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diligent of the media watchdogs. When he needed to travel to London for his business as an architect, which he did sometimes weekly, he went by private jet or helicopter, which came to retrieve him at a remote spot on the estate. He’d been so very careful this time, doing everything humanly possible to keep himself concealed.
    Or so he’d thought.
     
    “Here you are, love. Have a sip of Miss Aggie’s tea. ’Twill chase that chill off straightaway.”
    Libby smiled dimly at the woman, one of two spinster sisters who were the proprietors of the Crofter’s Cottage B and B. They were twins, they’d told her almost immediately upon her arrival, as if that hadn’t been obvious the first moment she’d seen them. They were virtually impossible to tell apart, with matching silver blond curls, lively pale eyes and parchment-like skin. Their eyes crinkled at the corners in exactly the same fashion, and their mouths made identical welcoming smiles. They even wore the same style of eyeglasses, round and wire-rimmed, and Libby couldn’t help but wonder if their prescriptions matched, too.
    They called themselves simply Miss Aggie and Miss Maggie, and they had lived in the village, running the Crofter’s Cottage, for the past twenty years. Before that, they had lived in London, in a modest South Kensington Victorian flat where the most exciting thing that had happened had been the day they’d watched the carriage carrying Diana Spencer pass by as it had made its way to St. Paul’s Cathedral for a royal wedding. The soon-to-be princess, they’d told Libby gleefully, had even waved to them from inside the carriage.
    Since they were twins and so very identical, when they had been girls, their mother had taken to dressing them in different colors in order to make it easier to tell them apart. Aggie was in yellow, and Maggie wore pale green. It was a custom they continued to the present day in their matching night robes and slippers.
    Libby took the teacup Miss Aggie had offered and closed her fingers around it. It was the same flowery sort of cup her mother had always favored. She lifted it to her lips for a sip, relishing the warmth of it, a warmth, she only vaguely realized, that lingered long after she’d swallowed the brew down. It settled happily in the pit of her stomach and pulsed there.
    She looked at Miss Aggie, who smiled.
    “Oh, ’tis just a dash of the whiskey. Just a wee one, mind you.” She winked. “ ’Twill help you to sleep this night.”
    Libby didn’t think she’d need any help to sleep. She was so exhausted she felt as if she’d just lived a full week’s time in a day. Her hair was flat and drooping over her eyes. Every muscle had constricted, and her body felt as if it might actually mutiny if she dared even think of getting out of the chair. Even her head seemed suddenly too heavy to lift. But her luggage still needed retrieving from the trunk of the Vauxhall Astra. And, oh, how she would dearly love a hot shower. Still, the whiskey was bringing a not-unpleasant glow to her very frazzled nerves.
    Maybe just a few more minutes ...
    She took another, healthier sip, and closed her eyes, letting the whiskey’s warmth ooze through her as the two sisters bustled about the room, plumping a pillow beneath her feet and draping a blanket over her. When Libby had arrived on their doorstep, wet from the rain and nearly numb from exhaustion, the sisters hadn’t once complained that she’d woken them at such a late hour. The cottage had been dark when she’d rolled into the drive, and she had sat there, with the rain dribbling down the windshield, reluctant to wake whoever awaited inside. But then a light had clicked on in an upstairs window, and a curtain had parted just slightly. A second later, every window in the cottage, it seemed, was awash with light, and the door was swinging open to show the two tiny figures waving her inside.
    Within a quarter hour they had a fire rolling in the grate beside