Molly by M.C. Beaton Page A

England?”
    “Dear me, no! Welcoming the arrival of Christian missionaries in their coracles. Well, we couldn’t have a motorcar in that. So modern. But the Boy Scouts covered it with painted canvas and turned the motor into a sacrificial chariot, which really looked splendid, although it did take its victims to the altar rather
fast
. Now then. I hear someone in the shop.”
    Molly’s sharp ears picked up the sound of Lord David’s voice. “Let me hear what he’s saying,” she said, getting to her feet. “Probably planning his funeral.”
    She crept to the door and opened it a crack. Lord David’s strong voice sailed into the room. “I don’t think this idea of yours is going to work,” they heard him say. “We came a cropper on
The Highland Heart
. This time ask Mrs. Pomfret what Molly reads—what she has chosen
herself.
”
    “Right-ho!” replied Roddy, giving the bell on the counter a smart ring.
    Mrs. Pomfret looked at the girls with bewildered eyes. “I don’t understand. Why should they want to know what you read, Molly?”
    “Anyway, it can’t do any harm to find out what the man of her dreams is like,” said Roddy with fatal clarity.
    “It’s a good thing you didn’t go in for any of that strong, silent crushing in
The Highland Heart
,” he went on. “I tell you, find out what she reads and you’ll find out the kind of man she likes.”
    Molly’s lips folded into a thin line. She looked around the kitchen. A newly opened parcel of books for the library lay on the kitchen table. On the top was one with a brightly colored jacket portraying a Regency buck surveying a simpering miss through his quizzing glass. It was entitled
The Marquess of Maidstone’s Downfall.
    “Give this to Lord David,” whispered Molly urgently. “Tell him this is my favorite book and I wish I could meet a man like the Marquess of Maidstone.”
    Mrs. Pomfret looked at Molly in bewilderment but she had done exactly what Molly had wanted before and had thereby rid herself of a blackmailer. With simple trust, the postmistress picked up the book. She was a strictly honest woman but for Molly Maguire she would have lied to the Archangel Gabriel himself. She hurried off into the outer shop.
    Molly looked thoughtfully at her sister. “It’s a long time since we’ve been to confession, Mary,” she said.
    “How can we?” said Mary with a mouthful of cake. “The nearest chapel is miles from here.”
    “We’ve got our bicycles.”
    “So we have,” said Mary, brightening. “But we’ll be late home for dinner and Lady Fanny will say we are so
undisciplined.
”
    “We’ve been very good up till now,” said Molly, laughing.
    “Man of my dreams, indeed! I wonder why he bothers? Probably he and Cynthia are planning to play some terrible practical joke on me. It’s just the sort of thing they would do!”
    * * *
    Lord David and the marquess climbed to the top of an old ruined tower at the end of the harbor wall and sat down to peruse
The Marquess of Maidstone’s Downfall.
    “Are you sure you want to be bothered with this?” said Roddy. “What was all that stuff the night of the ball about the Maguire sisters just being like any other girls?”
    “I changed my mind,” said Lord David briefly. “Read.”
    “Oh, very well,” said Robby gloomily. “But it looks like the most awful sludge.”
    He bent his head over the book. Lord David propped his back against the crumbling wall of the tower and surveyed the scenery.
    The sun was low in the sky, casting a crimson path across the still water and bathing the old buildings around the harbor in a rosy glow.
    Swallows darted and skimmed over dark-blue water. People were walking about lazily or talking in groups. One by one the fishing boats were coming home. There was a faint smell of woodsmoke and fish and strong tea mixed with the piny smells of the woods behind the town. It all seemed very peaceful. For the first time he was aware of a feeling of holiday. He