Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity and the Duke

“Miss Emma and I’ll see to that,” Bantry said. “Run along and play, now, the both of you.”

“But I wanted to tell Emma—” Nell began.

“Here, Nell, have the last tart,” said Peter, thrusting it toward her as he hustled her up the steps. “You heard Mr. Bantry. We’re supposed to play now.”

Bantry waited until the children were out of earshot, then shook his head. “ ‘We’re supposed to play, now,’ ” he mimicked gruffly. “Lad acts like it were an order.” Piling dishes into the hamper, he went on. “Has a bee in his bonnet about keepin’ busy, that one. Left him alone in my pottin’ shed for five minutes last week, and when I came back, he’d swept the floor.”

Emma nodded. “Nanny Cole seems to be having the same problem,” she said. “She was reading the riot act to him about it this morning.”

“Somethin’s frettin’ at him.” Bantry looked thoughtfully at the closed door and rubbed the back of his neck. “Don’t know what it is, but somethin’s got him all wound up. Here, pass me that glass, will you?”

Emma shook the last drops of cider from her glass. “Maybe he’s not used to having men patrol the house he’s living in,” she suggested. She caught Bantry’s eye as she passed the empty glass to him. “That’s what Newland and Chief Constable Trevoy and those other men are doing, isn’t it?”

Bantry didn’t answer until the hamper had been repacked and the lid closed. Then he leaned back on his elbows, his eyes on the chapel door. “I expect Tom’s auntie told you what happened here a few years ago.”

Emma nodded. “She said there’d been some trouble with the press after that rock singer drowned. Kate Cole seems to think it might happen again. Do you?”

“Miss Susannah’s what they call a celebrity, isn’t she?” Bantry retorted. “And what with that old business and all, I reckon the vultures’ll take an interest, right enough.” His kindly gray eyes turned to slate. “We’re not about to go through that again.”

“How can you stop it?”

“Our Kate’ll stop it, all right,” Bantry said grimly. “Pride of Penford Harbor, is our Kate. She’s a solicitor, you know.”

Emma looked away, to conceal her surprise. Housekeeper, lawyer—Kate seemed to be yet another multitalented member of the Penford Hall staff. From what she’d said about managing the press conference in Plymouth, she seemed to be Grayson’s public-relations officer as well. “How bad was it when Lex died?”

“Bad enough.” Bantry leaned forward, his shoulders hunched, his elbows on his knees, toying with a decapitated dandelion. “Don’t want you to get the wrong idea,” he said slowly. “We’re decent folk. We believe in a free press, same as other decent folk, but those fellers printed nothin’ but lies. Village had just got back on its feet again, but them vultures tried to turn it inside out.” He shook his head. “Caught ’em in the schoolyard, worryin’ the children, for goodness’ sake.”

“But why were they so persistent?” Emma asked. “What were they after?”

“Proof,” Bantry said, tossing the dandelion into the wheelbarrow. “The bastards were looking for proof that His Grace murdered that bloke.”

“Nothin’ like a good murder for sellin’ papers.”

Bantry’s words returned to Emma as she sat at the drafting table. Several hours had passed since she’d returned to her room, but the bitterness in Bantry’s voice remained fresh in her mind. Clearly, it had been a galling experience for him to see his fair-haired boy mauled by a sensation-seeking press. Emma thought she could understand the old man’s outrage, and she felt sorry for Grayson as well—it couldn’t be easy, having celebrities keel over on your doorstep once every five years. Yet she, too, was curious to know what had led Lex Rex to his watery grave.

Richard would have been able to quote chapter and verse to her from the press coverage in the States, but Emma doubted that Richard’s new bride would appreciate the phone call. Emma couldn’t bring herself to press Bantry for details, either.

Leaning back from the drafting table, Emma examined her sketches, feeling a rush of pleasure when she saw how well they’d turned out. More often than not, her preliminary scribbles consisted of ragged lines, symbolic circles, rows of X’s, and lots of small arrows. These were finished drawings. There was the lavender hedge, on either side of the chapel door, and there were the irises and poppies, the old Bourbon roses and the clouds of baby’s breath, exactly as she’d envisioned them the day before. It had come so easily, too, as though another hand had been guiding hers. Emma smiled at the notion, put her pencil down, and stretched. Once she added a touch of color to the drawings, she’d present them to Bantry for inspection.

She’d show them to Peter and Nell, as well. She was surprised to realize how much she’d enjoyed the time she’d spent with Derek’s children. There’d been that odd moment of near-mutiny when Peter had objected to Bantry’s stowing the tools in the chapel, but after that he’d been fine. Bantry might teasingly label him a workaholic, but Emma had never considered industriousness to be a fault.

In his own way, though, the boy was as disconcerting as his sister. If Nell was too direct, Peter was too wary. When he looked up at Emma with those huge dark eyes —solike his father’s—there seemed to be things going on behind them he’d never let her see. And there’d been that unsettling bounce in his step as he’d come into the kitchen, after learning of Susannah’s accident....

Emma bent to tidy up the drafting table, since it was time to dress for supper. Children must be subject to mood swings, the same as adults, she thought. Maybe Peter hadn’t liked Susannah. She might have hurt his feelings—she seemed adept at that—in which case her accident would have been good news as far as he was concerned. Emma just wished she knew for sure that he’d been on the cliff path that morning, as he’d claimed. She’d have to remember to ask Derek about it tomorrow.

Emma smiled as she glanced at the crumpled business card propped crookedly against the jeweled clock on the rosewood desk. Mattie had rescued it from the pocket of her denim skirt when she’d shown up a half hour earlier to hang the freshly laundered corduroy skirt in the wardrobe. Looking pale but composed, the girl had apologized briefly for “making a scene,” then whisked Emma out of her gardening clothes and into the blue robe. She’d also delivered a hand-knit cardigan made of a heathery gray-blue angora wool—another present from Nanny Cole, whom Mattie described as a champion knitter.

Emma wondered briefly if Nanny Cole was under orders to supply all of the duke’s guests with complete new wardrobes, then dismissed the thought with a laugh. She doubted that the blustery old woman took orders from anyone, including His Grace. If Nanny Cole had given up nannying for knitting and sewing, it had undoubtedly been her own decision. Emma had no idea why Nanny Cole would bestow such a gift on her, but she knew just what to do with the sweater. It would look very well with her charcoal-gray trousers tomorrow, when she kept her appointment with Derek.

11

Emma stepped onto the terrace the next day to find Derek standing motionless, staring at the castle ruins, his hands thrust in the pockets of his faded jeans. He acknowledged her arrival with an absent nod. “Good news about Susannah,” he announced. “Kate called from Plymouth.”

“I heard: unconscious but stable.” Emma turned from closing the French doors to see that Derek was already halfway across the lawn, head down and striding at top speed toward the arched entryway in the castle ruins.