Free Death Is in the Air by Kate Kingsbury Page B

from the straight and narrow path.
    “Why the glum look? You don’t like the champagne?”
    Startled out of her thoughts, she quickly lifted her glass. Bubbles danced before her eyes as she murmured, “To your good health, Major Monroe.”
    Instead of answering her, he rose from his chair. “Can I ask a favor?”
    Wary now, she put down the glass. “Of course.”
    “Do I have to sit at the end of this table? I feel like I’m trying to talk to you from the opposite end of a jungle.”
    She hesitated, torn between fear of losing her security and the very strong desire to have him sit closer. In the end, desire won. She waved a hand at the chair to her right. “Please, make yourself at home.”
    He grinned, unsettling her even further as he sat down in the chair she’d indicated. “That’s better. Now I can hear you and see you. I was beginning to get lonely down there.”
    Matching his light tone, she murmured, “Well, we can’t have that, can we. I wouldn’t want it spread about that the Hartleighs were inhospitable.”
    “I thought there was only one Hartleigh now.”
    She smiled. “Only one in residence. I have uncles, aunts, and various cousins scattered around the world. Most of them live abroad.”
    “What happened to your parents?”
    His abrupt question disturbed her. She took a moment to regroup her thoughts.
    “I’m sorry . . . if you’d rather not answer—”
    “No, it’s all right.” She took a sip of her champagne and was pleasantly surprised by the delicate flavor. “This is very good.”
    “I’m glad you like it.”
    She liked the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. His skin looked leathery, dried out from too much sun and wind. She felt an instant’s longing to see the land where he’d grown up then quickly began speaking in an effort to erase the treacherous thought. “My parents were in London attending a concert two years ago, during the Blitz. My mother didn’t want to go, but my father insisted. He was not about to let those filthy Nazis, as he called them, stop him from living his life. They were waiting for a taxi when the sirens sounded. On their way to the shelter a bomb landed just down the street. They were both killed instantly.”
    She sat staring down at her glass while the silence seemed to stretch into hours.
    Then Earl Monroe gently covered her hand with his. “I’m sorry. That must have been real tough.”
    She gulped. “It was.”
    The door swung open and crashed against the wall, startling them both. Earl snatched his hand away, while Elizabeth sat up straight, trying to look as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.
    Martin shuffled into the room, bearing a tray upon which a large soup tureen balanced at a somewhat precarious angle. “Soup, madam!” he shouted, making her jump.
    “Thank you, Martin.” Elizabeth eyed the priceless tureen, wondering what on earth had possessed Violet to entrust it to his unsteady hands. “You may put it down here.”
    Quickly she cleared a space for it near her plate, then watched in trepidation as Martin advanced one uncertainstep at a time, bearing his burden as if it were a sacrifice being offered to the gods.
    Holding her breath, she waited for him to reach the table, ready to spring into action should his step falter. When it happened, she was unprepared for it after all.
    Martin tilted the tray just a fraction, but it was enough to start the heavy tureen sliding toward the edge. Elizabeth froze, certain that her butler would be badly scalded by the hot soup. Before she had time to let out her breath, however, Earl had leapt from his chair and somehow rounded the table in time to grab the tureen by its handles.
    “We’ll just put it down here, sir,” he said and deposited the precious china pot safely onto the white linen tablecloth without spilling a drop.
    Martin’s eyebrows twitched a few times. “I say, sir. Magnificent catch. Couldn’t have done better myself. Make a good