Read Cursed in the Blood: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery for Free Online

well.”
    “What?” Catherine turned from her husband to her father and back again. “You think I should go?”
    Hubert nodded. “You have a duty to your husband’s family. I have no right to keep you from it.”
    Catherine frowned. That had been reason number three. Something was wrong here. It wasn’t like either man to give in so easily.
    “Why do you want me to go?” she asked suspiciously.
    “I don’t want you to go.” The honesty in Hubert’s voice was unmistakeable. “But I think you should. I shall miss you and worry about you every day.”
    “Really?” Catherine said. “I mean you really believe that it’s my duty to go to Scotland?”
    “With all my heart,” Hubert told her.
    “Edgar?”
    “Your father made me see that it might be best if you met my family,” Edgar said. He didn’t sound as certain as Hubert had. “I have my doubts about it. There is war in England and the North is unsettled by it. The journey won’t be easy.”
    “No journey ever is.” Catherine dismissed that.
    “I would miss you terribly if you stayed behind.” This was said with more conviction. “If I must go, I would rather you were with me.”
    Catherine smiled. She wasn’t sure how she had won so easily but she wasn’t going to complain lest they change their minds. Time enough to ferret out the reason when it was too late for them to back out.
    Suddenly Edgar spoke in English.
    “You can come in, Robert. I can hear your breathing out there. And, yes, I’ve decided to come back with you.”
    Since he’d been found out, Robert pulled the curtain aside and came in. He rushed over and gave Edgar a bear hug. Then he hugged Catherine as well.
    “I understand more than you think!” he said. “She’s talked you into coming, hasn’t she?”
    He grabbed Catherine and lifted, whirling her around.
    “Thank you, bele soeur!” he cried. “Thank you!”
    Catherine grinned at Edgar as she flew past him.
    “I presume this means he likes me?”
    Edgar nodded, then went over to the window where Hubert sat. He stood there for a moment, looking out across the garden to the stream and the town of Paris beyond it. This was Catherine’s world. She had lived most of her life by the hours rung on the bells of Paris. How could he prepare her for the emptiness, the wildness, of Scotland? Or for the bleak homecoming he expected?
     
    Solomon prepared for the trip as well, but was determined to sulk through the whole process.
    “So, what do I have to be this time?” he asked. “I doubt that Catherine could remember to call me Stephen.”
    “She won’t have to,” Edgar said. “There are men named Solomon in Scotland, and I’m certain none of them are Hebrew. We use the old names more than they do here.”
    “Ah, but you still don’t think I could go as myself?” Solomon had expected this.
    Edgar had managed to get his English friend John to take Robert out for an afternoon so that they could meet with Eliazar and discuss the monetary aspect of the journey.
    “I hate making you pretend to be one of them, Solomon,” Eliazar muttered. “There’s no profit anywhere worth risking your soul.”
    Solomon patted his uncle’s shoulder.
    “No one is making me do this,” he said. “After all these years, there’s no chance of my converting. I promise you I’ll not touch pork or take Communion.”
    Eliazar shuddered at the thought.
    “It has to be,” Hubert reminded him. “If he’s going with Catherine and Edgar. His resemblance to her is too strong.”
    Solomon grinned at his cousin. The black curls, the olive skin, the straight, determined nose were the same in each of them. Solomon’s eyes were green and Catherine’s blue and Solomon’s beard covered the chin that was also the same as hers, but no one seeing them together would believe they weren’t related.
    “Don’t worry. I won’t let anyone torment you,” Catherine assured him.
    “Except yourself, of course,” he added, reaching out to tweak her