Swept off Her Feet (8 page)

“This is carrot . . . schnapps?” I asked.

“Home brew,” said Ingrid. “Duncan’s very . . . keen. Anyway, I should go and . . .” She made a vague gesture toward the door, as if she were still getting the hang of her own house.

“Oh, yes, absolutely. I’m fine here,” I said. Actually, I was eager to go poke around the silver wedding photos on the piano, for a start.

Once Ingrid had fluttered out, I stood back and tried to take it all in. McAndrews through the ages glowered back at me from the burgundy wallpaper: the floppy hats, wigs, and tiaras varied, but the strong nose and shrewd Scottish eyes stayed exactly the same. The young Regency buck posing against a tree stump had the same brooding good looks, if not the same breeches, as Robert McAndrew.

It must be incredible, I thought enviously, to
see
that you were part of such a long chain of people. We had one album of family photos. You’d think the whole Nicholson family fell out of the sky fully formed in 1974, the year my parents got married. I’d have been happy for a snap of a relative in a bowler hat, let alone a suit of armor.

One blond head stood out in the crowd of swarthy swaggerers: a full-length portrait of a young woman hanging by the bay window. Something about the mischief in her pretty face
made me sleepwalk over for a closer look, trailing my hands across velvet sofas and threadbare cushions as I went.

She was younger than me—about twenty—but she had a grown-up sophistication about her half-smile and knowing blue eyes. I didn’t recognize the artist, but I could tell he was good: he’d captured the pre-party sparkle of anticipation that glowed around her and the golden softness of her swept-up curls, the luminescence of the pearls in her delicate ears. Going by the nipped waist and floaty off-the-shoulder neckline of her gown, I estimated it must have been painted sometime before the First World War. The last hurrah for languid society beauties and their untroubled lives of house parties and never-ending afternoon teas.

Ooh, I thought suddenly. Was this the heiress? Was I gazing into the eyes of the American buccaneer who’d steamed across the Atlantic to save this ancient castle from financial ruin?

“Jolly well done, Evie,” said Duncan, appearing next to me with a side order of cold air still hanging around him. “Who knew Jock Laing’s toy cars were worth more than his real one? Ha!”

“Who’s this?” I asked.

“My great-grandmother Violet. Painted just after she got engaged to Ranald, that chap there.” He indicated a companion portrait on the other side of the fireplace: another dark-eyed McAndrew male, this time in shiny-buttoned regimental uniform, with a thick mustache and rather luscious brown eyes that hinted at a devilish streak beneath the stern exterior.

“What a handsome couple,” I said, instantly imagining them holding court in this very room, sitting on those big sofas. Yes, I could picture Ranald warming himself beside
the fire after a brisk hunt through the rolling moors that surrounded the house. And Violet in a sumptuous day dress, arranging flowers from the hothouses round the side of …

“Do you have hothouses here?” I asked. “Or an orangery?”

Duncan frowned. “I don’t know. There was some form of piggery during the war, I think. Now then, dinner!” He rubbed his hands together. “Mhairi will show you to your room. Dinner at half past?”

I’d have liked to hear a bit more about Violet and Ranald—how they met, what her fortune was made in, all that—but Mhairi had now appeared and she didn’t look in the mood for reminiscing. I replaced my barely touched sherry glass on the silver salver and followed her out into the bone-chilling hall and up the stairs.

It was almost impossible not to feel as if I were stepping into one of my own most colorful daydreams.

I trailed behind Mhairi as
we tackled the glorious oak staircase in silence, my eyes widening with each step. My attention skipped from one intriguing glass case to another, and more McAndrews, draped in their distinctive orange-and-black tartans and posed standing on dead things, even the women. I ran my hand up the thick banister and wondered how old the tree was that had made it—it must have seen Henry VIII, at least.

“Mind the halberd,” said Mhairi as we ducked beneath a scary pike thing. She had a proper Scottish accent, like deep-fried haggis.

“It’s magnificent,” I breathed, walking backward to take it in, but not wanting to get left behind.

“Aye. It’s a pain to dust.”

At the top of the stairs, we headed down a book-lined corridor, and Mhairi pushed open a solid oak door with an enameled coat of arms. It gave out a proper haunted-house creak.

“Your case’s in here.” Mhairi delivered each pronouncement as if words were strictly rationed.

“Thank you!” I squeaked.

She reached around for the brass switch, and a low light flooded the room. “There’s a bell if you need anything.”

My eyes widened.

My overnight wheelie case was lying open, embarrassed, on the counterpane of a real four-poster bed, the sort monarchs chose to die in, all crimson velvet hangings and gold swags. There was more crimson and gold at the bay window, a marble fireplace with a selection of ticking clocks, and a rococo dressing table that wouldn’t even have fitted through the door of my flat.

That was the headline furniture. Alongside that were assorted mahogany chairs, gilt mirrors, a chaise longue for swooning onto, a wardrobe big enough to house Narnia plus any other mystical universe, and a linen chest with a vast Japanese Imari dish containing silver and gold glass balls.

I gazed in delight at the dressing table, with proper silver brushes with which to brush my hair before dinner!

I turned to ask Mhairi how far up the scale the McAndrews dressed for said dinner, but she’d already gone, leaving me free to explore my room like a child in a sweet shop.

Needless to say, once I was sure I was on my own, I lost no time in holding on to the bed frame and imagining a maid lacing me into a very tight corset. Mhairi’s great-grandmother had probably hauled tight enough to make even the whalebones squeak for mercy.

The bathroom wasn’t so much a mere bathroom as a whole other room, and it took me nearly fifteen minutes to run enough tepid water into the cavernous rolltop bath.

Still, it gave me time to admire the magnificent brass taps,
and the curly iron rack for holding your book and wine while you soaked. And the paintings of artfully draped ladies, and the stuffed pike, caught in the estate lake in June 1909.

Just before half seven, I left my room looking smart but feeling frozen. I’d opted for a silk wrap dress and heels that I hoped would be grand enough. Two steps down the staircase, though, and—mentally, at least—I was in a whispering silk crinoline and heavy tartan sash.

One didn’t just walk down these stairs, I thought, my pace slowing the better to savor each step, one
descended
. As if someone were waiting for you in the hall, with tragic/urgent news from London, maybe even toting one of Innes Stout’s dueling pistols.

“Why, my lord!” I murmured in my head. Well, more or less in my head. “The bagpipes? I simply
adore
them!”

There was no one around, so I tilted my head to show off my swanlike neck to an imaginary admirer, trailing a hand along the banister, worn smooth by generations of hands. Big, claymore-wielding hands, and delicate embroidering ones, resting where my fingers were now.

“Lord Dunmore, the Dunmore of Dunmore? For dinner? How unexpected!” I paused at the corner of one flight, and pictured the hall beneath thronging with ladies in diamonds and men in wing collars, waiting as their cloaks were taken before the ball. I imagined the tarnished gas lamps polished up and blazing, and the empty grate filled with logs, the air heavy with gossip and flirtation and woodsmoke.

This was exactly why I loved antiques: Kettlesheer was crammed with proof that those Regency romances had once been everyday life. I paused, and smiled down into the dim hall, imagining everyone gazing up at my arrival, the mysterious
chestnut-haired beauty from London. My hand lifted, and I found myself giving a small royal wave.

And Fraser Graham, the handsome eldest son from the neighboring house, was waiting to take my hand and lead me into the—

Alice’s
hand. Waiting to take
Alice’s
hand.

Guiltily I rejigged my vision.

I could almost see Fraser Graham, the handsome young heir from the neighboring house, and his
unattached brother Douglas
—

There was a discreet cough from the stairwell.

I jumped so hard, my foot slipped on the worn carpet and I had to grab the banister to stop myself from falling. Luckily it was made of sturdy stuff.

Robert McAndrew was standing just round the corner by a wall-mounted sword, his arms crossed over his gray hoodie. He hadn’t bothered to change for dinner, I noticed. He hadn’t even changed out of his
jeans
.

“Are you all right?” he inquired.

“I’m fine, I didn’t see you there,” I stammered, cursing the stupid shadows and the lack of modern lighting. At least he couldn’t make out my red cheeks as I scuttled down the remaining stairs.

“You don’t have a camera crew with you?” he went on.

“No!”

“It’s just that you seemed to be making an entrance.” He paused, and gave me an inscrutable look. “And you were talking to yourself.”

“Absolutely not,” I said, concentrating on not slipping. That never happened in
Jane Eyre
, Jane skidding down the stairs on her bustle. “I was examining a painting. Am I late for
dinner? Were you sent to find me? I’m sorry—it took a while to run the bath.”

“A bath? I’m surprised you’re not still up there—it’s quicker to fill a moat.” Robert gestured down the corridor. “Don’t worry about it. I’m late too. We can be late together. After you,” he said, and I stepped forward.

“Chop-chop,” he added. “Uncle Carlisle set up those Scrooge lights that go off before you’ve had time to see where you’re going. We’ve got thirty seconds to get down the east wing.”

“It’s a wonderful house,” I said, dragging myself past a cabinet full of Roman fragments. “Everywhere I look, I want to stop and make notes, and just . . . breathe in the history. But I suppose you’re used to it by now.”

“Nope,” said Robert, somewhere behind me. “Mum and Dad only moved up here a couple of years ago. Takes a bit longer than that to get used to living in Scotland’s biggest attic.”

“You live in the
attic
? Aren’t there enough rooms?”

“Metaphorically speaking.” He laughed. At least I think he did. “It’s like they never threw anything away—they just stuck it in a case. If you think this is bad, you should see what’s actually
in
the attic. I keep telling Dad: just because it’s old doesn’t mean it’s
important
.”

This time I knew Robert wasn’t being faux-modest; he sounded genuinely repulsed. In fact, he sounded a bit like Alice: she was always threatening to start a localized fire in my garage to “cure my hoarding.”

“Well, one man’s junk is another man’s priceless collectible, as a wise man once said to me!” I replied. “It’s all part of someone’s life, isn’t it? And those people are part of your life.”

We’d reached a dimly lit corner of the paneled corridor,
and I hung back, waiting for him to hit the next light switch. I couldn’t resist tapping a dark oak panel with my knuckles. Then the one next to it.

“Sorry, what are you doing?” he asked.

I looked up. “Tapping the panels. To see if there’s a hidden passage.”

“And what sort of noise would one of those make? Out of interest.”

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I’ve just seen them do it in films. You tap the oak panels and one of them . . . swings back.” As I said it, I realized how ridiculous I sounded.

“To reveal what?” Robert raised his eyebrows inquiringly. “The slide down to the Bat Cave? Or the chute for the discarded servants?”

“You never know with houses like this,” I said. “You read about noblemen hiding chests of gold pieces during enemy raids, and then dying in battle so they’re undiscovered for centuries.” My eyes widened. “Wouldn’t that be fate?”

Robert sighed and raised his hands. “Fine, let’s get this out of the way before dinner,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, there is no buried treasure in this house. No unburied treasure, either. Kettlesheer is a giant white elephant, full of someone else’s colonial supermarket sweep. I’m
embarrassed
by some of it, frankly.”

My mouth dropped open. “But there are some wonderful historical things here that—”

Robert held up his hands. “So give them to the Museum of Scotland. A house this size is a massive drain in this day and age. It’s ruined at least three recent ancestors, and I don’t want to watch my parents dragged down by the stress of keeping it going. Selling little bits here and there for the roof, to do the
electricity—waste of time. Personally, I’d sell it tomorrow.” He made a chopping gesture in the air.

“But it’s your family home!” I protested, swamped with disbelief that he could dismiss it so coldly. The spectral McAndrews around us must have been clutching their jabots in shock.