Ashes to Ashes Read Free

white marble sarcophagus topped by the effigy of a woman, her cap, gown, and steepled hands finely detailed. Michael bowed, his hands sketching an elaborate flourish. “May I present Her Majesty, Mary, Queen of Scots? Poor, lovely, romantic, stupid Mary. I thought you said you’d studied Forbes and Dun Iain.”
    “I have,” Rebecca returned. She knew that the elder Forbes had been besotted by the tragic story of Mary Stuart, and that he’d had a half-size replica of her tomb in Westminster Abbey carved of white marble. “I just didn’t know he kept his toy sarcophagus in his front hall.”
    Another quick glint of humor, and Michael went striding across the parking area. Stupid Mary? A fine sentiment for a patriot. Rebecca spared a quick look at the marble face. Supposedly it had been modeled on Mary’s death mask; its serene half-smile suggested the queen had welcomed death, however gruesome. Off with her head indeed!
    Rebecca hurried out the door and almost collided with Michael coming back in. “Get your pokes,” he said.
    She rescued her sacks of groceries. The bronze evening sunlight, filtered through the maples, swam with russet dust-motes. The farm road was out of sight beyond the trees. Next to the house was a clapboard and shingle shed, and across the dark green lawn, not far from the driveway, was a dovecote, a low rounded structure perforated by stone lattices.
    “I need to be lockin’ up the now,” Michael called.
    “All right, I’m coming.” Rebecca checked to make sure her car was locked. She barely made it back inside before he swung the door shut with a crash and brandished a ridiculously large iron key. “I suppose,” she said, swept against a set of flags furled at Mary’s regal feet, “the really valuable things in Dun Iain don’t look valuable. You know, all that glitters isn’t gold.”
    He shot her a sharp and suspicious glance. She raised her brows indignantly; come on, that remark hardly expressed criminal intentions! “Kitchen’s in there,” he said, jerking his head toward a door to the left of the staircase, and he rammed the key into a massive lock.
    Rebecca bit her tongue before she said, “Yes, your grace,” and dropped him a curtsey. Who did he think he was, the Duke of Argyll? Probably whatever scion of the Campbell family was the duke, he was more polite than this, his poor relation. She couldn’t imagine anyone looking— and being— less of a threat than she was.
    She found the light switch inside the kitchen door. A wonderfully bright bank of fluorescents illuminated a kitchen much younger than the house. Range, refrigerator, telephone— more incongruities, but she wasn’t about to complain. She laid the sacks on a vinyl-topped work island and put up the perishables: low-fat milk, skinned chicken breasts, and broccoli. She hadn’t been far wrong about Michael’s eating habits. The refrigerator contained only a package of processed cheese, two tomatoes, and an open can of frozen orange juice protruding a spoon like a sneering tongue. A couple of cans of Canadian beer sat on the counter. Efficiently she stowed them away, too, and turned to look for a bread box.
    Michael’s Reeboks were padding up the staircase from the entry. “Your room’s on the second floor. The char aired it out yesterday.”
    Rebecca abandoned the rest of the groceries, hurried out of the kitchen and up the stairs behind him. She squinted into the room across the landing from the Hall. This was her room?
    “This is the study,” Michael announced. A shaft of sunlight picked out a Chippendale secretary piled with papers and trinkets. Beyond the boundary of the light, the shadows, even darker by contrast, swarmed with opaque shapes that might be cabinets and bookcases. A human form stood with preternatural stillness against the far wall. Rebecca’s eyes narrowed. “Suit of armor,” said Michael, and started up the next flight of stairs.
    Rebecca rolled her eyes, as much at herself as