Shadows in Scarlet (36 page)

Malcolm stepped forward and opened Norah's door. “Mum, Denny. The plot's thickenin'."

Gibson got out of the car and put on his cap. “Is it, then?"

"Then we'd best have a spot of lunch,” said Norah. “Mr. Chancellor, I presume? I'm Norah Grant. Shall we go inside?"

Wayne mumbled something polite and let himself be herded into Dundreggan Castle, Malcolm and Amanda trading incredulous looks behind his back.

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Norah announced they'd eat lunch in the dining room, although Amanda wasn't sure whether the occasion was Wayne or Sunday. As she set the table she sent more than one wary glance up to the arch of the barrel-vaulted ceiling. The stones seemed to be securely in place, which was more than she could say for her feelings. One part of her danced arabesques of joy, one part slammed the dishes around in angry frustration, one part listened for the sound of footsteps.

Wayne lurked in the downstairs lavatory until Norah called him to the table. He found himself seated next to Gibson, and kept shooting glances at the policeman like those Amanda was making at the ceiling. From the head of the table Norah doled out roast beef, potatoes, carrots, Brussels sprouts, and small popovers she called puddings. Appetite overcoming a guilty conscience, Wayne slathered everything with gravy and started forking it into his mouth.

Amanda dismembered a sprout. Of all the idiotic half-baked schemes he could have come up with! She hadn't taken the scabbard at all, let along taken it without permission. Cynthia was sure as hell on the warpath now—she'd probably think Amanda had led him on or set him a bad example or something. Malcolm's foot nudged hers companionably beneath the table and she decided that the moment had its compensations.

"Whilst I was driving to church with the Finlays this morning,” said Norah, and, parenthetically to Wayne, “The Finlays do for us here at Dundreggan, but they've gone on to their daughter's in Kyle of Lochalsh the day..."

Wayne acknowledged her words with a vague nod.

"...Irene was telling me about her aunt, who lived in a house in Culloden, close to the battlefield. It was a new house, mind you, but her aunt would sometimes see soldiers marching through the walls on their way to battle. And more than once she heard the wailing of the clanswomen searching for their husbands and sons amongst the bodies."

"So you explained last night's stramach?” Malcolm asked, and amended, “commotion,” for the benefit of the outlanders.

"Yes. They had some idea of what was going on, of course."

Gibson calmly mashed potatoes and carrots onto his fork. Norah had probably told him all about it on the way back from church. A ghost. No big deal. Amanda shook her head. Their acceptance was like lugging a heavy suitcase up six flights of stairs and then finding an elevator.

"You see,” Norah said to Wayne, “ghosts happen in the best of families."

His expression hung between dazed and dubious.

That was Amanda's cue. “Wayne, you've got the wrong idea. I didn't take the scabbard without asking permission. I didn't take it, period. It wasn't until I got here I realized I had it with me. The ghost of James Grant took it and put it in the box with his bones. His consciousness is in it."

Wayne put a forkful of meat and pudding into his mouth without taking his eyes from Amanda's face.

He thinks we're messing with his mind.
“I never believed in ghosts until I met this one. He exists. Really. Last night he smashed the display case and took both the scabbard and sword that goes with it."

"I bet it was my mother and her stupid seance, wasn't it?” he said, and swallowed. “She stirred something up. Something you're calling a ghost."

"This is one thing your mother has no control over,” Amanda told him.

Wayne shook his head, rejecting either the ghost or any doubt in Cynthia's omnipotence.

Gibson turned to Wayne. “I understand you have several items from Melrose with you."

"I guess that looks pretty bad, like they were stolen or something."

"I'm afraid that in the legal definition they have been stolen."

Wayne's chin wobbled. “Are you going to call my mother?"

"I'll take a statement,” Gibson told him. “And I'll contact the police in Williamsburg. How you deal with your mother is your own affair."

Norah stood up and started stacking the empty plates. “After you and Denny finish the statement, Wayne, you'll phone her."

"Yes, ma'am.” Wayne handed over his plate, no doubt thinking,
moms always stick together.

Amanda and Malcolm helped Norah carry the plates to the kitchen. They went back to the dining room with chocolate mousse cake and a pot of coffee. The odor of the coffee was almost as bracing as actually drinking the caffeine, Amanda thought. And the way the flavors of coffee and chocolate combined in the mouth was sure one of Mother Nature's best botanical feats.

Norah asked Wayne about Cynthia and listened to his confused account of life with mother. “She must have a great deal of trouble seeing you as an adult,” Norah said at last.

"No kidding,” said Wayne.

"It might help if you were to start acting as an adult."

"Like not going off half-cocked and taking stuff from Melrose?"

"That would make a good start,” Norah told him.

Gibson folded his napkin onto the tablecloth and took a notebook from his pocket. “Let's be getting on with the statement, I'm booked to guide a fishing party this afternoon."

"But you're a policeman,” said Wayne.

"Yes, but there's not much of a living in it."

Wayne scraped the last smear of icing from his plate. “Anything you say,” he said, sounding like Alice at the Mad Hatter's tea party.

In the kitchen Amanda and Malcolm washed the dishes, sneaked bits of meat to the animals, and listened to the voices in the dining room. Gibson got Wayne's story out of him as calmly as a dentist extracting a tooth. Every now and then Norah interjected a comment or question. Finally all three went into the entrance hall to get the artifacts out of Wayne's suitcases.

"They're handling him beautifully,” Amanda said. “The poor guy has to be stressed out."

Malcolm cut a thin slice from the remaining cake. “I dinna have to be jealous o’ him, do I?"

"Good lord, no. It's been a comedy of errors right from the beginning."

"Guid.” He set a morsel of cake in Amanda's mouth and followed her smiling lick of her lips with a kiss.

She could get used to this, chocolate and kisses and Scotland.... A crash made them spin around. In a scramble of paws Cerberus dived for one doorway, the cats for the other. A wine bottle lay broken at the foot of the rack, its shards sparkling islands in an expanding pool of red.

Norah ran in the door. “That wasn't my Staffordshire platter, was it?"

"No,” Malcolm said tightly. “That was James playin’ up again."

Amanda scowled. It was like James was deliberately trying to kill the last traces of her feelings for him—and pity was about all she had left—even though his motives, if he had coherent motives, were just the opposite.

Norah eyed the blood-red pool for a long moment. Then she sighed and started picking up the larger pieces of glass. “Amanda, Denny would like for you to identify the items from Melrose."

"Yes, ma'am.” Feeling obscurely guilty over both the wine bottle and the stolen items, Amanda went into the entrance hall.

Wayne's two suitcases lay open against the wall, exposing a collection of dirty underwear. Amanda averted her eyes to the objects lined up on the kist and a couple of chairs. The tea service, the inkwell, the candlesticks. Even the bogus earrings were there, still in their Lucite box. Amanda thought of Wayne sneaking through the house one jump ahead of a tour group, filling his suitcase and priding himself on his initiative, and cringed.

"Yes,” she said. “The last time I saw all these things they were at Melrose. I'd check them over every night."

Gibson handed her his notebook. “Would you be signing that, please?"

She signed.

Wayne sat on the bottom step of the stairwell, initiative drained to lethargy. “I'll take them all back. I'll face the music."

"Whatever music you'll be facing,” Gibson told him, “depends on whether charges are filed against you. Bringing the items back will help to mitigate, I imagine, although your being an employee of the Foundation might make it a wee bit dicey. If I were you I'd obtain legal advice."

"My mum has a lawyer,” Wayne said. “But he'll be working for her."

"When I get back to my office I'll ring Williamsburg and tell them matters are in hand. Norah?” Gibson tucked his notebook into his pocket and walked back toward the kitchen. “I'll be leaving now."

Norah emerged drying her hands. “Thank you for taking care of matters. I didn't intend for you to work for your lunch."

"No problem. You'll walk me to the car, then?” Retrieving his cap from the coat rack, he and Norah strolled out the front door. A gust of damp, chilly wind whistled down the hallway.

Amanda gave Wayne a comradely pat on the shoulder. “You need to call your mother and let her know you're all right."

"And the things are all right."

"Yes, them too. I'll find the phone for you."

The phone was on its stand in the kitchen, where Malcolm was just squeezing pink water from the mop. There was nothing left of James's show of spite but a wet mark on the floor. “I'm sorry,” Amanda said.

"No apologizin'. Let him answer for himsel’”

"He stopped answering for himself two hundred years ago."

"That's just the problem."

She could only worry about one thing at a time. Amanda took the phone to Wayne and dialed the international area code for him. “It's Sunday morning there,” she told him, and retreated down the hall to the door.

It was growing dark outside. The clouds had congealed into a pewter lid. A few raindrops plunked down at her feet. They already had a ghost, why not the sinister Gothic atmosphere to go with him?

The rain thickened, obscuring the already soft shapes of the hills. Norah and Denny were a double outline behind the fogged windows of the police car, closing to a single one as Amanda watched. Smiling, she turned around and went back into the entrance hall.

"Yes, Mother,” Wayne was saying. “I'm just fine. Yes, I know you were worried. I'm sorry. I was upset, I didn't think. No, I never think, do I. Yes, everything's okay, even the vase.” He stopped, staring down at his feet.

Amanda heard a thin buzz emanating from the phone, Cynthia's electronically amplified voice.

"Yes, Amanda's here. No, she wasn't upset, she didn't know what I was up to.... Oh. The engagement."

Amanda shot Wayne a look like a cattle prod.

He sat bolt upright. “Mother, there never was any engagement. Yes, I like her an awful lot, but she never led me on, not once. I guess I thought if I went along with all that engagement stuff she'd soften up. But she didn't. She hasn't. I don't blame her for going off without me.” He paused, then started in again, taking it from the top, pausing every now and then to let the insect-like buzz rise to a crescendo and fall again.

Amanda gave Wayne a smile and an A-OK sign. Malcolm emerged from the kitchen, raised a brow at her, and turned to inspect the booty laid out on the kist and the chairs.

"Yes. She's standing right here.” Wayne thrust the phone so abruptly at Amanda she almost fumbled it.

"Oh, ah, hello, Mrs. Chancellor."

Cynthia's voice poured into Amanda's ear like honey over biscuits. “Amanda dear, I can't apologize to you enough. How embarrassed you must have been. You have the most exquisite manners, of course you hesitated to explain things to me, but you really should have told me. You always have my ear."

"Erk.” Cynthia's words weren't quite registering, they were so different from the ones Amanda had been expecting.

"I hope the police officer there didn't give you too hard a time over the missing artifacts. I knew you hadn't taken them, just the scabbard. To make photos with the sword—wasn't that my clever girl! A shame everyone's wires got crossed the day you left, but then, I wasn't there."

"No problem,” Amanda said brightly.

"Now I want you to do me a very big favor. Can you look out for Wayne? He's such a—well, just between us, dear—he doesn't always act his age. I'm sure you'll take good care of him."

"No problem,” Amanda said again, her voice rising even higher. She sat down on an empty chair. Trust Cynthia to pull the rug out from beneath her yet again, simply by cutting her about ten miles of slack.

"How is your work going?” Cynthia went on. “Are you finding lots of good documentation for our film and our book?"

"Lots."

"Good. Good. James Grant must have cut such a dashing figure, I can hardly wait to hear more about him."

She couldn't wait to hear what she wanted to hear. Selective deafness seemed to be going around. “Thanks. Here's Wayne.” Amanda handed the phone back across the hall and rolled her eyes at Malcolm. He propped himself on the back of her chair.

"Hello, Mother. It's me. Yes, yes, I'll pack everything up and bring it back. Yes, the policeman here's going to call the police there. All a misunderstanding, that's right. Thank you, Mother. I'm really sorry. I'll come back with Amanda on Thursday. Yes, I know an old castle's very romantic and everything.” Wayne glanced at Malcolm and his face suffused the color of the spilled wine. “No, she's not going to change her mind."

Amanda realized she and Malcolm were posed like the husband and wife in an old tintype. She bounced to her feet. He straightened.

"Yes, Mother. Yes, the Grants are very nice. Yes, I'm sure they'd appreciate your sending them a thank-you gift. I'm not sure they'd enjoy a book about the Yorktown campaign, the British lost ... No, I won't ever pull something like this again. Good-bye.” Wayne turned off the phone and went so limp Amanda thought he was going to slide off the step and puddle on the floor. When he rubbed his face it stretched like a rubber mask. “It's all right. She's going to clear everything up with the police. No charges or anything."