Chapter Fourteen
The good news was that Maggie had no trouble locating the library. The bad news was that she found it mainly by following
the voices. Plural. Because, evidently, she and Ethan weren’t Eleanor’s only guests. And that was how she found herself inching toward her second
party of the week, holding her breath as she peeked through a pair of wide double doors into...
Heaven. Or what Maggie had always imagined Heaven would look like.
The room was two stories tall and the walls were rimmed with shelves, but Eleanor didn’t have a cool, rolling library ladder.
No. Eleanor had two . One for each long side. It was all Maggie could do not to push them to the back of the room and challenge Ethan to a race.
She imagined soaring past a thousand books and photos and pieces of Eleanor’s life—like the oil painting that had been the
cover of her tenth book. A Venetian half mask that had been in the movie they made of her third. Black-and-white photos hung
over a fireplace that was surrounded by overstuffed couches and comfortable chairs. Dotted throughout the room were daggers
and clubs, sickles and shields. It was like Murders-R-Us had had a sale and Eleanor had bought one of everything.
And yet the most unexpected thing was the Christmas tree, twinkling and glowing by the wall of windows that overlooked the
grounds at the back of the house. It was tall and perfect, and suddenly Maggie was eight years old again, wishing Santa would
bring her cousins for Christmas.
“You found us!” Ethan was standing by the fireplace, flames leaping and crackling as he stood close to Cece. They’d been talking,
bonding. Probably on the verge of getting engaged as far as Maggie knew—not that she cared.
“Maggie?” Ethan sounded worried as he walked toward her.
“Yes. I found you.”
He looked from Maggie to Cece then lowered his voice. “Why, Margaret Olivia—”
“That’s not my name.”
“—are you jealous ?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Maggie tried to laugh but the only sound she heard was a cane pounding against the library floor and Eleanor commanding, “Come
on.” She was heading their direction—shoulders thrown back. Eyes sharp. She was the Eleanor they’d first met and not the sad,
tired woman by the windows when she said, “You’ve got people to meet.”
The first stop was Eleanor’s nephew.
“Rupert Price. Lovely to meet you.”
Rupert Price did not, in fact, think it was lovely to meet them. Maggie saw it in the way he wouldn’t meet their gazes or
shake their hands and didn’t even bother to hide his contempt at sharing his family holiday with riffraff—which was a bold
stance for a man wearing a sweater with Santa Claus on it.
“Why are you here?” he asked pointedly the moment Eleanor turned away.
“Excuse me?” Maggie asked.
“How do you know my aunt?” There was an edge to his voice, like at any moment he was going to shout “Intruder!” and call for
the guards.
“Oh, we...” Maggie started but an arm fell, heavy and warm, around her shoulders.
“We’re writers.” Ethan took a slow sip of his drink and Rupert tensed in the way slightly insecure men always tense when faced
with that much Ethan. “Eleanor invited us.”
“So she’s inviting strangers to Christmas now?” Rupert said, almost to himself. Like he couldn’t decide if that was very good
or very bad, but one thing was certain: he hadn’t been expecting it.
“Oh, you must be our Americans!” A woman wearing a sweater that featured Mrs. Claus appeared at Rupert’s side. She had a baby
on her hip and a wide smile on her face. “I’m Kitty. Rupert’s wife.” She bounced the baby and pointed to the two little boys
and one girl playing (and screaming) twenty feet away, all of them in sweaters with tiny elves. “And these are ours.”
“I can tell!” Maggie was honestly delighted.
“Oh, and this is Nanny Davis. Can you believe she was Rupert’s nanny when he was a boy?”
Ethan looked at the woman who was approximately five hundred years old and sleeping peacefully by the fire. “You don’t say...”
“Oh yes. I couldn’t do it without her. These kids run me...” Kitty’s gaze drifted over Ethan’s shoulder. “RJ! Eli! Eloise!”
Kitty called to the children playing at the other end of the room. “Rupert, will you go check on them, please?” she asked
her husband, who didn’t go check on anyone. He just took a long swig of his drink and tried not to stand next to Ethan, who
was taller. And broader. And who was smiling at Kitty in a way her husband probably never had and for a moment Kitty just
stood there, blinking until—
“Mine!” a little boy shouted and took off running through the crowded room with—
“That’s not a real sword, is it? Rupert? Rupert!” Kitty asked and Rupert drained his cocktail just as Ethan spun to pull the
very real, very sharp sword from the hands of the very small child who was running past, screaming at the top of his lungs.
Next up was—
“Dr. Charles,” the man said, gripping Maggie’s hand. He was the kind of man caught perpetually in between. Neither old nor
young, handsome nor ugly. Probably nice but perfectly nondescript. He seemed as confused about why he was there as Maggie
felt, but he also seemed to have made his peace with it, judging by the way he reached for a tray of shrimp puffs.
“Friend of the family, eh? I used to work with Kitty. Best nurse I ever saw, but then she left to be a mum. Rupert invited
me. Say,” he called to a passing Cece, “got any more of these?” He pointed to the empty tray and Cece gave a tired nod but
kept walking.
David and Victoria Claymore, the Duke and Duchess of Stratford, were unamused. Perpetually. They looked like Horse and Hound magazine had become sentient and started to speak. Maggie waited for the inevitable discussion of horses. And also hounds.
But they just stood silently, drinks gripped tightly in their pale hands. The duke had a vacant smile on his face, but the
duchess was looking at Maggie like she might be something a dermatologist was going to have to burn off.
“So you’re Rupert’s sister?” Maggie tried. She even pointed to Rupert in his Santa sweater as if his sister might need a reminder.
“Yes?” The duchess made it sound like she wasn’t so sure. But just then, one of the kids pulled a ceremonial dagger off the
shelves and Kitty yelled, “Eloise! No! Eloise, come back here and give Auntie Eleanor a kiss. Eloise!” and the duchess looked
like she might be considering changing her answer.
But something had just occurred to Maggie. “Oh my gosh! You’re the Duchess of Stratford, and your aunt is the Duchess of Death!”
Maggie thought that was an extremely fun and excellent point, but the duke simply looked at her, confused and a little dim.
“Death is not an actual title in the peerage,” he said. Then he and his wife turned and walked away like they would rather
be literally anywhere but there.
The lawyer was a young man named—
“Fredrick Banes III, nice to meet you. But I’m Freddy to my friends.” He was in his late twenties and had a crisp, British
accent that called to mind boarding schools and polo matches and names that were spelled Chumbledown but were pronounced Randolph .
“I’m with Proctor, Banes & Jones.” Out came a pair of business cards. “I’m not the one on the masthead, though. Ha. No. Baby
Banes, right here.” He forced a laugh. “My father and grandfather are the real Baneses of the operation. We’re Ms. Ashley’s
solicitors. So glad you made it in before the storm. I was worried when we booked the jet.”
“Lawyers do that?” Maggie asked.
He blushed. “At PB&J we do whatever Ms. Ashley asks us to do. Or so they tell me.”
“I see.”
“Have you been with the firm long?” Ethan asked.
“Almost a year. Not really sure why the old man walked into my office this morning and told me it was my turn to do Eleanor
Duty, but...” He seemed to hear what he was saying. “Not that I’m not honored! She’s a legend, you know. And, well, we
all have to take our turn, make the pilgrimage, so to speak. Kiss the ring.”
He was reaching for a shrimp puff—his hand was just an inch away—when Cece jerked the tray back and left Freddy “Baby Banes”
standing there, looking like a little boy who might be sent to bed without supper.
Eleanor’s final guest was someone Maggie actually knew, at least by reputation.
“Sir Jasper Rhodes, at your service.”
He was twenty-five years younger than Eleanor and far less prolific, but no mystery collection would be complete without at
least one book by Sir Jasper.
Maggie had always assumed that the stories were exaggerated, but no. At nearly six foot five, Sir Jasper was even taller than
Ethan and somewhat thick around the middle, but, amazingly, that’s not what a person noticed first—not when he was standing
there in a long black cape and deer hunter cap.
Maggie didn’t know whether he was going for “recently retired superhero” or “ Hound of the Baskervilles cosplayer.” She’d always assumed Sir Jasper’s persona was a gimmick—an act—but the man couldn’t have been more sincere as
he gave a gallant bow and placed a faint kiss on the top of Maggie’s knuckles.
“I have long dreamed of the day when I might kiss the hand of the great Margaret Chase. I am honored. I am enchanted. I am—”
“Laying it on a bit thick,” Ethan mumbled.
“Excuse me?” Sir Jasper asked.
“I said you don’t want to get sick.” Ethan pried Maggie’s hand out of Sir Jasper’s. “Airplanes, you know. Germs.”
“I washed my hands,” Maggie mumbled.
“You can never be too careful,” Ethan growled back then dragged her to the other side of the room.