Lavender Blue Murder Read online

  Titles by Laura Childs

  Tea Shop Mysteries

  DEATH BY DARJEELING

  GUNPOWDER GREEN

  SHADES OF EARL GREY

  THE ENGLISH BREAKFAST MURDER

  THE JASMINE MOON MURDER

  CHAMOMILE MOURNING

  BLOOD ORANGE BREWING

  DRAGONWELL DEAD

  THE SILVER NEEDLE MURDER

  OOLONG DEAD

  THE TEABERRY STRANGLER

  SCONES & BONES

  AGONY OF THE LEAVES

  SWEET TEA REVENGE

  STEEPED IN EVIL

  MING TEA MURDER

  DEVONSHIRE SCREAM

  PEKOE MOST POISON

  PLUM TEA CRAZY

  BROKEN BONE CHINA

  LAVENDER BLUE MURDER

  New Orleans Scrapbooking Mysteries

  KEEPSAKE CRIMES

  PHOTO FINISHED

  BOUND FOR MURDER

  MOTIF FOR MURDER

  FRILL KILL

  DEATH SWATCH

  TRAGIC MAGIC

  FIBER & BRIMSTONE

  SKELETON LETTERS

  POSTCARDS FROM THE DEAD

  GILT TRIP

  GOSSAMER GHOST

  PARCHMENT AND OLD LACE

  CREPE FACTOR

  GLITTER BOMB

  MUMBO GUMBO MURDER

  Cackleberry Club Mysteries

  EGGS IN PURGATORY

  EGGS BENEDICT ARNOLD

  BEDEVILED EGGS

  STAKE & EGGS

  EGGS IN A CASKET

  SCORCHED EGGS

  EGG DROP DEAD

  EGGS ON ICE

  Anthologies

  DEATH BY DESIGN

  TEA FOR THREE

  Afton Tangler Thrillers writing as Gerry Schmitt

  LITTLE GIRL GONE

  SHADOW GIRL

  BERKLEY PRIME CRIME

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019

  Copyright © 2020 by Gerry Schmitt & Associates, Inc.

  Excerpt from Egg Shooters by Laura Childs copyright © 2020 by Gerry Schmitt & Associates, Inc.

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks and BERKLEY PRIME CRIME is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Childs, Laura, author.

  Title: Lavender blue murder / Laura Childs.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Berkley Prime Crime, 2020. |

  Series: A tea shop mystery; #21

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019043266 (print) | LCCN 2019043267 (ebook) |

  ISBN 9780451489661 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780451489685 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Browning, Theodosia (Fictitious character)—Fiction. |

  Women detectives—South Carolina—Charleston—Fiction. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3603.H56 L39 2020 (print) | LCC PS3603.H56 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019043266

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019043267

  First Edition: March 2020

  Cover art by Scott Zelazny

  Cover design by Rita Frangie

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

  pid_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A special thank-you to Sam, Tom, Grace, Tara, Jessica, Elisha, Fareeda, M.J., Bob, Jennie, Dan, and all the amazing people at Berkley Prime Crime and Penguin Random House who handle editing, design, publicity, copywriting, social media, bookstore sales, gift sales, production, and shipping. Heartfelt thanks as well to all the tea lovers, tea shop owners, book clubs, bookshop folks, librarians, reviewers, magazine editors and writers, websites, broadcasters, and bloggers who have enjoyed the Tea Shop Mysteries and helped spread the word. You are all so kind, and you help make this possible!

  And I am forever (forever and a day!) filled with gratitude for you, my very special readers, who have embraced Theodosia, Drayton, Haley, Earl Grey, and the rest of the tea shop gang as friends and family. Thank you so much, and I promise you many more Tea Shop Mysteries!

  CONTENTS

  Titles by Laura Childs

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Recipes

  Tea Time Tips

  Tea Resources

  Excerpt from Egg Shooters

  About the Author

  1

  Summer no longer held sway in the low country of South Carolina. Golds and russets had replaced vivid greens, while a cerulean blue sky offered the promise of cooler weather.

  Then, suddenly . . . BANG! BANG! And another BANG! BANG! A series of gunshots exploded like a riff of Black Cat firecrackers, the retorts echoing off sweeping vistas of yarrow and pine forests.

  “Got one!” a woman’s voice called out, triumphant.

  “You seriously got one?” a male voice responded, surprise mixed with admiration.

  Theodosia Browning lowered her shotgun and nodded. This wasn’t her first shooting party. She’d hunted game birds before, especially quail and grouse. Spending childhood summers at nearby Cane Ridge Plantation, she’d also once shot a wild turkey, along with a few varmints that had overstepped their bounds and tried to make a tasty meal out of her aunt Libby’s exotic French Crèvecoeur chickens.

  “Well done,” Drayton said. “Obviously, you have a much keener eye and steadier aim than I do. I haven’t managed to hit a single thing.”

  “It helps if you actually pick up the gun,” Theodosia said. An amused smile danced across her face.

  “Well.” Drayton fingered his bow tie nervously. “I’m not sure I really want to do that.”

  It was a fine Sunday afternoon, and tea shop owner Theodosia and her tea sommelier Drayton Conneley were tromping through the vast fields of Creekmore Plantation at the kind invitation of Drayton’s good friend, Reginald
Doyle. Doyle had previously served on the board of Charleston’s Heritage Society with Drayton and was CEO of Celantis Pharmaceuticals as well as part owner of Trollope’s Restaurant.

  Doyle and his wife, Meredith, were also rabid Anglophiles. Thus, this entire day had been styled in the precise manner of a traditional English shooting party. Which meant elevenses (in this case glasses of bourbon and gin fizzes), gun loaders, five fine-looking bird dogs, and shooting costumes of tweed, herringbone, and suede. All teams had drawn “pegs” to determine which area they’d be hunting in.

  “You very much look the part today,” Theodosia said to Drayton. “As if you just stepped out of an episode of Downton Abbey.”

  “I feel like I just did,” he said.

  Drayton was sixty-something with a kind face, a slightly arched nose, and a patrician bearing. He was kitted out today in a tweed jacket, wool slacks, and English Wellington boots. Drayton had added his trademark gentleman’s bow tie to the outfit, and at the last minute, Theodosia had presented him with a shooting vest from Huntley’s Ltd. in Charleston. A traditional Balmoral cap completed his outfit.

  Theodosia, on the other hand, was wearing a tailored suede jacket, white shirt, tweed slacks, and low walking boots. Being outdoors today, reveling in the abundant sunshine and cool breezes, seemed to impart an extra sparkle to her crystalline blue eyes and an excited flush to her peaches and cream complexion. Theodosia once mused that her abundant halo of auburn hair might have come compliments of ginger-bearded Vikings who’d long ago arrived on English shores and found themselves smitten by her distant English relatives of the female persuasion.

  “So how should I be carrying this thing?” Drayton asked. He was referring to the shotgun that Reginald Doyle had loaned him and that he held gingerly, as if it were a plague-infested rat.

  “Always break your gun while walking and keep the barrels pointed down,” Theodosia said. “That way there’s no chance of an accidental discharge.”

  Drayton grimaced. “Heaven forbid.”

  “Beautiful out here, isn’t it?” Theodosia said. A line of poplars stretched off to their left, silvered leaves fluttering in the wind. To their right was an undulating hillside of tall golden grasses. Beyond that, a line of purple stretched to the sky.

  “Lavender,” Theodosia murmured. “I believe that’s a field of lavender.”

  “Beg pardon?” Drayton said. Then, suddenly, his face lit up, and he let loose a hearty wave and a loud, “Hello!”

  “Hey ho!” Reginald Doyle hailed back as he emerged from the trees along with Jack Grimes, his caretaker. “You two having any luck?”

  “Theo got a bird,” Drayton said as the two men joined them.

  “A grouse,” Theodosia said.

  “Excellent. Well done,” Doyle said. He was ruddy faced and breathing hard, an older gent who’d made his fortune in pharmaceuticals and enjoyed his role as lord of the manor. Grinning, Doyle pulled out a silver flask and offered it to them. “Have a celebratory nip, then?”

  “No, thank you,” Theodosia said. She didn’t think it was particularly wise to drink and shoot, even though she was guilty of sipping a single gin fizz at elevenses.

  “None for me, either,” Drayton said, holding up a hand.

  “Then I shall help myself,” Doyle said. He unscrewed the top of his flask, raised it in a kind of salute, and tipped it back.

  Grimes, a weathered, outdoorsy-looking man dressed in a barn jacket, khakis, and mud-streaked leather boots, looked on with faint disapproval.

  “Sir,” Grimes finally said. “We need to move on. Check on Mr. Jacoby and Mr. Thorne.”

  “Right you are,” Doyle said in a jovial tone. He capped his flask and said, “And we need to let our friends here get back to their shooting.”

  “Yes, sir,” Grimes said.

  When the two of them were alone again, Drayton glanced about nervously.

  “I hope no one sends a wayward shot in our direction.”

  “This is a big, sprawling plantation,” Theodosia said. “So I doubt that’s going to happen. Besides, we all drew pegs to determine our own particular area.”

  They traipsed along a faint trail for a half mile or so but didn’t flush any birds. As they stopped to mull things over, a few faint shots sounded ahead of them, but still far off in the distance. Then, as if in response, two chocolate brown Boykin Spaniels suddenly flew past them, amber eyes gleaming, feathered ears streaming out behind.

  “Someone must be having a good day,” Theodosia said.

  “If your aunt Libby knew we were out shooting birds she’d have a royal conniption,” Drayton said.

  Theodosia had to agree with him. Her aunt Libby, who lived nearby, was a bird lover of the first magnitude, always putting out suet, seed, and her ubiquitous cracklins. Yes, this part of the county teemed with all manner of birds. They fluttered, flew, nested in the grasses, perched in the trees. In fact . . .

  “There!” Theodosia shouted as a pair of grouse flew up directly in front of them. “Drayton, take a shot!”

  The grouse continued on their flight path, not a feather touched.

  “You have to aim,” Theodosia said.

  Drayton looked uncomfortable. “I did aim.”

  “I meant at the birds.”

  “Well . . .”

  “I get it, Drayton. You’re not a natural-born hunter.”

  “Sweet Fanny Adams, no, I am not,” Drayton declared.

  “That’s okay. We’ll just . . .”

  Pop.

  Theodosia’s words trailed off with a sharp intake of breath. That was a single shot off to her right that she’d just heard. Not the loud boom of a shotgun, but a faint pop, like the distinctive retort of a handgun. And how strange that it sounded so near to them in an area where not many game birds had been flushed. An area they were supposed to have all to themselves.

  Drayton’s head jerked toward Theodosia. “Was that a shot?” He glanced around again, looking even more skittish.

  “I think so,” Theodosia said. “But I don’t believe anyone in our hunting party is over this way. Much less shooting with a . . .” Her voice trailed off again as she lowered her shotgun. That had been a handgun she’d heard. But who could have fired it?

  Could it be a distress signal? she wondered. Was someone injured? A twisted leg or something worse?

  After a few moments’ hesitation, Theodosia said, “Give me a minute. You stay here while I check this out.” She struck off in the direction of the gunshot.

  “Where are you going?” Drayton called after her.

  Theodosia waved a hand without turning around. “I want to investigate that shot.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “I’ll be back in two minutes, tops.”

  “Be careful!”

  Theodosia tromped through long grasses for sixty, then seventy yards. She was out of sight of Drayton now, but it was slow going. The ground had turned hilly and uneven, and she was forced to traverse around a miniature forest of shrubs and small trees. Another five minutes of bushwhacking, and she was almost at the lavender field.

  But that isn’t part of Reginald Doyle’s property.

  Still, she’d heard that gunshot.

  I can’t believe anyone was hunting over here. And yet . . .

  Topping a small rise, Theodosia came to a stop and peered around carefully. And saw . . . nothing. A few insects buzzed nearby; off in the distance a hawk circled lazily in a robin’s-egg-blue sky. Perhaps she hadn’t heard a pistol shot at all, but rather a . . .

  A sudden chill trickled down Theodosia’s spine as she was overcome by a weird, preternatural warning.

  Did something happen? Is something about to happen?

  Theodosia bent her head forward cautiously, walked another ten feet, and abruptly dropped her gaze. That’s when she saw him. A man. Lying in the grass some twenty feet in front of her.

  He was half-hidden by the sway of gold, looking crumpled and broken, like a bird that had fallen fr
om its nest.

  As Theodosia rushed toward the man, she heard him let loose a terrible moan.

  Oh no! He’s been shot . . . and it’s . . .

  Reginald Doyle was lying there as if he’d been steamrollered. He was on his back, eyes half-open and dark with pain as they floated, practically unseeing, back and forth in his head. His mouth was pulled into a horrible scowl, and his pale lips trembled uncontrollably. The poor man seemed unable to frame any actual, meaningful words, so only a low, continuous moan seeped out. One hand, twisted into a claw, clutched at his shotgun as if he still hoped to defend himself from whatever had happened.

  “Mr. Doyle!” Theodosia cried.

  Theodosia wondered if he’d collapsed from a sudden heart attack—because he certainly wasn’t a young man anymore. Or maybe he’d experienced a brain-jangling dizzy spell. Or worse, a brain aneurism.

  Then Theodosia saw a faint spot of red dotting the front of Doyle’s shooting jacket. And watched with morbid fascination as the blob grew bigger, brighter, and even more intense. That’s when it all clicked into focus and she knew it had to be a gunshot wound. Retreating a few steps, Theodosia shouted, “Drayton, Drayton, Mr. Doyle’s been shot! Round up anybody you can! We need help!”

  Theodosia turned back to Doyle and threw herself down on her hands and knees, trying to figure out just how serious his injury might be. But as she stared down at him, red patches continued to bloom like errant poppies across his herringbone jacket.

  Grasping his lapels, Theodosia ripped Doyle’s jacket wide open, sending a row of brass buttons flying. And stared in awe at a gaping, gushing chest wound.

  Center of mass. He’s been shot directly in his heart.

  And just as the human heart was biologically engineered to do, it continued to pump like crazy. With every beat of Doyle’s failing, fluttering heart, red blood flowed copiously out of him. Theodosia wondered how long it would take before Doyle was in mortal danger. Soon. Too soon. She knew she had to act fast.

  Ripping the white silk scarf from around her neck, Theodosia crumpled it into a tight ball and pressed it hard against Doyle’s chest. If she could somehow stanch the flow of blood . . . then maybe . . .

  “Help!” she cried again even as she fumbled for her cell phone. But she couldn’t keep pressure on Doyle’s chest wound and dial at the same time.