Aunt Dimity and the Duke

by Nancy Atherton

  “I suppose that’s why she approached him. If Susannah had blackmail on her mind, she wouldn’t want to broadcast what she’d learned,” Emma mused. Question after question cartwheeled through her mind. Had Grayson lured Lex down to Penford Hall? Had the shipwreck been planned? Had the staff been involved? Emma knew enough about computer security at banks to know that no electronic records were completely safe from prying eyes. It wouldn’t be easy to break into private financial files, but it could be done. All you’d need was a fairly sophisticated ... “Hallard,” she breathed.

  “Where?” Derek asked in alarm.

  Emma shook her head. “No, Derek, I didn’t mean that. I just thought of a way for Grayson to syphon off Lex’s funds. What do you suppose Hallard’s doing with that laptop computer?”

  “Hallard?” Derek said doubtfully. “Seems a bit dotty to me.”

  “Hackers frequently are,” Emma replied dryly.

  “Hackers?”

  “Creative computer programmers,” Emma explained. “Sometimes called computer nerds. They’ve been known to break into systems just for the fun of it.”

  “Fascinating.”

  Emma nodded, but her mind was already on other things. “Were there any witnesses to the shipwreck?”

  “Only a few,” Derek replied. “That’s another thing that has me puzzled. Five years ago, the village of Penford Harbor was virtually abandoned.”

  The abandoned village is thriving, Emma thought, looking around the pub.

  The Bright Lady was a low, whitewashed stone building on the harborfront, tucked between a half-timbered inn and the narrow, two-story harbormaster’s house, which now served as Dr. Singh’s infirmary. The pub was warm and cozy, dimly lit by the sunlight falling through the bull’s-eye windows in the front. Pewter tankards and lengths of fishing net hung from the raftered ceiling, a back comer was devoted to a well-used dartboard, and a time-worn but lovingly polished bar jutted out into the center of the room, dividing it in two. On one side of the bar, an aged spaniel slept before a crackling fire, and the red-haired chief constable, Tom Trevoy, sat at a bare wooden table, writing doggedly on a pad of yellow paper and nursing a pint of the local ale.

  Emma was sitting on the other side of the bar, at one of a half-dozen tables draped with linen and set with silver. Her table was in the front, near the windows, and she had a clear view of the harbor. Derek was speaking with three elderly women at a table in the back, answering the question Emma had heard many times as she and Derek had strolled down from the car park to the harbor.

  Would Susannah’s “mishap” delay the Fete? Everyone they’d met—from Mrs. Shuttleworth, quietly tending the marigolds in front of her husband’s church, to the irascible Jonah Pengully, at whose ramshackle general store Emma had purchased work gloves; a sunhat, and a pair of wellington boots—had asked Derek the same thing. Faces had fallen when he’d declined to give a definite answer, but the villagers remained hopeful that word would come down from Penford Hall before nightfall.

  Emma sipped her cider and watched out the window as three fishermen guided their boat into the harbor. She knew without looking that the boat would be in perfect condition, not a speck of paint chipped off of its sky-blue prow. She knew it because everything she’d seen so far in Penford Harbor had been perfect.

  The church, with its ancient carvings and shining brasses; the tiny schoolhouse, with its computer terminals; the bakery, the butcher’s shop, the boathouse—nothing was rundown or weatherbeaten. The whitewashed cottages, roofed in blue slate or wheat-colored thatch, looked as though they’d been painted fresh that morning.

  The air of well-being was more than skin-deep. According to Derek, the small fishing fleet provided the village and the hall with a great variety of seafood, and Mr. Carroway, the greengrocer, grew vegetables all year round in a solar-heated greenhouse behind his shop. An inland town supplied Mr. Minion, the butcher, with mutton and beef—it was his van that Gash had been repairing—but Herbert Munting, a middle-aged widower with a passion for poultry, provided him with chickens, geese, and other feathered delicacies from his multilevel henhouse. Mr. and Mrs. Tharby, the proud owners of the Bright Lady, made their own ale, pressed their own cider, and experimented with flavored liquors, but claimed that Crowley was the local authority on wine-making.

  Penford Harbor’s air of cheerful self-sufficiency should have been appealing, but Emma found it almost eerie. It was too polished, too pristine. Old Jonah Pengully, with his cluttered shop, moth-eaten gray pullover, and curmudgeonly manner, had come as a refreshing change of pace.

  Emma turned away from the window as Derek took his seat, and nodded when the matronly Mrs. Tharby stopped at their table to assure them that their lunch would be right out. When she’d left, Emma murmured uncertainly, “Did we place an order?”

  Derek smiled. “One doesn’t order at the Bright Lady. One eats whatever Ernestine Potts decides to serve. She trained under Madama, so there’s no need to worry. Matter of fact, I’ve promised to bring Nell a pot of Ernestine’s jam.”

  “Strawberry jam?” Emma asked.

  “Why, yes. How did you guess?”

  Emma studied Derek closely, wondering how he could possibly be unaware of his daughter’s fondness for strawberries. “She seems to eat a lot of them,” she replied carefully.

  “Is that unhealthy?” Derek asked, faintly alarmed. Emma reassured him as Mrs. Tharby returned with their food.

  “Supreme of Cornish turbot,” Mrs. Tharby informed them as she unloaded her tray. “Filled with a light scallop-and-grainy-mustard mousseline, and served on broad beans cooked French-style with a Chablis sauce. Ernestine’s having fun today. Enjoy.” She’d just turned away when the front door swung open.

  “Hello, boys!” Mrs. Tharby called. “Your missus is expecting you for lunch, Ted.”

  Three fishermen had come into the pub, their rubber boots trailing water, their hands and faces reddened from the wind and sun. Emma recognized them as the three she’d seen sailing into the harbor moments before. The youngest appeared to be in his late twenties, the oldest somewhere in his thirties. Emma thought she detected a family resemblance in their upturned noses and dark, wavy hair, and a moment later, Derek confirmed it, introducing her to the Tregallis brothers: Ted, Jack, and James.

  “Told Debbie I’d stop by here to drop off the papers,” Ted replied to Mrs. Tharby as she headed for the kitchen. “How’re things up at the hall, Tom?”

  “Peaceful, so far,” said the red-haired chief constable.

  Ted placed a bundle of newspapers before Chief Constable Trevoy while Jack and James came over to shake hands with Derek. Their heavy wool sweaters reeked of sweat, diesel oil, and fish.

  “Press conference went well,” Ted called from the chief constable’s table. “Seen the rags yet?”

  Derek shook his head. “How bad is it?”

  “See for yourself.” Ted brought several of the papers over to Derek. The first contained a black-and-white photograph of a scantily clad Susannah cavorting beside the words:

  ASHERS SMASHERS!

  “Blast,” Derek muttered. “Must’ve got the snap from Syd.”

  “Bastards probably nicked it off him,” said Jack, wincing as Ted jabbed an elbow into his side and told him to mind his language.

  “The other one’s not so bad,” said Chief Constable Trevoy, holding up a second newspaper. Its front page featured an unflattering photograph of Grayson surrounded by white-coated doctors, paired with a gorgeous shot of Susannah in a semitransparent gown, stretched full-length on her back on a rocky beach. The headline screamed:

  FALLEN BEAUTY!

  “Doubt Debbie’ll let me keep ’em in the house,” said Ted ruefully. “Not with Teddy around. My ten-year-old,” he explained to Emma.

  “We could keep ’em on the boat,” Jack suggested, and was rewarded with a swift clout in the head from James, who asked, “This won’t affect the Fete, will it, sir?”

  With admirable patience, Der
ek confessed yet again that he really didn’t know, and the Tregallis brothers trooped off to Ted and Debbie’s house for their midday meal, while Chief Constable Trevoy scanned through the rest of the papers. Mrs. Tharby returned to the table shortly, with a fresh round of drinks. Before leaving them to enjoy their lunch, she put a hand on Emma’s arm. “I just wanted to say what a pleasure it is to meet the garden lady. God bless you, dear. I’ve heard so much about you.” The Penford Hall grapevine, it seemed, was linked directly to the village.

  13

  Emma leaned over the retaining wall of the gray granite quay to look down at the lapping waves, while Derek stood beside her, facing the village. In the harbor, a gull plummeted headfirst into a wave, then rose back into the air, wings straining, a sliver of silver in its beak. A cool breeze caressed Emma’s face as she followed the gull’s flight upward and along the edge of the enclosing cliffs.

  It was like standing at the bottom of a canyon. The curving walls were neither as steep nor as barren as they’d appeared from above. The rockface was cross-hatched with cracks, and a scattering of twisted cedars, buckthorn bushes, and tufts of purple rock samphire clung to narrow ledges.

  The beacon and the chapel stood like sentinels on either side of the narrow opening in the canyon wall, where the sea swept in. Emma could easily imagine Grayson’s pirate ancestor hiding out in this sheltered cove, though he would have had to be a good seaman to maneuver his ship past the shoals. Emma’s gaze came to rest on a spot just beyond the mouth of the cove, where the water swirled and eddied, and ruffling waves seemed to break on an unseen shore.

  “The Nether Shoals,” she murmured. She and Derek had retraced Lex’s steps from the door of the Bright Lady to the very spot where the duke’s yacht had once been docked. The cleats were still there, set firmly in the stone walkway, even though, as Susannah had taken pains to point out, the yacht had never been replaced.

  But nearly everything else in Penford Harbor had been. Derek observed that the village had almost certainly undergone a renovation as extensive as the one that had taken place at Penford Hall. “I know how long it takes for rafters to settle, new thatch to turn from yellow to dusty brown,” he’d told her. “It’s not an exact science, but I’m willing to swear that most of these buildings were decaying ruins in the not-too-distant past. Someone’s done a great deal to lure people back here and make them want to stay.”

  Derek turned to her now, his shoulder brushing hers as he leaned beside her on the wall. “Another odd thing about the Penford family legend,” he murmured. “In order for Grayson to bring it to fruition, there must also be a village.”

  Emma shivered. “Let’s go back to the hall,” she said, glancing upward. The sky was clouding over and the waves were kicking up. “I need to think, and it looks like another storm is moving in.”

  Derek telephoned from the Bright Lady, and Gash came to meet them at the car park, then drove them the rest of the way up. The azaleas fluttered by, but Emma scarcely noticed them, and when the hall came into view, she smiled ruefully. She was ashamed to admit it, but the past two days had, without doubt, been the most interesting two days in her whole life. And a part of her didn’t want them to end.

  Lady Nell, Master Peter, and Sir Bertram of Harris request the pleasure of your company at supper tonight in the nursery.

  At seven o’clock.

  Dad’s coming, too.

  The last two lines had been added as a postscript, crowded in below the tempera-paint scrolls and flowery flourishes that framed the rest of the hand-printed text. Emma stood on the balcony and reread the invitation. It had been lying on the floor just inside her room when she’d returned from Penford Harbor, as though someone had slipped it under the door. She hadn’t yet sent her reply.

  Derek had given her so much to think about. She would have liked to spend some time in the garden—she always thought more clearly with a trowel in her hand—but the clouds had moved in and the air was heavy with ozone. Suddenly, there was a patter of rain, then a downpour, brief and powerful, followed by a steady, ground-soaking shower.

  It’s a good thing Bantry stored the gardening tools in the chapel, Emma thought, turning to go inside. Otherwise, they’d be—

  Emma froze in the doorway, then turned slowly back to watch the falling rain. It had rained the other night, as well, the night before she and Nell had found Susannah. There’d been a heavy mist that morning, too. Bantry had tied an oilcloth over the wheelbarrow to protect his tools from just such weather, as any good gardener would.

  But the oilcloth had not been on the wheelbarrow that morning. When Emma had reached for it, she’d found it on the flagstone path. Yet the tools had been bone-dry when Bantry had taken them from the barrow that afternoon. Emma touched a hand to her glasses, then folded her arms, perplexed. Someone had removed the oilcloth from the wheelbarrow sometime after the rain had stopped and the mist had burned off. Someone had been in the garden on the morning of Susannah’s accident.

  But who? Emma couldn’t imagine Susannah soiling her hands on the old oilcloth, and if Bantry had untied it he wouldn’t have left it lying on the path.

  Peter, perhaps? He’d spent the morning on the cliff path, very near the chapel garden. He might have slipped inside to take a peek at the tools. It was only natural for a little boy to be curious about such things.

  Should she ask him about it tonight? Emma glanced down at the neatly printed invitation, and shook her head. No need to spoil the children’s grand occasion. She would ask Bantry about the oilcloth in the morning.

  A hail of raindrops gusted onto the balcony and Emma ducked into the bedroom. Wiping the rain from her face, she crossed to the rosewood desk to compose an acceptance, then rang for Mattie to deliver it.

  The invitation suggested that supper in the nursery would be a formal affair, and Emma went to the wardrobe, wishing she’d brought something other than her trusty teal, only to find another dress hanging in its place. Emma’s hand slid slowly down the door of the wardrobe, then rose to adjust her glasses. She could scarcely believe her eyes.

  Silver-gray satin gleamed like liquid moonbeams in the lamplight. The dress was simply cut, with three-quarter-length sleeves, a close-fitting bodice, a modest décolletage, and a full skirt that would fall just below her knees. Emma reached out a tentative hand to touch the skirt and sighed as the lustrous fabric rustled beneath her fingertips.

  “Excuse me, miss.”

  Emma jerked her hand back and turned to face Mattie, who was standing in the doorway of the dressing room.

  “I wouldn’t handle it, miss, not until you’ve had your bath.” When Emma made no reply, the girl added uncertainly, “I did knock, miss, but you didn’t seem to hear.”

  “That’s all right,” said Emma, coming out of her daze. “But this dress, Mattie. Did Nanny Cole ... ?”

  “Lady Nell and I thought you might be needing a few extra frocks, seeing as you’d brought so few of your own, and Nanny Cole agreed. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Mind?” Emma looked back at the dress and smiled dreamily. “No. I don’t mind.”

  The nursery occupied several large rooms on the top floor of Penford Hall. Peter was waiting for Emma at the door to the central room, which he referred to as the day nursery. He escorted her to an armchair, brought her a glass of fizzy lemonade, then stood nervously adjusting his tie and tugging at his blazer.

  “You look very distinguished tonight,” said Emma. She leaned forward for a closer look at his tie. “Are you a Harrow this year?”

  “No,” Peter replied. “This is Grayson’s old tie and his blazer, too. He lent them to me for the evening. Nanny Cole had to take up the sleeves.” He pulled at a cuff. “Papa wanted me to go to Harrow. That’s where he went. I wanted to go, too, but—” Peter bit his lip.

  “But what?” Emma coaxed.

  Peter lowered his eyes, then murmured confidentially, “It’s a boarding school.”

  “I see,” said Emma, though she did
not see at all.

  “Grayson’s been teaching me cricket,” Peter continued conversationally. He frowned and pursed his lips. “I think I’m beginning to see the point of it.”

  Emma sipped her lemonade, uncertain what to say. She wasn’t used to children pondering the meaning of schoolyard games. She wondered briefly if cricket inspired such dubious devotion in all young boys, but before she could frame a tactful question, Peter excused himself and went to see what was keeping Nell.

  The day nursery had soft rugs, soft chairs, and a hard horsehair sofa. A map of the world had been painted on one wall, and the others held framed pencil drawings of Penford Hall, the ruined castle, and the harbor. Emma suspected that the drawings were the fledgling efforts of a young Grayson.

  An enormous black-and-white rocking horse sat near the windows, a butterfly net leaned in one comer, and low shelves ran right around the room. The shelves were filled with books and toys and mysterious, unmarked boxes that might have held puzzles or models or brigades of toy soldiers. The large table at the center of the room had been set for supper, and Crowley stood over a long row of chafing dishes, waiting to serve the meal.

  It took Emma several minutes to realize that the toys had been arranged in alphabetical order, a few minutes longer to figure out that the fifth place at the table had been set for Bertie. She looked from the wooden abacus to the stuffed zebra, and back to the encyclopedias piled on the chair to give the small brown teddy needed height, and wondered if all children behaved this way.

  Emma raised a hand self-consciously to her hair. Mattie had brushed it until it crackled, then let it fall around her shoulders like a cloud. Nanny Cole had sent up the sapphire pendant that now hung around Emma’s neck, and the pair of satin pumps that graced her feet. Nanny Cole, Made had informed her, as she threaded a thin silver ribbon through Emma’s hair, was a stickler for accessories.