Murder Most Royal

‘And then you and I had a marathon session on the church refurbishment accounts with the vicar the next day.’

‘Oh, yes. And an antiquarian bookseller came in the afternoon. He’s interested in some of my first editions. It’s a wrench to say goodbye to them, but Flora needs her cake shop.’

‘I went for a ride,’ Flora said. ‘I’d have tried to meet up with Elinor if I’d known I was going to be quizzed about it for hours by a policeman, but sadly, I didn’t. I do have a fitness tracker, though. He seemed to think that might help.’

By now the girls were getting restless and dispersed to various parts of the house. Flora invited the Queen to see the gardens, but the baron said he had something to discuss with Her Majesty, which suited her admirably. Rozie, who had agreed on the division of labour beforehand, offered to go with Flora instead.

‘I’m afraid I don’t know one end of a trowel from the other,’ Rozie admitted, as they put on coats and wellies in the boot room of the hall. ‘But I like those bushes you cut into shapes.’

‘Topiary?’ Flora asked. ‘Sorry, we don’t have much of that. It tends to be in formal gardens. Apart from the maze, ours are very . . . You’ll see.’

They trudged over the drawbridge and round the gravel path that skirted the outside of the moat and led down a bank, towards a meadow fringed with willows. Rozie soon saw why Flora had insisted on wellingtons for them both: the ground was soggy and they disappeared in it up to their ankles.

‘Do you do a lot of work on the estate?’ Rozie asked.

Flora nodded. ‘Oh, yes. It keeps me busy and we can’t afford nearly enough professionals to do it all. There are the gardens and the new visitor plans. Dad manages the agricultural side of the farm, but I love the sheep. We lost our shepherdess last year. I can’t do everything with them yet, but it turns out I have a knack for it.’

Rozie could see some of the sheep Flora was referring to in a distant field, beyond the line of willows. Black and white, they dotted the landscape like something out of one of those jigsaws the Queen liked to do.

They were approaching a series of ponds linked by a stream that fed into the river. She explained that it was a nineteenth-century water garden that her mother had revived. They stood on a little wooden humpback bridge and looked into the fast-flowing stream.

‘I heard you had a bit of a tragedy recently,’ Rozie said.

‘Golly, which one?’ Flora asked.

‘A man called Chris Wallace.’

‘Oh, him. Yes, that was absolutely shocking. How did you know?’

‘It’s all around Dersingham, I’m afraid.’

Flora tutted. ‘Lord, the local gossips. He was devastated about his wife. Like Dad, really. I suppose that’s why he went to see him.’

‘I heard he’d been asked to move out.’

Flora turned to look sharply at Rozie. ‘Goodness, no. Laura Wallace was one of Mum’s best friends. Her children were like brothers and sisters to us when we were little. Whatever gave people that idea?’

‘Sorry, Dersingham’s a hotbed of gossip, as you say,’ Rozie backtracked, shaking her head and grinning in a placatory way. ‘The crochet group is bad, but the embroiderers . . . you have no idea.’

It seemed to work. Flora warmed up again. She showed Rozie the white gardens enclosed among lichen-covered walls and low-cut hedges, for which Georgina St Cyr had become famous. As a non-gardener, Rozie had to take Flora’s word for it that the bare bushes and half-empty beds would look spectacular in spring and summer when they were full of white roses, lilies and fat hydrangeas.

Rozie stole another glance at her as they walked along the gravel path between box-edged flower beds. The dry humour of the aristocracy still caught her by surprise.

They rounded a couple of large greenhouses and the twisted chimneys of the hall came back into view to their left, with the gatehouse further away to the right. Flora stopped and pointed.

‘There,’ she said, as if Rozie had asked her a question.

Flora was very still and thoughtful.

‘That’s where I saw Ned for the last time, driving away with Dad in his ridiculous pink Land Rover. He called it the Pink Panther, you know. It was painted to match his house. He waved his trilby at me.’ She imitated the movement with her right hand. ‘I honestly thought the next time I’d see him would be at his wedding.’ She hesitated. ‘Can I tell you an awful secret?’

Rozie glanced across at the ancient bricks and stones of the hall, sitting serenely above the moat that mirrored the sky.

‘I can imagine this place would encourage you to think that way.’

Rozie had in fact been wondering if Flora – practical, competent, sharp-thinking Flora – was putting on an act. If so, it was a neat double bluff. She certainly felt as if she had been more of an audience than a confidante.