Aunt Dimity and the Duke

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Nancy Atherton is also the author of Aunt Dimity’s Death (the winner of the Mystery Guild New Discovery Award), Aunt Dimity’s Good Deed, Aunt Dimity Digs In, Aunt Dimity’s Christmas, Aunt Dimity Beats the Devil, and most recently Aunt Dimity: Detective. She lives next door to a cornfield in central Illinois.

For

Leslie J. Turek,

Consulting Gardener

Prologue

“Come back, Master Grayson!”

“Master Grayson! Stop!”

“Grayson Alexander! When I get my hands on you—”

His father’s roar was swallowed by the rising wind as the boy ran down the terrace steps and sprinted for the castle ruins. Shirttails flying, he ran, heedless of the servants’ cries and headlong from his father’s wrath, intent only on escape. Black clouds boiled overhead and a cold wind whipped in from the sea, surging mournfully up the cliffs and snatching at his hair as he dodged through gaping doorways, past tumbledown walls, feet pounding, lungs pumping, heart breaking. Tear-blinded, tripped by a half-buried granite block, he sprawled, lay panting, then pushed himself up and ran on.

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