Lethal Legend Read Free

“Do you?”
    Diana’s hands ached from clasping them so tightly together. The delicious evening meal she’d consumed not a half hour earlier, before the ladies withdrew for tea and left Elmira’s new husband to his post-prandial cigar in the library, churned in her stomach. She drew in a slow, calming breath and tried to dismiss the disloyal thought that Ben might have left town solely to avoid being witness to the inevitable clash between Maggie and Elmira. Their faint hope that two such strong-minded, independent, eccentric women would find common ground and become friends had died a quick death. Barely twenty-four hours after their first meeting, they were at each other’s throats.
    Worse, Elmira’s none-too-subtle hints had fallen on fertile ground. Diana could not help but feel abandoned. Ben hadn’t even told her in person that he was leaving town. He’d gone in to his surgery early on Tuesday morning. Diana had barely begun her own day when a note had arrived, delivered by a boy Ben had paid to carry it. The brief and unsatisfying message had contained no explanation and nary a hint of when Ben would return. Neither had it said where he’d gone. He’d left a similarly uninformative note on his surgery door, telling patients to go to Dr. Randolph in an emergency.
    Maggie rose from the sofa, compelling Diana’s attention. In spite of her stature—she was only of medium height—she had a regal air about her as she looked down her nose at Elmira. “Foolish mortal. You do not realize how great your suffering will be. The gods punish those who offend them. You’ll be squashed flat as a bug under a schoolboy’s foot.”
    Elmira’s braying laugh made the teacups clatter. “If you’re a deity, I’m the Empress of India!”
    “I am descended from Gypsies. And from the nobility of Europe. The blood of a countess runs in my veins.”
    Elmira lifted an eyebrow at this, then downed the last of the liquid in her cup. She stood slowly, brushing crumbs off her dark green skirt and squaring her shoulders. She was a stout woman, two inches taller than her daughter, and should have been able to cow Maggie Northcote by her greater size alone.
    “Mother, you are a guest in this house,” Diana hissed.
    Both women turned on her. Elmira’s gaze was acrimonious but the bemused look in Maggie’s odd, copper-colored eyes suggested she’d forgotten Diana was there. 
    With a sniffing sound Diana supposed was meant to indicate that her feelings were hurt by Diana’s criticism, Elmira stepped away from the grouping of sofa and loveseat and headed for the grand piano in one corner of the room. In no hurry, she paused in front of a mirror to check her appearance en route.
    At fifty-three, Elmira’s mahogany colored hair, which Diana had inherited, was liberally streaked with white. In contrast to Maggie, Elmira’s face was scored with deep furrows and her cheeks got their high color not from raw good health or from the application of cosmetics but from tiny broken capillaries under the skin. She’d had a hard life, Diana reminded herself, but that was no excuse for rude behavior. It wasn’t as if Elmira didn’t know any better. For years she’d hobnobbed with the cream of Denver society.
    Elmira plunked herself down on the piano stool and ran idle fingers over the keys. She winced at the sound this produced. “Don’t you ever tune this thing?”
    “Why bother?” Maggie answered. “No one in this household plays.”
    The enormous, long-haired black cat who had been asleep on top of the piano uncurled himself and stretched. With a hiss in passing at Elmira, he hopped down and crossed the room to Maggie, stropping himself enthusiastically against her skirts until she stooped to pick him up.
    “Cedric always has had good taste,” his mistress murmured, cuddling him close and shooting Elmira a superior smile.
    “Cats! Can’t abide them. They aren’t even good eating.”
    “Cedric isn’t just a cat. He’s my