Page 93 of The Curse of Penryth Hall

He cleared his throat and turned a page in the paper. Bothof us fully aware he wasn’t reading a word. “My great-aunt Persimmon always said facing one’s mortality improves a girl’s vigor.”

“Well then, in that case how do you gauge my vigor?” I smiled at him. Truly smiled. This was where I was supposed to be. I knew it now. Somehow I’d made a home for myself in Exeter. Accidentally, to be sure, but I belonged with the secretive old Scot, my high-handed housekeeper, and a fickle house cat.

“I think it’s past time you and I took a holiday.”

Crumbs from the biscuit lodged in my throat and I coughed, but it didn’t stop me from grabbing another and putting it into my mouth, chewing more slowly this time. “A holiday?”

He laid the paper down, and looked at me squarely. “Scotland, to be exact.”

I narrowed my gaze at him, “We, or me? You hate Scotland.”

His white mustache twitched in amusement. “I know a chap with a lovely castle there. He’s turned the thing into a bit of a resort, but he’s asked if I’d come sort out some medieval illustrated manuscripts for him.”

“What are you plotting?”

“Plotting? Dear girl, who do you take me for?”

I refused to take my eyes off him, the fiend. I knew him too well for that—he had a plan. Though what sort, I couldn’t begin to fathom. “At least promise me no more curses.”

But the old man didn’t say a word, he just laughed.