So Much For Buckingham: The Camilla Randall Mysteries #5
Read So Much For Buckingham: The Camilla Randall Mysteries #5 Online
Authors: Anne R. Allen
Tags: #Camilla, #rom-com mystery
Camilla Randall Mystery #5
a comedy
by Anne R. Allen
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"Off with his head. So much for Buckingham."
...the most famous line of Shakespeare that Shakespeare never wrote.
Part 1—The Summer of our Discontent
Part II— The Poisonous Bunch-Backed Toad
Part III—The Kingdom of Perpetual Night
Part IV—Every Tale Condemns me for a Villain
Part V—There is no Creature Loves Me
Part VI—An Honest Tale Speeds Best
Part VII—Certain Dregs of Conscience
Part VIII—True Hope Flies on Swallows Wings
Chapter 1—Camilla
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M
orro Bay fog did not creep in on little cat feet like Carl Sandburg's Chicago mists. It galumphed on elephant hooves and moved in for the summer. Why didn't people warn you that "sunny California" could be so gloomy?
By the twenty-eighth of August, the gauge on my outdoor thermometer hadn't risen above sixty-five degrees for three solid months.
Even my summer in the soggy English Midlands had been sunnier than here on the California coast. I glared at the fog bank that obscured my view of the bay and found myself actually longing for Lincolnshire, where I'd spent an eventful summer three years ago.
I felt an even stronger longing for the royalty check from my publishers at Sherwood, Ltd. that was nearly a month overdue.
My bookstore wasn't paying its way, and bills were piling up.
To make things worse, my boyfriend Ronzo had cancelled his planned visit from New Jersey this week, and now he wasn't even returning my calls or emails. I had no idea what was up with him. He couldn't claim his work kept him at home. He was a music review blogger who could live anywhere he wanted.
But my inbox held nothing but spam this evening. Again.
Plus I had a lunatic one-star review on the Amazon buy page for my bestselling etiquette book,
The Manners Doctor's Good Manners for Bad Times
.
"This auther is a evil slutt and a Tudor-lover," said a reviewer identified as "DickonthePig."
It was ridiculous what passed for a book review these days.
Fury made me hit the button for "comments."
I typed—In the Manners Doctor's signature third person voice—"This reviewer is mistaken. The Manners Doctor has never been fond of Tudor. When it comes to architecture, she much prefers Georgian simplicity. She also prefers correct spelling."
Of course at the moment I lived in a biodegrading former motel cottage that was more Calvin Coolidgean than Georgian, but I didn't say that. It wasn't common knowledge that my family fortune had been wiped out by my deceased—and impecunious—mother.
Of course, somebody who left one-star reviews about one's presumed taste in architecture was probably a lunatic. And might be dangerous.
Maybe I shouldn't respond at all.
Loud crunching on the gravel pathway outside the cottage startled me.
Could it be Ronzo? My heart gave a little flip.
Maybe he'd decided to surprise me. He had a habit of doing the unexpected. I felt so fluttery at the prospect of seeing him, I went to hit backspace to delete the comment, but hit "enter" by mistake.
Well, it was done.
And it felt good, even though it might not be considered entirely polite.
I smoothed my hair and wished I hadn't scrambled into sweats so soon after work. I'd planned an evening of vegging in front of Netflix, not a romantic encounter with the adorable man I hadn't seen in person for months.
"Hello!" I called in the direction of the door. "Ronzo? Is that you?"
"Camilla! I'm so glad you're home."
Not Ronzo. My best friend Plantagenet. He would forgive my sweats and mussy hair.
"Come on in. The door's unlocked."
Plant's body felt tense as he gave me a perfunctory squeeze and plunked himself down at my little dining table.
Not a good sign. Plant and Silas were supposed to be leaving for their honeymoon tomorrow.
Plant's rumpled state did not bode well either. He was usually impeccably dressed, even on his most casual days.
"What's wrong?" I closed my laptop. I could tell this wasn't going to be a short visit.
"Everything. It's over with Silas. We're cancelling our trip. Splitting up."
I was a little bored with the histrionics of Plant and Silas's relationship, but I reached across the table and pressed his hand in sympathy. They'd been having spats for months over the details of their wedding.
Plant's chest heaved with a troubled sigh.
"You can't be splitting up," I said. "You've been married less than a week. What on earth is going on?"
He ran his fingers through his silvering hair. I could tell he was fighting tears.
"Glendower Jones," he said. "My old boyfriend. I don't know why I invited him to the wedding. He's become some kind of New Age guru and talks absolute nonsense."
"Glen Jones? My lawyer from twenty years ago? The little guy with the cowlick? He was at the wedding?" I didn't even remember seeing him. I guess I wanted to forget my long-ago brush with the law.
Plant gave a rough laugh.
"He doesn't practice law any more. And he doesn't have a cowlick. Bald as an egg. And totally buffed. He's seriously into yoga now. I'm surprised he didn't seek you out to talk you into going off to his pricey tropical retreat. I guess you're not a big enough celebrity to matter anymore."
Plant was obviously under stress, but this remark came across as a bit unkind. My syndicated etiquette column had died a sad death, but my books had been selling again, and were steady bestsellers in Asia.
"Sorry." I could see Plant wince at his own bad manners. "I didn't mean it like that. You can't compete with me in the nobody department. At least you're not a screenwriter who hasn't sold a script in three years. But since Silas got his fortune back from Harry Sharkov, he's worth Glen's notice, apparently."
"Silas flirted with some bald hippie at his own wedding?" I couldn't stifle a laugh. "I know Silas's flirting can be outrageous. But it's not enough to break up about."
"No...no." Plant's voice went froggy with emotion. "I don't give a damn about flirting. We're way beyond that. It's...Glen started going on about the old days and he, well, he told Silas about us."
I love Plant—he's been my best friend for over twenty years—but I knew better than to let him get me involved in one of his operatic spats with Silas.
Anyway, I had my own drama with Silas—involving my three-weeks-late payment for the bookstore and cottage I was buying from him.
I offered Plant what I hoped was a sympathetic smile.
"Silas is upset you had a thing with Glen twenty years ago? You're forty-seven, Plant. How could you not have old boyfriends?"
Plant gave a pained look.
"Not me and Glen. Me and you. Glen told Silas about our...romance."
"You never told him?" I couldn't keep the anger from my voice. "You've been together what? Four years? And you never told him you and I were once engaged?"
"It never came up."
I wanted to shake him. I'd felt like a third wheel in their relationship more than once. Silas often seemed to resent me. I assumed my long-ago affair with Plant—and his bisexuality—had been the "elephant in the room" nobody spoke of.
But it seemed Silas had been unaware of the resident pachyderm.
"I'm sure he'll forgive you. He needs a little time to process."
Plant didn't look convinced.
I took a bottle of chardonnay out of the fridge as I tried to think of something more soothing to say.
"Why don't you have some wine, take a few breaths, and give him a call." I carefully filled two glasses. "You two have to catch a plane to London tomorrow. And you have all those theater tickets. He's not going to miss a chance to see
Billy Elliot
...."
Plant took an airline envelope out of his pocket and tossed it on the table.
"Silas threw the tickets at me when he took off yesterday. God knows where he went. I hoped he'd come back, but he hasn't even phoned. He could be dead on the highway somewhere. He said he never wanted to go to England anyway. He would have preferred Maui. Maui! What is there to see in Maui?"
A sunny Hawaiian island sounded pretty appealing to me at that point, but I didn't say so. I sipped my chardonnay: a gorgeous Chamisal Califa from Edna Valley I'd bought to share with Ronzo. Probably the last bottle of good wine I'd be able to afford for some time.
Plant jumped up and grabbed my hand.
"Come with me, Camilla. Come to London. It's all paid for. We even got tickets to see Kevin Spacey as Richard III—he's reprising the role for a limited run. It's the chance of a lifetime. Nobody does evil like Spacey."
I nearly spilled my wine as I pulled my hand away.
"Plant, that is a terrible idea on so many levels. You should go, but not with me."
"Why? Please come. My treat. Consider it an early present for your big 4-0 birthday in November."
My mind filled with "why-nots."
"First, we'd cause more hurt and paranoia for Silas, second, I have a bookstore to run..."
Plant's phone rang. He reached in his pocket and took the call.
"Silas?"
Plant stood very still for a moment, his face going from white to crimson. He started to speak, then clicked off his iPhone, obviously on the verge of tears.
"What's wrong?"
"At least I know where Silas is. Maui. Apparently having a hot romantic encounter with Mr. Glendower Jones."
––––––––
P
lant's eyes burned as he drove his aging Ferrari home from Morro Bay. But no way would he let the tears fall.
Silas did not deserve them.
Neither did Glendower Jones, the mealy-mouthed little charlatan.
"I have a damned Oscar!" Plant shouted at the vine-covered hills as he sped toward his Edna Valley home. "I've been nominated for two Tonys. What does that hairless idiot have?"