Aunt Dimity and the Lost Prince (10 page)

I
dressed in my most conservative outfit the following morning: black wool blazer and
skirt, gray silk blouse, a single strand of black pearls, and a plain-Jane pair of
black flats. Bree, after declaring gleefully that I looked like a door-to-door coffin
saleswoman, insisted that I borrow her black trench coat.

Will and Rob thought I was going to a funeral.

Their comments were a bit depressing, as was my outfit, but they convinced me that
I’d complied with Aunt Dimity’s dismal dress code. Satisfied, I left Bree at the cottage,
drove the boys to school, consulted the map Bree had marked for me, and set out for
Risingholme. Thirty minutes later I came to a halt, stymied by a pair of hefty wrought-iron
gates set into sturdy stone pillars. Lord and Lady Boghwell, it seemed, did not encourage
casual visits.

“I’ll never even
reach
the front door,” I grumbled to myself, but I climbed out of the Rover anyway and
pressed a button on the intercom unit set into the stone pillar on my right. When
no response came, I pressed the button again and said in a slightly raised voice,
“Hello? Is this thing work—”

A blaring buzzer cut me off and the gates jerked open with an almighty creak. Hardly
believing my luck, I ran back to the car, scrambled into the driver’s seat, and gunned
the engine to speed past the gates before they could shut me out again. I slowed down
at once, in part because I didn’t want the Boghwells to think I was a reckless driver,
but mainly because the long, straight driveway was pitted with gargantuan potholes.

The grounds, too, looked sadly neglected. Broken branches dangled forlornly from the
ancient beech trees lining the drive, and small forests of saplings encroached on
the dank, overgrown meadows beyond. As I picked my way carefully around the potholes,
I wondered if the Boghwells had elected to return their land to its natural state
or if straitened finances had forced the decision on them.

Risingholme eventually hove into view, rising from a tangle of ivy at the end of the
pitted drive. It was an imposing, four-story Jacobean edifice built of dingy gray
and yellow Cotswold stone. The central block was made up of a series of projecting
and receding bays pierced with an irregular pattern of grimy windows, surmounted by
fussy triangular pediments, and flanked by a stumpy pair of crenellated towers. Though
I admired Risingholme’s evident antiquity, I did not hesitate to declare it one of
the ugliest buildings in England.

I parked the Rover at the bottom of a lichen-speckled stone staircase that appeared
to lead straight into a wall. It was only when I reached the top step that I noticed
a massive oak door set into the projecting bay on my left. As I turned toward the
door, it was opened not by a snooty butler, but by a very large black woman. She wore
a long-sleeved woolen tunic in muted jewel tones, a plum-colored turban, and a black
calf-length skirt. She had kind eyes. I felt as though the only reason she looked
down on me was because I was about a foot shorter than she.

“Selling Bibles?” she inquired in a jaunty Jamaican accent. “Raising money for orphans?
Collecting for the church roof fund?”

“N-no,” I stammered, thrown off balance by her rapid-fire queries. “I’m . . . I’m
a journalist with
Country House Month
—”

“A journalist?” The woman burst into a hearty peal of laughter. “Priceless!”

“I’m writing a story about country estates,” I went on, eyeing her uncertainly. “I
wonder if I might have a word with Lord and Lady Boghwell? Unless you’re . . . ?”

“Am I Lady Boghwell?” The woman laughed so hard her whole body quivered. “No, sweetie,”
she replied, when she’d regained her composure. “I’m the maid and the cook and everything
else below stairs, but I’m not milady.”

“May I please speak with your employers?” I asked timidly.

“Oh, they’ll love to meet
you
,” she said, grinning broadly and waving me inside. “Come on in, lamb. Make yourself
at home.”

I stepped into a shadowy vestibule and began to unbutton Bree’s trench coat, but the
maid shook her head.

“Best to keep it on,” she advised. “No central heating.”

“It is a bit chilly,” I conceded, watching my breath condense in the frigid indoor
air. “Doesn’t it bother you?”

The maid patted her capacious midsection. “I’m naturally insulated, sweetie, and I
spend most of my time in the kitchen. Come along now. The walk will keep you warm.”

I followed her through a bewildering succession of rooms perfumed with the musty scents
of dry rot and decay. The rest of the house was as cold, if not colder, than the vestibule
and if it was wired for electricity, I saw no evidence of it. Instead, daylight seeped
through the grimy windows to illuminate threadbare carpets, moldering tapestries,
dusty furniture, and the smoke-blackened portraits of lace-collared Cavaliers. The
maid’s unhurried pace gave me ample time to wonder whether anything had changed at
Risingholme since the reign of Charles I.

We climbed a sweeping but unswept staircase, crossed a landing, and paused before
a ponderous oak door. I expected the maid to knock, but instead she winked at me.

“Ready to meet the great and glorious Boghwells, sweetie?” she asked.

“Uh, yes,” I replied, smoothing the lapels of Bree’s trench coat. “I guess so.”

She pushed the door open and ushered me into a great room that made the one in the
converted barn seem like a linen closet. The walls were lined with dark oak paneling,
the ceiling was a veritable garden of ornate plasterwork, and the massive chimneypiece
dwarfed the elderly couple sitting rigidly in wing chairs before the meager coal fire
burning in the cavernous hearth.

A pole lamp fitted with a low-watt electric bulb sat beside each wing chair, casting
a dim pool of light on the woman, who was doing crewelwork, and the man, who was reading
The Daily Telegraph
. The man’s bald pate gleamed in the lamplight and the woman’s pink scalp showed through
her tightly curled white hair, but otherwise they looked very much alike. Both had
prominent noses, receding chins, long, scrawny necks, and the alabaster complexions
I associated with advanced, but cosseted, old age. They were bundled in copious shawls
and lap rugs, and each wore a pair of fingerless wool mittens, presumably to ward
off the chill the skimpy fire could do little to diminish.

The prominent noses turned toward the oak door as the maid and I entered the room.

“That’s them,” the maid said to me, jutting her chin at the pair.

“Right,” I said nervously.

“Got a visitor for you, milord and lady,” she called to the couple. “Don’t know what
her name is, but I’m sure she does.” Chuckling merrily, she turned on her heel and
left the great room, closing the oak door behind her.

“Shanice? Shanice! Come back here at once, you stupid girl!” Lord Boghwell cried angrily.
“What the devil does she think she’s playing at, letting strangers into the house?
Stupid, stupid girl! We could be murdered in our beds!”

As His Lordship’s rant exploded, I began to suspect Shanice of using me to get her
own back on an employer who referred to her too often as a “stupid girl.”

“But we’re not in our beds, dear,” Lady Boghwell pointed out tranquilly, bending over
her needlework. “And I very much doubt that our visitor intends to murder us.”

“There’s no telling, these day,” Lord Boghwell grumbled. He eyed me irritably and
barked, “Who are you and what do you want?”

“M-my name is Lori Shepherd, my lord,” I replied and threw in a deep curtsy for good
measure.

“American accent,” murmured Lady Boghwell, without looking up from her embroidery,
“but a fine Anglo-Saxon name. Are you related to the Shepherds of Spalding?”

“I doubt it, my lady,” I said.

“I hope not,” Lady Boghwell said serenely. “It’s not a family with which one would
wish to be connected. Labor Party stalwarts, I’m afraid.”

“What do you want?” Lord Boghwell repeated loudly, shaking his newspaper at me.

I thought he might burst a blood vessel if I confessed to being a journalist, so I
told him the truth and hoped for the best.

“Frances Wylton sent me,” I said.

“Who the devil is Frances Wylton?” Lord Boghwell thundered.

“You remember Frances Wylton, dear,” said Lady Boghwell, pulling a long strand of
wool taut. “She and her husband were the Hayewoods’ tenants before the Hayewoods were
forced to sell Hayewood House.”

“When old Hayewood’s bank went belly-up,” Lord Boghwell said with a nasty chuckle.

“That’s right, dear,” said Lady Boghwell placidly, stabbing the needle forcefully
into the fabric. “Frances Wylton and her husband still live in the converted barn.
She paints, he writes, no children. She’s distantly related to the Ffyfes.”

“Dresses like a scarecrow?” her husband said vaguely. “Smells like a pot of turpentine?”

“Yes, dear,” said Lady Boghwell.

Lord Boghwell lowered his newspaper to his lap, folded his gnarled hands on top of
it, and eyed me shrewdly.

“Frances Wylton sent an American to us, did she?” he said. “With a film company, are
you?”

I couldn’t imagine what had prompted the question, but since Lord Boghwell hadn’t
shouted it at me, I decided to go with the flow.

“Yes, my lord,” I replied firmly. “I’m with a film company.”

“Thought so,” he said, with a self-satisfied smirk. “Americans usually are. Come to
recce the place for a shoot?”

“Pardon me, my lord?” I said, mystified.

“Are you a location scout?” he clarified impatiently. “Good God, woman, if I have
the patois down, you should.”

“Perhaps she isn’t a location scout,” his wife suggested.

“If she isn’t, she should say so,” Lord Boghwell snapped. “And if she is, she should
say so. I don’t mind her looking the place over, but I can’t abide mealymouthed time
wasters.”

If I’d thought for one moment that the Boghwells were capable of committing a physically
demanding criminal act, I would have proclaimed myself a location scout and run off
to search for Mikhail. But the mere idea of the doddering duo kidnapping, robbing,
and imprisoning anything larger than a gerbil was so patently absurd that I stuck
with my original agenda and pressed them for a morsel of useful gossip.

“I’m not a location scout, my lord,” I said. “I’m an assistant director doing research
for a new movie about . . . um . . . immigrants. Frances Wylton thought you might
be able to help me.”

“What the deuce would we know about immigrants?” Lord Boghwell bellowed querulously.
“Shanice is the only foreigner with whom we’re acquainted and why she was allowed
into the country, I’ll never know.”

“Frances seems to think that Shanice isn’t the only foreigner in the area,” I said.

“She’s quite right,” said Lady Boghwell.

“Is she?” said Lord Boghwell, looking flabbergasted.

“The Tereschchenkos,” said Lady Boghwell.

“Oh,” said her husband, his lip curling into a sneer. “Them.”

“Who are the Tereschchenkos?” I asked.

“Who knows?” said Lady Boghwell, with a tiny shrug. “One knows nothing of their antecedents.
The Tereschchenkos changed their name to
Thames
because, quite naturally, they wished to
sound
English, but for all we know they could be Bulgarian or Polish or
Ukrainian
, for that matter.”

“Or Russian,” I said under my breath. More loudly, I asked, “Do you know where the
Tereschchenkos live, my lady?”

“They call it Shangri-la,” Lady Boghwell replied, with a heavy sigh.

The Boghwells seemed to fade into the shadows as I recalled Bree’s list of Amanda
Pickering’s workplaces. I was sure Shangri-la was on it. Bree had looked it up online,
but she’d failed to spot the Russian connection because Shangri-la’s current owner
had, according to the Boghwells, changed his surname from Tereschchenko to Thames.
Whether the Thames-Tereschchenkos had a dungeon in their basement remained to be seen,
but one thing was certain: I would be visiting Shangri-la in the very near future.

“Shangri-la, here I come,” I murmured and the great room came back into focus.

“Shangri-la, my foot,” Lord Boghwell growled. “I’ve never heard of anything so preposterous.”

“It’s been Whiting Hall from time out of mind,” Lady Boghwell went on, unperturbed
by her husband’s choler, “but Whiting Hall must have seemed too plain, too down-to-earth,
too Anglo-Saxon, perhaps, for the Tereschchenkos because they renamed it”—she heaved
another heavy sigh—“Shangri-la.”

“Airy-fairy twaddle,” Lord Boghwell grumbled.

“When did the Tereschchenkos buy Whiting Hall, my lady?” I asked.

“Years ago,” Lady Boghwell replied. “I really didn’t take much notice. It’s not as
if we would ever have anything to do with them.”

“Blasted foreigners!” Lord Boghwell roared. “They actually had the audacity to invite
us to a cocktail party. An
out-of-doors
cocktail party! Around their
swimming pool
!”

“They dug up the rose garden,” Lady Boghwell murmured sadly, “to make room for a swimming
pool.”

“I’ve no doubt it would have enhanced their reputation to parade us in front of their
drunken, half-naked cronies,” said Lord Boghwell, “but we dampened their pretensions
with a chilly refusal. Haven’t heard from them since. Don’t
wish
to hear from them!”

“They’re really not our sort,” murmured Lady Boghwell.

“My people built Risingholme!” Lord Boghwell thundered. “We’ve lived here for more
than four hundred years! The Tereschchenkos can change their family name to
Windsor
, if they so choose, but they’ll
still
be the Tereschchenkos and they’ll
never
be our sort!”

An inner gremlin urged me to point out that England’s royal family had changed its
name from Battenberg to Windsor in order to sound “more English” during the First
World War, but I hushed the mischievous imp and prepared to take my leave of the great
and glorious Boghwells. There was no reason to stay. I’d gotten what I wanted from
them—Aunt Dimity’s
right sort of gossip
—and I was afraid my toes would freeze if I lingered much longer in the great room.