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“You mean Parliament Hill? Tower Hill?”
    “No, I mean Castle Hill, mija . Edinburgh.”
    “ Edinburgh? ” My uncaffeinated voice cracked. “How far is that from London—three hundred miles?” she sniffed. “Wouldn’t get you from the ranch up to Santa Fe. A jaunt, not a journey.”
    “But—”
    “Boswell’s Court at eight-thirty,” she said firmly. “There’s a train from King’s Cross at three-thirty. A ticket will be waiting for you. Gets in at quarter past eight, I’m told. Just enough time to get up the hill.”
    “Athenaide—”
    “Bon appétit, Katharine. Lady Nairn is quite possibly the most glamorous person I know. You’ll have fun.” Laughter burbling through the phone, she hung up.
    I stared at the phone in mute disbelief as its blue glow faded to darkness. So much for Chopin and Project Runway . I collapsed back in the bed with a groan that sputtered into laughter. Athenaide, whose parents had been costume designers for the likes of Bette Davis and Grace Kelly, and who had since made herself a billionaire, had spent her life running in glamorous circles. If this woman was at the pinnacle of Athenaide’s league, she was way out of mine.
    After a few minutes, I threw back the covers and padded toward the kitchen and coffee. I’d signed up for Athenaide’s ride—or at least failed to throw myself off. I might as well enjoy it. Even without the redoubtable Mr. Benjamin Pearl.
     
    By the time the train pulled into Edinburgh, darkness had long since fallen. Across the wide boulevard of Princes Street, the New Town paraded away in neat, if rain-swept, Georgian elegance. On the other side of the station, the medieval town jostled stubbornly up a steep hill, crowding toward the castle perched atop its summit in brooding golden defiance against the night.
    Minutes later, I was in the back of a taxi winding up the hill, the street a dark chasm between tall houses of gray stone slick with damp. Just before the buildings fell away into the open space in front of the castle, the taxi drew to a stop. “Boswell’s Court,” the driver said, pointing to an open doorway.
    Overhead, a placard like an old-fashioned inn sign glistened in the rain, sporting two goats rampant and a leering devil’s head above gilded letters that spelled out The W ITCHERY .
    Beneath this, a low stone archway led through to a small courtyard. At the far end sat a little wooden house dominated by a great black door; just inside, a wide stair led down into an opulent fantasia on a Jacobean palace. Mute courtiers hunted stags across tapestries, heavy furniture swelled with dark carving, and, everywhere, candles flickered in iron stands that looked to have been riffled from either cathedrals or dungeons.
    Making my way through the restaurant in the wake of the hostess, I wound toward a back corner. Quite possibly the most glamorous person I know, Athenaide had said, but through some trick of the shadows and flickering light, I did not see her until I was very close. And then I found myself face-to-face with a legend.
    “L-Lady Nairn?” I’d stammered in confusion. “You must be Kate Stanley,” she’d said, rising. She extended her hand. “Yes, I’m Lady Nairn. Better known as Janet Douglas,” she added with a disarming smile. “Once upon a very long time ago.”
    Janet Douglas had once had beauty to make Helen of Troy burn with envy. In the 1950s, she’d had a meteoric acting career, coming to the world’s attention as Viola, the silver-tongued heroine of Twelfth Night. After that, she’d made five or six films in quick succession, all of them classics. But it was her live performance of Lady Macbeth, Shakespeare’s fiend-like queen, in London’s West End, that had seared her face into the consciousness of a generation. If Lady Macbeth had been her greatest role, it was also her last. In the audience at the premiere, a Scottish lordling had fallen in love with her—nothing unusual in itself. What set his passion