She looked down at the envelope in her lap that had been put by her plate at the breakfast table. The Montfort crest announced that it was from her husband. She opened it and pulled out a single sheet of paper. Written in familiar handwriting were the words: “Darling Clemmy, Althea arrived home yesterday, as did Harry, and Verity arrives with the children tomorrow. Darling, please,” and then a two-word poem: “Come Home.”
Author’s Note
I have run Lady Montfort and Edith Jackson’s investigation into the death of Rupert Bartholomew as closely as I can to coincide with the events in Europe as the days counted down from July 23, 1914—when Emperor Franz Joseph delivered an ultimatum to Serbia in response to the assassination of his nephew and heir, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo—to Britain’s declaration of war with Germany on August 4, 1914. They were thirteen very uncertain days, which led to a world war so destructive and catastrophic that when it ended, on November 11, 1918, of the 65,038,810 men who fought in it, on both sides, 8,528,831 were dead, 21,189,154 wounded, and 7,750,919 prisoners or missing in action. It was referred to as the war to end all wars.
On a lighter note, there was no Hyde Rose Society, but in the leisured days in England before WWI, those with money and time on their hands had many interesting and diverse hobbies. I do not particularly admire the hybrid tea rose so enthusiastically created by the member of the Hyde Rose Society, and I like to imagine that Miss Gertrude Jekyll would not have recommended the use of them in her garden schemes. I am sure she would have stuck to the old roses that are also mentioned in A Death by Any Other Name. Here is a little more information about the redoubtable Miss Jekyll.
Gertrude Jekyll (1843–1932)
What is one to say about June, the time of perfect young summer, the fulfillment of the promise of the earlier months, and with as yet no sign to remind one that its fresh young beauty will ever fade.
—GERTRUDE JEKYLL
Miss Jekyll created some four hundred gardens in Britain, Europe, and America; her influence on garden design has been pervasive to this day. She spent most of her life in Surrey, England, latterly at her beautiful home Munstead Wood, Godalming. She ran a garden center there and bred many beautiful varieties of plants. Some of her gardens have been faithfully restored, wholly or partly, and are open to the public. The Godalming Museum has many of her notebooks and copies of her garden drawings, (compiled and sorted by members of the Surrey Gardens Trust); the original drawings are in the University of California, Berkeley.
Miss Jekyll’s books about gardening are widely read in modern editions; much has been written about her by others. She contributed over a thousand articles to Country Life, The Garden, and other magazines. She was also a talented painter, photographer, designer, and craftswoman and was much influenced by Arts & Crafts principles. Her brother, Walter, was a friend of the author Robert Louis Stevenson; it is thought that his name may have been borrowed for the title of Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The family historian, Gertrude Jekyll, is well known for her association with the English architect Sir Edwin Lutyens; she collaborated with him on gardens for many of his houses.
For more information and a guide to her many books please visit: http://gertrudejekyll.co.uk/shop.
ALSO BY TESSA ARLEN
Death Sits Down to Dinner
Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman
About the Author
TESSA ARLEN is the author of Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman and Death Sits Down to Dinner. She is the daughter of a British diplomat and had lived in or visited her parents in Singapore, Berlin, the Persian Gulf, Beijing, Delhi, and Warsaw by the time she was sixteen. She came to the U.S. in 1980 and worked as an HR recruiter for the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee for the 1984 Olympic Games, where she interviewed her future husband for a job. She lives with her family on an island in the Puget Sound. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Characters
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
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
Author’s Note
Also by Tessa Arlen
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK FOR MINOTAUR BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein
Cover photographs: glass house © Paula French / Shutterstock.com; man: © Everett Collection / Shutterstock.com; rose beds: © Vitaly Titov / Shutterstock.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Arlen, Tessa, author.
Title: A death by any other name / Tessa Arlen.
Description: First edition. | New York: Minotaur Books, 2017. | Series: Lady Montfort mystery series; 3
Identifiers: LCCN 2016043778 | ISBN 9781250101426 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781250101433 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Countesses—Fiction. | Murder—Investigation—Fiction. | Upper class—England—London—Fiction. | Great Britain—History—Edward VII, 1901–1910—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Traditional British. | FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Historical. | FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Women Sleuths. | GSAFD: Historical fiction. | Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3601.R5445 D42 2017 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016043778
e-ISBN 9781250101433
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First Edition: March 2017