Wedding Bel Blues: A Belfast McGrath Mystery (Bel McGrath Mysteries) Read Online Free Page B

about that for a moment. I didn’t. Although I liked to think of Caleigh as innocent and simple in her approach to things, I’m sure in the years that had passed since we graduated from high school and then college, the years where I had been cast in the role of her protector and de facto sister, she had matured into her own woman, someone who was completely capable of doing something like having a one-night stand with a mysterious wedding guest, someone I had never heard of and now never wanted to see again. My family had changed—heck, I had changed, too—the individual members turning into people I would have to reacquaint myself with over time, it seemed.
    Caleigh’s third cousin once removed, my ass.
    I didn’t answer him, making my way back to the wedding. I ran into Mark on the dance floor, dancing stiffly with his grandmother, Jonesy, a tiny dynamo in a St. John suit who had told me last night at the rehearsal dinner that the key to staying slim was a secret fifty-year smoking habit.
    “Marlboro Lights. Best way to keep your weight down,” she croaked. “Every girl in my sorority smoked them.”
    You know what also keeps you thin? Cancer. But I wisely kept my mouth shut and nodded gratefully for that sound piece of health advice. And the secret of her smoking habit was not so secret, I wanted to mention. A cloud of smoke followed her everywhere she went.
    I pulled Mark to the side. “FYI, Caleigh is upstairs sleeping off the bottle of champagne she drank.”
    He grimaced. “She can’t hold her liquor,” he said, some kind of indictment in his voice. Behind us, Feeney was revving up and a loud song with a cha-cha beat began, complete with accordion accompaniment. Thanks to Derry’s interest in diversity, The McGrath Brothers, my siblings’ unoriginally named quartet, now seemed to cover every ethnicity known to mankind, so much so that I wondered if Feeney would switch to a sitar right after a musical trip to Cuba.
    “She’s all yours now, Mark,” I said, reminding him that his vows just a few hours ago made it so that I was no longer her caretaker and that he was.
    “I know, Bel,” he said. “And that makes me the happiest man in the world.” His face broke into a smile so wide and sincere that my heart almost broke, knowing what I knew. Sure, Mark Chesterton wasn’t a guy I found attractive, but in that moment—more than any other moment so far—I saw that he adored her. And that was enough to make me feel better about the union.
    He walked off, leaving me among a sea of dancers all hell-bent on making “Besame Mucho” seem like a new Siege of Ennis, the intensity of their cha-chaing rivaling my relatives doing their favorite dance. There wasn’t an Irish-Catholic person among them, leading me to believe that the Protestants at this wedding had all attended the Arthur Murray Dance Studio at some point and learned well.
    I decided to get a breath of fresh air, choosing the front of the historic mansion for a little sojourn before the cutting of the cake, if that would even happen, given the bride’s inebriation. Although I should have been more interested in the goings-on in the kitchen, Goran was in charge and I had been warned to leave him alone, even if I thought his knife skills rivaled those of Jack the Ripper.
    Out on the front porch rocking chairs faced a grand lawn that also had a view of the Hudson, and that was my destination. I had one foot in the foyer, its marble floor gleaming in the afternoon sun, when my attention was diverted by commotion overhead, somewhere in the vicinity of Caleigh’s slumber.
    Not my business, I thought, as I heard what sounded like two men speaking in hushed but angry tones. My first thought was that a worker was getting reamed by my father for letting the Chesterton/McHugh schedule get out of hand—where was that damned cake anyway?—or for letting Jonesy Chesterton smoke in the ladies’ room. (It had to be her. No one smokes anymore and I had