Aunt Dimity and the Duke (14 page)

“In order to kill him and take his money?” Derek shook his head. “Doubtful. If Grayson could’ve predicted Lex’s success, he could’ve made his fortune in the music industry.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Emma conceded. “But he must have known about Lex’s drinking habits. And everyone knew how wild he was. Richard once said that Lex would do anything on a dare. So, when opportunity knocked ...”

“... Grayson simply arranged for Lex to kill himself.” Derek nodded. “Very convenient. Who’s Richard?”

“An old friend,” Emma said, too carelessly. “He was a big fan of Lex’s.”

“Poor chap. Tone-deaf?”

Emma suppressed an unseemly snort of laughter and ignored the question. “So what have we come up with? Grayson arranges Lex’s death and embezzles his money—electronically. Susannah, looking for a way to avenge her father’s suicide, roots out Winslow—your boyhood friend, the banker—and Winslow discovers something funny about Lex’s books. Susannah comes to Penford Hall bent on blackmail—”

“To punish the House of Penford for her father’s death,” Derek put in.

“And she ends up with her head caved in.”

“That seems to be the gist,” said Derek.

Emma frowned. “But it’s been five years since Lex died. Why did Susannah wait so long to make her move?”

“Had to woo a cooperative banker?” Derek suggested. “It’d take some time to sweep old Winslow off his feet.” Sighing, he finished the last of his whiskey and set the glass on the mantelpiece. “What a tangled web we’ve woven, Emma. And not a single strand to show to the police.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” Emma tapped a finger against the side of her glass. “Susannah wouldn’t have come to Penford Hall empty-handed, not with a score like that to settle. I think Winslow told her more than she let on. I’m willing to bet that she came here with some sort of hard evidence to flaunt in Grayson’s face.”

“A pity she can’t tell us where to find it,” Derek commented. “What do you make of Susannah’s amnesia, by the way? Could she be faking it?”

“Possibly. The smartest thing she can do is pretend she’s forgotten everything. She’s at their mercy, after all.” Emma swirled the whiskey in her glass. “I had an interesting conversation with Kate after you left. She’s just as crazy about Penford Hall as Grayson is.”

“Unfortunate choice of words,” Derek said, “but I see your point. It would make sense for Susannah to approach Grayson through Kate. She does act as his lieutenant.”

“I was thinking ... Maybe Kate scheduled a meeting in the chapel garden to discuss Susannah’s demands. And maybe the meeting got out of hand.” Emma quickly recounted the scenario she’d envisioned: the confrontation in the garden, the angry exchange of words, the sudden grab for the hoe’s long handle, the tearing of the oilcloth, the silent fall, the panicked escape. “Whoever tore the oilcloth from the wheelbarrow knows something about Susannah’s accident,” Emma concluded. “I’d hoped we might be able to dust the oilcloth for fingerprints or something. But when I checked with Bantry this morning, he’d already cleaned it.”

Derek had strolled away from the fire and was standing very near Emma’s chair. He looked down at her in silence for what seemed a long time, then nodded, as though confirming something. “You’re very good at that, you know.”

“At what?” Emma touched a hand to her glasses self-consciously.

“Thinking things through. Imagining what it must have been like. Not my strong point, imagination.”

“It’s not mine, either,” Emma protested. “I just try to think logically.”

“Nonsense,” Derek chided gently. “You’ve a very creative mind. A logical one, as well, but what good is logic without intuition?” Shoving his hands into the pockets of his faded jeans, he turned to face the fire. “Why didn’t you tell me about the oilcloth last night in the nursery?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” The firelight made Derek’s blue eyes sparkle as brightly as they had the night before. “It just didn’t seem to be the right time or place, I guess.”

“Suppose not,” Derek agreed. “Had a splendid evening, though.” He glanced shyly at Emma. “You?”

Emma’s energetic nod sent whiskey sloshing onto the Persian carpet. As Derek knelt to wipe it up, Emma shrank back in her chair, crimson with embarrassment.

“Meant to thank you for the swift kick, by the way,” Derek said. “I was drifting, wasn’t I. Nell’s complained of it before, but I thought she was just ... being Nell. Don’t understand what she’s getting at half the time. A kick on the shin, though. Hard to ignore.” He sat back on his heels, and his gaze was level with Emma’s. “Was I really that bad?”

Emma wanted to comfort him, but couldn’t. From everything she’d seen and heard, Nell’s complaints seemed sadly justified. Carefully placing her whiskey glass on the end table, she said, “You must miss your wife terribly.”

Derek looked down at the damp handkerchief in his hands. “Sometimes—when I’m working—I forget.”

“Is that why you work so much?” Emma asked, very gently.

Derek raised his eyes, perplexed. “Not at all. That’s for the children. I want to give Peter and Nell everything Mary wanted them to have.”

She would have wanted them to have more time with their father, Emma thought, but she said nothing. She had no right to tell Derek how to run his life.

“Well, anyway, thanks.” Derek’s gaze lingered on Emma for a moment, then he rose to his feet, stuffed the handkerchief into his back pocket, and returned to stand before the fire. “Funny, really,” he said, folding his arms. “I like Grayson enormously and I don’t care a fig for Susannah. Yet all I can think about is protecting her from him. It’s because she’s helpless, I suppose.”

“As helpless as we are,” murmured Emma. Clearing her throat, she added quickly, “I mean, there’s not much we can do to protect her, is there?”

“Not unless we can talk with her, find out if she has anything we can show to the authorities.” Derek turned to stare at the fire. “Kate said she was due back in three or four days? Not sure what we should do. Let me think about it.”

“I will, too. In the garden.” Emma got to her feet. “Derek,” she said hesitantly, “if you’re not doing anything else, I could—that is, Bantry and I could use some help out there.”

“I know,” said Derek, his eyes still on the fire. “Nell told me. Unfortunately, I’m still looking for Grayson’s bloody lantern.”

15

As it happened, a mild pulmonary infection kept Susannah in the hospital for ten days. During that time, her head injuries improved steadily and her memory began to return, though it was sketchy and incomplete. She recognized Grayson and called him by name, but Kate’s existence seemed to have, literally, slipped her mind. Overall, however, she seemed to be well on the way to recovery. Kate called every day with a progress report, which Mattie cheerfully passed along to Emma every morning.

Kate’s public-relations campaign and Newland’s cordon of watchers seemed to be paying off. Reporters who showed up at the gates were politely informed that His Grace would answer questions or pose for pictures at his hotel in Plymouth. The few who sneaked in over the walls were escorted from the grounds before they’d gotten halfway through the woods.

Still others tried their luck in Penford Harbor, where they were met not by resentful silence but by an avalanche of monologues. The Tregallis brothers regaled them with fishing stories, Herbert Munting lectured them on chickens, and Jonah Pengully grumbled about everything under the sun—except the one thing the reporters wanted him to grumble about. Like the other villagers, Jonah refused to say a word about the duke.

“It was brilliant,” Derek enthused when he returned from a foray into the village. “Like watching a football match. Every time Grayson’s name came up, Jack tossed the story to James, who booted it to Ted, who slipped right back into some flummery about cod-fishing.” The village team won the match hands down, routing the visitors without giving up a point. The newspaper coverage slowed to a back-page trickle.

Nanny Cole continued to supplement Emma’s wardrobe with dresses in fine-wool, velvet, and hand-printed silk, hand-knitted sweaters in slate blue and dusty rose, two more pairs of trousers, and a third gardening smock. By the end of the ten days, Emma felt as though she’d acquired a private couturière, and Mattie shared her delight, pointing out details of workmanship that Emma never would have noticed. Emma’s sole attempt to express her gratitude in person was met with a gruff “Stop being a ninny and get
out
of my workroom.” After that, Emma simply made sure that the workroom was graced with fresh flowers every day.

She and Bantry spent long afternoons in the library, making up plant lists and discussing what would go where in the chapel garden. Bantry would use only rough copies of Emma’s sketches, insisting that the duke would want to frame the originals, and he agreed with Emma’s strong intuition that everything planted in the chapel garden should come from the other gardens of Penford Hall. “The dowager duchess would’ve wanted it that way,” he said approvingly. “And we’ve plenty of plants to choose from.”

It was an understatement, as Emma soon learned. The garden rooms in the castle ruins were as varied and as well tended as any Emma had ever seen. The rock garden was a swirling pastel watercolor—sky-blue primroses and white candytuft, purple lobelia and rosy-pink soapwort. The candytuft and primroses, Emma thought, would look wonderful edging the flagstone walk and the reflecting pool.

Clouds of early blossoms graced the rose garden, and Bantry told her all about the ones not yet in bloom. Emma chose a fragrant nineteenth-century Bourbon rose—
Madame Isaac Pereire,
Bantry informed her—to frame the green door, and a hybrid tea rose to plant beside the wooden bench.

Emma was enchanted by the knot garden. The close-clipped, interlocking chains of low-growing hedges formed a charming double-knot pattern that enclosed a marvelous selection of herbs. There, she discovered the deep purple-blue lavender she would use on either side of the chapel door, along with red sage, bronze fennel, angelica, and golden balm. She found a treasure trove in the perennial border she’d seen the first time she’d entered the castle ruins. Transplanted clematis and delphiniums would soften the stark granite walls, and irises, peonies, lilies, columbines, and a host of other old-fashioned flowers would restore color, form, and texture to the raised beds.

“I’d like a pair of butterfly bushes to tuck into the corners, where the chapel wall meets the garden wall,” Emma explained to Bantry, “and a different climbing rose in the center of each of the long walls. We’ll plant tall perennials to fill the space between the roses and the corner ledges—lupines, hollyhocks, that sort of thing—with shorter ones in front. The bottom tier should have trailing plants spilling out onto the lawn. The rosy-pink soapwort would work, or the verbena. And we’ll need something special to put on the comer ledges.”

“We’ve some nice orchids in the hothouse,” Bantry offered.

“Hothouse?” Emma echoed. She hadn’t noticed one in the house plans Derek had shown her.

“His Grace put it in year afore last,” Bantry explained. “Miss Kate’s partial to orchids.”

They spent the next day in Penford Hall’s conservatory, a two-story glass-enclosed set of rooms tucked away in the west wing. One section was devoted to orchids, ferns, and waving palms, another to miniature fruit trees and topiary, and a third, Emma noted with some amusement, was the source of Nell’s almost constant supply of strawberries. Between the conservatory and the garden rooms, she found everything she’d need.

“Don’t mean to sound sour, Miss Emma,” Bantry cautioned, “but the chapel garden won’t be at its best in August.”

“I know that, and you know that, but I’m afraid we’ll have a hard time convincing Grayson,” said Emma, with a sigh. “He told me not to worry about getting it perfect, but I don’t think he understands just how imperfect it’ll be.”

“Aye.” Bantry squinted into the distance. “Be patchy this year, a bit better next. Mebbe the year after that it’ll begin to come into its own. A good garden takes time.”

Bantry knew what he was talking about. He displayed an awesome knowledge of the plants under his care, and spoke of them with an air of affectionate familiarity. “This ’un’s daft,” he commented, pointing to an early-blooming scarlet rambler. “Thinks it’s June already. Does it every year, like it can’t wait to come out and say hello.”

Bantry’s organizational skills were equally impressive. He’d trained a small cadre of dedicated undergardeners to help him with the mammoth task of maintenance. One by one, Emma met them, sixteen villagers in all, from shy, eleven-year-old Daphne Minion, whose special love was the knot garden, to placid, eighty-six-year-old Bert Potts, who tended the pleached apple trees that bordered the great lawn.

When Emma complimented Bantry on his talent for managing people, he responded casually that his time at Wisley Gardens had served him well. That was how Emma learned that Bantry had spent ten years at the Royal Horticultural Society’s 150-acre centerpiece. He’d shrugged off her breathless questions by saying that, all in all, he preferred Penford Hall, where he didn’t have to put up with “them smelly tour buses.”

That revelation led to several others. When Emma told Derek of Bantry’s illustrious past, he reminded her of a conversation that had taken place in the library the night Emma had arrived. Under pressure from Susannah, he recalled, Kate had acknowledged that she and Nanny Cole had once lived in Bournemouth. Bantry, Kate, and Nanny Cole—three of Penford Hall’s mainstays—had apparently been forced to leave the hall for greener pastures at some point in the distant past. Curious, Emma and Derek decided to see if the same held true for the rest of the staff.

Judicious questioning of Mattie revealed that Crowley had been living in a furnished bedsitter in Plymouth when Mattie was born. Hallard, Gash, and Newland, Derek learned, had each spent some years in London. With the sole exception of Madama Rulenska, it appeared that all of the servants had left Penford Hall at some point.

Clearly, Susannah’s father hadn’t been the only one to suffer from the old duke’s reversal of fortune. As they sat together in the library four days after Syd’s return, Derek theorized that Penford Hall had been all but deserted, much like the village.

“Grayson’s father gave them all the sack,” Derek concluded, “and Grayson, when he was able, hired them back. Argues for a high degree of loyalty. A pity.”

“We can’t really trust anyone,” Emma agreed sadly.

“We can, though,” said Derek. He leaned forward. “Syd’s an outsider, and he’d do anything to protect his Suzie. And it wouldn’t seem strange for him to want to stay by her side.” Derek sighed. “If only we could figure out a way to snap him out of his funk.”

Emma nodded. Visibly aged, Syd had taken meals in his room since his return from Plymouth. According to Crowley, he simply sat and stared out of the window. Emma knew where she went when she was upset, but it was ridiculous to assume that the same thing would work for Syd. Or was it?

“Derek,” she said slowly, “this is probably going to sound silly, but ... what if I took Syd out to work in the garden with me?”

“Green-thumb therapy?” Derek mulled the idea over, then shrugged. “Why not? It’d get his mind off of things, get him moving again. Not at all silly.”

“I’ll ask him tomorrow morning.” Emma looked at the fire, feeling satisfied.

Derek cleared his throat. “About the chapel garden,” he began. “Sorry I haven’t been out to lend a hand. Blasted lantern search is turning out to be more complicated than I’d expected. Place is honeycombed with tunnels.”

“Sounds spooky.”

Derek smiled. “Not really. Miss the sun, though. Seem to spend all of my time in the dark lately.” He glanced at Emma, then looked down at the toes of his workboots. “Miss our little talks, too.”

“Do you?” Emma said, taken by surprise. “So do I. I wish we didn’t have to talk about such gruesome things, though.”

“Know what you mean. Seems we’ve skipped over the civilized chitchat and gone straight to ... well ... murder, theft, attempted murder, and suicide. You know, I always thought detective work would be fascinating, and it is, but it’s also a bit...”

“Disturbing?” Emma offered.

“Indeed.” He bit his lip, then turned toward her. “Look, why don’t we give ourselves an evening off? Just talk about ... well, anything. I feel as though I hardly know you.”

“There’s not much to know,” said Emma, with a shrug. “I was born and raised in Connecticut, but I’ve lived in the Boston area all of my adult life. I went to MIT and got a job right out of college. I’m still with the same firm, though I’ve moved up a few rungs on the corporate ladder. I love my work and, as you’ve probably noticed by now, I love gardening, too. And that’s about it.” Emma sighed. Her life sounded strangely barren, even to her own ears. “To tell you the truth, Penford Hall’s the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“For me, it was the birth of my children,” said Derek. “Don’t mean to be a bore, but Peter and Nell truly are the most wonderful son and daughter a man could ask for.” He reached down to brush a fleck of dust from his left boot. “Have any? Children, I mean.”

“No.” Emma touched a finger to her glasses. “I never really wanted any.”

“Never wanted children?” Derek murmured doubtfully. “I must say that I can’t imagine what life would be like without Peter and Nell. But, of course, with your work and, er, being on your own, I suppose it’s very sensible of you not to have any. That is, I mean, if you are on your own.” He gave a nervous cough and looked toward the fire. “Don’t mean to pry. It’s just that Nell was wondering and, well, I told her that, naturally, there must be
someone
in your life. This Richard fellow ... ?”

“Richard got married two months ago,” Emma informed him.

“Married?” Derek swung sideways in his chair to face her, incredulous. “To someone
else?”

Declarations of independence, statistics on divorce, and cogent arguments against outmoded social contracts darted through Emma’s mind, but none of them seemed as important at that moment as the marvelous, miraculous fact that she was sitting down and empty-handed. She couldn’t cover herself in mud or throw her silverware around the room or spill anything on the priceless carpet but tears, and for some reason she didn’t feel at all like crying. Unaccountably tongue-tied, Emma bowed her head to hide her confusion and, with rapidly blurring vision, watched her glasses slide off the end of her nose.

Emma’s hand shot out, but Derek’s got there first. Arm length and perfect vision were on his side: the glasses landed squarely in his palm. He looked up and his fingers brushed the side of Emma’s face as he reached for the left arm of the glasses, which was still hooked behind Emma’s ear. As he removed it, Emma felt a tickling sensation and shivered, goosebumps running all up and down her arms.

“Looks like a screw’s popped out,” said Derek. “I’ll have a look round.” He got down on his hands and knees to examine the carpet minutely. A moment later, he sat back on his heels and held out his hand, triumphant. “Found it,” he said. “I’ve very good eyes, you know.”

“Oh, God,” Emma breathed.

Derek’s salt-and-pepper curls tumbled forward as he bent low over Emma’s glasses, and his strong hands were as dextrous as a surgeon’s as he put the tiny screw back into place and tightened it with his thumbnail.

He’s a grieving widower, Emma reminded herself sternly. He’s got a son and a daughter and a house near Oxford and he’s English and he’s completely and totally out of the question.