A Fatal Winter
Authors: G. M. Malliet
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In memory of Dave F, Dave L, and Ranger Mike
~December 2011
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With all my love to my private cheering section. Some of you are no longer with us, but you walk beside me every day. This book is proof.
I am especially grateful for the generosity of these authors, who so warmly welcomed me to the writing community: Donna Andrews, Rhys Bowen, Deborah Crombie, Peter Lovesey, Margaret Maron, Louise Penny, Julia Spencer-Fleming, Marcia Talley, and Charles and Caroline Todd.
Special thanks to the superstars of publishing: Vicky Bijur, Kat Brzozowski, Karyn Marcus, Marcia Markland, Andy Martin, and Sarah Melnyk. You make it all possible.
And to Bob. You, too. Always.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cast of Characters at Chedrow Castle
Eleven Months Later: November 27
Chapter 7.
A Curse on This House
Chapter 10.
Down the Garden Path
Chapter 11.
Clear-and-Present Danger
Chapter 22.
Ready for My Close-up
Chapter 30.
Heard in High Places
Chapter 35.
Good King Wenceslas
CAST OF CHARACTERS AT CHEDROW CASTLE
OSCAR, LORD FOOTRUSTLE
LETICIA, LADY BAYNARD
RANDOLPH, VISCOUNT NATHERSBY
LESTER BAYNARD
and his wife
FELBERTA
(“
FESTER
”)
BAYNARD NÉE OLIVER
LADY JOCASTA JONES NÉE FOOTRUSTLE
(by Oscar’s first wife Beatrice Briar)
SIMON JONES
—Jocasta’s husband
LAMORNA WHITEHALL
—adopted by father Leo Whitehall (deceased) and mother Lady Lea Whitehall (deceased)
GWYNYTH, LADY FOOTRUSTLE NÉE LAVENER
—mother of the Twyns
THE TWYNS
—
ALEC, VISCOUNT EDENSTARTEL
and
LADY AMANDA
—Jocasta’s stepsiblings
CILLA PETRIE
—assistant to Randolph, Viscount Nathersby
MILO
and
DORIS VLADIMIROV
—a married couple employed as the butler and the cook at Chedrow Castle
MR. WINTERMUTE
—the family solicitor
Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.
~Charles Dickens,
A Christmas Carol
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The rules for properly addressing members of the British peerage are so complex it is a wonder any of them can remember who they are without consulting
Debrett’s.
Wherever possible I have used the least cumbersome forms of address for my characters (for example, “Randolph” rather than “Viscount Nathersby”) and I have included a family tree to help the reader trace the relationships in this tale.
Obviously, the Footrustle family is fictional, as is their home, Chedrow Castle.
PART I
PROLOGUE
DECEMBER 26
Good King Wenceslas looked out On the feast of Stephen
Oscar, Lord Footrustle, was in his castle, spying from the squint in his private chamber overlooking the Great Hall. The little window was concealed in the wall decorations, and in this manner had lords and masters through the centuries kept an eye, literally, on the goings-on at Chedrow Castle—retreating to the solar, as the room was called, to peer stealthily at the Great Hall antics through small openings in the thick walls. There was a larger squint overlooking the castle grounds and the fields beyond, and the Eighth Earl Footrustle now shuffled over to again take up a somewhat hunched position, for the squints were created in an age when men tended to be half a foot shorter.
He wrapped his woolen robe tighter against his aging body, a body still lean from years of shooting and fishing and on occasion riding to hounds—in general, a life spent killing things, for which he made no apology. That was the way of life, and of death. It was the shooting season now, and he missed the camaraderie. He used often to shoot with friends—eight guns, twelve beaters, three pickers-up. But he didn’t like being out in the cold any longer, in more ways than one.
He had a shock of thick white hair, which he smoothed now behind his ears, but his once-tan skin was now damaged and spotted from the outdoor life.
He’d been handsome once, and bore the remains of that handsomeness still. Any vanity he’d had on this score had been tempered by his prolonged encounter with his second, much younger wife. He accepted now that he was old.
But on a slow night—and they were all slow lately—he could pretend he was one of his ancestors, girded in leather and fur, and on the watch for invasion by land, or for betrayal from within. On the south-facing wall of the solar was a window that looked over the sea, a window enlarged and made modern in later, safer centuries—no attempt at invasion from that direction could ever go unnoticed, either.
But tonight’s spying was hardly satisfactory, could indeed hardly be called spying, for the scene he looked out on was bleak and barren, a cold frost blanketing the ground under a bright moon.
It was the night after Christmas, and not a creature was stirring.
What the scene was missing was people. There was a certain amount of wildlife, but Oscar was a man more captivated by humanity, its foibles and failures, and having few people around to inspire and divert didn’t suit him. After a long career in London, he missed the hurly-burly, and was coming to realize the idea of retirement was much more captivating, and more fun to brag about to those less fortunate, than the reality of being retired, with time hanging heavy each day. He was too isolated out here, that was the problem. Yesterday, he and his sister Leticia had celebrated the holiday together, just the two of them. Well, along with that half-witted Lamorna—he supposed that made three. There were the servants, of course, as he still thought of them, but that hardly counted for company. Indeed, it would be standing at the top of a slippery slope to start inviting the servants in for family occasions.
Should he move back to the city, he wondered (not for the first time)? Or should he—wouldn’t it be easier … yes. He could invite his family to visit. Even to come and live with him awhile. It’s not as if they had anything keeping them at home. It would even be rather nice to see the twins—briefly. What were they now, thirteen years old? Fourteen?
He made a wheezing sound, a noise like a door swinging open and shut on rusty hinges. It might have been a laugh.
Of course they’d
all
come running, he thought. The lot of them. They all think they’re going to inherit from me, so all they have to do is sit and wait. Hah! Lazy, leeching band of so-and-so’s. I’m only seventy-five. I’ll live to bury them yet.
Just then, in the distance, was a movement—a flash of bright blue against the white and gray world. It was Jake Sloop, the farmer who lived nearby. What was he doing? Stopping and bending, gathering. Gathering wood, Oscar supposed. He sold firewood in Monkslip-super-Mare sometimes, not always legally, and he often stopped by the castle to see if he could sell some to Doris, the cook. The words to the old Christmas song came into Oscar’s mind: “… a poor man came in sight, gath’ring winter fuel.” The radio and telly this time of year were relentless in their playing of such songs; he felt he’d been forced to memorize the words to all of them.
Oscar hadn’t ever known what it was to do manual work—his wealth had been inherited, and his vaster wealth came from thinking—from the blinding flashes of insight that had turned inherited wealth into a far-flung empire. The sight of old man Sloop made him think, long and hard, and in the end he decided it was time to get in touch with his loving family.
He wanted next year’s festivities to be different.
And they would be.
ELEVEN MONTHS LATER: NOVEMBER 27
Deck the halls with boughs of holly …
“Poinsettias are not poisonous,” said Suzanna. “It’s an old wives’ tale.” For old wives like you, she added mutinously, if silently.
“They are so too poisonous. They’re
highly
poisonous to cats,” retorted Elka Garth, owner, sole proprietor, and chief cook and dishwasher of the Cavalier Tea Room and Garden. She had been reading up on the care of poinsettias on the Web, where she had come across the warning.
