Shadows in Scarlet (12 page)

"Carrie Shaffer,” said the slightly out of breath voice in her ear.

"Hi, it's Amanda. You must have just walked in the door. Sorry."

"Don't apologize—the sprint for the phone got my blood pumping. What can I do for you?"

"Tell me if those records have come in from London, yet."

"No, what I got was a note saying the personnel files of the Scottish Regiments are at the Scottish United Services Museum in Edinburgh."

"Go figure,” said Amanda with a groan.

"I'll fax them this morning. What else have you found out about the 71st Highlanders?"

Between James’ narration of what to him were current events and her late-night net surfing, Amanda was on top of it. “Fraser's Highlanders. Raised in 1775 by Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat. His father was the Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, who holds the dubious distinction of having been the last peer of the realm to be beheaded. On Tower Hill, yet."

"One of Bonnie Prince Charlie's cohorts during the Jacobite Rebellion?” Carrie asked.

"That, plus he was a real scoundrel. In his eighties when it all caught up with him. Anyway, his son went around Scotland raising regiments trying to get back in the good graces of King George. The wee, wee German lairdie.” Amanda sang the refrain of the derisive Jacobite song. “The first Fraser's Highlanders fought in the French and Indian War in the 1760's. Our 71st Regiment is the second. They landed in South Carolina in 1779 and were darn near wiped out by malaria. Commander was one Colonel Alexander Lindsay, Lord Balcarres."

"Yeah, Martin, be right there,” Carrie said. “Sorry, Amanda, I've got a council of war. Overdue book policies. The sweet rolls and coffee are more tempting than the actual meeting, you understand, but I need to go."

"No, I'm sorry,” Amanda told her with a laugh. “Enough is enough already. Just one more thing. When you fax Edinburgh, see if they know what happened to James Grant's sword."

"That's a pretty long shot, but I'll ask. Oh, and Cynthia was in here last night checking out a couple of prints. I suspect she and they will be appearing on your doorstep any minute now."

"Much as I'd like to go raise the drawbridge, I guess I'd be better off lowering it. Thanks, Carrie. See you tomorrow.” Amanda turned off the phone and replaced it on its cradle.

Funny, she'd never been all that interested in military history before. But then, it'd never been so up close and personal before. She'd tossed and turned all night, remembering James's smooth baritone voice, the bewilderment and pride mingled in his face, the blue-gray eyes opening onto another world. Lafayette, disgruntled, had spent the night on the living room chair and departed through the cat flap as soon as he'd had his breakfast.

Amanda started her morning round by pausing in front of the portrait of Page in the library. “The old Roman,” James had said. A good description. Page's granite jaw could have buttressed the Coliseum. No surprise James was intimidated. Even though—or especially since—it had been Sally who had thrown herself at him.

But, Amanda thought as she turned on the lights over the entrance hall display, James himself had given Page an alibi. Both Armstrongs left Melrose “yesterday evening"—in other words, on the evening before the day James died. Unless Page had sneaked back to erase a blot on his daughter's reputation.

James had said something, though, about his dolt of a cousin offending Sally. So why wasn't Archibald in Page's gun sights? For a moment Amanda considered James heroically taking a bullet for his cousin. But no. While the enraged-father-as-murderer scenario explained why James had been buried in the garden, it made assumptions about Page Armstrong Amanda simply couldn't justify.

She unlocked the front door and walked out into the sunlight just as Wayne arrived at the foot of the steps. “Greetings!” he called. “Look what Mother got from the library, since the miniature of Grant is only from the waist up.” He indicated two framed prints beneath his arm.

They found space for the pictures at one side of the display flats. “Cool,” Amanda said, and added to herself, an engraving, no matter how prettily hand-colored, wasn't nearly as cool as the genuine article.

"That one's an officer with the Black Watch,” said Wayne. “Not the right regiment, but the right time period. The other one's from the right regiment, but from twenty years later, during the Napoleonic wars. At least he gets to wear pants."

The soldier's tartan trousers looked to Amanda like something her father would have worn in the sixties, except they weren't bell-bottoms. “Kilts are really sexy,” she retorted.

Wayne guffawed and made a limp-wristed gesture.

Amanda shot a pointed glance at his knee breeches and silk stockings.

"Look at those hats,” Wayne went on, oblivious. “Whoa."

Both soldiers wore Kilmarnock bonnets, blue woolen cylinders banded by red, green and white checks and adorned with feathers. Maybe it was just as well that while James had died with his shoes and socks on, he'd crossed into another dimension without his hat. “Fashion doesn't take any prisoners, does it?” Amanda said. “But the Highland soldiers were outstanding fighters, no matter how they dressed."

"I'd like to see them tackle an Abrams tank."

"Yeah, right.” Amanda turned toward the door.

Wayne pulled her back again, clasped her shoulders, and bent his face close to hers. “We need to talk, Amanda. Before the others get here."

"What else can I possibly say to you, Wayne?” She tried to shrug him off but his hands stayed firm, if very gentle. It was like confronting a giant teddy bear.

"We're friends, right?” he asked.

"Most of the time."

"But, you know, that's a good place to start a relationship, between friends."

Amanda shook her head. Years of wheedling Cynthia for favors made Wayne incapable of taking “no” for an answer. “That's not where our friendship is heading. I'm sorry, but there it is."

"I love you,” he said with a earnest sigh. The odor of Crest Mint Gel bathed her face.

"No you...” No matter how annoyed she was, she had no right denying the man his feelings. Although she could fudge her own a bit. “Listen, Wayne, I'm not looking for Mr. Right just now. Okay? I need to get my master's degree, and find a good job—it's not like I'm in computer science, you know, my brother's barely a senior and already has a position lined up."

His hands kneaded her shoulders. His face sagged.

"Besides,” she went on, pulling against his grasp, “I'm not so sure that Mr. Right, or Miss Right, isn't a lot more likely to sneak up on you when you're not looking. Now will you please let me go?"

He released her so abruptly she lurched back into the display flat. The Lucite box with the bone fragments slid onto her shoulder and she grabbed it with both hands. James's portrait fell onto its face. Wayne leaped forward to seize one of the prints. A long breathless moment later, the wire holding the second one broke with a ping and it crashed to the floor.

In spite of her stays Amanda was on the print before Wayne could reach it. It wasn't broken. Had she knocked it over or was James making his presence known again?

She replaced the box with the bones, opened the one with the miniature and set it upright, propped the print against the leg of the display, and scowled. “Good one, Wayne!"

"I'm sorry,” he moaned. “That was beyond stupid. You're not going to sue me for sexual harassment, are you?"

And lose my job?
Amanda retorted silently. But he was already crushed. She didn't need to rub it in. Reversing her scowl into a stiff smile she said, “Come on. Get a grip. Everything's cool."

A movement in the back hallway was Lafayette, padding purposefully toward the front door. Amanda swished across the hallway—it was very satisfying having long skirts to swish—and opened the door for him. She followed him down the steps, intending to go all the way to front gate and shanghai a group of Cub Scouts if necessary, but already several people were advancing along the gravel walk. “We're in business,” she said over her shoulder, and switched her mental facilities into antique-speak.

To his credit, Wayne pulled himself together and played Page in his usual accomplished way. In fact, he'd obviously been doing his own research. Again and again during the day he stopped his tour groups by the display and regaled them with stories of the Highland regiments.

"After the rebellion of 1745, the English encouraged the creation of Highland regiments in order to employ the Highlanders in a manner advantageous to England. ‘And no great mischief if they fall', as General Wolfe has pointed out. Prime Minister William Pitt has authorized the recruitment of men even from the disaffected clans, because ‘not many of them will return.’”

By the end of the day Amanda was wading in. “By raising regiments, the Scottish gentry assimilates with the dominant English culture. For the ambitious landowner, the army is a way to social advancement and often a way to reclaim land confiscated during the late unpleasantness."

"What about the peasants?” someone asked.

"Some tenant families are blackmailed by their landlords into putting their sons into scarlet coats,” replied Wayne. “Even so, more than one soldier returns home to find his family gone and his cottage destroyed. Some of the misrepresentations made to the recruits are leading to demands for honorable treatment and even mutiny."

"Those settlers who came here from Scotland,” Amanda went on, “have found their loyalties tested during the present hostilities. Some fight for the King, while others have gone to the British colonies in Canada."

"And, if the truth be told, there are voices in Parliament which support the rights of the American colonies,” concluded Wayne.

A tourist with a bristling gray moustache inspected the prints. “Have you ever thought that the armies with the fanciest uniforms are almost always the ones that lose? The Nazis during WWII, for example. Oh, excuse me,” he added with a smile, “I suppose you haven't heard of that one."

Amanda and Wayne shared a calculatedly puzzled glance. “But I follow your reasoning, sir,” Amanda said. “It is evidence of complacency and pride to bring the same uniforms to Virginia's or to India's heat that served so well in Britain's chill. Or, many years ago, for Roman officials to build open villas in that same British chill, as though sheer force of will can dominate a climate."

The sightseers laughed. Wayne bowed them out the door into the blast of heat and sunshine. “Many thanks for your company. If you would do us the honor to visit the gift shop."

Amanda glanced at the miniature portrait. If Cynthia had the bright idea of hiring an interpreter to play James this summer, he'd need an outfit with an air-conditioner, like an astronaut.

Wayne shut the door. “I'll run upstairs and make sure everything's okay. You can do the downstairs."

"Thanks.” That was Amanda's job, but if he was trying to make up, she wasn't going to argue. She strolled through the library and replaced a couple of books that were lying open on the desk. The ink blot still curled across the blotter, with the addition of a tic-tac-toe game and a couple of four-letter words in childish printing. She tore that sheet off and threw it away.

In the back hall she ran into Roy. “How's it going?"

"Some of the tourists have really good questions,” he answered. “You'd swear others just fell off the turnip truck. One guy asked me..."

A sharp cry echoed through the house, followed by a series of muffled thuds. Something substantial was falling down the stairs—maybe that something substantial which had just gone up the stairs. Amanda grabbed her skirts and ran, but Roy beat her to the scene.

Wayne lay crumpled at the bottom of the staircase. Strewn behind him, marking his path down the steps, were his wig, one of his silver-buckled shoes, and his pocket watch. His face was ashen.

Roy knelt beside him and cradled his head. “Are you all right?"

By easing herself down the newel post Amanda was able to kneel, too. “Wayne?"

Wayne's eyelids fluttered and his mouth twitched. “Fear not, fair lady, ‘tis but a flesh wound."

"Wayne!” Amanda patted him down, but found only a scraped knee that was bleeding through his hose. Good thing he was so well padded. “Move your fingers and toes. Now your arms and legs, yeah, like that. I don't think anything's broken. Unless you cracked a rib—does it hurt to take a breath?"

"I hurt all over,” Wayne groaned. “But no, the ribs are okay."

"Man, you're going to have bruises on top of your bruises,” Roy told him. “Come on, let's see if you can stand up."

Roy was much more help to Wayne than Amanda was. She had to concentrate on getting herself to her feet. But once there she took Wayne's other arm. He swayed gently between her and Roy, taking inventory. “My ankle,” he said at last, and tried to put his weight on his unshod foot. “Yow! No go, folks. It may not be broken but it's sure as hell sprained."

"Maybe we should call an ambulance,” Amanda suggested.

"Oh no, no,” protested Wayne. “No way. Just help me to my car, I don't drive with my left foot anyway."

"All right,” Roy said reluctantly, “but I'm coming with you. You have to get to a doctor."

"I'm okay,” Wayne insisted.

His color was better, Amanda noted. She walked up the stairs to collect his watch, shoe, and wig, and gave all three to Roy. “I'll come with you."

"No, no, no,” said Wayne. “I'm just fine. You have to lock up the house."

"All right. But I'm going to call and check on you."

"No need, I'm fine—ouch!” Wayne took a step, then another. By leaning heavily on Roy he made it out the door, down the steps, and into the sun.

Amanda draped Wayne's other arm over her shoulder. The three of them hobbled down the gravel walk in an awkward five-legged gait. “What happened?” she asked. “Did somebody leave a candy wrapper on the stairs?"

"I—er—I don't know,” Wayne replied. “I just fell over my feet, I guess. You know how clumsy I am."

There was something behind his words, an edge Amanda couldn't quite classify. He
was
clumsy, she thought, although more socially than physically. She'd heard that Princess Diana had thrown herself down the stairs to get her husband's sympathy. But even Wayne wasn't that neurotic, to risk breaking his neck just to make Amanda feel sorry for him.