Free Aunt Dimity's Good Deed by Nancy Atherton Page B

him, even if Bill didn’t. I stood abruptly. “I’m sorry, Gerald, but I have to get back to the hotel.”
    “You won’t stay to tea?” Gerald asked. He seemed genuinely disappointed.
    “I can‘t,” I said, feeling my pulse flutter as he approached. “It’s ... the papers I brought for Mr. Willis to sign. They slipped my mind, what with Nicolette and ... and everything. I have to let him know about them and since your telephone still isn’t working properly...”
    “I understand,” said Gerald, “but I’m sorry you have to go so soon. I’ve enjoyed talking with you.”
    “I ... uh ... me, too.” I gazed up into those blue-green eyes and wondered if getting back to the Georgian was so very important after all.
    Nell saved me from my second thoughts by choosing that moment to return from her fact-finding mission on the second floor. She had no objection to leaving the Larches immediately. Instead, she seemed oddly relieved.
    Gerald accompanied us to the entryway and opened the door, then asked us to wait there as he disappeared up the hall. The moment he turned his back, Nell darted outside, crying, “Regardez le lapin!”
    A rabbit? I peered curiously after Nell as she rounded the comer of the house. Then I smiled. She was, once again, being a cleverboots. Anyone watching from inside the Larches would assume that young Nicolette was thrilled to bits by the sight of an English rabbit in the wild, but I knew better. Nell wasn’t interested in surveying the local fauna. She was beating the bushes for signs of Willis, Sr.’s car.
    Five minutes later, she came back into view and called to say she’d wait for me in the Mini. I waved to her to go ahead, heard Gerald’s step in the hall, turned, and found him beside me, smiling his radiant smile and handing me a round tin.
    “They have a marvelous cook at the Georgian,” he explained, “but Mrs. Burweed is even better.” He rapped the tin lightly. “Especially when she uses my father’s secret recipe.”
    “Thank you,” I said, touched by his thoughtfulness. “For everything. You’ve been very kind.”
    “It has been my pleasure,” he assured me. “And I do hope we’ll have the chance to meet again.” He stood watching from the doorway while I got into the car, and waved as I drove off down the grassy drive.
    “If that man’s a reprobate, I’ll swear off butterscotch brownies forever,” I declared.
    “You think Miss Kingsley’s misjudged him?” Nell asked.
    “I think everyone’s misjudged him,” I replied. “I think. he’s been maligned and slandered, and I’ll bet that woman Miss Kingsley’s seen him with at the Flamborough is his analyst. God knows he could use one, with all the abuse he’s taken.”
    “Lori, there’s something you should—” Nell began.
    “I mean, think about it, Nell,” I interrupted. “We burst into the guy’s house like a pair of demented ducklings, and what does he do? He serves us tea. Tries to, anyway.” I glanced at my bandaged finger and blushed to remember how I’d injured it. “Apart from that, he turned down William’s proposal flat, so he can’t be trying to con him. Which reminds me, William is—”
    “Lori!” Nell cried.
    I slammed on the brakes and turned to ask Nell what on earth was the matter, but the question never left my lips. For there, peering at me from within the folds of Nell’s oversized black blazer, was Reginald.
    Nell blinked at me innocently. “I told you I saw a rabbit.”

10.
    My supply of amazement had been exhausted. I’d used up my allotment of surprise. I had nothing left to give. I gazed into Reginald’s black button eyes and said, with the slow smile of the heavily sedated, “Hi there, Reg. Where’ve you been?”
    “I’ve been trying to tell you,” said Nell. “He was in the back parlor. I nearly fainted when I saw a pink ear poking out from under the couch, but Mrs. Burweed didn’t seem to notice, so I scooped him up and stuffed him inside my