Swan for the Money(8)

“Let’s go see the remaining candidates,” she said to Dad, and swept out the door, Dad trailing in her wake.

I picked up my untouched orange juice glass and then thought better of it and put it back down beside my equally neglected plate. I didn’t usually bother with breakfast anyway, unless someone else made it, and this morning my stomach was too tied up in knots over all the work ahead.

Unless, of course, my stomach woes were unrelated to the rose show. Could this be morning sickness? Could my tearfulness at the thought of Mrs. Winkleson’s missing dog be due to hormones rather than sentiment? Even if it wasn’t, I didn’t dare let any of the busybodies see me turning up my nose at breakfast. So I picked up my still-loaded plate, put the scrambled eggs and the bacon between two slices of toast, sandwich style, and wrapped them in a napkin to take with me.

“I’m running late,” I said. “See all of you later. I’m heading over to get the show barn set up.”

“May Caroline and I come along with you?” my grandfather asked. “She should be here any minute, and she’s as curious as I am about this whole rose show thing.”

I stared at him in disbelief. Caroline Willner was the owner of a nearby wildlife refuge and, like him, a passionate animal welfare activist. I doubted that either of them knew a tea rose from a floribunda, or cared. When the two of them joined forces, they were usually planning to tackle some egregious case of animal abuse or defend an endangered species. If they wanted to go to the rose show, I suspected an ulterior motive, but I couldn’t for the life of me think what it was. As far as I knew, there were no wild animals on Mrs. Winkleson’s estate, where we were holding the rose show. The farm animals seemed so sleek and glossy that I couldn’t imagine their welfare was in question. Could this have something to do with the dognapping? It seemed unlikely, since Dr. Blake disapproved of the existence of very small dogs, calling them overbred yuppie toys. And if he was investigating the dognapping, I could see infinite possibilities for conflict with Chief Burke, the head of law enforcement in Caerphilly town and county.

But I had embarked on a program of trying to build a better relationship with my eccentric and irascible grandfather. For that matter, building any kind of relationship with him. He’d only appeared in our lives a year ago, when spotting a picture of me in the newspaper had led him to suspect— correctly, according to the DNA tests— that Dad was his long-lost son. Integrating him into our family life hadn’t been easy for anyone. So if he wanted to see the rose show or use it as cover for some project of his own, maybe I should cooperate.

“You’re welcome to come along, but I’m going to be swamped with show preparations, and might not be able to drop everything to bring you back when you’re finished,” I said.

“Don’t worry,” Dr. Blake said. “Clarence said he’d be glad to come out and get us whenever we want.” Clarence Rutledge, the local veterinarian, was another of their animal-welfare allies. Yes, definitely a plot of some sort.

“That’s fine,” I said. “As soon as—”

Mother strode into the room with a dripping, half-furled umbrella in her hand. She looked upset. Very upset— what new disaster threatened the rose show?





Chapter 4





“Meg, dear,” Mother said. “We’ll be having the garden club fete at your house this evening.”

“Our house?” I exclaimed. “No way! What’s wrong with here?”

“It is presently unsuitable,” my mother said. The last time she’d called anything unsuitable with that same icy precision, she’d been talking about a distant cousin’s arrest for indecent exposure.

“What’s so unsuitable about it?” I asked, looking around in bewilderment. Everything was neat as a pin and shining with cleanliness— well, except for the spot where Mother’s umbrella had dripped rain, and that was an easy cleanup. If I were hosting a party, I wouldn’t hesitate to hold it here— well, as long as I could explain that all the ruffled gingham in the kitchen was Mother’s taste, not mine.

“You must have a head cold, dear,” Mother said. “Otherwise you couldn’t possibly miss that ghastly odor.”

I sniffed the air several times. Lavender potpourri. The bacon, eggs, and coffee we’d had for breakfast. And from outside, a faint whiff of manure.

Uh-oh. After over a year of living in close proximity to several farms, and half a year of llama ownership, I’d grown quite accustomed to the pungent smell of manure. Mother, on the other hand . . .