The Prince's Secret (The Royal Biography Cozy Mystery Series Book 2) (14 page)
Read The Prince's Secret (The Royal Biography Cozy Mystery Series Book 2) Online
Authors: Julie Sarff
“Cook would not allow anyone to go hungry, Eldred.”
“Dred. It’s Dred. How many times do I have to ask you to call me that?”
“Such ridiculousness…. stupidest nickname…I really don’t have time for this. There…give me your platter, voila. See, using Lady Penda’s lift and levels, I have been able to arrange everything neatly.”
Eldred gave way to his impulse to curse and used some bold and unrepeatable language about the inanity of lifts and levels causing Edeline to let out a roaring tut-tut and a “there’s never any reason for rude words.”
She was right. Edeline was always right. This wasn’t the time for rude words. Eldred shuffled back to his chair and returned to his watch. Would this poor girl recover? And if she did what would she go through when she found out that both her parents had been killed and that she was to inherit a crown that so many others coveted? Eldred tried to push these thoughts out of his mind. He tried to relax. Yet it was as if time was mocking him, crawling by as he sat with a nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach. Finally the moondial chimed eight. Twilight slipped into darkness. Outside could be heard the enormous rushing sound of the winds of March. Despite their noise, Eldred dozed off. Somewhere around midnight, these same winds slammed into the west wall with all the ferocity of the great army of the Demontae. Eldred woke with a start. There before him, in the enormous bed, the pale young girl stared back at him with wide eyes of a deep green color.
Coming in Winter 2015 from Julie Sarff, the following is an e-arc and has not been edited or proofread, grammar and punctuation errors will exist.
Chapter 1
Mudswell Manor lies at that point on the moor where the landscape changes.
Immediately north of the A38, which stretches westwards towards Cornwall and away from the vast majority of England’s population, Dartmoor begins to rise. It continues to do so for quite some way, until the trees all but disappear and the verdant fields become heathland and exposed granite outcroppings – Dartmoor’s famous tors.
The change comes quickly. Looking south from the drawing room at the front of Mudswell Manor, the landscape drops away into rolling fields, interspersed with large areas of – mostly – deciduous trees. Head out from the kitchens and beyond the row of popular trees screening the back lawn, however, and you’ll find the hill rising up to the boundary of the small estate is covered in heather. Here and there, small twisted trees, shaped by the prevailing winds, sporadically lean out of the landscape.
Depending upon her mood, Abigail Dei would either take breakfast in the drawing room, curled up in one of the chairs, pausing briefly from the morning papers to gaze out upon the view, or hunched over the ancient wooden table in the manor’s vast kitchen, catching glimpses of the moor beyond Mudswell Manor through the occasional swaying of the poplar trees. That morning was a drawing room morning, with the view clear and unobstructed under a pale blue sky. Abigail sighed contentedly as she sipped on her chamomile tea and reached over to pick up that day’s edition of the Ashton Gazette, the local paper she always had a soft spot for, even if the news it contained was somewhat… parochial.
Abigail was a widow in her mid-forties, though most people mistook her for being ten, even fifteen years younger than she actually was. In her crueler – or, rather, more inebriated – moments, Abigail’s mother-in-law, Cassandra, would say that she wore widowhood quite well. Some of the roundness of youth still clung to Abigail’s elegant features, aided by a girlish bob of brown hair and a still-delicate frame.
The second sip of tea never reached her mouth, as she caught sight of the Gazette’s unprecedented headline. Abigail put the cup down and sat up straight in her chair, giving the newspaper her full attention:
LOCAL WOMAN FOUND MURDERED
Police are investigating after the discovery of the body of an elderly woman in a house in Ashton yesterday afternoon. The woman, believed to be a local woman in her 70s, has not yet been named, but the circumstances in which she was found are believed to be suspicious…
She let the paper fall slightly and looked down upon the hill below, a mixture of fear and excitement welling within her. Ashton was less than three miles back down the lanes, their nearest town, one of several that bordered the southern edge of the moor.
“Abby, dear, you are agape and it does not become you. Slacken your jaw any further and one might mistake you for a local.”
Abigail looked up, startled from her thoughts by the voice that had appeared beside her. It was Cassandra, or ‘Dessie’ as she liked to be known, her mother-in-law and housemate. It wasn’t even ten o’clock, early for Dessie, yet true to form there was already a tumbler of scotch swaying idly in one of her hands. Dessie was taller than her daughter-in-law, yet of a similar build. Were it not for her over-fondness for whisky, she might even have mirrored a little of Abigail’s youth, despite being (a mysterious ‘somewhere’) in her sixties.
“Have you seen this?” Abigail asked her. A somewhat foolish question, as Dessie wouldn’t be caught dead reading the Ashton Gazette.
“Seen what, my darling?” asked Dessie, sauntering over to put a hand on Abigail’s shoulder.
“The headline in the Gazette… someone’s been murdered in Ashton.”
“Somebody dead in Ashton?” said Dessie. “It would be more of headline to say that someone in Ashton was alive.”
“Dessie!” chided Abigail.
It had been Dessie’s idea to move from a penthouse in New York to a manor in the wilds of South West England, yet she was the first to make complaint about every aspect of life there. Dessie was a Louisiana native-turned New York socialite, but having become a fan of the period drama
Downton Abbey,
had fallen in love with the idea of setting herself up as a member of the British rural aristocracy. The reality had not been quite as Dessie had imagined, not least because it was no longer 1912, but in fact more than a hundred years later than that.
Not having had the slightest idea how to manage the ‘money pit’ she had bought into, Dessie had resorted to taking in lodgers for a steady income, as the manor had been conveniently divided into a number of self-contained apartments back in the 1970s. Abigail, once an interior designer, had overseen a quick project to make them habitable, but true restoration was an ongoing thing.
“Yes, yes,” said Dessie, dismissively waving a hand in response to her daughter-in-law’s scolding. “Bad Dessie. So who’s dead, then? I do hope it’s the car mechanic who charged me a fortune for my new clutch a couple of months ago.”
Abigail looked down at the paper again. “Doesn’t say. Some elderly woman. But they say it’s suspicious.”
Dessie placed her scotch on a mahogany side table and reached into a pocket in her silk dressing gown, drawing out a gold-plated cigarette case. She hadn’t even pulled out a cigarette before a look from Abigail had her closing the case back up and placing it into her pocket with a sigh.
“No smoking in the communal areas,” Abigail emphasized unnecessarily, “you know this.”
“I’m glad I have you to be a drag, dear,” said Dessie. “I’m sure I’d have far too much fun otherwise.”
Abigail ignored her mother-in-law, just part of yet another morning’s banter. Just then, Mary Anne Boyle entered the drawing room. Dessie turned back to Abigail, a look approaching fear suddenly etched upon her face. She snatched up her scotch and headed towards, and then past, the scowling middle-aged woman who had just entered the room.
“Morning, Mary,” she managed as she whipped past. “Must… go… things… um, happening.”
And with that she was gone, leaving Abigail with the harridan that was Mary Anne Boyle.
“Ah, Abigail,” said Mary, “a word about a few things if you wouldn’t mind?” Not ‘Good morning’, no ‘How are you?’; Mary Anne Boyle did not do such pleasantries, but pulled up a chair opposite Abigail all the same.
“Yes, Mary,” said Abigail, virtually unable to keep the weary tone from her voice, “how may I help?” She felt at a distinct disadvantage in her dressing gown, dark-haired Mary being already dressed in thick stockings and a sensible skirt and cardigan that could only have been bought from
‘That 70s Store’.
She had probably been dressed since six o’clock.
“You’ll probably remember that last week I brought to your attention a crack in the ceiling plaster in my room?”
“Ah… yes,” Abigail replied, hoping she at least sounded convincing.
“Well, I just thought I would let you know that nothing had been done about it and, while I was at it, I thought I might bring a few other issues to your attention.”
Abigail couldn’t believe it, the woman actually brought out a notepad. Mary Anne Boyle was no older than Abigail, she just seemed it. In fact, more than that, she had a knack of making Abigail feel like a disappointing and irresponsible teenager.
Mary reeled off a list of further problems, each seemingly more trivial than the last. Abigail smiled and nodded through it all, waiting for a pause long enough to make her own exit. When Mary started to fold up the piece of paper, Abigail mistakenly thought the ordeal was about to be over.
“And I wanted to talk to you about some of the guests as well, Abigail.”
“Residents, Mary,” said Abigail. “They live here, just like you.”
“That Anne girl,” Mary continued, essentially ignoring Abigail.
“Miss Ralston.”
“Yes, that one. She comes in at all times of night, you know. It’s not decent.”
“She works in a public house. She never finishes before midnight.”
“Well, it’s not very sociable, is it?”
“Um…”
“And then that Mr. Clythe,” Mary continued. “I think he’s up to something. He keeps eyeing up my things.”
“Huh?” managed Abigail, flabbergasted. “Christopher is an architect, you know. I think he can afford his own things.”
“But he has a tattoo; it’s got a skull on it, or something.”
“Uh-huh…”
Abigail was seriously considering asking Mary whether the main problem she had with them both was that they were under thirty and still had something resembling a life, when their fourth lodger, Timothy Marlowe, walked in.
Abigail looked at Mary, waiting for her to make a comment about Timothy as well. Timothy Marlowe was retired and always in a tweed jacket, no matter the weather or time of day, but otherwise no one at Mudswell Manor knew much about him. Aloof was an understatement. He did, however, have the notable position of being the lodger that Mary Anne Boyle disliked the least.
“Anyway,” said Abigail, rising from her chair to seize the opportunity to escape, “I must go and get dressed. I’m off into town.”
“I wouldn’t be too long,” said Timothy, “storm’s coming in.”
Abigail looked doubtfully out at the pale blue sky.
“Yes,” Mary agreed eagerly, “haven’t you heard about it? Going to be a big one, so they say. Snow guaranteed… especially up here on the moor.”
The author is an unabashed animal lover. She has fostered over 200 cats and closed down a puppy mill that housed 66 dogs in a warehouse in Denver. Currently she and her girl scouts are trying to end cat dissection at her local high school. She has to admit she receives a lot of help from animal lovers around the world and she would like to ask the animal lovers out there on Amazon to sign her petition on Change.org titled End Unnecessary Cat Dissection. Sign the petition at
http://chn.ge/KunQ2Y
(This link will take you to Change.org, the author solemnly swears.)
Go back to where it all started - click here to read The Hope Diamond
Also by Julie Sarff.
The Prince and I
When Trudy Rue is assigned the royal biography of the Prince of Wales after her ex is murdered, Trudy is faced with a number of problems. Firstly, she doesn’t know anything about the modern royal family and has no time to prepare, and secondly, she is named a person of interest in the death of her ex. Under enormous pressure, she goes about her day, trying to do her job and becoming more and more enchanted with the subject of her study. When the Prince gives her a private tour of Holyroodhouse, she decides she is definitely smitten. There is no time for romance, however, as Trudy begins to uncover the dark secrets of her ex’s past, and the numerous people who might have wanted him dead.
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The Prince and I: The Royal Biography Cozy Mystery Series - Kindle edition by Julie Sarff. Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
