Tidings of Great Boys
Read Tidings of Great Boys Online
Authors: Shelley Adina
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are
used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Scripture quotations marked
NIV
are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used
by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
The “NIV” and “New International Version” trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International
Bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society.
Copyright © 2009 by Shelley Adina
All rights reserved.
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First eBook Edition: September 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-56472-4
Contents
A Preview of "The Chic Shall Inherit the Earth"
For my BFFs, Troon and Heather
A trip to Scotland years ago was not enough to do justice to this story, so I’m grateful to some Scottish folk who were happy
to help me. Graham Hall, thank you for the slang and the encouragement. Anne Ross, you were a huge help with your detailed
descriptions of everything from the Queen’s speech to the bells. I couldn’t have done it without you.
And a big hug and a thank-you to my nephew Spencer, who helped me with a sticky plot knot just in the nick of time.
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power
of the Holy Spirit.”
—
Romans 15:13
(
NIV
)
S
OME PEOPLE are born with the gift of friendship. Some achieve it. And then you have people like me, who have friendship thrust
upon them.
Believe me, there’s no one happier about that than I am—in fact, I probably wouldn’t be alive right now without it—but it
wasn’t always that way. My name is Lindsay Margaret Eithne MacPhail, and because my dad is a Scottish earl, that makes my
mother a countess and me, a lady.
I know. Stop laughing.
To my friends I’m simply Mac. If you call me Lady Lindsay, I’ll think you’re (1) being pretentious or (2) announcing me at
a court ball, and since none of my friends are likely to do either, let’s keep it Mac between us, all right?
On the night it all began, I was sitting in the dark, deserted computer lab, waiting for the digital clock on the monitor
to click over: 11:00.
“Carrie?” I settled the headphones more comfortably and leaned toward the microphone pickup.
“All right?” Her familiar voice came over Skype and I smiled, even though she couldn’t see it. She sounded like sleepovers
and mischief and long walks through the woods and heath. Like rain and mist and Marmite on toast. She sounded like home.
“Yeah.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. I’d chosen to come to Spencer Academy for the fall term instead of going back to
St. Cecelia’s. I’d hounded my mother and, when that didn’t work, my dad, so I had no business being homesick. Besides, being
all weepy just wasted precious minutes. Carrie had to leave for school, and I had to sneak back up to the third floor without
the future Mrs. Milsom, our dorm mistress, catching me after lights-out.
“Only two weeks to go until you’re home,” Carrie said. “I’m already planning all the things we’re goin’ tae do. Anna Grange
has a new flat in Edinburgh and she says we can come crash anytime we like. Gordon and Terrell canna wait to see you—they
want to take us to a new club. And—”
“Hang on.” How to put this? “I haven’t actually decided what I’m doing over the holidays. There’s a lot going on here.”
Silence crackled in my headset. “Don’t talk rubbish. You always come home. Holidays are the only time I ever get tae see you—not
tae mention all your friends. What do you mean, a lot going on?”
“Things to do, people to see,” I said, trying to soften the blow. “Mum wants me in London, of course, since she hasn’t had
me for nearly three months. And I have invitations to Los Angeles and New York.”
“From who?”
“A couple of the girls here.”
The quality of the silence changed. “And these girls—they wouldna be the ones splashed all over
Hello!
last month, would they? At some Hollywood premiere or other?”
“As it happens, yes. I told you all about it when that issue came out.”
She made a noise in her throat that could have been disgust or sheer disparagement of my taste. “That’s fine, then. If you’d
rather spend your
vay-cay-shun
wi’ your Hollywood friends, it’s nowt to do wi’ me.”
“Carrie, I haven’t said I’d go. I just haven’t made up my mind.”
As changeable as a sea wind, her temper veered. “You’ve got tae come. We’re all dying to see you. I saw your dad in the village
and he invited all of us over as soon as you got home.”
“Did he?”
“I know. I didna think he’d even remember who I was, but he stopped me in the door of the chip shop and told me I was tae
come. He sounded so excited.”
This did not sound like my dad, who wasn’t exactly a recluse, but wasn’t in the habit of accosting random teenagers in chip
shops, either, and inviting them up to the house. She was probably having me on. I had a lot of practice in peering behind
Carrie’s words for what she really wanted. In this case, it was simple. She was my friend, and friends wanted to be with each
other.
The problem was, I had more friends now than I used to. Besides the ones at Strathcairn and in London, there were the ones
here at Spencer. And lately, Carly, Shani, Lissa, and Gillian were turning out to be solid—more so than any friends I’d had
before.
Awkward.
“I’ll let you know as soon as I figure out what I’m doing,” I told Carrie. “I’ve got to go. The Iron Maiden stalks the halls.”
Carrie laughed. “Love the pic you sent wi’ yer camera phone. What a horror. Who would marry her?”
“The bio prof, apparently. The wedding’s set for New Year’s Eve to take advantage of some tax benefit or other.”
“How bleedin’ romantic.”
There was another Christmas wedding in the works, but I hadn’t heard much about it lately. Carly Aragon’s mum was supposed
to marry some lad she’d met on a cruise ship, much to Carly’s disgust. I could relate, a little. If my mother was going to
marry a man who looked like a relic from an eighties pop band, I’d be a little upset, too. So far Carly was refusing to be
a bridesmaid, and the big day was sneaking up on her fast.
“I’ll call you over the weekend.”
“I might be busy.”
“Then I’ll call Gordon and Terrell. I know
they
love me.”
She blew me a raspberry and signed off. Still smiling, I laid the headphones on the desk and got up.
And froze as a thin, dark shape moved in the doorway. The lights flipped on.
I blinked and squinted as Ms. Tobin stared me down. “I thought I heard voices. Is someone here with you?” I shook my head.
“You do realize, Lady Lindsay, that lights-out is ten o’clock? And it is now twenty after eleven?”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“What are you doing in here?”
“Calling home.”
She scanned the rows of silent computers. Not a telephone to be seen. “And you can’t do that from the privacy of your own
room?”
“It’s eleven twenty and my roommates are asleep,” I pointed out helpfully. “But it’s seven twenty in the morning in Scotland.
I use Skype so there are no long distance charges.”
She rolled her eyes up, as if doing the math. “Calling Scotland? Your family?”
If I didn’t actually answer, I wouldn’t be lying. Instead, I let the smile falter. “I get homesick.”
Ms. Tobin pinned me with her gaze like a butterfly on a board. “I sympathize, but you still broke a school rule. A demerit
will be added to your record. Again.”
Oh, please. Who cared about demerits when I needed to talk to Carrie? “I’m sorry, Ms. Tobin.”
“Come along. I’ll escort you to your room.”
And she did, like a bad-tempered Dementor floating along beside me. Only compared to that dreadful brown tweed skirt and round-toed
oxfords, the Dementors were turned out in haute couture. Did the woman actually have on knee-high stockings?
“Good night, Lady Lindsay.”
I shuddered and shut the door on her, locking it for good measure.
“Mac?” Carly’s sleepy voice came from the direction of her bed, muffled by a quilt. “Who’s that with you?”
“I called home and got caught,” I whispered. “Ms. Tobin marched me up here.”
Carly groaned and subsided.
I undressed and crawled into bed. The three of us had to make do in a room designed for two. I have to admit, it was kind
of fun rooming with Carly and Shani Hanna. Since her debacle with the heir to the Lion Throne last month, Shani has lost a
little of her attitude. She doesn’t look at people with scornful eyes like she used to, and when she talks, it’s to you and
not at you.
Or maybe it’s just me.
I returned to the problem at hand. With two weeks left to go before the holidays, what was I to do? Home or here? Old or new?
Family or friends? And really, what was the difference?
I blinked and stiffened on my goosedown pillow.
That was it. There was no difference. My family and my friends all belonged together. With me. At home.
“Carly?” I whispered. “Are you awake?”
“Guhhhm.”
“Do you think everyone would like to come to Scotland with me for Christmas?”
“DEFINE
EVERYONE
.” Gillian leaned across her dish of oatmeal and took a tangerine out of the bowl on the table.
I swallowed a spoonful of yogurt before I answered. I hadn’t put a single molecule of porridge near my mouth since I’d arrived
in the States. I’d had sixteen years of it, thank you very much, and there was no one here to make me eat the stuff.
Lissa dived into my hesitation. “You don’t really mean that, do you? All of us? At Strathcairn?”
“I do mean it. We have fourteen bedrooms, not counting the old nurseries and the staff floor. Those are closed off, anyway.
The beds might be a little dusty, but if I let my dad know right away, he can get some of the ladies from the village to come
and tidy things up. There’s plenty of room and tons of things to do.”
“Like what?” Carly put away oatmeal at a scary rate. I shuddered.
“Like skating on the pond and cross-country skiing. And parties.” I saw the Strathcairn of ten years ago, when Mummy had been
the most spectacular hostess the old pile had seen in generations. “Lots of parties and balls and live bands and whatever
we want.”
“Don’t tell me,” Shani said. “You’re going to teach us Sir Roger de Coverley, aren’t you?”
“No, that’s for babies,” I said scornfully. What did she know about country dances? “I’ll teach you Strip the Willow before
we go so you don’t make utter fools of yourselves.”
