Hounded to Death (3 page)

“You could bunk in here with us,” said Bertie.

“Don't be silly. That's not even remotely the same.”

“There's always Richard,” I said without thinking. As soon as the words were out, I could have kicked myself.

Aunt Peg arched a brow. “That's putting the cart before the horse, don't you think?”

“Or maybe giving the milk away for free?” said Bertie.

“Nobody's going to be giving anything away.” Peg was firm. “For free or otherwise. At least not until we test the waters a bit and see how compatible we are in person. That
is
supposed to be the purpose of dating another person, isn't it? Things can't have changed that much since the last time I was out and about.”

“Don't look to us for dating information,” Bertie said. “Melanie and I are just a couple of old married ladies. If there's any excitement to be had this week, you're the one who's going to have to supply it.”

“How very depressing for you, as I intend to have a rather peaceful week myself. I'm simply going to give my Poodle lecture, attend a few judiciously chosen seminars, and maybe enjoy a quiet dinner or two with Richard if time permits.”

“Right,” I snorted.

Like most things, Aunt Peg seemed able to manipulate time to suit her will. And unless I missed my guess, Richard was going to find himself being rushed off his feet.

I snapped my suitcase shut. The small noise was enough to draw Bertie's attention.

She surveyed the results of my efforts, then looked at her own, still-full suitcase sitting on the floor by the door. Immediately she rolled off the bed, grabbed her bag, and dragged it over to the room's single dresser where I had already staked out two of the three drawers.

“Don't you have to, like, pee or something?” she asked.

Actually I did. But we had traveled together before and I knew perfectly well that Bertie had no honor when it came to her wardrobe and the concept of first dibs. There was no way I was letting her unpack unsupervised.

“Don't think I don't know what you're thinking.” I shoved the middle drawer shut with my knee. “You snooze, you lose.”

Aunt Peg looked at us. “Are you two going to be like this all week?”

“Probably,” I said.

Bertie nodded.

“I was afraid of that,” said Peg.

T
he reception was supposed to start at six-thirty, but even before the appointed time people began to gather in a cozy bar area off the lobby. When that room was full, partygoers spilled out into the great room where a roaring fire crackled in the fireplace.

The idea of being fashionably late is a concept entirely unknown to Aunt Peg. Immediate gratification is more her style. And since Bertie and I had accompanied her downstairs, that meant we were among the first to arrive. By the time a crowd had begun to gather, we already had our drinks and had staked out a prime location near the door.

Aunt Peg watched that portal like a hawk, alternately greeting or commenting on the new arrivals. While I was busy reading the name badges that most people had affixed to their lapels, Aunt Peg seemed to know just about everyone on sight.

“Tubby Mathis,” she said, when a portly man with bushy eyebrows and thinning hair entered the room. “He judges hounds, after a fashion. I can't imagine what he's doing here. His mind is a closed book. I don't think he's learned a single new thing in the last decade.”

“Maybe he's hoping to get laid,” Bertie said.

I choked on my Shirley Temple.

“Then he must be an optimist,” Peg said, dismissing him.

A well-matched, middle-aged couple came through the door next. If it's a truism that longtime dog owners often look like their dogs, it's equally true that longtime spouses also tend to acquire a similar veneer. Both members of this pair were fit and tan, as if they'd just returned from a vacation on some exotic beach.

They were holding hands as they entered the room, but almost immediately both were hailed by friends and pulled in different directions. They exchanged a brief look—shorthand between people who knew each other very well—and went their separate ways.

“Charles and Caroline Evans,” said Aunt Peg. “They belong to several kennel clubs, principally Windemere in northern Maryland. Both of them judge all over the country and Charles is a well-regarded speaker as well. He's scheduled to give the keynote address tomorrow on ‘The Future of Dog Shows.'”

“I've shown under Caroline,” said Bertie. “She does sporting dogs and hounds. She can be tough, but she's fair.”

“The same is true of Charles,” Aunt Peg replied. “He's got the Working, Herding, and Terrier groups. One of the reasons they're so much in demand is that between them they can cover so many breeds.”

“How long have they been married?” I asked.

Peg gave me an odd look. Anything that doesn't pertain to dogs is immaterial, or at least of lesser importance, in her view.

“Forever. What difference does that make?”

None really, I thought. And the question was out of character for me. Or at the least usual me, the one I had known before I became pregnant. But now, along with rocketing emotions, I seemed to have lost my usual air of cynicism. Instead I was filled with a dreamy sort of optimism that looked for the good in everyone.

“I just thought it was sweet that they were holding hands.”

Aunt Peg snorted. “There's nothing sweet about those two. Smart, driven, eminently respectable? Yes. Sweet, no. Not even on a good day.”

“Hey, look,” Bertie said as a pale, lithe beauty swept through the doorway. The woman had the practiced strut of a supermodel and a look of disdain on her face. “There's Alana Bennett. I'm going to go say hi.”

Bertie was no slouch herself when it came to looking good. She was probably the only woman in the room who didn't feel even the slightest bit threatened by Alana's arrival. When the two of them joined up and walked to the bar together—silky blonde and fiery redhead, heads dipped toward each other as they talked and laughed—there wasn't a man at the gathering who didn't take notice.

“It's a good thing Bertie has a decent head on her shoulders,” Aunt Peg remarked, tracking the pair's progress for a moment before turning back to the door.

“Why?”

“Because her friend Alana is a bit of a flit. In my day she would have been known as a good-time girl. I'd be shocked if she came to the symposium because she's interested in getting her judge's license. More than likely she's just here to socialize.”

“What's wrong with that?”

I may have sounded a little defensive, and with good reason. I was eons away from applying to become a judge, if indeed I ever did. But I had plenty to learn in the meantime and this symposium, coming up at just the right time, had seemed like a nifty vacation opportunity. Did that make my intentions any more pure than Alana's?

“You're a different case entirely,” said Aunt Peg.

It was spooky how often she was able to read my mind, probably a skill she'd honed through decades of nonverbal communication with her Poodles.

“You'll go to lectures and take a few notes, meet some new people over meals, maybe have a massage and take a hike in the woods, then go home feeling that you've had a successful stay. Alana, on the other hand, will drink too much and party too hard. She'll flirt with half the men here, and won't think her week is successful until at least one fight has broken out on her account.”

My gaze drifted toward the bar where Alana was now draped languidly over a stool, a pose that showed off her long, bare legs to perfection. “What's her connection to the dog show world?”

“Tenuous at best. Several years ago she was involved with an older man who had a wonderful line of Old English Sheepdogs. She started going to shows with him and must have enjoyed herself because even after their relationship was history she continued to put in an appearance, usually at upper tier shows like Tuxedo Park or Ox Ridge.

“She fashions herself as some sort of freelance do-gooder, the moral arbiter of the dog world. Every six months or so she's passionately devoted to a new cause, which could be anything from genetic research to saving pound puppies.”

“She sounds fascinating,” I said, mostly because I can never resist goading Aunt Peg.

“What she is, is dizzying. Try to keep up with her at your own peril. I haven't got the energy.”

Energy, my aunt had in abundance. Patience, she did not. I suspected it was the latter that kept her on this side of the room while Bertie and Alana were now holding court on the other.

“Oh dear,” Aunt Peg said suddenly.

“What?”

“He's here.”

“Who?”

She didn't answer, and after a moment I realized I should have known. Richard Donner must have arrived.

I looked in the same direction she was staring and saw a perfectly ordinary-looking man. His dark hair was seasoned with gray at the temples, his nose was a shade too big for his face. But his shoulders were broad and his torso still lean. Wearing corduroy slacks and a blue cashmere sweater, he had the easy stride of a former athlete.

He paused in the doorway for a moment and surveyed the activity in the room. I thought perhaps he was looking for Aunt Peg, but then he turned and waited for an older woman behind him to catch up. She was nearly a foot shorter than he was and her white hair was sprayed up like a halo around her face.

Richard leaned down and said something, his lips close to her ear, and she nodded and smiled. When the older woman headed toward the bar, Richard placed a determined smile on his face and came toward us.

“Quick!” Aunt Peg said under her breath. “What should I do?”

“Smile.”

“I'm smiling,” she said through gritted teeth. “What else?”

“Act natural.”

“Natural?
Natural
? There's nothing the least bit natural about this whole situation. What the hell does that mean?”

My aunt is not a woman given to swearing. Nor one who usually succumbs to nerves. I was seeing a whole new side of her, and it was not necessarily her most appealing one.

“How do I look?” she demanded.

Any second Richard would be upon us. Just as well because then she would have to stop spitting out rapid-fire questions.

I leaned over and whispered, “Perfect. You look perfect.”

Her shoulders relaxed ever so slightly and I hear her exhale a soft breath. Then she held out both hands to clasp the one Richard was offering.

“I'm Peg,” she said simply.

“I know,” he said. “I could tell that from across the room. You're the most striking woman here.”

Jeez, I thought.
Good answer
.

“And this is my niece, Melanie.”

Richard and I scoped each other out.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said after a moment. “If you're anything like your aunt, I'm sure you're a formidable woman.”

So my aunt's new beau was a man of many compliments. But praise that had sounded just right when directed at Peg seemed over the top when applied to me.

“I find myself growing more and more like her all the time,” I said mildly.

Beside me, Aunt Peg was beaming. Not just smiling, but actually beaming. Either she was really, really happy, or else she was so tense that her fine motor skills had short-circuited.

I was hoping for the former, but I was beginning to suspect the latter.

“Perhaps I should leave you two alone so you can get to know one another?” I asked.

“Yes, please,” Richard said smoothly.

“No!” cried Peg.

That settled it. Nerves, it was. I was torn between feeling compelled to come to her aid and wanting to enjoy the moment at her expense.

Petty of me, I know. But it wasn't like she didn't make a habit of abandoning me to the wolves.

“I'll tell you what,” said Richard. “I'm going to go to the bar and get a drink. Maybe while I'm there, I can refresh yours?”

Aunt Peg nodded.

She was drinking scotch neat. Considering that her usual beverage of choice was tea, it wouldn't take too many more of those before the occasion acquired a pleasing, rosy hue.

“While I'm gone, you two can decide what you'd like to do.”

Richard took Peg's tumbler and disappeared into the crowd.

“Don't leave me here alone with him,” she said as soon as he was gone.

“Why not? I thought you were looking forward to meeting him.”

“I was. But now that the time has come, I find it's harder than I thought. Do you have any idea how long it's been since I tried to make small talk with an attractive man? What if I say something stupid?”

I chuckled under my breath. “My being here won't prevent that.”

“All right, then, what about awkward silences? Who's going to smooth those over?”

“Why should there be any silences? Don't you already know Richard? How long have you been corresponding?”

Aunt Peg considered. “Three months at least. But writing is entirely different. You can go back and edit what you say. There's time for a second draft. In e-mail, I always sound brilliant.”

Hard to believe she could suffer a crisis of confidence, isn't it?

“If you want me to stay,” I said, “I will.”

“Thank you.” Peg looked past me and scanned the room. Fresh drinks in each of his hands, Richard was threading his way back toward us through the crowd. “Next to you, I'm sure I'll come off wonderfully.”

That was me, ever useful.

Richard had not only wrangled a pair of drinks; he'd also met up with a couple of friends along the way. Perhaps he'd hoped that enlarging the circle of conversation might put Peg more at ease. Or maybe he simply hadn't wanted to feel outnumbered.

Introductions were quickly performed. Derek Ryan was a Beagle man from northern Kentucky. He had a strong handshake, kind eyes, and a habit of standing much too close. Marshall Beckham looked like a stork. He was tall, slender, and serious; and when he heard Peg's name, he immediately shifted his attention her way.

“Peg Turnbull?” he repeated. “You're Margaret Turnbull, of Cedar Crest Kennels fame?”

Peg nodded graciously.

“I saw you win the group at Westminster! Champion Cedar Crest Chantain, wasn't it?”

She nodded again. Marshall was speaking much too fast for any of us to get a word in.

“I can't believe it. This is fantastic! What a turnout there is here. First Charles Evans, the man is one of my heroes…and now I'm meeting Margaret Turnbull. Somebody pinch me. That win at Westminster was quite a coup for an owner-handler! And what a lovely dog.”

“Thank you. Beau was always one of my favorites.”

In the face of Marshall's barrage of words, Aunt Peg was finally beginning to relax. Dog talk always did the trick. She was an old hand at that.

“I have Bichons,” Marshall said. “And I handle them myself. Certainly not with your flair, but I pride myself on doing okay. I know you've recently been approved for the breed and I hope you'll consider coming out to Ohio to judge. I'd be delighted to have your opinion of my dogs.”