The Avalon Chanter by Lillian Stewart Carl Read Free Book Online Page B

need
for ancient Greek names here on Farnaby. Your room’s just up the
stairs here.”
    She led the way, giving Jean a good look at
her back, from chestnut-brown pincurls to a capacious purple
sweatsuit to fuzzy pink bunny slippers. “Hugh Munro’s in the single
room down the hall here, and the Campbell-Reids will be in the
double on the ground floor when they arrive tomorrow. It’s all
ready for them, save adjusting the cot for the size of the
child.”
    “ She’s almost ten months old,” said
Jean. “She can pull herself up but isn’t walking yet.”
    “ Oh, a lovely little lass, I’m
sure.”
    With a long way to go before she found
herself forty and facing a mid-life crisis.
    A sitting area at the top of the stairs had
room for two easy chairs, a table piled with magazines, and a
padded window seat. On it lay a lump of fur striped in gray and
black—which opened one golden eye, considered the newcomers,
flicked a whisker in disdain, and closed the eye again.
    “ You’re not allergic to cats, are you?”
Pen asked. “I’ll bring Hildy downstairs if so.”
    “ No, no,” Jean assured her. “We have
one of our own back in Edinburgh.”
    “ Edinburgh’s a brilliant town, isn’t
it? The theaters, the restaurants—you’ll be thinking you’ve come to
the ends of the earth here.” Pen threw open a door. Her smile
beamed not only from her lips but from her plump cheeks, and her
hazel eyes, nested in equally upturned wrinkles, were framed by
oversized glasses. “Here you are. No matter where you go, there you
are, eh?”
    Smiling in return, Jean looked around the
room. Soft colors, floral fabrics, landscape photos. Windows on
both the right- and left-hand walls. A wide bed, chairs and a table
with a tea set. A subtle odor of fresh potpourri. A U-turn brought
her to a sparkling clean bathroom and a closet where their
suitcases sat ready on racks. What would Pen have had to do to rate
five stars? Gild the water faucets? “It’s perfect. Thank you. Just
one thing.”
    “ What can I be doing for you, Miss
Fairbairn?”
    “ Jean, please.” She leaned closer to
the picture hanging next to the bathroom door, a close-up of the
tower atop the headland. In the tenuous spring light of the
photo—light much like today’s—the massive stones of the bailey wall
surrounding a small roofless keep seemed brutal, laid down by
giants in some antediluvian era. “What’s this tower? Is it a
fort?”
    “ Oh, aye, mostly dating to Tudor days,
like the fortlet on Lindisfarne that’s now Lindisfarne Castle.
Though Elaine went poking about there once upon a time and thinks
the foundations are those of a watchtower dating to the Viking
raids.”
    “ I can see the priories on Farnaby and
Lindisfarne setting up an early-warning system.”
    Alasdair stepped up to take a look. “This
one’s not been renovated into a mansion, though.”
    “ No, and more’s the pity,” Pen replied.
“The Castle is lovely now, isn’t it?”
    “ Yes, it is,” said Jean.
    “ Elaine and Wat were going on about a
similar job on Merlin’s Tower.”
    “ Merlin’s Tower?”
    Pen shrugged. “Elaine’s thinking the name’s
no older than Victorian times. Any road, she and Wat were planning
to renovate the tower after he retired. Even had an architect in
from Alnwick. The place is habitable, but only just. Music, though,
it’s like the priesthood, you never truly retire.” Pen’s slight
frown segued into a firm smile that rejected images of Wat taken
before his time and ailing Elaine. “Is there anything else?”
    “ Can we have ourselves a meal in the
pub next door?” Alasdair asked.
    “ Oh my, yes—James has all the
basics—James, he’s my husband, call us the Trumps of Farnaby St.
Mary, real estate moguls, right?”
    “ Right.” Judging by his grin, even
Alasdair was charmed. “Cheers.”
    They should bottle this woman and spray her
over various government assemblies, not to mention ranting talking
heads. She was not only