The Mitford Secret--A Mitford Murders Mystery


 Contents
 
 Title Page
 Copyright Notice
 Dedication
 Prologue
 Chapter One
 Chapter Two
 Chapter Three
 Chapter Four
 Chapter Five
 Chapter Six
 Chapter Seven
 Chapter Eight
 Chapter Nine
 Chapter Ten
 Chapter Eleven
 Chapter Twelve
 Chapter Thirteen
 Chapter Fourteen
 Chapter Fifteen
 Chapter Sixteen
 Chapter Seventeen
 Chapter Eighteen
 Chapter Nineteen
 Chapter Twenty
 Chapter Twenty-One
 Chapter Twenty-Two
 Chapter Twenty-Three
 Chapter Twenty-Four
 Chapter Twenty-Five
 Chapter Twenty-Six
 Chapter Twenty-Seven
 Chapter Twenty-Eight
 Chapter Twenty-Nine
 Chapter Thirty
 Chapter Thirty-One
 Chapter Thirty-Two
 Chapter Thirty-Three
 Chapter Thirty-Four
 Chapter Thirty-Five
 Chapter Thirty-Six
 Chapter Thirty-Seven
 Chapter Thirty-Eight
 Chapter Thirty-Nine
 Chapter Forty
 Chapter Forty-One
 Chapter Forty-Two
 Chapter Forty-Three
 Chapter Forty-Four
 Chapter Forty-Five
 Chapter Forty-Six
 Chapter Forty-Seven
 Chapter Forty-Eight
 Chapter Forty-Nine
 Chapter Fifty
 Chapter Fifty-One
 Chapter Fifty-Two
 Chapter Fifty-Three
 Chapter Fifty-Four
 Chapter Fifty-Five
 Chapter Fifty-Six
 Chapter Fifty-Seven
 Chapter Fifty-Eight
 Chapter Fifty-Nine
 Chapter Sixty
 Chapter Sixty-One
 Chapter Sixty-Two
 Chapter Sixty-Three
 Chapter Sixty-Four
 Chapter Sixty-Five
 Chapter Sixty-Six
 Chapter Sixty-Seven
 Chapter Sixty-Eight
 Who’s Who
 Historical Notes
 Acknowledgments
 Bibliography
 Also by Jessica Fellowes
 About the Author
 Newsletter Sign-up Copyright
 
 
 
 Guide
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Dedication
 Prologue
 Chapter One
 Acknowledgments
 Bibliography
 Contents
 Copyright
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Begin Reading
 Table of Contents
 About the Author
 Copyright Page
 
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 FOR JULIAN AND EMMA
 
 
 
 PROLOGUE
 
 17 April 1941
 Even after eight months of heavy bombing on London, Louisa Sullivan hadn’t decided which part of hearing the bomb’s whistle was the worst: the constant whine, which prevented any respite from fear and defied any guess as to its navigation, or the immediate black silence that came in the seconds when it stopped. In that dark spot was the moment of death and destruction, but you knew not where. Sometimes it seemed as if it had happened to you, only you weren’t aware yet because pain travels more slowly than the speed of sound. You waited, breath held, to discover whether you were alive. And if you were, there was no relief, for then you would have to discover who had died. Of this one thing you could be certain: someone was now dead who had been alive only seconds before.
 One saving grace of being down in the London Underground – as Louisa and her five-year-old daughter Maisie were, most nights, sleeping on the platform at Hammersmith – was that you couldn’t hear the bombs as loudly. Guy, Maisie’s father, was rarely with them as he was out at every opportunity, working all the shifts given to him and any extras he could take, as a private for the Home Guard. He and Louisa argued frequently about the fact that Maisie had not been evacuated. He saw it as the safest option for their only child, but Louisa could not bear to give her up to an unknown family in an unknown part of the country. Some children had been brought back to London during the Phoney War and she had heard one or two terrible stories of neglect, which she could not dismiss. Guy would remind his wife, to no avail, that the vast majority had been well looked after.
 Lying on the concrete floor, her winter coat a paltry mattress, Louisa held Maisie to her a little tighter, breathing in the sweet smell of her freshly washed hair. In response, her daughter wriggled, shifting closer to her mother, adjusting her hands beneath her cheeks as she slept. A thin blanket was drawn over them both, although it did not cover Louisa below her knees. As she held her child, she thought about Deborah Mitford’s wedding, due to happen in two days’ time. Maisie was going to be a flower girl. Although Louisa had first known the Mitfords when she was their nursery-maid, just over twenty years ago, things between them now were very different.
 The eldest of the six daughters, Nancy, was no longer a Mitford but married to Peter Rodd, commissioned into the Welsh Guards and currently abroad, fighting in Addis Ababa, much to Nancy’s relief. Louisa knew that, recently, there had been a brief but intense love affair. Even so, Nancy had thrown herself into war work with a fervour that few might have expected from the woman who claimed to work only so she could afford to take taxis rather than buses. She had been an ambulance driver for the ARP, sheltered Jewish refugee families at her father’s London house on Rutland Gate, and was now working for the Free French in London.
 Louisa could imagine her, lying in bed, shivering with fear, running through the argument that was debated daily in every café, on every street corner: was it safer to leave your house and run to a shelter, to stay on the top floor of your house, or simply embrace death from the comfort of your own bed? It wasn’t the screaming bombs Nancy said she minded so much as the sirens, the constant searchlights and the ominous red ropes at the end of a street. She lived only a few roads away from Paddington station, which she knew was a target. When it was light, she could get up and do good. In the small hours of the night, in the desperate blackness, she could do nothing.
 Diana was in Holloway prison, locked up for her Fascist sympathies. Louisa pictured her lying in the dark, upon a thin single mattress, shivering fiercely not