Mother of the Bride Murder by Leslie Meier

Author:Leslie Meier [Meier, Leslie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2023-01-16T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

The wedding rehearsal, which took place after dinner, had gone off without a hitch, but Lucy wasn’t reassured as she went through her bedtime routine. Bill snored away beside her all that sleepless night, but even the deluxe mattress and the luxurious Yves Delorme sheets couldn’t overcome the disturbing thoughts that flooded her mind. One minute it was Marie-Laure, taking possession of Elizabeth and Jean-Luc’s baby, her grandchild! And then it was an image of the dead girl, floating in the moat. In her worst imaginings, perhaps it was a dream, the corpse’s face was covered with a wedding veil which floated away to reveal Elizabeth’s face. Finding herself staring at the clock at a quarter to five, and noticing the sky was already brightening and the birds were calling, she decided she was far too restless to stay in bed a moment longer. She needed to move.

She eased herself out of bed and slipped noiselessly into the bathroom, where she dabbed some water on her face and brushed her teeth. Getting dressed presented a problem, as her clothes were all in an armoire in the bedroom and she didn’t want to disturb Bill, who was still asleep. The château provided terry robes for its guests and those hung on hooks in the bathroom, so she wrapped herself in one and tiptoed out of the room, picking up the espadrilles she had left lying by a chair.

Once in the hallway she remembered the scrap of newspaper, which she’d left lying on the desk beneath the window, so she crept back in and found it, tucking it in the pocket of her robe. Then, returning to the hallway, she slipped into the espadrilles and made her way outside. Once on the terrace she felt better, she took some deep cleansing breaths of fresh morning air, then started across the garden. She wasn’t exactly sure of the location of the stable, where she was supposed to meet Chris Kennedy in a little more than an hour, so she decided to find it, locate it firmly in her mental map, and then continue her rambles until it was time for the meeting.

A soft mist hovered over the garden, but the warming sun would soon dissipate it; a beautiful, sunny day was predicted for Elizabeth’s wedding. Lucy smiled to herself, thinking that of course, Marie-Laure would have it no other way. Perhaps she’d requested her friend the Pope’s intercession, or perhaps even the Creator would not dare to defy her wishes.

As it happened, the stable was much closer than she thought, discreetly screened by a line of evergreen trees. It was a handsome, half-timbered building with a steeply pitched tile roof, and Chris Kennedy was already there, dressed for the day in an inconspicuous gray suit, sitting on a bench and staring at his cell phone. “You’re an early bird,” said Lucy.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he said, with a half smile. “Thought I might as well do a little recon, get a look at the lay of the land.

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