“Um, yes,” I said. I hadn’t been listening. I’d been imagining our lunch unfolding like a movie in my head. We were at sticky toffee pudding and witty banter. A dog had appeared at our feet and was gazing up at us lovingly.
“Main road, left, then right,” he repeated.
I made a thumbs-up sign and began turning the car round. In my rearview mirror, I watched Fraser shoulder the stag’s head as if it weighed nothing and weave his way to the front door.
I noted as I sailed confidently down the track that Alice hadn’t let him put Banquo in his London flat. I would have done. It could have been “our” stag.
*
Of course, I got lost.
Totally lost.
The lost you can only get in the middle of nowhere, on a dark winter night, where there are no streetlamps and no signs because everyone navigates according to whose cows are in which field.
I was nearly back in Berwick before I finally worked out where I was, using Max’s free-with-petrol atlas, and by the time I stumbled onto Kettlesheer’s twisty drive, I was wailing actual curses on the whole stupid countryside.
They dried up instantly when I turned the final corner.
“Blimey,” I breathed out loud, as I fell deeply and instantly in love.
Kettlesheer rose magnificently against the wooded hillside like an eccentric grande dame, trailing ivy and turrets and weather vanes, with two crenellated wings sweeping back from a proud main elevation. Right on cue, the clouds shifted away from the moon, bathing the stone façade in white light and glittering in the pointy windows like jewels.
I held my breath and drank in the view, my heart swelling in my chest. I dreamed of houses like this. Kettlesheer was exactly the sort of moss-covered ancient pile I’d always pictured when reading about Border war rescues and romances and skirmishes and shotgun weddings. It had a drive that cried out for the thunder of horses’ hooves and the rattle of a carriage pulling up posthaste from London. Turrets built for leaning out of, to catch the serenade of bagpipes.
I gripped the steering wheel and wished violently that I’d been witnessing this romantic splendor from the window of a landau, not through the fly-smeared windscreen of a very boring Mercedes estate wagon. As a small sop, I abandoned the local radio station and tuned to some classical music for the final stretch of the drive.
As I got nearer, I realized actual lights, not moonlight, were illuminating the long downstairs windows, and an array of cars, mostly of the rugged agricultural type, were parked on the gravel circle. Either the McAndrews had a big family, or they had company.
I pulled up next to the shabbiest available Land Rover, and checked my reflection in the mirror. I wasn’t that happy with what I saw. I’d planned my “casual weekend look” for Fraser’s benefit, but I’d intended to stop in a lay-by to change my jeans for something more befitting a Chelsea antiques expert before I arrived at the house. Now I was late, shiny-nosed, and dressed for an afternoon’s light furniture removal.
My wheelie suitcase was in the boot. I could drag on a pair of tights and a skirt … It was dark. No one would see me, if I was quick.
I leaped out of the car, and gasped as the evening chill bit through my shirt. The air was nose-stingingly cold.
I amended my plan to putting on a better pair of boots and covering the whole thing up with Alice’s mad but fashion-forward cocoon coat. That should give me enough time to arrive, get my wheelie case upstairs, and change into something more appropriate—what exactly, I hadn’t worked out yet.
I leaned against the car trying to pull my boots on. Suddenly the front door opened at the top of the stone steps, spilling yellow light onto the mossy verandah; before I could speak and draw attention to myself, a man strolled out onto the verandah and let out a sigh of frustration that ended on a screech.
Damn. I hopped, hopped again, and with a crashing inevitability toppled over behind the car.
Four
Once I’d picked myself up, I peered through the car window at the tall man by the door. He was so busy muttering to himself he hadn’t even noticed my messy crash to the floor, which was a small comfort.
Was that Duncan McAndrew? I hadn’t even spoken to him; Alice—my “agent”—had sent me a very bare set of notes, mostly about percentage fees.
The man looked about thirty years too young to be Duncan; from his Converse sneakers and jeans, he seemed about my age, maybe a few years older. He certainly didn’t look very Scottish or lairdlike. If anything, he reminded me of the IT programmer in the flat below mine, Trendy Will, who had one remote control for his entire flat and kept blowing our communal fuse box with his multiple gadgets.
The man shuddered and rubbed his arms through his hoodie, muttering something about the bloody cold in a very English accent. His face was shadowy in the light from above the door, and it made his cheekbones stand out even more. He couldn’t see me, and I gazed at him in a way I wouldn’t have been able to had he been looking back at me. He was very handsome. Dark eyes, big dark eyes, and a strong nose. His hair was dark too, and fell into his face; Alice would have marched him off for a haircut.
I wouldn’t.
I breathed out and carried on hopping into my boots. He obviously wasn’t Duncan, just a guest. Maybe staff? Fraser hadn’t said there were no staff, just not a full household. It was okay. I still had time to sort myself out.
I stood up just as he turned my way, and being nearly six feet tall in my boots, I must have given him a shock, suddenly appearing above the roof of the car like that.
“Jesus!” he gasped.
“Hello,” I said, stepped out from behind the car, hugging my coat tighter round myself.
He stared at me for another moment, and then for some reason his expression changed into one of warm recognition. “Hey!” he began, pointing at me, but didn’t get any further before a girl with a dark braid and an attitude came barreling out behind him.
“Robbie,” she snapped, grabbing his arm. “Don’t just walk off when I’m talking to you! We need to discuss the set reel with Mummy and Ingrid. It’s really important for us to be—”
She registered him looking at me, and then registered me, and stopped. The look on her face would have frozen the blood in my veins, if it weren’t halfway there already.
It’s very bad, I know, to judge people by their clothes, but she was wearing a green tweed miniskirt, green tights on long legs, Ugg boots, and a sheepskin vest, with a resigned-looking Jack Russell terrier stuffed under one arm like a handbag and a long silver chain over her green cashmere polo-neck. Make of that what you will.
He was still peering at me through the darkness with that unsettlingly familiar glint in his eye. “Why didn’t you say you were coming tonight?” he demanded, now jogging down the steps with outstretched arms.
Now is the time to come out with some appropriately country-house-ish repartee, prompted my reeling brain. Now. Anytime now.
“Um …” I began.
I didn’t get the offer of embraces from handsome men so often that I could afford to pass them up, but even so, I began to panic. What exactly had Alice said when she was setting this up? And who was he? Had I met him somewhere?
I’d definitely have remembered brown eyes and sharp cheekbones like that. I never got that drunk. Butterflies shoaled up in my chest as he got nearer and I could see the hollow of his throat framed by the V of his hoodie.
The girl’s eyes narrowed. She’d been very heavy-handed with the eyeliner to begin with, and this made her eyes nearly disappear. “Robert, aren’t you going to introduce us?” she barked, but he was ignoring her, and before I knew what was going on, he’d crossed the remaining gravel in a couple of long-legged strides and enfolded me in a bear hug.
My spinning brain noted three things: He had nice strong arms. He smelled delicious—not just aftershave, but that weirdly familiar smell you encounter once in a blue moon. He was also hugging me in a manner that suggested hugs had been taken before.
I couldn’t help it. I squeezed him back and, to my amazement, I felt him lift me slightly off my feet.
No man had ever attempted that, let alone managed it.
“Robert!” From somewhere deep inside Robert’s shoulder I could hear Uggs marching on the gravel, and suddenly Robert disengaged and a cross face appeared between us.
“I’m Catriona,” she snapped, and I pulled away with a start. “Catriona Learmont.”
She shot out the hand that wasn’t carrying the dog, and I shook it vacantly, still reeling from the whoosh of hormones swooping round my chest.
“This is Alice Nicholson, Fraser’s girlfriend,” Robert announced, at the same time that I said, “I’m Evie, Evie Nicholson.”
Robert and I stared at each other. I knew I was blushing—the heat from my cheeks was the only warm part of my whole body.
He took a step backward.
“Oh, my God,” he said. “I’m so sorry, it was the coat—I’ve never seen a coat like that anywhere else, and I thought …” He squinted at me. “I assume Alice is your sister?”
“Yes, she is! Happens all the time, honestly, don’t worry about it,” I babbled. “Quite a compliment, actually! Ha-ha! Sure it wouldn’t go down as well the other way round …”
Catriona stared at me as if I were talking Welsh, then gave Robert one of those Don’t make me say it frowns Mum flashed at Dad when he tried to buy full-fat milk instead of skim in Waitrose.
“You can’t just slope off when you’re the host, Robbie.” She turned back to me with a smile only slightly warmer than the wintry air. “Lovely to meet you, Alice, or Evie. But I have to drag Robert off, I’m afraid. We hadn’t finished discussing what he’s wearing to the ball!”
“Yes, we had.” Robert raised his hands. “I thought I’d made it clear. No kilt. No sporran. Sorry. But no.”
Her eyes narrowed.
His eyes narrowed.
Five excruciating seconds passed, during which I was literally frozen to the spot. I was about to make some random comment just to break the tension and get myself inside to thaw out, when Catriona grimaced and swung her braid like a scorpion’s tail.
“You’re tired. So am I. We’ll talk tomorrow. Good night.”
She beeped a Range Rover open, threw the obedient Jack Russell in, then leaped in herself, showing a lot of green leg. With a roar of the engine, she backed round, nearly clipping Max’s car, and set off down the drive in a squirt of gravel.
Robert and I were left staring at her vanishing taillights.
After a moment, he turned back to me and held out his hand. “Shall we start again? Robert McAndrew. Friend of Fraser’s. And Alice’s.”
“Hello,” I said. “Evie Nicholson. Sister of Alice. Friend of Fraser. Hello.”
Stop saying hello, I told myself. But my brain had gone into slow motion, to save energy for the butterflies careering around my stomach. Good-looking man, glamorous castle, freezing cold, fancy dress ball—I didn’t know what to focus on first.
Besides, it felt a bit awkward to go back to shaking hands after I’d been so recently pressed up against the soft bit of his neck.
I wondered if Robert was feeling as jangly as I was, but he didn’t show any outward signs of it. In fact, he was moving straight into polite chitchat, as if the hug, the spat, and the sudden departure hadn’t happened.
“Are you here to Simplify us?” he inquired. “I’m not surprised Alice sent reinforcements ahead. I think the junk in this place would defeat even her fearsome skills.”
“Oh, it’s not junk,” I began. Max’s clientele were always so self-deprecating about “tatty old rugs” used to line dog baskets, which then turned out to be priceless Persian treasures.
“Junk’s maybe too strong a word,” he agreed. “How about … museum-quality bric-a-brac?”
“Robert? Robert, are you out there?” hissed a woman’s voice before I could retract my dropped jaw. The voice sounded as if it were coming from deep, deep inside a well of despair, but in fact it was coming from the porch. “Janet’s asking for you! And I need help! Your dad’s about to offer everyone the carrot schnapps!”
I spun round and saw a small woman peering out into the darkness. The light above her head was turning her silvery blond hair into a halo of frizz, and she was wearing a sequined cardigan with dangling bell sleeves that she kept shoving nervously up to her elbows. It looked too big for her, as did the majestic porch itself.
I rushed over to the source of heat. “Evie Nicholson,” I said, shaking her tiny hand. “Is it Ingrid? I’ve come to value your antiques. I’m so sorry I’m late. I didn’t realize you were having a party.”
“Oh, we’re not! I mean, I didn’t realize we were until they started arriving just as I was putting some tea on …” She shoved the sleeves up and they slid down her arms almost immediately. Underneath the glitz was a rather Sunday-night T-shirt.
If I was being brutally honest, she wasn’t quite what I’d pictured as the chatelaine of a house like this. I’d been thinking more … Princess Margaret crossed with Helen Mirren. With some tartan.
Suddenly she pulled herself together and gave me a sweet, if deranged, smile. “Sorry, come on in. You must be frozen!”
As she spoke, a man hove into view behind her, and he was much more what I’d been expecting. He was sporting a pair of red tartan trousers, a pink golf sweater, and a tie adorned with golden stags’ heads. The comedy Scotsman look was accessorized with a large crystal tumbler of some orange liquid, and a shock of pale red hair that—I peered as discreetly as I could in the weak light—was either a very bad wig or just very unfortunate.
“What’s going on here?” he inquired with a genial beam. “Catriona with you? And that antisocial son of mine?”
“Evie, my husband, Duncan,” said Ingrid. Did I detect a touch of froideur, or were we all just freezing? “Duncan, this is Evie Nicholson. The antiques consultant.”
“Evie!” Duncan set his tumbler on a nearby stone eagle, and clasped my hand in both of his. I normally hated golf-club handshakes, but frankly I was grateful for any warmth I could get. “How marvelous. Do come in. Come in …”
He started to usher me inside, then paused and peered over my shoulder. “You too, Robert. In. Now. Don’t go sloping off. You’ve been spotted. And there are people you need to talk to.”
Robert muttered something, but I wasn’t lingering outside to catch it.
*
By some impressive trick of Scottish architecture, it was almost colder in the entrance hall than it was outside. The huge fireplace, big enough to roast a horse in, lay empty apart from a stone jar stuffed with dried thistles, and the draft whistled a merry tune direct from the Russian steppes through the leaded windows. The hall was stone-flagged, and littered with large oak chairs and hulking carved boxes that might have contained the remains of Jacobite rebels or spare cannonballs.
I could see glass display cases everywhere—ships in bottles, fossils, iridescent shells, barometers—and what wasn’t oak was hung with tapestries. My pulse quickened. The hall wasn’t breathtaking just because of the cold. It took my breath away because I could totally see ghosts of old McAndrew warriors and damsels floating through the panels in ancient kilts, trailing long tartan sashes and melancholy and history.
Not literally, but you know what I mean.
“We’ve just got a few people round for Sunday night drinkies,” Duncan went on, sweeping me, suitcase in tow, through a section of hall bedecked with disembodied antlers and medieval weaponry as far as the eye could see. “Hope you don’t mind. Bit of a local tradition. Well, a new tradition. One we’ve started!”
“Let me take your coat, Evie,” said Ingrid heavily.
“Um, I might just hang on to it for a while,” I said, picturing the moment when I’d have to reveal my jeans to a drawing room full of cocktail party guests, probably all wearing bow ties and possibly toting cigarette holders. I racked my brains for the etiquette; were cocktails more or less for
mal than dinner?
It didn’t help that my eyes kept flitting from the amazing tattered old Scottish flag hanging over the balcony to the lamp in the shape of a giant brass fish to a huge emerald witch ball suspended above the balustrade.
“If it’s not too rude,” I went on, dragging my attention back to the matter at hand, “maybe I should go and freshen up before I—”
Duncan grabbed my elbow and steered me toward a closed door. “No, what you need is a drink and a warm-up by the fire. Ingrid? Tell Mhairi to take Evie’s case up to the Gordon Suite.”
Ooh. The Gordon Suite.
I glowed at the thought of my case being whisked away by staff, just like in a Merchant Ivory film, until I remembered exactly how heavy it was. Not having spent much time in stately homes outside National Trust opening hours, I’d fallen back on my extensive knowledge of period dramas and packed for most eventualities, up to and including some impromptu shooting and light croquet.
As Ingrid went to take it from me, I stepped back protectively. I’d sat on it for hours to get that “traveling light” look.
“There’s no need,” I said. “I’ll take it up myself.”
“No, no!” said Duncan, and I remembered too late that you weren’t supposed to porter your own luggage in posh houses. I hoped I wasn’t being scored on this.
“Now, do come through. So many people are dying to meet you,” Duncan was saying, while Ingrid telegraphed something to an invisible maid over the top of his head.
“What do you mean, ‘so many people—’ ” I began, but he’d pushed open the door and shoved me inside (“Come on, come on, don’t let the heat out!”), slamming the door behind us, nearly trapping my heels in the process.
At once, conversation ceased as all eyes swung my way.
I blinked hard. There was a lot to take in.
Twenty or so guests were gathered in the green-and-maroon drawing room, most wearing tartan trousers or cashmere twinsets or, in a couple of cases, both. All were standing as close as they could to the big marble fireplace, in which a modest basket of firewood was burning valiantly, and were clutching tiny sherry glasses.
The Vintage Girl Page 4
