Death at Daisy's Folly by Robin Paige Page A

Kirk-Smythe. “But do relax, dear. You look as if you’re afraid someone will bite you.”
    Kate tried to smile, but without much success. In spite of the bare-shouldered elegance of the green silk gown that had seemed so grand in the privacy of her bedroom, she felt herself just plain, ordinary Kate, an American—a redheaded Irish American, at that—and decidedly out of place in the midst of such a splendid company.
    The feeling was heightened by the joking, gossipy banter exchanged by the two pairs of couples that followed Ellie and Kirk-Smythe in the line: Lady Felicia Metcalf, escorted by a sandy-haired man of erect military bearing with a gold pince-nez, Sir Friedrich Temple; and Mr. and Mrs. Milford Knightly. Mr. Knightly, a turf friend of the Prince, was a sardonic man with one glass eye, wreathed in an aura of cheap cigars; his wife, several years older than her husband, was dressed in an olive green gown that made her skin look sallow. Behind them came Lord Reginald Wallace, Bradford Marsden, and the financier Samuel Isaacson, engrossed in a conversation about motorcars. Then, after some confusion about the order of the guests, came Kate, on the arm of a retired army officer with surly black eyebrows who glared at her and snorted “American, eh? Too many of you gels over here, looking for husbands.”
    The feeling of alienation persisted all through dinner, where Kate was sandwiched between the gray-bearded ex-officer with surly eyebrows (whose name, she discovered, was Sir Thomas Cobb) and Lord Malcolm Rochdale, who carried on a conversation with each other over her head. Lord Malcolm owned a country estate named Alwyne, not far from Chelmsford, and was building a grand new house there. That work, and the construction of his stables, occupied all his thoughts, Kate concluded, for he talked of little else. By the time dinner was over, she had learned that the newly constructed house had three wings and a clock tower and that the grounds were enclosed by a wall the height of his wife’s head. The whole affair was constructed of locally produced brick (making it sound to Kate remarkably like a prison), and Lord Malcolm commented several times on the extraordinary amount of money he had saved by this expedient. “One pays attention to such mundane business as construction savings these days,” he said, leaning forward to speak to Sir Thomas.
    â€œAh, yes,” Sir Thomas answered glumly. “Now that these ruinous death duties have been laid on us, we may all be constrained to build with cheap brick,” which remark put an end to the conversation for several moments.
    If Lord Malcolm was obsessed with bricks, Sir Thomas was preoccupied with shooting. So far this season, he confided to Lord Rochdale when they were speaking again, guests at the three shooting weekends he had hosted at his Warwickshire estate had bagged two hundred partridges, three thousand pheasants, and nearly four hundred hares—bloody statistics which left Kate pitying the ptarmigan on her plate (a favorite of the Prince) and feeling a trifle ill. But at least Sir Thomas had left off glaring at Kate and muttering about American gels; now his scowl was directed across the table at Sir Reginald, Kate’s luncheon partner, who had gotten into the tiff with Lady Warwick. Kate decided that Sir Thomas must have some kind of grudge against Sir Reginald, for he spent the dinner hour bristling his brows and grimacing at him, these quite remarkable facial gestures accompanied by shoulder hunches and audible snorts and hisses.
    During the interval between the ptarmigan and the peas and asparagus in aspic, Kate glanced up and down the table. The guests—ten to a side, with Lady Warwick on one end and Lord Warwick on the other—were decorative in their glittering jewels and gleaming shirtfronts. They were attended by liveried footmen moving soundlessly in and out of the shadows while the myriad candles