Cheesecake and Confusion Read online

  Cheesecake and Confusion

  The Peridale Cafe Cozy Mystery Series - Book 18

  Agatha Frost

  Contents

  About This Book

  Newsletter Signup

  Also by Agatha Frost

  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

  Thank You!

  Also by Agatha Frost

  Newsletter Signup

  About This Book

  Released: September 29th 2019

  Words: 54,000

  Series: Book 18 - Peridale Cozy Café Mystery Series

  Standalone: Yes

  Cliff-hanger: No

  When Julia South-Brown agreed to babysit her little brother at Peridale Manor, she didn't expect to get caught up in the middle of a burglary, but that is precisely what happened. As horrifying an incident as it was, however, it soon becomes another problem to add to the ever-growing pile.

  With Julia's husband having book trouble, her adopted daughter having boy trouble, her father and stepmother having money trouble, and her own life-changing news, she has her hands full without a mystery to solve.

  It feels like everyone in Julia's family has received bad news, but despite all this, she can't stand by and watch her father struggle as a result of the robbery. She promises to help him, but are any of the people on the list of names he gives her connected or has she been sent on a fool's errand?

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  Also by Agatha Frost

  (In reading order. Links to Amazon store. Available in eBook and paperback formats, or to read for FREE through Kindle Unlimited)

  The Peridale Cafe Series

  Book 1-10 Boxset

  1. Pancakes and Corpses

  2. Lemonade and Lies

  3. Doughnuts and Deception

  4. Chocolate Cake and Chaos

  5. Shortbread and Sorrow

  6. Espresso and Evil

  7. Macarons and Mayhem

  8. Fruit Cake and Fear

  9. Birthday Cake and Bodies

  10. Gingerbread and Ghosts

  11.Cupcakes and Casualties

  12. Blueberry Muffins and Misfortune

  13. Ice Cream and Incidents

  14. Champagne and Catastrophes

  15. Wedding Cake and Woes

  16. Red Velvet and Revenge

  17. Vegetables and Vengeance

  18. Cheesecake and Confusion

  19. TITLE TBA - COMING SOON

  1

  Peridale Manor was by far the grandest building for miles. Built in the early 1800s by Earl Philip Wellington from local golden Cotswold stone, the impressive home had stood for two hundred years as a testament to the sheer wealth of the Wellington family. Thanks to its sprawling acres and dense surrounding forests, most ordinary local folk had never been close enough to the manor to see it first-hand, let alone been allowed to go inside for a closer look.

  Even as she drove up the long private driveway to the manor, Julia South-Brown considered herself one of those ordinary people. She owned a humble two-bedroom cottage on a quiet country lane and ran a small, popular café in the heart of the village. In terms of status or wealth, she was oceans away from the Wellingtons.

  The manor came into view, and regardless of Julia’s frequent visits, the grandeur still took her breath away. The building always had an air of drama about it, and tonight, the burnt orange sunset coupled with charcoal grey rain clouds on the horizon only amplified it.

  As a girl growing up in the small village, Julia had never dreamt of having any connection to the family. Yet, in recent years, she had found herself at the manor more times than she could count. Thanks to her father, Brian, marrying into the family and having a son with Earl Philip Wellington’s great-great-great-great-granddaughter, Katie, Julia’s bloodline would forever be linked with the locally infamous Wellingtons.

  Julia yawned as she eased her car into one of the informal spaces in front of the manor. Fridays were always comfortably busy in the café, but a coachload of pensioners on a Cotswolds tour holiday meant the drive to the mansion marked the first time she had sat down all day. Compared to the demanding and fussy tourists she had been serving, babysitting her little brother for the night would be a piece of cake.

  She climbed out of her car. Katie’s giant, bright-pink Range Rover made Julia’s vintage, aqua blue Ford Anglia look even smaller than usual. Though Julia was the same age as Katie, who was technically her stepmother, their personal styles couldn’t have been more opposite.

  After ringing the doorbell, Julia stepped back and looked up at the dark clouds and uneasy sky. She wiped clammy sweat from her forehead. The pressure had been building all day, and even though the forecast had called for rain for much of the week following an extended early spring heatwave, not a single drop had touched Peridale. Tonight, however, it looked like a week’s worth of rain was about to fall.

  When the door opened, an unfamiliar young face greeted Julia with a hesitant smile. From her modest uniform, Julia assumed she was the latest in what felt like a conveyer belt of new housekeepers. This one looked even more nervous than the last.

  “Hello there.” Julia offered a friendly smile as she stepped onto the doorstep. “I’m Julia, Brian’s daughter.”

  “Oh.” The young, fair-haired woman, who couldn’t have been any older than twenty-one, looked over her shoulder as though she didn’t know what to do. “Right. One second.”

  The timid housekeeper pushed the door against the frame without actually shutting it, leaving Julia to wonder if she should just walk in. She had grown used to this routine with each new housekeeper, which seemed to have become a weekly occurrence. Before she could decide either way, the door swung open and the much older and more familiar former housekeeper, Hilary Boyle, greeted her.

  “Come in, come in.” Hilary ushered Julia inside with her free hand, the other clutching the cane she had become reliant on after a fall down the grand staircase. “Samantha, what did I tell you about answering the door?”

  “Erm…” Samantha’s bottom lip trembled, her pale eyes firmly on the floor. “I – I can’t remember.”

  “They get worse and worse.” Hilary rolled her heavily pencil-lined eyes at Julia before shaking her head at Samantha. “You ask the visitor who they are and why they are here. It’s not rocket science, girl!” She exhaled and put even more weight on the cane. “Get back to polishing the silverware, if you can do that right.”

  Samantha scurried off to the dining room, likely to burst into tears the moment she was alone; Julia wouldn’t blame her. The formidable Hilary had been the housekeeper at the manor for over four decades, and if it weren’t for the cane and her ailing health, she would still do all the daily chores – if only to have them done right.

  “Ah, Julia!” Her father, Brian, emerged from the study, already in his dinner suit. He pulled Julia into a tight hug before kissing her on the cheek. “You look more and more like your mother every time I see you. How are you doing, kiddo?”

  “I’m good.” Julia looked around the grand entrance hall, sure her small cot
tage would fit perfectly inside. “We had a hectic day at the café.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” He fiddled with his shirt sleeve, trying to attach a cufflink to his wrist. He huffed and held his hand out. “I’m guessing that coach of tourists made their way through your door. I had some in the shop earlier, but they were all timewasters. None of them bought a thing.”

  “I don’t think pensioners want to lug antiques back onto a coach with them.” Julia chuckled as she finished attaching the cufflink. “The day you don’t live in this place is the day I’ll feel sorry for you having a slow day at work.”

  Brian held out his second wrist and handed her a cufflink. Julia was glad to attach it. There had been a time, not too long ago, when their relationship was frostier. His decision to marry a woman Julia’s age had driven a wedge down the middle of the family, but since Vinnie’s birth and getting to know Katie, the old wounds had healed and they were all closer than ever before.

  “New housekeeper?” Julia asked as she watched Hilary hobble into the dining room. “Hilary seems to be giving her a run for her money.”

  “Only young women have been applying for the job,” he whispered. “Hilary is chewing them up and spitting them out at a rate I can’t keep up with, but we need someone to keep on top of this place.”

  As though to prove it, Hilary’s raised voice boomed from behind the closed dining-room door. Seconds later, the nervous young housekeeper ran out in floods of tears. She headed right for the bathroom under the stairs and locked the door behind her.

  “You might get further with a softer hand, Hilary,” Brian called as she limped back into the entrance. “It’s the girl’s first day.”

  “I have standards, Mr South,” Hilary barked back, barely making eye contact as she made her way to the kitchen on the other side of the hall. “Might I remind you I work to the standards of the man of the manor, not yours. Vincent Wellington might not be able to speak for himself, but I know how he liked things run.” She steadied her weight on the cane, her nostrils flaring. “Since you seem to know best, Mr South, I’m going to retire to my bedroom. Teaching little girls how to behave correctly is exhausting work.”

  Hilary slowly made her way up the sprawling, imposing staircase that had resulted in her needing the cane in the first place. Neither Julia nor Brian said anything until Hilary was on the landing and out of earshot.

  “I thought she’d softened after the fall,” Brian said, nodding for Julia to follow him into the kitchen. “Maybe she needs another shove to knock some kindness back into her.”

  “Dad!” Julia cried, slapping him on the arm. “That’s an awful thing to say.”

  “You don’t have to live with the woman.” He pulled a bottle of whisky from the cupboard and poured some into a glass. “She turns the air sour. I’ve been trying to get rid of her for months, but nothing seems to work. We don’t even pay her anymore, but I don’t think she cares.”

  “This place is her home.” Julia grabbed a glass from the straining board and filled it with water from the tap. “She’s lived here a lot longer than you.”

  “She’s been here since before Katie was born, and she likes to mention that as often as possible.” He took a sharp sip of whisky. “Are you only drinking water? We have everything you can think of.”

  “I’m not drinking alcohol at the moment,” she revealed, hoping he wouldn’t push the subject like some people had done since she made the decision. “It’s best to stay as healthy as possible to increase the chances of falling pregnant.”

  “Wise.” He nodded, glancing down at Julia’s stomach. “Are you still not—”

  “No,” she cut in, far too used to the question. “Not yet.”

  “And you and Barker?” He put the glass down and folded his arms. “Are you okay?”

  Julia frowned. “We’re great. Why would you ask that?”

  “I expected him here with you to babysit.”

  “Oh.” Julia laughed. “He’s in London for the night. His new book comes out next week, so they’re cramming in all the last-minute meetings they can while he’s there. I wasn’t looking forward to spending the night alone at home, so I was more than happy to come here and babysit Vinnie.”

  “How is the book?” he asked after another taste of whisky. “I rather enjoyed his first one.”

  “I’ve only read drafts, but it’s great – especially considering he only had a month to turn it in.”

  “That little time?”

  “After Tony Bridges died at the village bake-off in February, they loved the angle of him writing a book about a famous radio DJ’s murder, so he had to rush it. They didn’t like his original concept, anyway. It all worked out for the best. It’ll be a relief when it’s out. The process makes me miss the days he was a detective inspector.”

  “You married a good one there.” He raised his glass to Julia and drank again. “Better than the first one.”

  Julia laughed before turning her attention to the multiple plastic boxes filled with nail polishes at the end of the large island in the middle of the kitchen. “What’s all this?”

  “Oh.” Brian rolled his eyes. “Katie’s new thing. She’s given up on the fake tan business. Now she’s doing an online course to become a nail technician. I think she just likes to keep busy.”

  “Nails?” Julia looked down at her own nails, which couldn’t have looked more neglected if she tried. “Is she any good?”

  Brian walked over to the boxes and pulled out a plastic hand with the most misshapen set of lumpy, French-tip acrylic nails Julia had ever seen. “She’s learning. I’m sure she’ll get there, eventually. She’ll ask to do your nails at some point. She’s dying to get her hands on a real subject.”

  “Maybe ask Sue.” Julia forced an uncomfortable laugh, hiding her hands behind her back. “I’m sure she’d enjoy it more.”

  “Good idea.” Brian dumped the hand back in the box. “Right, I think we should get going. We’re booked in for dinner at seven, and the play starts at eight.”

  “And you’re back tomorrow morning?”

  Brian nodded. “Shouldn’t be too late. We’re staying over in a lovely boutique hotel. Katie picked it, in fact, this whole night was her idea. It’s far too easy to get bogged down with work and raising a toddler. It’s been a long time since we spent the night away from this place without Vinnie. It’ll be nice to be husband and wife, for once. You’re going to miss that when you have your own little one running around.”

  “I’m sure I will.” Julia looked down, trying not to acknowledge how she had been thinking of little else for months. “Where is the troublemaker?”

  “Sitting room,” he said, putting his whisky down before signalling for Julia to lead the way. “He’s usually in bed by now, but Katie wanted to soak up every second with him.”

  Julia walked across the large entrance hall to the open double doors of the sitting room, which had to be at least three times bigger than Julia’s own. With the giant gold-framed portraits, busts of generations of Wellingtons, and the oversized lavish antique furniture, Julia always felt like she was stepping into a doll’s house.

  Katie and Vinnie were curled up on one of the gold and red sofas, a storybook between them. In her gorgeous, ruby-red evening gown, Katie almost outshone the extravagant décor surrounding her.

  “Jack used the money from selling the golden eggs to buy back Old Bess, purchase seed for the spring crop, and fix up his mother’s farm,” Katie read aloud as she slowly turned the page. “He even had enough left over to invite every one of his neighbours over for a nice meal, complete with music from the singing harp.”

  Having a child hadn’t changed the always glamourous Katie much. She had gone through a demure phase after first giving birth, but it hadn’t taken long for her signature bouncy, peroxide curls, low-cut dresses, and heavy make-up to return. At face value, she wasn’t the type of woman Julia should ever get along with, which only proved books ought not to be judged by their covers beca
use Katie was, surprisingly, now one of her favourite people.

  “And so,” Katie said softly, turning to the final page, “Jack, his mother, Old Bess, the golden harp, and the white hen lived happily ever after. The end.”

  Katie closed the storybook and Vinnie crawled up onto her lap for a cuddle. He let out a wide yawn, showing off the few teeth in his sixteen-months-old mouth. Just as Julia had never expected to be an extended member of the Wellington family, she had never expected to have a baby brother – especially since her forties were around the corner.

  “Look who’s here,” Katie cooed into Vinnie’s ear as she stood up. “Your big sister is going to look after you for the night.”

  “Joo-eya!” Vinnie exclaimed, his face lighting up when he saw her.

  “Just one more cuddle.” Katie clenched her eyes and squeezed him before setting him down on the sofa and handing him a dinosaur toy. “Now, are you going to behave for Julia?”

  Vinnie crammed the toy in his mouth and stared up at his mother with wide eyes.

  “He’ll be ready for bed any minute,” Katie said to Julia after kissing Vinnie on the head and walking away. “If we slip out without a fuss, he might not throw a tantrum.”

  Julia knew toddler tantrums all too well. Not too long ago, she had experienced them while looking after Vinnie while Katie and Brian were in Ibiza. Having had no experience, caring for a toddler had been a steep but ultimately rewarding learning curve. By the end of their time together, she felt closer than ever to her little brother, and the experience was the catalyst for Julia and Barker to start trying for their own baby.