Let Slip the Dogs of War: A Bard's Bed & Breakfast Mystery #1

Let Slip the Dogs of War:

A Bard’s Bed & Breakfast Mystery

by Sara M. Barton

Published by Sara M. Barton at Smashwords

Copyright Sara M. Barton 2012

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Coming Soon -- More
Bard’s Bed & Breakfast Mysteries
by Sara M.
Barton:

A Plague on Both Your Houses

What Fools These Mortals Be

Dance with Danger Mysteries
by Sara M. Barton:

Bossa Nova with a Belligerent Bear

Foxtrot with a Furtive Fox

Mambo with a Maniacal Mako

Paso Doble with a Passionate Python

Square Dance with a Scandalous Skunk

No Hiding Behind the Potted Palms!
(Anthology)

Bodacious Baby Boomer
Escapades
by Sara M. Barton

Where There’s Smoke, There’s Prometheus

The Deadly Secret of Dr. Arcanum Lock’s
Evolutionary Spirit Project

It Will Be Our Little Secret

Practical Caregiver Capers
by Sara M. Barton

Murder at the Mountain Vale Inn

Murder on the High Seas

The Inscrutable Case of the Nobbled
Netsuke

The Passion Beach Psycho Strikes at
Midnight

Who Snatched Aunt Marion?

Chapter One –

“It’s just for two nights.”

“No.”

“Please? Do it for me?” I hate it when Ben
looks at me like that. I hate that he knows I hate it when he looks
at me like that. Most of all, I hate that he knows if he looks at
me that way, I will cave in and let him have what he wants.

“The last time the bastard was here, he
propositioned another guest and had her pinned against the library
wall when we all walked in for tea,” I reminded my husband. “They
were boinking in the books. Uncle Edward’s first editions.
My
lovely books.”

“He still insists it was Margaret’s idea and
he just went along for the ride,” Ben replied, an apologetic smile
playing out on his lips. He made sure those tasty lips were barely
four inches from my mouth. I hate when he does that, too.

“It’s asking for trouble.”

“Bea...Beatrice...come on, babe. I really
need this.”

“The last time Philippe Grapon was here, he
parked his naked arse in the backyard for some sunbathing while we
were having lunch on the terrace. I thought Mrs. Wilson was going
to have a stroke.”

“And that’s why we’ll put him in the Hathaway
Cottage this time. It’s just for three days. It’s critical. Come
on. What do you say?” He held my face in his hands as he looked
deeply into my eyes. “Please?”

“The guy is a louse. No, wait. That’s an
insult to lice. Philippe Grapon is the dung of a louse. He’s
the....” I was just getting started when my husband nibbled on my
neck, starting up by my ear and working his way down to the crook
of my shoulder.

“Three days. Two nights. That’s all we need.”
Ben started undoing my blouse, working his way up from the bottom
mother of pearl button that he slipped out of its slot.

“How is it going to affect our current
guests? Do you have a way to control the fallout from his idiocy?
You’re going to be responsible for his bad behavior,” I said
grudgingly. “And cut that out. I have to get back to work.”

I fastened the three buttons Ben managed to
undo, tucked in my blouse, and made myself presentable.

“Mrs. Gillman and her Shih Tzu are here to
visit Uncle Edward, not to dally with a bon vivant in the library.
Philippe won’t do anything to the grand dame without getting a
chunk taken out of his ankle by the ever-loyal Mr. Darcy. Besides,
she’s older than the hills and won’t be able to hear him
proposition her indecently. And he’s not interested in our male
guests.”

“That we know of,” I replied. “He could be
here to cause trouble. Or to avoid it. Doesn’t it strike you as odd
that he needs to come here without much notice? He’s probably
pissed off some husband in DC, who wants to hunt him down like the
dog he is. Our luck, we’ll wind up with a catastrophe on our
hands.”

“How can you say that, Bea? You have such a
suspicious mind,” my husband said with great disappointment
dripping upon every word he uttered. When he tries that hard to
convince me I am wrong about someone, I know he’s full of donkey
juice.

“Experience with Philippe Grapon demands
caution,” I insisted. “You mark my words, Benedick. Before he
leaves, we will have to tidy up yet another of his long string of
messes.”

“Five hundred bucks says you’re wrong,” Ben
challenged.

“Five hundred? Why not a thousand? I could
use a new arm chair in the public lounge.” It was true. I’d been
lobbying for a new chair to replace the ratty old Queen Anne wing
chair Uncle Edward had dragged from his previous home. There’s only
so much a slipcover can do for a lumpy, poorly cushioned
upholstered chair with lion paw feet that looked like they had been
set upon and gnawed by killer mice.

“You’re on.”

“Since I stand to gain from your mistaken
trust in the vermin, he can come,” I reluctantly agreed. I really
should have known better.

“You’re the best,” he declared, with a
satisfied grin, keeping his hands where they were, on my fanny.

“Well, Philippe Grapon had better behave
himself this time, or I’ll be doing a lot more to him than just
short-sheeting his bed!” I pushed him away, taking up the
pillowcase and pillow as I went back to making the bed in the Padua
Suite.

“That’s my girl. I’m heading into Burlington
to pick up a few things. What can I bring you back?” After he gave
me a quick, two-finger pinch on my bottom, Ben headed out the door.
Typical.

“A decent clientele that sticks to normal
guest activities, like stealing the towels and raiding the
refrigerator at night.”

“Besides that?” he grinned. “How about some
fresh trout for dinner? And I could stop at the Klingers and pick
up some almond croissants for tea.”

“How about a little arsenic, to dispatch the
rats that seem to infest the place?”

“Now, now,” he chided me gently. “Surely you
can improve your mood before I return.”

“Surely I would not be in this foul mood if
we had normal guests. Pick up six boules of farm wheat bread, in
addition to the croissants. We’re having beef bourguignon for
dinner.” The bakery was well-known for its artisan baking.

“Do we have enough cabernet sauvignon?”

“Check the wine cellar on your way out. A
pinot noir would work just as well. Or a Gamay,” I suggested.

“I’ll surprise you, my love.” Ben bowed at
the waist, sweeping an arm into the air in a dramatic farewell
gesture. All he needed to complete the look was a pair of tights,
pantaloons, pointy shoes, a little waistcoat, and a big hat with a
feather.

“I shall wait with bated breath for your
return,” I replied sardonically.

“Do,” he responded, disappearing down the
hallway.

“I shall.” We have a thing about who will
have the last word in any conversation. There are times we carry
this to extremes. So far, I’m ahead, but Ben tries to keep up. He
waited until he was on the stairs before he uttered his response
low enough to almost succeed.

“As you like it.”

“Much ado about nothing,” I muttered sotto
voce. I win.

In case you’re wondering, I am one of the
proprietors of the Bard’s Bed & Breakfast, an old Queen Anne
shingle-and-stone mansion located on Lake Champlain. With two guest
rooms and three suites in the big house and a cottage that sleeps
four, this is not your typical New England inn. For one thing, we
don’t advertise. We don’t encourage the public to make their way to
our front door. If anything, we go out of our way to discourage
people from visiting, usually telling people we’re all booked up.
But there is a perfectly good explanation for this. We’re actually
a safe house for battered spies, a respite spot for the occasional
intelligence asset in need of TLC to loosen the tongue, and a place
where American intelligence officers can meet for debriefings and
some decent fishing.

I didn’t start out to be an innkeeper. As a
matter of fact, I started out as a college student pursuing a fine
arts degree at a small New England college. I’d tell you which one,
but I am not allowed to do that. You see, I have been reinvented. I
am no longer the person born to my parents. I no longer have the
family into which I was born. All because of the summer I went to
France sixteen years ago.

How many American college students do that
annual migration to Europe, backpacking with a Eurail pass?
Thousands. Probably thousands of thousands. Me? I got the short
stick. Instead of enjoying myself on the Rue des Rosiers in the
middle of the Marais district, the historic Jewish quarter of
Paris, I was snatched off the street ever so rudely by a squat,
little man with a pipe and an obnoxious habit of clicking his
fingers when he was trying to think. I was dumped into a battered,
old Citroen and driven to a remote location, where a group of
hooded men in black shouted questions at me in French for the
better part of a day, all because some creep who passed me on the
Rue Mahler slipped a tracking device in my backpack. That creep
turned out to be a member of a terrorist organization, the tracking
device had been carefully attached to his jacket as he passed
through a crowd by the woman following him, and I wound up in the
hands of a CIA officer, who demanded to know why I was helping the
Defenders of Allah. Having never heard of DOA, or as I like to call
the group, “Duh”, I didn’t have a ready answer for him.

I don’t want to bore you with the details of
how I married a spy. It’s a long story that will probably slip out
over time. Ben says I just can’t help myself when I get wound up. I
say I wouldn’t be wound up if I had normal guests who practiced
some manner of decency and decorum.

In case you’re wondering, I would not have
chosen to be an innkeeper. I had it thrust upon me. Ben’s Uncle
Edward, the erudite Shakespearean scholar, had finally realized his
dream of opening a bed and breakfast establishment in the middle of
nowhere. Gracious host, dedicated historian of all things OSS,
seasoned clandestine services provider who retired in 1970 to teach
English lit at an ivy league college that shall remain nameless,
Uncle Edward was in his glory as innkeeper. He loved his days and
nights regaling guests with his well-researched tales, serving good
food and better wine, and acting as laird of his
almost-Shakespearean castle. That’s when tragedy befell the elderly
man. His right hip failed and he couldn’t care for his guests.

I came to fill in for him while he recovered
from surgery. By the time he was back on his feet and ready to
cope, he was in need of a permanent partner to help run the inn,
and since things turned bad at my bookstore, it was decided that I
would be the lucky one to coddle and pamper the ever-changing
influx of guests who came to Arden Woods with the knowledge that we
were a full-service inn for carefully vetted spies in need of some
R & R.

I still resent the fact that I was forced to
give up Marbury Books because of the FBI’s need to trap a spy ring
in DC. I still think it wouldn’t have been necessary had I remained
at my job. But by the time I headed back to the stacks, after
caring for Uncle Edward and his wayward hip for six weeks, there
was plenty of book inventory missing, the shop’s bank account had
taken a big whack, and the CIA was afraid the bookstore had been
compromised, all because three of its operatives went missing in
the Khyber Pass.

One of the men had come to Marbury Books and
picked up
Love and Longing in Bombay
, a book by Indian
author Vikram Chandra, who teaches creative writing at UC Berkeley.
It turned out that he was given the wrong book. It should have been
The Srinigar Conspiracy
by Vikram
A.
Chandra. It all
happened because Josh couldn’t say no to the little Persian tart
who plied him for a part-time job. Me, personally? I never would
have hired her. Washington is full of little honeybees like her,
trolling constantly for information and setting honey pots up in
little apartments all over town. When they’re not trying to sleep
their way through Congress and its staff, they look for
opportunities to get cozy with the movers and shakers in the
nation’s capital.

One of the reasons I originally became the
proprietor of Marbury Books was because the CIA needed a safe place
to handle sensitive dead drops and brush contacts. I didn’t expect
to have to turn it over just because Afarin Hesami turned out to be
an Iranian spy. When that poor man was handed the wrong book, he
was also handed a coded message meant for another. That’s what got
those three spies into such hot water in the Khyber Pass. All
Vikram Chandras are not created equally.