Chapter One
A ship may bob, safe at harbor, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t experienced the wide world—or won’t again.
Shading my eyes with one hand, I surveyed the flotilla of yachts and sailboats and skiffs anchored at the Beaufort, North Carolina, docks. When people questioned my decision to become an innkeeper in this historic waterfront town, I always told them I was like those vessels—quiet and settled at the moment, but still ready to sail off on a new adventure whenever I chose.
The morning sun swam in a sky streaked with ribbons of pink and amber. Although I’d have preferred to linger, I needed to leave the boardwalk and hike the few blocks to my home. It was early morning—time for my workday to begin.
As the owner of Chapters, a local bed-and-breakfast, I wanted to be present before any guests came down for breakfast. It was one reason I always rose early. We served breakfast until ten, and if I didn’t fit in my daily walk before our seven o’clock start, I tended to get distracted and skip it altogether.
I strode up the narrow sidewalks, batting aside some low-hanging tree branches without thinking. I’d made this trek oftenenough to know when to avoid a slap in the face. Reaching Ann Street, I turned left, passing a row of tree-shaded homes. As always, my pace slowed as I admired the beauty of my neighborhood, where simple but elegant eighteenth-century houses were interspersed with mid-nineteenth-century cottages and gingerbread-encrusted Victorians.
Chapters bed-and-breakfast was one of the oldest homes in Beaufort. With a single triangular gable and white clapboard siding, it featured covered porches on both the main and upper levels. The shield-shaped historic designation plaque near the delft-blue front door proclaimed that the house had been built in 1770. This was true, although one could quibble about the rambling addition that had been added at a later date. The addition was deep enough to be separated from the picket fence enclosing the English garden only by a flagstone patio, but it was also narrow enough to render it invisible from the front. Many of our guests were shocked when they drove around to the parking lot and realized the house’s true size. In fact, if I’d collected a dollar for every time someone said, “It’s so much bigger than it looks from the street,” I’d have amassed a tidy sum.
As I circled around the house to reach the staff entrance to the kitchen, I noticed that the wax myrtles that lined the side of the house had reached a height that would soon shadow the kitchen windows. They’d need a good pruning in the fall. I mentally added this to my never-ending list of chores as I pushed open the back door and stepped into the bed-and-breakfast’s large kitchen.
Alicia Simpson, Chapters’ sixty-two-year-old housekeeper and cook, stood at our commercial gas range, dubiously eyeingthe fish she held over a cast-iron frying pan. “Now, I ask you—who eats this for breakfast?”
Although drawn by the aroma of strong coffee mingled with the tangy scent of black tea, I halted my progress across the kitchen. “Come on, you’ve done this sort of thing before. I’m sure Great-Aunt Isabella hosted some literary events that focused on British authors.” I stepped back to avoid the splatter of grease as Alicia dropped the fish into the pan. “Besides, this being a Josephine Tey celebration, we need to serve a full English breakfast at least once. The guests expect that sort of thing.”
“But why this abomination?” Alicia, who was shorter than me by a good five inches, turned and lifted her arm to wave another kippered fish in my face.
“You’ve had smoked salmon on bagels before. It’s not that different,” I said, while Alicia turned away again, muttering about “dang fool notions.”
I crossed to one of our long work counters and lifted a silver cloche off a white ceramic serving platter. Inhaling the smoky aroma of cooked sausage and bacon, I glanced over at a foil-covered plate. That was probably the fried tomatoes. “All that’s left to do is the eggs?”
“And the toast. And finish frying up these dang fish,” Alicia said, squaring her plump shoulders. Her dark hair, streaked with gray the color and texture of steel wool, was caught up in a hairnet studded with multicolored plastic gemstones.
I smiled. Alicia always claimed that even though she was just a housekeeper and cook, that didn’t mean she had to abandon all sense of style.
Although, I thought,Alicia Simpson is hardly just an anything.After running the bed-and-breakfast for over three decades—the first thirty-five years for my great-aunt and the last one for me—I suspected she was just as much an attraction as Chapters’ literary-themed guest rooms and extensive library.
I covered the bacon and sausage before leaning back against the soapstone counter to survey the kitchen. Bright and airy, with a twelve-foot-high beadboard ceiling, it was one of my favorite rooms in the house. My great-aunt had remodeled the original space when she’d converted her home into a bed-and-breakfast, adding commercial-grade appliances and other features that enhanced the kitchen’s functionality. But she’d thankfully retained its traditional style. Plain white cabinets, many with mullioned glass fronts, were fitted with black iron hardware. Light spilling from the large windows set into the pearl-gray walls sparkled off the bright-white subway-tile backsplash and stainless-steel appliances and sinks. A pair of French doors led to a large pantry that housed metal shelving, a standing freezer, and our commercial-grade dishwasher.
“When is Damian supposed to arrive to start dinner?” I asked, mentally bemoaning the complexity of the War of the Roses–themed dinner party I’d planned to honor mystery author Josephine Tey’s most famous story,The Daughter of Time. Of course, I’d adjusted the menu to accommodate modern tastes—no one wanted peacock or swan today—but we were serving boar roasted with baked apples as one of the entrées.
“Not soon enough, I wager.” Alicia flipped the fish in the frying pan before turning to me. She swept her metal spatula through the air like a rapier. “He tends to overestimate his abilityto multitask, if you ask me.” She thrust the spatula in my direction. “And it doesn’t help when you have him cooking such complicated nonsense. Boar, for goodness’ sake. Who serves boar?”
“Richard the Third probably did, which is why it fits our theme for tonight.” I bit my lower lip, considering the cost of the meat, which I’d had to order in from a specialty provider. Hopefully, our freelance chef, Damian Carr, hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d claimed he could handle such a unique menu.
“Well, I just hope no one chokes on a bone from those pike,” Alicia said.
“I bought them already filleted.”
“Maybe, but that’s a fish with more bones than a cat has whiskers, and the bones are just about that thin, too.” Alicia deftly scooped the final kipper from the pan and flipped it onto a pile of fish already layered on a serving plate. “Knowing how fast he likes to work in the kitchen, I’m not trusting Damian to check those fillets as carefully as he should.”
“I’ll look them over before he cooks them. But we’d better focus on breakfast right now. I hear stirrings in the dining room, which means at least some of our guests have already come downstairs.”
Alicia slapped the spatula against one palm. “Well, after the ruckus they made last night, that bunch from Virginia can wait.”
I straightened and stepped away from the counter. “What ruckus? I didn’t hear anything.”
“No, you wouldn’t have. It happened before you got back from that party for your friend Julie.” Alicia shook her head. “I almost had to say something, especially since that other lady, Ms. Rowley—the one with the yacht—complained.”
“The Delamonts were making too much noise?” I frowned. The family—bookdealer Lincoln Delamont, his wife Jennifer, and their sixteen-year-old daughter, Tara—were three of the six guests staying at Chapters for the week. “Was Tara playing her music too loud?”
“No, it was the parents. Fighting like hens scrapping over a last kernel of corn.”
“Really? What about?”
