The Elizabethan Secret (Lang Reilly Series Book 9) Read Online Free

contents were unmistakable. “Warre’s vintage ’94. Should be just about drinkable by now.”
                  “Drinkable” was a major understatement.
                  Lang sniffed the fruity aroma and let the first raspberry-cherry-nutty Port burn its way down his throat before he reached into his jacket pocket.
              “Bought a couple of Montecristo number twos in Edinburgh just in case I ran across a bottle of vintage port.”
                  At Gurt’s insistence, he had given up the Cuban cigars he had so cherished rather than set a bad example for his young son, Manfred. But neither mother nor son were here tonight.
                  So why did he feel like he was cheating on both of them as he clipped the pyramido top, held a wooden match under the tip, and sent fragrant blue smoke puffing toward the ceiling?
                  The two sat in lumpy horse-hair stuffed chairs, facing each other on either side of the stove. Neither man spoke, the fortified wine and cigars being more than ample company. All he needed now to be a proper English squire, Lang thought, was to have half a dozen fox hounds sleeping at his feet.
                  The spell was broken by the first two bars of Glen Miller’s Chattanooga Choo-Choo , the ring tone of his iPhone. The screen showed a familiar number in the States.
                   “Hi Gurt! Checking up on me?”
                  “Manfred wants to know when you’re coming home. He has festered me all day to call.”
                  Gurt’s English, near perfect, occasionally lapsed.
                  “ You mea n ‘pestered,’ don’t you? ‘Fester’ means to irritate or inflame.”
                  “Is the same. Anyway, I thought I might come and join you in London.”
                  “ London?   I didn’t intend . . .”
                  “You have an email from that man at Christie’s.”
                  Lang realized he had not checked his electronic messages since arriving at Llewyn’s cottage. Then he had to search his memory. “Brame or Brom . . .?
                  “Eustis Bromley. He said an Elizabethan linenfold paneled coffer was coming up for auction next week.”
                  “Oh yeah. I saw one last time I was in London. Thought it would look great in our bedroom.”
                  “There is something wrong with what we have?”
                  Gurt saw little value in what she described as ”old used furniture,“ preferring the practical. Conversely, Lang had acquired a taste and some knowledge of antiques after losing everything he had owned when there had been an attempt to kill him by blowing up the condominium in which he then lived. His pieces were a combination of the flamboyant Louis XIV style and the more staid, Georgian, mahogany. There was something about the sturdy oak of the Elizabethans, the functionality of joined, rather than nailed parts that had appealed to him.
                  That, plus owning a piece dating back four centuries to the time when a small island was becoming a world super power was a bit of a kick, too.
                  “Lang?”
                  “Er, yeah?”
                  “Manfred wants to speak to you.”
                  “Hi, daddy!”
                  “Hi, Manfred. What did you and Grumps do today? Did you learn anything in school?”
                  Childish laugh. “You know Grumps doesn’t go to school. He’s a dog.”
                  A recitation of the little boy’s day so far followed by, “Momma says it’s night where you are. What did you do today?”
                  Lang swallowed, unsure how spending the better part of a day in the killing of a