Flawless (19 page)

“We were discussing estate business,” said Cameron pompously. “He’s not getting any younger, you know. He needs more help up here.”

“I agree. So help him,” said Scarlett, seeing where this was going.

“Me? Don’t be ridiculous,” Cameron snapped. “I can’t just pick up and leave the office whenever I feel like it. This is a very crucial stage in my career. I could be less than twenty-four months away from partnership.
You
should make the effort.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed,” said Scarlett, smiling woodenly at her godparents as they passed, “I have a business of my own to run.”

“Oh, come on,” said Cameron patronizingly. “Your little jewelry shop is hardly in the same league as my banking career. You’re going to give it up eventually anyway, when you marry.”

“Says who?” said Scarlett indignantly. “Anyway, why the hell should I be the one to lose out? Drumfernly’s your inheritance, remember, not mine.”

Cameron frowned.

“The estate affects the whole family,” he said sanctimoniously, “although that’s just the sort of selfish attitude we’ve all come to expect from you.”

“
Selfish
?” Scarlett looked suitably flabbergasted.

“Yes, selfish,” said Cameron. “What else do you call those appalling advertisements with the naked blacks? Poor Mummy nearly died of shame. Can you imagine how that went down in Buckie?”

Scarlett was on the point of replying that she didn’t give a fuckie about Buckie and that Trade Fair’s ads were already
making a real difference in the industry when she found herself being literally wrenched out of her brother’s grip and pulled onto the dance floor.

“Remember me?”

Hamish Sainsbury, her would-be suitor from Christmas, had obviously been taking assertiveness lessons. Either that or he’d read in
Farmers’ Weekly
that single ladies all swoon over a forceful man. Freshly returned from a tour of the vineyards in southern Portugal, his face was as red as boiled lobster. His paunch, if anything, had grown in the ten months since Scarlett had last seen him and now sat like a basketball, balanced atop the rim of his straining cummerbund. For once he’d opted for a traditional black evening suit instead of a kilt, a small mercy for which Scarlett thanked the heavens as he threw her around the floor like Fred MacStaire.

“Goodness, Hamish, you’re a jolly energetic dancer,” she panted. She was pleased to get away from Cameron, but talk about out of the frying pan.

“Been having lessons, actually,” he said proudly, jerking her backward in an ill-advised attempt at the mambo—ill-advised in that the band was playing the English folk song “Green Grow the Rushes O,” which didn’t exactly lend itself to flights of Latin passion. “Getting rather good. Though obviously it helps when one has such an inspiring partner.”

Scarlett smiled through gritted teeth. She was in danger of getting serious whiplash.

“D’you mind awfully if we get a drink?” she said, at last managing to interrupt him between twirls. “I’m gasping for a gin and tonic.”

“Of course, of course,” said Hamish, looking pleased at the chance to get her into a quiet corner. “Come on. I’ll beat a path through the heaving masses.”

Five minutes later, enjoying the first cool sips of her drink in the relative peace and quiet of the Great Hall, Scarlett felt
flooded with relief. In fact, the respite turned out to be temporary. Hamish, though well meaning, was possibly the most boring man in Scotland. After fifteen minutes of listening to him droning on about the merits of traditional Portuguese wine-making techniques, she was starting to wish she’d opted for a quick death on the dance floor. By the time the gong sounded for dinner and the rest of the guests surged toward the tables like a plague of tartan locusts, she’d reached the point where it was a genuine struggle to keep her eyes from closing.

“Dash it,” said Hamish, consulting the whiteboard next to their table, “how infuriating. We aren’t seated together. You’re here and I’m”—he scanned the lists—“all the way over at table twenty-nine. With Emma bloody Cavendish, if you can believe it.
Such
a tedious woman. Hey, I know. What do you say we swap the place cards about a bit? I can swap with this chap over there.” He picked up the name card next to Scarlett’s. “Magnus Hartz.” He frowned. “Never heard of ’im. And then I can sit next to you.”

“Too late, I’m afraid.”

Scarlett spun around. Behind her a tall, dark, and quite jawdroppingly handsome American man in a lounge suit and without a tie was addressing himself to Hamish.

“I’m sure Miss Cavendish is quite lovely. But I’ve been looking forward to making Miss Drummond Murray’s acquaintance all evening. Magnus.” He extended a smooth, manicured hand toward Scarlett, who took it, mute with embarrassment. Then, gesturing at the chair in front of Hamish, he said, “If you’ll excuse me,” and sat down without waiting for a response.

Hamish, whose assertiveness course had not yet got as far as teaching him how to see off taller, handsomer male rivals, mumbled something about returning straight after coffee and slunk miserably off to his fate.

“So.” Magnus, who was even better looking close-up—all jutting jawbone and smoldering brown eyes—began buttering a bread roll. “You’re the famous Scarlett Drummond Murray.
You’re considered quite the scarlet woman around here, you know, for those diamond ads of yours. My grandmother actually described you to me as ‘racy.’ I knew I had to meet you after that.”

“Oh,” said Scarlett, still utterly tongue-tied. Not only was he the most desirable man ever to have crossed the threshold at Drumfernly—possibly to have crossed any threshold, anywhere—but of course she’d had to meet him while dressed as a copper meringue. “Who’s your grandmother?”

“A lady named Jane Verney-Cave.” Magnus dispatched the roll in two easy bites. “She’s a friend of your mother’s, I believe.”

No. Not possible. This broad-shouldered American Adonis couldn’t possibly be the grandson of a wizened old crone like Mrs. VC.

“But…you’re American,” stammered Scarlett lamely. Honestly, she was going to start dribbling in a minute. What was it about attractive men that made her regress into something approximating an advanced case of Alzheimer’s? Happily, Magnus seemed not to notice.

“My mom, her daughter, met my dad in college,” he said, pouring them both a glass of red from the bottle in the middle of the table. “I grew up in Seattle, lived there all my life in fact, but Mom always brought us home to Scotland for vacations.”

“Really?” said Scarlett. “In that case, I can’t believe we’ve never met before.”

“Weird, isn’t it?” said Magnus, gazing unashamedly into her hazel eyes, then down over the smooth, white skin of her collarbone to the creamy swell at the tops of her breasts. That gross dress didn’t do her any favors, but nothing could detract from her incredible cheekbones or the sexy curl of her soft, wide lips. “I guess we should start making up for lost time.”

Never had a Drumfernly dinner party flown by so quickly. Scarlett barely touched her loin of venison and only managed a couple of spoonfuls of Mrs. Cullen’s ambrosial chocolate mousse because she needed something to do with her hands. Magnus
turned out to be not just gorgeous but funny too, regaling her with stories of his dour Scottish grandmother trying to negotiate a mob of skateboarding kids in downtown Seattle on her one and only visit stateside and how as a kid he used to stuff fistfuls of haggis into his pockets when she wasn’t looking so he wouldn’t have to eat the “rancid stuff.” He was a lawyer, apparently, a career that, along with accountancy, usually had Scarlett’s eyes glazing over with boredom. But Magnus could make a bus timetable sound gripping. He was also gratifyingly interested in her career and the harassment problems she’d been having at Bijoux.

“I take it you reported all this already?” he said, when she’d finished telling him about the near miss with Boxie.

Scarlett nodded. “The police looked at me as if I were mad.”

“So maybe you take matters into your own hands? Try and get a hold of some evidence yourself. Show ’em something concrete that they’ll
have
to take seriously.”

“Like what?” she asked. “They’ve already seen the letters.”

Magnus shrugged. “How about installing CCTV cameras at your store?”

“Already have them.”

“Or at home, then? Put a voice recorder on your phone.”

Scarlett thought about it. “I could, I suppose. It all seems a bit Secret Squirrel though, doesn’t it? Besides, Brogan does everything anonymously, through his goons. He’s hardly likely to ring up and say, ‘Hi, it’s me, drop your campaign or else.’”

“Was that supposed to be an American accent?” Magnus laughed. “That’s terrible!”

Scarlett laughed too. For the first time in months, work problems seemed blissfully far away. Sitting here, flirting with Magnus, they didn’t even feel particularly important.

“You must meet Clementine,” said Caroline, tugging Magnus away from her daughter with a force belied by her tiny frame. “She still needs a partner for The Dashing White Sergeant, don’t you Clemmie?”

Magnus dutifully performed two dances with the girl, who was nice enough but had an ass the size of Washington, not to mention two left feet, before slipping back to rescue Scarlett from the clutches of the apparently unstoppable Hamish.

“Jeez,” he said, once he’d finally pried her free. “Is your mom always that pushy?”

“Oh yes,” said Scarlett ruefully. “And controlling. She as good as forced me to wear this awful thing tonight.” She looked down at her dress in shame.

“Why didn’t you tell her to take a hike?” said Magnus. “I mean, no offense or anything, but you’re not twelve.”

He was quite right of course. It was ridiculous the way she let Caroline walk all over her.

“I know,” she sighed. “I suppose the truth is I can’t face having it out with her. I know you Yanks believe in getting everything out in the open, but we Brits are far too repressed for that. If we see something unpleasant, we tend to bury it. Life’s easier that way.”

“If you say so,” he said, reaching out and touching the fabric of her dress just where her waist narrowed below the bodice, rubbing it between his fingers so that the cheap taffeta crinkled like a crisp wrapper. It was intended as a jokey gesture, but Scarlett jumped as an unmistakable spark of raw attraction flew between them.

“Is there somewhere…quieter…we could go?” Magnus whispered hoarsely.

Scarlett nodded frantically. She wanted him so badly the dress was in danger of melting from the heat of her body.

“We shouldn’t leave together, though. I’ll slip off to the bathroom and meet you at the foot of the kitchen stairs in five minutes.”

It was ten minutes before he finally rejoined her, panting as if he’d just gotten back from a battle zone.

“OK, so your mother really has a problem,” he said, looking over his shoulder as if she might be on his tail as he spoke. “She was shoving me at this one girl, Fiona? I swear to God, the woman was practically unzipping my fly!”

Scarlett giggled. “Come on,” she whispered. “Follow me.”

Taking him by the hand, she led him through the maze of corridors and narrow, winding stone staircases that made up the rabbit warren of Drumfernly’s upper stories. After much twisting and turning, Scarlett led him into a neat, virtually empty bedroom.

“This your room?” he asked, admiring the view of rolling moonlit parkland from the single window while Scarlett bolted the door.

“No,” she said. “Someone might come looking for me there. This is one of the old servants’ rooms. We hardly ever use this part of the house. Hence the dust.” Coming up behind him, she dragged one finger along the stone window ledge, leaving a trail in the thick, gray layer of grime like a miniature ski track through dirty snow. Turning around, from one mesmerizing view to another, Magnus pulled her into his arms.

“You’re like Rapunzel in her tower,” he said, pulling out the tortoiseshell hair clip at the base of her neck and allowing her glossy river of hair to ripple down her back.

“What does that make you?” sighed Scarlett, closing her eyes in delight as she felt his cold hand on the zipper at her back, releasing her from the confines of the hated dress. “Prince Charming?”

“I’m afraid not,” he whispered, planting a kiss on the hollow beneath her collarbone as the dress slithered to the floor. “I’m flying back to America tomorrow. Believe me, I wish I weren’t, but…I have to be honest with you. I can’t promise happily ever after.”

“That’s OK,” said Scarlett equally seriously. “I’ll take happy now.”

Being more of a cotton Gap panties girl than a Victoria’s Secret siren, she never normally wore matching underwear, but tonight
by some miracle (hooray!) she’d actually put on one of her sexier combos: a pale-pink lace strapless bra with matching barely-there panties and hold-up stockings. Magnus, however, was too intent on removing them all to pay much attention to the detailing. Her body beneath the frumpy dress was a revelation—a little on the skinny side, perhaps, but curved in all the right places. Her breasts, as round and soft as twin peaches, were the same milky white as Häagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream, the freckles across their tops like loosely sprinkled chocolate powder. As for her lower body, quite apart from its sheer length—she was almost as tall as he was, and most of that was leg—she was as toned and taut as a long-distance runner. There wasn’t a hint of cellulite on her cute, boyish butt, and the paradise of skin between the tops of her stockings and lace trim of her underwear was as firm and unsullied as a baby’s.