Page 26 of The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year

Maggie was trying to decide if she should feel irritated or relieved that he’d resumed his mocking ways when Kitty appeared at the door, exclaiming, “Good morning! Is everyone here?” She looked around the assembled group as if silently taking a head count. Aside from the children and Nanny Davis, only Eleanor and Cece were missing and, apparently, Kitty didn’t feel the need to wait.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve worked up a little... agenda.” She bit back a grin, like she didn’t want to brag but she wasreallygood at agenda-making. “Nothing formal. Just a few activities to make this”—dramatic pause—“the perfect Christmas.”

Today’s sweater was Seven Swans a Swimming, and Maggie wondered if Rupert’s matched. She stared at him, mentally willing him to move so she could see.

“Item one!” Kitty went on. “Cut the Yule log. Now, Mr. Wyatt, you look like a man who can wield an axe.”

Ha! Lumberjack!Maggie almost pumped her fist before she felt warm breath on the shell of her ear as someone (one guess who) whispered, “I’m hot while I wield an axe.”

“When you’re done, I have a few places you can stick it,” she whispered back, but his only response was a chuckle.

“Item two! Decorate—”

But before Kitty could finish, Cece came bursting into the room.

“Miss Honeychurch!” Dr. Charles exclaimed. “What’s wrong?”

But Cece was too busy to answer, scanningthe faces, searching and desperate. “Is Aunt Eleanor here?”

“We haven’t seen her,” Rupert said, going back to his eggs. “Up writing half the night, blasted music blaring.” He sounded more than a little annoyed.

But Cece... Cece looked distraught. “Has anyone seen Aunt Eleanor? Has anyone seen herthis morning?”

A shiver went down Maggie’s spine for reasons that had nothing to do with flannel-wearing men and chilly windows. “Why?”

“She’s not in her bedroom,” Cece said. “Or the library. She’s nowhere. She’s... gone.”

Chapter Twenty

For a moment, the room was frozen, silent. It was like they had all misheard simultaneously. Like it was a joke and Cece was taking forever with the punch line.

“She’s disappeared!” Cece blurted louder.

But the duke simply huffed from the place he’d assumed at the head of the table. “Ninety-year-old women—”

“She’s eighty-one,” Maggie cut in, but the man either didn’t hear or didn’t care.

“—do not simply disappear, young lady.” He spat the words like it was somehow Cece’s fault. Like Eleanor was a dog and Cece had let her off her leash.

“I know that,” Cece implored. “But I can’t find her.”

“Well, did you check her office?” the duchess asked.

“It’s locked. I knocked but—”

Rupert pushed his chair back and tossed his napkin on the table in a gesture that screamedDo I have to do everything myself?Then he stormed out of the room and up the stairs.

They must have made an odd little processional—Rupert in the lead with the rest of Eleanor’s friends and family trailing behind him. Maggie shouldn’t have been surprised to feel Ethan beside her, but there he was, expression oddly serious as they walked down the long hall toward Eleanor’s office.

James was already there and knocking. “Ma’am? Ma’am, if you could open the door, please?”

“Give me the key,” Rupert demanded, but James kept on knocking. “The key!” Rupert snapped at Cece this time, sounding a bit too haughty for a man who was currently wearing a sweater with a pear tree on it.

“I-I-I don’t have it,” Cece stammered.

“Then go get it,” Rupert said, like that much should have beenobvious.

“I don’t have one!” Tears were in Cece’s eyes then.