Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity Takes a Holiday

Aunt Dimity

Takes a Holiday

penguin books

a penguin mystery

Nancy Atherton is the author of Aunt Dimity:Snowbound and seven other Aunt Dimity novels, all available from Penguin. She lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Aunt Dimity

Takes a Holiday

penguin books

penguin books

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India

Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand

Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 2003

Published in Penguin Books 2004

Copyright (c) Nancy T. Atherton, 2003

All rights reserved

publisher's note

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. the library of congress has catalogued

the hardcover edition as follows:

Atherton, Nancy.

Aunt Dimity takes a holiday / Nancy Atherton. p. cm.

ISBN: 1-4406-0362-6

1. Dimity, Aunt (Fictitious character)--Fiction. 2. Women detectives--England-

Cotswold Hills--Fiction. 3. Cotswold Hills (England)--Fiction. I. Title. PS3551.T426 A9345 2003

813'.54--dc21

2002028095

The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated. For Elizabeth Slusser,

who listened,

and

Christine Aden,

who answered the call

Aunt Dimity

Takes a Holiday

One

It was supposed to be a quiet afternoon.

Bill and I had spent the morning imbibing vast quantities of fresh air while endeavoring to keep our three-year-old twins from becoming too closely ac

quainted with all creatures, great and small, at the Cots

wolds Farm Park. It had been no easy task. Will and Rob had made heroic efforts to pet each and every one of the park's polka-dotted sheep, crested hens, and striped pigs, and it had taken brute force to prevent them from climb

ing into the pens to shake hooves with the gentle but gigantic Shire horses.

My husband had chosen to recuperate from his exer

tions by joining the boys in an afternoon nap, but I'd opted for a cup of tea before the fire in the living room. Quiet moments had become as rare as polka-dotted sheep since the twins had learned to trot and I wanted to savor the tranquillity while it lasted.

It lasted for precisely seven minutes.

The mantel clock was chiming the hour when a thun

derous knocking sounded at my front door. I jumped, splashed my hand with scalding tea, and vowed to throttle the nitwit whose thoughtless pounding threatened to rouse my slumbering menfolk. Infuriated, indignant, and 2

Nancy Atherton

in pain, I charged into the hallway, flung the front door wide, and froze.

My friend and neighbor Emma Harris stood on the doorstep, but it was not the Emma Harris I knew. My Emma wasn't given to displays of strong emotion, but the Emma standing on my doorstep looked angry enough to chew barbed wire.

"Lori, let me in or there'll be bloodshed. "

I looked down at her clenched fists, decided to avoid the shedding of my own personal blood, and stepped aside.

As Emma stormed past me and into the living room, I glanced outside, saw neither horse nor car, and concluded that she'd walked the mile-long path that wound from her fourteenth-century manor house to my cottage. Emma usually savored woodland walks, but something told me that today's outing had been more of a quick march than a pleasant stroll.

I closed the door, crept cautiously back to the living room, and sank onto the sofa in cowed silence while Emma paced back and forth before the fire, caught up in what appeared to be deeply unpleasant thoughts. Emma had shed some forty pounds of excess weight over the past year and cut her flowing gray-blond hair to shoulder length. The woman who had once resembled a cuddly koala now moved with the contained ferocity of a caged lioness. When she came to an abrupt halt before me, I had to restrain the urge to shrink back out of reach of her claws.

"What," she demanded, "is your husband's name?"

"Bill," I replied obediently, adding for good measure,

"Bill Willis. William Arthur Willis, Junior, to be precise."

Aunt Dimity Takes a Holiday

"Are you sure?" she snapped. "The only reason I ask is that, until this morning, I thought I knew my husband's name."

I blinked. "It's not Derek Harris?"

"Ha." Emma glared at me through her wire-rimmed glasses. "The husband formerly known as Derek Harris is, in fact, Anthony Evelyn Armstrong Seton, Viscount Haile

sham."

Emma gave the title the correct upper-crust English pronunciation, which involved swallowing half the vowels and producing something that sounded vaguely like a sneeze: "Hell-shm."

"Your husband is Viscount Hailesham," I said somberly.

"Of course he is. And I am Marie of Romania."

Emma's gray eyes flashed. "This is no time for your silly jokes, Lori."

"Then it must be time for a sedative because you're talking crazy, Emma." I got to my feet and met her glare with a potent one of my own. "Now sit down, calm down, and explain to me why your husband of ten years, a man who respects, admires, and loves you beyond reason, would bother to lie to you about his identity."

"Because," she came back crisply, "he hates his father. "

Emma turned on her heel and stalked over to sit in my favorite armchair, leaving me to connect the dots while she seethed.

My glare faded to a thoughtful glimmer as I resumed my seat. Derek Harris had never said much to me about his background. I had the faint notion that his father was an earl and that the two had been estranged for many years, but beyond that I knew very little.

"Do you know where he got the name Derek Harris?"

Nancy Atherton

Emma asked, then rushed on without waiting for a reply.

"From a carpenter on the family estate. My husband the viscount became Mr. Derek Harris as an act of defiance after his father threatened to disinherit him."

"Why did his father threaten to disinherit him?" I asked.

"Because Derek wanted to work with his hands,"

Emma replied. "The ninth Earl Elstyn couldn't bear the thought of his son and heir becoming a manual laborer."

"A manual laborer?" My eyebrows rose. Emma's hus