No Ordinary Gentleman

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Isla’s tone carries a world of concern, though at least it snaps me back to the moment. Tears me from the sincerity in his eyes and the feel of my hand in his.

“Yep, I’m great. Just peachy. I just have something in my eye.” Rain. I have rain in my eye, that’s all. I swallow over the ball of emotion swelling in my throat and turn to look at the boys in the back seat, hearing Hugh’s continued bored tone.

“I have to agree with Hugh, Archie. I’ve been looking for something beginning with quwa, and I can’t find it either.”

“Is it outside of the car, Archie?” his mother asks.

“No, inside,” he offers up, puffed up that he’s besting us all. “In the front, more pacifically.”

“Specifically,” drawls his older brother.

“That’s what I said. I bet you’ll never guess it. Not in a month of Mondays!”

“Sundays,” his brother says.

“But a month of Mondays sounds much worse.”

“Oh, I give up!” Hugh mutters harshly. “You f-flipping win.”

“Yes!” I smile as Archie pumps his fist in the air. “I knew you’d never get it.”

“Well, tell us what it is, sweetie,” his mother coaxes.

“Quirky bird!” he exclaims with a big grin.

“That’s not a real thing,” his brother complains.

“Yes, it is,” he protests. “It’s what I heard Uncle Griffin calling Holland to Uncle Sandy last week.”

“That sounds quite endearing.” She shoots me an unsure but encouraging smile. I know she’s not at all convinced about my relationship with Griffin, but she still plays along. I’m not sure why we’re still doing it, to be honest.

“He also said she had a spectacular arse,” the little boy adds with a grin.

“Sounds like Chrissy needs to get out her potty mouth soap.”

“No! It doesn’t count if you’re just repeating it,” Archie protests, all vigorous arms and indignant face.

I have to turn my face back to the windshield to stop him from seeing me laugh.

“I think Holland meant for Uncle Griffin,” Isla says.

“Claish Castle up ahead,” I say, pointing at the sign as we pass.

“About time,” mutters a little voice from the back. “I’m starving.”

“Has there been an accident?” an even smaller voice asks.

“No,” Isla replies. “It’s just a police cordon on the road out of the village. Ivy said there would be one, given all the celebrities attending the party. It must make the Duffys very unpopular with the neighbours,” she adds under her breath.

“I was reading about them before we left. On the internet,” I explain.” I think they’ve brought so much work into the region, most people seem to have only nice things to say. I’m sure being one-half Hollywood royalty and one-half local helps.”

“Actual royalty would get short shrift,” she answers tartly, slowing to a stop to speak with a policeman.

“Paparatizzi!” Isla sounds almost impressed as we’re waved through the cordon, and a smattering of cameras go off. “I wonder who’ll be here tonight.”

“Movie moguls and models, I should imagine.” Maybe I can find a dark corner to hide. I’m no’ hackit, as Emma or Allie would say—or in other words, I know I’m not ugly—but I’m also five feet four and a little round in the places women are supposed to be. I don’t much want to feel like a cuckoo in a nest full of swans.

“Oh, my.”

“Wow.”

Claish Castle up ahead, and it looks like it was plucked from the pages of a book of fairy tales. Blue-grey Scottish stone gleams in the afternoon sun and sparkles from mullioned windows, conical spires reaching for the heavens.

“It makes Kilblair look ramshackle by comparison, doesn’t it?”

“Absolutely not. Kilblair is much bigger.”

“Size isn’t everything.” Isla rolls her lips inward as though she hadn’t meant to say that.

“True,” I find myself answering, not wanting her to feel awkward and seemingly dunking myself in a bucket of the same. “But the duke sure knows how to use it—to its best advantage, I mean. The castle,” I qualify. “H-He works it really well.”

“I do hope we’re still talking about the castle,’” she murmurs without looking at me. which is probably just as well as my cheeks begin to sting.

The blue gravel driveway is already lined with parked cars as we approach.

Looks like we aren’t the only ones staying over.

We’re directed to stop outside of the decidedly plain-looking entrance, considering the glamour of the approach. A stone archway houses a domed oak door. High above it on the next floor is a Juliet balcony carved from stone. Between the two sits a weather-beaten family crest.

“Look, Mummy. A red carpet, just like on the TV!”

Archie seems tickled by the slash of red leading to the front door where stone urns at least five feet high flank the stone archway. The urns are filled with red flowers and golden ferns.

Isla’s eyebrows lift to the top of her head as though to say: Hollywood!