The Missing Duchess Read Online Free

the unexpected, the art of survival perhaps an inheritance down the generations from that distant Viking ancestor.
    Faro noticed with delight when Leslie dined with them that Sunday how Vince's air of reserve fast dissolved as the evening progressed and the talk veered from Leslie's recent progress as guest in the homes of Scottish nobility to his more exciting tales from the battlefield. Of how, confessing to the sketchiest of medical knowledge, acquired out of necessity, Godwin had used his own ingenuity and common sense to keep a seriously wounded prisoner alive until help arrived.
    Faro, listening to the two men swapping medical experiences, decided that perhaps Godwin, who talked so cynically about taking enemy lives, was being excessively modest about those he had also saved.
    The fact that Vince too was impressed by this relative reinforced the proposal Faro had in mind. He now felt certain that his stepson would approve of Godwin sharing their house during his short stay in Edinburgh.
    Vince's reaction was exactly what he had hoped for.
    'A capital idea, Stepfather. Let's ask him tomorrow night.'
    Godwin, returning to his lodging the following evening, was clearly puzzled but pleasantly surprised to find the two of them waiting for him.
    Faro had to put their proposal to him then and there, guessing by his cousin's nervous glances towards the window of his apartment as they talked that he was too embarrassed to invite them inside.
    'My dear fellows. I'm grateful - touched even - by your kindness.' He shook his head. 'But I must decline. I am somewhat set in my ways, I've lived alone and lived rough, too long. It's no use trying to civilise me. I come and go and sleep and wake all hours of the day and night. I couldn't put you and your excellent Mrs Brook to all that inconvenience. I'm much better off with my Sergeant Batey, he's served me faithfully for umpteen years and he's used to my ways.'
    'He could come too. We have plenty of room in the attics.'
    Godwin chuckled. 'You haven't met him yet. I guarantee he's as eccentric as his master, which suits us both well. He'd drive Mrs Brook - and you - mad. No - no - I couldn't think of inflicting us both on you.'
    'We might persuade him yet,' said Vince as they walked home. 'Incidentally, we're invited to Aberlethie for the weekend. Terence and Sara are having a few guests.'
    The weekend house party was popular among Edinburgh's rich and fashionable merchant class - those with mansions grand enough and gardens magnificent enough to allow gratifying illusions of rubbing shoulders with the aristocracy. And this was the society, Faro thought cynically, that Vince, self-declared man of the people, now moved in.
    Sir Terence Lethie was one of his stepson's new golfing friends, and the proximity of a course to the castle suggested to Faro that he might have to make his own amusement.
    Faro had a solid lack of interest in golf; he was immune to its fever, declaring that he spent enough time on his feet without regarding the pursuit of a golf ball across a green full of holes and aggravating hazards as an agreeable way of spending his leisure hours.
    When he protested that he would be out of place in such an assembly, Vince smiled.
    'Some of Lethie's Masonic friends have been invited. And Terence wants you to come specially, a guest of honour.' He coughed apologetically. 'He wants you to tell them about some of your cases.'
    'So I'm to sing for my supper, is that it?'
    Seeing his stepfather's expression, Vince said: 'I thought you wouldn't mind. And since you are so interested in local history you'll have a chance to meet Stuart Millar. He's a near neighbour.'
    The local historian came of a famous family of travellers, one of whom had accompanied Sir James Bruce of Kinnaird on his travels in Abyssinia in the last century.
    He was also a Grand Master in the Freemasons. Most of Vince's new acquaintances belonged to the order and Vince was being urged to join as an 'apprentice', the