dinner at Drumfernly this evening. I wouldn’t want to ruin my appetite.”
Scarlett’s heart sank. Her mother inviting single local landowners over for dinner could only mean one thing: she wasmatchmaking again. Just when she’d thought her first day home couldn’t possibly get any worse.
Her only consolation at dinner was that, for once, Cameron had also had a local “prospect” foisted on him, a deathly shy, pudgy girl named Fiona whose father just happened to own the finest grouse moor in Scotland.
“Your m-m-mother tells me you’re a banker,” Scarlett overheard the girl stammering timidly at the other end of the table. The Great Hall at Drumfernly was a huge, high-ceilinged room with stone walls and floors that tended to amplify people’s voices, the worst possible place for a stammerer. “Is that terribly d-d-difficult?”
“No,” said Cameron rudely, turning away. Unlike Scarlett, he was all for finding a rich, titled wife whose wealth and position could complement his own. But he didn’t do fat girls, and that was that.
Seeing Fiona blush red as a beetroot, Scarlett longed to go over and rescue her. But she was too far away to make conversation without shouting over all the other guests, and besides, Hamish clearly had no intention of letting her out of his clutches. Wedged like an unhappy sardine between him and her totally deaf uncle, William, she was trapped both physically and conversationally.
“I always say it’s closer to ballet than to sport,” rambled Hamish, now fifteen minutes in to his specialist topic of salmon fishing, a subject that held about as much interest for Scarlett as fossilized dinosaur turds. “And of course, even the tying of the flies is an art, a dying art. If you’ve ever seen a dozen bead-head nymphs being properly tied, and I mean
properly
tied, it’s a thing of beauty, I can tell you.”
Unable to bear it a moment longer, Scarlett bravely tried to change the subject.
“Jewelry design, the personal, hand-crafted sort of work that I do, is a dying art too,” she said. “So much of what people buy nowadays is mass produced, even at the top end of the market, the Tiffanys and Aspreys and what have you. There’s either cheap handmade jewelry in silver and glass, or factory-finished diamond and gemstone pieces. Very little in between.”
“Scarlett’s got a little shop,” Caroline interjected patronizingly from Hamish’s right. “It’s become quite a hobby for you, hasn’t it, darling?” She’d hate for a catch like Hamish to write her daughter off as a committed career girl, unsuitable for marriage.
“How splendid!” he replied, surreptitiously pressing his kilted thigh against Scarlett’s woolen tights—hardly the greatest fashion statement, but her parents’ steadfast refusal to pay for heating in the castle’s public rooms left her little choice. “So important to have interests, I always say, especially living up here. Girls do need something beyond the children and the home, especially once the hunting season’s over.”
Scarlett almost choked on her beef fillet.
“Bijoux is not a hobby, Mother, as you well know,” she said firmly. “It’s a business, and a thriving business at that. And happily”—she turned to Hamish—“I don’t live up here. I live in London, where we ‘girls’ have all sorts of interests outside children and the home, and where I’m delighted to report there
is
no hunting season.”
“Ha, ha, jolly good!” Hamish laughed loudly, as if she’d made some great joke. “Well, London’s marvelous for a time too, before one marries. I sometimes regret not spending a year or so there myself, seeing the world a bit and all that. But these estates don’t run themselves, you know.”
“Indeed not,” murmured Scarlett’s father from the head of the table, apparently forgetting that he himself relied wholly on a team of professional estate managers to run Drumfernly and couldn’t name the various
Scarlett’s heart sank. Her mother inviting single local landowners over for dinner could only mean one thing: she wasmatchmaking again. Just when she’d thought her first day home couldn’t possibly get any worse.
Her only consolation at dinner was that, for once, Cameron had also had a local “prospect” foisted on him, a deathly shy, pudgy girl named Fiona whose father just happened to own the finest grouse moor in Scotland.
“Your m-m-mother tells me you’re a banker,” Scarlett overheard the girl stammering timidly at the other end of the table. The Great Hall at Drumfernly was a huge, high-ceilinged room with stone walls and floors that tended to amplify people’s voices, the worst possible place for a stammerer. “Is that terribly d-d-difficult?”
“No,” said Cameron rudely, turning away. Unlike Scarlett, he was all for finding a rich, titled wife whose wealth and position could complement his own. But he didn’t do fat girls, and that was that.
Seeing Fiona blush red as a beetroot, Scarlett longed to go over and rescue her. But she was too far away to make conversation without shouting over all the other guests, and besides, Hamish clearly had no intention of letting her out of his clutches. Wedged like an unhappy sardine between him and her totally deaf uncle, William, she was trapped both physically and conversationally.
“I always say it’s closer to ballet than to sport,” rambled Hamish, now fifteen minutes in to his specialist topic of salmon fishing, a subject that held about as much interest for Scarlett as fossilized dinosaur turds. “And of course, even the tying of the flies is an art, a dying art. If you’ve ever seen a dozen bead-head nymphs being properly tied, and I mean
properly
tied, it’s a thing of beauty, I can tell you.”
Unable to bear it a moment longer, Scarlett bravely tried to change the subject.
“Jewelry design, the personal, hand-crafted sort of work that I do, is a dying art too,” she said. “So much of what people buy nowadays is mass produced, even at the top end of the market, the Tiffanys and Aspreys and what have you. There’s either cheap handmade jewelry in silver and glass, or factory-finished diamond and gemstone pieces. Very little in between.”
“Scarlett’s got a little shop,” Caroline interjected patronizingly from Hamish’s right. “It’s become quite a hobby for you, hasn’t it, darling?” She’d hate for a catch like Hamish to write her daughter off as a committed career girl, unsuitable for marriage.
“How splendid!” he replied, surreptitiously pressing his kilted thigh against Scarlett’s woolen tights—hardly the greatest fashion statement, but her parents’ steadfast refusal to pay for heating in the castle’s public rooms left her little choice. “So important to have interests, I always say, especially living up here. Girls do need something beyond the children and the home, especially once the hunting season’s over.”
Scarlett almost choked on her beef fillet.
“Bijoux is not a hobby, Mother, as you well know,” she said firmly. “It’s a business, and a thriving business at that. And happily”—she turned to Hamish—“I don’t live up here. I live in London, where we ‘girls’ have all sorts of interests outside children and the home, and where I’m delighted to report there
is
no hunting season.”
“Ha, ha, jolly good!” Hamish laughed loudly, as if she’d made some great joke. “Well, London’s marvelous for a time too, before one marries. I sometimes regret not spending a year or so there myself, seeing the world a bit and all that. But these estates don’t run themselves, you know.”
“Indeed not,” murmured Scarlett’s father from the head of the table, apparently forgetting that he himself relied wholly on a team of professional estate managers to run Drumfernly and couldn’t name the various
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