Page 2 of Death at a Highland Wedding (Rip Through Time #4)

TWO

When we return to the coach, Gray speaks to Simon and suggests we find another route, even if it takes longer. That removes us from the line of traffic heading into the Highlands, and soon we’re stopping for a picnic lunch along a loch, where we relax on the shore to eat. After lunch, Isla, Alice, and I take off our boots and stockings and wade into the lake, and our excruciating journey finally becomes a fun adventure in the countryside.

By the time we’re approaching the estate, it’s early evening. That doesn’t mean it’s getting dark. We’re even farther north now and nearing the summer solstice, meaning it’s full sunlight, and I squint as I try to see the house. Instead, I spot two baby deer sprinting away from the coach.

“Fawns!” I say as I point.

“Deer,” Gray says.

I give him a look. “Yes, fawns are baby deer.”

“No, I mean those are full-grown deer.”

I peer at him and then at the others. Sometimes it’s fun to tease the time traveler. It’s like telling a child that “house hippos” are a thing, except without the guilt of, you know, lying to a child.

“Duncan is right,” Isla says. “That is a roe deer. Likely full grown.”

“Let me guess,” McCreadie says. “They’re bigger in your time.”

“Nah, they’re just bigger in Canada. They start a little smaller than your red deer and go up to…” I crane my neck skyward. “As tall as this coach.”

Gray snorts. McCreadie and Isla eye me skeptically. Yep, this game works both ways.

“I’m serious,” I say. “Look up moose. They have them in Europe, too. Poland, maybe? Definitely Russia.” I catch sight of a white tower ahead, and I’m diverted by that until the full building comes into view. “Holy crap. It really is a castle.”

“Hunting lodge,” Gray says.

I lean out the window. In the distance, tucked down in the valley, is a white three-story building with towers and turrets. “It looks like a castle.”

“That is intentional,” Isla says. “It is an inhabitable folly.”

“Ah.” I know about follies. Victorians are fond of them. Or rich Victorians are, because you need money to build them and space to showcase them. A folly is a miniature version of some grand—and usually exotic—structure like a Greek temple or Egyptian pyramid. Most are purely for show, but some are large enough to inhabit.

I’d love to roll my eyes and mock the ridiculousness—and extravagance—of building a miniature colosseum in your yard, but I have to admit, follies are kind of cool.

“You said it’s a hunting lodge?” I ask. “Please don’t tell me Archie Cranston is hunting those tiny deer.”

“Then I will not tell you,” McCreadie says. “You may close your eyes and pretend he is hunting man-eating tigers.”

“Mmm, not sure that’s much better. I’m kinda on the man-eating tigers’ side. They get hungry, and people are right there, slow and defenseless.” I keep watching the estate as it comes into better view. “Did Mr. Cranston inherit it?”

“If I recall,” Isla says, “and correct me if I am wrong, Hugh, but I believe the lodge is a fairly recent construction. By the same man who designed Balmoral Castle, in fact.” She turns to McCreadie. “Did Archie buy the land?”

Her use of the familiar address tells me she knows Cranston as more than the groom of McCreadie’s little sister. Since all four men seem to be about the same age, and refer to each other by both first and last names, I’m going to guess they went to school together. McCreadie and Gray didn’t attend the same college, so that would make it high school. Yes, it’s actually called high school—the Royal High School, to be exact—a term Americans will later adopt.

“The previous owner bought the land and built the lodge,” McCreadie says. “But it is still recent and, as I understand, a point of some contention.”

“The sale?” I say.

“No, the original build. There were people living on the land, who were turned out of their homes to make way for pleasure hunting.”

“Ouch.”

“Hmm. I understand there is some animosity locally. If you see anyone on your rambles, I would suggest you tell them you are staying at an inn.”

“Taking that further,” Gray says, “I would ask that, given the state of affairs, no one goes for rambles alone.”

“It’s that bad?” I say.

“I fear it is.”

Well, this is shaping up to be quite the holiday.

As we approached the estate house, I itched to get inside and see it. Once we’re there, though, everything passes in a blur of chaos. Two other coaches arrived just before us, and everyone needs their baggage unloaded and taken to their rooms. That becomes the priority. No one has time to show us around—they just want to get us inside and parceled out to our assigned rooms.

A maid whisks us up one flight of stairs, where she is met by the housekeeper, who has just finished escorting other guests to their chambers. She tells the maid to show Gray and McCreadie to their quarters, and she will take “the ladies.”

I struggle to understand the housekeeper, Mrs. Hall. The Victorian Scottish accent is not exactly the same as the one I knew from holidays with my grandmother. There are also levels of strength, just like there are now, and the more “country” one is, the stronger the accent—and the more of the Scots language used. All that means the speech takes a little longer to run through my mental translator.

As for myself, being in Catriona’s body means I have her voice and also—less explicably but very conveniently—her accent. It’s the Scots that I’ve needed to learn, and by now dinnae and aye and ken come naturally, though in my head, I still hear “did not,” “yes,” and “know.”

“Mrs. Ballantyne will stay in the small balcony room.” She opens a door. “The young ladies will be two flights up.”

I quickly calculate what I’d seen from the outside.

Isla beats me to it. “The attic?”

“Yes, all the maids will be up there.”

Isla glances at me. “Miss Mitchell is my companion, not a maid. I hoped she would stay with me, and Alice would be happy to find a place in my—”

“There is no room. As I said, you are in the small balcony chamber.”

Ah, housekeepers. They are an imperious bunch, rulers of their domain. Even guests are intrusions, disrupting the clockwork flow of the household.

Isla meets the woman’s gaze with the equally imperious stare of a fellow female professional. “Then Miss Mitchell and I will share the bed.”

“The attic is fine,” I cut in. I catch Isla’s eye and jerk my chin toward Alice. Our young parlormaid won’t know anyone here, and she’ll already feel out of place.

Isla nods. “You may show the young ladies to their quarters.” Then, to us, “Come see me when you are settled in, and we will take a ramble through the grounds.”

“That is not possible,” Mrs. Hall says.

Isla raises her brows.

“Mr. Cranston’s orders,” Mrs. Hall says. “All guests are restricted to the house and gardens. For their own safety.”

“That sounds ominous,” I murmur.

The woman turns her steely gaze on me.

“Any particular safety concern?” I ask. “Killer deer? Man-eating tigers? Well-armed former tenants?”

“Mr. Cranston requests guests stay within the house and gardens. For their own safety. Now, please come with me.”

“You must be more careful,” Alice hisses as we climb the endless stairs to the attic. “Mrs. Ballantyne might be amused, but your sharp tongue reflects poorly on her and Dr. Gray.”

Being schooled in manners by a parlormaid is a hard blow, but she’s right. It’s not my manners that are the problem. I’m Canadian. I say please when making automated phone selections. But in the modern world, my smart-assed comments haven’t reflected badly on anyone else since I was old enough for people to stop blaming my poor parents. Now I’m in a world where someone else will always be blamed. I am a woman, after all.

When we reach the attic, Mrs. Hall ushers us into a small room, and I smile. It’s a perfect little attic garret, complete with sloping wood-beamed ceilings and dormer windows. It’s also a whole lot warmer than downstairs. Castles—even replicas of them—are drafty.

The best part, though, is the tiny door in the corner, where someone has posted a handwritten sign reading, in all caps, “DANGER!!! DO NOT OPEN!!!” Yes, there are three exclamation marks both times.

Seeing the sign, I laugh. Then I look at Mrs. Hall, who peers at me suspiciously, as if wondering whether I might be touched.

I point at the sign. I’m presuming it’s a joke. I mean, it’s a small door in an attic marked with dire warnings. Of course anyone staying in this room is going to open it, if only out of pure curiosity.

But from the look the housekeeper gives me, it’s not a joke.

“So we… should not open the door?” I say.

Alice suppresses a snicker.

“No,” Mrs. Hall intones. “That is what the sign says, in case you cannot read.”

I look from her to the door. “May I ask—?”

“No.”

The housekeeper turns on her heel and leaves. I walk over and close the door behind her. Then I turn and Alice has already sprinted to the tiny marked door. I do the same, but she beats me there.

“Wait!” I whisper. “That could be where they keep the inconvenient relatives.”

She rolls her eyes skyward. “Then it would be locked.”

“Ah, but that would be illegal. You can hide your embarrassing relatives in secret attic rooms as long as the door isn’t locked. That’s the law.”

She eyes me, uncertain.

“I’m joking,” I say. “Although, if it is Mr. Cranston’s mad former wife, she might be fine company. All right, open the door so we can meet her.”

Alice turns the handle. When the door sticks, I reach over to help and we yank… and it flies open with a wall of spare pillows and blankets tumbling onto us, knocking her down and me back onto the bed. We look at each other, covered in blankets, and start to laugh.

“I told you not to open the door,” a distant voice calls. “Now mind you put all those back before you come down.”