Aunt Dimity Takes a Holiday Read online

  For the first time since I’d known her, I was glad that Dimity was less than three-dimensional. If we’d had to cart her holiday frocks to Hailesham Park along with mine, we’d have needed a moving truck. As it was, I had to endure endless ribbing from Bill—“Have you packed my spare truss, dear?”—as we loaded my suitcases into his silver-gray Mercedes. The teasing made me more determined than ever to handle my bodyguarding duties without his help.

  Dimity might scoff till her ink turned purple, but a promise was a promise. Although I agreed with her that poisoned rings and dueling pistols were no longer in fashion, I also agreed with Emma. Accidents happened, even in the most aristocratic circles, and I had no intention of letting my friend down by allowing one to happen to her husband.

  By the time Bill and I kissed the twins good-bye, I felt fit and ready for service. I was, as Dimity had instructed me to be, prepared for anything.

  Anything, that is, except the sight that met my eyes when Hailesham’s fabled gardens came into view.

  Four

  Are you sure we’re on the right road, Bill?”

  I peered intently at the woods lining the narrow, winding lane but didn’t see much. A late start, heavy traffic, and the shortening days of early October had left us navigating the back roads of Wiltshire in the dark.

  “We passed the lodge gates five minutes ago,” Bill replied. “But I’m not sure what to look for next.”

  “Hailesham House.” I cleared my throat and assumed a professorial expression. “A sublime, eighteenth-century neoclassical villa on a hill with three levels of terraced gardens descending from a graceful front staircase to an ornamental lake and a sweeping great lawn. The gardens are open to the public from May to September, but the house is a private residence.”

  Bill raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

  “There’re giant topiaries, too,” I went on. “Whimsically clipped giant topiaries rising at regular intervals from the yew hedges bordering the lowest level of terraced gardens.” I counted on my fingers. “There’s a dolphin, a unicorn, a peacock, a turtledove—I’m looking forward to the turtledove.”

  “Are you making this up?” Bill demanded.

  “Would I do that?” I fluttered my eyelashes at him, then grinned. “Emma picked up a brochure at the tourist information office in Oxford. According to the brochure, the ninth Earl Elstyn’s primary country residence is surrounded by five hundred acres of forested parkland—so I suppose we could be on the right road.”

  “The land does seem to be forested,” Bill agreed.

  No sooner had he spoken than the encroaching greenery parted to reveal Lord Elstyn’s primary country residence in all its glory. Bill hit the brakes and we sat for a moment in total silence.

  “Bill,” I said finally. “Do you see what I see?”

  “If you mean the flaming turtledove, then yes,” Bill replied, “I do.”

  The giant topiary appeared to be on fire. It was a fantastic sight, as eerie as it was beautiful. Writhing fingers of flame stretched skyward from the whimsically clipped hedges, scattering sparks into the darkness. Burning shreds of shrubbery danced like incandescent butterflies over the ornamental lake while the sublime neoclassical villa hovered serenely above, each windowpane alight with the flickering reflections of the blazing turtledove.

  I rested my chin on my hand, mystified. “Do you suppose it’s some sort of . . . welcoming gesture?”

  “No,” Bill said, glancing at the rearview mirror.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  He tromped on the gas pedal. “Because there’s a fire truck coming up behind us.”

  My teeth rattled as Bill swerved onto the great lawn, and my heart raced as a fleet of fire engines thundered past. Bill waited until the lane was clear, then sped up the graveled drive and skidded to a halt behind the last of the fire trucks. Together we leapt from the Mercedes and ran to the bottom of the graceful staircase. From there I could see a half-dozen men fighting the fire with the tools they had at hand: Two of them trained garden hoses on the surrounding greenery while four others formed a bucket brigade with water dipped from the ornamental lake.

  A tall man in a dark, double-breasted suit stood at the top of the staircase, watching, as the professional firefighters went to work with their axes and hoses.

  “What’s going on?” Bill called up to him.

  The man strode down the stairs to join us. I needed no introduction to know who he was. I could see by the light of the burning turtledove that Lord Elstyn resembled his son.

  Like Derek, the earl was well over six feet tall, with salt-and-pepper hair and strikingly beautiful midnight-blue eyes, but I detected telling differences as well. Derek’s face had been weathered by the elements, but the earl’s fair complexion appeared to be lined by age alone. While Derek’s curls were as unruly as mine, the earl’s had been artfully cut to lie close to his head. Both men had large and capable-looking hands, but Derek’s had been roughened by years of manual labor.

  The earl’s, I soon discovered, were as soft as chamois.

  “Bill, dear boy, so good of you to come,” said Lord Elstyn. “And you,” he added, taking my hand in both of his, “must be Bill’s lovely wife. Lori Shepherd, I believe?”

  “That’s right, my lord,” I said. “I’m Lori.”

  “And I’m Edwin,” said the earl. “I refuse to stand on ceremony with the chairwoman of the Westwood Trust.” He kissed my hand before releasing it. “I’m delighted to meet you at last and hope one day to meet your splendid sons. I do hope you’ve brought photographs of them.”

  It was a bizarre conversation to be having while fire-men were unspooling hose and hacking at shrubbery not fifty yards away, but Dimity had advised me to follow the earl’s lead, so I went with the flow.

  “No self-respecting mother would leave home without pictures of her children, Lord, er, Edwin.” I looked up at him uncertainly. “Do you want to see them now?”

  “It might be best to save them for a less hectic moment,” he said gently, then turned to Bill. “You had a pleasant journey, I trust?”

  Bill pursed his lips. “Your sangfroid is admirable, Lord Elstyn, but mine is wearing thin. Are you going to tell us why your garden’s on fire?”

  “Sheer carelessness, I should imagine.” The earl dismissed the conflagration with a wave of his hand. “I expect we’ll discover that one of the gardeners left a tin of paraffin too close to a brush pile. What was supposed to be a small bonfire became instead a rather spectacular display.”

  I sniffed the air and detected the acrid scent of kerosene.

  “The garden will be a bit charred around the edges while you’re here,” the earl continued, “but I hope the woodland walks will, in some small way, ease your disappointment.”

  “Are we the first guests to arrive?” I asked, wondering why no one else was outside watching the fire.

  “You’re the last,” the earl informed me. “The others are in their rooms, changing for dinner.” He favored me with a warm smile. “I’ve put you next door to my daughter-in-law. I understand that you’re great friends.”

  He raised his hand, and an elderly man in a dark suit emerged from the porticoed entryway. He seemed spry despite his years and trotted down the stairs to meet us.

  “Giddings will show you to your room, Lori, while I have a brief word with your husband,” said the earl.

  I glanced over my shoulder, wondering if Giddings was spry enough to handle my ridiculous pile of suitcases, and saw that the Mercedes had vanished.

  “Where’s our car?” I asked.

  “It’s been garaged, madam,” Giddings informed me. “And your bags are in your room.”

  The earl’s smile found me again. “I won’t keep Bill too long,” he promised. “In the meantime, if you need anything, anything at all, don’t hesitate to ask.”

  “I won’t,” I assured him, gave Bill a jaunty wave, and followed Giddings up the stairs.

  Under normal circumstances, I mig
ht have resented the earl’s abrupt usurpation of my husband, but as things stood, I didn’t mind it one bit. As far as I was concerned, Lord Elstyn could have as many words with Bill as he liked. I wanted to have a word or two with Emma.

  The question foremost in my mind was: Had the topiary been torched to irritate the earl or to send a warning to his undeserving son?

  “Accident, my foot,” I muttered, glancing back at the turtledove’s smoking remains. “No one spills that much kerosene.”

  Hailesham’s entrance hall was as cool and formal as a Roman temple, with creamy marble walls, marble statuary—classical nudes conspicuously lacking gooseflesh—and a broad marble staircase with a gold-accented black wrought-iron balustrade. At the second-floor corridor the chilly marble gave way to peach-colored plaster walls, a teak herringbone floor, and soft lighting provided by a series of bronze wall sconces.

  My room was halfway down the corridor in the north wing, on the west side of the house. It wouldn’t afford me a view of the terraced gardens or the ornamental lake, but its splendor went a long way toward easing my disappointment.

  The walls were covered in deep red damask and hung with oil portraits in gilded frames. Layered gold velvet drapes swept back with tasseled cords and topped with gold-fringed swags covered a pair of tall windows, and a glass-paned door gave access to my own private balcony.

  The bed was a colossal affair with four barleytwist posts, a carved walnut headboard, and layer upon layer of luxurious bedclothes. I blushed when I spotted Reginald nestled amid the pillows and gave Giddings a sidelong glance, but the old man maintained a neutral expression. I concluded that his job had exposed him to so many outré eccentricities that a powder-pink rabbit seemed tame by comparison.

  A dainty writing table sat between the tall windows, and a pair of white-painted doors flanked the bed.

  “The door nearest the windows is false,” Giddings explained. “It was built for decorative purposes, to balance the other door, which leads to your dressing room.”

  “My dressing room?” I echoed stupidly.

  “Through here, madam,” he said, opening the second door.

  The dressing room was, if anything, more sumptuous than the bedroom, with a chaise longue, a dressing table, an imposing wardrobe, and an assortment of armchairs, occasional tables, paintings, mirrors, and small bronzes.

  “Your dressing room communicates with Mr. Willis’s bedroom,” said Giddings.

  I uttered a highly sophisticated “Huh?”

  “Your husband’s room is next door,” he clarified, pointing to yet another doorway. “The earl felt that such an arrangement might be convenient if Mr. Willis is required to keep unsocial hours.”

  “We can always leave the doors open,” I reasoned.

  “As you wish, madam.” Giddings directed my attention to the wardrobe. “You will find your clothing in the lefthand compartments. The lavatory is through here.”

  I followed him into a bathroom that was relatively small but nonetheless complete. My toiletries had been placed beside Bill’s on the marble-topped stand between the sink and the claw-footed tub.

  Giddings led the way back through the dressing room to my bedroom, where he pointed to the telephone on the bedside table and explained that, if I needed anything at all, I should feel free to ring him.

  “Lord Elstyn’s guests will assemble in the drawing room, on the ground floor, to the right of the main staircase, at eight o’clock,” he concluded.

  “Eight?” I glanced at my watch in alarm. “But it’s already a quarter-past seven.”

  “Yes, madam,” Giddings said, and left the room.

  Short though the time was, I couldn’t resist a quick visit to my balcony. It was one of seven projecting from the second story and overlooked a graveled courtyard flanked by outbuildings.

  The long, narrow structure to the left appeared to be the stables, but the row of smaller buildings facing it across the courtyard could have contained anything from a kennel for the hounds to a café for the garden-touring public. I preferred the utilitarian courtyard to the more glamorous terraced gardens. I felt as if I’d been given a privileged peek behind Hailesham’s flawless facade.

  I left the balcony, checked my watch a second time, and made a snap decision. I’d change first, then slip next door for a quick chat with Emma. It wouldn’t do to be late to my first dinner at Hailesham Park.

  Five

  I suppose I chose the black dress because I felt a bit intimidated by my surroundings. I wanted to make it clear to my fellow houseguests from the outset that the American lawyer’s American wife was someone to be reckoned with.

  Besides, I’d been looking forward to seeing Bill’s jaw drop.

  As I slipped the dress over my head and settled it into place, my own jaw dropped a little. The black dress clung to me like a second skin. It left my shoulders bare and had a slit that reached from my ankle to halfway up my thigh. In the day-to-day routine of motherhood, I’d almost forgotten that I had such a womanly figure. I found myself half hoping that Bill had forgotten, too.

  I replaced the heart-shaped locket I usually wore around my neck with a simple floating diamond on a silver chain, then looked for the strappy black sandals I’d planned to wear with my killer dress. I clawed my way through hiking boots, riding boots, sneakers, and bedroom slippers before reaching the heart-sinking conclusion that I’d forgotten to pack a single pair of dress shoes.

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I muttered, banging myself in the head with a bedroom slipper. I sat back on my heels, then got to my feet. There was no point in sulking. Emma had bought a pair of black pumps in London. They wouldn’t be as sexy as the strappy sandals, but they’d be a whole lot closer to the mark than hiking boots.

  I padded to the bedroom door, opened it, and peered up and down the corridor. It was deserted. Satisfied that no one would see me scuttling shoeless through Hailesham’s hallowed halls, I tiptoed to the bedroom next to mine and knocked frantically.

  A man opened the door. He was wearing black trousers, gleaming black shoes, and a snowy-white dress shirt. His black silk bow tie had clearly been tied by hand.

  “Hello,” he said. “Posting another letter?”

  “Uh, no,” I said, looking past him in some confusion. “I was expecting to find Emma Harris.”

  “What a pity.” The man leaned casually against the doorjamb, as if he was in no hurry to go anywhere. “If you’d been here thirty minutes ago you would have found her. We swapped rooms.”

  He was a few years older than I—in his late thirties, at a guess—tall, and well built without being bulky. His dark hair fell in a wave over his high forehead, and his blue eyes were, if anything, even darker and more beautiful than Derek’s.

  “My balcony overlooked the terraces,” he was saying. “When I learned of Emma’s interest in gardening, I insisted that she have the better view.”

  “Th-that was very kind of you,” I managed, trying not to stare at the pair of boyish dimples that punctuated his smile.

  “Not at all. I find my current view extremely satisfying.” As he spoke, his glorious eyes traveled slowly from my décolletage to my feet, which were attempting in vain to hide behind each other. “Poor Cinders! You’ve lost your glass slippers.”

  I laughed through my blushes and said quickly, “It’s not a fashion statement. I forgot to pack my good shoes. I was hoping Emma would help me out.”

  “I’m sure she will. She’s at the end of the corridor.” The man’s gaze made a slow return journey to my face. “I’m Simon Elstyn, by the way.”

  I licked my lips and decided that it was high time for me to stop behaving like a starstruck teenager. “I’m Lori Shepherd,” I said evenly. “I’m married to Bill Willis, one of Lord Elstyn’s attorneys.”

  “What a coincidence,” said Simon. “I, too, am married to one of Lord Elstyn’s attorneys.” He leaned closer and purred, “I expect they’ll be extremely busy this week. Whatever shall we do with our free t
ime?”

  My mouth fell open. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Sorry?” he said, looking mildly disconcerted.

  I tilted my head to one side and eyed him doubtfully. “I’ve heard that married people are supposed to play the field during country-house weekends, but I guess I expected the invitations to be a little more subtle. Honestly, Simon, if you had a mustache, you’d be twirling it.”

  Amusement lit his eyes. “I was under the impression that Americans were impervious to subtlety.”

  “You’ve been misinformed.” I turned to leave, but my curiosity got the better of me. “What you said before, about delivering a letter—what did you mean?”

  “Someone’s been playing post office.” His eyes twinkled as he added, “I must say that I’m glad it’s not you.”

  “Right. Well . . .” I backed away, too dazzled by his smile to question him further. “Better go find some shoes.”

  “If you need anything else,” he said, “feel free to knock on my door. Anytime.”

  “Uh, thanks,” I stammered, and as I walked to the end of the long corridor, I could feel him watching me every step of the way.

  I was so distracted by the sensation that I nearly barreled into Emma as she and Derek emerged from the last door on the right. Derek was dressed in a tuxedo that had, by the looks of it, only recently come out of hibernation, but Emma was resplendent in a floor-length silver-gray gown with a matching bolero jacket and—I noted with relief—a pair of pearl-gray flats.

  “You made it!” Emma exclaimed. “I thought you’d never get here.”

  “We were held up by traffic and I’m in desperate need of shoes,” I blurted.

  Emma peered down at my feet, shook her head in mock despair, and went back into the room.

  “Everything all right, Lori?” asked Derek. “You look flushed.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, putting Simon’s smile firmly out of my mind, “though I’m dying to know how the topiary caught fire.”