Murder at Longbourn

remember ever seeing her so mad. I thought she would have been dying to get away from him, even if it was only for a weekend, but Polly backed out.”

She handed me a green brocade skirt. “These look nice together. Especially with your coloring.”

“Why did Polly back out?” I asked, taking the clothes.

“She didn’t say. She just said that something had come up and she wasn’t going to be able to make it after all.” Brooke added a pink silk scarf to the outfit and shook her head. “I bet she wishes she’d gone with us now.”

I wondered if that was true. I thought of what I knew of Polly—a determined young woman, by all accounts miserable living with her father. Now her father was gone and she was free to live her life without his interference. Brooke was dead-on with her fashion sense, but was she as perceptive about Polly?

One hour and several hundred dollars later, I left the store. Peter was just walking up the street toward me.

“I’m hungry,” he said by way of a greeting.

“I don’t see how you can possibly be hungry after eating all that bread.”

“Well, I am. Do you want to get something? I know a place that makes the best clam chowder on the Cape.”

“Is there anyplace on the Cape that doesn’t claim to make the best clam chowder?”

“You have a point,” he acknowledged with a tip of his head. “But this place actually does have the best. Are you interested?”

I was. I had only nibbled at my cranberry muffin at breakfast and Peter had eaten all the bread at the Teapot. It was now late afternoon and I was starving.

We put our bags in the Jeep and Peter drove us to the Captain’s Knot, a restaurant overlooking the harbor—a description that sounds much nicer than the reality. Since the temperature was well below freezing, we had no qualms about leaving the groceries in the car, as we hurried into the tavernlike restaurant. A few locals sat at the worn mahogany bar, sipping from large mugs of beer and watching football on the overhead television. To the right, several tables had a view of the water. The hostess waved to us to take our pick and we chose a table next to the large window.

As we sat down, an awkward silence descended between us. I busied myself by studying the laminated map that covered the tabletop. Peter stared out the window. Outside, a horn sounded and I turned in my chair. A large white ferry was slowly maneuvering its way out of the harbor. The wind slapped at the boat’s flags and at the few people who had decided to brave the cold and stand on the top deck. Proud of their hardiness, they waved manically to anyone who looked their way.

“There goes the ferry to Nantucket,” said Peter.

“Cool,” I said. Cool? What was I, twelve? Why did I turn into such an idiot when I was around him?

“Do you remember that time we went with Aunt Winnie?” he asked.

How could I forget? He had terrorized me during the entire journey with horrible tales of children being swept up by sudden gusts of wind and tossed overboard. I think he may even have swiped my chocolate doughnut, too.

“I remember,” I muttered. “It was two years before I could get on a boat again without clinging to the rails.”

“Now that you mention it, I do remember you looking a bit green around the gills. A green Cocoa Puff,” he said and laughed. As he chuckled gleefully in fond memory of my nautical misery, all the pent-up embarrassment and frustration I’d suffered at his hands as an insecure, overweight kid boiled over.

“Look,” I hissed at him. “Do you think you could drop that stupid nickname? In case it has escaped your notice, I’m not some dopey kid anymore. I’ve changed. I’m a grown woman. However, you appear to be the same misogynist who delighted in making me feel like a moron, so you can take me back to Longbourn right now. I don’t need you to make me feel like a moron. My skills at that outrank yours any day.”

Peter’s face was a caricature of surprise. “I don’t think you’re an idiot, Elizabeth,” he said finally. “I know I teased you a lot when we were kids, but I always liked you. If I hadn’t, I would have ignored you. To be honest, I always thought you were a pretty good sport.”

I couldn’t believe this. “You liked me? You called me names and locked me in the basement! Who does that to someone he likes?”

He shrugged. “Most fourteen-year-old boys, I think. And while we’re on the subject, I recall certain names being flung my way and, on one occasion, finding something wet and slimy moving around in my bed.” I stared at him dumbfounded. That’s how he remembered things, with me as a willing adversary rather than a hapless victim? In my memories, I had cast myself in the role of a young Jane Eyre—plain and unhappy. Rather than her counterpart, the moody Mr. Rochester, I had pegged Peter as a more sinister version of Simon from Lord of the Flies. Had I been wrong?

He reached across the table and gently took my hand. Giving it a squeeze, he said quietly, “Elizabeth? I’m sorry if I was horrible. For what it’s worth, I was pretty miserable that summer, too. My parents were off in Europe and I had to stay behind. Aunt Winnie was great, but she wasn’t family. If I remember correctly, you were this smart-alecky kid who walked around with her nose in a book most of the time. You thought I was a creep.”

“That’s because you were a creep.”

“Yeah, well, when you’re fourteen you’re insecure enough. You don’t need someone else pointing out your failings.”

I was speechless. Luckily, the waitress arrived to take our order or I would have continued to gape at him like one of the fish offered on the daily specials.

After ordering the obligatory cup of clam chowder, I opted for fried clams. Peter ordered a steak sandwich. I idly played with the blue-and-white sugar packets in their little stand and struggled to reconcile the memory of the unrelenting nemesis of my youth with this new version of Peter as just a goofy, although utterly obnoxious, kid.

He raised his water glass. “Friends?” he asked, by way of a toast. I hesitated a long moment but finally gave in. Raising my glass to his, and meeting his warm brown eyes, I reminded myself that with a murderer on the loose I needed all the friends I could get.

The awkwardness slowly faded and we started to chat like old friends. He told me that he was following in his parents’ footsteps and getting involved in their hotel business. He was in the process of getting his MBA and after that he was going to take over one of his parents’ hotels. I told him about my goal of becoming a writer and of my frustration at being limited to just fact-checking other people’s stories. Before I knew it, two hours slipped by; the sun was sinking onto the horizon, sending red bands of light across the water, and our waitress was hovering impatiently with the check.

Peter relieved the woman of the bill. “This is on me.”

“Oh, but you don’t have to do that,” I said.

“No, I insist. Consider it restitution for the bad behavior of my youth.”

I laughed. “Oh, no. If this is an attempt at restitution, it’s just a drop in the bucket.”

“I was afraid of that,” he said with mock seriousness. “Well then, by your calculations, how many lunches will it take to clear my name?”

I pretended to consider the question before answering, “At least eight thousand six hundred and forty- two.”

“Seems a fair trade,” he said with a smile. Peter could be very charming when he wanted to be. I tried to ignore the cynical part of me that questioned why he was suddenly being charming to me.

CHAPTER 14

You are too sensible a girl … to fall in love merely

because you are warned against it.