Tidings of Great Boys (24 page)

It was time to join my friends in the ballroom and get this party
started
.

TEXT MESSAGE

THE LOVELY THING about throwing parties at Strathcairn is that I know everyone. There must have been more than two hundred
people in the ballroom, and they all turned to face the doors as my parents made their entrance.

Together. For the first time in years.

The DJ—who was all we could get since I’d made good and sure Blue Bella had been uninvited—put on “Brown-Eyed Girl.” Sure,
it’s the chestnut of all chestnuts, but I happen to know it’s also the song that was playing the very first time Dad ever
asked Mummy to dance. To my utter delight, he turned to her and swung her onto the floor without even asking—and to top it
off, she went without a word of protest.

The room buzzed with astonishment and speculation, but my parents behaved as though they didn’t hear it. In fact, it looked
suspiciously as though they had eyes and ears only for each other.

I pressed my hands to the front of my dress to keep from rubbing them together in glee. I’d stolen an entire thirty minutes
out of this crazy busy day to put together that playlist, and the DJ had been threatened with dismemberment if he deviated
from it. I had the latest off the Billboard list, as well as oldies, standards, and even, yes, the country dances that Dad
and everyone over fifty expected.

No one would ever be able to say I wasn’t as good a hostess as my mother. Though I’d give her full credit for helping.

By the third song the party had the feeling of success. You know, when you’ve circulated enough to see that people are happy
and talking up a storm, greeting those they haven’t seen for a while, gossiping their hearts out, and dancing.

Then the DJ called, “Strip the Willow.”

As people formed sets during the first familiar notes, Alasdair materialized beside me. “May I have this one?”

“You may.” He took my hand, and when I saw the direction he was going, I tugged at his. “I’m the hostess,” I explained in
a rush. “I have to lead the top set.”

“I suppose I’d best remember the steps, then. Though you look so beautiful, it’ll be hard to concentrate.”

I took my place and stared at him across the set. “Th—thank you.”

And then the pattern began and I had to drag my brain into the dance by brute force instead of falling to bits with a goofy
smile on my face. In between turns I saw that Lissa and Carly were in one set with a sour-faced Kirsten MacDonald, who would
probably be Carrie’s BFF now that I was out of the picture, and Lily. Shani, who seemed to have got Terrell for a partner,
was in another set with Carrie. Lovely. I wouldn’t put it past her to put a kink in the steps on purpose to make Shani miss
a pattern. I couldn’t see Gillian anywhere.

And then the dance consumed me, and I realized two things.

I was having fun whirling and turning and running. And Alasdair not only hadn’t forgotten the steps, but he was a really good
dancer. Which he proceeded to prove over the next dance, a sixties twist, and the next one, an indie house beat that made
everyone over thirty head for the refreshment tables. Heh. All the more room for us to break loose.

Half an hour later, I headed there myself, only to find Alasdair there ahead of me, ladling punch for one of the Honourables
from Aberdeen to whom I was distantly related.

“You’ll have all the old ladies pinching your cheek and calling you a good boy,” I told him, nicking a glass of punch for
myself. Circles of thinly sliced orange floated in the ruby liquid and bumped my upper lip as I drank.

“They’re sweet old ducks,” he replied, strolling next to me toward the French doors onto the lawn. They weren’t open, of course,
because the air coming in would have been glacial, but the potted palms gave us the illusion of privacy. “Relations, I take
it?”

“Yes. Connected to my cousin Roger somehow. Dad would know how, exactly.”

“And why,” he asked, “are we talking about old ladies?”

“Would you rather talk about young ones?” I retorted with a smile.

“Yes. In fact, there’s one in particular I’m very interested in—”

“Mac!” Carrie rushed up. “Hi, Alasdair. Remember me? From the Cairn and Crown? Probably not. Mac’s good at keeping the boys
to herself.”

“Carrie. How lovely to see you.” He sounded much more polite than I would have been.

“That doesn’t stop her from talking about you all the time, though.”

Right. She made me sound like a giddy thirteen-year-old. I wanted to drop through the floor. Thank goodness I hadn’t sent
all those clips of him to her after all. Of course, the clip I’d sent had done its own kind of damage, but at least this moment
was only minimally embarrassing. It could have been so much worse.

“All of it good, I hope.”

How could he stay so polite?
Go on, Carrie. You’ve had your eyeful, now leave. Can’t you see we were having a private conversation?

“You’ve no idea.” Her knowing tone hinted that I’d bared my secret fantasies about him to her. Which I had not. I’d barely
admitted them to myself. Who would tell her anything now, anyway? You may as well announce your deepest secrets on the front
page of the
Times
.

“Oh, look, there’s Sir David Drummond.” I took Alasdair’s arm. “He and Dad are on the local conservancy board. Let me introduce
you.”

I dragged him in Sir David’s direction. “Conservancy?” he murmured. “Deeply fascinating. Thanks.”

“I had to get you away from her,” I murmured. “Just so you know, I haven’t told her anything about… anything. All that’s over
now.”

Sir David stood by the next set of French doors, talking with the chemist from the village, which is why I heard the noise
as we walked up.

Or rather, felt the noise.

A deep, rumbling vibration that had nothing to do with the thump of the music beat under my feet. The panes of glass in the
French door began to rattle. Softly at first, then harder, and then I wondered if they’d shake right out of their frames.

“What on earth—?”

“Earthquake!” I heard Lissa say in a pause in the music.

I leaped at the doors and wrenched them open to see a huge black helicopter hovering over the snow-covered lawn. As it dropped
gently to the ground, even the DJ abandoned his post to rush to the windows to stare. People spilled out onto the terrace,
stepping in inches of snow.

“Dad!” I shrieked. “Dad, come quick!”

“Right here.” With Mummy on one side and Dad on the other, we stood in the beating rush of freezing cold air from the whirling
vanes of the chopper. My skirts plastered themselves against my legs, but I held my ground. Then a door opened and two men
in black suits with black wool overcoats jumped out.

Ducking under the vanes, they pressed their coats closed in the manner of spies in hundreds of movies. To conceal what they
wore in shoulder holsters underneath.

“Well, it’s not search and rescue,” Dad commented.

“Didn’t they know there’s parking along the drive?” Alasdair quipped from behind me, and Dad chuckled.

The two men mounted the stairs, not pausing until they reached the top. I stared at their no-nonsense profiles, eyes as sharp
as those of Farrouk and Bashir. And suddenly I knew.

“Ohmigosh,” I whispered. “Dad. I think it’s—they’re from—”

The pilot shut down his bird, removed his helmet, and waited in his seat while the huge vanes slowed.

“Who is in charge here?” the tallest of the two asked the crowd in general.

Dad stepped forward. “I am the Earl of Strathcairn. This is my home.” I would have added,
And I’d appreciate it if you’d remove your helicopter from my lawn.
But nobody asked me.

The agents inclined their heads. The taller one seemed to be the spokesman, because he did the talking. “We have come at the
command of Their Serene Highnesses, the Sheikh and Queen Zuleikha of Yasir.” He paused, as if Dad was supposed to genuflect
or something. When he did not, the agent went on, “Their Highnesses have been informed that the young woman who has had the
effrontery to declare herself the wife of His Royal Highness Prince Rashid of Yasir is a guest in your home. You will produce
her without delay so that we may take her to Their Highnesses in Edinburgh, where she will answer for this lie in person.”

O
NE STEP to the side and back put Mummy between me and the agents, and I looked over my shoulder. In a tight spot, there was
only one person I wanted with me. Carly’s wide-lashed brown gaze locked with mine.

Get Shani out of here. Stat.

Without a word, she turned and pushed through the crowd. No one wasted a single look on her—they were all watching the Men
in Black as though they were the biggest entertainment they’d seen all year. Of course, this was the country. It wasn’t like
the soccer field at Spencer, where choppers landed fairly regularly, especially at the start of term.

Within a few seconds, I’d made my way back through the crowd and stepped through the French doors into the ballroom. The older
folks had decided it was too cold for scandal and were trickling back in. I didn’t have much time. If the Yasiri agents were
anything like Farrouk and Bashir, it was too much to hope that they’d just go away. They’d carry out the sheikh’s orders or
die trying.

Literally.

Our only hope was to make Shani impossible to find. Which was where I came in.