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  By contrast, the vicar’s study was blinding with light from the enormous windows that ran nearly from ceiling to floor in one wall. An easel near the fireplace, bearing a half-finished oil of black cliffs against the evening sky, showed the reason for the windows, which must have been added long after the house was built.

  Frank and a short, tubby man with a clerical dog-collar were cozily poring over a mass of tattered paper on the desk by the far wall. Frank barely looked up in greeting, but the vicar politely left off his explanations and hurried over to clasp my hand, his round face beaming with sociable delight.

  “Mrs. Randall!” he said, pumping my hand heartily. “How nice to see you again. And you’ve come just in time to hear the news!”

  “News?” Casting an eye on the grubbiness and typeface of the papers on the desk, I calculated the date of the news in question as being likely around 1750. Not precisely stop-the-presses, then.

  “Yes, indeed. We’ve been tracing your husband’s ancestor, Jack Randall, through the army dispatches of the period.” The vicar leaned close, speaking out of the side of his mouth like a gangster in an American film. “I’ve, er, ‘borrowed’ the original dispatches from the local Historical Society files. You’ll be careful not to tell anyone?”

  Amused, I agreed that I would not reveal his deadly secret, and looked about for a comfortable chair in which to receive the latest revelations from the eighteenth century. The wing chair nearest the windows looked suitable, but as I reached to turn it toward the desk, I discovered that it was already occupied. The inhabitant, a small boy with a shock of glossy black hair, was curled up in the depths of the chair, sound asleep.

  “Roger!” The vicar, coming to assist me, was as surprised as I. The boy, startled out of sleep, shot bolt upright, wide eyes the color of moss.

  “Now what are you up to in here, you young scamp?” The vicar was scolding affectionately. “Oh, fell asleep reading the comic papers again?” He scooped up the brightly colored pages and handed them to the lad. “Run along now, Roger, I have business with the Randalls. Oh, wait, I’ve forgotten to introduce you—Mrs. Randall, this is my son, Roger.”

  I was a bit surprised. If ever I’d seen a confirmed bachelor, I would have thought the Reverend Wakefield was it. Still, I took the politely proffered paw and shook it warmly, resisting the urge to wipe a certain residual stickiness on my skirt.

  The Reverend Wakefield looked fondly after the boy as he trooped off toward the kitchen.

  “My niece’s son, really,” he confided. “Father shot down over the Channel, and mother killed in the Blitz, though, so I’ve taken him.”

  “How kind of you,” I murmured, thinking of Uncle Lamb. He, too, had died in the Blitz, killed by a hit to the auditorium of the British Museum, where he had been lecturing. Knowing him, I thought his main feeling would have been gratification that the wing of Persian antiquities next door had escaped.

  “Not at all, not at all.” The vicar flapped a hand in embarrassment. “Nice to have a bit of young life about the house. Now, do have a seat.”

  Frank began talking even before I had set my handbag down. “The most amazing luck, Claire,” he enthused, thumbing through the dog-eared pile. “The vicar’s located a whole series of military dispatches that mention Jonathan Randall.”

  “Well, a good deal of the prominence seems to have been Captain Randall’s own doing,” the vicar observed, taking some of the papers from Frank. “He was in command of the garrison at Fort William for four years or so, but he seems to have spent quite a bit of his time harassing the Scottish countryside above the Border on behalf of the Crown. This lot”—he gingerly separated a stack of papers and laid them on the desk—“is reports of complaints lodged against the Captain by various families and estate holders, claiming everything from interference with their maidservants by the soldiers of the garrison to outright theft of horses, not to mention assorted instances of ‘insult,’ unspecified.”

  I was amused. “So you have the proverbial horse thief in your family tree?” I said to Frank.

  He shrugged, unperturbed. “He was what he was, and nothing I can do about it. I only want to find out. The complaints aren’t all that odd, for that particular time period; the English in general, and the army in particular, were rather notably unpopular throughout the Highlands. No, what’s odd is that nothing ever seems to have come of the complaints, even the serious ones.”

  The vicar, unable to keep still for long, broke in. “That’s right. Not that officers then were held to anything like modern standards; they could do very much as they liked in minor matters. But this is odd. It’s not that the complaints are investigated and dismissed; they’re just never mentioned again. You know what I suspect, Randall? Your ancestor must have had a patron. Someone who could protect him from the censure of his superiors.”

  Frank scratched his head, squinting at the dispatches. “You could be right. Had to have been someone quite powerful, though. High up in the army hierarchy, perhaps, or maybe a member of the nobility.”

  “Yes, or possibly—” The vicar was interrupted in his theories by the entrance of the housekeeper, Mrs. Graham.

  “I’ve brought ye a wee bit of refreshment, gentlemen,” she announced, setting the tea tray firmly in the center of the desk, from which the vicar rescued his precious dispatches in the nick of time. She looked me over with a shrewd eye, assessing the twitching limbs and faint glaze over the eyeballs.

  “I’ve brought but the two cups, for I thought perhaps Mrs. Randall would care to join me in the kitchen. I’ve a bit of—” I didn’t wait for the conclusion of her invitation, but leapt to my feet with alacrity. I could hear the theories breaking out again behind me as we pushed through the swinging door that led to the manse’s kitchen.

  The tea was green, hot and fragrant, with bits of leaf swirling through the liquid.

  “Mmm,” I said, setting the cup down. “It’s been a long time since I tasted Oolong.”

  Mrs. Graham nodded, beaming at my pleasure in her refreshments. She had clearly gone to some trouble, laying out handmade lace mats beneath the eggshell cups and providing thick clotted cream with the scones.

  “Aye, I couldna get it during the War, ye know. It’s the best for the readings, though. Had a terrible time with that Earl Grey. The leaves fall apart so fast, it’s hard to tell anything at all.”

  “Oh, you read tea leaves?” I asked, mildly amused. Nothing could be farther from the popular conception of the gypsy fortune-teller than Mrs. Graham, with her short, iron-grey perm and triple-stranded pearl choker. A swallow of tea ran visibly down the long, stringy neck and disappeared beneath the gleaming beads.

  “Why, certainly I do, my dear. Just as my grandmother taught me, and her grandmother before her. Drink up your cup, and I’ll see what you have there.”

  She was silent for a long time, once in a while tilting the cup to catch the light, or rolling it slowly between lean palms to get a different angle.

  She set the cup down carefully, as though afraid it might blow up in her face. The grooves on either side of her mouth had deepened, and her brows pressed together in what looked like puzzlement.

  “Well,” she said finally. “That’s one of the stranger ones I’ve seen.”

  “Oh?” I was still amused, but beginning to be curious. “Am I going to meet a tall dark stranger, or journey across the sea?”

  “Could be.” Mrs. Graham had caught my ironic tone, and echoed it, smiling slightly. “And could not. That’s what’s odd about your cup, my dear. Everything in it’s contradictory. There’s the curved leaf for a journey, but it’s crossed by the broken one that means staying put. And strangers there are, to be sure, several of them. And one of them’s your husband, if I read the leaves aright.”

  My amusement dissipated somewhat. After six years apart, and six months together, my husband was still something of a stranger. Though I failed to see how a tea leaf could know it.

  Mrs. Graham’s brow was sti
ll furrowed. “Let me see your hand, child,” she said.

  The hand holding mine was bony, but surprisingly warm. A scent of lavender water emanated from the neat part of the grizzled head bent over my palm. She stared into my hand for quite a long time, now and then tracing one of the lines with a finger, as though following a map whose roads all petered out in sandy washes and deserted wastes.

  “Well, what is it?” I asked, trying to maintain a light air. “Or is my fate too horrible to be revealed?”

  Mrs. Graham raised quizzical eyes and looked thoughtfully at my face, but retained her hold on my hand. She shook her head, pursing her lips.

  “Oh, no, my dear. It’s not your fate is in your hand. Only the seed of it.” The birdlike head cocked to one side, considering. “The lines in your hand change, ye know. At another point in your life, they may be quite different than they are now.”

  “I didn’t know that. I thought you were born with them, and that was that.” I was repressing an urge to jerk my hand away. “What’s the point of palm reading, then?” I didn’t wish to sound rude, but I found this scrutiny a bit unsettling, especially following on the heels of that tea-leaf reading. Mrs. Graham smiled unexpectedly, and folded my fingers closed over my palm.

  “Why, the lines of your palm show what ye are, dear. That’s why they change—or should. They don’t, in some people; those unlucky enough never to change in themselves, but there are few like that.” She gave my folded hand a squeeze and patted it. “I doubt that you’re one of those. Your hand shows quite a lot of change already, for one so young. That would likely be the War, of course,” she said, as though to herself.

  I was curious again, and opened my palm voluntarily.

  “What am I, then, according to my hand?”

  Mrs. Graham frowned, but did not pick up my hand again.

  “I canna just say. It’s odd, for most hands have a likeness to them. Mind, I’d no just say that it’s ‘see one, you’ve seen them all,’ but it’s often like that—there are patterns, you know.” She smiled suddenly, an oddly engaging grin, displaying very white and patently false teeth.

  “That’s how a fortune-teller works, you know. I do it for the church fete every year—or did, before the War; suppose I’ll do it again now. But a girl comes into the tent—and there am I, done up in a turban with a peacock feather borrowed from Mr. Donaldson, and ‘robes of oriental splendor’—that’s the vicar’s dressing gown, all over peacocks it is and yellow as the sun—anyway, I look her over while I pretend to be watching her hand, and I see she’s got her blouse cut down to her breakfast, cheap scent, and earrings down to her shoulders. I needn’t have a crystal ball to be tellin’ her she’ll have a child before the next year’s fete.” Mrs. Graham, paused, grey eyes alight with mischief. “Though if the hand you’re holding is bare, it’s tactful to predict first that she’ll marry soon.”

  I laughed, and so did she. “So you don’t look at their hands at all, then?” I asked. “Except to check for rings?”

  She looked surprised. “Oh, of course you do. It’s just that you know ahead of time what you’ll see. Generally.” She nodded at my open hand. “But that is not a pattern I’ve seen before. The large thumb, now”—she did lean forward then and touch it lightly—“that wouldn’t change much. Means you’re strong-minded, and have a will not easily crossed.” She twinkled at me. “Reckon your husband could have told ye that. Likewise about that one.” She pointed to the fleshy mound at the base of the thumb.

  “What is it?”

  “The Mount of Venus, it’s called.” She pursed her thin lips primly together, though the corners turned irrepressibly up. “In a man, ye’d say it means he likes the lasses. For a woman, ’tis a bit different. To be polite about it, I’ll make a bit of a prediction for you, and say your husband isna like to stray far from your bed.” She gave a surprisingly deep and bawdy chuckle, and I blushed slightly.

  The elderly housekeeper pored over my hand again, stabbing a pointed forefinger here and there to mark her words.

  “Now, there, a well-marked lifeline; you’re in good health, and likely to stay so. The lifeline’s interrupted, meaning your life’s changed markedly—well, that’s true of us all, is it not? But yours is more chopped-up, like, than I usually see; all bits and pieces. And your marriage-line, now”—she shook her head again—“it’s divided; that’s not unusual, means two marriages …”

  My reaction was slight, and immediately suppressed, but she caught the flicker and looked up at once. I thought she probably was quite a shrewd fortune-teller, at that. The grey head shook reassuringly at me.

  “No, no, lass. It doesna mean anything’s like to happen to your good man. It’s only that if it did,” she emphasized the “if” with a slight squeeze of my hand, “you’d not be one to pine away and waste the rest of your life in mourning. What it means is, you’re one of those can love again if your first love’s lost.”

  She squinted nearsightedly at my palm, running a short, ridged nail gently down the deep marriage line. “But most divided lines are broken—yours is forked.” She looked up with a roguish smile. “Sure you’re not a bigamist, on the quiet, like?”

  I shook my head, laughing. “No. When would I have the time?” Then I turned my hand, showing the outer edge.

  “I’ve heard that small marks on the side of the hand indicate how many children you’ll have?” My tone was casual, I hoped. The edge of my palm was disappointingly smooth.

  Mrs. Graham flicked a scornful hand at this idea.

  “Pah! After ye’ve had a bairn or two, ye might show lines there. More like you’d have them on your face. Proves nothing at all beforehand.”

  “Oh, it doesn’t?” I was foolishly relieved to hear this. I was going to ask whether the deep lines across the base of my wrist meant anything (a potential for suicide?), but we were interrupted at that point by the Reverend Wakefield coming into the kitchen bearing the empty tea cups. He set them on the drainboard and began a loud and clumsy fumbling through the cupboard, obviously in hopes of provoking help.

  Mrs. Graham sprang to her feet to defend the sanctity of her kitchen, and pushing the Reverend adroitly to one side, set about assembling tea things on a tray for the study. He drew me to one side, safely out of the way.

  “Why don’t you come to the study and have another cup of tea with me and your husband, Mrs. Randall? We’ve made really a most gratifying discovery.”

  I could see that in spite of outward composure, he was bursting with the glee of whatever they had found, like a small boy with a toad in his pocket. Plainly I was going to have to go and read Captain Jonathan Randall’s laundry bill, his receipt for boot repairs, or some document of similar fascination.

  Frank was so absorbed in the tattered documents that he scarcely looked up when I entered the study. He reluctantly surrendered them to the vicar’s podgy hands, and came round to stand behind the Reverend Wakefield and peer over his shoulder, as though he could not bear to let the papers out of his sight for a moment.

  “Yes?” I said politely, fingering the dirty bits of paper. “Ummm, yes, very interesting.” In fact, the spidery handwriting was so faded and so ornate that it hardly seemed worth the trouble of deciphering it. One sheet, better preserved than the rest, had some sort of crest at the top.

  “The Duke of … Sandringham, is it?” I asked, peering at the crest, with its faded leopard couchant, and the printing below, more legible than the handwriting.

  “Yes, indeed,” the vicar said, beaming even more. “An extinct title, now, you know.”

  I didn’t, but nodded intelligently, being no stranger to historians in the manic grip of discovery. It was seldom necessary to do more than nod periodically, saying “Oh, really?” or “How perfectly fascinating!” at appropriate intervals.

  After a certain amount of deferring back and forth between Frank and the vicar, the latter won the honor of telling me about their discovery. Evidently, all this rubbish made it appear that Frank’s an
cestor, the notorious Black Jack Randall, had not been merely a gallant soldier for the Crown, but a trusted—and secret—agent of the Duke of Sandringham.

  “Almost an agent provocateur, wouldn’t you say, Dr. Randall?” The vicar graciously handed the ball back to Frank, who seized it and ran.

  “Yes, indeed. The language is very guarded, of course.…” He turned the pages gently with a scrubbed forefinger.

  “Oh, really?” I said.

  “But it seems from this that Jonathan Randall was entrusted with the job of stirring up Jacobite sentiments, if any existed, among the prominent Scottish families in his area. The point being to smoke out any baronets and clan chieftains who might be harboring secret sympathies in that direction. But that’s odd. Wasn’t Sandringham a suspected Jacobite himself?” Frank turned to the vicar, a frown of inquiry on his face. The vicar’s smooth, bald head creased in an identical frown.

  “Why, yes, I believe you’re right. But wait, let’s check in Cameron”—he made a dive for the bookshelf, crammed with calf-bound volumes—“he’s sure to mention Sandringham.”

  “How perfectly fascinating,” I murmured, allowing my attention to wander to the huge corkboard that covered one wall of the study from floor to ceiling.

  It was covered with an amazing assortment of things; mostly papers of one sort or another, gas bills, correspondence, notices from the Diocesan Council, loose pages of novels, notes in the vicar’s own hand, but also small items like keys, bottle caps, and what appeared to be small car parts, attached with tacks and string.

  I browsed idly through the miscellanea, keeping half an ear tuned to the argument going on behind me. (The Duke of Sandringham probably was a Jacobite, they decided.) My attention was caught by a genealogical chart, tacked up with special care in a spot by itself, using four tacks, one to a corner. The top of the chart included names dated in the early seventeenth century. But it was the name at the bottom of the chart that had caught my eye: “Roger W. (MacKenzie) Wakefield,” it read.