by Nell Harding
“Nice to meet you,” she lied, having no desire either to get to know some spoilt rich man or to have him get to know her, her guilt about Livingstone making her feel immediately defensive. She switched to the automatic, generic comments that were useful on such occasions. “I hope you’ll enjoy Mackenzie House.”
He wasn’t thrown off. “Come now, I’m not the mayor,” he laughed, his eyes crinkling in a conspiratorial manner. “You can save your polite inanities for him. Now what intrigues me is to hear your poet quoted with a proper accent. To paraphrase, your silver flashing tongue which softer years in England never tamed, carving through this high and mighty crowd…”
In spite of her misgivings, Fiona was impressed. She had often despaired that the art of quoting poetry was rapidly disappearing, and it was all the more impressive to have Campbell’s lines rewritten and thrown back at her after having been heard only once. She might well have to revise her previous assumption that all of the upper class married their first cousins.
To hide her surprise, she adopted a curt tone. “Well, I am Scots. There still are a few of us left in Scotland, although you might not guess it to hear this crowd.”
Colin seemed to ignore the barb in her voice as he laughed easily. “Oh, there are a few genuine Scots here today,” he said, glancing around the room as if he knew most of the faces present. “Most have just learned to hide their accents.”
“Because a Scottish brogue is something to hide?” she asked caustically.
He appeared to find her defensive tones amusing. “I take it you are not overly fond of us landed gentry types,” he observed mildly, not seeming to take any offense at the idea.
“I can suggest a few songs by Capercaillie and the Proclaimers if you want to hear my views on the subject expressed by better wordsmiths,” she replied, wondering if he had ever listened to any Scottish bands of the past few decades.
He cocked his head to one side and examined her. “Oh, I don’t think you have any troubles expressing yourself,” he said lightly. His blue eyes were still fixed on her face, ignoring the rest of the room as he spoke to her in such a familiar way that Fiona found herself starting to feel unarmed. She took a step back.
“I think you’re making fun of me,” she said cautiously. “Now if you’ll excuse me…”
“Not so fast,” he protested, his arm reaching for hers to hold her back, his touch gentle but firm. “There was no such matter in my thoughts. I simply felt an overpowering desire to meet you after hearing your speech.”
Fiona felt herself flush again, still not convinced that he wasn’t somehow teasing her while at the same time appreciating the slight nod at Shakespeare. So the man could read at least. “Well now you’ve met me, a bona fide Scotswoman,” she said, her eyes meeting his defiantly. Let him prank her, if that was his intention. If she were his one experience in trying to meet a commoner, he wouldn’t find her as easy as he expected. “Now you can scratch that off your list.”
As if to prove that her train of thought was on the right track, he flashed her a beautiful smile. “I was actually hoping that you’d accept an invitation to dinner with me,” he said cheerfully. “I would like a chance to get to know you better. You intrigue me, and I’m sure that you could teach me a thing or two about my own backyard.”
It was an unfortunate turn of phrase, making Fiona immediately think of her unwelcome intrusions onto his estate. It also reminded her of the haughty warning letter that she had received last week, threatening her with eviction if her dog once again created a disturbance at the main house. She drew her guard back up, remembering all too clearly that under this charming, handsome exterior was a harsh and unrelenting landlord.
“I’m extremely busy,” she found herself saying coldly. “I have a book to write and I really can’t afford the time.”
Colin’s eyebrows raised in just the mildest astonishment. “Even writers have to eat,” he pointed out. “And if your mission is to raise awareness of highlands culture, I’m as good a place to start as any. Or we could make it lunch, if that takes less time.”
She almost smiled. He was persistent, in any case. “I really can’t,” she said, her tone slightly softer. “Although I strongly encourage you to look into local history if you’re interested. A lot has gone on here.”
At this point Colin’s companion joined them, her eyes trained on Colin although they flicked over to Fiona after a moment. “Oh, it’s you again,” she said, her voice cheerful but not particularly friendly. Then she turned back to her escort. “Come on, Colin. Rabbie and Em are talking to the Bassingtons and trying to choose a date for a dinner party. We need your advice. Come help us.”
Colin graciously allowed himself to be dragged away by his insistent date, but he looked back over his shoulder at Fiona as he was led away, his eyes as friendly as ever. Fiona forced herself to look away, hunting for the Andrews and suddenly conscious of a multitude of curious eyes watching her. She settled instead for her favourite snacks table and hid away behind it to digest her unexpected meeting and a few wedges of cheddar.
“So glad that Bridget managed to rescue you,” Colin was greeted by Aiken as he rejoined the group. “Were you trapped in a never-ending lecture on Scottish history?”
“Or was the siren seducing you with poetry?” Emma suggested, her eyes glinting mischievously.
“Siren?” Bridget repeated in a pained voice. “Did you hear her accent? I seriously mistook her for one of the cleaning staff earlier this evening. Although that could be the waitress uniform.”
There was a low chuckle from the others. Colin forced a bland smile. “She certainly is passionate about the area,” he said neutrally.
Aiken gave him a friendly cuff on the arm. “You don’t have to be a martyr for the family trust,” he said amicably. “It’s all well and good to attend these functions but you don’t have to force an interest in ancient history and architecture to be able to write a fat cheque.”
“We did read classics at Cambridge together, didn’t we?” Colin asked with a grin.
Aiken rolled his eyes. “No need to drag up the past. Now let’s fix a date with the Bassingtons and then place bets on how long Davis there manages to hold onto that young bride.”
All eyes turned to focus on a septuagenarian being supported by a leggy blonde at least forty years his junior. Colin was grateful for the change in conversation and smiled along at the game, but his thoughts were elsewhere. As one of the region’s most eligible bachelors, he wasn’t at all accustomed to his dinner invitations being refused. And he had been genuine in his desire to have more time to speak with her. There was something most intriguing about this articulate, passionate and strong woman.
Hearing his friends’ easy dismissal of her made him reflect uncomfortably on his own earlier aversion to people who spoke and dressed like Fiona. He didn’t disrespect them per se, but it was true that he had grown up accepting that certain circles simply weren’t meant to overlap. East End is East End and West End is West End, as they said. Never the twain should meet.
The truth was that he seldom met people of her station, unless they were the serving staff at restaurants and clubs. He prodded his motives carefully to be sure that he wasn’t simply attracted to a curiosity, but the truth was far simpler than that. He found Fiona highly attractive as well as interesting. She didn’t have the model-like figure of most of the women he dated, nor the sophisticated manners, but her face was beautiful and natural and expressive, and her reactions were genuine. And he liked the fact that she didn’t seem in the least awed by his family name, and definitely wasn’t trying to win his affections. On the contrary, she seemed keen to dismiss him entirely.
He found himself grinning at the thought. Well, she would see that the Parkers were not that easily discouraged. He was used to getting what he wanted, and it wasn’t outrageous to want to speak a little longer with this appealing Scotswoman. She might not be ready to accept a dinner invitation from him just yet, but there was m
ore than one road to Rome, or whatever the expression was. He would have to read up on his history before he approached her again. For now, he could start by finding out a bit more about the elusive Fiona Buchanan.
Chapter Four
“You aren’t seriously saying that you turned down a dinner invitation from Colin Parker,” Sarah said, half-admiringly, half-disapprovingly, as she gave her friend a searching look.
“I’m busy,” Fiona said irritably, tying her hair back in a kerchief before she measured out twenty litres of water into a jerry can and mixed it into the cement in a wheelbarrow, stirring viciously. “Why would I take up a total stranger on a dinner offer after speaking to him for five minutes? Worse than a stranger, somebody I know to be a class snob. And why did he even ask me? The whole thing feels like a set-up, like some sort of game or bet to see which of his mates can bring home the woman with the most working-class accent.”
Sarah was watching her curiously. “You’ve done this before, right?” she asked, referring to the cementing job that Fiona had planned for the afternoon.
“I read up about it on the internet,” Fiona said in an off-hand manner. “And glanced over a book on masonry at the Braeport library. It isn’t like it’s rocket science. Seriously, don’t you find it a bit bizarre the way he approached me?”
Sarah shrugged noncommittally. “He saw you speak and found you interesting. How else could he have dealt with trying to speak to you in person?”
Fiona surveyed the dark, porridge-like mixture in the wheelbarrow and checked the cement bag again to make sure that she had the proportions right. “I think it’s ready,” she declared, picking up two trowels and handing one to her friend. “Let’s do a trial piece of wall where it’s the most knocked-down. I suppose he could just have stayed talking to me there and then. No need to make a date of it.”
“That’s sort of how it works, the dating thing,” Sarah pointed out, eyeing the wet mixture on her trowel dubiously. “You meet somebody you think you like and you try to get to know them better. Didn’t you ever go on dates?”
“Of course I did,” Fiona said with a slight frown. “But never like that. Just with guys I’d known a long time and became close to, at school and uni. You know, classmates or workmates, people like that.”
Sarah grinned. “It gets harder once you leave school,” she said. “You don’t meet people like that outside of work. And remember you’re talking to a barmaid; don’t even ask how many relationships I’ve seen that began over one drink in a bar.”
Fiona was now shovelling her cement mixture in a thick layer over an uneven layer of dry stone wall. “The more I think about this, the more it seems we should really start right at the bottom, but that would basically mean rebuilding the wall. I thought the whole point of dry stone was that it stood forever. Anyway, it isn’t as if he and I are relationship material. We come from totally different worlds. And my dog is slowly trashing his camp.”
Since the incident with the convertible, Fiona had twice caught Livingstone returning from the castle grounds, once simply muddy and once dragging the wing of what looked suspiciously like a chicken but might have been some sort of grouse. “You don’t think they keep chickens at the castle, do you?” she asked out of the blue as she and Sarah set to work trying to replace the stones which had been knocked over, gluing them into place in the wet cement.
Her friend seemed surprised by the question. “Does Colin Parker earn more points in your books if he grows his own eggs?” she asked in a puzzled voice.
Fiona wiped at her nose, leaving a streak of wet cement on her cheek which she hastily tried to dab away with the shoulder of her old sweatshirt. It was a chilly day for August, even by highlands standards. Summer was fading away rapidly. “No, it’s about Livingstone.”
“I probably don’t want to know,” Sarah said, looking down at the cause of their labour as he lay panting in the shade of a rowan tree. “But you might find yourself suddenly forgiven if he took a fancy to you. I mean, who wouldn’t forgive a girlfriend’s dog for acting a bit rambunctious?”
“Who would want to date the sort of guy who evicts tenants because of a few dog incidents?” Fiona shot back. “No, we are chalk and cheese. Nothing in common and I can’t even begin to think what he would like to speak about unless it genuinely is history. And if he really were interested in history, he would already know most of what I have to say.”
“You said he quoted Shakespeare,” Sarah pointed out. “That gives him at least one thing in common with you. The last two people ever to quote Shakespeare outside of dramatic circles.”
Fiona acknowledged her friend with a grunt. The truth was that those two little signs that he was the sort to quote poetry were the two things that had piqued her interest. For the rest, her rational side knew that he was elitist and represented a slice of society which she saw as still living in a feudal system. Which was why she was irritated at herself for having enjoyed his attention somehow and allowed herself to feel a bit flattered, which was no doubt his intention.
She sighed heavily and slapped another daub of cement onto the wall, staring at the effect crossly. “This isn’t going to work, is it?” she asked sourly. “Either we redo it all, which is impossible, or we have to come up with a new solution. Even if our new bit holds when it dries, the whole block could just come sliding off if Livingstone puts his weight behind it.”
“We could try just rebuilding the dry wall without the cement,” Sarah suggested after a moment. “We could probably learn the basics of that as well on-line. Or ask some of the older farmers in the area who build low walls to get the stones out of their fields.”
“Well, let’s finish the cement I mixed up and then rethink it all,” Fiona said in discouragement.
“The wall or your rejection of Colin?” Sarah teased her, receiving a blob of wet cement in the leg in return. “If he was serious about wanting to get to know you, it isn’t too late.”
“If he’s a mason, it is,” Fiona chuckled, surveying their slapdash efforts. “I hope there isn’t some sort of building restrictions on these old places forbidding any changes to the exterior, because this doesn’t look like it used to.”
“There probably is, now that you mention it,” Sarah replied. “As you should know as well as anyone, after the work inside Mackenzie House. But since this isn’t going to hold, I wouldn’t worry.”
“What kind of guy asks a woman to dinner while he’s on a date with another?” Fiona thought aloud several minutes later as she hoisted a heavy flat stone into place. “That sort of proves that he isn’t looking for that sort of date. Do you think he truly is interested in history?”
Sarah made a face. “Why not, I suppose,” she said, sounding unconvinced. “Or maybe he wasn’t serious about his date that night. In those circles you always bring somebody to an event. I don’t think it has to mean much.”
“Great, so he’s a shallow cad as well. He’s sounding more and more my type.”
“And what would be your type?” Fiona’s friend asked softly, studying her face. “Does he have to be as bright and serious as you? What’s so wrong about just being charming, fun company if he treats people well?”
Fiona flushed. Did her friend really think that she was some kind of academic snob? “All that matters is that he treats people with respect,” she confirmed hastily. “Which isn’t really how I’d describe somebody who doesn’t mix with common people.”
Sarah pursed her lips. “You still haven’t answered my question. You’ve met Rory, but I’ve never met any love interest on your part. What’s your sort of bloke like?”
Fiona looked at her friend with misgiving. She didn’t like to talk about her personal life much because it wasn’t particularly cheerful. But if her friend was hinting at snobbery on her part, she didn’t want to add to the suspicion by refusing to give away anything of herself. “Just guys I grew up with, mostly,” she said vaguely. “And one guy from my lit class who had a gift for rhetoric and managed
to get us all fired up about saving Scotland from invading English influences. We were quite serious for a while but he didn’t turn out to be such a nice guy in the end. Besides which, the only time he actually seemed to put any of his strong views into action was to shout rude slogans at football matches and to rant well when he was drunk. Which was most of the time.”
Sarah sent her a sympathetic look. “So you gave him the boot,” she suggested.
“I chose exile,” she decided, thinking about it. “I’m the mirror image of Campbell. He was turfed out for drinking, and I ran away because of Cormac’s drinking. He was going to end up like my father.”
Her friend nodded understandingly as she tried to loosen up her back after lifting too many heavy stones. Then a sly grin spread across her face. “Which is why you need to try a new tactic. Somebody like Colin.”
“I wouldn’t even be allowed into his snooty clubs with my accent,” Fiona said crossly. “And he would avoid my haunts like the plague. So what’s left?”
Sarah arched her eyebrows knowingly. “There’s always the bedroom,” she said with a wink. “And Colin Parker isn’t the sort of man I’d throw out of my bed for leaving cracker crumbs.”
Fiona rolled her eyes but couldn’t deny it. The man certainly had sex appeal, not only in his attractive face and well-built body, but in his irrepressible charm and frankness. If you took away all the rest, she added hastily to herself. She threw down her trowel in exasperation.
“Up you get, Livingstone,” she said, giving the dog a fond nudge. He raised his head and cocked his ears, watching her with half-sleepy interest. “And you too, Sarah. I think we need a shortbread session.”
“Or something stronger,” Sarah hinted. “Although I guess I can’t say that now that we’ve dissed your ex-boyfriend like that.”
