What the Hatmaker Heard Read online

  What the Hatmaker Heard

  Books by Sandra Bretting

  MURDER AT MORNINGSIDE

  SOMETHING FOUL AT SWEETWATER

  SOMEONE’S MAD AT THE HATTER

  DEATH COMES TO DOGWOOD MANOR

  ALL HATS ON DECK

  WHAT THE HATMAKER HEARD

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  Table of Contents

  Books by Sandra Bretting

  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

  What the Hatmaker Heard

  Sandra Bretting

  LYRICAL UNDERGROUND

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

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

  LYRICAL UNDERGROUND BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2020 by Sandra Bretting

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  All Kensington titles, imprints, and distributed lines are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotion, premiums, fund-raising, educational, or institutional use.

  Special book excerpts or customized printings can also be created to fit specific needs. For details, write or phone the office of the Kensington Sales Manager: Kensington Publishing Corp., 119 West 40th Street, New York, NY 10018. Attn. Sales Department. Phone: 1-800-221-2647.

  Lyrical Underground and Lyrical Underground logo Reg. US Pat. & TM Off.

  First Electronic Edition: July 2020

  ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0576-2 (ebook)

  ISBN-10: 1-5161-0576-1 (ebook)

  First Print Edition: July 2020

  ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0579-3

  ISBN-10: 1-5161-0579-6

  Printed in the United States of America

  Chapter 1

  Like the exotic animals that boarded Noah’s Ark so long ago, each architectural detail on the beautiful mansion in front of me had a perfectly matched mate to go with it.

  First up was a pair of elegant mullioned windows, which flanked the front door like boxy lapels on a gentleman’s dinner jacket. Next came a sweeping staircase, split in two, with the halves trailing to the ground like loose ends of a silk bowtie.

  Finally, two spiraling water towers bookended the mansion, ready to catch whatever rainwater was lucky enough to fall on such a gorgeous property.

  I stared at the house for a good minute or so, transfixed by the intricate details, the grand scale, and the unusual color choices made by the owner.

  Whoever came up with the home’s design outdid herself when it came to the paint. A limewash of pale yellow covered the stucco walls, while the shutters and banisters popped in a coat of peacock blue. Peacock blue! Such an inspired choice for the gingerbread style, and it made the white staircase even more striking.

  I couldn’t help but smile. Not because I loved jewel-tone colors and architectural symmetry, but because the mansion was so gloriously out of place. Here I’d driven past sugarcane field after sugarcane field, all of the ground parched by the July heat, only to find a bright Easter egg of a building nestled among the marshlands.

  “There you are. I’ve been looking all over creation for you.”

  Lorelei Honeycutt, heiress to the property and my newest client at Crowning Glory, a hat shop I operated on the Great River Road, sidled up next to me. Not quite twenty-one, Lorelei possessed the creamy complexion of someone raised in the South—thank goodness the humidity was good for something—and she swallowed the tail end of her words, like every other Cajun who lived in this part of Louisiana.

  “You found me.” I smiled again, pleased to see my client looking so relaxed on the day before her wedding.

  “I wanted to talk to you about the veil you made for me.”

  “Of course.” I pointed to a nearby gazebo, which was disappointingly painted white. Why in the world would someone create an Easter egg in the marshlands and then plunk an ordinary gazebo next to it? It didn’t make sense to me, and it made me appreciate the quirky mansion all the more.

  But no matter, the gazebo still offered shade from the relentless sun and a chance to put up our feet while we spoke.

  “Why don’t we move into the shade?” I nodded to the gazebo. “It’s hotter than a billy goat with a blowtorch out here.”

  “Fair enough.” Lorelei took the lead and we headed for the lattice-trimmed gazebo.

  “Now, you were saying something about your veil?” I smoothed a strand of auburn hair behind my ear, and my gaze automatically drifted south to the starburst of light on Lorelei’s ring finger. Since I worked around brides every day, I’d grown accustomed to seeing some incredible engagement rings, but none could compare with the five-carat rock that graced Lorelei’s left hand. It made my own one-carat diamond look like a pebble in comparison, but I wasn’t one to complain.

  “I’m a little nervous about the veil’s girth, to be honest,” Lorelei said. “Do y’all think it will fit going down the aisle?”

  “Why, bless your heart. I can see why you might worry.” While I normally saved “bless your hearts” for people who behaved badly, it seemed a fitting exclamation in this case. Like every first-time bride, Lorelei wanted to control a situation she didn’t know much about. Having never planned a wedding before, she had no idea what was feasible and what wasn’t.

  “Anyway, a cathedral-length train can be intimidating if you’re not used to wearing one. Especially one with three tiers. To make it less bulky, I’ll cinch the fabric and bustle it beneath your bodice. That way it won’t overwhelm you when you walk down the aisle. Afterward, I’ll release it for the pictures.”

  “So, that’s how you do it.” Lorelei breathed a huge sigh of relief, obviously satisfied with my answer. “I don’t want to look like a giant marshmallow walking down the aisle.”

  “I don’t want you to either. And you won’t. Trust me. It’s all in the underpinning.”

  “Just in case…” Lorelei gazed at me hopefully, which was a look I’d come to recognize. She was about to ask me for a favor, and my answer would determine her everlasting happiness. Or that was what it probably felt like to her. “Do you think you could come to the rehearsal tonight? I know you’re going to the ceremony tomorrow, but it’d really help me if you could be there tonight, too. I want to practice walk
ing with the veil on.”

  “I don’t see why not.” Luckily, it was one of the more benign requests I’d received from a client. Very unlike the bride who asked me to remake her entire veil the week before her wedding, or the bride who changed her order from a cathedral-length veil to a perky fascinator faster than you could say, “Las Vegas elopement,” or the bride who tried to compete with Princess Diana of England by ordering a forty-foot train, when her chapel’s aisle only stretched twenty-five feet. Gracious light. Compared to those requests, Lorelei’s question seemed downright tame.

  Plus, I didn’t have any plans tonight to speak of. Since we were right in the middle of the wedding season, most of my friends were hard at work. By now, Bo—my fiancé, Ambrose Jackson—would be up to his eyeballs in white tulle, Swarovski crystals, and dress patterns.

  Bo owned a design studio next to mine, only he created couture wedding gowns that sold for thousands of dollars apiece. Thank goodness his hefty design fee silenced the naysayers, because many people originally sniffed at his “unmanly” occupation. As if someone should be faulted for following a dream, like Bo did. As far as I was concerned, my fiancé was the most manly-man I knew, and I didn’t care one whit whether he designed ballgowns or plowed under a sugarcane field in a John Deere tractor. “Of course I can go to your rehearsal tonight. I don’t have any plans, so it’d be no problem.”

  Lorelei exhaled loudly again. If the girl didn’t watch out, she was going to hyperventilate right then and there. “That’d be great. I told my bridesmaids to wear their hats tonight, and now you can check and make sure they’re on correctly. Oh, I feel so much better now.”

  With that, my young bride practically danced away from the gazebo, her ballet flats skimming the parched grass like a skater gliding over ice.

  I leaned back on the bench. Now that I’d calmed my client, my work was done for the moment. I rested for another second, and then I rose as well, and began to walk back to the family chapel, where the wedding service would take place tomorrow night.

  Like many of the antebellum homes here on the Great River Road, Honeycutt Hall contained a private family chapel for baptisms, weddings, and such. The chapel could hold about two dozen parishioners, which meant only close kin would be invited to the service. The party afterward, though, was another story. From what I’d heard of the plans, the bride had booked country band Rascal Flats—all three Flats, too, not just one of them—to entertain guests, followed by a local zydeco band, which guaranteed an all-night reverie.

  The party matched the bride’s spunky personality. While some might peg her as just another spoiled debutante, I enjoyed my client’s quirky outlook. She was bright and inquisitive. The same, unfortunately, couldn’t be said of her groom. The one and only time I’d met Wesley Carmichael—earlier today, at the final veil fitting—I found him cold and aloof. Not to mention a tad condescending.

  But as Bo would say, there was no accounting for taste. Which he found to be true every time a client tried to foist an outrageous dress design on him. Like the time a Floridian wanted Bo to dress her as a mermaid, complete with a five-foot fin made of rainbow-colored rubber. Somehow, he accomplished it, although the girl had to be ferried down the aisle to her waiting groom.

  No bother. Whether or not Wesley Carmichael enjoyed his wedding tomorrow night, I would. It wasn’t every day I got to attend a client’s ceremony, since I normally worked behind the scenes. And I had a very personal reason for wanting to attend the ceremony this time.

  When Bo proposed to me last August, I thought I had oodles of time until the “big day” to plan my own nuptials. But then the calendar went into overdrive, and the days flew by faster and faster. As of today, I had only four weeks to finalize my wedding plans, which were sketchy, at best.

  We managed to book one of the most beautiful venues in the area (hallelujah!) because I made a veil last year for the daughter of a steamship owner. The Riverboat Queen was a restored paddle-wheeler from the eighteen hundreds that looked like it belonged in a Mark Twain story, three levels high, with glossy red paint and a plethora of American flags. I fell in love with the ship the very first time I boarded her.

  But we still had to choose the cake, plan the menu, and do all the thousand and one chores that went into creating a memorable ceremony. While I didn’t have Lorelei’s checkbook, I did have a strong work ethic, and I wasn’t above “borrowing” some ideas from her reception. As everyone said, imitation was the sincerest form of flattery, and I planned to flatter the heck out of brides like Lorelei to plan my nuptials.

  By the time I crossed the grounds of Honeycutt Hall, several other people had arrived at the property. One older couple looked like someone’s grandparents, while I pegged a woman in sky-high stilettos standing next to them as a maiden aunt.

  I was just about to head for the family chapel when something touched my sleeve. Splashed against it, really. A tiny raindrop wobbled on my wrist, as if it couldn’t decide whether to seep into the fabric or not.

  Bless Lorelei’s heart! And this time, I meant it in the kindest way possible. No matter what anyone tried to tell you, rain was not a welcomed guest at a wedding. Especially one that included an outdoor reception, a tour bus full of electronic equipment, and a fireworks show set to blaze at midnight.

  Good luck? Hah! The only reason people ever told a bride about rainstorms and good luck was to make the girl stop crying. That was my opinion, anyway.

  Sure enough, after a few more steps, another droplet joined the first. It was the start of a good old-fashioned thunderstorm, which often blew through southern Louisiana in the middle of July. Not only that, but the skies took on the yellowish tone of the mansion’s walls, instead of the chalky white of the staircase, as God intended, which meant we were in for a real downpour.

  “You’re not listening to me!”

  A man’s voice thundered from behind a beautyberry hedge nearby. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one discombobulated by the thunderstorm. I paused for a moment, until the gentleman spoke again.

  “You never listen to me.”

  “I am so listening to you.”

  I recognized Lorelei’s voice, with its deep-throated Cajun accent. Which meant she, no doubt, stood on the other side of the hedge with her fiancé.

  I stretched on my tippy-toes to check out my hunch. Unfortunately, my vantage point was blocked by clumps of purple berries, so I sank to my heels again.

  “Really, Lorelei?” her fiancé whined. “You’ve been listening to me? Okay, what did I just say?”

  “Well, you…” Lorelei’s voice trailed off miserably.

  “See? I knew it.” Her fiancé spat the words. “Not that you care, but my fever’s up to a hundred degrees now.”

  “Ouch. Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. I took it five minutes ago. And between the cough and my asthma, I can hardly breathe.”

  “Then I don’t know what to do. Nana and Pop-Pop just got here, and they want to see you.”

  “We’ll have to tell them no. I think I need to take a nap before the rehearsal.”

  “Maybe that’s a good idea.” Lorelei sounded pleased to have found something—anything—to hang her hat on. “I’m sure a long nap will do you wonders. You’d better take some Tylenol, too. I’ll think of something to tell the guests. I’m sure they’ll understand.”

  “Yes, but do you understand? I don’t want to disappoint you since you’ve been working so hard on this wedding.”

  Well, butter my biscuit. Maybe Wesley Carmichael had a heart, after all. He sounded downright worried about his fiancée’s feelings now. Maybe I’d judged him a bit too harshly.

  “I understand,” Lorelei said. “It’s not your fault you got sick. And you’ve been so good to me when it comes to the wedding. C’mon…you even said yes to the roast beef, and you don’t eat meat.”

  I was about to delicat
ely cough, or clear my throat, or otherwise make my presence known—since lurking behind a beautyberry bush was not my idea of good client relations—when the heavens opened up for real. Rain splashed to the ground in sheets of palest silver; the individual droplets like daggers thrust from the clouds above.

  “Eek!” Lorelei yelped.

  While the couple raced to find shelter, I did the same. Already some strands of my hair fell into my eyes, and the rest wouldn’t be far behind. So I hurried over to a staircase on the left, which led to a basement of some sort. A heavy oak door at the bottom of the staircase was cracked open a smidge, and, since the heavens showed no signs of a cease-fire, I ditched down the stairs and stumbled into the basement room.

  Only to find out it wasn’t a basement at all. The room housed an old wine cellar, which smelled of dried plant stalks and musky berries. Sure enough, a line of oak casks stairstepped up the wall, their centers cinched with iron staves. Someone had branded the sides with an elaborate “HH.”

  Everything else hid in the shadows, which didn’t seem very safe to me, so I felt along the wall for the nearest light switch. Once I flicked the light on, the shadows immediately dissolved.

  I was right…I stood in an ancient wine cellar, with an elaborately carved bar built into the far wall. Leave it to the Honeycutts to do everything top-notch, because the bar had the same HH monogram carved onto its side. Someone had even monogrammed the initials onto emerald-green seat cushions that topped a row of barstools.

  As a final touch, a checkerboard of smooth mahogany shelves marched up the brick wall, designed to hold candlesticks, single-stem vases, or other interesting objects. A half-dozen shelves hopscotched up the wall in an elegant pattern.

  Not a bad a place to ride out the storm. The only thing that could make the room even cozier was the addition of my fiancé. But since that wasn’t likely to happen, I settled onto one of the barstools and waited for the storm to pass. Little did I know how long the wait would be, or what would else would happen in that very room.