A Groom wirh a View

hostess“ role. Mr. Willis rushed the beer and grocery store snacks to the room where the bridal shower had been held earlier in the day, and Jane helped him put out wines, sherries, and elegant little nibbles in the main room for any guests who might be settling in there.
    Shelley breezed through with an armload of coats she’d relieved the aunts and the bridesmaids of, and whispered, “Just think, Jane, it’s eleven o’clock. By this time tomorrow, we’ll all be home and this will be but a pleasant memory.“
    “Yeah, right. If we all survive until tomorrow night,“ Jane muttered, polishing a water spot off a sherry glass with the tail of her blouse.

Fifteen

    The bachelor party sputtered into action. The group consisted of Dwayne, his brother, his groomsmen, Jack Thatcher, and a couple of the older man’s business associates. Uncle Joe wasn’t there. Jane hadn’t handled the invitations, so she didn’t know if Joe’s absence was because Jack didn’t want him there or Joe had refused to come. The young men, determined to impress their important elders, were awkward and gauche in their efforts to behave. The older men were bored senseless. Jane peeked in the door a couple times and on each occasion the two groups were keeping their distance.
    Jane and Shelley took over a pair of chairs just outside the room, in case Jane were to be needed. “What loads of fun they seem to be having,“ Shelley said sarcastically.
    “Poor things,“ Jane said.
    “Which ones?“
    “All of them. There’s nothing worse than an obligatory festivity.“
    “I don’t know—I think you’re forgetting childbirth, tax audits, frozen pipes, flat tires downtown during rush hour, college tuition...“ Jane put up her hand. “Okay, okay.”
    Several of the women were also sitting around in the main room, but keeping their distance from Jane and Shelley. Whether by design or accident was questionable. The aunts were fiddling with the tuner on the old upright radio in the far corner. Possibly, Jane thought, to get a weather report. There were faint rumbles of thunder in the distance and Jane devoutly hoped there wouldn’t be a repeat of the previous night’s storms. There was still the possibility of having to hold the wedding in the dark.
    Eden had commandeered the best lamp and had a vast array of fingernail cosmetics on a table. There were half a dozen files and buffers, a kaleidoscope of bottles of colored polishes, and a selection of bottles of mysterious liquids. Kitty and Layla were finishing up yet another jigsaw puzzle on a big, hoof-footed coffee table by the fireplace.
    Mrs. Hessling wasn’t among them. She’d come back with everybody else on the minibus, but had pleaded weariness and Errol had taken her back to the motel. Nor was Livvy anywhere in sight. Jane had no idea where the bride might have gone, but kept reminding herself that she was the wedding planner, not the girl’s mother, and it was none of her business where Livvy spent the evening before her Big Day.
    A few minutes after Jane and Shelley settled in, Mel reappeared, rested but a bit bleary. “What’s going on?“ he asked.
    “Not much,“ Jane said. “A floundering bachelor party. So tell us what you learned this evening.”
    Mel briefly reviewed his dinner with John Smith and Gus Ambler, hitting all the high points. The monks, the drunken hunting parties, the ascent (or descent, depending on how you looked at it) into domesticity, and Uncle Joe’s arrival and Gus’s perception of him as a wild boy who went off to war and came back vaguely damaged. He repeated what Gus had said about O. W. being so tightfisted all his life and pretty dotty at the end.
    “But he gave Joe full credit for taking good care of his father as long as he could. Not with much good grace, however.“
    “Did you mention the treasure rumor?“ Jane asked.
    “I did, and to my surprise, he didn’t fall down laughing at a city slicker suggesting it.“
    “So he thinks there was one?“
    “He didn’t go that far. Only allowed as how it was barely possible.“ Mel went on to explain about the renovations done at the end of O. W.’s life and his secrecy about just what was being done to the house and why.
    “So he could have slipped in a secret passage or hidden something in a wall?“ Jane asked.
    Mel looked highly skeptical. “You’ve been reading old gothic novels again, haven’t you?“
    “I’m serious, Mel. Why would anybody have new walls put in and