Murder of a Notorious Gentleman: A completely unputdownable 1920s British cozy murder mystery (A Lady Margot Blackwell Mystery Series) by Amber Crewes

Author:Amber Crewes [Crewes, Amber]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pen-n-a-Pad Publishing
Published: 2025-09-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Brighton’s special kind of polite chaos wasn’t seen at a drawing-room party or even at the height of a masquerade. It was here, in the late-morning sunlight over Bellingham’s estate, that the town’s true priorities showed themselves in full display: horses, fancy hats, and fortunes risked more on bravado than on good sense.

Margot arrived with Stella in accompaniment, the latter already mapping the “softest” stable paths for her mistress’s boots and counting the various strata of staff gossip with a military strategist’s eye. Fresh from the turmoil of Finchley’s release and Audrey’s increasingly fretful glances, Margot was determined to keep her mind and her senses sharply attuned.

Bellingham’s stables, recently whitewashed and exuding an air of calculated prosperity, bustled as guests arrived in a rolling pageant of carriages, hired motors, and, in Rosalind’s case, a borrowed bicycle complete with a peacock-feathered scarf that fluttered like a semaphore.

The lawns just before the paddock glowed with the trappings of the day: a splendid luncheon tent, neat rows of liverymen and grooms, Bellingham himself already the axis of a shifting social ring. His presence was unmistakable; broad in both figure and ambition, a gold fob glittering on his waistcoat, a jewel-topped walking stick never far from hand.

“Doesn’t he just ooze oil and opportunity?” Stella murmured as she handed Margot her field glasses. “I’d wager he keeps half of Sussex in hair oil and the other half in racing debts.”

Margot adjusted her hat against the sun and took in the array: Eleanor was all composure, exchanging polite nothings with an alderman’s wife, her monogrammed flask gleaming fitfully. Rosalind, feigning nonchalance, directed a sketchpad at various society throngs, her liquid eyes missing nothing, least of all the fortunes won and lost at Bellingham’s whim. Audrey and Finchley had arrived together, she pale and anxious, he attempting a bluster that failed to gain purchase on even the greenest groom.

The first race began with the traditional hullabaloo: pageantry, bets whispered under feathered fans, and a flurry of gossip riding on errant breezes. Margot, never one to waste opportunity, made her way to Bellingham as he surveyed the runners.

“Mr Bellingham,” Margot began with her trademark insouciance, “one might suppose you’ve bet on every horse in the field.”

He turned, false charm coating his words. “Lady Margot, what a pleasure. I admit, race day has a way of tickling a man’s confidence. It’s Brighton’s true stage, where character, courage, and coin all reveal themselves.”

Margot smiled slyly. “One hears most of the coin ends up in your pocket. Or perhaps that’s only Myers’s sort of talk.”

Bellingham’s joviality faltered for a fleeting moment, the walking stick thudding a nervous drumbeat upon the turf. “The late Mr Myers was always long on chatter. Had he known as much about sport as he professed, perhaps he’d have enjoyed more of it and less trouble.”

Margot, sharp as ever, pressed the point. “And yet, word about the stables is that Myers was gathering proof of certain, how shall I put it, less-than-sporting practices. Something about smuggling as well?”

The walking stick grew a shade less decorative as Bellingham’s grip tightened.

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