“One has to keep oneself busy while you are away for months,” Mrs. Sechrest said and I noticed that she shot a look at Johnnie Protheroe, who was playing some kind of card game with Bunty that seemed to involve touching her knee quite often.

“So how often do you get home?” Sandy Sechrest asked the Rathbones.

“Every five years.”

“How much longer do you think you’ll stick it out?” she asked.

Colonel Rathbone frowned. “Can’t really say. Of course I’d like to retire to a little place in a village like this. But who knows if we’ll have another blasted war or a native uprising. And who knows what one will be able to afford on an army pension.”

He glanced at his wife, then she looked away. “That’s the problem, isn’t it?” Mrs. Rathbone said. “You give your life to the army and they reward you with a pension that a sparrow couldn’t live on. It’s simply not fair. I should have been like some of the other wives and had an affair with a maharaja and been rewarded for my services with jewels. I know a couple of wives who set themselves up very nicely that way.”

“I wouldn’t have minded an affair with a maharaja,” Sandra Sechrest said dreamily. “They have such lovely dark eyes, don’t they?”

I let the conversation wash over me as I pretended to study a magazine, but I found I could not shake off the tension. The day wasn’t over yet. There was still time for another death.

Lady Hawse-Gorzley appeared, clapping her hands. “Time for tea, everyone. We’re serving it a little early so that we have enough light to go out and find the Yule log. And I wanted to check who would like to go to midnight mass at our little church, and who would rather do matins tomorrow morning. Oh, and Darcy dear—do you need me to find out the times of masses at the Catholic church in Newton Abbott?”

And there it was—the reminder of the fact I had conveniently chosen to block from my mind. Darcy was a Catholic. I would not be allowed to marry him.

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

DECEMBER 24, EVENING ON CHRISTMAS EVE

Can’t help feeling excited, in spite of everything that has happened.

I tried to push this worry from my mind as we wrapped up warmly and set off to find the Yule log. Monty insisted that we sing carols as we trudged through the snow. The temperature was slightly warmer today so the snow was turning to slush, which would make it hard to drag the log home on a sled. Sir Oswald and Monty were pulling one just in case, but Bunty was leading one of the farm horses attached to a wagon.