“Get out of my way,” she told them.
“I can’t,” said one who couldn’t have been older than their nephew Jack. “Cook promised us we could take the leftovers home if we did what we were told.”
“I never get haggis,” the other one said.
“For goodness’ sake.” Donna spun back around to look at her sisters. “Tell me they didn’t get into the room.”
Agnes huffed in disgust. “I can’t believe you said that. Of course they didn’t. I was there and nothing gets past me.”
“You.” Donna pointed at one of the teenagers. “Go stand guard at Duncan’s studio door. You can take turns. If no one gets in there, I’ll make sure Grace feeds you and your flatmates for a week.”
They whooped and ran off.
“And there goes two of my waitstaff,” the caterer complained. “What am I going to do now?”
Donna looked at her sisters.
“Hell no!” Mairi said.
“Please,” Donna begged.
“You owe me big time.” Mairi walked over to the caterer. “Give me an apron.”
“Aggie?” Donna batted her lashes at her older sister.
She glared back as she walked over to join Mairi. “I cannot wait for the day when I have to stop bailing you lot out of trouble.”
“When will that be?” Mairi asked.
“On the same day I pencil in for every important task, isn’t that right, Aggie?” Donna said. “The twelfth of never.”
Her phone rang, and she dug it out of her pocket to look at the screen. “It’s Duncan,” she shouted, and there was instant silence as everyone froze in place. “Hello,” she said into the phone. “How are things going?” She turned away from everyone and walked to the window.
“I’m just about to start my lecture.” The sound of his deep, rumbling voice made her eyes well up.
She forced a smile so that she’d sound normal when she answered. “Are you nervous?”
“No, but there are an awful lot of people out there. It’s standing room only.” He sounded bewildered.
“Duncan, you’re Scotland’s most famous living artist. Of course people want to hear you talk about your work.”
“My old work,” he amended in irritation.
“Tell them there’s new stuff, but you’re not ready to show it or talk about it yet.”
He paused for a second. “I can do that. How are things at the mansion?”
“Oh, you know”—she glanced around the room at the people quietly staring at her—“same old, same old. What time will you be back tomorrow?”
“I don’t know, late I think. After my lecture, I’ve got one-on-one tutorials for the rest of the day, and then I’m having dinner with Zoe and her husband.” He lowered his voice. “I couldn’t get out of it.”
“You’ll survive.” And he would be nicely busy while the ball was on.
“I’d better go. They want to get started.”
“Good luck.” She hung up and turned to see that everyone had started moving and talking again.
“Wait,” he called. “I’m no’ done.”
“What?” she said.
“Think about me in bed tonight, Angel. I know I’ll be thinking about you.” The line went dead and Donna’s hand clenched around the phone.
“Are you okay?” Mairi said as she came up beside her.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“No reason.” She gave her a tight hug. “What’s next on the list?”
“Setting up tables in the foyer and the orangery for people who want to get away from the music or don’t fit into the ballroom.” That had been Flora and Joyce’s bright idea for squeezing in forty more people. “And I want to string up ropes on the staircases and corridors that are off limits during the ball.”
“I’m not sure that will stop people,” Mairi said.
“I need more teens to stand guard.” Donna looked down at her iPad.
“Now that I can sort. Leave it to me,” Mairi said with a grin as she pulled out her phone.
Donna wasn’t sure leaving anything to Mairi was a good idea, but honestly, she was desperate, so she did just that.
***
“Are you nervous?” Zoe, the dean of Fine Arts, asked Duncan as he eyed the crowded auditorium.
“No,” he answered honestly. As soon as he’d walked up the grey steps at the front of the building and stopped to looked at the warm golden stone that made up the Mac, he’d felt like he’d come home.
“That’s good to hear,” Zoe said. “We’ve got an eager crowd this morning. And the tutorial slots filled up faster than they’ve ever done before. Within minutes of posting the signup sheet.”
“I don’t recall offering to do one-on-one tutorials.” Duncan cocked an eyebrow at her.
“Now, isn’t that strange?” she said without cracking a smile.
They were in the lecture theatre in the basement of the Mackintosh building. It was the same room he’d sat in on many occasions during the four years he’d spent studying there, and he well remembered how hard those old benches were on your backside when a talk droned on.
The room was square and high-ceilinged, with the stage area down in one corner facing three stacks of black benches that formed a semi-circle in front. High in the corner opposite the stage, was the tiny technician’s closet, where his old lecturers used to get a student to load up their slides for them. Times had changed, and Duncan had a laptop on the stand beside him, rigged to the projector overhead.
The blinds on the windows to his right were drawn, and overhead, the small golden drop lanterns were lit. High on the walls, at the top of the thin dark wood panels, was one of Mackintosh’s signature motifs—four squares, arranged two by two.
“It brings back memories, doesn’t it?” Zoe said softly.
“Last time I was here, I got into an argument with Thomas Joshua Cooper in this exact spot.” He gave her a wry look. “I seem to remember him winning.”
She laughed. Thomas was a world-renowned photographer who, although American, had been around The Glasgow School of Art for decades. What he didn’t know about photography wasn’t worth knowing, and he was always up for a discussion with someone who needed some schooling on the topic.
“I met my wife in this room,” Duncan said. “During a piss-poor lecture on German Expressionism. She was studying textile design not painting, so she wasn’t even supposed to be in there. She told me later, over lunch in the bar, that she’d followed me into the room and shoved another girl out of the way to sit beside me.” He smiled at the memory. “She wasn’t known for being shy.” Not like another woman who had stitched his heart back together again.
“That sounds like Fiona.” Zoe grinned at him before putting her hand on his arm. “You can’t imagine how pleased I was when you emailed with the offer to lecture. I’ve been worried about you ever since we lost Fiona.”
“My offer t—” He was cut off as the lights dimmed.
Zoe squeezed his arm. “We’ll talk tonight. I can’t wait to see this illustrator’s work you’ve found. It must be something special to have caught your eye.”
All Duncan could do was nod as those alarm bells that usually went off around his sneaky housekeeper sounded in his head. As Zoe introduced him, he thought back to all those other times he’d felt his hairs stand on end around Donna. Something was up, and he intended to get to the bottom of it as soon as he got back to Kintyre.
As the crowd applauded, he stepped forward and looked out at all the eager faces.
“As Zoe said, I’m Duncan Stewart, and I learned to paint in this building. More than that, I learned how to see my own work with a clarity and honesty that has stood me in good stead over the years. Today, I’m going to share with you my thought process when I paint, to prove I was listening when I was a student here.” There was laughter. “And to encourage you to soak up as much as you can from this place before you leave. No matter what you choose to do in life, the things you learn here will he
lp you make the most of it. So pay attention.”
With that, he brought up the image of the first painting he wanted to talk about, and a sense of peace swept through him the likes of which he hadn’t felt since losing Fiona. No, that wasn’t quite right, he’d felt that same soul-deep peace with Donna.
The same Donna who was up to something back home in Kintyre. He’d bet his last painting on it.
Chapter 26
The invitation for the ball had specified the dress code as ‘fancy,’ which, it turned out, left a lot of room for interpretation. One elderly couple arrived in topcoat and tails for him while her silver gown wouldn’t have looked out of place on Princess Margaret.
“Are those real diamonds around her neck?” Mairi asked as they watched the couple enter through the mansion’s main doors.
“I think so,” Donna said. “If she handed over her bracelet, we could sell it and raise more than enough money to call this ball off.”
Her sister snorted. “Too late for that. You know, if you can afford vintage Chanel couture and enough ice to freeze your husband’s balls off, surely you could invest in some Botox? She looks like someone’s dressed up a Shar-Pei dog.”
“Mairi!” Donna frowned at her.
She shrugged. “I call them as I see them.” Her eyes widened. “Holy flying fairies, is that a tutu?”
Donna looked back at the line of people making their way inside the mansion. And yes, it was a tutu—on Joyce. It looked like someone had dipped the Sugar Plum Fairy in Pepto-Bismol. She’d even wrapped pink tinsel around her walker.
“I like the matching Reeboks,” Mairi said. “I didn’t know they came in that colour.”
“Her hair looks like candy floss,” Donna said in awe.
“I see Ann’s made an effort,” Mairi said.
Sure enough, Ann Dunbar was dressed in grey—but it shimmered. “I like her lipstick, and her shoes are pretty. Oh, look at Flora. She’s the fairy godmother from Cinderella.”
“Holy Nutella, here comes the pumpkin!”
Donna twisted her head to see through the crowd, and she gasped. A short, round man had arrived—wearing an orange suit.
“I freaking love this ball,” Mairi said with glee. “If only I was still taking photos to show my online boyfriends, I could have milked this event for months. Oh, wait, I’m definitely taking photos of those guys.” She whipped out her phone. “For personal use.”
Donna’s jaw dropped at the sight of a group of six men who’d arrived wearing traditional Scottish dress. Built like rugby players with their shoulders straining against their shirts, they towered over the crowd.
“Is it wrong that I really want to see their thighs?” Donna muttered. “I bet they would be tree trunks.”
“Forget the thighs.” Mairi snapped pictures. “I want to see what else is under those kilts.”
They watched as an assortment of people came through the doors, from the elegantly dressed to the quirky. As different as they all were, they had one thing in common—they all gaped at the mansion, snapping photos like a busload of tourists on a trip to Big Ben.
Donna glanced at her wristwatch. It was only seven o’clock. The music hadn’t even started, the food wasn’t due to be served until eight, and the Women’s Institute had promised to start winding things down at eleven. It was going to be a long, long night.
“I didn’t know there was a bucking bronco,” Sean said as he approached in an ill-fitting suit. “Can’t wait to give that a go.”
“What do you mean?” Donna looked around as though it would appear.
“The mechanical bull in the library. I saw it when I passed.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Very cool.”
“Mechanical bull?” Donna felt the colour drain from her face.
“Aye.” Sean was oblivious to her reaction. “And I can’t wait to try my hand in the casino.”
“Casino?” she squeaked.
He gave her a strange look. “You know, the one in the dining room?”
She grasped Mairi’s arm and held on tight. “There’s a casino in the dining room?”
Sean looked between the two of them. “Didn’t you organise this thing?”
“I’m going to kill them,” Donna muttered. “We talked about setting up tables in the orangery, and the buffet tables in the ballroom. We didn’t talk about a mechanical bull and a casino.”
“Take a deep breath,” Mairi said to her before looking up at Keir’s brother. “Please tell me there isn’t a bouncy castle in the garden.”
“No, but some old men are running a game of boules on the front lawn.”
“There’s no point in screaming,” Mairi said as Donna opened her mouth. “There’s Flora, let’s go talk to her.”
They didn’t bother saying goodbye to Sean. They just ran across the entrance to cut off Flora.
“Hello girls,” she said. “My you look pretty, Donna.”
“There’s a casino in the dining room. A bull in the library and men playing a boules tournament on the front lawn.” Donna’s eye twitched.
“To be fair,” Flora said as Joyce came up beside her, “the bull isn’t real.”
“What. Were. You. Thinking?” The words were squeezed from between clenched teeth.
“That we needed to keep people occupied and get the crowd circling so that the ballroom didn’t become too overcrowded.”
“That’s why we set up tables in the orangery.”
“Aye,” Flora said with a smile. “But we might have underestimated the numbers we expected tonight. Turns out there may be a wee bit more than a hundred and twenty in attendance.”
“How many more?” Donna said through clenched teeth.
“We don’t exactly know,” Flora said. “Joyce put out an open invitation. But don’t worry. There’s someone on the door making sure people pay to get in.”
Donna’s eye began to twitch.
“With all the extra people,” Joyce said, “we needed to provide some decent entertainment. Not to mention, we had to liven the place up. What sounds like more fun to you? Having tea in the greenhouse or seeing how long you can sit on a bucking bull?” She gave Flora a disgusted look. “I’m no’ allowed on it because I had a hip replacement last year. Apparently I’m a liability.”
“Group B,” a voice called. “Group B, assemble here.”
Donna’s head snapped around to see a woman standing at the bottom of the staircase holding up a placard with the letter B on it. People around them checked pieces of paper in their hands before some headed towards her.
“What is she doing?” Donna snapped.
“Guided tours,” Joyce said. “Everyone wanted to get a look around the mansion. Which reminds me, could you call off your guard dogs outside the studio, so we can get in? People want to see what Duncan’s working on.”
“No, I can’t call them off.” She was about to lose her mind. Right after she killed three old women and buried them under the bloody rose bushes.
“If it made you feel better, we could charge an entrance fee to the studio,” Joyce said. “It would raise a lot more money for the wee sick babies.”
“That’s it! I’m going to kill her!” Donna launched herself at Joyce, but Mairi held her back.
“Witnesses,” her sister hissed. “Nothing happening here,” she said loudly, through a fake smile.
“Duncan’s going to kill me,” she wailed.
Flora scoffed. “He won’t find out.”
“Eh,” Mairi said. “I think he might.”
Donna turned to see what she was looking at. A group of women were posing for a photo in front of the staircase.
“Don’t forget to use the right hashtag,” one of them called. “Kintyre Mansion Ball.”
“I’m dead,” Donna said.
***
Duncan was surprised to find a young woman sitting at the table in the restaurant that Zoe led him to.
“This is Madeline,” she said. “Gordon’s niece.”
The
woman shot to her feet, holding out a hand for Duncan. “I’m a big fan. I can’t believe I’m meeting you in person. It’s so exciting.”
He shook her hand and mumbled something with the word pleased in it. As he went to sit down facing the woman, Zoe stopped him. “No, you sit over there beside her.” She pushed him in the right direction.
He caught Zoe’s husband, Gordon’s eye as he sat down and the man, “sorry,” he mouthed.
That’s when Duncan knew he had been set up. He’d walked right into the middle of his own blind date. With a frown, he rounded the table to sit with Madeline. He supposed she was pretty, in her own way, with her long black hair and her trim figure, but she was no Donna. There were no curves to entice a man, and her smile didn’t light up the room. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Zoe that he was already seeing someone, but he didn’t want to make his personal business public. His only option was to suffer through the evening and get back home to Donna as fast as he could.
He stilled at the thought. Once, home had meant Fiona, but now it meant Donna, and instead of being upset at the thought, all he felt was a warmth around his heart and a longing to get back to her.
Once he’d sat down beside the woman, she curled both of her hands around his arm. “I’m so sorry to hear that you lost your wife.”
“Eh…thanks?” He glared at Zoe. It was wasted on her.
Thankfully, the waiter arrived with menus and the strange woman let go of his arm.
“I have something to show you,” Duncan said to Zoe as he rooted around in the small backpack he’d brought with him from the college. He handed her the paperback copy of The Hobbit.
“Thanks, but I’ve read it.” Zoe handed it back.
“Look inside.”
With an indulgent smile, she did just that. Duncan watched her carefully and smiled at the shocked expression on her face once she’d opened the book.
“Gordon,” she said in awe.
“What?” Her husband dragged his eyes away from the menu and sucked in a breath when he looked at the book.
Can't Stop the Feeling: Romantic Comedy (Sinclair Sisters Trilogy Book 2) Page 22