Aunt Dimity Beats the Devil (Aunt Dimity Mystery) by Nancy Atherton

Josiah watching me.
    I was halfway through the first section of shelves when the study doors screeched and Nicole came through, carrying a flashlight, a cloth sack filled with rags, and a coal scuttle.
    “The Hatches are scandalized,” she announced. “I’m not supposed to do housework.”
    “Jared’s orders?” I guessed, from my perch on the library steps.
    “He’s terribly old-fashioned,” Nicole admitted, “but that’s why I fell in love with him. He’s not like anyone I’ve ever met, and he knows so much about so many things, not just Victoriana, but life as well…” As she chirruped on about her husband’s manifold charms, she bustled about the room, lighting a fire, handing rags up to me, and winding the silver-and-ebony clock that sat upon the mantelpiece. “Now,” she said, coming to a standstill at the foot of the wheeled steps, “what would you like me to do?”
    I put her to work recording titles on the lower shelves and settled back to my private exploration, soothed by the fire’s companionable flicker and the steady ticking of the ebony clock. I was so absorbed in my work that I nearly dropped my pen when Nicole spoke.
    “How long have you been married?” she asked, out of the blue.
    “Five years,” I replied, gripping the pen firmly. “How about you?”
    “Three months.” She made a mark in her notebook before asking, “Do you have children?”
    “Two,” I said. “Twin boys.”
    “Twins.” Nicole beamed up at me. “How splendid.”
    I wondered how long it had been since she’d indulged in a simple round of girltalk. The women in the village weren’t likely to come calling and Mrs. Hatch didn’t seem very chatty. The poor kid was probably starved for female companionship. I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of spying on Nicole, but I didn’t mind lending her a sympathetic ear.
    “Are you enjoying married life?” I asked, resting my notebook on my knees.
    “It’s wonderful.” She lowered her gaze to her notebook before adding shyly, “Though I somehow expected it to be more…tactile.”
    “Tactile?” I repeated, hoping for clarification.
    “Yes. Well. You know.” Color suffused Nicole’s face. “Jared says that a relationship should be allowed to ripen before it becomes, um…”
    “Oh,” I said, clarification having arrived.
“Tactile.”
I could scarcely conceal my amazement. “You mean, you haven’t…?”
    “Not once,” she said softly.
    Well, I thought, that would explain the strained look in her eyes.
    “I’m sure he’s right,” Nicole added quickly. “It’s important to be friends, to get to know one another properly before allowing intimacy to blossom.”
    I dwelt for a moment on my first three, extremely tactile months with Bill before realizing, with a queer twist of dismay, that the face I’d conjured wasn’t Bill’s, but Adam’s.
    “It’s unconventional, of course,” Nicole went on, “but Jared’s never claimed to be conventional. Besides, he’s had so much to do, what with furnishing Wyrdhurst and traveling toNewcastle. He’s not a young man, you know. By the end of the day, he’s exhausted.”
    I banished Adam’s image from my mind and focused on the present conversation. “How often does your husband go to Newcastle?”
    “Once a month,” she answered. “When he’s gone…” She gazed pensively toward the windows, then came to the foot of the wheeled steps, where she looked up at me with round, solemn eyes. She was about to speak when a nerve-jangling screech intervened.
    Mrs. Hatch came through the study doors.
    “Lunch,” Nicole said. “And, Mrs. Hatch, would you please ask Hatch to do something about those doors?”
    We had an informal meal of soup and sandwiches in the dining room. While we ate, Nicole told me that she was an orphan.
    “I was an infant when my parents died and Uncle Dickie became my legal guardian,” she said. “Uncle Dickie’s the only father I’ve ever known. I couldn’t have asked