I went and sat down in the big red leather reading chair in Mary Kinnaird’s study, feeling rather stunned and exhausted, and after a few minutes she came in with a tray of tea and shortbread.
‘I expect Grandad will pay for your window,’ I told her straight away. I assumed his wealth was limitless, three years ago. I hoped he wouldn’t be angry, and I wondered how he was getting on, waiting alone with the vicious and miserable prisoner. ‘I’m very sorry I had to break the glass.’
‘And I am very sorry I pointed my gun at you.’ Mary knelt on the floor beside me, there being no other chair but the one behind her desk.
She offered the shortbread. I found I was ravenous.
‘Oh, I knew you wouldn’t hurt me,’ I told her. ‘You are too bonny.’
‘You wee sook!’ she scolded. ‘Bonny?’
‘Not beautiful,’ I told her truthfully. ‘Your face is kind. You’re sort of fluttery and quiet, like a pigeon.’
She threw her head back and laughed.
‘Prrrrrt,’ she said in pigeon-talk, and this made me laugh too. Suddenly I liked her very much.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked me.
‘Lady Julia Lindsay MacKenzie Wallace Beaufort-Stuart,’ I reeled off glibly.
‘Oh my, that is quite a name. Must I call you Lady Julia?’
‘Grandad calls me Julie.’
‘I will compromise with Julia. Beaufort and Stuart are both the names of Scottish queens; I can’t quite lower myself to Julie.’ She smiled serenely. ‘Not Murray? Isn’t that your grandfather’s name?’
‘Some of my brothers have Murray as a family name.’
‘You know the Murrays were in favour with Mary Stuart. There’s a bracelet on display in the library that belonged to her when she was a child. She gave it to your grandfather’s people because she was their patron, four hundred years ago.’
‘Scottish river pearls – I know! Grandad showed me when I was little. They’re the only thing I remember about the display cases. All those dull old books along with this beautiful wee bracelet that belonged to Mary Queen of Scots! And I’m related to her on the Stuart side.’
Mary laughed. ‘Those books are first editions of Robert Burns’s poems! I don’t find them dull. But the pearls are everybody’s favourite.’
My hidden criminal inner self noted what an idiot the wounded trespasser was, stripping young mussels from the river when this perfect treasure lay in plain sight of the general public every day.
But perhaps the river seemed easier prey than Mary Kinnaird.
She said to me then, ‘So I’m a Mary and you’re a Stuart. And I have the keys to the case. Would you like to try on Mary Queen of Scots’ pearl bracelet while you wait for your grandad to come back for you?’
Mary Kinnaird suddenly became my favourite person in the entire world.
I noticed something. ‘How can you hear me without your trumpet?’
‘I’m watching your mouth move. It helps a great deal to see your mouth straight on. I don’t like the trumpet much.’
‘The trumpet is splendid.’
She twisted her mouth again. It wasn’t a smile. ‘But the trumpet makes me different from everyone else. And I am already a bit different.’
‘No one’s exactly alike,’ I said blithely. ‘I can find my mother in a candlelit hall full of dancers by the scent she wears. Everybody’s different.’
It was very easy for me to say, flush with the fear and triumph of my last summer afternoon with my grandfather, the Earl of Strathfearn. I was safe now, eating shortbread in the Inverfearnie Library, and looking forward to trying on pearls that had once been worn by Mary Queen of Scots. Everybody’s different: it was easy for me to say.
BLOOMSBURY YA
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First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
This electronic edition published in March 2020
Copyright © Elizabeth Gatland, 2020
Elizabeth Gatland has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work
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ISBN: PB: 978-1-5266-0165-0; eBook: 978-1-5266-0166-7
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The Enigma Game Page 34