Aunt Dimity Takes a Holiday (3 page)

My mother was very protective of her refuge. Instead of telling me about her friend directly, she introduced me to her obliquely, as a character in a series of bedtime stories. The redoubtable Aunt Dimity was as familiar to me as Sleeping Beauty was to other children, but I knew nothing of Dimity Westwood until after both she and my mother had died.

It was then that the real-life Dimity became my benefactress, bequeathing to me a comfortable fortune, a honey-colored cottage in the Cotswolds, and a journal bound in dark blue leather. The money was a lifesaver and the cottage a dream come true, but the journal was Dimity’s greatest gift to me, for in it she’d left something of herself.

Literally.

Whenever I opened the blue journal, its blank pages came alive with Dimity’s handwriting, a graceful copperplate taught in the village school at a time when horse-drawn plows outnumbered tractors. I’d been scared spitless the first time Dimity had greeted me from beyond the grave, but fear had long since given way to gratitude. I simply couldn’t imagine life without my good and trusted, if not entirely corporeal, friend.

I closed the study door, turned on the mantelpiece lamps, took the blue journal from its niche on the bookshelves, and curled comfortably in one of the pair of leather armchairs that sat before the hearth.

“Dimity?” I said, opening the journal. “Got a minute?” I glanced briefly at the door, then smiled down at the journal as Dimity’s words began to unfurl across the page.

“Great,” I said, “because I’ve got the most astonishing news to tell you. Derek Harris is a
viscount.
”

Ah.
There was a pause before Dimity added,
Is that the astonishing news?

“Well . . . yes,” I said, deflated. I’d expected at least one or two exclamation points.

I suppressed a soft groan of frustration. “Am I the only person in the cottage who
didn’t
know that Derek was a big-shot aristocrat?”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” I said. “Bill probably confided in them three months ago. That’s when he became Lord Elstyn’s lawyer.”

“Edwin?” I said, blinking. “You were on a first-name basis with Lord Elstyn?”

The Westwood Trust was an umbrella organization for a number of charities that had been close to Dimity’s heart. As its titular head, I sat in on board meetings and planning sessions, but it had never occurred to me to go rooting around in its archives.

“Lord Elstyn may have been generous to the trust,” I allowed, “but his idea of charity isn’t the kind that begins at home. Emma told me he’s been pretty hard on Derek.”

“What about Derek’s first wife?” I asked. “Lord Elstyn looked down his nose at her, didn’t he?”

I bristled. “Because she was a commoner, like me?”

I was a bit put out by Dimity’s suggestion that I lacked sweetness but had to agree with her about running a place like Hailesham. I found it challenging enough to keep the cottage neat and tidy. It would be a thousand times more difficult to manage a large estate.

“Maybe Derek chose his wife with his heart instead of his head,” I said. “It may not have been the practical thing to do, but since when does love have anything to do with practicality?”

“It sounds as if Derek hasn’t done anything his father wanted him to do,” I commented. “Until now, that is. Emma came over today to tell me that Derek’s accepted the earl’s invitation to attend a family reunion at Hailesham Park. Derek’s going home for the first time in twenty years, and he’s taking Emma with him. How’s that for astonishing?”

“I don’t think so.” Last I’d heard, Derek’s twenty-year-old son was studying whales off the coast of New Zealand. “He’s on a research ship somewhere in the South Pacific. I doubt that he’ll be able to get back in time to attend the earl’s powwow.”

“Do you think someone might challenge him?” I asked.

I leaned closer to the journal and said, in a confidential murmur, “Do you think there might be . . . violence?”

“It wasn’t my idea,” I protested. “It’s Emma’s. She’s afraid someone might try to murder Derek.”

I sat back, feeling vaguely disappointed. I’d rather enjoyed the air of intrigue Emma’s suspicions had lent the trip.

“Someone might try to fake an accident,” I suggested.

I was beginning to understand why Emma had been reluctant to broadcast her concerns to the men. Dimity’s mild sarcasm was bad enough. Our husbands’ combined mockery would have been unbearable.

“I suppose you’re right,” I mumbled, and moved on to another subject. “Bill and I are going to Hailesham, too. Bill’s going as Lord Elstyn’s lawyer and I’m tagging along as the lawyer’s wife.” I hesitated. “I was kind of hoping you’d join us.”

“It’ll be a working holiday,” I warned. “I’ll need your advice on which fork to use and when to curtsy and what to wear to dinner.”

 

Emma had expended too much shocked indignation on her own husband to have much left for mine. When I told her that Bill had been secretly employed by her father-in-law for the past three months, she sighed wearily and said, “I’m tired of boys’ games. Let’s go shopping.” We spent the next week buying clothes.

Emma hadn’t replenished her wardrobe since she’d dumped her excess poundage, so our shopping spree was more enjoyable than either of us expected it to be. We purchased riding outfits and hiking gear, were measured for tea gowns and dinner dresses, and selected—at Dimity’s insistence—the sort of nightclothes that could be worn while searching chilly corridors for distant bathrooms.

Then came the hunt for shoes to go with each outfit, bags to go with the shoes, and a few simple pieces of jewelry to add sparkle to our ensemble. When Bill asked about our extended shopping trips, I explained to him what Dimity had explained to me: Five days in a country house was equivalent to six months in a foreign country. One had to be prepared for anything.

I made no attempt to tame my unruly curls, knowing that they’d refuse to cooperate in any case, but Emma had her gray-blond hair styled in a becoming bob. The new haircut seemed to bolster her self-confidence. By the time we left the salon, she’d stopped scolding me for addressing her as Viscountess.

As I surveyed my new finery, I took particular pleasure in a slinky black number I’d found at Nanny Cole’s Boutique in London. It fit me like a glove and would, I knew, knock Bill’s eyes right out of their sockets. When I thought of what else it would do to him, I realized that it was an extremely selfish purchase.

I hadn’t felt like such a girly-girl in years and I reveled in every giddy minute. It took me half a day to pack my new clothes—in tissue paper, as Dimity suggested—and I finished by tucking Reginald into my shoulder bag. Reginald was a small, powder-pink stuffed rabbit who’d been with me since childhood, and a powder-pink rabbit was, in my opinion, the perfect complement to a girly-girl’s wardrobe.

For the first time since I’d known her, I was glad that Dimity was less than three-dimensional. If we’d had to cart her holiday frocks to Hailesham Park along with mine, we’d have needed a moving truck. As it was, I had to endure endless ribbing from Bill—“Have you packed my spare truss, dear?”—as we loaded my suitcases into his silver-gray Mercedes. The teasing made me more determined than ever to handle my bodyguarding duties without his help.

Dimity might scoff till her ink turned purple, but a promise was a promise. Although I agreed with her that poisoned rings and dueling pistols were no longer in fashion, I also agreed with Emma. Accidents happened, even in the most aristocratic circles, and I had no intention of letting my friend down by allowing one to happen to her husband.

By the time Bill and I kissed the twins good-bye, I felt fit and ready for service. I was, as Dimity had instructed me to be, prepared for anything.

Anything, that is, except the sight that met my eyes when Hailesham’s fabled gardens came into view.

Four

Are you sure we’re on the right road, Bill?”

I peered intently at the woods lining the narrow, winding lane but didn’t see much. A late start, heavy traffic, and the shortening days of early October had left us navigating the back roads of Wiltshire in the dark.

“We passed the lodge gates five minutes ago,” Bill replied. “But I’m not sure what to look for next.”

“Hailesham House.” I cleared my throat and assumed a professorial expression. “A sublime, eighteenth-century neoclassical villa on a hill with three levels of terraced gardens descending from a graceful front staircase to an ornamental lake and a sweeping great lawn. The gardens are open to the public from May to September, but the house is a private residence.”

Bill raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“There’re giant topiaries, too,” I went on. “Whimsically clipped giant topiaries rising at regular intervals from the yew hedges bordering the lowest level of terraced gardens.” I counted on my fingers. “There’s a dolphin, a unicorn, a peacock, a turtledove—I’m looking forward to the turtledove.”

“Are you making this up?” Bill demanded.

“Would I do that?” I fluttered my eyelashes at him, then grinned. “Emma picked up a brochure at the tourist information office in Oxford. According to the brochure, the ninth Earl Elstyn’s primary country residence is surrounded by five hundred acres of forested parkland—so I suppose we
could
be on the right road.”

“The land does seem to be forested,” Bill agreed.

No sooner had he spoken than the encroaching greenery parted to reveal Lord Elstyn’s primary country residence in all its glory. Bill hit the brakes and we sat for a moment in total silence.

“Bill,” I said finally. “Do you see what I see?”

“If you mean the flaming turtledove, then yes,” Bill replied, “I do.”

The giant topiary appeared to be on fire. It was a fantastic sight, as eerie as it was beautiful. Writhing fingers of flame stretched skyward from the whimsically clipped hedges, scattering sparks into the darkness. Burning shreds of shrubbery danced like incandescent butterflies over the ornamental lake while the sublime neoclassical villa hovered serenely above, each windowpane alight with the flickering reflections of the blazing turtledove.

I rested my chin on my hand, mystified. “Do you suppose it’s some sort of . . . welcoming gesture?”

“No,” Bill said, glancing at the rearview mirror.

“Why not?” I asked.

He tromped on the gas pedal. “Because there’s a fire truck coming up behind us.”

My teeth rattled as Bill swerved onto the great lawn, and my heart raced as a fleet of fire engines thundered past. Bill waited until the lane was clear, then sped up the graveled drive and skidded to a halt behind the last of the fire trucks. Together we leapt from the Mercedes and ran to the bottom of the graceful staircase. From there I could see a half-dozen men fighting the fire with the tools they had at hand: Two of them trained garden hoses on the surrounding greenery while four others formed a bucket brigade with water dipped from the ornamental lake.