Free The Clue is in the Pudding by Kate Kingsbury

food poisoning and Tucker the Terrible. It was enough to have these few minutes by the side of the man she loved.
    The man she loved.
    The truth hit her like a bolt of lightning. She stopped, stunned by the realization and terrified by its consequences. She had fought against this very thing for so long, determined not to risk her heart again. After all she’d been through, how could she have let this happen? What the blue blazes was the matter with her, that she had let herself fall into yet another trap?
    Furious with herself, she snatched the handle of the scuttle and dragged it out of Clive’s hand. “I’ll take this. You’ve got work to do.” She couldn’t look at his face, for fear of what she might see there. Keeping her head down, she charged across the yard and through the kitchen door.
    Beatrice looked up as Gertie barreled across the kitchen, barely stopping to drop the scuttle in front of the stove before barging through the opposite door and out into the hallway. She didn’t stop running until she was at the door of the dining room. By then she was out of breath and had to hold onto the door while she got it back.
    Pansy was laying tables, and looked up as Gertie stumbled into the room. “Whatever’s the matter?” She dropped the spoons on the table and hurried over to her. “Are you ill?”
    “Yeah, I am.” Still gulping in air, Gertie leaned one hand on the nearest table. “Sick in the head, that’s me.”
    Pansy frowned. “What are you talking about?”
    “Never mind.” Gathering the last of her wits, Gertie picked up a handful of silverware. “Let’s get these tables laid before the old bat comes screaming after us.”
    “But—”
    Gertie raised her hand. “I’m all right, Pansy. Just out of breath, that’s all.”
    Pansy stared hard at her. “You don’t look all right. You’re all white and shivering. You must be catching a cold.”
    “Yeah, that’s what it is.” Gertie somehow summoned up a grin. “You’d better stay away from me if you don’t want to catch it.”
    Pansy backed off, though she still looked unconvinced.
    Gertie turned her back on her and started laying out the place settings. Thank the Lord for work. She needed to keep her mind off what she’d just discovered. She needed to see her twins, to remind her why falling in love with Clive Russell was absolutely the worst mistake she could ever make. She needed to remember how she felt when she found out that Ian was married, or when Ross died, or when Dan told her he was moving back to London without her.
    She needed to fall out of love with Clive Russell, and the sooner the better.

CHAPTER
    5
    Cecily was in her office when Kevin Prestwick called on her. She had barely got a greeting out before he informed her that Beatrice Tucker had destroyed every one of the Christmas puddings.
    Her first thought was utter dismay that now there would be no flaming puddings to carry into the dining room. Her second thought was that the housekeeper had something to hide.
    “It means, of course,” Kevin said, pacing back and forth in front of her desk, “that we have no way of pinning down the source of the poison.”
    Grasping at straws, she murmured, “Of course, it might not have been the pudding that killed Mr. Armitage. It could have been something else. Perhaps the pork, though the butcher is always so careful to see that it’s properly cured. Besides, I ate it myself and since no one else appears to have taken ill, I don’t—”
    “Cecily.” Kevin stopped pacing and placed both his hands on the desk. Leaning forward he said quietly, “Armitage died from an ingestion of an arsenide compound. Commonly used in rat poison.”
    “Oh, my.” Cecily clutched her throat. “Mrs. Chubb always keeps a supply of rat poison in the pantry. Do you think some of it could have fallen into the pudding mixture? I can’t imagine that Michel would be so careless. Then again, he takes a sip now and then from the brandy bottle