Nancy Atherton: Aunt Dimity and the Duke

A PENGUIN MYSTERY

AUNT DIMITY AND THE DUKE

Nancy Atherton is also the author of Aunt Dimity’s Death (the winner of the Mystery Guild New Discovery Award), Aunt Dimity’s Good Deed, Aunt Dimity Digs In, Aunt Dimity’s Christmas, Aunt Dimity Beats the Devil, and most recently Aunt Dimity: Detective. She lives next door to a cornfield in central Illinois.

For

Leslie J. Turek,

Consulting Gardener

Prologue

“Come back, Master Grayson!”

“Master Grayson! Stop!”

“Grayson Alexander! When I get my hands on you—”

His father’s roar was swallowed by the rising wind as the boy ran down the terrace steps and sprinted for the castle ruins. Shirttails flying, he ran, heedless of the servants’ cries and headlong from his father’s wrath, intent only on escape. Black clouds boiled overhead and a cold wind whipped in from the sea, surging mournfully up the cliffs and snatching at his hair as he dodged through gaping doorways, past tumbledown walls, feet pounding, lungs pumping, heart breaking. Tear-blinded, tripped by a half-buried granite block, he sprawled, lay panting, then pushed himself up and ran on.

He reached the green door and flung it wide, stumbled down the stone steps into Grandmother’s walled garden. A building stood there, high on the jagged cliffs above the cove, rock-steady in the wind. They called it the lady chapel, though it was sacred to no one, except perhaps to the boy. It straddled the rear wall, pointing out over the storm-lashed sea like a ship riding the crest of a wave; a small, rectangular building—rough-hewngray granite, peaked roof, rounded door with time-blackened hinges. Moss-covered and ancient, it rose from the ground as though it had grown there, its roots buried deep in Comwall’s dark past. Reaching up to release the latch, the boy put his shoulder to the door and let himself in. Panting, he pushed the door shut behind him.

Stillness. Silence.

Light?

Uncertainty gripped him. A candle burned where no candle should be, there on the ledge beneath the stained-glass window—the jewel-hued lady window that overlooked the sea.

“Hello, Grayson.” The voice was calm and soothing. “Let’s see what we can do about that knee, shall we?”

A woman sat in the front row of wooden benches. As she turned her head, the candle’s luster illuminated white hair, gray eyes, a softly wrinkled face, and when she smiled, he remembered: Grandmother’s friend, the woman for whom Crowley reserved his deepest bows, around whom even Nanny Cole spoke gently. She was the teller of tales who brought all the servants clustering round the nursery door. Miss Westwood, at first, but later.

“Aunt Dimity?” Blinking back his tears, he made his way up the center aisle to her side.

“A rough night, I fear,” she commented, removing her pearl-gray gloves. “A full-blown Cornish gale brewing. Still, we’ll stay dry as tinder in here.”

A capacious tapestry handbag lay at her feet. From its depths she produced a hand towel, a small bottle, a length of white gauze. “Sit down, my boy,” she ordered. “This will sting a bit.” With deft hands she cleansed and bandaged the knee he’d scraped stumbling in the ruins, tied the gauze neatly, returned towel and bottle to the handbag, then sat back, hands folded, waiting.

“Why didn’t you come?” he asked.

“I didn’t know” was the prompt reply.

Of course. Grandmother’s funeral had been a shabby affair. Father would not have announced it.

“I’m so sorry, Grayson,” she added. “I know how badly you must miss her.”

Grayson scrubbed at his eyes with the back of a muddy fist, then stared, unseeing, at his clenched hand. Crowley, gone. Newland, Bantry, Gash. Nanny Cole would be next. She and little Kate would be sent away from Penford Hall just like the rest of the staff, and he would lose them forever.

Slowly at first, then with an urgency born of anger and despair, he told Aunt Dimity all about it. There was no one else to tell. With Grandmother dead, the village deserted, and the servants dismissed, ten-year-old Grayson was the sole witness to his father’s treachery.

“No one’s left at Penford Hall,” he finished sadly. “And now he’s ... selling things.” The low-voiced confession was spoken to the flagstone floor. “Grandmother’s jewels, her paintings ... her harp.”

“Oh dear.” Aunt Dimity sighed. “Charlotte’s beautiful harp ...”

“He’s sold the lantern.” Grayson’s finger stabbed accusingly at the granite shelf below the stained-glass window, where the candle now stood. “How will we hold the Fete without the lantern?” He bowed his head, ashamed of a father who knew no shame.

Frowning slightly, Aunt Dimity asked, “Are you quite certain of that?”

The boy’s head swung up.

“Are you absolutely certain that the lantern has been sold?” Aunt Dimity asked again. “I rather doubt that Charlotte would have allowed that particular item to leave the family, don’t you?”

“Then where is it?” Grayson asked bluntly.

“I don’t know.” Aunt Dimity’s gaze swept the stained-glass window and the dimly lit walls of the chapel, then she drew herself up and looked down at the boy. “But the Fête’s a long way off, and we have more pressing problems to attend to. Your face, for example.” Clucking her tongue, Aunt Dimity retrieved a fresh hand towel from the bag and began wiping the tear-streaked smudges from Grayson’s cheeks. “I know how distressing these changes must be for you,” she murmured, “and I won’t tell you to be a man about it. Grown men too often forget their dreams, and some dreams are worth holding on to.”

Tilting the boy’s chin up, Aunt Dimity examined his face critically, then brushed his honey-blond hair back from his forehead. “You do have dreams for Penford Hall, don’t you?” she coaxed. When the boy maintained a sullen silence, Aunt Dimity persisted. “You mean, there’s nothing you love at Penford Hall? No one?”

All that I love is here, Grayson thought. I would do anything to save it, anything to keep Kate here and bring the others back. Aloud, he muttered, “What’s the use? It’ll all be gone soon and it’ll never be the same again.”

“Tush. Stuff and nonsense. Twaddle.” Aunt Dimity sniffed disapprovingly. “My dear boy, if you expect me to pat you on the head and say, ‘There, there, what a hopeless muddle,’ then you’ve mistaken me for quite another person—someone with whom I would not care to be personally acquainted. I’ve no patience with such foolishness and neither would your grandmother. Your father won’t always be the duke, you know. One day Penford Hall will be yours.”

“It’ll be empty by then.”

“Then you must fill it up again.”

“It’ll be years before—”

“If it’s worth having, it’s worth waiting for.”

“But—”

“And worth working for,” Aunt Dimity stated firmly. “If you were not overwrought at the moment, you would see it as plainly as I do. Then again,” she added, half to herself, “perhaps I’m not making myself clear.” Staring thoughtfully at the lady window, Aunt Dimity put her arm around the boy, her fingers smoothing his windblown hair. “She would not have lost hope,” Aunt Dimity said, her gray eyes fixed on the lady’s brown ones. “And she faced far worse things than you’re facing. Do you know the legend of the lantern?”