The Irresistible Inheritance Of Wilberforce Read Online Free PDF

experience those sensations, there is only one thing to do and that is have a glass of wine. My regime is to start with a bottle of youngish Bordeaux, between breakfast and lunch time. I find the slight tartness in a young claret leaves the palate clean and sharpened, as if one has been eating gooseberry fool. Thus I prepare myself for lunch, when the more serious wine-tasting begins. I might very probably follow with a second-growth claret over lunch, followed by another fuller-bodied wine at tea time, and finishing off with some great classic premier cru vintage with dinner - though recently I have sometimes risked diluting the final explosion of taste with a few glasses of a white burgundy, as a nightcap.
    The question was: how was I to manage to drink a glass of wine with this hired nurse wandering around downstairs? I had no doubt she was probably equally well qualified in the martial arts as she was as a nurse, and she would simply stop me, by force if necessary.
    I lay considering the problem for a while, but after a few minutes the twitching, restless feeling in all my limbs became so overwhelming that I felt I had to get out of bed and move about. I swung my legs on to the bedside mat and sat on the edge of the bed, collecting my wits. I felt unsteady at first, but managed to take a few steps in the direction of an armchair, where I stopped for a while, like a swimmer grasping a rock for a moment’s rest, before continuing my journey. Then I came to my dressing table, with my wallet and my keys upon it, and my money clip, which was empty. I appeared to have spent over six thousand pounds whenever it was I last went out. It must have been the Pétrus. I picked up the wallet and went on to the window, which I opened. I threw my wallet out. Then I went, at a better speed, to the bedroom door and from there to the head of the stairs.
    ‘Nurse Susan!’ I called. ‘Come quick!’
    The television in the kitchen was flicked off and she was immediately at the kitchen door, looking up the stairs at me. ‘You shouldn’t be out of your bed, flower,’ she told me.
    ‘Never mind that.’ I replied. ‘I was trying to open the window to let some fresh air in and I had my wallet in my hand and I’ve stupidly dropped it into the street below. Please go and get it before someone picks it up. It has quite a lot of money in it.’ As a matter of fact, there was no money in the wallet and the credit cards were probably either out of date or over the limit.
    Nurse Susan hesitated, then said, ‘You stay there and I’ll go and look,’ and walked quickly to the door, snicked up the catch and went out.
    The thought of the Yon Figeac gave me strength. In a second I was at the foot of the stairs, and in the next moment I had slammed, bolted and triple-locked the door. The downstairs windows were always locked. There was no other way into the house except a door to a little basement area, which I never used.
    I went to the wine rack, took the bottle of wine out, and opened it with a swift motion of my Screwpull corkscrew. I thought I would let it breathe for a few moments before I tried it. The doorbell rang, first briefly, and then more persistently. I ignored the sound and thought about the wine. It was a 1996, after all, and could be drunk now or left for as long as ten years. I had not tried this wine before. There were half a dozen bottles of it left in the undercroft. Francis must have opened the case and drunk some, before he left me the cellar. The doorbell had stopped ringing now and there was a tapping at the kitchen window.
    I went to the cupboard and found a large wine glass. As I turned to go back to the table I caught sight of Nurse Susan at the kitchen window. She was leaning over the iron railings that protected it and could just reach the window to tap on it lightly with my wallet. When she saw that I had seen her, she smiled and held up my wallet, and mouthed something at me. I couldn’t hear it but I think she was