Introducing Aunt Dimity, Paranormal Detective by Nancy Atherton

Author:Nancy Atherton [Atherton, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2009-08-25T00:00:00+00:00

. . .

On that same day, in an Oxford suburb an ocean away, Derek Harris wiped the last trace of rain-spattered mud from the headstone on his wife’s grave. He could have left the task to the sexton, but Derek had worked with his hands long enough to know that, if you wanted a job done right, you did it yourself.

He tucked the dirty rag into the back pocket of his faded jeans and rose to tower over the grave. He was a tall man, just over six feet, and his deep-blue eyes were shadowed with grief as he read the dates he’d carved into the roseate marble. It had been just over five years since pneumonia had taken her from him. The thought made his heart swell until he could scarcely breathe.

“Ah, Mary,” he whispered, “I miss you.”

The spiderweb tracery of budding trees stood black against a darkening sky, and a chill April wind moaned low among the gravestones. Derek shivered, and thought of going back to the house. Peter would be home from school by now, and Nell would be back from her play group, and their Aunt Beatrice would be stopping by to check up on them.

Still he lingered by the grave, unwilling to face Beatrice’s barrage of questions. She’d already begun to nag him about his plans for the coming year. He wondered, not for the first time, how his sweet Mary could have had such a harridan for a sister.

Wasn’t it a shame that Derek had wasted his first in history—taken at Oxford, too, more’s the pity—and gone into this mucky business of restoration? You’d hardly know he was an earl’s son, such an embarrassment to his family and such a keen disappointment for poor Mary. His university friends were respectable gentlemen by now—financiers and politicians, most of them—and here was Derek, at forty-five, still messing about with leaky thatched roofs, crumbling stone walls, and nasty old brasses. It had turned her hair gray to think of her only sister living in such a higgledy-piggledy household.

And now it was turning her hair white (“as the driven snow, the cold and driven snow”) to think of poor Peter and Nell. Couldn’t Derek see that men weren’t meant to raise children? It was unnatural, unhealthy, and—”mark my words, nothing good will come of it.” Surely he must see that Peter and Nell would be better off in a stable home, with an aunt and uncle who adored them and had only their best interests at heart. Surely . . .

Angrily, Derek ground a clump of mud beneath the heel of his workboot. He’d promised Mary he’d keep the family together and nothing would make him break that promise. Mrs. Higgins was a splendid housekeeper, more than capable of looking after things when Derek was away. Thanks to her, the house was immaculate, the children were well kept, and Beatrice, search as she might, could find no solid ground for complaint. He made a mental note to put a little something extra in Mrs.

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