Aunt Dimity and the Duke ad-2

by Nancy Atherton

  Aunt Dimity and the Duke

  ( Aunt Dimity - 2 )

  Nancy Atherton

  Emma Porter is forty, fat, frumpy, and a passionate amateur gardener. When her longtime lover dumps her for a younger woman, Emma escapes the cloying sympathy of family and friends by setting out on a summer-long driving tour of England's glorious gardens. A Dimity-contrived coincidence brings her to Penford Hall, a sprawling Gothic mansion in Cornwall, where she finds a duke in search of a missing lantern with extraordinary powers. Suspecting there's more than one mystery to be solved at Penford Hall, Emma accepts the duke's invitation to stay on and restore the once glorious chapel garden to its former beauty. The dark rumors surrounding a rock star and the near-death of the duke's beautiful cousin confirm Emma's suspicions, and set her--with Aunt Dimity's ghostly guidance--on the path to Penford Hall's secrets and the pleasure of unexpected love.

  A PENGUIN MYSTERY

  AUNT DIMITY AND THE DUKE

  Nancy Atherton is also the author of Aunt Dimity’s Death (the winner of the Mystery Guild New Discovery Award), Aunt Dimity’s Good Deed, Aunt Dimity Digs In, Aunt Dimity’s Christmas, Aunt Dimity Beats the Devil, and most recently Aunt Dimity: Detective. She lives next door to a cornfield in central Illinois.

  For

  Leslie J. Turek,

  Consulting Gardener

  Prologue

  “Come back, Master Grayson!”

  “Master Grayson! Stop!”

  “Grayson Alexander! When I get my hands on you—”

  His father’s roar was swallowed by the rising wind as the boy ran down the terrace steps and sprinted for the castle ruins. Shirttails flying, he ran, heedless of the servants’ cries and headlong from his father’s wrath, intent only on escape. Black clouds boiled overhead and a cold wind whipped in from the sea, surging mournfully up the cliffs and snatching at his hair as he dodged through gaping doorways, past tumbledown walls, feet pounding, lungs pumping, heart breaking. Tear-blinded, tripped by a half-buried granite block, he sprawled, lay panting, then pushed himself up and ran on.

  He reached the green door and flung it wide, stumbled down the stone steps into Grandmother’s walled garden. A building stood there, high on the jagged cliffs above the cove, rock-steady in the wind. They called it the lady chapel, though it was sacred to no one, except perhaps to the boy. It straddled the rear wall, pointing out over the storm-lashed sea like a ship riding the crest of a wave; a small, rectangular building—rough-hewngray granite, peaked roof, rounded door with time-blackened hinges. Moss-covered and ancient, it rose from the ground as though it had grown there, its roots buried deep in Comwall’s dark past. Reaching up to release the latch, the boy put his shoulder to the door and let himself in. Panting, he pushed the door shut behind him.

  Stillness. Silence.

  Light?

  Uncertainty gripped him. A candle burned where no candle should be, there on the ledge beneath the stained-glass window—the jewel-hued lady window that overlooked the sea.

  “Hello, Grayson.” The voice was calm and soothing. “Let’s see what we can do about that knee, shall we?”

  A woman sat in the front row of wooden benches. As she turned her head, the candle’s luster illuminated white hair, gray eyes, a softly wrinkled face, and when she smiled, he remembered: Grandmother’s friend, the woman for whom Crowley reserved his deepest bows, around whom even Nanny Cole spoke gently. She was the teller of tales who brought all the servants clustering round the nursery door. Miss Westwood, at first, but later.

  “Aunt Dimity?” Blinking back his tears, he made his way up the center aisle to her side.

  “A rough night, I fear,” she commented, removing her pearl-gray gloves. “A full-blown Cornish gale brewing. Still, we’ll stay dry as tinder in here.”

  A capacious tapestry handbag lay at her feet. From its depths she produced a hand towel, a small bottle, a length of white gauze. “Sit down, my boy,” she ordered. “This will sting a bit.” With deft hands she cleansed and bandaged the knee he’d scraped stumbling in the ruins, tied the gauze neatly, returned towel and bottle to the handbag, then sat back, hands folded, waiting.

  “Why didn’t you come?” he asked.

  “I didn’t know” was the prompt reply.

  Of course. Grandmother’s funeral had been a shabby affair. Father would not have announced it.

  “I’m so sorry, Grayson,” she added. “I know how badly you must miss her.”

  Grayson scrubbed at his eyes with the back of a muddy fist, then stared, unseeing, at his clenched hand. Crowley, gone. Newland, Bantry, Gash. Nanny Cole would be next. She and little Kate would be sent away from Penford Hall just like the rest of the staff, and he would lose them forever.

  Slowly at first, then with an urgency born of anger and despair, he told Aunt Dimity all about it. There was no one else to tell. With Grandmother dead, the village deserted, and the servants dismissed, ten-year-old Grayson was the sole witness to his father’s treachery.

  “No one’s left at Penford Hall,” he finished sadly. “And now he’s ... selling things.” The low-voiced confession was spoken to the flagstone floor. “Grandmother’s jewels, her paintings ... her harp.”

  “Oh dear.” Aunt Dimity sighed. “Charlotte’s beautiful harp ...”

  “He’s sold the lantern.” Grayson’s finger stabbed accusingly at the granite shelf below the stained-glass window, where the candle now stood. “How will we hold the Fete without the lantern?” He bowed his head, ashamed of a father who knew no shame.

  Frowning slightly, Aunt Dimity asked, “Are you quite certain of that?”

  The boy’s head swung up.

  “Are you absolutely certain that the lantern has been sold?” Aunt Dimity asked again. “I rather doubt that Charlotte would have allowed that particular item to leave the family, don’t you?”

  “Then where is it?” Grayson asked bluntly.

  “I don’t know.” Aunt Dimity’s gaze swept the stained-glass window and the dimly lit walls of the chapel, then she drew herself up and looked down at the boy. “But the Fête’s a long way off, and we have more pressing problems to attend to. Your face, for example.” Clucking her tongue, Aunt Dimity retrieved a fresh hand towel from the bag and began wiping the tear-streaked smudges from Grayson’s cheeks. “I know how distressing these changes must be for you,” she murmured, “and I won’t tell you to be a man about it. Grown men too often forget their dreams, and some dreams are worth holding on to.”

  Tilting the boy’s chin up, Aunt Dimity examined his face critically, then brushed his honey-blond hair back from his forehead. “You do have dreams for Penford Hall, don’t you?” she coaxed. When the boy maintained a sullen silence, Aunt Dimity persisted. “You mean, there’s nothing you love at Penford Hall? No one?”

  All that I love is here, Grayson thought. I would do anything to save it, anything to keep Kate here and bring the others back. Aloud, he muttered, “What’s the use? It’ll all be gone soon and it’ll never be the same again.”

  “Tush. Stuff and nonsense. Twaddle.” Aunt Dimity sniffed disapprovingly. “My dear boy, if you expect me to pat you on the head and say, ‘There, there, what a hopeless muddle,’ then you’ve mistaken me for quite another person—someone with whom I would not care to be personally acquainted. I’ve no patience with such foolishness and neither would your grandmother. Your father won’t always be the duke, you know. One day Penford Hall will be yours.”

  “It’ll be empty by then.”

  “Then you must fill it up again.”

  “It’ll be years before—”

  “If it’s worth having, it’s worth waiting for.”

  “But—”

  �
�And worth working for,” Aunt Dimity stated firmly. “If you were not overwrought at the moment, you would see it as plainly as I do. Then again,” she added, half to herself, “perhaps I’m not making myself clear.” Staring thoughtfully at the lady window, Aunt Dimity put her arm around the boy, her fingers smoothing his windblown hair. “She would not have lost hope,” Aunt Dimity said, her gray eyes fixed on the lady’s brown ones. “And she faced far worse things than you’re facing. Do you know the legend of the lantern?”

  With a nod, Grayson dutifully recited the words he’d heard so many times before: “Once, long ago, a lady fair did love a captain bold—”

  “Great heavens!” Aunt Dimity exclaimed. “Is that what Nanny Cole taught you? A lady and a captain? Dear me. Why do they fill children’s heads with such piffle? She was no lady, my boy, but a hardworking village lass who served as a parlor maid at Penford Hall. And her love wasn’t a captain, but the duke’s son, shipped off as a common seaman. The only thing Nanny Cole got remotely right is that they loved each other.” The halo of white hair nodded slowly. “Listen closely, Grayson, while I tell you the true story of the lantern. Perhaps then you’ll understand why you must go on loving Penford Hall, come what may.”

  Grayson doubted that a story would save Penford Hall, or bring the servants back, but Aunt Dimity’s arm was warm around his shoulders, and he had nowhere else to go. The boy nodded, then leaned against Aunt Dimity, his bandaged leg swinging listlessly.

  “It is seldom wise,” Aunt Dimity began, “for a poor girl to fall in love with a duke’s son. Love may be blind, but fathers most certainly are not, and the duke was not amused at the prospect of having a parlor maid as a daughter-in-law. He loved his son too well to forbid the match—I’ll grant him that—but he decided to test the boy’s devotion, for both his son’s sake and the family’s.” She glanced down at the boy, saw that his leg had stopped swinging, then went on.

  “The maid was sent back to the village and forbidden to set foot within sight of Penford Hall. The son was sent away for a year and a day, to sail the wide oceans as a common deckhand. The duke hoped that a taste of hard labor would cure the boy of his infatuation.

  “But this was no mere infatuation. The duke’s son had found his heart’s desire and he vowed that his first journey would be his last. ‘If you are here when I return,’ he promised the girl, ‘I will never leave you again.’ And with that, he rowed out from Penford Harbor to meet the great four-master that awaited him in the safe waters beyond the Nether Shoals.”

  Grayson had turned his face to the one that hovered above them. The lady’s eyes blazed suddenly as a streak of lightning split the sky, and the boy flinched at the crack of thunder that followed. Aunt Dimity’s arm tightened about him protectively as she went on.

  “One year passed,” she told him, “and one day, and on the night of the son’s return a storm blew up at sea. It was a fearful, rollicking gale, with waves as tall as Penford Hall and winds strong enough to shred the stoutest sails. Huddled safely around their hearths, the villagers knew that no ship would risk approaching the Nether Shoals that night.”

  “But she wouldn’t listen?” guessed Grayson, his eyes upon the window.

  “She would not,” confirmed Aunt Dimity. “Though her mother begged her to stay at home, the lass would not be swayed. ‘I must be there when he returns,’ she said. And with that, she took up her lantern—a plain, shuttered lantern, no more than ten inches tall, the kind used in every village house—and set out for the cliffs, where she could watch for her love’s return.”

  The boy tensed and drew closer to Aunt Dimity, envisioning the treacherous cliffs just beyond the chapel’s rear wall, and the long fall to the churning sea below.

  “It was a terrible journey,” Aunt Dimity continued, her voice pitched menacingly low. “She could not take the easy path, for it wound within view of the hall, and the hard path was very hard indeed. Rain pounded like hammers, wind snatched at her cloak, waves crashed before her, and dark shapes swirled on every side. A dozen times she fell, and a dozen times she pulled herself back up ... and up ... and up ... until she stood upon the wind-lashed cliffs.”

  “And then?” Grayson breathed.

  “Then it happened. The thing no one can explain. As she held the tiny lantern high, it began to glow with an unearthly light, softly at first, then more brightly, then blindingly, until it blazed forth like a beacon, piercing the curtain of darkness like a white-hot bolt of lightning.” Aunt Dimity let the words linger, let the image of the blazing lantern fill Grayson’s mind, before continuing, more quietly.

  “In the first gray light of dawn she saw the ship, the great four-master bearing spices and gold and the treasure of her heart, floating in the safe waters beyond the Nether Shoals. From it came a tiny boat, gliding like an arrow across the rolling waves, straight for Penford Harbor.”

  “He met her on the quay,” whispered Grayson, back on familiar ground.

  “And he told her of the light that had guided his ship to safety. And she told him of the lantern....”

  “And together they told the duke....”

  “And the duke was filled with wonder,” said Aunt Dimity. “From that moment on, he loved the lass as dearly as he loved his son. To honor her, he built this chapel, on the very spot where she’d stood, and he brought craftsmen to make the stained-glass window bearing her likeness. And in the chapel he placed the lantern, to remind his descendants of the miraculous light that had saved his son, a light that blazed forth bright as lightning, fueled by the power of a young girl’s love.” Aunt Dimity looked down on the tousled head at her shoulder. “And once every hundred years...” she prompted softly.

  “And once every hundred years,” the boy murmured, “the lantern shines of its own accord, and the duke of Penford must fête the villagers, in memory of the village lass, or Penford Hall will crumble and the Penford line will fade forever from the face of the earth.”

  “You must find the lantern, Grayson,” urged Aunt Dimity. “You must save Penford Hall. Look, Grayson. Look at the lady.”

  Grayson stared up at the window. The lady’s raven hair swirled wildly around the hood of her pale-gray cloak, but her chin was up and her shoulders were back. She thrust the lantern defiantly into the face of the storm, and her liquid brown eyes were fixed on something that remained forever out of reach. Grayson rose to his feet, pulled upward by the strength and courage in the lady’s eyes.

  Aunt Dimity’s voice seemed to come from a long way off: “Neither mother’s cry nor duke’s command could stay her, neither wind nor wave could sway her, for her heart was true, her hope undying. Tell me, young Master Grayson, shall you be any less steadfast?”

  Lightning flashed and thunder cracked and rain pounded down like hammers, but Grayson Alexander, who would one day be the fourteenth duke of Penford, stood unflinching.

  1

  Twenty years later

  “All of the good men are either married or gay,” Rita declared. “And now Richard’s married.” She closed the file drawer with a bang.

  Emma Porter touched a finger to her wire-rim glasses and cast a furtive glance at the freesias atop the file cabinet, gathered fresh from her garden that morning. The vase wobbled, but remained upright, and Emma quickly lowered her gaze to the keyboard of her computer. Bending forward, she let her long hair fall like a shield on either side of her face, determined to avoid the same, tedious conversation she’d had every day for the past six weeks.

  “Not that Richard was a good man,” her assistant continued, scooping up another armload of files. “I’d’ve scratched his eyes out if he’d run out on me like that. No eyes, no cameras, no sweet young things to drool over.” Clang! Another drawer took the brunt of Rita’s disapproval.

  “Please, Rita—the freesias.”

  “I’m sorry, Emma.” Rita’s voice trembled with outrage. “But when I think of Richard dumping you like that, after fifteen years—”

  “We weren’t married,
” Emma pointed out.

  “But—”

  “We lived in separate houses.”

  “Still—”

  “We were two independent adults.”

  “You were a couple!” Rita marched back to stand before Emma’s desk. “For fifteen years you did everything together. You even planned your big trip together. Then he ... he ...” Tears welled in Rita’s eyes.

  Without looking away from the computer screen, Emma reached for the half-empty box of Kleenex on the windowsill behind her and handed it to Rita, silently reminding herself to buy a fresh box on her way home. It seemed as though half the women in Boston had stopped by to commiserate since the wedding and each one had ended up in tears.

  “Oh, Emma,” Rita managed, trying to stem the flow before it ruined her mascara, “how can you be so brave?”

  Burying her face in a handful of tissues, Rita retreated to her own desk, just outside Emma’s office. When the other women in the department began to cluster around, Emma got up and closed the door firmly. The past six weeks had taught her that a firmly closed door was the only way to keep her sympathetic underlings at bay.

  Sighing, Emma reached out to the vase on the file cabinet, plucked a fragrant blossom, and held it to her nose, wishing that her co-workers would mind their own business. It wasn’t as though she and Richard were facing a messy divorce. She’d had no more desire than he to be tied down by marriage vows. Theirs had been a practical relationship, separate but equal, and it had outlasted most conventional marriages. Richard had his town house in Newton; she, her Cape Cod cottage in Cambridge. He’d pursued his career in photography and she’d pursued hers in computer science. They’d been a couple for fifteen years and now they weren’t. That was all there was to it.

  The light on her telephone began to blink, and Emma glanced at her watch. Time for Mother’s morning pep talk, she thought wryly. Returning to her desk, she tossed the freesia blossom into the wastebasket and reached for the phone.