Read Online Sticks & Scones by Diane Mott Davidson - Free Book Online Page A

squinted at the back of the royal blue robe, which we could now see was embroidered with the words
“His Highness.”
His water-heating mission complete, Eliot flowed back to the island and cocked an aristocratic eyebrow at Arch and me. The robe swirled around his ankles.
    “I understand you two had a spot of trouble.”
    “We did,” I replied. I did
not
want to discuss the window anymore. “Thank you so much for taking us in. Now if we could just—”
    Eliot treated me to a dazzling grin. “You
are
ready to do the lunch today, aren’t you? We should probably chat.”
    My mind swam. The lunch would start in five hours. I was earlier than I’d be for a wedding reception, which required much more labor-intensive preparation. But he was my employer. And my host, I reminded myself. “I am ready,” I replied dutifully. “I brought the ingredients with me. You won’t mind if I use your kitchen?”
    “Certainly not,” Eliot replied. “But … I never heard from the table people. Was the rental company supposed to call me when the tables arrived?”
    My heart sank. The food might be ready, but if the notoriously unreliable folks at Party Rental had screwed up … “You don’t know if they showed up? At the chapel, I mean?”
    Eliot frowned. “I don’t know. Oh, God! A glitch in our first event!”
    “It’s not a glitch—” I said weakly.
    “
I
will call the table people,” Sukie offered, “as soon as we get Goldy and her son up to their suites and I can bandage my hands.”
    Eliot crossed his arms and stared at the ceiling, always the first sign that a client was going neurotic on me. Hepleaded, “I
beg
you, Goldy,
tell
me you remembered to bring all your recipes and notes with you.”
    Crap and double crap.
My recipes and notes. I’d brought my laptop, but not, I suddenly realized, the disk with all my Hyde Castle recipes and the research I’d done over the past two weeks on the history of English cuisine. “No. I’m sorry. I’ll go home for them the minute we get settled.” I added apologetically, “I mean, if that’s all right, and the cops allow me in. And,” I promised with a nod to Sukie, “I’ll check on the tables at the same time.”
    Eliot circumnavigated the kitchen island, tapping his left hand pensively on the wood. I could almost see the wheels in his head turning. At the Hyde Chapel luncheon, Eliot intended to pitch the audience on his plans to transform the castle into a conference center. If that didn’t go well, then the guests might think that he was just an academic who couldn’t make the move to real business … that he was a failure in this, too….
    “Let’s move you two up to your suites,” Sukie interjected, as she wiped her hands. “I have a
very
special room for you, Arch. Right next to your mom.”
    “We’re not sure how long we’ll be here,” I murmured.
    “We are practicing on you!” Sukie said cheerfully. “Our first guests in the refurbished rooms!”
    Relieved to be out of Eliot’s tranquilizer-needing presence, we followed Sukie down another marble hallway to carpeted steps leading to the castle’s second floor.
    The second story featured floors of darkly polished cherry wood. Matching English-club cherry paneling on the walls gave the place an elegantly homey look. Floor-to-ceiling leaded-glass windows lined the side of the hallway overlooking the courtyard. I peeked out at the garden. In the early-morning light, the iced pattern of plants had taken on a pearly cast.
    We skirted a sawhorse and a splotch of dried beigepaint on the floor. Sukie murmured something about
Eliot and one of his new messes.
Next we passed a closed door and rounded a corner, where Sukie opened another door. This, she announced as she switched on more electrified brass wall sconces, would be Arch’s room. Awed, Arch walked into the palatial space, where a black-and-gray Aubusson rug set the decor for a mahogany four-poster bed and silver-tasseled spread, black wingback