Murder at Renard's (Rose Simpson Mysteries Book 4) Read Free

haughtily. ‘I’ve got myself a proper young man, so I have. One that’s up in the world and has prospects.’
    ‘Have you indeed?’ said Jacques, not knowing quite what to think. He gave Sylvia a curious look. His first inclination was to think she was lying and just trying to make him jealous. But one could never tell with Sylvia. She was a girl who kept things close to her chest. And it did not escape his notice that her colour had risen. There was also something in the defiant way she had made her claim that made him wonder if she might not be having him on after all.
    Sylvia was watching him closely, a smug look on her face. It was obvious that she found his confused reaction to her words amusing.
    ‘Well just you wait and see,’ she said beaming. ‘You’ll eat your words, see if you don’t, Jack Renard. I can do better than the likes of you and no mistake!’

Chapter Two
    Rose stood behind her glass counter feeling particularly restive, the afternoon seeming to drag horrendously as it always did when there were too few customers to while away the time, or she had a particular reason for wishing her working day to come to a close. In this instance her impatience was not due to her eagerness to embark on a visit to some ancestral home to attend a weekend house party as it had been on other occasions. Rather she had a desire that the day come to as hasty a close as possible so that tomorrow would dawn and bring with it the opportunity to see Lady Celia in the flesh.
    Rose allowed her thoughts to drift back to the unsettling telephone call that she had had earlier that day with the various inhabitants of Sedgwick Court. Snatches of remembered conversation floated into her mind and she found that if she concentrated sufficiently, which was not difficult as there was little else to occupy her mind as the shop was at that very moment free of customers, she could play back the various conversations in her mind almost word for word. If she remembered correctly, the dialogues had gone something like this:
    ‘Hello. I say, is that Manning? It’s Miss Simpson here,’ Rose had said as soon as she had been connected to Sedgwick Court. In her eagerness she had not allowed the other person to speak first.
    ‘Hmm …’ said rather a dignified voice. ‘No, it isn’t Miss Simpson. It’s Torridge, the head-butler, miss.’
    ‘Oh. Oh, I see.’
    Rose raised her eyebrows. It was all she could do not to exclaim the man’s name out loud in surprise. It was a few months since she had last seen the head-butler, and she had not expected him to still be employed in his position. Instead she had assumed that by now the old man would have given in to his old age and inevitable retirement, however reluctantly. A pension and a cottage on the Sedgwick estate awaited him, she knew.
    ‘I’m so sorry. I assumed you were Manning. How are you, Torridge?’
    ‘I can’t complain, miss.’
    ‘I was wondering if I might speak with Lady Lavinia? To tell you the truth,’ Rose admitted rather confidentially, ‘I’m rather surprised that she hasn’t contacted Madame Renard already to make arrangements to come in for her final fitting. For the clothes, you know. The gowns she will wear tomorrow night for the presentation of haute couture to Madame Renard’s private clientele.’
    ‘I’m afraid Lady Lavinia is unavailable, miss. She is rather under the weather and has retired to bed.’
    ‘Under the weather? Oh, no! How do you mean “under the weather”? Is she poorly, or has she been overdoing things a bit?’ Visons of Lavinia sipping one too many cocktails immediately sprung to Rose’s mind.
    ‘Lady Lavinia is quite unwell,’ retorted the old butler sounding shocked at any implied slur on his mistress’s character.
    ‘Yes. I’m sure she is,’ Rose said hurriedly. ‘What I meant to say … well, what I’m getting at, Torridge, is, will she be well enough to participate in the fashion show tomorrow do you think? I daresay