30. Edie
EDIE
The castle has been transformed. It’s still Loch Morven in structure, but it’s like someone cast a spell. It looks like the setting for a Highland production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream .
The staircase is hung with greenery and sparkles with tiny pinpricks of light where fairy lights are woven through the scented pine.
Candlelight flickers at the windows. Music echoes through the corridors but not Jamie’s speakers this time.
As I pause at the top of the landing and take it all in, I can hear strings and piano chords layered together with laughter and a hum of excitement.
The huge entranceway door is open, and a fire is glowing in the grate – it might be late spring but there’s still a Highland chill in the air.
I take a final look in the huge old, foxed mirror at the bottom of the stairs.
Anna’s upstairs, having a last-minute change which I suspect means she’s hoping to make a big entrance.
I’d rather be there before everyone arrives, so I can lurk quietly in a corner and observe – the writer’s approach to partying.
If it was good enough for Jane Austen, it’s good enough for me.
The dress looks good. It’s off the shoulder, with a plunging neckline which shows off my best assets and nips in my waist before flaring out at the hips.
I’ve pinned my hair up loosely in a way that will probably look good for precisely half an hour before it all starts coming apart at the seams, but I suspect that everyone will be too drunk on champagne and Gregor’s fruit punch to notice.
“Edie!”
A face peeks around the edge of the big old wooden door and my heart gives a little skip of relief. It’s Kate. In a dress.
“You look amazing.” She kisses me on the cheek and then swipes at me, laughing. “Sorry, I’ve probably got lipstick on you.” She tugs at the collar of her forest green dress and pulls a face. “I’m in fancy dress. I always feel like a complete fraud when I’m dressed up like this.”
“You look beautiful,” I say, honestly. Her hair’s swept up, showing off the pale skin of her shoulders and neck, her long slender body poured into the velvet dress. I watch as her eyes dart over my shoulder for a moment and turn to see who she’s looking at but there’s nobody there.
“Jamie,” she explains. “Probably up to no good as usual.”
“Shall we?” Kate offers me her arm. “I hate walking into these things by myself.”
The great hall is busy already. There are glossy haired women in floor length gowns and shoes like sculptures.
A gaggle of slender blonde girls in their early twenties – the kind that probably went to boarding school and definitely have a trust fund are giggling together in a corner.
And over there by the fireplace, one arm propped up on the mantelpiece and a familiar grin on his face, is Brian the postman.
He’s wearing a slightly too-tight black suit with a tartan bow tie.
Ginny from the coffeeshop is holding a glass of champagne in both hands and waggles her brows and grins in greeting.
I spot Tom, the gardener, talking to someone I recognise from television – one of those famous gardeners, the tall one with the untidy mop of dark curls.
A ceilidh band is warming up in the musicians’ gallery above the ballroom, and the whole place is a chaotic mix of tartan, tweed and taffeta.
Gregor gives me a nod as he speed-walks around the edge of the dancefloor with a huge silver tray in his hands.
There’s champagne everywhere I look, fairy lights strung from every corner of the room and a child in socks doing skids across the middle of the dance floor.
I let myself breathe it all in, turning to look at the lights glowing in the windows against the pale pink-streaked sky outside. Now I can see why everyone loves the Loch Morven ball – it feels like a strange kind of magic has befallen the castle.
I turn back to the room and my heart does something weird.
Rory’s now standing by the fireplace in Highland dress and oh my god.
He’s not in the traditional outfit that some of the other men are wearing, but a modern version – dark kilt with boots and a black shirt and waistcoat which just shows off everything: muscular calves, broad shoulders, that chest – to perfection.
He’s listening to Brian, a tumbler of whisky in his hand, but for a fleeting moment he looks over at me.
It’s a level gaze, as if he’s sizing me up.
I can’t quite work out if I’m supposed to wave, or go over, or curtsey.
It’s a ball and he’s the duke and somehow this evening he feels like kind of a big deal.
So, I do the only sensible thing, and head over to the corner of the room where Kate’s talking to Janey .
Janey gives a low whistle. “Look at you,” she says beaming. “Doesn’t she look good?”
“Aye,” Gregor appears from behind a velvet curtain. “I have to say you scrub up pretty well, Edie.”
“Thanks.” I shake my head. “You too. And Janey, you look amazing.”
Gregor’s in a black tux with an apron over the top and he’s had his cropped hair shorn even shorter for the occasion.
Janey’s in a steel grey dress covered in tiny sequins and her hair pinned up in a loose chignon.
I’m so used to seeing her in her habitual Breton top and jeans that it’s a surprise to see her so glamorous.
“Where’s your house guest?”
I don’t miss the fleeting moment when Janey and Gregor’s eyes meet as she asks me that.
“Oh, I suspect she’s hoping to make an entrance.”
“We’ve got an HRH here,” Gregor says, swiping a quick swig of Janey’s champagne.
“I think she’ll be hard pushed to beat that.
” He tips his head in the direction of the doors where the blonde girls are waiting, shifting from foot to foot like a stand of silver birch trees.
“Oh, and the Munro laddie, who stands to inherit all of Glenbrannach Estate. That’s what those lassies are waiting for. ”
“Rumour has it Finn’s coming,” Kate says, reappearing.
“The day Finn makes it to a ball, I’ll be expecting a herd of flying pigs overhead.” Gregor chuckles. “Right, no rest for the wicked. These canapés aren’t going to make themselves.”
Janey shakes her head as she watches him leave. “He’s completely organised, you know. The kitchen’s run like a military operation but he’s such a control freak he won’t take that bloody apron off and come and enjoy his night off. ”
Kate crooks a brow at me briefly. “Maybe you should lure him out with the promise of a dance.”
Janey snorts. “I hardly think so.”
“Plenty of time for it,” says Kate, hooking me by the arm. “Cocktails. Come on.”
We’re two Highland Mists down and there’s still no sign of Anna.
The band is playing something I remember from the compulsory Scottish dancing classes we had to do in school.
Jamie’s across the other side of the dancefloor in a tartan suit that shouldn’t work but somehow suits him perfectly.
He’s twirling Mrs MacKay, the bright-eyed octogenarian from the old gardener’s cottage at the end of the lane and she’s laughing her head off.
The room is filling up and the volume of chatter is increasing exponentially as the champagne bottles are emptied.
Rory seems to have been pinned down by a crusty-looking old man with a moustache and a tartan waistcoat. He’s pointing at him in a slightly aggressive manner with one hand and wielding a glass at a jaunty angle with the other.
“Come on,” Kate says, tugging my elbow as the music pauses for a moment. “Let’s go and rescue Rory before that old bugger bores him to death.”
My stomach lurches. The thought of being in close proximity to Rory in full hot Highland duke attire is slightly alarming.
I tug at the neckline of my dress, which seems to be going south.
Combined with the balconette bra I’m wearing, I’m feeling distinctly bosomy and slightly concerned that if someone does ask me to dance there might be some sort of flying boob incident on the dance floor.
“Donald, how lovely to see you.” Kate’s tone suggests it’s anything but. Rory raises a brow a millimetre. “Have you met Edie? ”
He turns to me and looks me up and down in an appraising manner. Then his eyes land on my cleavage and just sort of stay there. I flick a sideways glance at Kate, who widens her eyes and nostrils at the same time. Rory clears his throat.
“Edie’s a writer.”
I put a hand to my chest in what I hope is a sort of combination modest/cleavage hiding motion. Donald drags his gaze upwards, and he looks at me thoughtfully. “Writer, eh? I don’t suppose you write saucy romance?” He gives a horrific dirty chuckle.
I shake my head. Urgh, this man is horrendous .
“Nothing like that,” I say politely.
“She’s very talented,” says Rory firmly. “We are extremely fortunate to have her expertise.”
“Always fancied writing a book myself,” Donald says, taking a slurp of whisky then wiping his moustache. “Perhaps you could come over to Grannich House and give me some… tips.”
Kate makes a tiny noise of horror, and I try and change the grimace of revulsion on my face into a polite smile.
“I’m afraid,” Rory says, putting a hand on my arm and stepping slightly in front of me, “that Edie is all ours.”
Donald’s bushy brows furrow together to form one huge hairy caterpillar. “Bad show,” he says after a moment. “You know your father was always very happy to collaborate when it came to… estate matters.” He gives a leering smile.
I don’t think I even want to know what that means.
“How’s it going with the bull problem?” Kate says, sounding completely innocent.
Donald splutters. “How did you hear about that?”
“Oh,” says Kate airily. “Bush telegraph. You know what it’s like up here, you can’t sneeze without the whole village knowing about it.”