MUMMY PUSHED OPEN the sitting-room door with one hip and carried in two plates heaped with food. Dad followed her with a tray of drinks.
“Lindsay, darling, it’s all clear,” she told us through the bookcase. “The helicopter just took off.”
“Is that for us?” I tried not to sound too pathetic as I pushed the latch, and the books and shelving swung slowly outward.
“I sure hope so.” Shani stumbled into the room on my heels and zeroed in on the table like a heat-seeking missile.
“Of course it is. Here.” Dad handed her a tall glass of punch and pulled out a chair. Then he got a good look at me. “Good heavens, child. Have you been scrambling about in the walls in your petticoat? How did you not freeze?”
“There wasn’t time to think about it. And I’m perfectly decent for present company. I’ll go up and change as soon as I’m fed.” Both of us tucked in as if we hadn’t eaten in weeks.
“Dad, are you sure it’s going to be okay?” I asked a few minutes later, round a huge mouthful of baked Brie and olives. “How angry were they?”
“Not half as angry as I was.” Dad’s smile faded, then revived again as he met my eyes. “When they couldn’t turn you up in the house and were threatening to do a sweep of the grounds, I finally lost it.”
Mummy pulled in her chin and mimicked him. “ ‘If two girls in evening clothes can hide themselves outdoors in twenty-degree weather, you’re welcome to look, but you’re no’ coming back inside.’” She relaxed into a grin. “Well done, darling. Very much the threatening laird.”
Dad’s face held a mixture of pride and sheepishness. “I could not have them chasing my guests all over hill and dale. And speaking of well done—nice work, Lindsay. I’d completely forgotten about the hidey-hole in the games room.”
“If Carly hadn’t told us what you planned to do, I’d have been frantic.” Mummy touched my hand. “You kept your head. I’m proud of you.”
I blinked back the sudden rush of tears. “I couldn’t very well let them drag poor Shani off to who knows where to be interrogated or screeched at or tossed in prison or whatever the Sheikh planned to do. I mean, how illegal.”
“I’m sure he would have just asked her a few questions in his hotel suite,” Mummy said, “but that doesn’t mean he has to use high-handed methods like sending helicopters. A letter would have done the job, or a simple phone call. In any case, we would not have allowed it, Secret Service or not. The only bad thing is, the press have gone away with a nice, juicy story about the missing pretender to the throne.” She sighed and gave Shani a glance filled with regret. “We couldn’t cover everything.”
“I can handle it,” she said. “First thing tomorrow, I’m calling Rashid to give him an earful about his parents. At least I can do that before the story hits the papers.”
“Look at it this way. You’ll have done your bit with publicity for Strathcairn.” Then, a second too late to take it back, I glanced at Dad. “Um. Sorry.”
He shook his head. “If your friends don’t mind your using them ruthlessly for publicity, why should I?” Shani grinned at him, and he turned to me and went on, “Your mother and I have been talking.”
I looked from one to the other. There were so many things to talk about I hardly knew where they might begin.
“I can leave.” Shani pushed herself away from the table. “Give you guys some privacy.”
“Oh, but—” Mummy began.
“Seriously.” Shani picked up her plate and glass of punch. “I’ll go find the girls. After this great food I’m going to need to dance some more, anyway. And maybe sign some autographs.”
“Hang on. Madame’s got spiderwebs.” I brushed off the back of her dress. “Thanks, Shani.”
She smiled into my eyes from the door. “I’ma call it even, girlfriend.” Then she closed it behind her, leaving me with my parents.
“You won’t have… trouble because of all this, will you?” Mummy asked.
“What, from Shani?” I shook my head as I sat and picked up my fork. “No. She knows the whole thing with the movie clip was a mistake. We all know who was really responsible. I’m just sorry it took me so long to see who my real friends are, that’s all.”
We only put up with her because she’s got the dosh to have a good time. Whether it was true or not, Carrie’s scornful voice would ring in my memory for a long time. Which was good. It would guarantee I wouldn’t do anything stupid, like trust her with my friendship, ever again.
Under the table, Dad took Mummy’s hand. “It’s good to know the people in your life who really care.”
I glanced pointedly at their hands, and Mummy’s jerked briefly, then relaxed. “So I see.”
“I’ve been stubborn and stupid and ridiculous,” Mummy said. “And your dad has been nice enough not to call me any of those things.”
“There are things I’d rather call you,” he told her. “Mo cridhe.”
Oh, gag. But still, I couldn’t stop the grin spreading across my face, or the warm glow of happiness growing in my chest.
“Would you be very upset if we didn’t live in London anymore, darling?” Mummy asked.
I shrugged and speared a sausage tart. “It’s nowt to me. I’ll be living in the dorms at the University of Edinburgh soon enough, probably.”
“Over your grandmother’s dead body,” Dad told me. “She says if you’re living anywhere while you go to classes, it’s with her.”
“What, have you been talking about me behind my back?”
“I’m afraid so. She ambushed me behind the potted palms and gave me an earful about responsibility and loss and all the things that have been plaguing me ever since you and your friends came to visit.” He smiled at me. “And the position of Managing Director of the Strathcairn Hotel and Corporate Retreat Centre just… sort of… came up.”
I laid my fork down. “Dad. You’re going to do it? Mummy, you’re coming home?”
“The two events are not necessarily related,” my mother said, “but yes. As soon as you’ve finished the last term at St. Cecelia’s, I’ll put the house in Eaton Square up for sale. And we’ll both come home. For good.”
I swallowed the tart past the huge lump in my throat. And then I did what I never do. I burst into tears of sheer happiness.
Sometimes the best-laid plans really do work out.
With a little help from your friends.
AT A QUARTER before midnight, the chemist from the village spun me into a turn—and right into the chest of Alasdair Gibson.
“Mind if I cut in?”
“Not at all,” the chemist said, red-faced. “I need a few more lessons before I try this again.”
I smiled as the music segued into a nice slow number from the early nineties. The DJ and I were thinking as one being. Either that, or he really wanted to be paid and had listened to every one of my threats.
After I’d rescued my poor dress from the armory and had to admit it needed a trip to the cleaners before it could be seen again in public, I’d fished out a simple Chanel number from last fall and thrown my earasaid over it. If people were dancing and talking about the events of the evening, no one would notice or care what I was wearing.
The Strathcairn rubies, though, had come through the entire adventure without so much as a wobble, so I left them on. Someone would definitely notice if they went back into their box.
“Thanks for taking care of the press,” I murmured against Alasdair’s crisp white shirt front. Hmm. The lad had arrived with no more than two shirts to his name, and they weren’t of the formal variety. Either he’d borrowed one from Gabe, or someone had taken pity on him and ordered one along with the party supplies.
Either way, he looked scrumptious, and the white only made his hazel eyes seem darker. Or maybe it was the fact that the lights in the ballroom had been dimmed until only the twinkle lights and the big chandelier remained.
“Not a problem,” he replied. “I quite like the image of fending off the wolves at t
he castle gates. Though in point of fact, you did that this afternoon.”
“We make a good team, then.” I laid my cheek against his chest, which forced him to stop holding me the requisite two inches away.
“Lady Lindsay.”
“Mac.”
“Mac. Are you quite sure your parents will approve of us draping ourselves all over each other this way?”
“My mother will. She was very interested when Lissa spilled the news in front of everyone.”
“And your father?”
I looked up at him. “Alasdair, will you relax? He’s so consumed with having Mummy back that you and I aren’t even on his radar.”
“Your mother’s back? Is that so.”
“And the seeds Patricia has been dropping about turning Strathcairn into a working estate again have been springing up all over. Dad’s agreed to that, too.”
“What brought that about? I thought he was dead against it.”
“The poor man is no match for all his womenfolk. And the Dowager Countess was the last straw. You don’t want to argue with the woman who once spanked the King of Lichtenstein.”
“No indeed.” A laugh lurked in his voice. “You’re all a pretty formidable lot.”
“It takes a certain kind of man to handle us, I’ll give you that.” I settled myself against his chest again, swaying in time with the music. His arm fit round my waist as if it belonged there, warm and safe.
“The kind in a kilt and claymore?”
“No, ye wee numpty. The kind who uses more brain than brawn. Who looks inside before he notices the outside. Who, as Grannie would say, can see through a grindstone with a hole in it. The kind of man a MacPhail woman can trust.”
“Ah. Well, I might have a shot at that list. The kilts and claymores are a bit beyond me.”
“I bet you would look fine in a kilt.”
“I have knobbly knees.”
“There’s more to a man than his knees.”
“Just as there’s more to a woman than her attitude and her money?”
“Not so much of either as there used to be, I’m afraid. You’ve probably heard.”
“Aye, I did. And I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m to go to the University of Edinburgh next fall to take a business degree. So I might see you on campus.”
“I hope so.”
He hoped so? Was that all? I’d really put myself out there in the last couple of minutes. Was he going to leave me swinging in the wind? A hot flush of humiliation began to creep up my cheeks, and I pulled away a little.
“Lindsay—”
The song we’d been dancing to faded into silence. In the distance, the first of the bells began to ring. The church at Inniscairn always started early. Then came another set of deep chimes, louder—the village church, sounding out across the countryside, carried in the cold air. Then the grandfather clock in the entry hall began its slow toll, and soon every clock in the house, which Dad had been going round setting since early this morning, began to chime.
“Five, four, three!” The DJ led the countdown. “Two! One! Happy New Year!”
And as he dropped “Auld Lang Syne” onto the deck, people linked arms and began to sing. Lissa, Gillian, Shani, and Carly, all linked together in a chain, snaked their way over to me, and by the second verse, Alasdair and I and the four of them were all hooked together, swaying and singing.
They weren’t “auld acquaintance” for me. In fact, at this time last year, I didn’t know any of them existed. But at this time last year, I was a different person. The girl I was now had a completely different life ahead of her. Different friends. Different prospects.
Some of that was scary. Some of it was wonderful. But through it all, I’d have my friends—people I could trust to come through for me. And who trusted me.
At the end of the song I was feeling a little choked up—both from happiness and from sadness, too. Because it was clear that no matter what I did, Alasdair just wasn’t going to see me the way I saw him.
“Happy New Year!” Carly grabbed me and gave me a big hug. “And to think I get to call my dad in nine hours and do this all again.”
“You’d best call your mother, too,” I murmured in her ear. “Start off the new year on the right foot. No rubbish left from the old year, remember?”
She pulled away without answering, and Lissa and Shani grabbed me for their hugs. And when I turned from them to Gillian, and from Gillian to Alasdair—
—somehow we’d wound up next to the window and he was outside on the terrace and someone shoved me out the French doors and closed them in my face.
Those girls.
How embarrassing. Because of course they didn’t know—he wouldn’t—
“At last, a bit of privacy. Happy New Year, Lindsay.”
And Alasdair took me in his arms and kissed me while the bells rang out over the snow-covered hills I loved.
chapter 22
THE WINTER TERM at Spencer Academy began on the sixth of January, which meant the girls’ flight was on the fourth.
Which meant I had to tell them I wasn’t coming with them, like, now.
After staying up all night making merry with our guests, welcoming the first-footers at the door bearing gifts, and rambling into the village to do a bit of first-footing ourselves for those too infirm to come to the party, we’d spent all of New Year’s Day sleeping and lazing by the fire and talking over all the events of the night before. Mummy and I had packed away the Strathcairn jewels—only this time they went into the safe in the library and not into the messenger pouch to be delivered to the bank in London. The Nafisa diamond and all its bits wouldn’t be traveling anymore unless the Earl and the Countess went with them.
We’d all gone to church together that morning, and I’d found myself listening to what the minister said a little more carefully than before. I still didn’t know what being a Christian meant, or even whether I was one, but I suppose part of learning about that is paying attention. And now it was Sunday afternoon, the third of January, and time was running out. I left Alasdair, Gabe, and Dad in a fascinating discussion about solar panels and went to find the girls, who were supposed to be packing.
Carly was already finished and was reading e-mail. Lissa, Gillian, and Shani were buried in a gargantuan boorach that had somehow spilled out into the corridor.
“We’re never going to get all this back into our suitcases,” Shani moaned. “Why did I bring five pairs of shoes? What was I thinking?”
“You’ll have to mail the overflow to yourself,” Lissa said, holding a coat in one hand and her waterfall dress in the other and looking in despair into her already full suitcase. “Normally I do better than this. It must be all the Christmas presents. Mac, did you keep any of the boxes?”
“Of course. Or I can pack a trunk and ship it to you at school.”
“That won’t put you over your weight allowance, will it?” Carly asked.
And here it was. “No, I meant through the post.”
They stared at me. Then Carly said, “You’re not coming back with us, are you?”
I shook my head, and in spite of myself, the tears that had been floating far too close to the surface since New Year’s Eve welled up again. “No. I’m to finish out at St. Cecelia’s. There’s no money to send me to Spencer again, even if they could arrange a third term.”
“Mom told me,” Lissa said. “So we’ve kinda been expecting this.”
“I can totally relate,” Shani said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s actually a good thing. Now that the old place is going to be a posh hotel, they’re going to need me to run it. That means I don’t have to be a doctor after all—or spend a lot of boring seasons in London hunting for a marquis to marry. I can take my degree in Edinburgh and come home to make this place world famous.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem for you.” I knew Gillian well enough by now to recognize complete sincerity when I heard it.
�
��No,” I agreed, and the others laughed.
Shani stepped over her suitcase and came to hug me. “I’m going to miss tripping over you in the bathroom every morning.”
“On the bright side, you won’t have to crowd your makeup all into one little corner.”
“This isn’t good-bye,” Carly said fiercely. She hugged me so hard my ribs felt as if they’d crack. “I refuse to say it. We’ll be just as good friends online as we ever were in person, sending pictures back and forth and yakking over Skype and iChat.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” I told her. “I need you to watch my back.”
“And I need you to watch mine,” Shani put in.
“That reminds me,” Lissa said to Shani. “Did you ever talk to Rashid?”
Shani snorted. “I did. He finally called me back this morning after, like, three messages. He’s in Italy at his parents’ place.”
“And you told him about the helicopters and how you had to go crawling through walls in a Lanvin dress and high heels?” I would have loved to be in on that conversation.
Shani nodded. “I could tell he was sorry about it. But he says once his dad gets angry, there’s nothing to do but stand out of the way. Nothing he tried did any good.”
“But you two are okay, right?” Gillian wanted to know. “Because you still have two terms of sitting next to the guy in Global Studies. You know how Mr. Bryant hates it when international incidents go down in his classroom.”
“No, we’re good.” Shani grinned. “Rashid does have a sense of humor. And next time anybody at school complains about their parents’ weirdness, he’s going to have the story to trump all stories.”
I had to laugh at that.
BUT I WASN’T LAUGHING the next day as we dragged all the luggage downstairs and outside to the Range Rover. The Mansfields were taking Gillian (only because they traveled light and she had enough luggage for two people) while everyone else went in our car. And since Alasdair would be returning to his dorm at uni, we would drop him off on our way back from the airport in Edinburgh.
Tidings of Great Boys Page 19