Rhys Bowen: The Twelve Clues of Christmas

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 actually 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.”