The Twelve Clues of Christmas lg-6

by Rhys Bowen

  The Twelve Clues of Christmas

  ( Lady Georgiana - 6 )

  Rhys Bowen

  She may be thirty-fifth in line for the throne, but Lady Georgiana Rannoch cannot wait to ring in the new year—before a Christmas killer wrings another neck…

  On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me—well, actually, my true love, Darcy O’Mara, is spending a feliz navidad tramping around South America. Meanwhile, Mummy is holed up in a tiny village called Tiddleton-under-Lovey with that droll Noel Coward! And I’m snowed in at Castle Rannoch with my bumbling brother, Binky, and sourpuss sister-in-law, Fig.

  So it’s a miracle when I contrive to land a position as hostess to a posh holiday party in Tiddleton. The village is like something out of A Christmas Carol! But no sooner have I arrived than a neighborhood nuisance, a fellow named Freddie falls out of a tree, dead…. Dickensian, indeed.

  Freddie’s merely a stocking stuffer. On my second day in town, another so-called accident turns up another mincemeat pie—and yet another on my third. The village is buzzing that a recent prison break could have something to do with it… that, or a long-standing witch’s curse. I’m not so sure. But after Darcy shows up beneath the mistletoe, anything could be possible in this wicked wonderland.

  Praise for The Twelve Clues of Christmas

  “The Twelve Clues of Christmas is yet another brilliant novel from Rhys Bowen.... Like all of Rhys’s books, this is so much more than a murder mystery. It’s part love story, part social commentary, part fun and part downright terrifying. And completely riveting. I adore this book and can hardly wait to give it to all my family and friends for Christmas! For all who love the season, and a great murder mystery, this book is perfect.” —Louise Penny, author of *The Beautiful Mystery

  "Lady Georgiana's sixth outing...offers another witty and thoroughly enjoyable mystery with a dash of romance."—Library Journal *(starred review)

  "Bowen's sixth whodunit featuring the irrepressible Lady Georgiana...may be her best yet...Bowen blends zany humor with fair-play detection as well as any author of traditional mysteries."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  Praise for the Royal Spyness Mysteries:

  “Wonderful characters…A delight.”—Charlaine Harris, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse Novels

  “Hilarious adventure…What an absolute delight! With a witty and clever plot, it’s clear that Agatha Christie is alive and kicking and what’s more, she’s funny!” —Hannah Dennison, author of Thieves! A Vicky Hill Exclusive! Mystery

  “Georgie’s high spirits and the author’s frothy prose are utterly captivating.” —The Denver Post

  “Whimsical…Bowen successfully melds a whodunit with comedy as few contemporary writers can.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  BERKLEY PRIME CRIME TITLES BY RHYS BOWEN

  Royal Spyness Mysteries

  HER ROYAL SPYNESS

  A ROYAL PAIN

  ROYAL FLUSH

  ROYAL BLOOD

  NAUGHTY IN NICE

  THE TWELVE CLUES OF CHRISTMAS

  Constable Evans Mysteries

  EVANS ABOVE

  EVAN HELP US

  EVANLY CHOIRS

  EVAN AND ELLE

  EVAN CAN WAIT

  EVANS TO BETSY

  EVAN ONLY KNOWS

  EVAN’S GATE

  EVAN BLESSED

  THE

  Twelve Clues of Christmas

  Rhys Bowen

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reaction to the recipes contained in this book.

  Copyright © 2012 by Janet Quin-Harkin.

  The Edgar® name is a registered service mark of the Mystery Writers of America, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  FIRST EDITION: November 2012

  In memory of my father,

  Frank Newcombe Lee,

  whose family came from Devonshire,

  not far from Tiddleton-under-Lovey.

  As always I’d like to thank John for his input and editing skills (even though we almost come to blows each time). I’d like to thank my wonderful editor, Jackie Cantor, for making my life so easy, and my equally brilliant agents, Meg Ruley and Christina Hogrebe, for taking such good care of me. It is a pleasure to work with you all.

  And this book is also dedicated to Sandra Sechrest, who lent her name to one of the characters in this story.

  Chapter 1

  CASTLE RANNOCH

  PERTHSHIRE, SCOTLAND

  DECEMBER 14, 1933

  Weather: cold, dreary, bleak.

  Atmosphere here: cold, dreary, bleak.

  Outlook: cold, dreary, bleak. Not in a good mood today. I wonder why. Could it have something to do with the fact that Christmas is coming and it will be utterly bloody?

  Ah, Christmas: chestnuts roasting; Yule logs crackling merrily; tables groaning under roast goose, turkey, mince pies and flaming plum puddings; carols and mistletoe; goodwill to all men. I’m sure there were some houses in Britain where this was going to be the case, in spite of the depression—just not at Castle Rannoch, on the bleak Scottish moors, where I was currently trapped for the winter. No, I was not snowed in or being held prisoner. I was there of my own volition. I happen to be Lady Georgiana Rannoch, sister to the current duke, and that bleak castle is my family home.

  There is actually no way to make Castle Rannoch festive even if one wanted to. Firstly it would be impossible to heat those cavernous great rooms no matter how many Yule logs you piled on the fire, and secondly my sister-in-law, Hilda, Duchess of Rannoch, commonly known as Fig, was in full austerity mode. Times were hard, she said. The country was in the grip of a great depression. It was up to us to set an example and live simply. We even had to endure baked beans on toast as our savory at the end of dinner, which shows how dire our situation had become.

  It is true that times are hard for the Rannochs, even though we’re related to the royal family and my brother inherited Rannoch Castle and a London house in Belgravia. You see, our father lost the last of his fortune in the great crash of ’29, then went up on the moors and shot himself, thus saddling poor Binky with horrendous death duties. I had my allowance cut off on my twenty-first birthday and have been struggling to keep my head above water ever since. Not that our situation is as dire as those poor wretches in the soup lines. I was supposed to marry well, to one of those chinless, spineless and half-imbecile European princes, or, failing that, become lady-in-waiting to an elderly royal aunt.

  So far I had chosen neither of the above, but as Christmas approached and the wind whistled down the hallways of Castle Rannoch, either option began to seem more desirable than my present situation. You might wonder why I stayed in such dreary surroundings. It had started through the famous Rannoch sense of duty that had been rammed down our throats since birth. We’d been raised with stories about ancestors like Robert Bruce Rannoch, who had kept fighting when his arm was hacked off in battle and merely changed his sword from his right hand to his left. I don’t think my sense of duty was that strong, but it was definitely there.

  You see, that summer, in London, my sister-in-law, Fig, had given birth to a second little Rannoch. Although she looked as if she had the constitution of a cart horse, she had been rather ill. She had gone home to Scotland to recuperate and had ac
tually begged me to come to keep her company (which shows how jolly sick she was!). I, being a kindhearted soul, had agreed.

  Summer had turned to autumn and there were the royal relatives at Balmoral to visit, house parties, grouse shoots—all of which we hoped might bring Fig out of her blue funk. But she had remained languid and depressed, hardly showing any interest in little Adelaide—yes, that was what they named the poor child. Adelaide Gertrude Hermione Maude. Can you imagine saddling any poor baby with such monstrosities? They hadn’t even come up with a good pet name yet. One could hardly call her Addy or Laidy, could one? Then she’d be Lady Addy or Lady Laidy and that wouldn’t do. To date she was addressed as “baby,” or occasionally “diddums.”

  And so I had stayed on. Nanny coped admirably with little Adelaide, Fig lolled about, getting more and more petty and bad tempered, and Binky wandered the grounds looking worried. I was starting to wonder how long I could endure this, when things were decided for me. Fig’s mother, Lady Wormwood, arrived to take charge. It only took an instant to see where Fig’s pettiness and bossy nature came from. If Fig was a trial, Lady Wormwood was utterly bloody. (Yes, I know a lady is not supposed to use words like “bloody,” but in describing Lady Wormwood the adjective is actually rather mild. Alas, my education was sadly lacking. If I knew stronger words, I’d have used them.)

  She had been in the house for about a week when I came back from a walk to hear her strident voice saying, “It’s not healthy, Hilda.” (She was the only person who called Fig Hilda, being responsible for the ghastly name.) “It’s not natural for a young girl to shut herself away like this, doing nothing all day. Does she not think at all about her future?”

  I froze in the entrance hall, shielded by a suit of armor. I expected Fig to leap to my defense and tell her mother that I was only shutting myself away at Castle Rannoch because she had begged me to stay with her. Instead I heard her saying, “I really don’t know what she thinks, Mummy.”

  “She can’t possibly expect that you’ll go on supporting her. You’ve done your duty and more. The girl has had her season, hasn’t she?” (People like Lady Wormwood pronounced the word “gell”). “Why isn’t she married? She’s not bad looking. She has royal connections. You’d have thought someone would have taken her off your hands by now.”

  “She’s already turned down Prince Siegfried of Romania,” Fig said. “I don’t think she has any idea about duty. The queen was really angling for that match. They are Hollenzollern-Sigmaringens, you know. Related to the queen’s family. And Siegfried was a charming young man, too. But she turned him down.”

  “What on earth is she waiting for—a king?” Lady Wormwood asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “It’s not as if she’s next in line to the throne, is it?”

  This was true. I had been thirty-fourth until Adelaide was born. Now I had been relegated to thirty-fifth.

  Fig lowered her voice. “Between ourselves, she’s mooning after some disreputable chap called Darcy O’Mara. Absolutely rotten sort.”

  “O’Mara? Son of Lord Kilhenny?”

  “That’s the one. Their family is in a worse state than ours. One gathers his father has had to sell off the family seat and the racing stables to cover his debts. So there are no prospects in that quarter. This O’Mara chap has no fortune and no career. He’ll never be able to support a wife.”

  “Well, she wouldn’t be allowed to marry him anyway, would she?” Lady Wormwood’s voice echoed around the great hall. “They are a Catholic family. As a member of the line of succession she’d be barred from marrying a Catholic.”

  I took an involuntary step back, knocking into the suit of armor and just managing to grab the mace before it clattered to the floor. I knew that the royal family was not allowed by British law to marry a Catholic, but surely that didn’t apply to me. It wasn’t as if I’d ever find myself queen, unless a particularly virulent epidemic hit or invaders wiped out numbers one through thirty-four. Not that Darcy had asked me to marry him. In fact, we did not even fit the traditional concept of sweethearts. When I was with him it was bliss, but most of the time I didn’t even know where he was. I certainly didn’t know how he earned his living. He appeared to be another young man-about-town, spending his days in idle pursuits like most peers’ sons, but I suspected he was also employed by the British government as some kind of spy. I had questioned him on several occasions but he remained enigmatically mum. When I last heard from him he was on his way to Argentina. I felt a lump come into my throat.

  “The girl needs taking in hand, Hilda.” Lady Wormwood’s voice boomed again. “Make it quite clear to her that she is expected to do her duty like everyone else. None of us mooned around waiting for an unsuitable chap, did we? We married whom we were told to and got on with it. Such a stupid notion that one marries for love.”

  “Hold on a minute, Mummy,” Fig interrupted. “I’m jolly fond of Binky, you know. I consider myself very lucky in that department.”

  “Nobody is saying that love doesn’t come later in some cases,” Lady Wormwood said. “If I remember correctly you had a distinct crush on the local curate until we set you straight. So will you speak to the girl, Hilda, or shall I? Give her an ultimatum—tell her you can support her no longer and it’s up to her to find herself a husband right away.”

  I couldn’t stand there for another second. I turned and pushed open the front door, stepping out into the full force of the gale that had begun brewing during my walk. It had started to snow, a driving kind of sleet that stung like needles then stuck to my clothing, hair and eyelashes, but I didn’t care. I walked, faster and faster, away from the house and out into the storm. As I walked I concentrated on my anger, to keep my fear at bay. How dare she! Castle Rannoch was my ancestral home, not hers. She couldn’t turn me out. And then the fear began to creep in . . . if they did turn me out, where would I go? God knows I’d tried to find ways to support myself, but with the world in the grips of a great depression even those with qualifications and experience were standing in bread lines. And then the bigger fear—the real fear. What if I couldn’t marry Darcy? Was I waiting for an impossible dream? Hadn’t I better start facing reality?

  The snow turned to blizzard, coating me in a white blanket and making it hard to breathe. Well, one thing was sure—I was not going to conveniently die in a storm just to please Fig and her mother. I turned around and made my way back toward the looming black shape of the castle. Since my presence was no longer appreciated, I’d not stay any longer. I’d have my maid, Queenie, pack my trunk and we’d leave for London in the morning. I had become rather good at camping out in our London house. My grandfather was nearby and my friend Belinda always seemed to have exciting things to do. And who knows, Darcy might be returning to London any day now. It was time for me to take my life into my own hands again.

  Chapter 2

  As I entered the front hall I was greeted by Hamilton, our aged butler. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, my lady,” he said. “I had no idea you had gone out in this inclement weather. Let me help you out of your coat.”

  As a well-trained butler he appeared not to notice that I was leaving a large lake of melted snow around me on the tiled floor. Instead he removed the coat with deft hands. Nor did he ask what had possessed me to go tramping out in a blizzard in the first place. “No doubt you’ll want warming up,” he said in his light Highland voice. “I’ll have Cook send you up some cocoa with brandy in it right away if you’ll go through to His Grace’s study.”

  “My brother’s study?”

  “Yes, my lady. You’re wanted on the telephone, and I believe it’s rather more private on the extension in there.” He gave me the hint of a knowing smile.

  My heart did a flip. It was Darcy. He was back in England and I was going to see him again after all. I sprinted with unladylike haste across the great hall, my footsteps sending up a clattering echo not unlike the time Murdoch Jamie Rannoch rode his war horse into the castle and up the stairs on returni
ng from battle, having heard a rumor that his wife was in bed with the steward. The rumor proved to be right and Murdoch Jamie dispatched both of them on the spot with a wield of his trusty claymore. We Rannochs can get rather hotheaded where love is involved.

  I was so breathless by the time I picked up the receiver that I could hardly gasp out, “Hello?”

  “Darling, is it you?” came a feminine voice.

  My first thought was that it was my friend Belinda Warburton-Stoke, one of the few people I knew who called me darling. But then I realized that the voice was deeper, smoother, sexier, polished by years on the London stage. “Mummy?” I replied. “What’s wrong?” In my impecunious world the telephone was used only for the direst emergencies and I hadn’t spoken to my mother in months.

  “Nothing’s wrong, darling,” she said indignantly. “I was just looking forward to a chat with my only child.”

  “Where are you calling from?” The line had that hollow crackle of long distance.

  “I’m in London, darling, where I hoped I’d find you.” She sounded peeved now, as if I were deliberately avoiding her. “What on earth are you doing up in Scotland at this time of year? My God, it must be bleak.”

  “It is, rather,” I agreed. “I’ve been keeping Fig company.”

  “From choice?” She sounded horrified.

  “More from a sense of duty, I suppose,” I said. “She’s been awfully down since she had the baby and Binky begged me to stay on and cheer her up. He’s been rather at a loss for what to do for her, poor chap.”

  “I’d have pushed her off a cliff long ago if I were he,” Mummy said.

  “Mummy, you’re terrible.” I had to laugh. “Anyway, I had hoped that going down to London for Christmas might cheer her up, but you know Fig. She’s sure it’s cheaper to stay in Scotland rather than open up the London house. So we’re stuck up here. But what about you? What are you doing in London? I thought you’d be looking forward to a jolly German Christmas with Max.”