Darcy, Adelaide Rose, and I have returned from spending an afternoon in Sydney Gardens, and while it has nothing on Pemberley’s beauty, I find I can tolerate Bath well, knowing Sydney Gardens is nearby. My dearest daughter enjoys tottering in the green grass and has, on occasion, been the bane of several butterflies. Fortunately for them, their wings are quicker than her tiny fingers. Tomorrow, I plan on tackling the labyrinth, and I hope to take in the garden with my beloved Darcy at night, when lanterns and candles hanging from the trees illuminate the dark. A more romantic spot, I cannot imagine. Lizzy Bennet Darcy

Bath 1814 

The last of the caravan of RangeRovers and BMWs hooked a left at the end of the Pemberley estate driveway and disappeared into the bright autumn morning.

Despite having to shield her eyes from the intense sun, Eliza wrapped her blue-and-green-checked shawl tighter around her shoulders to keep the breath of the chilly morning from sliding over her skin. “Well, that went swimmingly.”

“Swimmingly? That was bloody smashing.” Joy Bingley brushed a tendril of blond hair from her face and rubbed her forefinger against her thumb. “With the amount of money those fancy blokes spent on their ‘business retreat,’ we could all go on holiday to Bora Bora.”

For three seconds, Eliza entertained the idea of in-the-ocean bungalows, turquoise water, pink drinks with matching pink umbrellas, and her naked toes playing footsie with her boyfriend’s naked toes. Perhaps it was longer, but she didn’t need Great-Aunt Iris’s grand harrumph from behind her to burst her vacation-with-Heath- Tilney bubble.

Every cent made over the weekend hosting and entertaining CEOs from some of the top Fortune 500 companies would be plinked and plunked like pennies into Pemberley’s coffers, which had been depleted thanks to the embezzling schemes of Nancy Darcy, now Uncle Fitzwilliam’s ex-wife. Not that breaking that bond had been too painful. Details were fuzzy, but a bottle of champagne or two was used by Eliza, Joy, and Great-Aunt Iris to celebrate the “taking out of the rubbish,” as Great-Aunt Iris referred to it.

“I don’t know about you two, but standing here staring at an empty driveway is doolally. I’ll order tea.” Great-Aunt Iris rested a pa- pery-skinned hand on Eliza’s forearm. “You did well, my dear. Very well, indeed.” After a three-point turn, she waddled through the massive oak front doors, her briefcase-size purse bumping against her hip at every step. Caesar, Eliza’s orange Maine coon cat, followed closely, swatting and biting at a long piece of yarn trailing from Great-Aunt Iris’s purse.

All that was missing was Heath pointing out the obvious, that Great-Aunt Iris’s emerald-green velour tracksuit, a new style she was “trying out,” didn’t quite go with her newly purchased purse the color of an orange popsicle.

Joy squeezed Eliza’s hand. “Take five, and I’ll make sure tea’s ready. And a glass of sherry. I’m sure Uncle Fitzwilliam won’t mind us taking a tipple or two. Don’t take too long, though. I can’t fight Great-Aunt Iris off the raspberry cream scones Cook made for breakfast for long.”

Eliza waited until the double oak doors swung quietly on their hinges and clicked with surprising stealth for their size before she descended the ancient stone steps and ambled along the stone pathway that meandered throughout the redbrick-walled courtyard. Unlike when she’d first arrived in June, the climbing ivy no longer gleamed with green finery. Instead, fiery in its crimson glory, the ivy whispered and shivered against the stone with every little breeze.

She gave the lavender-ringed fountain in the middle of the courtyard a large berth. Even though months had gone by since a dead man’s body had floated in its waters, Eliza couldn’t bring herself to sit upon its edge and trail her fingers through its clear, cold water. Looking at it often brought on a case of goosebumps, and the crisp fall morning had already riddled her skin with the pesky things.

Her phone rang, and she smiled as Belle’s name popped up on her screen. “Hey, Belle.”

“How did your first fancy shindig go?” On the words “fancy” and “shindig,” Belle mimicked the haughty accents she’d learned via binge-watching Downton Abbey.

Eliza snorted. “Better than your English accent. Seriously, though, it went well. I think I might be able to pull this off.”

“Of course you can—No, Mary, the yellow roses are for the Hendersons’ golden anniversary, and remember, she was very clear in her hatred of baby’s breath. I don’t know if someone might be allergic to it. Ask Brittany. She seems to know everything.” Belle huffed. “Sorry about that. Business is booming, and I’ve got a girl out sick today, so we’re all running around like headless chickens. How’s Heath? Bet you miss him.”

You have no idea. “He’s in archeologist paradise and happily dig- ging in the dirt. He’ll be back soon, so that’s getting me through.”

A bell tinkled through the phone. “Oh, shoot. Sorry, but I gotta go. Baby’s Breath Hater is here, and Mary isn’t done with the order.”

“Good luck.” After Belle hung up, Eliza stood staring at her phone. She’d known that permanently moving to England would be hard, but at times like this, when she really needed her best friend, her decision wrenched her heart. Eliza leaned her back against the red brick of the courtyard’s arching entrance and gazed at the Georgian mansion. It felt like eons ago that she’d pulled into the drive and seen the mansion for the first time.

Built like a gourmet cupcake, the honey-butter stone edifice rose three stories high until ancient Greek friezes, carved rosettes, and vertical triglyphs added texture and embellishment before being topped off with a white cornice the color of whipped cream.

Despite the massiveness of the building with its hundred glinting white-framed sash windows, which was so different from her humble apartment with a grand total of six windows in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, she had connected with the sprawling mansion. Even tread- ing the stone steps up to the main entrance for the first time, she had known her namesake’s feet had trod them as well. Then, Eliza had been little more than a stranger to the estate and its people.

But four months later, she knew the truth. Despite the pain of moving from everything she had known and loved, she had made the right choice. Pemberley was her estate, those were her people, and she would do anything to protect the estate and secure it for the next generations. Her cheeks warmed with pride, and she pressed the backs of her chilled hands against them. Great-Aunt Iris was right. Eliza had done well over the weekend. And if she had to give up every weekend for the next several years to undo Nancy’s corruption, she would.

Her phone pinged with a kissy sound. Heath! She ripped her phone from the back pocket of her pants, ignored the dozen unread texts, and gazed at Heath’s picture in the upper corner of their text exchange. Their last discussion had ended with several x’s and o’s from both, and Eliza hoped that their hugs and kisses wouldn’t have to be over cell service for much longer. If her Heath’s-Coming- Home-Countdown was correct, he would be home in less than forty- eight hours. She’d show him a kiss or two then.

Another ping.

Breaking her trance, she stopped staring at his profile picture and read his two texts:

I can’t explain how much I miss you! Trust me, I’ve tried. My thumbs do not appreciate my efforts, so I am admitting defeat and my idiocy with the English language.

I may or may not have a surprise for you.

After the first text, Eliza’s humming heart slowed to a near flat line as she read the second. She scrunched her nose and tapped out a text. Care to elaborate?

Heath: I thought you loved a good mystery.

Eliza: Perhaps I have changed in your two-month absence? Maybe I don’t like mysteries anymore.

Heath: What! Whose sidekick will I be? This seems rather unfair. But still, I shall keep my mystery a mystery. Maybe you can figure it out before I reveal it?

Eliza: I am the master. I figure it out, you get to kiss me as much as you want when you get back, and if you figure it out, I get to kiss you as much as I want when you get back.

Heath: That, my love, is what we call a win-win situation. May the best man or woman win.

“Oi,” Joy hallooed out the front entrance. “Tea’s getting cold, and Great-Aunt Iris is eyeing the last of the scones and promising Caesar his fair share. Leg it.”

Eliza waved her phone in the air. “Be right there.”

“Quit faffing about with lover boy. Scones are on the line.” Joy huffed and turned on a spiky peach-colored heel.

Gotta go, Eliza texted. Joy’s drinking again. Great-Aunt Iris is drooling over the last of the scones, and Caesar may or may not beat us all to them in the end.

Heath: I told you not to have any adventures while I was gone. :) I want a full report when I get back. I love you!

Eliza: Love you more!

After stashing her phone in her back pocket, Eliza hustled along the pathway, took the front steps two at a time, and entered the grand foyer. The history under her feet and over her head never ceased to amaze her. Knowing the family drama and heartache that preceded her, she studied the tips of her boots barely grazing the gold filigree initials E and F inlaid in white Calacatta marble. The rest of the marble tiles marched out the length and breadth of the foyer in a geometrical pattern of white and Marquina black marble, the white inlaid with amethyst, jasper, emerald, and sapphire cabochons. When the sun shone in the rounded window atop the grand entrance door, the flooring came alive in a kaleidoscope of rainbows.

Stepping away from the intertwining initials of Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy, she passed the mahogany staircase curving its ascent from the marble tiles of the ground floor to the first floor and headed down the long hallway that ran the length and two side partitions of Pemberley. From the air, Pemberley resembled an H with no legs. Off the hall, carved oak doors opened up to various parlors, the dining room, breakfast room, library, ballroom, and other rooms that had names but no modern-day uses other than showing off Pemberley’s knickknacks restored to their original beauty.

Whether or not one took Great-Aunt Iris’s rubbish comment to heart, the stench of Nancy’s presence still permeated Pemberley, and weekly, Tash, the butler, or the housekeeper, Mrs. Underhill, would haul out another black garbage bag and dump it in the dumpsters at the back gate. Eliza had done her best to rid the house of Nancy’s gaudy decor and, with Uncle Fitzwilliam’s permission, had dug up and dragged out the traditional Georgian and Regency furnishings, paintings, and decorations.

Eliza’s stomach rumbled. Trailing her fingers along the white-paneled walls, she made her way down the hall and to the breakfast room.

“Finally.” Joy jumped to her feet and poured steaming brown liquid from a silver teapot into a teacup painted with pink and yellow roses. After setting the last scone on a matching rose-embellished plate, she handed both to Eliza. “You might have to fight Great-Aunt Iris for it.”

Great-Aunt Iris tsked, sat ramrod straight in her pink-and-gold-damask-upholstered wingback chair, and narrowed her eyes at Joy. “I’ll have you know, young lady, that when I was about your age—How old are you?”

“Twenty-six.” Joy slid Eliza a glance and grinned.

“When I was about your age, I was taking out Nazi soldiers left and right.” She stabbed the air. “Eliza here may have a snappy brain in her head, but two to one says I could take her.”

Eliza had once struggled under her aunt’s weight when they had been using the tunnels for reconnaissance and her great-aunt needed a boost to spy through a peephole. Even though her aunt looked diminutive, she lacked nothing in grit and tenacity, which would probably win out over Eliza’s poor excuses for biceps. She slid her left hand up her right arm, squeezed her flexed bicep, and added go to the gym to her to-do list.

Maybe she couldn’t take Great-Aunt Iris in a fair fight, but she was quicker. She bit into the last scone, claiming it as hers.

Joy handed her and Great-Aunt Iris a small glass of sherry each. “To a smashing weekend. Cheers!”

They clinked glasses. Great-Aunt Iris downed hers in one gulp, sighed, and held it out for a refill.

Joy slid Eliza a glance and shrugged.

“While you two figure it out, I’ll help myself.” Great-Aunt Iris toddled to the liquor trolley, white tennis shoes squeaking on the polished hardwood floor, and poured the amber liquid to the brim. She toasted them. “A glass of sherry—”

“Or two.” Joy elbowed Eliza in the ribs and earned a glare from Great-Aunt Iris.

“Now, where was I? Ah yes, a glass of sherry a day keeps the doctor away.” She downed the second glass and reached for the decanter. Joy flipped her wrist and woke up her Apple watch. “Now, Great-Aunt Iris, what would the ‘dishy’ Dr. Hamilton think of you getting sloshed at ten in the morning?”

With a grand harrumph, Great-Aunt Iris set the sherry glass

on the trolley and waddled back to her chair, mumbling under her breath something about “young whippersnappers.” Neither Eliza nor Joy asked for clarification.

The door opened, and one of the new maids, Willow, a young woman from Lambton, eased her way in and stood in the entrance, her feet fidgeting and her fingers worrying a loose bit of string on her sage-green T-shirt. Eliza, with her uncle’s permission, had done away with the traditional servants’ uniforms and required only clean and respectful workwear. Tash, Mrs. Underhill, and Mrs. Bankcroft still chose to wear the traditional garb of their trades, which hadn’t surprised Eliza in the least.

When the girl didn’t speak, Eliza smiled and waved her over. “Yes, Willow, what is it?”

Willow took a few more steps. “I was wondering, Miss Darcy—” “Remember, it’s Eliza. Just plain old Eliza.”

“But Mrs. Underhill. She’ll... Well, she said—”

Eliza held up a hand to stem the girl’s stuttering. “I’ll deal with Mrs. Underhill. She’s really not that scary once you get to know her.” Which wasn’t true, but no need to scare the girl spitless.

Willow squinted at her as if Eliza had sprouted a second head. “If you say so.”

“I do. Now, what’s bothering you?”

“Have you heard the news from the village?”

Eliza shook her head. She’d ignored all the pings and beeps and

rings throughout the weekend, so odds were she’d missed quite a few bits of news. “I haven’t. The weekend retreat had me up to my eyeballs with events and all that jazz. Why? What have I missed?”

“Probably something juicy.” Joy hid a yawn behind her hand.

Eliza pointed at Joy. “How is it that you, Miss Juicy Gossip Girl, are missing out on something?”

“You had your bigwigs, I had my book. And boy, was I on a roll. I don’t stop for nothing. When I got to the part where the Marquis of Ravensbrook Abbey begins to ravish the lovely and delectable heroine—”

Great-Aunt Iris sighed, set her elbow on the chair’s arm, nestled her chin in her hands, and gazed doe-eyed at Joy.

Joy shook her head. “Anyway, long story short, I turned my mobile off.”

“Willow, it seems that you’re in the know.” Eliza leaned against her great-aunt’s chair. “You have a captive audience. Do tell.”

The girl’s cheeks reddened, matching her flame-colored hair. “Well, there’s been... someone...”

“Spit it out, girl. I’m too old to buy green bananas, and I’m certainly too old to sit here waiting for you to tell us this news of yours.” “Great-Aunt Iris,” Eliza whispered, “if you scare her too much, she won’t come back, and you know as well as I do that good staff are hard to come by these days.” She sent the young girl, probably no more than twenty, an apologetic smile. “Go ahead. You were saying? There’s been a...”

“Murder,” Willow spit out. “There’s been a murder.”

Willow darted from the room, leaving Eliza, Joy, and Great-Aunt Iris gaping at each other.

Great-Aunt Iris broke the silence first. “She could have at least told us the name of the dead person. Or where they were found. Or why they died.”

Joy whipped out her phone and scrolled. “Crikey! The murder happened on Friday night.”

Eliza did the same with her phone, and sure enough, several unopened texts from the Lambton friends she’d made over the past months tantalized her with cryptic information about the murder.

Joy shook her phone. “That’s the last time I turn my mobile off. I don’t care who’s getting into whose pants.”

A sharp knock echoed through the breakfast room, and Tash opened the door. “Miss Eliza—” He smiled, transforming his craggy face into one etched with laugh lines. “Eliza, Lord Darcy would like to see you in his study.”

“Thank you, Tash. I’ll be right there.”

He nodded regally and shut the door.

“I wonder if he straps a broomstick to his back to create his formidable posture.” Joy had many theories about Tash’s stoic and austere presence, but the broomstick theory was, by far, the most plausible.

“Possible.”

“Yes, yes, that’s all well and good, but the murder.” Great-Aunt Iris fluttered her hand at Joy’s phone. “What does that contraption say?”

Joy cleared her throat. “This ‘contraption’ says that a murder happened at the Foxed Hound Friday night, and the victim is Felix Payne.”

“Who’s he?” Eliza asked.

“How should I know?”

Great-Aunt Iris huffed.

Joy ignored her and typed a text. “There, the village gossip queen should know everything. In a few minutes, we’ll know more than the police.”

“Don’t abandon your post. Curious minds want to know.” Eliza tapped her temple. “I’ll be right back.”

“Wild horses couldn’t drag me away.” Joy clutched her phone to her chest.

“What about a pack of wild men?” Eliza quirked an eyebrow.

“Pfft, I’d make them fall wildly in love with me, and they’d have no choice but to fan me with palm leaves and feed me grapes.” Joy wrestled an iPad and Apple pencil from her purse, which was almost the size of Great-Aunt Iris’s. “In fact, that puts me to mind of a great storyline for my work in progress, the one I was talking about. A disinherited duchess who, after being on the run for two days, runs into—quite literally—the ne’er-do-well Marquis of Ravensbrook Abbey, who eventually—”

“Don’t spoil it,” Eliza said dryly.

“Fine. I won’t tell you, but there may or may not be a ripped dress involved.” She tapped the screen of her iPad. “It’s going to be a bestseller.”

“Aren’t all your books bestsellers?”

“That’s beside the point. This is going to be the best of the best of the bestsellers.” She shot Eliza a pointed look. “Maybe this time, you’ll actually read one of my books.”

“As soon as you write a bodice-ripping mystery with Agatha Christie flair, I’ll be the first to read it and give it a five-star review.”

“Really?”

“Wild horses couldn’t make me do otherwise.”

Great-Aunt Iris pushed to her feet, her body quivering, her eyes bright. “If you don’t mind, girls, I have business with your great-uncle. It’s about time he got up anyway. Sleeping away the day like this is simply not done. It’s unChristian, that’s what it is.”

Eliza shuddered at her great-aunt’s business. It was no secret, courtesy of the old woman herself, that she and her husband of sixty-plus years, William Darcy, still... Eliza shut her eyes. It didn’t seem possible. Shouldn’t have been possible. Great-Uncle William, at the ripe old age of ninety, spent the vast majority of his day in their room and didn’t even come down for meals anymore.

She shared the not-this-again look with Joy as Great-Aunt Iris toddled from the room, her white tennis shoes squeaking on the hardwood floor.

After a final eye roll, Joy snatched up her white Apple pencil and wrote across the screen.

Eliza took that as her cue, left the breakfast room, and moseyed to her uncle’s study for what was surely not as horrendous or as juicy as murder.

ELIZA trailed her finger across the spines of leather books, some old enough to have seen the Battle of Waterloo. The aromas of pipe tobacco, brandy, and old books quieted her thoughts about an unknown man’s murder.

Eliza had no right to investigate, and she should, as Detective Chief Inspector Wentworth had told her the last time she inserted herself into a murder investigation, keep her nose out of police business. She sniffed. In her room, she had a touristy constable hat proving him wrong. She also had some scars from her encounter with the killer as well, but she had no need to dwell on such negative thoughts.

Everything had settled to normal relatively quickly, as murder and embezzlement were involved. Well, as normal as could be expected after quitting her career as an English teacher, moving across the Atlantic Ocean, taking up her role as future mistress of Pember- ley, and working to get the estate back on its financial feet. Add to that Heath’s extended absence, and she wasn’t sure she could take any more surprises.

“So, you will be in charge of everything until I get back. Tash and Mrs. Underhill will be here to assist you, but I am confident that you will do very well.”

Eliza’s finger paused on a leather-bound edition of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. She swallowed, but her dry mouth allowed only a gulp of air.

Uncle Fitzwilliam chuckled. “You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?”

“Yes. You are going away for the next few days for a business trip, and you’ll be right back.”

He scratched at his salt-and-pepper muttonchops and quirked an equally graying eyebrow. Despite the gray speckled throughout his hair, there was a youthfulness about him that had been missing when she first met him. His skin still held its summer’s tan, and his hazel eyes twinkled with mischievousness, providing a glimpse of him in his younger, carefree days.

He scrunched up his face and tapped his thumb on his fingers as if working out a difficult math problem. “You are only fifty percent correct.”

Following his gesture to sit in a leather wingback chair next to him, Eliza sank into its cushions and slid down, hoping that somewhere, a hole would open up and suck her in. There was a tunnel, after all, so it made sense there would be a trapdoor somewhere in the massive, rambling estate.

“So, what’s the half I got wrong?”

“Let us start with what you guessed correctly. I am going away, and I will be back.”

“And the wrong part?” Eliza asked.

“It won’t be for a few days, it is not a business trip, and I won’t be ‘right’ back.”

“That’s more than fifty percent wrong.”

“I am a generous fellow.” He scooted to the edge of his matching leather chair and rested his elbows on his knees. “There’s only so much that technology can offer when trying to reconnect with someone. Andrew and I are discovering this truth, so I have made the decision to fly to the States and visit him. Hopefully, meeting face-to-face after all these years can help dissolve the decades of pain we have both suffered.”

“Why can’t my dad come over here?”

Eliza had bawled when she said goodbye to her parents the day she fulfilled her one-way ticket to England, leaving America for a life across the pond. Her mother had promised to visit soon, but her father had hemmed and hawed, claiming a busy and unknown future schedule. Eliza hadn’t pressed the issue, knowing that what had sent her father running from England in the first place—stupid Nan- cy—still haunted his relationship with his brother. But that didn’t stop her from rubbing her fingers over her heart in an attempt to dispel the dull ache settling in her chest.

“I think there are too many ghosts here for the first personal reconciliation. So I must go to him. Neutral ground.”

“And you don’t know when you’ll get back?”

“I’m staying until your father and I have worked things out and things are as they were before.” He rubbed his hands over his face and inhaled. His broad chest expanded, pushing the buttons on his purple-and-blue Prince of Wales checked shirt to their limits.

Eliza laid a hand over his. “I know. It’s okay.” She sat up straight and smoothed her hands over her dark skinny jeans, which were a little skinnier than before. Drat all the teas and signing up to be Mrs. Bankcroft’s culinary guinea pig. “I’ll keep things in shipshape and will try not to have too many raves, orgies, or parties while you’re gone.”

He blinked, and a cheeky grin replaced the firm line of his mouth. “If you can get one or all those over Tash’s head, I’ll give you my Austin Healey 3000.”

Ideas of humanely gagging Tash and locking him away in the attic skittered through her head. Her uncle’s sexy scarlet roadster barely made an appearance, but when it did and she was lucky enough to ride shotgun, she squealed with delight and terror as the car hugged England’s curvy country roads. She never felt more alive than when zipping along, the world a blur. Unless, of course, she was in Heath’s embrace. Then she felt electrified.

She played her index finger over the dimple in her chin.

“Eliza, what is it? If you are worried about the estate, please do not concern yourself. After your efforts and the splendid results of all your hard work this weekend, you have proven yourself capable of anything you put your mind to.”

“I’ve proven that I can host a weekend getaway for a bunch of people who have more money than they know what to do with. It’s the day-to-day details that have me questioning my life choices.”

“Well, I have to leave in order for all your nefarious plans to come to fruition to earn the roadster.” He stood up and poured her a glass of water from a crystal pitcher. “There are too many people in your corner to let you fail, and before you know it, you’ll have had your fill of orgies and raves, and no doubt Mr. Tilney will make an appearance soon. Think of all the adventures you will share when I get back.”

“You’re right. As always. Besides, with Great-Aunt Iris at the helm, what could possibly go wrong?” She sipped the water. “Have you heard about the murder?”

“Yes. Sad business, that.” He scratched at his muttonchops. “Felix Payne wasn’t always the lowlife criminal he turned out to be.”

“You knew him?”

“We were chums once, long ago. His father worked for mine. Fe- lix would come over with his father almost every day during the summer, and we’d tramp around the woods and fish in the stream until it was time for him to leave.”

“If you were so close once, what happened?”

“It is complicated. I’m ashamed of my actions and often wish I had done things differently.” When Eliza leaned forward in her chair and tilted her head expectantly, he sighed. “I’ll say this. I was a clas- sist prig and thought it beneath me to associate with the son of one of my father’s gardeners.”

“Is that why you don’t like to use your title?”

“One of the many reasons. But enough memory lane for one morning. I have last-minute details to work out, and I’m sure you have another ‘smashing’ weekend to plan.”

Eliza pecked her uncle’s whiskery cheek and walked to the door.

“Oh, Eliza dear, please, for my sanity, do not go sniffing around the Foxed Hound or, as Wentworth accused you of last time, sticking your nose in police business.”

“Who, me?” Eliza mimicked his arched eyebrows. “Point well taken, Uncle, but I promise not to get involved. Besides, I don’t even know this man. There would be no point in ‘putting my nose in police business’ anyway. Between keeping tabs on Great-Aunt Iris and keeping this house from imploding while you’re away, I have no time for murder.