Free Mistletoe and Murder by Carola Dunn Page B

Dalrymple said with conscious tolerance, “though I should never allow myself such latitude.”
    â€œWhat shock, Mother?”
    â€œThey were both drowned.”
    â€œWhat! Who?”
    â€œAlbert and his brother. The servants here reported that they quarrelled bitterly, and the sailors who took them down the river said they actually came to fisticuffs on the boat. They fell overboard and could not be saved.”
    â€œHow dreadful!”
    â€œThe middle brother became the seventh earl, and the present Lord Westmoor is his son. I shall write him a stiff letter, a very stiff letter indeed. I consider his conduct towards me unconscionable.”

    â€œHe does seem to have gone a bit too far,” Daisy conceded.
    â€œHe’s become downright eccentric since the War!”
    â€œBut how did Mrs. Norville end up living here at Brockdene, Mother? Surely Lady Eva hasn’t left you in suspense.”
    â€œâ€˜Mrs.’ Norville turned up in England some months later with two children, claiming to be married to Albert. She offered no proof, and the sixth earl didn’t believe her for a moment; but to keep her quiet he gave her an allowance and a home here as long as she made no claims. Can you imagine the scandal if the newspapers had got hold of the story?”
    â€œThey would have had a field day,” said Daisy, trying to imagine the feelings of the unhappy girl, arriving in England with two little boys to find her husband dead and his family refusing to acknowledge her—always supposing Albert had actually been her legal husband. Surely she would have had some sort of proof, though. Perhaps he had just gone through some sort of Hindu ceremony with her.
    â€œI presume the earl left provision for her in his will,” her mother continued, “to save his heirs from any unpleasantness. But what possessed Westmoor to suppose I would consider the woman an acceptable hostess is beyond me! I have a very good mind to leave immediately.”
    â€œWhat an excellent idea, Mother. I’m sure you could spend a very comfortable Christmas at Claridge’s …” Daisy’s voice trailed off. She swallowed a sigh. “Only even if we could summon a boat to take you to Plymouth, the weather’s already foul and there are gale warnings on the wireless. I’m afraid you’ll have to stay.”

6
    E veryone helped with the Christmas decorations. Even Lady Dalrymple.
    Once she accepted the impossibility of leaving in a huff, she had descended to the Hall. In her best grande dame manner she thoroughly enjoyed supervising the decking of it, as far as Daisy could see. Captain Norville was the moving spirit, nominally in charge, but the dowager sent him and Alec, his able assistant, rushing back and forth with ladders: this paper chain (turned out by the dozen by Derek and Belinda, with Miles sorting the rainbow colours for them) hung not quite symmetrically; that bunch of mistletoe was not perfectly centred over the doorway. The captain accepted her ladyship’s corrections with unfailing good humour. She seemed to have forgotten, however temporarily, that he was the illegitimate offspring of a Native.
    Meekly accepting her ladyship’s occasional condescending remarks, the native herself sat by the wide hearth. A noble fire burned there today, though its warmth was vitiated by the gale howling down the chimney. Mrs. Norville was turning scraps of wool into little dollies which
Jemima hung on the Christmas tree. Daisy and Felicity tied ribbons and sweets on its branches and draped tinsel. Mr. Tremayne fixed the Christmas tree candles firmly in their little metal holders, while Dora Norville fussed over clipping them on safely.
    Her husband had fastened the silver paper star to the top of the tree. Thereafter he hurried about the Hall uttering cries of distress every time a nail holding some ancient weapon was required to do double duty for a paper chain or bunch of