Tidings of Great Boys (5 page)

“But, Papa, they—”

“Carly. The answer is no.”

She opened her mouth and I could see “You never let me do anything!” hovering right there, ready to blaze out. I grabbed her
by the arm and hustled her out of the exhibit. “We’ll be in the gift shop, Mr. Aragon,” I called over my shoulder. “See you
in a minute.”

“What is this all about? Let go of me!” she hissed.

“Don’t lose it,” I begged.

“Why shouldn’t I? He never lets me do anything. He treats me like I’m four years old. I hate it.”

“I know. It stinks. But if you lose your temper now, all our work will go for nothing.”

“He’ll never let me go. You heard him. It’s all about our family—what’s left of it.”

“Give the guy a break. If I were losing my family bit by bit, I’d be overprotective, too.”

“You’re not supposed to be on his side, Mac.”

“I’m on
your
side. Which is why we have to leave him alone to think it over. Then tonight I’ll call my dad and have him call yours to
invite you personally.”

“It won’t work. I’m telling you. Once he’s made up his mind, nothing changes it. Even a call from an earl.”

My dad could talk me round to just about anything. I was betting Carly’s Christmas on the possibility that he could do the
same with her dad.

If he couldn’t, I didn’t know what I’d do. Because, as Carly herself would say, we had no Plan B.

WHAT I DIDN’T EXPECT was to zip straight past Plan B and have Plan C pop up out of left field.

While Carly fried mince—sorry, hamburger—in a cast-iron skillet, I cut up onions and green chiles to put in it. Tears streaming
down my cheeks, I dumped the vegetables in the pan and used the hem of my shirt to dry my face.

“If you run the knife under cold water, they don’t make you cry.”

“Thanks for the news flash.” I sniffled and finally the waterworks stopped so I could see.

“I hate to break it to you, but we need more for the salsa. You can grind it in the salsa mill, though.”

She showed me how to work the mill, told me the proportions of onion and tomato and cilantro and lime juice to use, and before
you could say “Hogmanay,” I’d made my very first bowl of salsa.

I couldn’t wait to try this at home. Dad would love it.

“Look, Mr. Aragon.” I showed him the bowl. “Carly showed me how to make it.”

“I’m sure it will be the very best we’ve ever had,” he said with a smile. “Do they have serranos in Scotland?”

“I have no idea. Probably not. I wonder if British Airways would object to my smuggling some in my suitcase?”

Before he could speculate, the phone rang. Carly, who had her hands full with taco mixture in full sizzle, tapped the speakerphone
button with her elbow and kept stirring. “Hello?”

“Carolina?”

Carly went still and squeezed her eyes shut in chagrin. “Hi, Mama.” Then she resumed stirring, scraping well-done bits up
off the bottom of the pan. “How are you?”

“I’d be better if you took me off the speaker. Is your father there?”

“Hello, Alicia.”

A-lee-see-a.
It sounded much nicer in Spanish. Or maybe it was the tone he said it in. I knew all about the Aragon parental dynamic—how
Alicia was getting ready to marry another husband while her first was still in love with her. Yes, my mother can drive me
insane, but at least she hasn’t tried that one.

“Carolina, please. I hate that thing.”

“I’m in the middle of cooking dinner, Mama. The meat will burn if I stop now.”

The soon-to-be Mrs. Vigil made a frustrated noise. “Very well, then. If you prefer my private business to be broadcast all
over the house, so be it. I wanted to tell you that your dress and Antony’s tux arrived today. We had them sent to Richard’s
house. I told you we’d decided to have the ceremony in New Mexico on Christmas Eve so that all his family could come?”

Emphasis on
his
.

“
Mi abuelita y abuelito
are flying up with you?” Carly asked.

“Yes. And
ti hermana
is coming in from Austin a few days before, to give us time to have her dress fitted. So I wanted to make sure your plane
reservations were for the twenty-second. We should have both dresses fitted at once.”

“Mama.” Carly sighed. “I don’t understand why you went to all the trouble of getting me a dress when I’ve told you I’m not
coming. And Antony can’t travel by himself, so he isn’t coming, either. I wish you happiness, but that’s the way it is.”

“Don’t be silly. Your father has made the flight arrangements.”

The face Carly turned to her dad was filled with disbelief and betrayal.

“They are fully refundable, Alicia,” he said. “I thought it best to leave the children’s options open if Carly could not be
convinced to go.”

“Of course you would not think it best to tell her she only has one option—to support me,” she snapped. “Or to be happy for
me. The two of you are doing all you can to spoil my happy day, aren’t you?”

“You can be happy without us, Mama,” Carly said on a sigh, as if this were a conversation she’d had at least fifty times.
Maybe it was. “You’ll have Alana there, after all.”

“I want all my children with me.” Carly shrugged, though her mother couldn’t see it. “Rafael, you must make her go.”

“I can make her go to school and make her clean her room, Alicia,” he said, “but I cannot make a sixteen-year-old girl do
this if she does not want to.”

“Give me one good reason why you can’t, besides
her
selfishness and
your
stubbornness.” Alicia’s voice rose in volume and pitch with every word.

Mr. Aragon glanced at Carly, whose cheeks were bright red and whose mouth trembled as she struggled not to cry.

“There is a very good reason, Alicia. Carolina is leaving for Scotland on Tuesday at the particular invitation of the Earl
of Strathcairn. She will be spending Christmas Eve with all her friends. On the other side of the world.”

T
HE BEST PART about coming home to Strathcairn isn’t the sight of its four thick white turrets rising above the trees. It isn’t
the massive baronial front with its arrow-slot windows, carved oak double doors, or crenellated roof. It isn’t even the first
sight of the southern end of our thousand acres, where a gate and a discreet bronze sign inset in five hundred years of stone
wall announce that you’re now on family land.

No, the best thing about coming home is that moment when I hit the double doors of the passenger exit at Edinburgh International
at a dead run, my luggage bumping along behind me, and the first thing I see is my dad waiting for me. I know he spends half
an hour working his way up to the front of the crowd of people waiting in the lounge, edging along the barrier until he’s
positioned dead in the center where the doors open, so that there will be nothing between us when I burst through and fly
into his arms.

“Lindsay,
mo cridhe!
”

I buried my face in his wool pea coat, smelling rain and smoke and the cologne he uses on special occasions like this. “Dad.
Dad. I’m so glad to see you.” My voice wobbled on the point of tears. I don’t know what
that
was all about. Usually I can keep myself together better than that. But the sheer familiarity and solidity of his hug felt
so good. And bad memories of the last time I’d come home—when David Nelson and his trial hung over our heads—were well in
the past. He’d been locked away for the next twenty years and I never had to think of him again.

This time, my homecoming was happy and my friends were all here. It was enough to make anybody feel wobbly.

I got a grip on my emotions and turned toward the girls, who were crowding up behind us like a logjam in a spring brook. “Dad,
I’d like you to meet my friends from America. You already know Lissa, don’t you?” One by one, they shook hands and introduced
themselves, and I could practically see Carly telling herself, “I’m shaking hands with an earl. A real peer of the realm,
just like in the history books!”

LOL. They’d see before the drive was over what a love my dad is. How meeting all these girls all at once was probably terrifying
for him, but because he was a gentleman, his first instinct was to make sure they were comfortable and had all their bits
and bobs before we launched ourselves onto the motorway in the Range Rover.

I couldn’t resist pointing things out as we sped north and the sun fell through the sky. “This is the Forth Road Bridge, and
we’re crossing the Firth of Forth. And in a bit we’ll pass Loch Leven, which we could see if it weren’t nearly dark.” Dad
caught me up on the news, and I passed it back over my shoulder, explaining who people were and what had gone on while I was
at school. And two hours later, Dad finally said, “Here we are, lassies. Welcome to Strathcairn.” The Range Rover growled
through the gates and climbed the hill through the forest. We passed the village, where Dad honked at a guy with a couple
of sheep in the road. The man waved as we passed, and I saw it was Lachlan Crombie, Carrie’s married older brother.

I couldn’t wait to introduce Carrie and Lily and the old gang to all the Spencer girls.

“Wait a second,” Carly said. “I thought you said we were on your land.”

“We are.”

“So you, like, own that village?”

Dad laughed. “Not anymore. Some of the cottages belong to my tenants, and some are freehold. The chip shop and the chemist
have proper owners, and Dr. Mathieson owns his surgery. People come and go over the land the way they have done since it was
granted to the family in 1541. It was enclosed in the 1700s, but by Queen Victoria’s time our income came less from sheep
than from other investments, so we opened it up again.”

“Your family has been here since 1541?” Shani sounded a little winded. “I thought we were doing good to live in Lake Forest
for five years.”

Dad laughed and the Rover crested the last hill. Every single person in the car—except Dad and me—gasped.

I grinned at Dad. Exactly the reaction I’d been expecting.

“It looks exactly like the movie—only better,” Gillian said on a long breath.

The Middle Window
hadn’t done it justice, in my opinion. When we rolled up the drive and crunched to a stop, the girls practically fell out
of the car, their heads tipped back to look up the massive walls to the towers on each end. “Steady on,” Dad said as Shani
backed right into him, still looking up.

“Sorry,” she said hastily. “It’s just so
big
.”

“And hard to heat,” Dad said. “But you should ask Lissa about that. Welcome back again, lassie. I’m very much looking forward
to seeing your dad when he comes.”

“Me, too.” She smiled at him and hefted her duffel onto the top of her rolling suitcase. “And my mom, who flew over at the
last minute. They’re still in London. Did you enjoy the premiere?”

“It was nice to see the old place looking its best.” He gazed up at the Margaret tower fondly. “The production company touched
it up a bit, you know.”

A bit. I stifled a snort. All the whitewashing in the world couldn’t hide the fact that the castle was showing its age. But
only Dad and I knew that. The girls thought they’d stepped through a portal into another era, and I wasn’t going to tell them
the looking glass had spots on it.

Dad wouldn’t dream of ushering guests into the house through the kitchen garden door, which the family typically used. Oh,
no. Instead, he pushed open one of the huge double front doors and stood aside. I led the way in, breathing deep of the smell
of home—old stone, wood, furniture polish, and wet wool.

“No elevator, you lot.” I picked up my suitcase and began to haul it up the grand staircase. “Grab your bags and use your
knees.”

Thirty steps up, I looked back to see them in a ragged diagonal, turning in place, looking at the echoing entry hall, at the
black marble compass rose set into the floor, even examining the massive portraits of my long-dead ancestors. “I promise the
five-quid tour once you’re all settled.”

The guest floor is the third, technically, but this was no time for spreading people out. I wanted them close to me so we
could talk late into the night and plan things. “This is the family’s floor. The master suite is there, and I’m down at the
end of the corridor. In between we’ve got four bedrooms, so feel free to pick whichever one you like.”

“This blue one’s mine.” It was certainly Lissa’s color.

“Ohmigosh, Mac. Who is this?” Carly’s voice came out of the room next to it. I tossed my things in my room, which was so tidy
it was obvious I hadn’t been there for three months, and went to find out what she meant.

Carly stood in front of the fireplace, gazing up at the five-foot portrait hanging above it. “Oh, that’s the, er…” I counted
in my head. “The fourth Countess. Frances Arbuthnot MacPhail. Gainsborough painted it. Isn’t she lovely?”

“Look at the lace on that fichu,” Carly breathed. “You can see every detail.”

I had no idea what a fichu was, but if it made her happy, I was happy. “I take it you’re going to keep her company?”