Aunt Dimity and the Duke

by Nancy Atherton

  A mahogany staircase led to a broad gallery that ran the length of one wall. Arched floor-to-ceiling windows pierced the gallery’s walls, and the glass-enclosed shelves on both levels held thousands of volumes. Here and there, a book’s title, inscribed in gold leaf on a dark leather binding, gleamed in the firelight.

  “So? Whaddya think? Am I right or am I right?”

  Before Emma could answer, the hall door flew open and the duke rushed in. “Sorry, all,” he said breezily. “Beastly rude of me to totter in so late, do forgive me. Will you listen to that downpour? Makes one glad to be indoors, what? Syd, how kind of you to dress for dinner.” The duke, Emma noted, was wearing a tasteful but decidedly informal pair of flannel trousers and a fawn-colored cashmere turtleneck. “Emma, you are a vision in blue, and your hair! Your hair is like a soft mist rolling in off the sea.” Gesturing toward the portrait over the mantelpiece, he added, “My grandmother. As you can see, her interests were musical as well as horticultural. She played the harp beautifully.”

  Syd’s voice rang out. “Those are some emeralds your grandma’s got on.”

  “Her wedding jewels,” the duke explained. “My grandfather had a great fondness for emeralds.” He turned to the bay windows. “Susannah, you look ravishing. And treating Derek to a talk about—which diet deity is it this week? Never mind, I’m sure it’s a jolly fascinating one. Dreadfully sorry to interrupt the fun, but a higher power has informed me that our presence is required in the dining room.”

  “Hey, Duke,” Syd said, rising to his feet, “I was just tellin’ Emma how you could make a bucket rentin’ this joint to the right people.”

  “How enterprising you are, Syd,” the duke said easily.

  “I got a card—”

  “I believe we’ve accumulated quite a collection of your cards, Syd,” the duke broke in. “So generous ... Not one member of the staff has been overlooked. Emma, my dear, would you allow me the honor?”

  With a shy smile, Emma placed her sherry glass on the table at her knee and crossed the room to take the duke’s arm. Syd offered his to Kate, Susannah latched on to Derek’s, and the three couples made their way up the hall to the dining room, Syd’s voice booming, Susannah murmuring, and Emma raising a hand to rub her temple. It was shaping up to be an exceptionally long evening.

  7

  A candle-filled chandelier lit the dining room, and the silver-and-green velvet drapes had been drawn to reveal the rainswept façade of the ruined castle, dramatically lit by concealed floodlights. “It’s better on a clear night,” the duke murmured, as he took his place at the head of the table.

  Emma sat on the duke’s right, Susannah on his left; Kate was at the foot of the table. Syd sat between Kate and Emma, tucking his napkin into his shirt collar and beckoning to Crowley to fill his wineglass. Derek, who had yet to acknowledge Emma’s presence, sat across the table from Syd, beside Susannah.

  Shadows danced across the molded ceiling, and the table was a fairyland of twinkling crystal and gleaming silver. Quite a lot of silver, Emma noted. Aware of Susannah’s coolly amused gaze on her worried face, Emma resolved to follow the duke’s lead and hope for the best.

  “Speaking of higher powers, Susannah,” the duke was saying, “I’m almost willing to believe in one, now that Emma’s here. She’s an answer to my prayers, sent by a pair of angels in human form, who—Ah, Madama, what culinary magic have you worked for us tonight?”

  A door had opened in the wall behind Emma, admitting a tiny old woman in a plain black dress, followed by Crowley, bearing a silver soup tureen, and Hallard, carrying a ladle. The old woman led the two manservants to the sideboard, where she carefully filled a soup bowl, then stood back. Hallard placed the bowl on a silver tray, and Crowley presented it to the duke. “Wild mushroom, Your Grace, with a touch of port wine.”

  The duke tasted the soup, then bowed his head. “Perfection,” he declared.

  The old woman’s wrinkled face was instantly wreathed in smiles, and she departed the room in triumph, leaving Hallard and Crowley to serve the duke’s guests.

  “She does it every night,” Susannah commented to Emma. “I find it positively medieval.” She turned her gaze to the foot of the table. “But, then, so much about Penford Hall has a feudal air. It must be a special treat for you to dine with your betters, Kate.”

  Emma flinched, but Kate Cole merely nodded complacently.

  “It is,” Kate agreed. “I feel quite privileged whenever the Reverend and Mrs. Shuttleworth invite me to dine with them at the rectory in Penford Harbor. Mrs. Shuttleworth sets a shining example for us all.”

  Outmaneuvered, Susannah subsided.

  “Now, where was I?” said the duke. “Ah, yes, my guardian angels. You would adore them, Derek. They live in a tiny Cotswolds village called Finch and they’re the most incredibly identical—”

  “You don’t mean Ruth and Louise Pym by any chance, do you?” Derek interrupted.

  “Derek, you astound me,” said the duke. “Don’t tell me you know them.”

  “I do, as a matter of fact. Worked on the church in Finch last winter, uncovering some whitewashed frescoes. Twelfth-century. Interesting.” Favoring Emma with a brief glance, he asked politely, “How are the ladies?”

  Candlelight glittered in sapphire eyes, and Emma’s soup spoon slipped from her fingers, clattering loudly on the leg of her chair as it made its way to the carpet. She started to retrieve it, but the duke put out a restraining hand to keep her from knocking heads with Hallard, who was already bending to remove the offending utensil, while Crowley replaced it with a clean one, which Emma promptly swept from the table with her elbow.

  Hallard and Crowley went into action again, Susannah tittered, and Emma blushed a shade of pink that made her grateful for the dim lighting. The duke came to her rescue, signaling Crowley to serve the next course, and continuing as if there’d been no interruption.

  “But how else would they be, dear boy? There are few things in this world one can rely upon absolutely, and the Pym sisters—and I say this advisedly—are one of them.”

  “Tell them how you met,” said Kate.

  The duke obliged. “Front right tire went pop directly in front of their cottage. The road turned and I didn’t. Came to a rest atop their birdbath, if memory serves. They were perfectly charming, of course. Took me in, fed me soup, gave me a kitten to play with—like being back in the nursery with Nanny Cole. Been thick as thieves ever since. Never go to London without looking in on them.”

  “And you, Miss Porter?” Derek asked.

  “A m-maze,” Emma stammered, still shaken by her mishap with the spoon.

  “Know what you mean,” agreed the duke, helping himself to the marbled salmon and sole Hallard offered from a silver serving dish. “But who wouldn’t be? The first time I saw them, side by side, peering through my windscreen, I thought I’d bunged my head on the steering column.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me who you’re talking about,” Susannah put in, looking peevishly at the duke.

  “Ruth and Louise Pym, my dear Susannah, are antique, inestimable, and identical twin sisters.”

  “I knew a pair of twins once,” said Syd. The duke waited for him to go on, but Syd simply stared into the middle distance, a reminiscent smile playing on his lips.

  “Identical twins?” Susannah grimaced. “How ghastly. I would dread having a twin.”

  “The thought is an unsettling one,” the duke agreed smoothly. “I would venture to say—”

  “In a maze,” Emma said abruptly. The dinner party froze as all heads, including Crowley’s, turned in her direction.

  “I beg your pardon?” said the duke. “I didn’t quite catch—”

  “I met them in a maze. The Pyms. A hedge maze. At Mansley Bran——” Emma cleared her throat. “At Bransley Manor.”

  “Ah, Bransley Manor.” The duke nodded. “Kate and I visited there as children, with my grandmother, when the Saint Johns were still in resid
ence. That was many years ago, of course. It is a National Trust property now, I believe?” With infinite patience, the duke guided Emma through a description of the gardens at Bransley Manor, then gracefully changed the subject, giving her a chance to recover her composure. His solicitude reminded Emma that she had a confession to make, and as Crowley served the noisettes of lamb, she turned to the duke.

  “Grayson?” she said softly. “I’m afraid there’s been a slight misunderstanding.”

  “I knew it!” the duke exclaimed. “I knew the rose suite wouldn’t do. Crowley, would you please—”

  “Oh, no,” Emma broke in. “It’s not the rose suite. It’s me.” She riveted her eyes on the rim of his wineglass as the words came spilling out. “I’m not who you think I am. I’m just a tourist, and I met the Pyms by accident, and I came to Penford Hall to look at the gardens, not work on them.”

  There was a moment of heavy silence as the duke stared at her, uncomprehending. “Do you mean to say that you have to get back to your proper job by next week or something? If that’s the problem, I’m sure Kate can arrange—”

  “No,” Emma said quickly. “It’s not that.”

  “What is it, then? I’m sorry if I seem obtuse, but—”

  “I’m not qualified to do the kind of work you have in mind,” Emma explained. “I’m not a professional gardener.”

  “I see.” The duke nodded thoughtfully, then rubbed the tip of his nose with his thumb. “Good heavens, Emma, how you unnerved me,” he said gently. “For one earth-shattering moment, I thought the Pyms had made a mistake. My dear ...” Susannah began a lecture on the evils of meat-eating, but the duke focused solely on Emma, leaning toward her, speaking softly, his warm brown eyes alight with understanding. “Kate tells me you work with computers, and I must believe her, but that, I think, is merely what you do for pay. Gardening, though—digging and planting, hoeing and weeding, watching the seasons change and feeling vnu’re a part of the cycle—that’s something altogether different, is it not?”

  Emma nodded slowly, and the duke nodded with her.

  “The thing that we love most is the thing that we do best,” he murmured. “And you, my dear, love nothing quite so well as a garden. The Pyms discovered that, surely, and I saw it in your face this afternoon, just as clearly as I see it now. You could no more turn your back on the chapel garden than I could walk away from Penford Hall. Give me your hands.”

  Emma’s hands seemed to float across the snowy linen to rest in the duke’s outstretched palms. He gazed down at them in silence, then raised his eyes to Emma’s once again.

  “Just as I thought,” he said. “Callused, strong, and exquisitely capable. All the qualifications I require. I’ve no doubt whatsoever that these two hands”—he enclosed Emma’s in his own—“will bring the chapel garden back to life.”

  “Wow,” said Syd, through a mouthful of lamb. “You gotta real way with words, Duke.”

  “Treacle,” sneered Susannah, tossing back her glass of wine.

  The duke took no notice of them, and Emma was aware of no one but the duke. Warmed by his touch, mesmerized by the light in his brown eyes, she felt her self-doubt melt away. At that moment, she would have followed Grayson to the ends of the earth.

  “Well,” she began, a bit breathlessly, “if you’re sure ...”

  “I’m sure,” said the duke, raising her hands to his lips, then releasing them with a radiant smile.

  With a fluttering heart, Emma folded her hands in her lap. She felt as though she’d been seduced in public, but, oddly enough, she didn’t seem to care. Plans began to take shape in her mind, and they kept her in a pleasantly preoccupied haze until the warm cappuccino soufflé was served, when the words “Lex Rex” pulled her sharply back to earth.

  “Never replaced the yacht, have you, Grayson?” Susannah was saying. “Surprising, really, now that you can so easily afford one.” Draining yet another glass of wine, she swayed toward Emma. “Wasn’t always such a show-place, Penford Hall. Bit of a shambles when my mother and I came calling.”

  “The hall has seen its share of troubled times,” Grayson acknowledged.

  “Not anymore,” said Susannah, waving her wineglass at the chandelier. “So why haven’t you replaced the yacht? You were so fond of sailing, so good at it, too. Not like poor old Lex.”

  Syd looked up from his plate. “Give it a rest, huh, Suzie?”

  “It’s all right, Syd,” said the duke. “It’s true that I was once very fond of sailing. But I somehow lost my taste for it after Lex and the others died.”

  “Spoilt the day for you, did it?” Susannah drawled. “Spend a night or two crying in your pillow for poor old Lex?”

  “Really, Susannah,” said Kate, her eyes flashing.

  “Lex’s death spoilt quite a few days for me, actually,” the duke replied tightly. “It may interest you to know, dear cousin, that drowning isn’t the easy death it’s made out to be. It is, in fact, nightmarish. Try, if you can, to imagine someone you care for sinking beneath the waves, helpless, struggling, gasping for breath—”

  Derek stood abruptly. His face was pale and a fine line of perspiration beaded his brow. “Sorry,” he said gruffly, staring down at the table. “Seems a bit close in here. Think I’ll head upstairs.”

  Emma had no idea what had provoked Derek’s reaction, but the pain in his eyes lanced through her like a knife. Almost without thinking, she, too, rose to her feet, then stood in awkward silence, not knowing what to say, embarrassed to have drawn attention to herself yet again.

  Once more, the duke rescued her. Tossing his linen napkin on the table, he pushed back his own chair and stood. “I’ve just had the most splendid idea,” he announced. His voice was light, but the look he gave Susannah was nothing short of murderous. “It’s Emma’s first night at Penford Hall. Why not have a little celebration? Crowley, Dom Pérignon to the music room, if you please, and open the piano. Nothing like a spot of Mozart and a tot of bubbly to brighten a rainy night.” Without missing a beat, he added, “You’ll join us, of course, Derek.”

  Derek slowly raised his head to look, slightly puzzled, at Emma. He lowered his eyes, then shrugged. “Perhaps one glass,” he agreed.

  8

  One glass of champagne led to another, and when Emma awoke shortly after dawn the next day, she still felt a bit tipsy.

  The evening had turned out well enough, in the end. The duke had proved to be a gifted pianist, and Susannah, deprived of the spotlight, had retired early, taking Syd and a good deal of tension with her. In her absence, the duke had played with renewed vigor, interspersing the promised Mozart with jaunty selections from H.M.S. Pinafore.

  Still, Derek had never really shaken off the morose mood that had seized him at supper. He’d sipped his champagne and listened attentively to the music, but he’d said very little and smiled even less.

  What had set him off, Emma wondered. Had he, too, known Lex Rex? Had the discussion of the rock singer’s death reopened an old wound? Perhaps Kate had warned her off of the topic in order to avoid just such a scene. Clearly, the duke placed a high premium on his guests’ well-being. Why, last night he’d made Emma feel ...

  ... like a moonstruck teenager, she thought wryly, just as Derek had done in the chapel garden. This would never do. She had a job of work ahead of her at Penford Hall, and lying in bed, blushing like a schoolgirl, wouldn’t get it done.

  Throwing off the covers, Emma reached for her glasses, then pulled on the blue robe and made her way out onto the balcony. The rain had fallen steadily throughout the night, but the storm had finally blown itself out, leaving a handful of fleecy clouds in its wake. Shreds of gray mist drifted across the great lawn and swirled among the castle ruins, like graceful ghosts from one of Grandmother’s moonlit parties. The mist would be gone by midmorning, Emma thought. It promised to be a beautiful day.

  After a quick bath, Emma dressed in a denim skirt, a short-sleeved cotton blouse, and her trusty walking shoes. She’d
have to stock up on work clothes, but this morning she wanted nothing more than to have the chapel garden all to herself for an hour or two. Emma pulled her long hair into a pony tail, then boldly decided to find a back door to Penford Hall on her own.

  Twenty minutes later, she was forced to admit defeat. It was galling, but she would have to retrace her steps and wait impatiently in her room until Mattie or Crowley or some other native guide materialized. She turned to go back the way she’d come, then jumped as a woman’s voice exploded in her ear. “What the HELL do you think you’re doing here!”

  Emma was halfway through a terrified apology before she realized that the question had not been directed at her. The bellow had come from behind a closed door a few steps down the hall, and she could now make out the sound of a softer voice answering. Cautiously, Emma approached the door and bent her head to listen.

  “No, you may bloody well not tidy up my blasted room, and if I catch you dusting under the beds in the nursery one more time, I’ll tear your arm off and beat you with the bloody stump! Have I made myself clear?”

  Emma flattened herself against the wall as the door flew open and a dark-haired, frail-looking little boy scooted out. He was pursued by a woman who was at least as old as Crowley, a head taller than Emma, and built like a Sherman tank. Her short white hair was tightly curled and trailing multicolored bits of thread. Snippets of bright-red yarn were scattered over her tweed skirt and twin set, a pincushion bristled on her wrist, and a tape measure dangled around her neck. The woman pointed a pair of pinking shears at the boy and bellowed, “Scat!”

  The boy stood his ground. He was as neat as a pin, in navy-blue shorts and knee socks, a white polo shirt, and running shoes, and he regarded his formidable adversary with a look of nervous defiance.

  “What about our lessons?” the boy demanded.

  The hand pointing the pinking shears dropped to the woman’s side. “Lessons?” She scratched her head, sending a shower of thread to the floor. “You had some yesterday, didn’t you?”