Thistlewood Manor: Murder at the Hedgerow (An Eliza Montagu Cozy Mystery—Book 1)

By Fiona Grace

"Very entertaining. I highly recommend this book to the permanent library of any reader that appreciates a very well written mystery, with some twists and an intelligent plot. You will not be disappointed. Excellent way to spend a cold weekend!"
--Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (regarding Murder in the Manor)

THISTLEWOOD MANOR: MURDER AT THE HEDGEROW (AN ELIZA MONTAGU COZY MYSTERY—BOOK 1) is the debut novel in a charming 1920s cozy mystery series by Fiona Grace, #1 bestselling author of Murder in the Manor, which has over 300 five star reviews!

For centuries, Thistlewood Manor has stood as home to the Montagu family, a beacon to British aristocracy in rural England. But it’s 1928, and in this new age of women’s rights, Eliza Montagu, 27, a free spirit, has turned her back on her family to live an artist’s life in London.

But when an unexpected family crisis arrives, Eliza has no choice but to return home to the demands of her family, to help her father, and to meet the Lord they hope she’ll marry.

When a dead body appears in the midst of the reunion, Eliza quickly realizes that if she doesn’t solve the mystery, the crime may just be pinned on her, and dash her hopes for a life as a free woman.

A charming historical cozy mystery series that transports readers back in time, THISTLEWOOD MANOR is mystery at its finest: spellbinding, atmospheric and impossible to put down. A page-turner packed with shocking twists, turns and a mystery that’s hard to solve, it will leave you reading late into the night, all while you fall in love with its unforgettable heroine.

Books #2 and #3 in the series (A DOLLOP OF DEATH and CALAMITY AT THE BALL) are now also available!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fiona Grace
• Release date: Oct 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9781094377698

Book preview

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THISTLEWOOD

MANOR:

MURDER AT THE HEDGEROW

(An Eliza Montagu Cozy Mystery—Book One)

FIONA GRACE

Fiona Grace

Fiona Grace is author of the LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY series, comprising nine books; of the TUSCAN VINEYARD COZY MYSTERY series, comprising seven books; of the DUBIOUS WITCH COZY MYSTERY series, comprising three books; of the BEACHFRONT BAKERY COZY MYSTERY series, comprising six books; of the CATS AND DOGS COZY MYSTERY series, comprising nine books; and of the ELIZA MONTAGU COZY MYSTERY series, comprising three books (and counting).

Fiona would love to hear from you, so please visit www.fionagraceauthor.com to receive free ebooks, hear the latest news, and stay in touch.

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Copyright © 2022 by Fiona Grace. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright Alaver, used under license from Shutterstock.com.

BOOKS BY FIONA GRACE

ELIZA MONTAGU COZY MYSTERY

MURDER AT THE HEDGEROW (Book #1)

A DALLOP OF DEATH (Book #2)

CALAMITY AT THE BALL (Book #3)

LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY

MURDER IN THE MANOR (Book#1)

DEATH AND A DOG (Book #2)

CRIME IN THE CAFE (Book #3)

VEXED ON A VISIT (Book #4)

KILLED WITH A KISS (Book #5)

PERISHED BY A PAINTING (Book #6)

SILENCED BY A SPELL (Book #7)

FRAMED BY A FORGERY (Book #8)

CATASTROPHE IN A CLOISTER (Book #9)

TUSCAN VINEYARD COZY MYSTERY

AGED FOR MURDER (Book #1)

AGED FOR DEATH (Book #2)

AGED FOR MAYHEM (Book #3)

AGED FOR SEDUCTION (Book #4)

AGED FOR VENGEANCE (Book #5)

AGED FOR ACRIMONY (Book #6)

AGED FOR MALICE (Book #7)

DUBIOUS WITCH COZY MYSTERY

SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF MURDER (Book #1)

SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF CRIME (Book #2)

SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF DEATH (Book #3)

BEACHFRONT BAKERY COZY MYSTERY

BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A KILLER CUPCAKE (Book #1)

BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A MURDEROUS MACARON (Book #2)

BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A PERILOUS CAKE POP (Book #3)

BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A DEADLY DANISH (Book #4)

BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A TREACHEROUS TART (Book #5)

BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A CALAMITOUS COOKIE (Book #6)

CATS AND DOGS COZY MYSTERY

A VILLA IN SICILY: OLIVE OIL AND MURDER (Book #1)

A VILLA IN SICILY: FIGS AND A CADAVER (Book #2)

A VILLA IN SICILY: VINO AND DEATH (Book #3)

A VILLA IN SICILY: CAPERS AND CALAMITY (Book #4)

A VILLA IN SICILY: ORANGE GROVES AND VENGEANCE (Book #5)

A VILLA IN SICILY: CANNOLI AND A CASUALTY (Book #6)

A VILLA IN SICILY: SPAGHETTI AND SUSPICION (Book #7)

A VILLA IN SICILY: LEMONS AND A PREDICAMENT (Book #8)

A VILLA IN SICILY: GELATO AND A VENDETTA (Book #9)

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

Eliza smiled defiantly at the men yelling at her, their fists clenched and their faces red with anger. In the beginning, it scared her, but it was almost like a game to her now. Sometimes she would watch them for fun, waiting for them to pop like a balloon.

The men hurled insults at Eliza and her fellow suffragettes as they marched along Oxford Street. While many of the other women tried to blend in, Eliza stood out from the crowd—her crimson coat and beret a red rag to the bulls screaming from the sidelines.

Eliza’s friend Patty was less bold. She walked sheepishly beside Eliza, her dark green overcoat and glasses allowing her to blend seamlessly into the crowd.

They’re so…angry, Patty said. Eliza could tell she was intimidated, but she clutched the large, white Votes for Women sign in her hands and raised it a little higher anyway.

Eliza smiled at her friend. Some of them are every bit as angry as they look, but most of them are just going along with the mob. That’s why we march—to persuade the ones who don’t really mean it.

What about the ones who do mean it?

Oh, them? We’ll toss them into the Thames. I always find that cold water is the quickest way to sober the mind.

Eliza laughed. It was May of 1928, and the rumors that the British government was getting ready to concede and give all women the right to vote abounded. Hope was in the air. She could feel it in her bones.

I have to capture this moment, Eliza thought, as she looked around at her fellow suffragettes and the angry mob following them. She closed her eyes for a moment, committing these sights to memory.

As soon as I get home, she thought, I’m going to paint this.

Where’s yer fellas, ladies? At home wearin’ an apron? a voice shouted in Patty’s direction, echoing up and above the crowds of taunting men and bouncing between the elegant facades of London’s most glamorous street. Several of the men nearby laughed in response.

Eliza studied Patty to make sure that she was okay. All of the women were singing the chorus of March of the Women now, and she watched as Patty punctuated each note a little more strongly and held her sign a little higher. She could tell she was trying to project confidence—to make it clear that she would not be intimidated, but Eliza knew her friend. She could tell Patty was rattled.

Eliza toyed with the idea of engaging with the heckler. At a previous protest, she had soaked a crowd of red-faced misogynists with a fire extinguisher. The police searched the crowd for her after that, but she ditched her characteristic red beret and blended into anonymity with her fellow protesters.

Taking this man down a peg would feel good, no doubt, but she wasn’t sure how Patty would feel about it. Patty had never been nearly as comfortable with conflict as Eliza was.

Eliza had almost decided to let it go when the man taunted the women again.

What you all need is a good seein’ to. Form a queue, ladies. I’ll help ya out.

Again, laughter came in response from the men, and Patty blushed nervously at the man’s words. Eliza could tell from the way Patty’s protest sign trembled that her hands were shaking.

Eliza could not let that stand.

She moved through the protesters, pulling Patty along beside her, until she was right next to the heckler.

Oi! Ladies! the man said with a grin. How about...

How about what, darling? Eliza said loudly, adjusting her red beret as she stopped in front of the man and stared him down.

At first, he seemed apprehensive, but then he let out a bellowing laugh and looked around to the other men on the street. Fellas! Looks like we’ve got a couple of goers here.

 Darling...Whatever do you mean? Eliza asked, her voice sweet and her innocence feigned.

I think you know what I mean, Lovely.

Little old me? Eliza asked as she moved closer to him. I’m terribly sorry, but I can’t say that I do. Could you explain it to me? I have no idea what a ‘goer’ is, but I’d really like to know.

Well...I... the man stammered.

Please tell me and my lady friends. You seem to know a lot about it.

Eliza stepped closer and turned on the charm. She could almost hear the collective sigh of her family back home as she did. She knew they would be mortified by her behavior, but she’d certainly never let that stop her before, and she wasn’t about to start now.

Reaching out her hand, Eliza ran her finger up the man’s arm. What was it you called us? ‘A couple of goers’? What did you mean, exactly?

Now...listen h...here! The man stammered.

If you are a goer... Eliza leaned in, Perhaps you should have a go of this!

With that, Eliza swiftly pulled the protest sign out of Patty’s hands and slipped the wood it was mounted on down the back of the man’s jacket. Before he even had a moment to process what had happened, Eliza had wrapped her arm around his shoulders and pulled him into the crowd.

Sisters! We’ve got a new supporter! she yelled.

Cheers went up in the crowd as the red-faced man was welcomed with a sea of hands. He was so caught off guard and outnumbered that he had little choice but to be pulled into the crowd by the suffragettes, swept along with them, all the while looking for help that was not forthcoming.

Eliza turned her attention back to the other men on the pavement and smiled. Who else wants to join the cause?

Several of the men looked down at their watches, as if late for an important meeting, and dispersed in different directions. Patty looked at Eliza and smiled.

Hope you don’t mind me borrowing your sign, Eliza said.

Not at all, Patty said. I can’t imagine a better use for it.

Both Eliza and Patty watched the heckler for a moment, giggling at the sight of him swallowed up by the crowd, the Votes for Women sign proudly protruding from his jacket.

This is the moment I want to immortalize on canvas, Eliza thought. She couldn’t wait to get home and recreate the scene as exactly as possible, though she knew she would have to make one notable alteration. When it came time to memorialize the moment, she would have to remove herself from the image. No matter how much she might want to, she knew she couldn’t include herself in the painting. Her past forbade that.

***

Two hours later, as the evening sun began to dip in the sky over downtown London, Eliza returned to her flat on Carol Terrace. The building was ornate, with white marble pillars flanking the main door and a picturesque central staircase inside leading up to her third-floor apartment. Eliza both adored that place and resented it. She loved the privacy and independence it afforded her, and the location was ideal, but it never really felt like her. It was still filled with antique furniture from a bygone era, and it didn’t even have a telephone line installed. But it was what the flat represented that stayed with her like a stone in her shoe: she wasn’t really independent at all. This flat, like everything else in her life, was paid for entirely with her father’s money.

Eliza unlocked the door and headed into the study, where she wound up her gramophone player and put on her favorite Papa Jack record. Eliza loved jazz, almost as much as she loved painting, and she was convinced that if she ever found the time, she would learn to play such music herself one day. Tonight, however, the easel and canvas awaited her.

Eliza took off her red beret and began taking her blond locks out of the pins that held them until her soft curls relaxed to just above her shoulders. She slipped on her paint-flecked smock and grabbed a fresh canvas. Using a pencil first, Eliza began to sketch the scene she had been part of just a few hours before. Protesters walked the streets, valiantly marching for the right to vote, while the heckler and his friends jeered from the pavement.

She stood back for a moment and studied the sketch. There were a few things she would change before she added the paint, but all in all, she was quite pleased with it. The technique was good, but more importantly, she felt confident that she’d captured the spirit of the thing.

Too bad no one will ever see it, she thought.

In her soul, Eliza knew she was a painter. The only problem was that she hadn’t actually managed to convince the rest of the world of that fact yet. In her paintings, Eliza explored the experience of speaking truth to power and mocked the antiquated way British society was constructed. If she had been a girl from a working-class home, this might have been deemed revolutionary and resonant. But as an upper-class girl who grew up on a fancy family estate, her paintings just came off as a cry for attention from a bored little rich girl—or, at least, that’s what her mother and Great Aunt Martha always used to say.

Eliza was jolted from her thoughts by a knock on the door.

How odd, she thought. After all, it was fairly late in the evening now, and she wasn’t expecting anyone.

She opened the door to find a kid, about fifteen years old, if that, holding a letter. Eliza signed for it, gave him a tip, and then closed the door.

Her heart raced as she stared at the envelope in her hands. She recognized the handwriting on the front of the envelope immediately. It was her mother—her mother with whom she had not spoken in three years.

Growing up, Eliza had adored her mother. She wanted nothing more than her attention and approval. But as she grew older, it became increasingly clear that Eliza was going to have to choose between having her mother’s affection and being true to who she was. Eliza was not one to sit down and be quiet. She was someone who wanted to stand up and be counted. And her mother would simply never understand or allow that.

It was an agonizing choice—one that ultimately forced her from the only life and home she’d ever known—but in spite of it all, she had never regretted it. Not even for a moment. The cost of staying was simply too high. Eliza wanted adventure. She wanted to break the mold and fight for things that mattered. Much as she wished it wasn’t the case, she was never going to be able to do that at Thistlewood House.

When Eliza left, her mother swore that she would never speak to her again. She said that by leaving, Eliza was abandoning the family and rejecting everything they stood for. Her mother swore this was a decision she could not walk back from, and Eliza believed her. Her mother was nothing if not true to her word and firm in her convictions.

And yet, here was this letter.

Eliza’s hands shook as she took her ivory-handled letter opener from the mantel in the drawing room and prepared to open the envelope. She wasn’t sure what news the letter contained, but she knew one thing for certain: If her mother was reaching out to her after all of this time, it could not be good.

CHAPTER TWO

You can make it, she whispered to herself as she weaved through a sea of besuited men in fedora hats reading broadsheet papers and creating as much smoke from their cigarettes as the nearby steam trains.

Eliza knew that lateness would mean disaster. Her mother was a stickler for punctuality and urgency. If Eliza didn’t make it to Thistlewood House by the afternoon, there would be hell to pay.

As she approached the large, blue steam engine on platform 4 with six red carriages behind it, Eliza saw the platform attendant looking at his watch. The driver of the engine, his hands and face smeared in black soot, was leaning out of a window seemingly waiting for the whistle to get under way—which it did just moments before Eliza arrived at the platform.

Wait! Eliza yelled as the blue steam engine’s wheels slowly began to move. Wait!

Running past the conductor, she thrust one of her suitcases into his arms.

I need your help, she said.

In the confusion, he obeyed, and followed her as fast as he could.

The train was now slowly moving, but Eliza managed to grab hold of the nearest red carriage door. It would not budge, and as she tried her best to keep up with the train along the platform, the attendant behind her huffed and puffed, running with her largest suitcase in his arms under his chin.

Eliza was starting to sweat now. The idea of being late filled her with dread. Thankfully, it also filled her with an unexpected surge of strength, so this time, when she tugged on the carriage door again, it suddenly swung open. Standing in the doorway was a tall man in a perfectly pressed grey suit, his blond hair slicked back neatly. Need a hand? he asked.

Catch! Eliza said, as she hurled her smallest suitcase at him.

He caught it, so she tossed him the next one, which he caught as well. Finally, as the train gathered speed, she grabbed hold of his hand