word, Fergie gesticulated frustration to heaven and the gods of the historic homes business—rising damp, mounting bills, and now this. And then with a grimace of contrition, for, after all, the welfare of the guests came first, he said, “I’ll organize the menfolk, if her, him needs carrying—though if there’s a broken limb involved, we shouldn’t—blankets, tea—if you could ask Diana to find the first-aid kit…” Mumbling beneath his breath, pirouetting so swiftly his long gray ponytail swung in an arc behind him, Fergie loped back the way he’d come.
“Where’s Diana?” Jean called after him, but he didn’t hear.
If she remembered their arrival tour, and there was no guarantee she did, then he was heading for the new and pricey commercial kitchen and his command center at the garden end of the house.
Jean started after him, only to stop dead in the center of the antechamber, foyer, lobby—she couldn’t remember what Fergie called the room that was the formal entrance hall. She’d sounded the alarm. Now she needed to get back down to the castle.
In the distance, a door opened. A gust of canned laughter blew down the hall and was then choked off as the door shut again. Aha, the Finlays were in the kitchen watching a TV show or listening to the radio or doing something that, along with the thick stone walls, had muffled Alasdair’s shouts. That’s why Fergie himself had finally answered the bell. As for Diana, who knew?
I’m coming, Alasdair! She made a U-turn. Flashlight. Boots.
The massive wooden front door at the far side of the room vibrated beneath a rain of blows. A muffled voice shouted, “Hey! Anyone home? Answer the door, already!”
Chapter Three
All right! The cavalry had arrived!
Looking right and left—Fergie had disappeared and no one else was in sight, not even a dog—Jean skidded across these considerably cleaner tiles, raised the latch, and opened the door.
Three people, tall, not-so-tall, and shorter-than-Jean, stood in the tiny porch. As one, they pushed past her into the house and stood huddled together while she shut the door.
“I pushed the freaking doorbell five times,” said the man with the razor-cut black hair, closely trimmed goatee, and mountaineer’s parka.
“I told you, Scott,” said the brunette in the stylish narrow glasses and belted trench coat, “these places are big, it takes a while for the servants to answer the door.”
The girl wore a red-and-gold-striped knitted muffler looped around her neck and shoulders. Above it, dark eyes in a pale, pinched face grew larger and larger, taking in the guns and swords arranged on the walls, the vaulted ceiling with its colorful clan shield bosses, the massive turnpike stair spiraling upward into shadow.
“The luggage is in the car,” Scott told Jean. “Is there valet parking here?”
The woman looked down from her superior height. “You need to get someone to help you. We don’t travel light.”
Regaining traction, Jean’s brain recognized the accent of her own country people. More or less—she guessed northeast corridor. The appended “already” from the other side of the door should have tipped her off. “Um, yeah, I’ll call Fergus MacDonald, the owner.”
Realization swept the man’s face. “She’s not a servant, Heather.”
Heather’s face knotted in suspicion. “Who is she, then?”
Jean bit back a tart, Someone who can hear you just fine, and said only, “I’m Jean Fairbairn, I’m a guest here, but we’ve got kind of a situation so I answered the door. The doorbell doesn’t work, by the way. We found that out this aft—”
“A situation?” Scott demanded.
Heather placed her hand protectively on the child’s wool-encased shoulder.
“Someone’s had a fall down at the old castle. I need to—”
“I’m sorry to hear that. How about we just let ourselves in, okay?” Scott threw the door open and headed back outside. His hiking boots, so new they squeaked, were already muddy—black smudges traced his path in and out.
I’ve already let you in. But that didn’t matter. Taking two steps backwards, sweat trickling down her back beneath her shirt, Jean said, “Great. Fergus or his daughter Diana will be along any min—”
“We booked a suite,” said Heather. “A king-size for us, a single for Dakota here.”
The child spoke up. “Please tell me the bathroom’s not down the hall. One of my girlfriends stayed in a B and B and said the bathroom was down the hall and you had to share with strangers.”
“It’s all en suite. That is, the bathroom and toilet’s attached to the bedroom.”
Two pairs of eyes stared at her.
“Here, a bathroom can be just that, a room with a bath, it doesn’t automatically come with a toilet.”
Through the doorway Jean saw Scott pulling bag after bag from the trunk of an SUV. Beyond him, headlights jounced over the ribbon of tarmac that passed for a driveway. Was that the constable from Kinlochroy? It seemed like twenty hours since Alasdair called, but it was probably only twenty minutes.
Yes, the reflective stripe on the side of a small, square all-terrain vehicle caught the lights of the house as it drove by. Would the local arm of the law reach as far as the old castle? The designation “all-terrain” was more hope than fact when it came to this rough ground.
“Nice meeting you,” Jean said, “I’ve got to—oh!”
A woman swanned down the helix of the staircase, her feet in their chaste low-heeled pumps skimming the stone treads, her body swaying like a willow wand in black pants and white Aran sweater, her blonde hair flowing in satin waves away from the red roses blooming in her cheeks. An angel descending Jacob’s ladder would look like a chimpanzee in comparison. “Did I hear… Oh, hello there! You’re the Krum family, I expect. I’m Diana MacDonald. Ceud mille failte!”
“Say what?” Heather’s lipstick had worn off, leaving only the darker red of the liner tracing her lips, so that her grimace was that of a cartoon character.
“A thousand million welcomes,” said Dakota. “That’s Gaelic. They speak Gaelic here.”
“Aren’t you a clever lass!” Diana’s smile cast sunshine throughout the room. “Thank you, Jean, for playing hostess. I apologize for the broken doorbell.”
“No problem,” Jean said, backpedaling even more rapidly. She hated to miss Diana in action, but she hated even more to leave Alasdair alone in the dark with a—situation.
“Is that Mr. Krum?” Diana asked.
Scott tramped in, juggling a matched set of leather-trimmed bags and suitcases. “Oh, hi.”
“Leave the luggage,” said Diana, “We’ll organize it. Your accommodations are in the William Wallace suite, a double bedroom and a foldaway bed in the sitting room. Drinks are at half-past-six in the library, and dinner at half-past-seven. This way, please.”
