Tidings of Great Boys (27 page)

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 the 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.

T
HE 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.

I hoped it was a long, long drive and there would be lots of lovely traffic, so we could sit in the backseat and I could marvel
at how good his hand felt in mine.

It was no easy job shoehorning everything into the cars. “Gillian, my love,” Lissa’s mom puffed, heaving on a suitcase, “you
should let Lissa tutor you on the art of traveling light.”

“She did,” Gillian protested. “You should have seen what I had packed before!”

Gravel crunched in the distance and everyone paused. “Are we expecting guests?” I asked Dad.

“Not likely, since we won’t be here the rest of the day. I wonder who that could be.”

In a few minutes we had the answer. A black limousine the size of a cruise ship nosed down the drive and crunched to a stop
behind our two vehicles and all the luggage, blocking our exit.

“This can’t be good,” Shani said.

Carly and I stepped in front of her.

For all I knew, it could be the Prince of Wales coming down from Balmoral to call on Dad. But somehow I doubted it. He always
drove himself.

A uniformed driver got out and went round to the passenger side. He opened the door, and a man and a woman got out. Their
dusky skin and hawkish profiles gave me my first clue.

“Busted,” Lissa murmured. “How did they find out?”

The driver stood next to the front fender of the limo and straightened to military posture, hands behind his back. “Their
Serene Highnesses Sheikh Amir and Queen Zuleikha of Yasir,” he announced in tones you could hear halfway across the valley.

Five hundred years of breeding kicked in once again. Dad bowed, and Mummy and I dipped our very best Ascot curtseys. Behind
me, Shani did the same. She at least had the advantage of knowing the royal couple when she was a child. The other Americans
didn’t curtsey, but Patricia inclined her head in the closest thing to a bow she could probably manage.

The Sheikh wore a
keffiyeh,
but instead of the flowing robes I’d always imagined, he tugged on the jacket of a flawlessly cut Italian suit. His shoes
were glossy, as though the snow in the drive didn’t dare cling to them. He stepped forward, and he and Dad took each other’s
measure.