wound through the coun‐ tryside. I often caught sight of him on the path behind my cottage, his aerodynamic helmet nearly touching his forearms as he hunched over his bike. Village gossip was that he was in his mid-forties and had moved to Nether Woodsmoor after a divorce.

 

“Apparently he’ll be fine as long as he takes his medicine. He should be back at work in a few days.” She closed a window on her computer then pushed in her desk  chair.  “I’m  sorry  I  can’t stay.”

 

“No, go. Do what you need to.” I heard the words “. . .that will never do,” from Malcolm. I said to Ella, “Time for me to weigh in with Malcolm, I think.”

 

I shifted to sit in the other open chair in front of Malcolm’s desk as Alex said, “I don’t see why there’s an issue. It’s what Kate and I want.”

 

“It’s not appropriate.” Malcolm pinched his lips. Since the glass with his green smoothie filled to the brim still sat on the corner of his desk, I assumed the subject of open seating caused his sour look, not his drink. He steepled his fingers and leaned toward us, his tone similar to what one would use with school‐ children who don’t understand the value of learning their times tables. “You see, one of the reasons people choose to be married at Parkview is the sense of tradition and pageantry. A certain formality is expected.” He reached for the handle of a file drawer. “In fact, according to the event contract—”

 

“We don’t need to see the contract. I’m sure it is one of the things covered, but I’m equally sure that Beatrice would not mind if we did things a little differently. Blame it on us being Ameri‐ cans, if you like.” Alex smiled as he said the last words, but his tone held an unyielding quality—a rare thing for Alex—that caused me to look at him out of the corner of my eye.

 

Malcolm’s lips squeezed tighter. I imagined Alex’s use of “Beatrice” instead of her formal title “Lady Stone” is what deep‐ ened the disapproving look on his face. I’d only heard him refer to Beatrice by her title, even though she asked everyone to call her by her first name. “I don’t think Lady Stone would approve of that sort of change.”

 

Alex’s smile became fixed, and I realized he was angry, a state so rare with him that I jumped in quickly. “Really? You don’t think she’d like it? Because I think she wouldn’t care at all. In fact, let’s give her a call.” I took out my cell phone. Her number was in my contact list because when we had filmed at Parkview I had to call her frequently. I didn’t feel the least bit intimidated about dialing her number.