Aunt Dimity: Snowbound

by Nancy Atherton

  I checked the other tables in the room, found nothing, and swung the flashlight toward the bookshelves. It seemed reasonable to assume that Jamie had put the album back where he’d found it. If he had, I’d have no trouble tracking it down. I might be pig-ignorant when it came to Victorian ranges, but I knew my way around books.

  I skipped over the shelves Jamie and I had examined during our tour and moved on to a glass-enclosed bookcase we hadn’t opened. It was devoted exclusively to photograph albums. All were bound in the same sumptuous morocco that covered the Jubilee album, with fine paper labels affixed to the spines. The small, precise handwriting on the labels proclaimed each album’s date and general contents: family picnics, christenings, house parties, balls; funeral processions, birthdays, patriotic celebrations. If the labels were accurate, the albums contained an intriguing visual history of family life in Victorian and Edwardian England. Nothing would have pleased me more than to spend the rest of the night exploring the vanished worlds captured in those antique images.

  Instead, I breathed a short sigh of frustration. The Jubilee album was missing. A gap yawned on the shelf where the album should have been, the only gap in the collection. I opened the glass doors and bent low, to make sure the album hadn’t accidentally been thrust to the back of the shelf. It wasn’t there.

  As I closed the doors, the flashlight’s reflected beam shot straight into my eyes. I squinted, then blinked away the after-spots, peevishly reminded of Wendy’s cyclopean head lamp. Then I stopped blinking.

  “Wendy,” I said aloud, and gazed into the polka-dotted darkness as all of the vague suspicions I’d pushed aside came flooding back.

  Had Wendy taken the album? The question seemed absurd on the face of it. Wendy had claimed to be repulsed by old photographs. “Old photographs give me the creeps,” she’d said, but that was exactly what she would have said if she’d been feigning disinterest.

  Had she pretended to ignore the Jubilee album in order to downplay its importance, then come back to retrieve it from the library after Jamie and I had gone? Why would she want to study the photographs in private? Why would the Jubilee album hold a special significance for her, unless she somehow knew about the Peacock parure?

  “How in the world could she know about the parure?” I muttered under my breath, and padded silently across the Turkey carpet to stand in the circle of warmth given off by the glowing embers.

  Since I was pretty sure that Aunt Dimity was not on speaking terms with Wendy Walker, it seemed safe to assume that Wendy had obtained her information from a more conventionally human source. But who, besides Aunt Dimity, would have the inside scoop on the parure? Not even Catchpole was aware of its importance. I cast my mind back to the conversation Wendy and I had shared in the library the night before, and the wheels of logic began to turn in earnest.

  During the course of our somewhat stilted tête-à-tête, Wendy had described her father as a marksman. Marksman was a common military term. What if Wendy’s father had been a soldier, I asked myself, and not just any soldier, but one of the wounded Americans Lucasta had unjustly accused of theft? It went without saying that he would have declared his innocence to his daughter. He would have explained to her that no one had taken the fabulous parure, would perhaps have shown her the abusive letters Lucasta had sent to him after the war. And years later, the protective, clever, and bitterly resentful daughter would arrive “by accident” at a virtually uninhabited Ladythorne Abbey, equipped to break and enter and take revenge on the woman who’d slandered and tormented her father.

  The blizzard must have complicated her plans. Wendy couldn’t have anticipated the arrival of two genuine castaways at Ladythorne Abbey. I was certain that, if she hadn’t been saddled with me and Jamie, Wendy would have dealt with Catchpole by bashing him over the head with her pry bar.

  I clapped a hand to my forehead as I recalled the pristine blanket of snow that had covered the staircase leading to Ladythorne’s main entrance. I understood, now, why there’d been no footprints. Wendy had lied when she’d told me she’d tried the front door. She’d intended all along to slip in through the back, covertly, as a burglar would.

  Her hostility toward Lucasta suddenly made sense to me, as did her lie about looking for extra blankets. I was convinced that she’d been searching for something much rarer and more valuable than an antique quilt or a puffy duvet. If the blanket chest’s lid hadn’t betrayed her, she would have carried on uninterrupted, safe in the knowledge that no one suspected her of anything duplicitous—no one but me and, to give credit where credit was due, Catchpole.

  I didn’t believe her story about staying in her room all day to work on her revised hiking route, either. She hadn’t been holed up in her room. She’d been working her way from one end of Ladythorne to the other, hunting for hidden diamonds.

  “I knew she was up to no good.” I stomped my foot for added emphasis, spun around, and sprinted out of the library. As Catchpole had so wisely pointed out, cornered beasts could be dangerous. It would be foolish to confront one on my own. If I was going to keep Wendy from stuffing the Peacock parure into her backpack, I’d need Jamie’s help.

  A fluttery wash of golden light showed under Jamie’s door, as if his fire had burned low while he slept. I felt a twinge of guilt at the thought of waking him, but tapped on his door nonetheless. I wasn’t overly concerned about disturbing Wendy in her room across the hall because I was quite sure she wasn’t there. I had no doubt whatsoever that she was at that moment prowling through the abbey with her pry bar and her head lamp, in search of the magnificent parure.

  “Jamie,” I said in an urgent whisper. “Jamie, are you up? Let me in.”

  I was about to knock more loudly when the door swung open and Jamie appeared, tousled and sleepy-eyed and clad in nothing but a pair of thermal long johns.

  “Lori?” he asked. “What is it? Do you need blankets?”

  “No,” I told him. “I need you. May I come in?”

  Jamie stood aside and I slipped into a room that was as masculine as mine was feminine. A pair of muscular bronze horses flanked the inlaid ebony clock on the oak mantelpiece, and the walls were covered in a stunning midnight-blue silk that shimmered in the fading firelight like the surface of a moonlit pool. The deeply carved four-poster bed was hung with blue-and-red tartan drapes that matched the rumpled duvet and complimented the red silk sheets. A tartan armchair and matching ottoman were grouped with a round, burled walnut table before the hearth, and the two tall windows opposite the door flanked a capacious roll-top desk and a revolving desk chair that might have come straight from Grundy DeClerke’s Victorian business office.

  Jamie’s oil lamp, its wick turned low, sat on the roll-top desk, holding down one corner of a large, oblong sheet of paper. I was assailed by another twinge of guilt for waking him when I spied his jeans and dark-blue sweater in a heap at the foot of the bed. He’d clearly been too tired to fold them properly before he’d slid between those soft red sheets.

  “Could you put your sweater on?” I asked, turning to face him. I wanted to focus on the matter at hand, and Jamie’s naked torso silhouetted against the shimmering blue silk was ruining my concentration.

  He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, then cocked his head to one side. “You want me to put clothes on? Forgive me. I was under the impression that you wanted me to take them off.”

  “Wrong.” I shook my head vehemently and stumbled back a step, then told myself not to be ungracious. “Not that it wouldn’t be . . . That is, not that you’re repellent or anything. To be perfectly honest, I find you incredibly not repellent, but be that as it may, when I said I needed you, I didn’t mean it that way.” I paused to catch my breath, then motioned to the pile of clothes. “Actually, it might be best if you put all of your clothes on. I’ve got sort of a long story to tell you and I’d feel terrible if you caught a cold while I was telling it.”

  Jamie had begun smiling midway through my stream of semi-coherent
babble, evidently detecting in it something that vaguely resembled a compliment. When I stopped babbling, he simply nodded and moved toward his clothes.

  While Jamie dressed, I applied myself to replenishing the fire and devising a way of giving him the facts without mentioning how I’d learned them. I’d already decided to substitute Bill for Aunt Dimity, and by the time Jamie had finished dressing, I was prepared to spill a carefully chosen selection of beans.

  I perched on the ottoman and gestured for him to take the tartan armchair. He sat with his hands folded across his stomach, relaxed and attentive. If he was surprised at being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night by a wild-eyed woman, he didn’t show it. Perhaps, I thought, it had happened to him so often that the novelty had worn thin.

  “My husband phoned after I got back to my room,” I began, keeping to my impromptu script. “It seems that when Tessa Gibbs purchased Ladythorne, she came into possession of a box full of Lucasta DeClerke’s private papers. She sent the papers to Bill a couple of weeks ago, to see if they had any legal implications. He was going through them tonight and he discovered something extremely interesting. You re member the photo album you found in the library?”

  Jamie listened without comment while I hurriedly described the Peacock parure, the uproar over its alleged theft, and my suspicion—framed as Bill’s—that the glorious set of jewelry had never been stolen and remained, contrary to Lucasta’s claims, hidden somewhere in the abbey. It wasn’t until I’d finished galloping through Wendy’s scheme to avenge her father by purloining the parure that he spoke.

  “You’re making a great many assumptions, Lori.”

  “But it makes sense,” I insisted.

  “Does it?” Jamie got to his feet and walked to the roll-top desk. When he returned, he was holding the Jubilee album. “I took the album from the library. I found the photographs compelling and wanted to study them more closely.” He sat in the armchair and handed the album to me. “And while I hate to point out the obvious, I have to say that marksman isn’t an exclusively military term. Anyone who shoots can be a marksman. Perhaps Wendy’s father is a hunter.”

  “So Wendy didn’t take the album and we don’t have a good reason to think that her father was a soldier.” I folded my arms and said unhappily, “You’re doing it again, Jamie.”

  “What am I doing?” he asked.

  “You’re being reasonable.” I set the heavy album on the floor and eyed Jamie reproachfully. “You’re talking me out of trusting my instincts.”

  “What if your instincts can’t be trusted?” Jamie leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Tell me honestly: Do you like Wendy Walker?”

  “Not much,” I acknowledged. “She makes me feel stupid and helpless and soppy and she said some unkind things about Lucasta, but that’s not what this is about, Jamie. I’m not letting personal prejudice affect my judgment. I honestly believe that Wendy came to Ladythorne in order to steal the Peacock parure.”

  “I know you do, Lori, but—”

  “Okay,” I broke in, waving him to silence. “I’ll make a deal with you. We’ll go to Wendy’s room right now. If she’s there, I’ll admit that I was wrong about her. If she’s not, you’ll admit that I may be right.”

  I began to push myself up from the ottoman, but Jamie planted his palms on my shoulders and held me in place.

  “No.” His voice, like his touch, was gentle but firm. “I’m charmed by your company, Lori, but I doubt that Wendy will feel the same way. She deserves a good night’s rest. We are not going to disturb her.”

  “But Jamie—”

  “We’ll speak with her in the morning,” he proposed. “In the meantime, why don’t you go back to your own bed?” His hands slid slowly down my arms and his eyes caught fire again. “Unless, of course, you’ve changed your mind about sharing mine.”

  “I haven’t changed my mind about anything.” I shook off his hands, stood, and stalked over to stare out the darkened window to the right of the roll-top desk. My disappointment was so great that I wasn’t remotely tempted by the prospect of a night between those crimson sheets with a man I found incredibly not repellent. “If you won’t help me hunt for Wendy, will you at least help me find the parure before she does? Two people can cover more ground than one.”

  Jamie’s face, reflected in the darkened windowpanes, seemed to float disembodied through the air as he rose from the armchair and crossed to stand behind me.

  “Of course I’ll help you, Lori.” He was so close that his warm breath ruffled my curls. “I’ll help in any way I can. Shall we start right here, in my room? There’s some beautiful, intricate carving on my headboard.” He used a fingertip to draw a curlicue across the nape of my neck. “Let’s see if we can open a hidden compartment.”

  I couldn’t keep myself from trembling, and as disappointment eased, temptation beckoned. I cleared my throat and stepped resolutely, if a bit unsteadily, toward the desk. Jamie followed, and for a moment the urge to lean back into his arms, to tilt my head to one side and feel his soft beard against my neck, was so strong that I could scarcely breathe.

  “You take the . . . the headboard,” I managed, trying in vain to sound strong-willed and decisive. “I’ll start with the, uh, desk. Lots . . . of . . . pigeonholes . . .”

  My unfocused gaze came to rest on the oblong sheet of paper I’d noticed earlier. It appeared to be a floor plan, hand drawn on fine linen paper and labeled in an old-fashioned script that was strangely familiar. I leaned forward for a closer look, and felt goose flesh rise all up and down my arms. The small, precise handwriting was identical to the writing I’d seen on the labeled photo albums in the library.

  “ ‘Ladythorne Abbey,’ ” I read aloud. “ ‘Service rooms.’ ”

  “Lori?” Jamie’s voice seemed to come from a long way away. “I can explain. . . .”

  I straightened slowly as a thousand confused thoughts tumbled through my head, then swung around as the bedroom door opened.

  Wendy Walker backed stealthily into the room, turning her head from side to side, as if making sure the corridor was empty. She was wearing her miner’s lamp and carrying a brown-paper-wrapped parcel under one arm. After closing the door with great care, she turned the headlamp off, shifted the parcel to both hands, and said, “The floor plans are reliable, Jamie. Apart from the attics, nothing’s been—” She broke off as she caught sight of me, shifted her gaze immediately to Jamie, and began to inch back toward the door. “Sorry. I didn’t realize that you two were . . . I can see that you want to be alone, so I’ll—”

  “You’re not going anywhere!” I cried.

  I dodged Jamie’s grasping hands and darted forward to grab at the parcel. Wendy jerked it away from me, lost her grip on it, and sent the parcel flying in an arc across the room. It tumbled end over end through the air, landed hard on the hearth rug, and burst open.

  I gasped and time seemed to stand still as a waterfall of diamonds spilled across the dark blue rug to lie sparkling in the dancing firelight.

  Fifteen

  I don’t know how long I stood there, openmouthed and staring, mesmerized by the glittering treasure that lay strewn across the rug. I felt as if I’d stumbled into Ali Baba’s cave. There it was before me, the Peacock parure in all its glory—the delicate tiara, the exquisite bracelets, the teardrop earrings, the pair of brooches, the choker, the magnificent necklace—a king’s ransom and more spread across the dark blue rug like a galaxy of stars flung carelessly across the midnight sky.

  After what seemed an eternity something brushed my wrist and I realized that Jamie had reached out to me. I flinched as though scalded, snapped out of my reverie, and backed away from him until I bumped into the bed.

  “You . . .” I exhaled the word in a whisper so venomous that he recoiled. My gaze traveled from the floor plan to the Jubilee album and back again to the parure, and I swayed, dizzied by the fathomless depths of my own stupidity. I’d known from the beginning that nothing but an extraord
inary twist of fate would bring three Americans together in such a little-known and isolated place. I knew now that I was the only one of the three who’d come to Ladythorne by accident.

  The truth lanced through my brain like bolts of lightning. It was Jamie’s father who’d been the soldier, Jamie’s father who’d been wounded, sent to the abbey, and cast out by a madwoman’s lies. It was Jamie who’d come to Ladythorne to steal the parure, to avenge his father in the face of Lucasta’s false accusations and the torment her vindictive letters had inflicted on him.

  Jamie had seemed so sensitive, so protective, when he’d offered to cut short Catchpole’s gloomy reminiscences during dinner. I realized now that the offer hadn’t been an act of gallantry—my knight in shining armor had just been fishing for an excuse to shut the old man up before I learned too much about Lucasta.

  Worse still, Jamie hadn’t stopped by my door the night before simply to request the pleasure of my company. He’d wanted to make sure I was tucked away in my bedroom before he snuck off to the library, to hunt for clues that would lead him to the parure’s hiding place. By the time I’d burst in on him, he’d already discovered the Jubilee album, and I’d shown him where to find the floor plans.

  Jamie had directed Wendy’s search. He’d masterminded their scheme, sending her to do the legwork while he plotted their next maneuver. He’d instructed her to meet him in the library. She hadn’t whispered his name through the barricaded door by chance, but because she’d expected to find him there, not me. His concern for my well-being, his interest in books, his delightful conversation had been nothing but a smokescreen raised to keep me from seeing what was really going on.