A flash exploded beside me. “Paddy McLear is the best Uilleann piper I’ve ever seen.”
“Uilleann piper?” I said, taking note of the fact that McCarthy was snapping pictures of Paddy McLear rather than me. Maybe I should have gone with the Royal Stewart plaid instead of the Isle of Skye.
McCarthy was dressed up, for him, in a dusky green sport coat covering his customary white button-down shirt. I was surprised and pleased to see him wearing the yellow tartan bow tie I’d coerced him to wear at the Highland Games. With his dark blond ponytail combined with the green coat, he looked more like a leprechaun than a Scot. He waved a hand at the bagpipes.
“Uilleann pipes are Irish bagpipes, known for their mellow tone. You have to have the coordination of an athlete to play them, though. Paddy makes it look easy.” He fired off a couple more shots of Paddy and the Uilleann pipes, and then aimed his lens on the tiny dancers. They were bumping into each other by now, dizzy from all their spinning.
I left him chatting with the girls’ parents, getting permission to publish the photos in the newspaper, no doubt. I wandered over to the refreshment table and snagged a glass of punch. With so many children and teens in the crowd, I felt reasonably confident the punch would be free of whiskey. I took a quick sip, just to make sure. Ginger ale and fruit juice with dollops of ice cream floating on the surface, but no alcohol. Perfect!
Satisfied, I scanned the crowd. A lot of the same people I’d seen at the Highland Games were here tonight. Gillian lounged on one of the antique upholstered chairs, giggling with her friends. She wore her wide plaid skirt with the ruffled petticoats, along with a white ruffled blouse and velvet vest, a sign that she would be dancing later. Ryan King held court in the center of the room, berating the Phillies for trading his favorite player. He’d worked himself up over this issue until his voice could be heard over the general conversation. Looking at his red face, I remembered how Gillian had described him as having a terrible temper. I resolved to steer clear of him.
Morris Hart had gathered a small crowd around him on the other edge of the room. I half expected him to be wearing a kilt with his dinner jacket, but he wore a conservative gray suit and a plaid tie like any other professional. I took a drink of punch and joined the group. He was talking about his book, of course.
“Some critics have suggested that Stu Rohan can be seen as Everyman, but that’s patently ridiculous. He is distinctly unique, as the sole legitimate heir of Bonnie Prince Charlie. He carries the hopes of a displaced multitude on his shoulders, of course, but his journey is his alone. Anyone saying anything else hasn’t read the book.”
I hadn’t gotten to that part in the book yet myself. I was about to slip away to avoid any more spoilers when Hart laid eyes on me. He interrupted himself in midstream, his face paling a bit. He shouldered out of the crowd of fans and grasped both my hands. He held me thus at arm’s length and looked me up and down as if he could hardly believe I was real.
I was so startled, I just stood there for a few seconds, letting him ogle me as if I were a diamond necklace at a high-priced auction. Then I pulled against his grip, my face flaming under his rapt attention.
He dropped my hands at once. “I’m sorry, please forgive me.” His own face reddened. “This has never happened to me before. Is your name, by any chance…” his voice dropped to a whisper, “Catherine?”
“No. It’s Daria Dembrowski,” I said, puzzled. “We met at the Highland Games yesterday. You must have me mixed up with someone else.”
He continued to stare, although he tried to cover it up. “Have you read my book?” Without even letting me answer, he went on, “My dear, you are the perfect image of Catherine in Over the Sea to Skye. It is as if the character I breathed into life is standing before me in the flesh.” He reached out and touched my arm, as if to reassure himself that I wasn’t a ghost.
The crowd of people surrounding Hart all stared at me as well, whispering behind their hands. It was just about to get weird when I spied McCarthy on the edge of the crowd. He flashed me an amused smile before raising his camera for a crowd shot.
Feeling grounded again, I smiled at Hart. “I can’t wait to get to the part about Catherine in your book. I hope she’s a good guy.”
Hart laughed a shade too loudly, still rattled by the apparition of one of his characters intruding into real life. “She’s the romantic interest. You haven’t read the book?”
“I’ve started it,” I said, relieved to see the crowd melting away. McCarthy focused his camera on Hart and me together as we talked.
“Well, I don’t want to give anything away. Just…don’t take it personally when things happen to Catherine.” He couldn’t keep himself from staring even now. “She is a creation of my imagination, but you…you are, in fact, real.” He shook off his fascination and laughed more naturally. “Skye is my twelfth novel, and this is the very first time I’ve met one of my characters in real life. I am sorry. I’m sure this is bizarre for you.”
I smiled and nodded, wondering how we were going to get past this awkward moment. “I have a housemate who wears black leather and chains on a daily basis. People don’t usually stare at me when we go out.”
He laughed and indicated the refreshment table. “Will you forgive me enough to join me in a drink?”
“Of course.”
McCarthy winked at me as I walked with Hart over to the refreshments. I’d planned to limit my alcohol intake in un-Scotsmanlike fashion, but I accepted a small glass of whiskey from him nonetheless. If I was careful, it would last me all night.
“I’ve started reading your book, but I’m only on the third chapter,” I said. “I read in the newspaper that your visit to Laurel Springs has to do with more than just promotion of the book.”
Bolstered by a healthy drink of whiskey, he was able to turn his attention to this more general discussion of his work. “Well, it’s all promotion really, but I am here to do more than just sign books. You’ve read about the quest for the ring, of course?” Accepting my nod as his due, he went on. “History and fiction are interwoven in Skye. One thing that really is historical is the lost ring of Bonnie Prince Charlie. You know about the Jacobite Rising and the Battle of Culloden? Of course, you’re up to the third chapter. So you know Charlie went down in spectacular defeat and had to flee for his life across the sea to the Isle of Skye: ‘over the sea to Skye,’ in the words of the old ballad. He was aided by the lovely Flora MacDonald, who disguised him as her maid and took him to Skye in an open boat. Charlie was twenty-five years old at the time, a handsome, dashing figure returning to his rightful kingdom to try to recover the throne. You can imagine that he turned the heads of any number of young women. But I won’t go into details because you’re not up to that part yet. Suffice it to say that he had a ring, an heirloom of the House of Stuart, which was never seen again after the Battle of Culloden. Historians suspect it found its way to the finger of one of his admirers, but which one? That’s the subject of heated debate. I have my own favorite, like other historians, but unlike them, I am poised to produce the ring.” He paused a beat, enjoying the dramatic nature of this statement.
“Wow.” A chill ran down my back as I pictured this romantic bit of history coming to life in the twenty-first century. Hart was a very good storyteller.
He continued. “I’ve traced Bonnie Prince Charlie’s ring to eastern Pennsylvania, of all places. My dear, I suspect it is in the neighborhood, even as we speak. I have opened this quest for the ring to my readers, who can follow clues on my website to discover the ring for themselves. Call it a promotion, if you will. I like to think of it as a treasure hunt.”
I took a small sip of whiskey, trying to suppress the sputter it caused. “So, if I go to your website I can figure out where Bonnie Prince Charlie’s ring is? What’s to stop me from picking it up and keeping it so no one else can find it? Or is it like geocaching, perhaps?”
&
nbsp; Hart drew back, apparently affronted by this suggestion. “How does geocaching have anything to do with this historical quest?”
My second sip of whiskey went down more smoothly. “Well, geocaching is a treasure hunt as well. You follow the GPS coordinates and the riddles and clues online to get to the hidden object. Then, when you find it, you record your name in the logbook and leave the object where you found it for the next person. That’s what made me think of it in relation to your quest. When people succeed in finding the ring, they could leave it for the next person to find. Otherwise, your promotion will be over once the first person finds the ring.”
Hart chuckled as he topped off his glass, and mine as well. “I confess, I didn’t think about staging a logbook. My plan was simply to reward the first person to find the ring. It is meant to be a short-term promotion, after all.”
“Well, you’ve got me hooked. I’m going to go home tonight and look up your website.”
He tossed back the whiskey like a pro. “And best of luck to you in the quest! I would love to have Catherine’s doppelgänger be the one to find the ring. It would be too perfect!”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to be anyone’s doppelgänger, whatever that meant. I didn’t get the chance to find out, because Patrick Ames clapped his hands together, calling for attention.
The muscular athlete wore a Highland kilt on this occasion, rather than the utility kilt he’d worn at the Games. It was the blue and green plaid of the Campbell clan, paired with a velvety green jacket and a thin black tie. His Glengarry cap, a trim hat made of thick wool with a checkered band running around the edge and a soft red pom-pom on the crown, finished off the picture of a Scottish gentleman.
“Does everyone have their cup of Atholl Brose to toast the haggis?”
I looked around in anticipation of the traditional Scottish drink Corgi had told me about. Breanna’s older dancers circulated throughout the crowd, bearing trays of small plastic cups. Gillian was the one to serve me. She held out her tray to Hart and me. “Whiskey or no whiskey?” She inclined her head at the cups, which contained a thick, milky liquid. Some of the cups held a yellowish liquid, while in the others the contents were white.
“Whiskey, of course,” Hart said, plucking two of the whiter cups off the tray. He handed one to me.
“Of course,” I muttered, lifting the cup to my nose to take a whiff. It smelled sweet and tangy at the same time, as if someone had added alcohol to the milk left over from a bowl of oatmeal topped with lots of sugar. I hoped Gillian was planning to choose the no-whiskey kind for her own toast.
Once all the guests had been served, Patrick called for our attention again. Affecting a thick Scottish accent, he proclaimed, “And now, the honor guard will pipe in the haggis!”
Those who were sitting down stood up as a couple of bagpipes struck in. Playing a regimental march, the bagpipers processed slowly through the room, following another member of the Laurel Springs Pipe and Drum Corps, who bore a silver platter containing the haggis. I was expecting to see five medium-sized lumps resulting from the five deer stomachs I’d seen at the church, but there was only one large browned mass on the platter. I was still trying to work out how five deer stomachs could equal one large sausage when the haggis arrived at the front of the room, flanked by the two pipers who brought their march to a dramatic climax. Patrick held out an old book and began to read in his fake Scottish accent. I couldn’t understand much between the accent and the Scottish words, but I gathered he was reading Robert Burns’s poem, “Address to a Haggis.” Patrick drew out his words when it came to the description of the haggis, “…warm-reekin, rich,” and then when he got to the end, “Gie her a Haggis!” he plunged a knife deep into the warm, reeking mass. The crowd applauded, and we all raised our cups and drank a toast. The Atholl Brose tasted like oatmeal and honey with just a hint of whiskey. It was very good.
Corgi stopped by to say hi after the toast. Dressed out in his kilt and sporran, he looked like a dapper Scot, despite his ordinary black dress shoes. He looked askance at Morris Hart and whispered in my ear, “All this ceremony around the haggis is what you would find at a Burns supper in January, not necessarily a run-of-the-mill ceilidh following a games. I hope Morris Hart doesn’t think we’re putting on airs.”
I glanced at Hart as well. “I’m sure he’s not judging us.” I watched Patrick slicing up the haggis for the dancers to distribute throughout the room. “I thought you had five deer stomachs, but there’s only one big haggis,” I said to Corgi. “What gives?”
He laughed out loud. “We sewed those five stomachs together to make one big case for the haggis. Talk about nasty! I had to shower and wash everything I was wearing when I got home.” He drifted away from my side, still chuckling.
I accepted a small piece of haggis from a young dancer and allowed Hart to refill my glass of whiskey at his insistence that “haggis wasn’t meant to be eaten dry.” He got that right. I took a nibble, which tasted like the smell of Mohair’s cat food. But a good drink of whiskey made it much more palatable. If I didn’t watch out, I’d soon be drunk.
Hart’s gaggle of admiring fans had grown throughout the toasting of the haggis. He fielded a number of questions on his process of writing and whether or not Stu Rohan was based on a real-life acquaintance of his. I faded back to the edge of the crowd, keeping an eye on Ryan King, who had clearly had quite a bit more whiskey than I had. I wondered what had gone through Gillian’s mind when she declined to answer my question about whether her dad had ever killed anyone. I frowned as I watched him. Did he seem to be a murderer? He discoursed with Hart in an excited voice, speaking rapidly and laughing out loud at the end of every sentence. Hart didn’t care—the two of them were soon swapping outrageous jokes and slapping each other on the back. McCarthy circled around the edges of the crowd, taking it all in through the lens of his camera. Through it all, the Highland bagpipes droned from the hallway, and the little girls ran and danced and spun underfoot.
Suddenly, the sound of the bagpipes stopped, and Breanna stepped up to the podium. Her face was flushed, whether from the warmth of the room or a bit too much Atholl Brose, I wasn’t quite sure. But when she began to speak, in a halting, anxious tone, I knew it was nervousness that colored her cheeks.
“The Highland dancers have a special performance to honor our distinguished guest, the author Morris Hart. Usually the girls dance to a recording or, if we’re lucky, live bagpipes. Today, they’ll dance to the accompaniment of our own Isabelle Craig singing ‘The Skye Boat Song’ as a tribute to Mr. Hart’s most recent work.”
A thin girl who couldn’t have been older than eleven or twelve walked up to the mic as the dancers lined up in front of her. Paddy McLear arranged himself and his Uilleann pipes on a chair off to the side and launched into a soft Celtic waltz tune. The dancers lifted their wide plaid skirts, showing the white ruffled petticoats underneath, and bowed to the crowd. As they started to dance, Isabelle sang in a sweet, clear voice:
Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward! the sailors cry;
Carry the lad that’s born to be king
Over the sea to Skye.
Clearly the “old ballad” Hart had mentioned, the song had several stanzas, detailing Bonnie Prince Charlie’s voyage across the sea with the help of Flora, who watched over his weary head. Young Isabelle’s lovely voice combined with the lyrical dancing and the lilting tune to bring a tear to my eye. By the end of the song, I wished with all my heart that Charlie could indeed come again to regain his lost throne.
Isabelle held the last note, the dancers bowed to Morris Hart, and the song was finished. Hart clapped enthusiastically, causing Breanna to flush with pleasure. She shepherded her dancers off the floor, and the crowd began chattering again. Suddenly, I found Ryan at my elbow.
“So, missy, what’s your story?”
I flinched, taken aback by hi
s loud voice so close to my ear. Ryan’s face was flushed red and he slurred his words. He held an overflowing glass of whiskey that slopped onto my skirt as he prodded me with an unsteady forefinger.
I pushed his hand away and swiped at my skirt, while simultaneously dodging a bit farther away from him. “What do you mean?” I tried to stall for time, racking my brain to recall whether I had committed any offense against him or his daughter. I didn’t think I had even interacted with Gillian tonight, other than to accept a glass of Atholl Brose. And in that case, Morris Hart had picked up the glass.
Ryan leaned close to my face, favoring me with an onslaught of whiskey breath. “Did you do it on purpose, coming here looking like Catherine in that book?” He waved a vague hand at my clothing, slopping more whiskey in the process. I managed to avoid this deluge.
“Just a happy coincidence,” I said, trying to keep my tone light. “Have you read the book?”
“Why, sure, I’ve read all of Hart’s books. He’s a master. I’m on my way to find the missing ring.” He leaned in close again to whisper in my ear, “Hart says it’s within a fifty-mile radius. I’m guessing it’s….”
Ryan didn’t get the chance to tell me the location of the ring, if in fact that was what he was going to say. He was interrupted by a loud tattoo on the snare drum to get the attention of the assembly. A tall man I recognized as the pastor of the downtown Baptist church stood at the podium. “I don’t think it amiss to take a moment out of our frivolity to remember our fallen friend.” He called up a lone Highland bagpiper to stand by his side. “Yesterday we lost a vibrant soul, who left this world too soon. Let us take a moment to honor Ladd Stuart Oliphant Foster.”
Royally Dead Page 10