The Toast of the Town (Fox & Oakby Murder Mysteries Book III)

Pies and Cases

Dedicated to late Mr. Connery, my very first screen crush that triggered my acute daddy issues. May he rest in peace! (And now try not to read the Titan's lines in THAT accent LoL)

***

The door to the Town Hall opened, and Mr. John Thomas Alistair Oakby sauntered in. Once, Imogen had told the Mayor that he sauntered - and looking at his Father now, she knew where the grace and the vigour of a prowling tiger came from.

"Ms. Fox, you look lovely today," he drew out.

Mrs. Harris behind Imogen made a choking noise. Everyone else - three elderly gentlemen who tended to idle around the Town Hall, gathering gossip, and Mrs. Peters who came to inquire into her petition for road renovations near her farm - stared at the Titan, seemingly holding their breaths. Imogen knew she didn't look particularly lovely today. She wore her usual knee-length skirt, an olive green blouse, with a modest bow on the collar, and her favourite comfortable loafers.

"Good day, Father," the Mayor's cold voice came from the door leading to the offices. 

Imogen who'd been standing waiting to be picked up, her purse in her hands, whipped her head. Mr. Oakby the Less Intimidating was leaning his shoulder on the door frame, his face inexpressive, his arms crossed on his chest in his habitual gesture - his left hand lay on the right upper arm, just above his elbow, without his forearms actually crossing. Imogen always found this gesture of his endlessly sexy. She knew - and suspected that very few people did - that when nervous he tended to clench his hidden right hand in a fist. She could bet her new favourite indoors plant - the rubber plant that the Mayor and her bought for their drawing room and whom she named George after her favourite Austen character - that at the moment the Mayor's knuckles were white.

"Thomas," the Titan said pleasantly and even smiled.

Like a well-fed alligator, Imogen thought.

"I promise to return Ms. Fox to you nourished and in high spirits," Mr. Oakby Snr purred. Once again, like a chuffed alligator, Imogen added in her mind. "Shall we?" he said and looped his arm.

Imogen swallowed nervously and carefully placed her hand on his forearm. The fabric of his suit was pleasantly silky, and her nose caught his expensive spicy cologne. He led her out of the building. Just a second before the door closed behind them, she looked over her shoulder and saw the Mayor's unmoving figure, still in the same pose, his large frame - wonderfully accentuated by the well-cut shirt and the waistcoat and the narrow trousers of his three-piece suit - radiating tension and discomfort.

The Titan wasn't driving, of course. His chauffeur - Imogen remembered his name was Albert - had a door open for Imogen, and she climbed in the Titan's - predictably - massive and black automobile.

"So, where should we eat?" the Titan asked her amicably.

Asking her to choose was surely putting too much pressure on Imogen! Where did the man like him eat? She simply didn't know a place in their sleepy village to appease his no doubt posh tastes.

"Well, I assume you don't eat in pubs," Imogen mumbled.

"I have to say it's been a while," he said in fake pensiveness, and the right corner of his lips curled up. "But I remember The Oak and Shield had excellent pie and mash."

Imogen's eyes boggled.

"If you call it 'grub' and order Mrs. Owens' whitebait, I'll know I'm simply still asleep and dreaming," Imogen blurted out.

The Titan rolled with laughter, and it seemed to Imogen that the chauffeur twitched, trying hard to overcome the urge to look back at them. She hardly thought it was common for Mr. Oakby Snr to guffaw that freely and merrily. Suddenly, Imogen could see why Petra would lose her head over the man.