Free Murder in Paradise by Alanna Knight

magnificent castle. Like something out of a fairy tale.’
    ‘Lena is from Glasgow, Jeremy. There’s always been rivalry between the two great cities, as you well know.’ Erland sounded apologetic and Lena sighed and nodded.
    ‘I would like to visit Edinburgh some day.’
    That was another lie. And watching Erland kiss her hand and whisper, ‘And I shall take you there, my darling, perhaps on our honeymoon,’ Faro’s lips narrowed. He had a sudden irresistible desire to say, ‘When you do, you should make a point of visiting the High Court, an unforgettable experience – it is where all the murder trials take place.’
    A girl ran out of the house towards them.
    ‘Where have you been, Poppy?’ asked Lena jumping to her feet.
    ‘Well might you ask. I thought I’d never get away from him. I’m exhausted, he’s been at me all morning,’ she groaned.
    What on earth was she talking about? Soon it became evident that Lena’s friend was another of Rossetti’s models.
    ‘Good morning, Jeremy,’ she said and held out her hand. As the conversation had turned to exciting feminine matters such as what she had bought in London to wear for the wedding, to which the men were outsiders, Poppy turned to Faro with a comical shrug.
    ‘I hope you are enjoying your visit and that these two aren’t boring you to death with their wedding plans.’ Pausing to smile indulgently at them, she said, ‘It is all their conversation, you would think no one in the world had ever got married since Adam and Eve. Perhaps Jeremy would like me to show him the garden. Come along.’
    And as she took his arm in the manner of one who was an old friend – and a very attractive one, Faro had to admit – he decided that the two girls were not unalike in appearance, slender with slight frame and delicate colouring of the type that the artists seemed to admire in their models.
    As Poppy steered him towards the summerhouse in its romantic seclusion beyond the rose garden, she did not appear to notice his monosyllabic response to her polite questions, preoccupied as he was with the possibility that Erland had told Lena that he was a policeman and she would remember him as the Edinburgh constable who escorted her from the High Court.
    But it was the transformation in Erland that troubled him most. How on earth was he to avert the imminent disaster, the death blow to his happiness when the truth about Lena Hamilton was revealed?
    There was an alternative, of course; the only one. To keep that information to himself and leave Erland and Madeleine to their fate.
    Fate, however, had other plans and was to take the matter out of Faro’s hands in the form of the pre-wedding masque and the advent of a newcomer to Red House, Topsy Morris’s business manager, the wealthy and highly eligible bachelor, George Wardle.

C HAPTER E IGHT
    There was no escape from the present or the charming girl whose attentions he would have normally found extremely flattering. Leading the way beyond the rose garden to the secluded summerhouse, she indicated one of its rustic seats and asked gently, ‘Are you here for your cousin’s wedding?’
    Faro thought for a moment. A lie perhaps? ‘Not entirely. I happened to be in the district on business.’
    Had Lena kept Erland’s promise of secrecy or did she also know that he was a policeman?
    Poppy looked at him eagerly, her expression demanding further information, and he said, ‘I’m here on business for an Edinburgh client.’
    ‘You are in property then?’
    ‘In a way.’ That much was vaguely true.
    ‘When did you last see Erland?’
    ‘A long time ago. In Orkney when we were young, at school in fact…’
    She frowned. ‘How odd – I thought you were in constant touch with one another – being cousins, family and that sort of thing—’
    She sounded reproachful and he hastily interrupted. ‘He isn’t really my cousin.’
    ‘But he said—’
    ‘His family and mine are distantly related – in a small