Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

Gordon was encircled by an ancient, stone wall, perhaps eight feet high. But in many places that wall had crumbled over time, and where it had collapsed, leaving great gaps in the masonry, it had been replaced with hedges and trees, giving the vague impression that nature was slowly winning in a war of attrition against Man.

The road entered the grounds of the castle through a large, iron gate that stood open, and from the gate onward the road became the driveway. On either side of that drive there were well-tended lawns, formal gardens, and to the left a large topiary maze.

A butler in traditional dress and a page were waiting for us at the foot of the stone steps that led up to the main door. When we pulled up, the butler opened the door for Dehan and welcomed us to Gordon’s Soma while the page took my keys to open the trunk, unload our luggage and park the car. While he did that, I stood back and had a good look at the building. You could have described it as a horrific mixture of styles thrown together with a total disregard for esthetics or proportion, a monstrous affront to architecture and a grotesque stone pile. You could very well have described it like that, if you’d had no soul.

On the right hand side, at the front, there was a massive, square, four story solid stone tower with castellations at the top and narrow, gabled windows on the second, third and fourth floors. On the ground floor, a leaded bay window overlooked yellow and red rosebushes, while dense ivy swarmed up the wall as far as the second floor.

The central body of the building was granite, with a gabled portico supported on ancient stone pillars, and a gabled slate roof with tall chimneypots. To my uneducated eye, it looked as though the tower was Victorian mock Elizabethan, where the main body was maybe two hundred years older, maybe 17th century. On the far left there was another wing in paler stone, running at right angles to the house. It was only three stories high, with small, narrow windows and battlements up top. That, I guessed, was what was left of the original castle. The overall effect was that of a messy jumble of rocks and styles, but somehow it came together and became a beautiful, ancient work of art.

“You coming?”

Dehan was standing on the granite steps smiling at me. The butler was at the door, holding it open, as though there was nothing else in the world he needed to be doing right then. The sun was bright and the scent of the roses was strong on the air. For a moment it was a perfect, timeless scene. I smiled, said, “I’m coming,” and stepped toward her, and as we climbed the steps together, a cloud moved across the sun, casting a deep shadow over the castle, and a clammy, muggy breeze touched my skin.

We stepped through the door, and the butler said, “Welcome to Castle Gordon.”

TWO

We stepped into a vaulted, Gothic entrance hall. The floor was tiled in a black and white checkerboard pattern, and a magnificent stone staircase rose directly in front of us, and then split in two to ascend, right and left, to a galleried first floor landing. Immediately on our right was a reception desk and coming out from behind it as we entered was a man in his early thirties in chinos and a blazer, with blond hair swept back from a face that was intelligent, but too kind to be handsome.

He held out a large, soft hand and smiled as we approached. “Mr. and Mrs. Stone, I imagine. How splendid that you could join us. We have a full house this summer.”

There was no trace of an accent and I figured he had been educated at an English boarding school. We shook hands and he added, as though we had asked, “Charles Gordon. My father insists on calling me Junior, because he is also Charles. So we call him Senior. He’s an American, you know. Now!” He gave each of us a broad grin and held out his arms like he was about to hug us. “I imagine you will want to freshen up after a long journey. Brown will show you to your room and we’ll be having cocktails in the drawing room…” He gestured across the hall to a set of walnut doors. “At seven. Then you’ll be able to meet our other charming guests. We’ll be going in to dine at about half seven or eight.”

Dehan frowned. “Half seven?” Then she grinned. “What’s that, three thirty?”

Charles laughed.

I said, “Seven thirty, smart ass. Thank you, Charles, that sounds perfect. I’ve heard you have an exceptional range of whiskeys.”

“Second to none, old chap, and I’ll guide you through them with great pleasure. I’ve put you in the tower, in the honeymoon suite. I trust you’ll find it comfortable.”

The honeymoon suite was everything you’d expect from a Hollywood rendition of a Scottish castle. There was a gigantic mahogany four poster bed with drapes, there were gabled, leaded windows overlooking the formal gardens, a stone fireplace big enough to house a small family and vast, bare wooden rafters overhead. The walls were oak paneled and on the bedside table there was a silver bucket filled with ice, holding a bottle of Bollinger and two Edinburgh crystal glasses.

Once Brown had put our cases on the bed and left, Dehan stood looking around with a big smile all over the right side of her face. “Oh man,” she said. “Stone.”

I took off my jacket and she crossed the room to poke her head into the bathroom. “There is a free standing tub, with clawed feet and gold taps.” She turned and winked at me. “Open the champagne, big guy, we’re going to have a bath,