Murder With Peacocks Read Free Page B

less.
      "I'm here about a wedding. Where's Mrs. Waterston?" I asked, and then realized how rude that sounded.
      "In traction," he said. "Down in Florida. I'm her son, Michael; I'm filling in while her broken bones mend."
      "Oh, I'm sorry. I hope she's better soon."
        "Not nearly as much as I hope it," he said gloomily. He had a wonderful, resonant voice. Perhaps he was a musician. I'm a sucker for musicians.
      "How can I help you?" he asked.
      "I'm Meg Langslow. I'm supposed to come here to be measured for a bridesmaid's dress."
      "A bridesmaid's dress," he said, suddenly looking very cheerful. "Wonderful! For whose wedding?" He stood up and turned round to pull out the top drawer of a file cabinet on the back wall, giving me a chance to discreetly eye his wonderfully long, lean form. I decided I was looking forward to bringing Eileen in here so I could point out to her that this, not the beefy Barry, was my idea of what a hunk should look like. And I peeked at the book he was reading--Shakespeare. Not only gorgeous, but literate, too.
      "Samantha Brewster, Eileen Donleavy, or Margaret Hollingworth Langslow. Take your pick."
      His hand froze over the files and he looked up warily.
      "You're not sure which? Are you, perhaps, comparison shopping to see who has the least objectionable gowns before committing yourself?"
      "No, I'm stuck with all three of them. Langslow is my mother, Brewster is marrying my brother, and Donleavy is my best friend. I know it sounds odd, but this is a very small town."
      "Actually, after two weeks here, very little strikes me as odd," he said. "And you're right; this is a very small town. I'm surprised I haven't run into you before."
      "I don't live here anymore. I've come home for the summer, though, to help with all the weddings. I assume one set of measurements will do for all three; the first and last ones are only two weeks apart."
      "Should do," he said. "What a summer you're in for. Here we are. Brewster ... Langslow ... and I'll start a file for Donleavy."
      "Start a file? She's the first one up; you mean she hasn't even been here yet?"
      "Not since I took over, and if your friend had been in before Mom left for Florida I'm sure she would have started a file."
      I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and began counting silently. I had gotten to three when he asked, "Are you all right?"
      "I'm fine," I said. "Eileen always advises me to count to ten when I lose my temper. I generally still feel like throttling her when I'm finished, though."
      I opened my eyes.
      "She was supposed to have come in with one of her other bridesmaids months ago to pick out dresses so your mother could order them in our sizes. I mean, that's what she told me she'd done. The measurements were just supposed to be for the fine-tuning, or whatever you call it. Which I thought would be happening this week. She lied to me!"
      Calm down, Meg, I told myself. Do not lose your temper at Eileen, especially in front of this very nice and extremely gorgeous man. Who was not, I had already noticed, wearing a wedding ring. I made a mental note to interrogate Mother about him; no doubt she and the aunts on the Hollingworth side of the family already knew not only his entire life history but also several generations of his family tree.
      "I'm sorry," I said. "It's just that I'm the one who's trying to pull this all together, and she's the one who's unintentionally sabotaging everything."
      "We'll manage something," he said, with a smile. "I don't recognize the name--what does she look like?"
      "She's about five-ten, frizzy blondish hair down to her waist, a little on the plump side. Kind of looks like she just got in from California, or maybe Woodstock. The original."
      He chuckled and walked over to a curtained doorway in the back of the shop and called out something in a rapid, musical tongue. A little wizened Asian grandmother, well under five feet tall, popped out and they