The Heir’s Chosen Bride

CHAPTER FIVE

THEY were formal for the rest of the day. Formal to the point of avoiding each other. Hamish did a bit of cataloguing but there wasn’t much point cataloguing imitation chandeliers. Susie did a bit of packing but her heart wasn’t in that either.

They met briefly for dinner. ‘Soup and toast,’ Susie decreed, and Hamish didn’t argue. He ate his soup and toast, and then later, when Susie had gone to bed, he ate more toast. Tomorrow he’d have to go on a forage into town and find some decent food, he decided. Then he remembered the next day was the day of the fête and he felt so faint-hearted that he stopped feeling hungry and went back to bed and stared at the ceiling for a while.

He was right out of his comfort zone. Jodie had told him this was a holiday. Weren’t holidays meant to make you feel rested?

The sounds of the sea were wafting in his open window but the rest of the world was silent. After the buzzing background hum of Manhattan this seemed like another world. It was so silent it sounded…noisy? The absence of traffic sounds was like white noise.

He lay and listened and decided he was homesick for Manhattan. For his black and grey penthouse, his austere bathroom without kings or queens watching from gilt frames, for his traffic noise…

For Marcia? Of course for Marcia.

Who was he kidding? He wasn’t homesick. He didn’t know what he was. Finally he drifted into sleep where Marcia and Jodie and Susie all jostled for position. Marcia was silently, scornfully watching. Jodie was standing with hands on hips, daring him to be different. Susie was laughing.

But while he watched, Susie’s laughter turned to tears and he woke in a cold sweat.

And Susie was no longer in his dream. She was standing in the open doorway and she was neither laughing or crying.

She was holding a kilt.

‘Behold your valet, my lord,’ she told him. ‘Your kilt and all your other various appendages await your noble personage.’

He sat up fast. Then he remembered he wasn’t wearing pyjamas. He grabbed his sheet-and he blinked at the apparition in the doorway.

Susie was dressed in tartan.

She wasn’t wearing a kilt. She was wearing royal blue Capri pants, stretching neatly around every delicious curve, and a gorgeous little top, in the same tartan as the kilt she was holding out for him to wear. Her hair was tied up in some complex knot on top, and it was caught up in a tartan ribbon.

‘What are you staring at?’ she asked.

‘The tartan…’

‘You might be the head of the clan but I’m a Douglas, too.’

This woman was his family, he thought, dazed.

Move on. Family was a scary thought. His eyes fell to the kilt she was holding out.

‘I’m not wearing that.’

‘You promised,’ she said with something akin to forcefulness. ‘You can’t back out now, your Lordship. I’ve promised as well.’

‘You’ve promised?’

‘Well, you promised first. You said you would, and now I’ve telephoned the organisers and they’ve told everyone you’re coming. They’ve trucked in the Barram pipe band with an extra piper this year, ’cos last time the piper had a wee bit too much whisky on the bus on the way here and didn’t perform to expectation. So there’s two pipers to pipe you on stage, your Lordship, and a whole pipe band besides, and the Brownies are doing a guard of honour especially.’

‘The Brownies?’ To say he was hornswoggled was an understatement. ‘What on earth are Brownies?’

‘Scary little brown persons,’ she said. ‘You must have heard of them. They sell cookies and do bob-a-job, only now it’s two dollars and you have to sign forms in triplicate saying they can’t hurt themselves when they shine your shoes.’

‘I’m lost,’ he complained, and she grinned.

‘Fine. Stay that way. Ask no questions, just smile and wave like the Queen Mum. You want me to help you to dress?’

‘No!’

‘Only offering. I thought you might have trouble with your sporran.’

‘An earl,’ he said with cautious dignity, ‘especially the ninth Earl of Loganaich of the mighty clan Douglas, can surely manage his own sporran.’

‘Tricky things, sporrans.’

‘Not to us earls.’

‘Well, then,’ she said cheerfully. She walked across and dumped a kilt, what looked like a small mountain of spare tartan fabric, tassles and toggles, a purse of some description and a beret with a feather on his bedside chair. Boris followed behind, looking interested.

‘There you go, your Lordship,’ she said happily. ‘Everything you need to look shipshape. Come on, Boris.’

‘Boris can help,’ he said graciously, and her grin widened.

‘I’ll leave you with your valet, then, shall I, my lord? Porridge in the kitchen in thirty minutes?’

‘Toast.’

‘If you’re wearing a sporran you need porridge.’

‘Toast,’ he said in something akin to desperation. ‘As the leader of your clan I demand toast.’

She chuckled. ‘Ooh, I love a forceful man…in a kilt.’

‘Susie…’

She got her features back under control with difficulty. She was back to a grin only. ‘Your wish is my command,’ she said. ‘Sir.’ He got a sharp salute, clicked heels and she was gone, leaving him alone with his valet.

‘Boris…’ he said cautiously, eyeing his pile of tartan as if it might bite. ‘What do you think a sporran might be?’

It took him a while. It took him close to an hour, really, but if he was going to do this thing he might as well do it right. By the time he had every pleat in place, every toggle where it was supposed to be toggling, and the feather in his cap at just the right angle he felt like he’d done a full day’s work. He gazed in the mirror and thought he had done a good day’s work. He looked unbelievable.

Boris was sitting watching with the patience of all good valets, and when Hamish finally adjusted his cap and looked at the final result the dog gave a deep low woof, as if in appreciation.

‘Not bad at all,’ Hamish told the dog. ‘I wish Jodie could see me now.’

And Marcia?

Marcia couldn’t help but be impressed with this, he thought, but it was Jodie he thought of. Jodie would look at him and whistle, and giggle.

Like Susie giggled. Susie and Jodie…

Two unlikely women in his life. Jodie was no longer part of what he did. She was making choir stalls with her Nick. Ridiculous. How could she make any money doing that?

And Susie… In a couple of weeks Susie would be a memory as well and he’d be left with Marcia.

Which was the way he wanted it.

‘Porridge!’ The yell from below stairs startled him out of his reverie. ‘On the table. Now.’

He crossed to the landing. Took a deep breath. Swelled his chest.

‘Toast!’ he yelled back. ‘Woman!’

She emerged from the kitchen and gazed upward. And froze. Her eyes took in his appearance, from the tip of his shoes, his long socks with their tassles, up to the feather…

He felt like blushing.

‘Wow,’ she said at last on a long note of awed discovery. ‘Oh, Hamish, wow. They’re going to love you.’

‘Who?’

‘All the ladies of Dolphin Bay,’ she said simply. ‘Me, too. What a hunk. Do you have everything in the right place?’

‘I think so,’ he said, still trying not to blush.

‘And you’ve got the appropriate attire underneath?’

‘Don’t even go there.’ He stepped back from the balustrade-fast-and she chuckled.

‘No matter. I’ve never seen such an impressive Scottish hero-and I’ve seen Braveheart.’

‘I’d imagine that those guys might be a bit handier with their weaponry than I am,’ he said, still cautious. ‘I’m all froth and no substance.’

‘You certainly look like substance. Porridge now, sir. Double helping if you like.’

‘Susie…’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘I thought I made myself clear. Toast.’

‘There’s a bit of a problem,’ she confessed. ‘If I’d seen your knees before this, I might have concentrated a bit more. Very good at focussing the mind, those knees.’

This was ridiculous. He wanted his kilt lowered.

‘So what’s happened to my toast?’ he managed.

‘I burnt two lots,’ she confessed. ‘I was thinking about Angus. And Priscilla.’

‘Priscilla?’

‘Angus’s pumpkin. She’s going to win today. Biggest pumpkin on show. I ended up with only one slice of bread left and Rose wanted that for toast fingers in her egg.’ She took a deep breath and fixed him with a look that told him he was going to get a lecture, right now.

‘Hamish, you might tell me you belong in New York-you might tell me you’re not really an earl-but anyone seeing those knees knows for sure that you’ve found your home right here. You’re the ninth Earl of Loganaich and you just need to forget all those silly ideas of being anyone else, including a toast eater, and learn to like porridge. Now, enough argument. I have a team of men arriving in ten minutes to help load Priscilla onto the trailer. So-what do they say? Save your breath to cool your porridge-my lord.’ She smiled sweetly up at him. ‘Come and get it while it’s hot.’

It was like an out-of-body experience.

Firstly there was the fairground itself. It was nestled between two hills, with the harbour and the town on one side and bushland on the other. One could stroll around the fairground, walk a short distance to the shops or to the boats, retreat into the bush-as a few young couples showed every sign of doing even this early on-or if it all got too hot one could disappear to the beach for a quick swim.

Susie pulled her little car into the parking lot and Hamish gazed around, stunned. It was a fantastic, colourful mix of everything. Everyone. Grizzled farmers, kids with fairy floss, old ladies in wheelchairs. Gorgeous young things kitted to the nines in full dressage gear ready for the equestrian events. Kids in bathing costumes, obviously torn between beach and fair. A clown on stilts lurching from car to car and using the bonnets of the cars to steady himself.

The clown ended up right by them as they parked, and he lurched a little more, made a rush and hit their trailer. By the time they emerged he was dusting himself and staggering to his feet, pushing himself up against their pumpkin. Priscilla was almost as high as he was.

‘You hurt that pumpkin and you’re dead meat, Jake Cameron,’ Susie told him, clearly unmoved by clowns tumbling into her trailer. ‘If there’s so much as a blemish on my pumpkin, it’s disqualified.’

‘Hi, Susie,’ the clown said, removing a bulbous nose. ‘Great to see you, too.’

‘I didn’t know you rode stilts.’

‘I don’t,’ Jake said morosely. ‘But the kids’ schoolteacher asked for volunteers and the twins volunteered me. It’s not going to work. The kids have been coaching me for weeks and all that’s going to happen is that I break my neck. Who’s going to fix me up then, I want to know?’

‘Kirsty’s really good at broken spines,’ Susie said, and grinned. ‘Or failing that, she’s specially trained in palliative care. If you die you’ll die in the best of hands.’ She turned to Hamish, who was feeling vaguely better that he wasn’t the only ridiculously clad person here. ‘Hamish, this is Dr Jake Cameron. Jake’s my brother-in-law. Jake and Kirsty are Dolphin Bay’s doctors.’

‘Hey!’ Jake said, holding out a red-gloved, vast-fingered paw. ‘You’re the new earl. Welcome to Dolphin Bay, mate. You want to find a beer?’

Beer sounded fantastic to Hamish-but Susie’s hand was on his arm and she was holding on like he wasn’t going anywhere.

‘Hamish is due at the opening ceremony in ten minutes.’

‘No beer until you’ve done your duty,’ Jake said sympathetically. ‘But me… I’ve been all round the fairground on these damned stilts, risking life and limb at every step. I’ve added local colour for all I’m worth and I’m done. Off duty. Beer it is.’

‘So who looks after the kids when they fall off the Ferris wheel?’ Susie demanded.

‘Heaven forbid,’ Jake said. ‘But Kirsty’s official medical officer for the day. She’s taken the pledge for the next few months so I’m a free man.’

‘Jake…’ Susie said, and stopped. There was a pause. A pregnant pause. ‘She’s taken the pledge… Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’

Jake replaced his nose. Fast. ‘Whoops,’ he said, backing off. ‘No, I didn’t say that. Gotta go. Take care of your earl.’

‘I will,’ Susie said, but still looking very oddly indeed at her brother-in-law. ‘Where’s Kirsty?’

‘Avoiding you, I suspect,’ Jake said. ‘See you.’ And he took himself off like a man hunted.

‘What was that about?’ Hamish asked, watching the very speedy retreat of the scarlet and purple patchwork clown.

‘Oh, if she is…’ Susie said. ‘How can I go home?’ She caught herself. ‘No. I must. Business. Let’s get you to the stage.’

‘Do I really need to?’

‘Of course you need to,’ she said, astonished. ‘Everyone plays their part. You’re part of this community now, Hamish Douglas, like it or not, and at least we’re not asking you to say your speech while you’re wearing stilts.’

His speech was astonishing all by itself.

The sensation of being piped onto the stage, of every face in the fairground straining to see him, of a gasp of approval as he finally reached the dais and the sound of the pipes fell away…

Susie was right, he thought, appreciating the drama of the situation. If Angus had done this for the last forty years, this small ceremony would be sorely missed-and how much worse it would be because Angus was dead.

Times changed. The time of having a laird in Castle Douglas was over, and people had to accept it, but at least he could do as Susie suggested now. He could play his part.

Speech. He had to make a speech. Not a ‘take over the company’ sort of speech, not now, but something with, God help him, emotion.

Just this once.

And in the end, the words came.

‘I can’t replace my Uncle Angus,’ he told the crowd, tentative at first but growing surer as he saw by their smiles that just standing up here in the right tartan was enough to plug the void. ‘I can’t replace Lord Angus Douglas, Earl of Loganaich. I don’t want to. But the house of Douglas has been associated with Dolphin Bay for so long that the connection will never die. As long as Castle Loganaich stands, we’ll remember the link between castle and town. We’ll remember the friendship, the love, the good times and the bad. Lord Angus’s death was a low point but he lived a full life with his beloved Deirdre, both of them surrounded by this town full of their friends.’ He hesitated.

‘Plus the odd monarch in the bathrooms,’ he added, and there was a ripple of delighted laugher. Most people here had at least heard of Queen Vic.

But Hamish hadn’t yet finished. He was on a roll. Maybe he could be a lord after all. ‘Angus’s legacy remains in the laughter and the camaraderie I’m seeing here,’ he told them. ‘Angus would want-Angus would insist-that life goes on and that everyone here enjoy themselves to the full. So I, Hamish Douglas, ninth Earl of Loganaich, make this my first public decree. That this fair is officially open and that everyone here proceed to have a very good time. And after the pumpkin judging… As Lord Douglas, I decree that everyone here take home a slab of pumpkin so I don’t get landed with pumpkin pie for the rest of my life.’

Hooray. He’d done it. There was cheering and more laughter. The pipes started up again and Hamish made his way off the stage to find Susie smiling at him through tears.

‘Oh, Hamish, that was wonderful.’

‘There’s no need to cry,’ he said abruptly and turned away. Drat, he was almost teary himself.

His laughter faded. He’d almost been enjoying himself but tears always did this. They snapped him right back to dreary reality. Tears in a situation like this were ridiculous. And now, if Susie not only cried but infected him with it…

No!

‘Pumpkin judging,’ someone yelled. ‘We’re waiting on the Douglas pumpkin.’

‘Ooh.’ Susie’s tears were gone in an instant and she turned to a middle-aged lady beside her. ‘Harriet, can you take Rose for a bit?’ She thrust her baby forward, but Rose obviously knew the lady who Hamish recognised as the postmistress. He’d stopped and asked directions from her when he’d arrived.

‘Come on.’ Susie was clutching his hand and towing him through the crowd and people were laughing and parting to let them through. ‘We’ve got a date with destiny-right now.’

Their pumpkin won. It was the fair’s biggest pumpkin, with trophy and certificate to prove it. The second biggest was entered by a withered old man who didn’t seem the least bit upset about losing.

Or maybe he did. He laughed and cheered with the rest of them when the pumpkins were weighed, but as the trophy was given to a flushed and triumphant Susie, the elderly man turned to Hamish and an errant tear was rolling down his wrinkled cheek.

More tears!

‘He knew, dammit,’ the old man said, and he reached out and wrung Hamish’s hand so hard that it hurt. ‘Your uncle was the best mate a man could have. He knew he’d beaten me this year, damn him. He knew he was a winner. I wouldn’t have wanted him to go any other way but hell, I miss him.’ He sniffed and his wife darted forward and hugged him and led him off to the beer tent.

Susie came down from the dais, clutching her trophy and certificate, and she watched him go and sniffed again.

‘I need a hanky,’ she said, helpless with her hands full, and Hamish was forced to find his-from his sporran-and then hold her trophy while she blew her nose. Hard.

‘I don’t want it back,’ he said faintly, and she managed a smile through tears.

‘I’m sorry. I know guys hate tears. It’s only Ben…’ She motioned to where the old man was disappearing beerwards.

‘He was crying, too,’ Hamish said, and if he sounded a bit desperate then he couldn’t help it.

‘Aunty Susie! Aunty Susie!’ There were shrieks from behind them and he turned to see two pigtailed urchins bearing down on them. Two little girls aged about five, each liberally spattered with what looked like a mix of fairy floss and chocolate ice cream, raced up to them with excitement ‘Aunty Susie, Mummy’s got a baby for you.’

‘A baby?’ Susie stood stock still and the colour drained from her face. ‘I knew it. I knew…’

‘What’s wrong?’ Hamish asked before he could help himself.

‘She’s pregnant. I knew…’

‘Hi.’ Coming up behind the twins was a woman who was the mirror image of Susie. The likeness was so extraordinary that he blinked.

‘Kirsty, I presume,’ he said, because Susie had retired behind his handkerchief again. Oh, for heaven’s sake.

‘I’m Kirsty.’ A cool, firm hand was placed in his. She smiled and her smile was the same as Susie’s. Or maybe not. Maybe not quite as lovely?

That was a dumb thing to think. At least this woman wasn’t crying.

‘Why is Susie crying?’ she asked, and he looked exasperated.

‘Because her pumpkin won. I think.’

He expected sympathy and mutual confusion. Instead, Kirsty dropped his hand and enveloped Susie in a hug.

‘Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry. He couldn’t see…’

‘He did see,’ Susie said, hiccuping on a sob. ‘He knew. I told you. I snuck into Ben’s back yard before he died and I measured it and Angus knew his would be the winner. And I bet he can see us now.’

‘Then what-?’

‘The twins. They said…a baby.’

Kirsty let her arms drop. She looked exasperated. ‘They didn’t say a baby.’

‘They did.’

‘They meant a puppy.’

‘A puppy?’ Susie lowered the handkerchief and looked out cautiously from behind it. Ready to retire again at any minute. ‘What do you mean?’

‘This.’ Kirsty motioned behind her. ‘We want our Boris back, but we’ve decided you need a dog.’

A small boy was bringing up the rear. He was carrying… What was he carrying?

A puppy.

The puppy was just about the weirdest dog Hamish had ever seen. She was brown, white and tubby, with long, floppy ears, Boris’s expressive eyes, a stretched-out body with a puddingy tummy, a tail that added another twelve inches in length-and legs that were about three inches long.

‘What is it?’ Susie asked, cautious to say the least.

‘This is our gift to you,’ Kirsty said expansively and grinned. ‘To stop Rose being an only child.’ She motioned to the small boy holding the pup. ‘Susie, this is Adam, and Adam’s pup. Now she’s your pup.’

‘What…?’

‘She’s courtesy of Boris,’ she explained, sounding exasperated. ‘You know Jake inherited Boris from Miss Pritchard? Jake sort of assumed-as Boris was eight years old and Miss Pritchard was a civically responsible person-that Boris would have been neutered in the long distant past. OK, he should have checked, but he didn’t. He didn’t really think about it, until Adam’s dachshund came into season. We share a back fence and events took their course. Even then we didn’t realise until Daisy Dachshund produced one sad pup. Now that she’s a few weeks old, the father’s obvious.’

‘Sad pup?’ Susie said warily, while Hamish looked on, much as one might look through a time screen to another world.

‘Well, maybe she’s not exactly sad, are you, sweetheart?’ Kirsty said, lifting the pup from Adam’s hands and holding her up for inspection. ‘Maybe she’s more…loopy. She’s just won cutest puppy in show. Pup, meet Susie. Susie, meet pup.’

‘Hi, pup,’ Susie said, still cautious.

The pup wagged her tail. Her whole body wriggled, like a cute and furry eel.

‘Anyway, Jake and I were watching the puppy judging and it suddenly occurred to us that if you’re insisting on returning to America you need something to remember us by. And something to guard you. What better than a pup? We talked to Adam’s parents and, amazingly, they’re delighted. Even Adam’s cool with it. I don’t think this puppy fits what he thinks of as a real boy’s dog. I know there’ll be issues with quarantine but the dog-judging people say it’s possible to take pups into the US from here, and Jake and I will pay.’

Susie seemed almost overwhelmed. She sniffed. ‘Oh, Kirsty…’

‘I don’t have any more handkerchiefs,’ Jake said, desperate.

‘You need a truckload when Susie’s around,’ Kirsty said cheerfully. ‘What do you think, Suze?’

‘Oh,’ Susie said, taking the puppy and holding her close. ‘Oh…’

‘I think I hear a beer calling,’ Hamish said faintly. ‘Is Jake in the beer tent?’

Kirsty grinned at him, not unsympathetic. ‘We’re all a bit much, aren’t we? But your speech… All I had to do was look at you and I got teary.’

‘Susie!’ Harriet, the postmistress, was making her way determinedly through the crowd toward them, carrying Rose toward her mother. ‘I think your daughter needs a nappy change.’

Hamish was backing already but he backed a few more feet at that. Fast. ‘I can definitely hear a beer calling,’ he muttered.

But Harriet wasn’t about to let Hamish escape. ‘Ooh, look at you,’ she exclaimed, and thrust Rose at her mother, who proceeded to juggle toddler and puppy with aplomb. The elderly postmistress put an arm round Hamish’s shoulders and beamed in possessive enthusiasm. She was a big lady, buxom and beaming, with a tight frizzed perm and painted lips that seemed to have a life of their own. ‘Look at me,’ she crowed. ‘Me and Lord Hamish. Take a picture of us, someone, so I can put it up on the post-office wall.’

‘I need-’

‘Hey, but it shouldn’t be me.’ Harriet suddenly corrected herself, whisking herself out of his arms and thrusting Susie forward with an air of enormous personal sacrifice. ‘It should be you. Oh, Susie, wouldn’t that be something? You and the new laird. Two Douglases finally finding their place, side by side.’

Susie choked, but she had no say in the matter. She’d been thrust next to Hamish and cameras were flashing, just the same as they’d been yesterday on the beach, only worse.

Much worse.

Hamish Douglas was suddenly being photographed with Mrs Douglas, Rosie Douglas and dog.

Things were spiralling out of control here, Hamish thought desperately, and a man had to do what a man had to do.

He put Susie-and appendages-carefully away from him and took two more steps back. Two long steps back.

‘I need to find Jake,’ he said, in tones he hoped were careful and measured and nowhere as hysterical as he felt. ‘And then… I think it’s wise if I stop all conjecture about me and…me and Susie right now. I’m engaged to a young lady called Marcia Vinel and she’s arriving here the day after tomorrow.’