AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Not nearly enough,” Delaine said as she scurried away.
Standing there, Theodosia was faced with a dilemma. Go over and bid a friendly hello to Jeremy Slade and act as though nothing has happened? Or pull Slade aside and ask him straight out if his interest in the Imago Gallery had suddenly waned?
Theodosia still hadn’t made up her mind when she approached Slade and said, as casually as possible, “Good afternoon, Mr. Slade.”
Startled, Slade gazed at her with a confused look on his face, as if one of the shop mannequins had suddenly started speaking to him.
“Theodosia Browning,” she said. “From the Indigo Tea Shop?”
Recognition dawned on Slade’s face. “Of course, Theodosia.” He was polite but his voice carried a strange undertone. “Wonderful to see you again. And this is my friend, Jennifer Collier.”
“Nice to meet you,” Theodosia said. Jennifer was pretty with medium-length chestnut brown hair and a clingy black tank dress that showed off long, coltish limbs. She was also young and a trifle wide-eyed. Maybe all of twenty-two?
“You own a tea shop?” Jennifer said excitedly. “Here in Charleston?”
“Over on Church Street,” Theodosia said. “The Indigo Tea Shop.”
“Oh, I know that place,” Jennifer burbled. “I’ve been by there. And I’ve always wanted to stop in because I love tea so much.”
“Now that we’ve met, you have to drop by,” Theodosia said, good-naturedly.
Jennifer tugged at Slade’s arm. “Let’s for sure do that, okay?”
“Theodosia was the one who catered the tea this past Sunday,” Slade told her with slightly arched eyebrows.
“Oh. I guess that didn’t turn out so well, did it?” Jennifer said. Then she shrugged, as if the incident was of no consequence to her, and said, “Still, we really have to do high tea sometime.”
“Of course,” Jeremy said. He nodded at Theodosia and said, “Nice to see you again.” Then he took Jennifer’s arm and steered her away.
Theodosia knew when she was getting the brush-off. “Have fun,” she said as Jeremy ignored her, while Jennifer glanced back over her shoulder and gave a little finger wave.
Interesting, Theodosia thought. She wondered if Jeremy Slade was suddenly cool to her because the police had interrogated him again. And that Slade thought she’d asked the police to give him a second look. Then Theodosia wondered—could Slade have killed Claxton? Yes, she and Drayton had talked about the possibility, but it seemed far-fetched at the time. And today she still couldn’t think of a motivating factor, didn’t know of a single connection between Slade and Claxton—although maybe there was one and she just hadn’t found it yet.
Okay, she decided as the party swirled noisily around her, maybe I need to keep Jeremy Slade on the back burner.
And on the heels of that thought, For my own sanity, I need to get out of here.
17
Back at the Indigo Tea Shop, Drayton was sweeping the floor, poking his broom into cracks and crevices, while he talked to Lois Chamberlain, the owner of Antiquarian Books. Lois was sitting at one of the tables, sipping a cup of tea.
When Lois spotted Theodosia, she jumped up from her chair and said, “I have a copy of that British cookbook you were interested in. The one with recipes for things like cottage pie, Lancashire hotpot, and Eccles cakes.”
“You do? That’s fabulous,” Theodosia said.
“So you’re still interested?”
“You bet I am.”
“I guess I should have brought it along,” Lois said. “Instead I’ve been sitting here jawing with Drayton.”
Lois was fifty-something and a retired librarian with a knack for sourcing most any book you wanted. She was a little chubby, had a warm, open face, and wore her long silver-gray hair in a single braid down her back. A grandmotherly Katniss Everdeen.
“That’s okay, I’ll walk back with you and pick it up,” Theodosia said. “That’s if you’re going back to your shop.”
“I sure am,” Lois said.
Theodosia turned her attention to Drayton and said, “Anything for me to do here? Or are we done for the day?”
