The Twelve Clues of Christmas Read Free

her. “What on earth are you doing up in Scotland at this time of year? My God, it must be bleak.”
    “It is, rather,” I agreed. “I’ve been keeping Fig company.”
    “From choice?” She sounded horrified.
    “More from a sense of duty, I suppose,” I said. “She’s been awfully down since she had the baby and Binky begged me to stay on and cheer her up. He’s been rather at a loss for what to do for her, poor chap.”
    “I’d have pushed her off a cliff long ago if I were he,” Mummy said.
    “Mummy, you’re terrible.” I had to laugh. “Anyway, I had hoped that going down to London for Christmas might cheer her up, but you know Fig. She’s sure it’s cheaper to stay in Scotland rather than open up the London house. So we’re stuck up here. But what about you? What are you doing in London? I thought you’d be looking forward to a jolly German Christmas with Max.”
    “Max is having the jolly German Christmas. I’m not,” she said. “He’s gone to spend the holiday with his aged parents in Berlin and he thought it wiser that I not accompany him, since they are very prim and proper and don’t know about me.”
    “Oh, dear,” I said. “I thought he was anxious to marry you.”
    “He still is,” she said, “but he thought this wasn’t the right moment to spring me on the old folks. And frankly I’m delighted to have a chance to spend Christmas in England for a change. I’m already looking forward to carols and Yule logs and flaming plum pudding and crackers.”
    A wonderful picture floated into my mind—Mummy and I sharing Christmas with all the trimmings at a swank London hotel. Glorious food, glamorous parties, pantomimes . . .
    “Are you at the Ritz?” I asked.
    “At Brown’s, darling. I had this great desire to be horribly English for once and they are so lovely and old-fashioned. What’s more, they’ve conveniently forgotten that I’m not a duchess anymore, and one does so enjoy being called Your Grace.”
    “You were the one who walked out on Daddy,” I reminded her. “You could still have been Your Grace if you’d wanted to.”
    “Yes, but it would have meant spending half the year on those ghastly Scottish moors, wouldn’t it? I’d have died of boredom. At least now I’m having fun.”
    With a great many men on all six continents, I wanted to add but didn’t. My mother was one of the first of the notorious bolters, having left my father for a French racing driver, an Argentinian polo player, a mountain climber, a Texas oil millionaire and most recently a wealthy German industrialist.
    “So you’re going to be spending Christmas at Brown’s Hotel, are you? Or do you think you may come up to Scotland to visit us?” Of course I was angling for an invitation to join her in London, but I was too proud to come out and say it.
    “Come up to Scotland? In winter? Darling, I’m very fond of you, but wild horses wouldn’t drag me to Castle Rannoch in winter. Perhaps you could pop down to London when I’m back in the new year and we’ll go shopping and do girlie things.”
    “Back? I thought you said you were spending Christmas in England.”
    “Yes, darling, but not in London. Don’t laugh, but I’m off to a village called Tiddleton-under-Lovey of all things. Isn’t it a divine name? I thought Noel was making it up when he told me. It sounds as though it comes straight from one of his plays, doesn’t it?”
    “Noel? You mean Noel Coward?”
    “Is there any other Noel, darling? Remember I mentioned earlier this year that he wanted to write a play for us to star in together? Well, he’s demanded that we hole up together over Christmas and work on the dialogue. Imagine, little
moi
in a play with Noel. Utter heaven. Of course he’ll hog the limelight and give himself the best lines, but who cares?”
    “Will Max approve of your holing up with another man?”
    She laughed. “Darling, it’s not another man. It’s Noel.”
    “And what about your going back