Flawless (7 page)

“Cup of tea, Mrs. McIntyre?”

Scarlett smiled sweetly at the crotchety old woman who’d made her life such a misery as her primary-school teacher. She was older and leatherier than Scarlett remembered her, but beyond that wasn’t much changed. Then again, nothing in Buckie ever changed much.

The pre-Christmas raffle was being held in the same draughty old church hall that had housed every village event since before Scarlett was born and that still smelled of the pungent combination of disinfectant and incense that she remembered so well from her childhood. Standing here, pouring tea for Mrs. McIntyre and all the other old biddies, her life in London felt like a dream. It was hard to believe that this time two days ago she’d been sipping a soy latte behind the counter at Bijoux, negotiating the sale of a forty-five-thousand-dollar diamond bracelet.

“Is it free?”

The old woman’s whiny, nails-on-blackboard voice brought her back to earth with a jolt.

“I’m sorry?”

“The tea, Scarlett, the
tea
.” She pronounced it “tay.” “Are you selling or giving it away?”

“Oh, sorry, yes, it’s free.” Scarlett blushed, feeling like a naughty ten-year-old again. “But if you’d like to make a donation, there’s a box at the end of the counter there.”

Taking a steaming cup and a hefty handful of custard cream biscuits, Mrs. McIntyre shuffled off, shamelessly ignoring the donation box.
Mean old cow
, thought Scarlett.

Just then Caroline wandered over, arm in arm with a paunchy, middle-aged man Scarlett vaguely thought she recognized.

“Darling, you remember Hamish Sainsbury? You used to ride together on the beach at Elgin all those years ago.”

Hamish Sainsbury! Good God! They’d never been great friends, but she did remember him and his brother leading the pack on those long, dreary riding-school trips. He could only be three or four years older than she, but he’d aged dreadfully. With his pasty, puffy face and red, watery eyes, he looked to be in his midforties at least and couldn’t have done a shred of exercise in the last decade. She supposed that was what staying in Banffshire did for you and thanked her lucky stars once again that she’d escaped.

“Well, you weren’t exaggerating, Caroline,” said Hamish, staring with gummy admiration at Scarlett’s tight green cashmere polo neck where it clung to her breasts. His voice was even more ludicrously plummy than she remembered it. “She’s even more beautiful than I remembered. I’d never have thought it possible.” To Scarlett’s horror, he picked up her hand and planted a wet-lipped kiss on the inside of her wrist.

“Hello, Hamish,” she said as politely as she could, snatching back her hand and wiping off the revolting snail’s trail of saliva on the back of her jeans. Cliff Richard’s “Mistletoe and Wine” began blaring out over the ancient speaker system, and she said a little prayer that Reverend Tim might call the raffle soon so they could all go home. “Can I get you some tea and biscuits?”

“Not for me, thanks,” he said, patting his spreading tummy fondly. “Got to watch the old figure.”

“Oh Hamish, what nonsense. You’ve got a fine, trim figure,” lied Caroline.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” he mumbled, turning back to Scarlett. “But in any case, your mother’s been kind enough to invite me over for 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 was
matchmaking 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 crops in his fields to save his life.

Scarlett sighed. She should know better by now than to try to get into a debate with the likes of Hamish, men who considered a year in London to be “seeing the world.” What on earth would he make of Africa? she wondered. His life, like her parents’, was so sheltered and parochial, she couldn’t possibly expect him to understand hers.

But Hamish, it seemed, was made of sterner stuff than she gave him credit for. Undeterred by her complete lack of interest so far, he decided to make another ill-fated journey into the conversational fray.

“You’ve heard about our Hogmanay celebrations over at Kinlochry this year?” he said brightly to the table at large. “The reels’ll be spectacular. I do hope you’ll all be there.”

“Of course we’ll be there,” said Caroline, returning his enthusiastic smile with a beamer of her own. Really, it wouldn’t kill Scarlett to show a little more interest. “The whole county’s abuzz about it.”

“In that case, I wonder if I might be so bold”—Hamish turned back to Scarlett—“as to reserve the first dance of the Dashing White Sergeant for you, Miss Drummond Murray?”

“Oh, that’s very kind,” said Scarlet, crossing her legs as the only means of removing them from his insistently pressing thigh, “but I’m afraid I won’t be in Scotland for New Year’s. I’m going to New York with a girlfriend.”

“You never mentioned New York to me,” said Cameron, sounding put out. “We spent twenty minutes talking about our New Year’s plans on the drive up yesterday, and you never said a thing.”

“
You
spent twenty minutes talking about
your
plans,” said Scarlett pointedly. “I never got a word in edgewise.”

“Well, I must say, I think you might have told
me
,” said Caroline, who for politeness’s sake was trying not to show how livid she was. “Naturally I assumed you’d be here, with the family.”

“But Mummy, we only talked about Christmas,” said Scarlett plaintively.

“Well, who is this girlfriend?” asked Caroline. “You’re going to tell me it’s that dreadful American child from St. Clement’s, aren’t you?”

For unexplained reasons, Caroline had always disapproved of Nancy. Scarlett could only imagine it was because she was the only American girl at the school. The fact that her ancestors had come over on the Mayflower or that her parents owned half of Park Avenue meant little in Scotland, where the right tartan and regiment were everything.

“Nancy isn’t dreadful; she’s lovely,” she said wearily. “She’s been hugely helpful to me in trying to spread Trade Fair’s message in the States.”

“Trade Fair is my sister’s other little hobby,” Cameron explained scathingly to Hamish. “Or rather, her hobby horse. It’s all about saving the Sambos in the diamond mines from the evil British white-slavers. Isn’t that right, Scarlett?”

“Look, I’m sorry Mummy, I really thought you knew about New York,” said Scarlett, ignoring him. “But I’ve been looking forward to it for ages, and I can’t let Nancy down.”

“Hmm,” sniffed Caroline, “of course not. It’s only your poor
family
you feel able to let down.”

“Trade Fair,” said Hamish, who’d clearly been spending the last two minutes trying to think of something devastatingly witty and amusing to say to impress Scarlett. “What a terribly appropriate name, for one as
fair
as you to have chosen for your campaign. Do you get it?” he smiled, evidently pleased with himself. “
Fair?
”

Even Caroline forgot Hamish’s estates and seven-figure yearly income at that point and glared at him witheringly.

Later that night, in bed, Scarlett remembered the Trade Fair comment and started to giggle. Poor old Hamish. It wasn’t his
fault his family was so inbred he’d been left with the IQ of a cowpat. Still, she was sure there were plenty of well-to-do Scottish girls who’d be delighted to marry him anyway—sweet, fat Fiona had looked positively excited when the men switched seats during dessert. He’d be much better off with her.

Pulling the mountain of blankets up to her chin as their sheer weight finally began to generate some warmth, she let her thoughts drift to Nancy and New York. She imagined the sales at Bergdorf Goodman and Barney’s and started to fantasize about stocking up on cut-rate Marc Jacobs and the late dinners they’d have together at the 21 Lounge. But then her mind turned involuntarily to Yakutia and the terrible stories she’d heard on the radio yesterday about the conditions in the O’Donnell mines, and she felt a sharp stab of guilt. How could she be so shallow, thinking about shoes and sweaters and cocktails, when she knew what those poor men were going through? How could she waste so much mental energy on pointless arguments with her family when she knew firsthand about so much genuine suffering in this world? And particularly in
her
world, the diamond business.

Ignoring her mother’s house rules, she pulled back the covers to allow a whining, shivering Boxford into bed beside her. Cocooned in their combined body heat, she fell into a fitful sleep, peppered with dreams of salmon fishing, Madison Avenue, and the tyrannical, smiling face of Brogan James O’Donnell.