"Katherine Kurtz - Adept 02 - The Lodge of the Lynx" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kurtz Katherine)

Edinburgh.
"More than satisfactory, Humphrey," he said happily. "You know, I thought I'd miss the hustle and bustle of
the city. Oddly enough, though, I find myself settling quite contentedly into the life of a country gentleman.
There really is more room to breathe."
This expansive remark gave Adam cause for private amusement, for he knew that literal breathing space was
not at all what Peregrine had in mind. If the truth were strictly to be told, he suspected that Peregrine's
new-found sense of liberty was due as much to a change in outlook as it was to a change in environment. As
a psychiatrist, Adam was not unfamiliar with the general phenomenon, but Peregrine's case had presented
factors Adam encountered all too seldom. Though reserved and withdrawn at their initial meeting, brooding
like a hawk in captivity, Peregrine gradually had been given the opportunity to try his wings. Even now, though
Peregrine himself was not altogether aware of it, the young artist was in the process of joining the Hunt in
earnest, like the falcon-breed for which he was named. And if Adam Sinclair was reading the signs aright, the
process was rapidly nearing completion.
"Have a scone, Peregrine," he murmured with a smile, as Humphrey offered the younger man a linen-nested
basket. "And you ought to know that Mrs. Gilchrist brought these by fresh this morning, especially for 'that
nice young Mr. Lovat.' Apparently she's taken quite a fancy to you."
Peregrine had started to take just one scone, but now he plucked a second out of the basket before
Humphrey could offer it across to Adam.
"I'd better have two, then, hadn't I?" He grinned wickedly. "After all, I shouldn't want Mrs. G. to think I wasn't
properly appreciative. Good housekeepers are worth their weight in fresh scones!"
"Aye, and you won't find a better one in the entire county," Adam agreed. "She accomplishes more for me in
three half-days a week than most folk could manage working at it full-time. I don't know what Humphrey and I
would do without her. If she's offered to do for you, down at the lodge, don't let her get away, whatever
happens!"
"Oh, I shan't!"
As breakfast conversation ranged on from appreciation of domestic staff to their morning's ride and the clouds
now glowering to the north, the scones slowly disappeared, washed down with cups of tea. Humphrey, eyeing
the portfolio Adam had set casually just inside the door, brought in a folding rosewood card-table from the
adjoining parlor and set it up beside the breakfast table while they ate.
"Suppose we have a look at what you've brought now, shall we?" Adam said, when Humphrey had retired to
the kitchen and they were about finished with breakfast.
Peregrine, after popping the last bite of his last scone into his mouth, wiped his fingers hastily on his napkin
and shifted his chair around to the rosewood table to unzip his portfolio, delving deep inside to draw out
several sheets of watercolor paper, cut to varying sizes.
"My hand was still a bit stiff for pencil work when I started these, and oils take too long to dry," he explained,
as he handed one across to Adam. "I managed to get a fair amount of detail, though, even with the
watercolors. Besides, I've always felt that watercolors were the best medium for capturing the feel of rotten
weather."
The first painting showed three figures crouched in the driving rain in Urquhart Castle's car park, eerily backlit
with a wash of luminescent green. The figures meant to be Peregrine and Adam himself were little more than
vague suggestions of form, glimpsed from behind, but the third, brandishing a long, metal-cased police torch,
quite clearly was Detective Chief Inspector Noel McLeod, Adam's professional and esoteric colleague of
many years' standing. Rain spattered the inspector's wire-rimmed aviator glasses and streamed off his
short-clipped grey moustache as he turned slightly to glance back at them, and both he and Adam wore the
dark green waxed jackets peculiar to country pursuits all over Britain. Peregrine sported his familiar navy
duffel coat.
"Yes, indeed," Adam murmured, smiling as he turned the painting face-down and read the caption Peregrine
had penciled lightly on the back: Master Huntsmen and rank amateur. The smile died as Peregrine handed
him the second painting.
It had the same greenish luminance as the first one, but the perspective had shifted down to the rain-lashed