by G M Mckay
The Curse of The Golden Touch
A greystone manor mystery
G.M. Mckay
StonePony Studios
Copyright©2019 Genevieve Mckay.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
The Sting of the Serpent’s Blade - A Preview
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by G.M. Mckay
Chapter 1
“You treat that horse like an oversized dog, Jillian,” Mother said from the open window of her charcoal-grey Daimler Consort. She arched her thinly plucked eyebrows disapprovingly at Bally, who was grazing placidly nearby, then shifted her sharp gaze toward me.
I looked away, avoiding the argument she was obviously dying to start, and scuffed the toe of my leather boot against the frozen ground, upturning a few clods of dirt. Cold morning air stung my cheeks and my breath plumed out in a cloud.
Beyond the sleek-lined car, the sun made its first push up over the horizon, spreading a tinge of pink across the rolling hills and lighting up the delicate layer of frost that outlined every blade of grass and russet leaf like the late autumn landscape had been dipped in sugar. Fall was my favourite time of year; everything seemed to have a touch of magic cast over it somehow.
Mother huffed out a column of frosty air, irritated by my silence, and pulled her heavy mink coat tighter around her thin frame. A strand of jet-black hair nearly escaped from under her matching fur turban before she ruthlessly tucked it away; nothing annoyed her more than disorder. She had the look that matched her immaculate classic car; that of an aging film star from the 1920s. Even at this hour, her face was perfectly made up, right down to the blood-red lipstick and dark smoky eyes, as if she were poised to take center stage.
“Imported dressage horses from Germany should not be walking around the estate, loose, like tame circus ponies,” she said finally, trying to needle me again. “He has important competitions coming up. You should be focused on your training. Or at the very least, you should not be traipsing around the property at all hours like a lost soul. You need to think of your future, Jillian.”
“Yes, Mother,” I said, automatically side-stepping her disapproval like I had every day for the last twenty years of my life. “But Bally is just as clever as a circus pony, aren’t you, boy?”
I looked over at the big horse fondly, smiling as he carefully plucked the last frozen red berries off a rosehip bush. Besides being a talented dressage horse, Bally had a variety of tricks that I’d taught him over the years. He could shake hands … er, hooves … and nod his head yes and no when you pretended to ask him a question, he could bow on command, and he’d even taught himself to open his stall door and sneak outside when nobody was looking. “Besides, he loves our morning walks; Christoph says they’re good for him.”
“Christoph.” Mother wrinkled the tip of her elegant nose as if she’d smelled something bad. Our head trainer, Christoph, and Mother had a love-hate relationship that had spanned the last fifteen years. They disagreed on nearly everything and she only kept him on because our horses looked fantastic under his care and won pretty much every competition they entered.
“Never mind all that,” she said dismissively, waving a gloved hand in my direction. “I didn’t come all the way out here at this ungodly hour to argue. Your cousin is here. He wants to see you.”
“Which cousin?” I asked warily. My many choices in cousins ranged from friendly and fun to borderline insane.
Mother sighed heavily and put one hand wearily over her eyes as if our brief conversation had taxed the last of her strength.
“I can’t be expected to waste all my time answering your endless questions, Jillian. Move along. I left him eating eggs in the kitchen. I honestly don’t know why you can’t be more like your cousin Viola over at Lime Tree. You don’t see her trooping around in the wilderness like a hobo before sunrise. After she schools the ponies she stays in the house and has cocktails like a civilized human being.”
She sent another despairing look at Bally, rolled up her window, and peeled away like a race car driver in the direction of the house, tires spinning on the loose gravel.
“Because Cousin Viola is the most boring, vapid human-being on the planet,” I whispered rebelliously after the retreating car. Which wasn’t quite fair; Viola was okay in her own way, we just didn’t have much in common. Besides the Sport Ponies she bred and trained, she liked to talk about three things: money, men, and men who had money. It got a little tedious after a while. But, even after all these years, it still stung the tiniest bit that she was exactly the sort of daughter Mother wished I’d been.
“Come on, handsome, I guess we’ll have to cut our walk short this morning.”
Bally popped his head up out the shrub he’d been rooting around in and harrumphed, giving me an offended look.
“I’m sorry, I’ll make it up to you later.” I ran my hand down his silky grey neck and adjusted the front of the thick, green-plaid stable blanket he always wore on frosty mornings. It had shifted to one side during our trek up the hill, giving him a rakish air.
Impulsively, I reached out and gave him a kiss on his silvery nose, admiring for the millionth time how truly beautiful he was. Bally was one of those rare dapple grey horses whose colour hadn’t yet faded as he aged. His dapples were vivid star-bursts of white over a background of smoky gun-metal grey. He had dark, intelligent eyes, and the proudly arched neck and broad, well-muscled back that were the hallmark of good breeding combined with many years of careful schooling.
Bally had been there with me through thick and thin, starting when I was a shy teenager right through my short-lived engagement to awful Fredrick. When my marriage plans had come to such a disastrous (and so very, very public) end, Bally had been my calm in the storm.
He and I had been sneaking in these pre-breakfast walks since I’d brought him home from Europe as a clumsy, uncoordinated two-year-old. He’d been a present from my father one year and we’d spent nearly every minute of our lives together from the moment he set foot on the property. I’d even trained him to follow me loose like a dog without needing a halter or lead rope. It was effective most of the time … unless he happened to discover something more interesting than me.
As if guessing my thoughts, he lifted his head high in the air and pricked his ears, staring intently in the direction of our barn. A hopeful whinny escaped him and he worked his jaw in a slight chewing motion as if he were imagining eating something tasty. Far away, I could just make out the sounds of the other horses being fed their breakfast grain; buckets rattled, stall doors slid open, and horses nickered eagerly in anticipation.
�
�Wait, Bally,” I said, fumbling with the empty halter in my hand, but it was too late. His eyes lit up, he made an excited chortling sound under his breath and, before I could stop him, he took off past me in a trundling trot in the direction of the stables. His long, silver tail streamed behind him like a banner.
“Well, fine then,” I called to his plump, retreating hindquarters. “Suit yourself. I’ll go get my own breakfast then. Don’t blame me if Christoph gives you a long lecture in Czech when you get back.”
The estate was fully fenced; there was nowhere for a horse to escape, and food-loving Bally would inevitably head directly inside the barn for his breakfast, so I wasn’t too worried. I knew Christoph, or his son Gilbert, would tuck Bally safely in his stall.
Sighing at the unwelcome interruption to my morning routine, I trudged downhill before turning up the lane toward the modest ten bedroom bungalow that was Greystone Manor, my childhood home.
Make that ten bedrooms, fifteen bathrooms, two libraries, plus countless living and sitting rooms. Not to mention the billiard room, the conservatory, the sunken pool, and my father’s sprawling office that had its own miniature putting green. All set in a rambling grey, stone fortress that looked like it should have a moat and a dungeon (it didn’t).
It had been in my family for generations and probably hadn’t changed much in all that time. Despite her constant, restless, remodelling of the furnishings of the house, Mother insisted that the manor stay the same as it had for the last hundred years or so. We didn’t even have central heating.
I avoided the huge wooden front doors with their snarling gargoyle brass knockers and instead went around to the side kitchen entrance, inhaling deeply as the smell of coffee, freshly baked biscuits and bacon hit me before I’d even opened the door. The homey yellow-bricked kitchen was my favourite room in the entire house. Growing-up, Gilbert and I had spent many a blissful hour there with my old Scottish Nanny and our cook Betty, listening to their stories while we ate cookies or did our homework by the fireplace. Mother hadn’t approved of having a television, or even a radio, in the house but I’d hardly noticed the loss with those three keeping me entertained.
Dropping the empty halter beside the stone steps, I pushed at the well-worn door and cautiously peered inside, half-dreading which cousin I might find.
My ancestors had really outdone themselves in the baby-making department. My great-grandmother on my mother’s side had had fourteen sisters and most of them had had seven or eight children of their own. And of course, most of those children had had children and so on, which left me with more cousins and assorted relatives than I could shake a stick at. I’d long given up keeping track of them all, especially when Mother was often involved in bitter, long-running feuds with one family member or another.
But this time I was in luck.
“If you don’t get your filthy boots off this table instantly, Mister Xan, I’ll remove them myself. Permanently.”
I paused just inside the doorway, wincing at Betty’s withering tone. She was a no-nonsense sort of cook who’d been with the family longer than I’d been alive and had no problem telling anyone off. Even Mother was afraid of her, though of course, she pretended not to be.
“Now, Betty, don’t get you knickers in a twist,” Xan teased, leaning far back on the hind legs of his chair and wiggling the heels of his immaculate riding boots on the ancient wooden table. His dark hair was slicked back, and he was clean-shaven and smelled strongly of cologne—a sure sign that he was about to hit someone up for money or a favour. He nudged his plate of eggs dangerously close to the edge of the table, stabbing at the runny yolk with his fork. Then he caught sight of me.
“Canadian cousin!” Xan called, using his silly nickname for me. He was from the American branch of our family and always pretended to make fun of my non-existent accent. He dropped his feet to the floor and sprang up to meet me, his brown eyes alight with genuine happiness. “You look ravishing as usual.”
“Xander,” I said happily, throwing my arms around his neck and giving him a solid kiss on the cheek. “You look ravishing, too. Where’s Mother?”
“Probably back in her crypt, the old hag,” Xan muttered and then yelped when Betty smacked him upside the head with a wooden spoon.
“Xander,” Betty said warningly, “you’d better have finished your breakfast and vacated my kitchen by the time I get back. I mean it.” She sent him a stern look and then stomped out, still brandishing the spoon.
“Try to be nice, Xan.”
“I can’t,” he said happily, sitting back down at the table and pulling me into the wooden chair beside his. “It’s not in my nature. Which is why I need your help.”
“I thought you were up to something,” I said, helping myself to a toasted biscuit off his plate. “Are you here so I can give you a lesson in manners?”
“No … well, yes, sort of. Do you remember Great Aunt Ruth?”
“Ugh, how could I forget?” I had a sudden vision of a scowling, grey-haired lady telling me to “man-up” because I was a weak rider who “rode like a girl.” An insult that had baffled me because most of the top riders I knew were women. “She tripped me with her cane when I was ten and I had to spend Christmas in a cast. I remember it like it was yesterday.”
“Yes, that’s her. We used to call her Great Aunt Ruthless, remember? Rich. Reclusive. Bitter. Rich as sin. Childless. Did I mention rich?”
“Several times.”
“That’s where I need your help, Jilly.”
I frowned and sat up abruptly, putting plenty of space between us. “Xan,” I said sternly, “I’m not sure where you’re going with this, but I’m not going to help you take money from anyone. I’m sorry if your parents’ death left you poor…”
“Now, now, Jilly, don’t get your knickers in a twist. I’m not exactly destitute you know, we orphans still have that drafty old mansion to roam around in and enough money to keep us in horses. And I’m not trying to steal fortunes from helpless old ladies if that’s what you’re worried about. She’s invited me to visit her estate in Quebec, is all, and I don’t want to go alone.”
“Ooh,” I said, relieved and suddenly interested. Great Aunt Ruth was ultra-reclusive to the point of being a hermit; she came to stay with us at Christmas occasionally, but other than that she kept in strict hiding. In her youth, she’d evented for the Canadian Equestrian Team. She had been in line to be the first woman to event for Canada at the Olympics, but there’d been some sort of scandal and she’d dropped right off the map. After years of travel, she’d finally settled down on her parents’ massive estate in northern Quebec to quietly breed sport horses. Her place was far off the beaten path and hardly anyone in our family had stepped foot on her property. Certainly, I’d never been invited to stay. “Really? That’s fantastic, Xan. She must actually like you.”
“I can’t imagine why, unless it’s because I’m strikingly handsome, witty and look extra nice in tight breeches.”
“That must be it,” I said, stifling my laughter, “but Xan, why are you here instead of there, then?”
“Nerves,” he said dramatically, “she’s an extremely intimidating old lady and I don’t want to go alone. Just look at this letter.”
He pulled a thick wad of paper out of his pocket and slapped it down on the table between us.
I unfolded the stiff paper carefully. Dear Boy, it said in large, slashing letters. It is of utmost importance that you come to Dark Lady Farm immediately. There are things you must know. Disobey me at your peril. Bring your best horses.
Beneath the words there was a hastily drawn sketch of a cloaked woman on a rearing horse. I ran my fingers lightly over the ink drawing where the pen had dug in so deeply that it had nearly torn the thick paper. It was a curious thing to add to a letter, I hadn’t thought of Great Aunt Ruth as having any artistic leanings.
“Bring your best horses?” I said in confusion, reading the letter again. “Disobey me at your peril? What kind of letter is t
his?”
“A scary one,” Xan said solemnly, “She’s hinted a few times in the past that I might be in line to inherit something from her. She’s always liked that I event. I never put much weight in her promises since she’s crazy as a loon but maybe she wants to sponsor my bid for the Olympics or something.”
I nodded encouragingly but secretly thought that Xan had less than a zero chance of ever making it to the Olympics. He was a decent rider of course, but he liked sleeping in and lounging around by the pool far too much to ever train seriously, and he couldn’t be bothered to look for sponsors. It took a pretty high drive to make it in any sort of international competition, let alone the Olympics.
“Xan, this letter is dated the fifteenth of August. That was weeks ago.”
“Well, I doubt she expected me to drop everything and rush to her side. I had to find a suitable horse, after all.”
“It sounds to me like she wanted you to come right away.”
“I think that’s just how cranky, old people always sound. Now you see why I don’t want to go alone, though. Don’t you remember the Christmas she had Alastair in tears?”
I did remember. Vividly. Despite the fact that they disliked each other with the intensity of frothing rabid foxes, my mother’s family insisted on getting together at least once a year for a holiday filled with stony disapproval, heavy drinking, and sometimes outright brawls.
On the years when Great Aunt Ruth spent Christmas at Greystone Manor, she always delighted in planting herself in a heavy armchair right by the Christmas tree, in striking distance of all the young cousins with her cane. She’d drink endless glasses of gin and make snide comments at anyone who dared slink close enough to collect their presents. She’d never liked me much and she’d grudgingly tolerated Xan, but her hatred of Xan’s older siblings, my sly, creepy cousins Sally and Alastair, knew no bounds.