Aunt Dimity Beats the Devil (Aunt Dimity Mystery) (11 page)

I couldn’t blame Nicole for looking forward to Guy’s visit. What woman could resist a man in uniform, especially if the man was tall, blond, and handsome? Jared wasn’t exactly love’s young dream and he seemed to take his new wife for granted. If Nicole’s thoughts occasionally strayed to the fair-haired captain, Jared had only himself to blame.

My own straying thoughts were another matter entirely, brought on, as they had been, by a combination of exhaustion and heartfelt gratitude. Adam wasn’t just another pretty face. He’d saved my life, rescued my luggage, and—most important of all—restored Reginald to me. If anyone had earned the right to slip into my dreams, and an occasional waking thought, Adam had.

That settled, I pushed the handwritten catalogue aside
and began emptying the wooden crate. The books it held weren’t the children’s books I’d expected, but they were interesting nonetheless: a selection of Sir Walter Scott’s novels in pebbled red morocco; collections of Tennyson, Browning, and other Victorian poets; the complete works of Jane Austen, half-bound in dark green; and many more.

I knew in my heart that the books had once belonged to Claire. I didn’t need bookplates or embossed stamps to tell me that they’d been her companions at Wyrdhurst Hall until a flesh-and-blood companion had come along to take their place. I scanned the flyleaf of each volume, hoping to find another sample of Edward’s writing, but the endpapers proved to be disappointingly pristine.

I’d emptied half the crate by ten o’clock, when I paused to stretch my aching back, gazing glumly through the windows at the low-hanging clouds that filled the sky. The sunlight, even at midmorning, was weak and watery. There’d be no roaming the moors today, I thought, and my spirits plunged a little further.

A few crisp words from Jane Austen would, I knew, snap me out of my gloomy mood, so I reached for
Persuasion.
As I riffled the pages, a piece of paper slipped free and drifted like an autumn leaf to the carpeted floor.

I set the book aside and knelt to fish the loose sheet from under the oak table. The note was undated, but a jolt of recognition coursed through me when I saw the handwriting: it was the same sprawling scrawl I’d seen in
Shuttleworth’s Birds.

“‘My darling Claire,’” I read aloud. “‘The Ring at noon. Tell no one. Your own Edward.’”

I sank back on my heels, nearly swooning with the romance
of it all. Adam had been right to urge me to stay on at Wyrdhurst and look for the rest of young Claire’s books. The thrill of finding Edward’s tantalizing note far outweighed the discomfort of sleeping behind bars.

Adam had been right about one other thing, too: Edward had been in love with Claire. Why else would he arrange a secret tryst at a place called the Ring?

I placed the note on the table and recommenced my search, but this time, I looked beyond the flyleaf in each volume. By the time the ebony clock chimed twelve, I’d found what I was looking for.

One hundred and twelve scrawled notes lay in a neat pile on the oak table. I’d discovered five loose sheets tucked into five different novels, as though left there by mistake. The rest had been cleverly cached in a hollowed-out volume of
Ivanhoe.

The notes were brief, sometimes cryptic, but always written from Edward to Claire. Two-thirds of them referred to the Ring. It seemed to be the young couple’s favorite meeting place.

One note suggested that they’d had an ally:

Edward’s departure intrigued me. I hoped that he’d returned safely from his journey, and that Claire had received the letters he’d entrusted to the faithful Edith Ann.

I leaned back in my chair and looked over at Josiah’s stern portrait, pondering his role in the romance. It didn’t take much imagination to conclude that the old devil had disapproved
of Edward. To avoid Josiah’s wrath, the young couple had resorted to communicating through notes tucked into books and arranging secret meetings in a safe place, aided on occasion by a sympathetic confederate.

I wondered if the old devil had discovered the deception and brought an end to it, or if the affair had simply petered out, as so many young loves do. I wondered what had happened to Edward after Claire’s untimely death.

Above all, I wondered how the two had met. Claire was the only daughter of a rich and powerful man. Her life had no doubt been severely circumscribed, her actions scrutinized, her guests screened.

Yet Edward had to have been a regular visitor to the hall, one with easy access to Claire’s books. Had he been a distant cousin? A gardener? A tutor?

Or, I thought, my gaze wandering to the gray ledger, had he been a lowly, underpaid librarian? I took up the handwritten catalogue, but before I could open it, the study doors announced Nicole’s return.

She crossed the room with her head bowed, a forlorn slump to her shoulders, and handed a mobile phone to me.

“Captain Manning wishes to speak with you,” she said, and flopped listlessly on a dusty armchair.

“Guy?” I said into the phone. “It’s Lori. What’s up?”

“Would you care to join me for lunch?” he asked.

“Aren’t you coming here?” I said.

“There’s been a change in plans,” he replied. “I would prefer to dine in Blackhope.”

“What about Nicole?” I asked. “I’m sure she’d like to come along.”

There was a pause, the faintest of sighs, then: “I would prefer to keep our conversation confidential.”

My interest was piqued. What could Guy say to me that he couldn’t say in front of Nicole? I glanced at the catalogue, reminded myself that it would be there when I returned, and accepted Guy’s invitation, arranging to meet him at the front entrance in forty-five minutes.

I folded the phone, returned it to Nicole, and apologized for spoiling her luncheon party.

“It doesn’t matter.” She sighed dolefully. “The captain has his job to do. I quite understand. Oh,” she added, an afterthought dawning, “your new car has arrived.”

“My what?” I said.

“Your new car,” she repeated. “It arrived just before Captain Manning rang. I had the deliveryman park it under the porte cochere. It’s the most extraordinary color.”

“Canary-yellow.” I rolled my eyes. “One of Bill’s little jokes.” My husband believed firmly that other drivers deserved fair warning when I was on the road. My latest
misadventure had evidently done nothing to change his mind.

“The deliveryman left a packet on the front seat.” Nicole stood and gave her dust-smudged skirt an apathetic swipe. “Would you like me to bring it to you?”

“I’ll get it,” I said. “It’s probably a new cell phone. Bill thinks of everything.” I placed the gray ledger atop Edward’s notes and followed Nicole to the front door.

The canary-yellow Range Rover was identical to the one that had plummeted into the mist, right down to the heavy-duty straps installed to hold the twins’ safety seats in place.

The keys were in the ignition and a brown-paper-wrapped parcel lay on the driver’s seat. I opened the door to retrieve the parcel, but stopped short when an unfamiliar car emerged from the dank woods. The battered Ford Fiesta had once been solid blue but now was freckled with rust, and its engine sounded as if it had climbed one hill too many.

Nicole, standing at the top of the steps, peered over the Rover at the approaching wreck. “Who in the world—” she began, and her next words made my heart skip a beat. “Ah,” she said, “it’s Mr. Chase.”

“I think I’ll put my package in my room,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

Without further ado, I darted past my pretty hostess and ran up to my room to make the most of my own, more modest charms. I descended twenty minutes later, freshly scrubbed, combed, and clad in a nubby handknit sweater, slim wool trousers, and suede boots.

Adam stood in the entrance hall, chatting with Nicole.
The light from the stag’s-horn chandelier burnished his black hair with gold and warmed his pale skin. He wore the same black fleece pullover he’d worn yesterday, but the cycling pants had been replaced by a pair of black jeans. When his eyes met mine, my breath caught in my throat.

Nicole took her lower lip between her teeth, looking from Adam’s face to mine with a worried frown. “I’ll keep watch for Captain Manning,” she said, and went outside, stealing backward glances as she went.

Adam took no notice. He brushed his knuckles along the side of my face, saying, “The roses are back in your cheeks. You must have had a good night’s rest.”

The roses turned a shade redder as my dream’s final moments came back to me. “Once they took the dead animals away, I slept like a top.”

Adam grinned, then cocked his head toward the front door. “I see that you’ve obtained transport.”

“My husband sent it.” The contrast between Adam’s dilapidated wreck and my shiny new toy made me feel slightly ashamed of Bill’s largesse. “He gave me the other Rover,” I explained. “It was a Christmas present, meant to replace an old Morris Mini. My Mini was as beat-up as…” My words trailed off in tongue-tied confusion.

“Your Mini was as beat-up as my Fiesta,” Adam finished the thought for me, adding, “and your husband is a very generous man.”

“I’m not dependent on him,” I protested, suddenly defensive. “I inherited a fair amount from an…an aunt.”

Adam’s mouth curled upward in a rueful smile as his gaze traversed the entrance hall. “Useful things, inheritances.”
He put a hand on my shoulder. “There’s no need to apologize for being well off, Lori. We’re friends, remember?”

His touch sent a surge of warmth flowing through me. The awkward moment passed and I looked up at him eagerly.

“You’ll never believe what I’ve found,” I said. “A whole pile of notes Edward wrote to Claire.”

Adam’s eyebrows shot up. “The same Edward who signed
Shuttleworth’s Birds?
”

“The handwriting’s identical,” I confirmed. “You were right about everything. Claire had tons of books and Edward was definitely in love with her. They used to meet secretly at a place called the Ring.”

“The Devil’s Ring,” said Adam. “I know it well.”

“Will you take me there tomorrow?” I asked.

“I can take you there now,” he offered.

“I can’t go now,” I said, with a pang of regret, and told him of my lunch date with Guy.

Adam’s face darkened angrily at the news. “If that man tries to pump you for information about me, I’ll—

“I can take care of myself,” I reminded him. I softened the words with a quizzical smile. “Do you really think anyone can get anything from me that I don’t want to give?”

Adam paused long enough to give my words a meaning I hadn’t consciously intended. I lowered my gaze, but felt no desire to rephrase the question.

“I think,” he said finally, “that I’m looking forward to our outing.”

A delicious dizziness descended over me, and the room seemed to blur at the edges. Almost without thinking, I
stepped closer to Adam, felt myself leaning toward him, but stopped when Nicole spoke.

“You’ll want your jacket, won’t you, Lori?” She stood in the doorway, regarding me anxiously. “Captain Manning should be here in a moment.”

“My cue to exit,” Adam murmured. He turned to leave and I walked out with him. “I’ll come for you around ten. Wear your sturdiest boots and have rain gear handy. The sun may deign to show his face, but rain’s never far away in Northumberland.”

I waited until he’d driven out of sight, then, as if emerging from a dream, made my way slowly to my room to fetch my jacket. The brown-paper-wrapped parcel lay where I’d left it, in the center of the bloodred bedspread, but I was too preoccupied to attend to it. Instead, I crossed to the windows, to gaze across the open moors.

What had come over me, down there in the entrance hall? I was far from immune to Adam’s charms, but I was also mature enough to resist them. Why, then, had I behaved like a giddy teenager?

I could no longer blame exhaustion or point a finger at heartfelt gratitude, but it wasn’t simple lust at work, either. My feelings were more complex than that. One minute I wanted to mother Adam, to soothe away the sadness in his eyes, and the next I wanted to smother him with not-so-motherly kisses. I hadn’t been at the mercy of so many contradictory emotions since the hormonal tidal wave of pregnancy had broken over me, and I knew for a fact that I couldn’t use
that
as an excuse.

It was as if Adam had cast a spell over me. Because even
now, removed from his presence and in full possession of my faculties, I could scarcely contain my eagerness to see him again, alone, at the Devil’s Ring.

G
uy Manning arrived ten minutes later. Nicole sent Mrs. Hatch to fetch me while she lingered in the entrance hall with the captain. As I came down the stairs, I noted with some amusement that the library’s dust had been thoroughly brushed from my hostess’s fine wool skirt since I’d last seen her.

My amusement faded, however, when I remembered the quick-change act I’d performed upon Adam’s arrival. If Nicole had a schoolgirl crush on Captain Manning, it was because she was, in essence, a schoolgirl. I had no such excuse.