“Expedited,” one of the aides piped up, earning himself a sharp glare from Councilor Muir.
Lacey frowned. It was highly unusual for a councilor to be hand delivering business licenses. When Lacey had applied for her own, it had involved lots of online form-filling and sitting around in dingy council buildings waiting for the number on her ticket to be called, as if she were in the queue at the butcher’s. She wondered why Suzy would get the red carpet treatment. And why were they already on first-name terms?
“Do you two know each other from somewhere?” Lacey asked, venturing to find out what the deal was here.
Suzy chuckled. “Joan’s my aunt.”
“Ah,” Lacey said.
That made perfect sense. Councilor Muir had approved the rush job of switching a retirement home into a B&B because she had a family connection to Suzy. Carol had been right. There was a lot of nepotism at play here.
“Ex-aunt,” Councilor Muir corrected, defensively. “And not by blood. Suzy is my ex-husband’s niece. And that didn’t play any part in the decision to grant the license. It’s just about high time Wilfordshire got a decent-sized B&B. Tourism is going up year on year, and our current facilities just can’t keep up with demand.”
It was evident to Lacey that Councilor Muir was attempting to divert the conversation away from the obvious preferential treatment Suzy had been given. But it really wasn’t necessary. It didn’t change Lacey’s opinion of Suzy, since it wasn’t her fault she was well connected, and as far as Lacey was concerned, it showed good character that she was using her connections to do something rather than just rest on her laurels. If anyone came off looking bad, it was Councilor Muir herself, and not because she’d used her influential position to grant a huge favor to her ex-husband’s niece, but because she was being so shady and evasive about it. No wonder the Carols of Wilfordshire were so opposed to the eastern regeneration project!
The crimson-clad councilor was still spouting her excuses. “The town actually has enough demand for two B&Bs this size, especially when you factor in all the extra trade we’ll get from luring back the old shooting club.”
Lacey was immediately interested. She thought of Xavier’s note and his suggestion that her father came to Wilfordshire in the summers to shoot.
“The old shooting club?” she asked.
“Yes, the one up at Penrose Manor,” Councilor Muir explained, gesturing with her arm in a general westerly direction where the estate was nestled on the other side of the valley.
“There was a forest there once, right?” Suzy chimed in. “I heard Henry the Eighth had the hunting lodge built so he could come and hunt wild boar!”
“That’s right,” the councilor said with a businesslike nod. “But the forest was eventually cut down. As with many English estates, the nobles took up shooting game birds once guns were invented, and that turned into the industry as we know it now. These days breeders rear mallards, partridges, and pheasants just for shooting.”
“What about rabbits and pigeons?” Lacey offered, recalling the contents of Xavier’s letter.
“They can be shot all year round,” Councilor Muir confirmed. “The Wilfordshire shooting club taught amateurs during the off-season, and they practiced on pigeons and rabbits. Not exactly glamorous, but you have to start somewhere.”
Lacey let the information percolate in her mind. It corresponded so accurately with what Xavier had said in the letter, she couldn’t help but believe that her father really had come to Wilfordshire in the summers to shoot at Penrose Manor. Coupling that with the photo she’d seen of her father and Iris Archer, the former owner, and it seemed even more likely.
Was that why the gun had felt so familiar to her, because somewhere in the back of her mind she had memories she’d not been able to access?
“I never knew there was a hunting lodge at Penrose Manor,” she said. “When did the shooting club stop operating there?”
“About a decade ago,” Councilor Muir replied. She had a weary tone, like she would prefer not to be having this conversation. “They ceased operations because of …” She paused, evidently searching for the most diplomatic words. “…Financial mismanagement.”
Lacey couldn’t be certain, but there seemed to be an air of melancholy about the councilor, as if she had some kind of personal connection to the shooting club and its demise a decade earlier. Lacey wanted to ask more, to find out whether there may be more clues that led back to her father, but the conversation had swiftly moved on, with Suzy’s enthusiastic, “So you see how much untapped potential there is here, and why you should totally get on board with the project!”
The councilor nodded in her stiff manner. “If you’re being given a chance to get involved in the easterly regeneration of Wilfordshire,” she said, “I would most certainly take it. The B&B is just the beginning. Mayor Fletcher has some very big plans for this town. If you make a name for yourself, you’ll be at the top of everyone’s contacts when it comes to future projects.”
Lacey certainly was becoming more and more intrigued by the job offer. Not just for the huge potential to get her name out there—potentially earning a handsome profit while she was at it—but because of how connected it made her feel with Wilfordshire, and her father in turn. She wondered whether her father had seen all the potential in the town back in the days when he’d visited. Perhaps that was why he’d come here in the first place, because he saw a business opportunity and wanted to invest?
Or because he wanted to run away from his marriage and family and settle down in a place more suited to him, Lacey thought.
“Now, I must be going,” Councilwoman Muir said, beckoning her entourage. They leapt immediately to attention. “I have a surgery to attend. The locals are furious about the proposed pedestrianization of the high street. Honestly, you’d think I’d approved to have lava poured into the roads the way they’re acting.” She gave Suzy a quick, efficient nod, then left.
As soon as she was gone, Suzy turned to Lacey with an eager look on her face, the manila envelope containing her business license now clutched in her hands.
“So?” she asked. “What do you say? Want in?”
“Can I have a bit of time to make up my mind?”
“Sure.” Suzy chuckled. “We open in a week. Take up as much of that time deciding as you want.”
*
Lacey opened the door to the antiques store. Boudica and Chester came bounding over to greet her. She ruffled their heads in turn.
“You’re back,” Gina said, looking up from the gardening magazine she’d been perusing. “How did it go with wunderkind?”
“It was interesting,” Lacey said. She came over and took a stool at the desk beside her. “It’s an amazing place, with a lot of potential. And the councilwoman seems to think so as well.”
Gina folded her gardening magazine closed. “Councilwoman?”
“Yes, Councilor Muir,” Lacey told her. “She’s Suzy’s aunt. This whole B&B thing seems to be part of Mayor Fletcher’s plans to regenerate east Wilfordshire. Not that that’s Suzy’s fault, per se, but it does make her seem even more out of her depth. Who knows what her actual business plan looks like, or if it was just approved because of her aunt.”
Gina tapped her chin. “Hmm. So Carol was onto something after all.”
“In a way.”
“But putting all that political stuff aside,” Gina added, swiveling in her stool so she was directly facing Lacey. “What would it mean for you to get involved?”
Lacey paused. A small flicker of excitement ignited in her stomach. If she put all the nagging doubts to one side, it really was an amazing opportunity.
“It means I’d have responsibility for furnishing a four-hundred-square-meter property with period pieces. For an antique lover, that’s basically heaven.”
“And the money?” Gina asked.
“Oh, it’d bring in a lot of dollars. We’re talking thousands of pounds of inventory. A whole dining room. A foyer. A bar. Six bedrooms and a bridal suite. It’s a massive undertaking. Add to that the potential for more work in the future by getting my name out there, and the fact that having a B&B for special occasions like the air show will have a positive knock-on effect for the rest of the town…”
Gina was starting to smile. “It sounds to me like you’ve talked yourself into it.”
Lacey gave a noncommittal nod. “Maybe I have. But wouldn’t it be crazy? I mean, she wants it done in time for the air show. Which is on Saturday!”
“And since when did working hard scare you?” Gina asked sassily. She gestured with her arms to the antiques store. “Look at everything you’ve already achieved from working hard.”
Lacey was too modest to take the compliment, but the sentiment she could get behind. She’d become a risk taker. If she’d not quit her job in New York City and gotten the first flight to England, she’d never have built this wonderful life for herself. She’d be a miserable divorcee, still fetching coffee for Saskia like an intern rather than an assistant with fourteen years’ experience. Taking on this work with Suzy was the sort of thing Saskia would fight tooth and manicured nail for. That alone was reason to do it.
“I think you know what to do,” Gina said. She picked up the telephone and plonked it in front of Lacey. “Give Suzy a call and tell her you’re on board.”
Lacey stared at the phone, biting her bottom lip. “But what about all the costs?” she said. “That much inventory in such a short space of time will be a massive outgoing all at once. Way more than I’d ever usually spend on stock.”
“You’ll get paid for it, though?” Gina said.
“Only after the B&B starts making money.”
“Which is a given, isn’t it? So you’re set to profit in time.” Gina nudged the telephone toward Lacey. “I think you’re looking for excuses.”
She was right, but that didn’t stop Lacey from finding another.
“What about you?” she said. “You’d have to mind the shop for a whole week? I won’t have time to do anything else.”
“I can run the store perfectly fine on my own,” Gina assured her.
“And Chester? He’d have to stay with you while I worked. Suzy doesn’t like dogs.”
“I think I can handle Chester, don’t you?”
Lacey looked from Gina to the phone and back again. Then, in one quick movement, she reached out, snatched up the receiver, and punched Suzy’s number in.
“Suzy?” she said the second the call was answered. “I’ve made my decision. I’m in.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“Oh, Percy, they’re wonderful!” Lacey gushed down the phone, looking at the opened box filled with silver forks she’d just received from her favorite Mayfair antiques dealer. She was in the cramped back office at the store, surrounded by binders full of checklists, sketches, mood boards, detail drawings, and a whole bunch of coffee-stained mugs.
“They’re all bundled into complete sets,” Percy explained. “Salad, soup, fish, dinner, dessert, and oyster.”
Lacey smiled broadly. “I don’t know if Suzy’s even planning to serve oysters, but if the Victorians had oyster forks on their tables, then we’d better have them on ours.”
She heard Percy’s grandfatherly chuckle through the speaker. “It does sound ever so exciting,” he said. “I must say it’s not often I receive an order for anything you own that’s Victorian.”
“Yes, well,” Lacey said. “I’m sure it’s not often that one of your buyers is tasked with turning a retirement home into a Victorian-themed B&B in a week!”
“Tell me, are you getting any sleep?”
“A solid four hours a night,” Lacey quipped.
Despite how hard she’d been working, she’d found the whole project thrilling so far. Exhilarating, even. It was like a mystery only she could solve, with a clock ticking away in the corner.
“Don’t run yourself into the ground,” Percy said, ever the gentle soul.
She ended the call, grabbed a marker pen, and put a large tick beside “utensils.” She was halfway through her list now, having pulled about a hundred favors, driven cross-country to Bristol and Bath to collect some particularly exceptional pieces, then out of country to Cardiff just for a gorgeous stone water feature that would look perfect in the foyer.
The foyer had proved the most difficult to design of all the rooms. Its architecture was basically a conservatory. Lacey had taken her inspiration from Victorian structures like Alexandra Palace in London and the greenhouses of Kew Gardens. Suzy had the decorators in there right now, ripping up that lino flooring, chucking out the dentist’s waiting-room blinds, and coating the white plastic frame with thin sheets of pliable metal, painted black to look like iron.
So far, the work had been fun, even with the sleep deprivation and long drives. But the dent to her bank balance was a little alarming. Lacey had collected thousands upon thousands of pounds’ worth of furniture, all perfect to fit with Suzy’s hunting lodge theme. And while she knew Suzy would settle the bill as soon as she’d made the money back, it still made her very uncomfortable to see the massive dip in her account. Especially considering the deal she’d made with Ivan over the mortgage at Crag Cottage. She’d hate to default on any payments to the sweet man who’d sold her her dream home, but if Suzy’s bill wasn’t settled by the end of June, she’d be forced to do just that.
The rifle alone was worth £5,000! Lacey had almost choked on her cappuccino when she’d researched its value in order to add it to Suzy’s bill, and had immediately messaged Xavier suggesting she wire him some money. But he responded with, it is a gift, which made her feel bad for having immediately sold it. But not too bad. Because what man innocently sends a valuable antique to a woman without having certain thoughts on his mind? Lacey was starting to accept that Gina might have been correct about Xavier’s intentions, and decided it was best to minimize her contact with him. Besides, she had a whole new lead to pursue in the search for her father now, with Penrose Manor’s former shooting club, so Xavier wasn’t the lifeline he’d once been.
In the main part of the store, Lacey could hear Gina bustling around. So far, the older woman had kept up with the demands of her new schedule pretty well. Her veto on heavy lifting had been temporarily suspended, and though Gina didn’t mind, Lacey worried about making a pensioner work so hard.
Just then, Lacey heard the bell go in the other room, and it was followed by the soft happy yips of Chester and Boudica. Lacey knew immediately that that meant Tom had arrived. She stopped what she was doing and hurried to the main shop floor.
Sure enough, her beau was there, feeding his special carob treats to the dogs. He looked up at the sound of her and flashed her one of his gorgeous smiles.
It felt like eons since Lacey had last seen or spoken to him. He’d been too busy making rainbow cupcakes, and she’d been elbow deep in Victorian antiques. Between the two of them, they’d not even had a spare moment to send a text, let alone be in the same place at the same time!
Lacey rushed toward him and gave him a peck on the lips.
“My dear,” she gushed. “It’s been so long. What are you doing here?”
“It’s Thursday,” he said simply. “Lunch date day.”
With their busy schedules, they’d agreed to pause their daily elevenses and scale back to a slightly more manageable weekly lunch on Thursdays. But that plan had been made before they’d both taken on their last-minute contracts, and Lacey had just assumed it would be off the cards for both of them. She’d promptly allowed it to be pushed out of her mind by the long laundry list of Victorian wares she had to source.