“Are there instruments in it?”
“We have a piano that’s about two hundred years old, and a big gold harp, and a collection of flutes, but they’re all mounted in cases.”
“Is the harp tuned?” She sounded almost breathless.
“Are you joking? I don’t think it’s been touched since George the Fifth was king.”
A great big smile spread across Gillian’s face.
“We’re going to lose another one,” Lissa commented. “I didn’t know you played a concert harp, Gillian.”
“I don’t anymore. But I still know how to tune and pedal one.”
Of course she did. What sewing machines and kitchen appliances did for Carly, musical instruments did for Gillian. It must be nice to be gifted with something. I’d be happy to be able to decorate half as well as my mother did. But even my feeble efforts had to be better than nothing.
“Come on. Let’s get all this downstairs.”
Two trips later, we gasped and moaned our way into the sitting room, where my parents served drinks when company came.
“I think I’m broken,” Shani groaned, heaving the last box of lights in through the door. “I thought you were supposed to have manservants around here for this stuff.”
“Not anymore. Mr. Gillie is in his sixties, so he’s not going to do much more than the heavy housework and a bit of groundskeeping. Cheer up. By New Year’s you’ll be in fabulous shape.”
“Or I’ll be sleeping in the kitchen and not moving from the ground floor.”
“It would have gone faster with Gillian and Carly,” Lissa said. “If we do setup, guess who gets to do teardown. Heh.”
“Let them have their fun,” I said. “That way I get kudos for being a brilliant hostess. Lissa, come with me, all right? We’ll grab some clippers from the mudroom and get the cedar branches. Shani, you untangle the twinkle lights and round up all the candles you can find. I think there are boxes of them in a closet somewhere.”
At the back door, I handed Lissa a pair of Wellingtons and a coat, put on my own, and stepped outside. She lifted her head as we crunched across the lawn in the direction of the lake. “It feels like snow.”
“How would you know? Don’t tell me it snows at the beach.”
“I have been in more places than just the beach, you know. Like here, for instance, last year. And I’m pretty good at eyeballing weather. When you surf, you have to be.”
“I’ll give you that, then.” I looked up at the gray, lowering clouds, fat and ragged at the bottom. “I think you’re right. I’d much rather have a white Christmas than a horrid muddy brown one.”
From somewhere deep in Lissa’s clothes, I heard the familiar line from Firefly. She pulled her cell phone out.
“Mom! Where are you? How come you didn’t fly? No kidding. I suppose this is a crazy week at the airports. I’m glad you got a rental car, anyway. Be careful when you get to Edinburgh—it looks like it’s going to snow here. Oh, it does? Trust Dad to get one of those. He’s been on enough shoots in impossible places to know. And you’ll get a chance to talk on the drive up here.”
Long pause.
“Oh. He is? You did? Well, uh, that was nice of you. Sure, I’ll ask.” She pressed the phone against her chest and looked at me. “Is it okay if they bring one more? One of the production assistants from The Middle Window shoot is hitching a ride with them.”
“That’s a fair hitch. It’s a ten-hour drive.”
“No one could get flights up here on such short notice. He lives in Edinburgh but he’ll be all alone for Christmas and they just wondered…”
“Of course he can come.” I pictured some bespectacled geek with a transmitter in his ear and a clipboard and bad skin. Poor chap.
Lissa nodded and lifted the phone. “Sure, that’s fine. There’s plenty of room here, so no worries about that. Tell Alasdair hi for me.” Another long pause. “That’s okay, Mom. She knows you tried. And Mac has an alternate plan to get her up here, anyway. I don’t know—but you can be sure it’s mapped out with military efficiency.” She smiled at me. “Safe driving, okay? Okay, love you three times. ’Bye.”
Lissa snapped the phone shut as we took a fork in the path and ducked under the trees, heading toward the lake. “She says she’s sorry she couldn’t convince your mom.”
“She shouldn’t be. It was kind of her to try. So what’s this about the production assistant person? Do your parents collect the lost and lonely at holidays the way my dad does?” She hesitated just long enough to make me ask, “What’s the matter? Do you know the guy?”
She nodded.
“Is he horrible? Is he going to spoil our fun? If so, you can call her back and ask them to push him into the firth. This Christmas is going to be perfect and I won’t have—”
“No, no. He’s fine.” She took the pair of clippers I handed her and began snipping branches off a shaggy cedar that hadn’t been trimmed in probably a decade. “In fact, he’s more than fine. He’s tall and super smart and talented. He has dark red hair and dimples and hazel eyes.”
“Oh. Well, then. That’s different.” I stopped snipping. “It sounds to me as if you know way too much about this person.”
“He showed me around Edinburgh last year. I spent more time with him than I did with my own father.”
“And something happened while you were spending said time?”
She nodded. “I… um, we… we kissed. More than a few times.” She snipped off a branch with a lot more force than the skinny little thing warranted. “And now he’s coming here with my parents.”
“So what’s wrong with that? I’ve kissed lots of guys lots of times, and most of them have been here with my parents.”
“You don’t get it.” Her skin had turned pale, and it wasn’t just because of the cold. “He’s a lot older than me. Twenty-one. If my parents find out, they’ll flip. The only reason I had myself a mini-fling is because I thought I’d never see him again.”
Oh, dear. Have yourself a merry little Christmas, girlfriend.
chapter 8
THEY’RE HERE!” Lissa’s voice echoed from the landing in the great hall, where she’d spent the last hour pretending to hang twinkle lights on the banisters while she watched the drive. “Woohoo!”
Her ballet flats slapped a quick tattoo on the stone as she flew down the stairs.
“If you slide down the banister, it’s faster.” Always the helpful hostess, me. Then I turned back to the phone I held between my cheek and shoulder. “Mummy, they’re practically at the door so I have to be quick. We can’t find the box of candles.”
“Did you look in the linen cupboard?”
“Why would candles be in the linen cupboard?” I reached up and hung a big fat wreath on the sitting-room door.
“Because there’s no linen in it anymore, goosey. You’ll find all kinds of kitchen rubbish in there, and I’m sure I put the candles there when—the last time.”
The double front doors banged open, and I could hear Lissa outside, shrieking with joy.
“I’ve got to go. Lissa is frightening the wildlife. Thanks, Mummy.”
“Darling, don’t forget the crèche goes on the sideboard in the sitting room.”
“We’re not doing the crèche. Baby Jesus is missing, along with the two cows. I hate to think what they’re up to.”
“Not doing the crèche? But it’s tradition.”
“Bit difficult without Baby Jesus, Mum.”
“But the room won’t look right.”
“It looks lovely, honestly. We’ve been working like drovers since yesterday. I’ll take a picture and e-mail it to you. Got to go.”
I disconnected before she could get another word in, and smiled. It would send her crazy to know I wasn’t doing it “right.” Baby Jesus wasn’t missing at all. He was wrapped in tissue, right where he ought to be. But it was all part of my plan.
Meanwhile, there were guests to greet and lovely college men to meet. I tucked the phone into my pocke
t and hurried across the hall and down the front steps.
Dad, looking every inch the earl in muddy Wellies and an ancient fisherman’s sweater under a tweed blazer so old it had lost most of its color, was shaking Lissa’s father’s hand. “Welcome back to Strathcairn, Gabriel. I’m so glad our kids talked you into spending the holiday with us.”
Gabe laughed and Lissa’s mother said, “I only hope we won’t be too much trouble.”
“Nonsense,” Dad said warmly.
“We can’t possibly be as much trouble as I was on my last visit.” Gabe looked up at the walls. “This place sure shot well. My director of photography thought he’d died and gone to heaven.”
“Mac, I’m so glad to see you.” Patricia Sutter hugged me and I got a whiff of Joy before she let me go and turned me over to Gabe. “Have you girls been having fun?”
Lissa slid both arms round her mum’s waist. “Mac’s been working us to the bone. But boy, are my glutes in good shape from all those stairs.” Then she stopped and turned bright red. “Uh, I mean—”
I glanced from her to the guy standing by the boot of the rented Land Rover. He raised his eyebrows and fought to keep the grin off his face. “I didn’t hear a word,” he said. “And I certainly wouldn’t say it. Hi, Lissa.”
“Hi, Alasdair,” she mumbled, and grabbed the nearest suitcase and a carrying case sitting in the snow next to the car. She fled up the stairs with them.
“Graham, I’d like you to meet Alasdair Gibson, one of the production assistants who worked on The Middle Window here last year. Alasdair, you remember the earl.” They shook hands.
“These are our other guests: Shani Hanna, Gillian Chang, and Carly Aragon,” Dad said.
“There will be a quiz at the end of the period,” Gillian quipped.
“And this is my daughter, Lindsay—”
“Mac.” I shook his hand, too, not being one to miss an opportunity when it’s standing there all tousled and tall. Mmm. Nice, strong handshake. Warm. Yummy shoulders. Great mouth.
Oh, happy Christmas to me.
Nice eyes, too. Hazel, as Lissa had said. But what Lissa had not said was every bit as evident. Because those nice eyes were not focused on me, as a man’s should be when he’s got a girl’s hand in his. Oh, no.
Alasdair was watching Lissa bumping her way through the door with her two bits of luggage. “Excuse me, Lady Lindsay.” He loped up the steps and pushed on the door so Lissa practically fell through it. He fell through it right after her.
“Mac,” I repeated to no one in particular.
And a happy sodding New Year.
I wasn’t the product of five hundred years of breeding for nothing. I straightened my shoulders, put on a smile, and led the way into the house. “Lunch is at one o’clock,” I told Patricia. “Let me show you to your room so you can make yourselves comfortable. It’s on the third floor.”
I found Lissa and Alasdair there, wandering helplessly from room to room. “Mac!” Lissa practically bowled me over. “Where do you want him?” Her smile was a little too perfect to be real, and her eyes looked… desperate?
I had a few suggestions, if she wanted Alasdair off her hands.
Her parents, both breathing hard, gained the top of the staircase. “Mr. Mansfield, Ms. Sutter, you’re in the Queen’s Room.”
“Great,” Lissa’s mother said. “I hope it comes with oxygen. Whew! Lissa, you weren’t kidding.” She put her cases down and straightened. “And please, call us Gabe and Patricia. The other is such a mouthful.”
“What’s this about a queen’s room?” Gabe wanted to know.
I showed them in and put Patricia’s carrying case on the trunk at the foot of the bed. “Mary, Queen of Scots is supposed to have stayed here during one of her progresses. There’s some doubt about the dates, so I don’t know if it really happened or not. But what’s a castle without a room where somebody famous slept or died or staged an uprising?”
“I’m not famous, but I might be dead soon.” Patricia collapsed on the green brocade fainting couch. “Ever considered installing an elevator?”
“We Scots are big believers in physical fitness.” I grinned at her.
“What do you do when your guests have disabilities?”
“Grannie broke her ankle skating on the lake one Christmas. She slept in what used to be the housekeeper’s room, off the corridor where Dad’s office is.”
“I meant the paying guests. Aren’t there the equivalent of ADA laws here?”
I stared at her rather like the cow in the road stares at the honking car. She was making noises I didn’t understand. “Sorry?”
“The Americans with Disabilities Act. In the States, guest houses have to have some way to accommodate people in wheelchairs and whatnot.”
“This isn’t a guest house.”
Patricia gazed at me while a blush colored her face under its tasteful makeup. “I’m sorry. I guess I just assumed that a place this huge would be paying its way. I can’t imagine what the taxes must be like.”
“Mom,” Lissa murmured. “You’re embarrassing her. Please stop.”
“But I was just—”
“Mom.”
“I hope you’ll be comfortable. Alasdair, if you come with me, your room is just down here.”
I left Lissa to deal with her parents and their strange ideas, and made off down the hall with the cute guy. Who was crushing on my friend who didn’t want him.
Just my luck. Well, luck could be turned. I’d never met a man I couldn’t have, and there was nothing like a challenge to liven up the holidays. So what if he was a little older? That meant he was mature. Adult. I mean, stand him next to Tate DeLeon. I rest my case.
Two doors down, I showed him in. “I always call this the ‘Ducks ’n’ Bucks’ room because of the hunting scenes, but it doesn’t have an official name.”
“That’s all right. I’d never have been able to sleep in the Queen’s Room, anyway. Her outraged spirit would probably have me tossed out.”
“Mary had a keen eye for the men, never fear. I doubt she’d toss you.”
“I never read that in history.”
“You never read the right books.” I smiled at him. “Is that what you’re doing? Reading history?”
He shook his head. “Pre-med.”
“Ah. That’s what my dad wants me to do. But I haven’t decided yet.”
“It’s not so bad. You’re taking a term in the States, are you?”
“At Spencer Academy in San Francisco. Shani and Carly are my roommates there. I understand you and Lissa know each other.”
He smiled, as if he was savoring a favorite memory. As if I didn’t know what it was. “We do. I showed her round Edinburgh a bit last winter while Gabe was working on the film.”
“I didn’t know P.A.’s did that kind of thing.”
“P.A.’s do what they’re told. It was pure luck that she’s such a lovely girl. We had fun. More than fun.”
I bet you did. “What’s a pre-med student doing in the film industry, anyway?”
“We had two weeks’ break and my cousin set me up with it. The money was better than anything I could have come up with as a bike messenger or working in a chip shop.”
“And now you’re riding round the country with Gabe Mansfield himself. Nice career move.”
“It’s not like that.” His cheeks reddened. “Look, if it’s not convenient for me to be here, I can go.”
“Of course it’s convenient. We have tons of room, and one more person isn’t going to make a difference. I just wondered…” I stopped. Where prying was concerned, even I knew my limits.
“What?”
“Why you aren’t going home for Christmas. Don’t you have any family?”
He unzipped his wheelie bag with a sound like a shriek. “Lunch is at one, you said? Is there anything I can do to help?”
Ah. Fine. I could read a No Trespassing sign when a person stuck it in the ground in front of me. “No. Between the girls and
Mrs. Gillie, who does for us, we have everything handled. All you have to do is tell us if you need anything.”
Like a girlfriend, for instance.
But I kept that to myself as I left him to his unpacking and went to find the other woman.
“I think she’s in her room, Mac,” Patricia told me, holding up a Rodarte evening dress that took my breath away. “You don’t happen to have a steamer, do you? Look at the creases in this.”
“No, but we have an electric kettle that’s almost as good. I’ll get it for you, shall I?”
“No hurry. I’ll come look for it later.”
I found Lissa hiding in her room, as reported. “I thought you’d be with your parents, hearing all about the premiere in London.” I closed the door behind me and leaned on it.
Lissa looked up from her phone, hit Send, and slipped it in her pocket. “I needed a little time alone.”
“Oh. Sorry.” I turned the door handle and prepared to step out as gracelessly as I’d stepped in.
“No, no, stay. I didn’t mean you. I don’t know what Alasdair has been telling my mom, but she has that face. You know. ‘Curious parent’ face.”
“‘Tell me everything’ face?”
“Exactly. Except there’s nothing to tell.” She glanced up at me. “Well, nothing recent, anyway. I haven’t heard from him except for the occasional e-mail since last February.”
“He seems to think there’s some kind of grand affaire de la coeur going on. If there isn’t, you’d better set him straight.”
“How am I going to do that?”
I sat on the end of the bed and faced her across a couple of feet of Aubusson carpet. It was getting a little threadbare where people slid out of bed and put their feet down. “Oh, I don’t know. ‘Alasdair, I like you, but just as a friend’ would be a place to start.”
“And what if he spoils our whole holiday being mad at me?”
“We pack him in a trunk and send him to—” Hmm. He hadn’t told me where home was. “Edinburgh. Or I could lock him in a tower. We have four. Surely one would fit the bill.”
“Mac, be serious.”
“Lissa, be practical. It’s not like you’re breaking up with the man. You’re just telling him that rumors of a relationship with you have been greatly exaggerated.”
Tidings of Great Boys Page 7