Aunt Dimity: Detective (2 page)

 

 

Two hours later, I stood in the clearing atop Pouter's Hill, gazing through filmy gray curtains of rain without seeing much of anything.

Pouter's Hill rose steeply from the meadow beyond my back garden. Climbing it had become a homecoming ritual, a way of reacquainting myself with the countryside after a prolonged separation. More often than not, I found the view soothing—patchwork fields, ever-changing sky, sheep-speckled hills—but it brought me no peace of mind that day.

I couldn't stop thinking about the first time I'd seen Prunella Hooper, the day Mr. Barlow had pointed her out to me across the square. His comments had made such an impression on me that I could remember them verbatim.

“I've seen her type before,” he'd said. “They simper to your face while they stab you in the back. Sneaky-mean, my dad used to call 'em, and he knew a thing or two, did my dad. Steer well clear of her, is my advice. Women like her make trouble wherever they go.”

I couldn't help wondering if Mr. Barlow's words had been prophetic. Had Mrs. Hooper made trouble in Finch? Was that what Annelise had meant when she referred to “wicked” rumors? Had one of the rumors been wicked enough to trigger the ultimate retribution?

It seemed highly unlikely. It would be daylight madness for a local to commit a murder in a small community where everyone knew who wanted to murder everyone else and how they would do it—and when and where and why—given the chance.

Yet someone had killed Prunella Hooper. Someone had clouted her on the head and left her to die beneath the vibrant array of potted geraniums hanging in the front-parlor window of Crabtree Cottage. Had that someone been a stranger, or a neighbor?

I shuddered, envisioning the cheerful red blossoms reflected in a spreading pool of blood, and turned to squelch disconsolately down the muddy path that would take me home.

I was halfway down the hill when the horse appeared.

Chapter 2

It came out of nowhere, a black stallion some fifteen hands high, bearing down on me like a runaway train. In my panicked attempt to get out of its way, I failed to remember how firmly my wellies were planted in the mud and jumped right out of my boots, landing flat on my back in a sodden mass of last year's leaves well mixed with this year's muck.

While I lay there dazed and winded, gasping like a netted trout, the horse's rider brought the steed to a halt, dismounted, and flung himself to his knees beside me.

“Lori?” he cried. “Oh, Lori, are you hurt?”

A gloved hand touched my forehead and I found myself looking up into the violet eyes of a man whose life I'd saved just over a year ago.

When I'd first met Christopher Anscombe-Smith, he'd been unshaven, unshorn, half-starved, and dressed in rags.

He'd come a long way since then.

He was gainfully employed, for one thing, as stable master at Anscombe Manor, the property next door to mine. He lived there, too, in a sparsely furnished flat opposite the stables. He'd shaved his beard and clipped his prematurely gray hair short, exchanged his rags for serviceable work clothes, and added flesh and muscle to his lean frame. His face—his extraordinarily beautiful face—which had once been gaunt and pale, was now glowing with good health. The most charitable part of me rejoiced to see him looking so well.

The rest of me was ready to strangle him.

“Kit,”
I wheezed. “You
maniac.
You could've
killed
me.”

“I'd sooner kill myself,” he murmured, unzipping his rain jacket. “Are you hurt?”

“I'm peachy.” I pushed myself into a sitting position and caught my breath. “There's nothing I like better than wallowing in frozen mud.”

Kit wrapped his jacket around me and helped me to my feet—my stockinged feet. I shivered violently as gooey fingers of frigid muck oozed through my socks.

“May I have my boots?” I asked through chattering teeth.

“I'll tie them to the saddle,” said Kit. “I'm taking you home.”

“On Zephyrus?” I eyed the stallion warily. “Thanks, but I'd rather walk.”

“You'll catch your death.” Kit retrieved my wellies and brought the horse around. “Please don't argue, Lori. I feel badly enough as it is.”

“But—”

Kit cut my protest short by sweeping me off of my feet and onto the horse's back, where I teetered precariously until he climbed up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist.

“Lean back,” he instructed. “I won't let you fall. Gently, now, Zephyrus . . .”

Zephyrus did go gently, and Kit kept me more or less upright, but the downhill journey was a trial nonetheless. I was a lousy horsewoman at the best of times and the steep grade took its toll as seldom-used muscles strained to keep my mud-covered bottom from slithering out of the saddle. By the time Kit tethered the stallion to the apple tree in my back garden, I was certain that I'd never walk again.

I was on the verge of demanding that Kit carry me into the cottage when I caught sight of Will and Rob gazing wide-eyed at us through the solarium's back door. Forcing a cheery smile, I slid gingerly from the saddle and hobbled toward the cottage on my own two frozen feet.

“I'll help you inside,” Kit offered. “Then I'll be off.”

“Oh, no, you won't.” I seized his elbow. “You think I'd turn you loose on an unsuspecting public? You're a hazard to your own health and everyone else's.” I tightened my hold. “You're coming inside to get dry and warm, and you're not leaving until you tell me what's wrong.”

Kit looked away. “What makes you think something's wrong?”

I glared at him. “Do I look stupid? You were riding like a maniac up there. You
never
ride like a maniac. Ergo, something must be wrong.” I tried to push my wet hair out of my eyes, smeared my forehead with mud, and heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Besides, your lips are turning blue. I can't let you go home with blue lips, so put Zeph in the shed and come inside.”

After a moment's hesitation, Kit led the stallion around the side of the cottage to the shed, where he'd find everything he'd need to make Zephyrus comfortable.

I watched him go, then sloshed into the cottage, where my adoring sons greeted me with gales of merry laughter. A grimy, wet, and limping mummy was, evidently, the sort of sight gag two toddlers could really sink their baby teeth into.

Annelise took one look at me and ran to fetch an armload of towels.

 

 

It was growing dark by the time Kit and I sat down to eat. The boys were in bed, and Annelise had gone to spend the evening with her mother, so Kit and I had the kitchen to ourselves. Kit had exchanged his wet clothes for a flannel shirt and a pair of baggy sweatpants that had last graced my husband's much brawnier frame. I'd changed into jeans, a sweater, and my thickest pair of wool socks.

After tossing Kit's riding gear into the washer, I'd given Bill a quick call to fill him in on my overly eventful day. He'd been suitably shocked to hear about the murder, relieved to know that my encounter with Zephyrus had injured nothing but my dignity, and as puzzled as I was by Kit's carelessness. He wasn't one bit surprised by my determination to find out what was troubling Kit.

“You're his good angel,” he'd reminded me. “God knows he needs one.”

I wasn't feeling remotely angelic as I filled two bowls with homemade barley soup. I was stiff and sore and convinced that certain parts of my anatomy would be black-and-blue by morning.

“I left a message for the Harrises at their hotel in Devon.” It was the first time Kit had spoken since we'd entered the kitchen. “To let them know where I was. In case they call home.”

Emma and Derek Harris, Kit's employers, owned Anscombe Manor. They lived there with Derek's teenaged children, Peter and Nell.

“Good idea,” I said. “I wouldn't want them to worry.” I set the ladle aside and covered the stockpot. “Not that there's anything to worry about.”

“Lori—”

“Eat your soup,” I ordered. I placed the brimming bowls on the table and pushed a plate of sandwiches toward him. “I'm not allowed to badger a hungry man. It's a violation of the Geneva Convention.”

It was a violation of my own conscience as well. No matter how fit Kit seemed, I could never completely forget the sick and starving stranger who'd collapsed in my driveway just over a year ago. Even now there was something fragile about him, an air of vulnerability that brought out the latent lioness in me. However annoyed I was with him at the moment, I'd never let him go hungry again, and I'd cheerfully dismember anyone foolish enough to hurt him.

Kit ate mechanically, dutifully, as if he were more concerned with pleasing me than appeasing his appetite. I let him finish his meal in peace, but when the empty dishes were in the sink, I returned to the subject that was foremost in my mind.

“Bill's in London,” I said, gazing intently at Kit across the kitchen table, “and Annelise is at her mother's. It's just you and me, old friend, so spill the beans. Tell me why you were riding hell-bent for leather up on Pouter's Hill.”

Kit sat with his forearms on the table, his graceful, long-fingered hands lying one atop the other. “I don't think you can help this time, Lori. I don't think anyone can.”

“I can try,” I offered.

He was silent for what seemed a long time. Suddenly, his eyes flashed and his hands tightened into fists.

“It's that Hooper woman,” he muttered. “If I'd known what damage she'd cause, I'd have killed her myself.”

Chapter 3

M
y heart caromed off my ribcage. “Y-you didn't, did you?” I stammered. “Kill her, I mean.”

“No, more's the pity.” Kit thumped the table with a fist. “But if they ever catch the man who did, I'll be the first in line to shake his hand.”

I'd never seen Kit angry before. I'd never imagined he could
be
angry, but there was no mistaking the expression on his face. He was
livid.
For a fleeting moment I felt strangely in awe of Mrs. Hooper. It would take a preternaturally offensive woman to ignite such fury in someone as gentle as Kit.

“Kit,” I said cautiously. “Did Mrs. Hooper do something to upset you?”

He gave a short, mirthless laugh, then looked me straight in the eye. “Because of Mrs. Hooper, Nell Harris has declared her love for me.”

A snort of involuntary laughter escaped before I could suppress it. “Nell thinks she's in love with you? What's so bad about that?”

“Everything,” Kit said grimly. “When a fifteen-year-old girl pursues a thirty-year-old man, it's generally assumed that he's done something to encourage her. Every time I go into the village I'm met with a barrage of sly winks or reproachful scowls. It's been hell.”

His words sobered me. For a man who valued privacy as highly as Kit did, such scrutiny would be intolerable, but even I could see why his way of life invited speculation.

Kit was a loner who lived apart from the village and whose job required little supervision. He was an exceptionally good-looking single man, yet he had no fiancée or steady girlfriend. And everyone knew that he spent a lot of time alone with Nell, whose love of horses rivaled his own. My friend was, in short, a scandalmonger's dream.

“How do you know Mrs. Hooper's responsible?” I asked.

“Nell told me,” Kit replied. “She said she hadn't intended to declare her love until her sixteenth birthday, God help me, but that Mrs. Hooper had urged her to speak sooner. I've since learned that Mrs. Hooper mentioned Nell's intentions to several of her chattiest neighbors—purely out of concern for Nell's well-being, you understand.”

With a sickening jolt I suddenly understood what Annelise had meant by “wicked” rumors. A few well-placed, evil whispers would be enough to brand Kit as a predator in the minds of people who'd never even met him.

“Nell's had a crush on me ever since I started working for the Harrises,” Kit went on, “but I was oblivious. I thought she liked working with horses.”

“Nell loves horses,” I reminded him.

“And me, apparently,” Kit muttered.

I rested my chin on my hand and frowned in puzzlement. “Why would Nell listen to Mrs. Hooper?”

“Mrs. Hooper could be charming,” Kit told me. “She could be very charming and very persuasive when it suited her purpose.”

“She seems to have charmed the vicar and his wife,” I acknowledged. “But the Buntings are a power couple in Finch. They have position and influence. Why would she go after Nell?”

“To get back at me.” Kit ran his hand through his short hair. “I wouldn't let her grandson ride Zephyrus. She brought him to the stables one day, a spoilt brat as wide as he is tall, and demanded that he be allowed to canter about on my horse.”

“Was she
nuts?
” I exclaimed. “Zeph would have tossed the kid on his head.”

“That's what I told Mrs. Hooper, and she seemed to understand. She was all smiles and good wishes when she left—all charm. A week later—on Christmas Eve, in fact—Nell came to me with her ridiculous declaration. I can only assume that it was Mrs. Hooper's idea of revenge.” Kit cast his eyes heavenward and groaned. “It's ludicrous, Lori. Even if I were interested in pursuing a relationship—which I am not—I wouldn't do so with a
child.
”

“A child,” I echoed thoughtfully. It wasn't a word I'd have chosen to describe Emma's stepdaughter.