Holy Terror in the Hebrides Read Free

purple-and-magenta blossoms that I could hardly see the leaves, and so sweetly scented that a sort of living veil of bees surrounded them. I decided to admire them from a discreet distance.
    Just before the narrow street became someone’s drive, my driver pulled her horse to a stop. “Here we are, then. Dove Cottage. If ye have your key, I’ll help ye with the bags.”
    I stayed where I was, on the high backseat of the wagon, in a sudden horrified paralysis.
    My key. The key Lynn had driven down from London especially to give me. Where was it?
    I rummaged frantically in my purse, but I already knew. I could see the key, exactly where I had put it so as not to forget it, on the little hall table right next to the door.
    I looked at my driver, who stood waiting, a quizzical expression on her face. “I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid, but I think I left the key at home. Do you know where the owners live? They might have another one they’d be willing to let me use . . .”
    I trailed off as she shook her head. “This is just a holiday cottage. The Fergusons live in Inverness, I think. The postie would know.”
    It didn’t matter, really, whether the postmaster had the Fergusons’ address. If they weren’t here on Iona, there was no practical way to get a key until tomorrow at the very earliest. Unless—“They wouldn’t have given one to a neighbor, I suppose? In case of emergency? Or left one with the police?”
    She tried to hide her amusement. “There are no police on Iona; we’ve no need of them. The nearest constable is on Mull, in Bunessen. And I doot they’d give a key to their property to anyone here on Iona; they’ve a poor opinion of islanders, have the Fergusons, and they’re none so trusting. Ye can ask.”
    But her tone of voice told me the answer.
    “No, you’re probably right. I suppose I’ll just have to find a hotel, or a B and B, if you have the time to take me around.”
    “Oh, I’ve the time, but I doot, this late in the season—the Argyll is full, I know. We passed it juist a few houses back, but they’ve a New Age group in for the week. Americans. And the St. Columba, up the hill, closed airly this year to be redone. Ye might try the Iona; it’s new, and not so many people know about it.”
    “The Iona, then, by all means.” The horse patiently turned the wagon in the narrow road, and we clopped back the way we had come, turning right when we neared the jetty to head up the hill toward the Abbey.
    “That’s the Nunnery we’re passin’. I might as well give ye a bit of a tour while we’re aboot it. It was built airly in the thirteenth century and flourished until the sixteenth, when all the nuns
and
monks were turned oot by the reformers. And round here, on your left, is the Heritage Centre. They’ve some fine wee bits and pieces to see, and if ye get hungry, walkin’ aboot, they do lunch. Homemade soup and sandwiches, and home-baked sweets.”
    I was starved. I resolved to check out the Heritage Centre the moment I’d found a room for the night.
    “That’s the parish kirk next to the centre. Church of Scotland, ye know, Presbyterian, you Americans call it. Yon garden belongs to the St. Columba Hotel; they grow nearly all their own vegetables.
And
they run the wee shop across the road, there, books and woolens.”
    It sounded an odd combination, but appealing; I made another mental note.
    “And here we are. Shall I wait for ye, in case they can’t put ye up?”
    “Oh, yes, please.” I clambered down from my high perch, feeling stiff and stupid and every minute of my age.
    The hotel was in what obviously had been a house, and a very large house for Iona. I knew that Iona used to be part of the Duke of Argyll’s vast property, and assumed that the house had belonged to him or whoever he put in charge of the island. This would be, then, a miniature version of the “country house” hotels popular in England. I pushed open the great front door, petted the friendly