Very ungracefully, I clambered over the split-rail fence and landed with a thump in the open field behind it. A few sheep bleated noisily at me from their corner of the field but declined to come over and investigate what I was doing.
I fought my way through the tall grass until I finally made it to the front door. I sent up a silent wish that it was open and very, very warm.
“Hello?” I called, knocking at the door. No answer. I pounded harder on the weathered wooden doorframe, using both fists. “Hello? Hello?!”
Still no answer. I tried the door. The lock rattled but remained firmly locked. So much for warming up in the cottage. I couldn’t believe I would have to walk all the way back to the castle.
A flash of color caught my eye. I turned the corner and discovered a little green Gator with bright yellow seats and rugged black tires parked right out back. I was shocked to see a familiar leaping deer on the front fender.
“John Deere,” I muttered, bending down to examine the logo more closely. “Didn’t think I’d see you over here.” I patted the front of the Gator companionably, like it was an old dog sleeping in the last gasp of afternoon sunshine.
The keys were in the ignition, just waiting to be turned. Was it stealing, to drive this Gator back to the castle? Not if this was all part of the grounds, right? And especially not if I returned it. And it was the only thing standing between me and hypothermia.
Well, as Meemaw liked to say, God helps those who help themselves. So I jumped into the front seat and turned the key in the ignition. The Gator roared to life. Cautiously pressing the gas pedal, I rolled forward onto the road.
I relaxed my grip on the steering wheel as the Gator picked up steam, happy to see that the stiff breeze was drying me out. Somewhat. Even if it was freezing. Perhaps it was just my fate to never, ever be warm in Scotland. Or maybe it was my warm Mississippi blood. It had left me weak.
I must not have run as far as I’d thought. Before I knew it I was pulling up the long gravel driveway, then roaring around the circular part that led right up to the front of the house. Uh, castle. It seemed weird to just leave the Gator there, but I had no idea what else to do with it. If it didn’t vanish of its own accord, I could always ask someone else where to put it later. Worst-case scenario, I could drive it back there myself. Once I was dry. And wearing a coat.
Up the steps to the front door I hopped over places where the ancient stone had cracked and split away. I pushed open the door and slipped inside. The foyer was deserted except for a tall dark-haired guy in a gray suit, hands in his pockets. I was surprised to see it was Jamie when he turned. He looked different, somehow, from the back. Like older or something. But then his hair fell in his eyes and he looked just the same as always. Even if he was wearing a tie.
“Hello there,” Jamie greeted me cheerfully. “Are you a Swamp Thing?”
“No. I’m a Dylan Thing.”
“Dylan!” he exclaimed. “I honestly didn’t recognize you.”
“Understandable.” I tried to swipe some of the mud off my face and only succeeded in smearing it across my eyes.
“You seem to have encountered a bit of a situation. Was it the little lame balloonman?”
“What?” I stared at him.
“When the world is mud-luscious.” I kept staring at him. “The little lame balloonman…” He trailed off and looked down at the floor, the tips of his ears turning pink. “It’s, er, E. E. Cummings.”
“Okay. Well. Clearly, E. E. Cummings never came to Scotland in December, because there is nothing luscious about this mud. I was running, and this truck blasted right on through a ginormous puddle in the middle of the road.”
“Ah. I suppose that would account for…” He gestured to my appearance, but words seemed to fail him. “This,” he settled on eventually.
“Yup. It was a drive-by mudding,” I said grimly.
“You’d probably commit murder for a hot bath right now.”
“Probably not, Raskolnikov.” Oh. Was it weird that I referenced a conversation we’d had a week ago? Maybe? I watched him worriedly, but he didn’t seem weirded out. “I may have committed grand theft auto, though.”
He raised an eyebrow. Ugh. The jealousy continued. I wished I had better control of my eyebrow muscles. Was that the kind of thing you could train for? At, like, a face gym?
“I took a Gator and drove it over here. It was parked outside a little house. I didn’t know if it was part of the estate, or what.”
“I assume it must have been one of the groundskeepers’ cabins. Unless you ran terribly far. There are several all over the estate. As well as barns and other outbuildings necessitated by the care and keeping of livestock.”
“So all of this—all this land, these houses, the cows, everything—it all belongs to Ronan?”
Jamie nodded.
“That is insane,” I marveled. “How could one person own all of that?”
“Well, the family owns it, technically, Ronan is simply the executor—”
“Still crazy,” I interrupted. “It’s as big as a town! You could fit, like, five hundred of my house in here. I can’t even imagine what that would be like.”
Jamie mmmed noncommittally. I guess he was used to it, growing up with Ronan, but it seemed crazy to me. What must Dusty be thinking? What would it be like to marry someone whose idea of normal was a castle and grounds that were bigger than our whole neighborhood?
“So.” I decided to change the subject, if all Jamie was going to contribute was an “mmm.” “What are you doing here? Were you waiting for something?”
“I’m, simply…ahh…here.” He gestured vaguely toward the hallway. Huh. Weird. Well, nothing about Jamie had been exactly normal so far. He’d probably wandered in while thinking about little lame balloonmen and gotten lost on the way to wherever it was he’d been going.
I realized with a start that there was a cameraman lurking in a dark corner next to an end table. Presumably he’d been there the whole time, although I had no idea why. This show was about Dusty and Ronan—why would they want any footage of me? And how did he even know someone would be coming through this door? Sometimes the camera crew appeared in the most random places. This one guy, who I’m pretty sure was named Mike, shot breakfast every single morning, even though it mostly consisted of people shoveling eggs and toast into their mouths in silence. How many shots did TRC really need of my mom pretending the coffee was strong enough?
Well, if I looked as disgusting as I felt, this clip would probably find a home right after the closing credits of an episode, while they played weird circus music in the background to make me look crazy. For a lot of Prince in Disguise, they edited Dusty’s best friend, Anne Marie, to look like she was talking to a squirrel. Anne Marie may be kind of a nut, but she’s not that nuts. And I had a feeling the Anne-Marie-crazy-circus-squirrel music was heading my way. Maybe there was enough mud on my face that no one would register that the mud creature was actually Dylan Leigh, unexceptional Tupelo High junior.
An elegant man in the pervasive white-shirt-gray-slacks staff uniform approached me and Jamie, flanked by another cameraman and a few other clipboard-toting production people. Great. The first cameraman must have been waiting for these guys. Or maybe he’d signaled them, somehow, that he’d gotten some prime crazy-circus-music footage? I didn’t understand anything about the way this show worked, and I was starting to think that it might be better if I figured it out, fast.
“Pardon me.” The staff man bowed as he came to a stop. “Dinner has already begun. If you’d be so kind…”
“If I’d be so kind as to what?” The man was inclining his head in the direction of the dining room, but there was no way I was going in there dressed like this.
“Allow me to escort you to the dining room.”
“Yeah, thanks, I just need, like, a hot second to change.”
“Madam.” The butler from hell was right up in my face, his thin lips curling menacingly. The production people close
d ranks around him, effectively blocking my way to the stairs. “Allow me.”
The butler attached himself to my elbow and started firmly steering me toward the dining room. I looked behind me at Jamie, who seemed perplexed, which was gratifying but not particularly helpful. What would be more embarrassing—showing up to dinner like this, or attempting to tackle my way out of this situation and making a run for the stairs? Although I wasn’t even sure the latter was an option. He had a surprisingly strong grip for an older guy.
As we entered the dining room, the gentle clinks of silverware and trickle of conversation died as a hush fell over the room.
“Jamie,” I whispered in a panic as I involuntarily reached for his hand. He squeezed back. Everyone was dressed for dinner. Like, dressed, like they were going to church or a cocktail party or something.
“Did no one tell you to dress for dinner?” he asked quietly. Well, guess that explained the suit and tie. Selfishly, I wished I had a sloppy comrade-in-arms. Although unless Jamie took a quick detour to the kitchen for a swim through the gravy bowl there was no way he could be as sloppy as me.
“I didn’t even know there was dinner.” Everyone was still staring. Oh, why wouldn’t they just look away? Not for the first time, I wished I were invisible.
I had never felt more conscious of the camera than when it panned up from my mud-encrusted sneakers to the totally goofy shorts-over-leggings combo and the pièce de résistance, a giant, grubby Tupelo High sweatshirt.
“Come on in, sweets, you’re late for dinner!” Mom sounded just like honey, though the look in her eyes was anything but. “There’s a space open for you right here between me and Dusty!”
Dusty. If anything, she looked even more uncomfortable than I did, poured into a hot-pink floor-length ball gown that displayed a vast expanse of tan cleavage. And to top it all off, she was wearing a tiara. A tiara. She looked ready to jet off to the Tupelo High Prom again. Shooting Jamie a baleful look, I marched over to meet my doom. My old enemy the butler reappeared in front of me, having procured a towel from God knows where. He laid the towel over my chair, just like Tate Moseley did before he let his dogs into his new truck. Feeling a little bit like Tate Moseley’s dog—the less cute one—I slouched into my seat.
“What on God’s green earth do you think you’re wearing?” Mom whispered between clenched teeth, her face frozen into a smiling mask.
“I didn’t know this was a formal dinner! I didn’t even know there was a dinner! Shouldn’t there be a schedule, or something? If they would just give me a schedule, I’d be on time for stuff like this! If I’d known there was going to be dinner, I never would have gone on a run! You know I always prioritize food over running!”
“You’re late. And you look disgraceful.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
It was kind of weird, actually, now that I’d thought about it. They’d sent me an itinerary before I came, but it was just for travel. Did everyone else have a shooting schedule except for me? Were they trying to sabotage me or something? It sounded paranoid, maybe, but they were starting to make me feel paranoid.
A plate of pink mush appeared before me, deposited by a white-gloved hand.
“Well, at least not all is lost—thank goodness for a refreshing cold appetizer!” Mom laughed a dumb little tinkly laugh, just like Dusty’s, and everyone returned to their regularly scheduled conversations. I poked halfheartedly at my pink mush with my silverware.
“It’s fish,” Dusty said. “Salmon rillettes.”
“Gross.” I dropped the fork.
“Call me a tacky American, but I would kill for a plate of chicken fingers with ranch dressing right now.” Dusty leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand. On her left, Ronan chattered away obliviously with his mom, shoveling fish mush into his mouth as he reenacted what looked like a particularly violent rugby game. “Then again, I am a tacky American. I look like a goddamn Barbie.”
“At least you’re a Barbie with regard for personal hygiene. I look like Pig-Pen.”
“I think you and I got very different memos on the dress code,” she whispered as she leaned over to adjust the strings on my hoodie, hiding her face from the camera with her hair.
“Ya think?” I whispered back, leaning over to adjust her necklace in return. We probably looked like monkeys grooming each other, but I didn’t know any other way to try to hide from the cameras. “Why are they trying to make us look stupid? I thought America loved you and just wanted to share in your special times blah, blah, blah.”
“Maybe that got boring,” Dusty said ominously.
I jumped, noticing the camera hovering inches behind my shoulder. If anything it seemed more sinister than before. I always knew there was an element of fakery to reality TV—I wasn’t an idiot—but actually being manipulated by the production team felt so much worse than I’d imagined it would. This dumb show was as fake as Dusty’s tan. I realized with a thud that they were almost definitely setting me up to be the Anne Marie of Countdown to the Crown. Why else would they have insisted I attend a formal dinner in muddy running gear? I was going to be Dusty’s dumb sister. The comic relief. The stupid American. Ugh. I didn’t need any help looking like an idiot. Clearly, I could manage that perfectly fine on my own.
Suddenly, Dusty flashed her megawatt grin, quick as turning on a light switch. “My goodness, Dylan!” she exclaimed. “Looks like you got yourself into quite a mess!”
Typical Dusty—deflecting negative attention away from herself by making me look bad.
“Dylan saved me from a wild boar.” I looked across the table and my eyes locked with Jamie’s. “Unfortunately, her wardrobe was a casualty in her efforts to secure my safety.” A smile tugged at the corners of my lips. “She was terribly valiant. Quite dashing, really.”
“Jamie, how very silly.” Ronan’s mom laughed in a way that was probably supposed to be carefree, but just sounded slightly deranged. It was bizarre, how nice she was to Jamie. Well, I guess he was a lot more polite than Kit Kirby. When it came to choosing a groomsman for Florence to favor, it wasn’t much of a contest. “Wild boar haven’t roamed the lands at Dunyvaig since the time of Henry the Eighth.”
“Girls can’t be valiant.” Kit waved his wineglass around, splashing Jamie with a few white drops. Well, look who was up and conscious. “Or dashing. It’s a male adjective, is it no?”
“I can assure you, she was valiance personified.” Jamie cut a neat square of fish mush. “What a particularly refreshing rillette.”
And just like that, things didn’t seem so bad.
“He likes you,” Dusty said softly.
“What? He? Who? No. What? I mean, what? No.”
“Yes, he does, you twitchy li’l owl. It’s so obvious that even you must notice it, Miss Never-Had-a-Boyfriend.”
“I’ve had a boyfriend,” I said defiantly. It was already embarrassing enough being a sixteen-year-old who’d never been kissed. It was way worse being a sixteen-year-old who’d never been kissed when your big sister had never, ever been single. “Just because you’ve had, like, a thousand boyfriends—”
“I have not had a thousand boyfriends—”
“Doesn’t mean you know everything and I know nothing. I’ve had a boyfriend.” I grumpily spooned some fish mush into my mouth. Mistake.
“Dilly, if you’re even thinkin’ about mentionin’ the name Matty Van Meter right now, that’s downright embarrassing. Y’all were in first grade.”
“He was still my boyfriend.”
“He’s strange. But handsome. In a strange way. Jamie, I mean. Not Matty Van Meter. He was an unfortunate-lookin’ child.”
“He looked fine. And he had a lot of Playmobils.”
“An admirable quality in a beau, I’m sure.” She took a dainty sip of wine. Somehow not a single smudge of hot-pink lipstick or sticky gloss remained on the glass. It was things like that that made me wonder if Dusty was human. “Have you asked Jamie about his Playmobil collection?”
“Um, no.” I snorted. “My priorities have shifted slightly since first grade.”
“And what are they? These estimable man priorities?”
“I don’t know, Dusty! God!” I gulped down some water. Bubbly. Wasn’t expecting that. Dusty thumped me on the back as I coughed my way back to equilibrium. “What’s with the third degree? I just want someone who’s nice and smart and interesting and thinks I’m nice and smart and interesting. It’s not brain surgery.”
“No, it’s not, is it?” she said softly. “When it’s right, it’s dead easy.” I followed her gaze over to Ronan. The rest of this show may have been a farce, but she really did love him. Even I could see that. “Want some advice?”
“Advice? What kind of advice?”
“Man advice, dummy.”
“From you?” I snorted. “No thank you.”
“Excuse me? I am the ultimate source of man advice. In case you haven’t noticed, I am engaged to a very handsome man. Obviously I know what I’m talkin’ about.”
“No, it’s okay, I got it, thanks. I picked up a few tips in a lifetime of being your sister. ‘Ooo, tee-hee-hee! Giggle, giggle! Oh my stars, aren’t you a big strong man!’”
“I do not talk like that—”
“‘Land sakes, your bicep is bigger than my teeny tiny waist! Ah bet you could bench-press me! Oh, whoopsy-daisy, look at that, Ah have exposed a vast array of cleavage!’”
“Oh, hush your mouth,” Dusty muttered grumpily. “I was just tryin’ to help you reel in that big weird fish.” She indicated to Jamie across the table, who, thankfully, seemed wholly engrossed in trying to keep Kit from spilling his wine. “But he seems to like you as is anyway.” She sniffed. “So I guess just keep doin’ what you’re doin’.”
“That’s the plan.”
“So you admit you have a plan for reelin’ him in?” Dusty pounced.
“What? No—”
“But that’s exactly what you said—”
“What I meant was that the plan was to just keep doing what I was doing because I have absolutely no plans or designs or intentions on anything involving fish or boys or whatever!”
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