Assassin Read Online Free

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    “Interesting. Since I was a child, I’ve always wondered why they call this place a ‘chapel of ease,’ ” Hawke remarked.
    “Any sense of ‘ease’ being notable by its current absence?”
    “Precisely.”
    “These small chapels were originally built to ease the overflowing congregations at the main churches.”
    “Ah. That explains it. Well. My own personal demon of deduction strikes again. I’ll have another nip of that brandy if you don’t mind. Cough it up.”
    Congreve, a shortish, round figure of a man, removed his black silk top hat and ran his fingers through his disorderly thatch of chestnut brown hair. Alex had nowhere near the tolerance for alcohol he himself possessed, even at his somewhat advanced age; and so he hesitated, stalling, pinching the upturned points of his waxed moustache.
    “And, of course,” Congreve said, with a sweeping gesture that included a good deal of Gloucestershire, “Every one of those yew trees you see growing in this and every other churchyard were ordered planted there by King Edward I in the fourteenth century.”
    “Really? Why on earth should young Eddie have gone to all that bother in the first place?”
    “Provide his troops with a plentiful supply of proper wood for longbows.” Congreve had removed the flask but hesitated in the uncorking of it. “You know, dear boy, it was King Edward who—”
    “Good lord,” Hawke said, exasperated.
    “What?”
    “I want brandy, not arboreal folklore for God’s sake, Ambrose. Fork it over.”
    “Ah. Smell that air.”
    “What about it?”
    “Sweet. Mulchy.”
    “Ambrose!”
    “Alex, it’s only natural for the groom to experience certain feelings of—anxiety—at a time like this, but I really think…ah, well, here comes the wedding party.” Ambrose quickly slipped the flask back into his inside pocket.
    A procession of automobiles was winding its way up the twisting lane, bounded on either side by the hawthorn hedges, leading to the little church of St. John’s. It was a beautiful chapel really, nestled in a small valley of yews, pear trees, laurel, and rhododendron, many just now coming into full pink and white bloom, the trees filtering light onto dappled grass. The surrounding hillsides were green with leafy old forests, towering oaks, elms, and gnarled Spanish chestnuts many hundreds of years old.
    The little Norman church was built of the mellow golden limestone so familiar here in Gloucestershire. St. John’s had been the scene of countless Hawke family weddings, christenings, and funerals. Alexander Hawke himself, red-faced with rage, age two, had been christened in the baptismal font just inside the entrance. Only a mile or so from this wooded glen, stood Hawke’s ancestral country home.
    Hawkesmoor still held a prominent place in Alex’s heart and he visited his country house as frequently as possible. The foundation of the centuries old house, which overlooked a vast parkland, was built in 1150, with additions dating from the fourteenth century to the end of the reign of Elizabeth I. The roofline was a fine mix of distinctive gables and elaborate chimneys. Alex had long found great peace there, wandering about a rolling landscape laid out centuries earlier by Capability Brown.
    At the head of the parade of automobiles was Alex’s gunmetal grey 1939 Bentley Saloon. Behind the wheel, Alex could see the massive figure and smiling face of Stokely Jones, former U.S. Navy SEAL and NYPD copper and a founding member of Alexander Hawke’s merry band of warriors. Sitting up front with Stokely was Pelham Grenville, the stalwart octogenarian and family retainer who had helped to raise young Alex following the tragic murder of the boy’s parents. After the subsequent death of Alex’s grandfather, Pelham and a number of uniformly disappointed headmasters had assumed sole responsibility for the boy’s upbringing.
    “Let’s duck inside, Ambrose,” Alex said, with the first hint of a smile.