Excerpt
A Highland Hogmanay
Meg Mardell © 2021
All Rights Reserved
Chapter One
“It’s getting quite sticky in here, isn’t it? Don’t these people perspire a lot in their ridiculous costumes? But the fools will insist upon picking characters that require false beards and headwraps and the lot. What do they expect?”
Mr Edward Pilkington watched the white-masked Pierrots and Pierrettes rotating around the Mayfair ballroom the same way he looked at everything else—right down his upturned nose. Of course, on this occasion, he might just be stopping his own mask from slipping.
“I must say, I consider it in poor taste of Lady Belleville to host such a gaudy entertainment on Christmas Eve. There’s enough blinding décor in every home and shop window without humans dressing like a bunch of tinsel ornaments.”
Sharda thought the display of Venetian masks in gold, silver, and red rather complemented the miles of glittering white ribbon their hostess had threaded around her every enormous window and door. But five days of Edward’s persistent company had taught her to neither agree nor disagree with his frequent judgements as both fanned the flames of his perpetual dissatisfaction.
“Perhaps you now see, Miss Holkar, the wisdom of my selection of attire. A simple mask and fancywork vest, and perhaps a sash, is really all that is required on these occasions.”
“For women as well as men?”
Sharda’s costume took its inspiration from the opulent carnival style of Venetian women from the height of that city’s pomp and power two centuries back. Her square-necked black silk gown cut away to a blaze of scarlet underskirt. Tiny stitched-in crystals covered the tight scarlet front bodice as well as her matching silk hat. Jutting out over one eye, the bold topper terminated in a cascade of black feathers that brushed her black half mask. Edward’s mother, one of Sharda’s inexhaustible supply of second and third cousins, had tried to convince her to wear what that lady was pleased to call her “native finery.” But when Sharda had insisted on purchasing a new costume for the ball, Lavinia Pilkington had graciously conceded that the Venetian style looked well on Sharda, for “many ladies of the Italian peninsula are quite of your complexion, my dear.”
The lady’s son was equally talented at giving compliments.
“A bit of exotic finery is not amiss on a woman. Provided she’s young, of course. There’s nothing more displeasing than an old woman got up like the Queen of Sheba. Now, perhaps I can see if these insolent Turks of footmen have some iced sherbet. You must be awfully hot in all your…” The gentleman gestured to Sharda’s hat. “Er, not that you look to any disadvantage or are…” The gentleman sought in vain for an acceptable substitute for sweating.
Sharda suddenly wished she had selected a full mask to hide her private mirth. She should not find it so amusing when Edward remembered, too late, that he was trying to woo her. Though maybe if she did not find the clumsy courtship so funny, she might cry.
“Or perhaps you would like to take the air in the garden, Miss Holkar? And escape this dreadful crush.”
“They seem to have brought much of the garden in here, Mr Pilkington.”
She gratefully caught the crisp scent of the evergreen branches that wrapped every available railing in Lady Belleville’s house. A delicious freshness that made one forget one was in London.
“Hmm, yes, quite. But then you don’t have the same animal noises outside, of course. It’s much easier to talk.”
She had not noticed the noise of the ballroom impairing his ability to talk in the slightest. But she knew what type of conversation he had in mind. He wasn’t the first young man to try to negotiate her out onto a cool veranda.
“Perhaps I would like an ice, Mr Pilkington. If you would be so kind.”
“Yes, of course… Though it will be a dreadful ordeal making my way over to the refreshment area now… No matter. I will see that you get your ice…my lady.”
Sharda took a few calming inhales of the pine-and-wood-polish scent of the Belleville townhouse. Now she could face Lavinia Pilkington, a spare lady fluffed up with a great deal of feathers, descending upon her beside a very grand person in purple.
“Here she is, Lady Belleville. I thought we should have to send some of your splendid footmen in search.”
“That might have proved difficult. I have my own runaway to locate, Mrs Pilkington. My wretched nephew.”
Lavinia trilled a nervous laugh, unable to tell if this was a joke.
“This is my young friend, Miss Sharda Holkar, who is staying the holidays with us. Sharda, meet Lady Belleville.”
“I do like your hat, Miss Holkar. You need a bit of height for such a topper. I, alas, have always extended out rather than up. I do envy women who can carry off such plumage. You are enjoying the ball?”
“Yes, indeed, ma’am.”
“And you’ve been dancing?”
“Not yet.”
“Oh dear, I do like young people to dance.”
“Do not worry, your ladyship. I am sure my son Edward will do the honours soon.”
“Excellent. Now, you must excuse me, for I hear my dear husband’s growl even now. I should make at least a half-hearted attempt to save my guests from his best Scrooge impersonation, should I not?”
Sharda and her cousin each dipped a curtsy—Lavinia’s embarrassingly low—to their hostess as she moved back into the crowd like the prow of a ship easily carving a path through lesser crafts. Sharda was left stranded on an island of two.
“I do hope you truly intend to dance as you promised Lady Belleville. And what did you think of her ladyship? Quite a superior person, I think, but Edward says she wears too many jewels for true breeding. I only wish I had such a problem! Whatever is taking Edward so long, do you think?”
Lavinia had a fidgety manner that made it impossible to relax in her company. After nearly a week as her guest, Sharda was almost as high-strung as her hostess. The prospect of enduring even another five minutes with this wearisome woman was unbearable. Especially as her only reward would be to eat a melted ice and then dance in Edward Pilkington’s sticky grip.
“He promised me he would return very soon. Perhaps I might wait for him in the garden, Mrs Pilkington?”
Lavinia’s eyes glittered behind her feathered mask.
“Ah, yes, that would be an excellent idea. It is far too noisy and hot in here.”
“Should you like to come with me, cousin?”
“Oh, no. No, no. I declare I see my dear friend Mrs, er…Bamtree just over there. But you go right ahead, my dear.”
Sharda needed no further encouragement.
«
“For the last time, sir, are you quite positive Lord David is at this bacchanalia?”
“Well, my dear Miss Forbes, he’s bound to be. Fellow’s sworn he won’t go to his mother’s place out in Berks for any price this Christmas. One too many scenes over the ancestral dinner table, I gather, though a fellow doesn’t like to mention it.”
Phillip Simpson’s only value to Finella Forbes was precisely his ability to mention absolutely everything. The man did not know the meaning of the word discretion.
“Just because his lordship is not in Berkshire does not mean he is under this particular Mayfair roof,” Fin pressed.
“Oh, but I think it does. This little hooray is about the only entertainment for anyone who’s left in Town. None of the truly grand people are here, of course. An eccentric little tradition—but then no one’s about to tell old Belleville what is and isn’t done.”
Belleville could afford to be eccentric. Fin had made an estate manager’s quick mental arithmetic of the Bellevilles’ twenty-foot decorated fir tree that greeted revellers at the door, the several candlelit crystal chandeliers, and the excellent vintage of champagne used even in the punch. Her head swam a bit as a result.
“If this is only a simple occasion, Mr Simpson, I’d be fair blinded by one of London’s magnificent events. But then, we’re not accustomed to a ball lit by anything other than torches in the Highlands.”
It never hurt to play the overawed country rustic around these swells. Though, in truth, Fin did feel a bit out of place for all that she wore a regulation black silk half mask. Thank god the girl at the lodging house had managed to transform her hopelessly old-fashioned green silk into a passable medieval gown with a spool of velvet ribbon and a scarf.
“You look capitol, Miss Forbes, truly you do. Like Maid Marian, wot? Shouldn’t have recognised you for the girl I met up in Balintore, indeed I shouldn’t.”
Why did everyone insist she must be costumed as that most English of heroines just because she wore green? “Isn’t not recognising one another the point of these masquerades?”
Yet another fact that made finding one very, very elusive lord at this ball a quest worthy of a medieval ballad.
“Hah, yes,” Simpson chortled. “Though I wager you’d recognise me, eh?”
She certainly would smell him out quick enough. Mr Simpson had drunk a barrel of Balintore’s best whisky on his last visit with Lord David’s hunting party. She doubted even a few months had dried him out.
“Do you remember that one evening when we’d gone looking for some rabbits and rather lost our way home, and old Chesterton toppled into Loch What’s-it-called, and we’d all got a bit mucky hoisting him out? Do you remember what you said when we showed up at the castle, Miss Forbes? Do you remember?”
“I take it you remember, sir.”
“You said, you said…” Simpson was almost convulsed with mirth already, and now his performance was further impaired by a thick Scots accent. “‘Och, is that you, Lord David? For I coulda sworn ’twas naught but a couple daft hares and one jugged rabbit.’”
“Fine times indeed, sir. Lord David’s parties are the highlight of the Balintore year.”
This was true. It was often the only time he remembered to pay Fin and the staff.
She tried for the fiftieth time to steer Mr Simpson towards the issue at hand. He was forever wandering off, and not only in his speech. She firmly tucked a gloved hand into the crook of his arm. “Perhaps if we circle the edge of the ballroom, we would be better able to see if Lord David is dancing.”
“Of course, my dear madam, though I do say you might save yourself a great deal of trouble by just dropping the fellow a note at the club. Bound to get it there, isn’t he? Or at his townhouse, of course.”
Correspondence to Lord David by way of Pall Mall, Mayfair, or Madagascar had all met with the same fate. She had only prevailed this far by standing about in the street in front of his club for half the day—enduring some very insulting comments into the bargain—and at last buttonholing one of Lord David’s associates.
Mr Simpson obligingly walked about seven steps along the perimeter of the perfectly polished dance floor before he spotted two women with whom he simply must speak. Which meant Fin must be introduced.
“…and this is Miss Finella Forbes. She…well, I don’t rightly know what her proper title is, but her family are the people of Balintore. You know, where old Davy Lawson has his Scottish estate.”
Fin’s proper title was estate manager, but that distinction seemed to embarrass Lord David and his cronies so much that they had invented some confused history where the Forbes were the ancestral owners of the land on which the modern Balintore Castle was built.
The ladies peppered her with polite questions: How did she do? Was she enjoying London? Where did she get such a romantic costume? “I declare,” one enthused, “I can positively see you emerging from the shade of Sherwood Forest.”
“More like Dunsinane Forest! Macbeth, wot?” Mr Simpson guffawed at his own joke, and the ladies tittered politely. “I say, isn’t that our chap there?” Simpson spun away from the group.
Fin followed him eagerly. “What? Where?”
“Ah, fellow in the white wig and coat…just ducked out onto the balcony. Right height and slim build anyway. Impossible to tell for certain from this distance…”
Fin saw only as far as the back of Mr Simpson’s shoulders. Not for the first time in her life, she cursed the level at which fate had placed her. But she had learnt to be none too gentle in gaining the high ground.
“Wait, are you really going in pursuit, Miss Forbes? He’ll have to come back, of course. There’s no way onto the street from the garden—unless he fancies sliding over the balcony wall in satin breeches, wot? Though, of course, I would be happy to—”
“I do not require an escort, Mr Simpson, thank you. I will be able to slip out to the garden more quickly alone.”
And when Fin found Lord David alone, she was going to knock some sense into his thick aristocratic head. She would prefer not to use the paving stones, but the situation being what it was, she could not afford to be picky about her methods.
«
The Pilkingtons had been right about one thing. The garden was ever so much quieter than the ballroom. Almost spookily so.
The light and heat clamouring to escape the great wall of windows in the Bellevilles’ townhouse only emphasised the cold, dark solitude of the walled garden. Sharda had lingered with the ball’s dilettantes on the balcony for only a moment before following the edge of the stone wall around to a plunging staircase. The avenues of tall box hedges at the bottom had at first appeared invitingly safe. How wrong she was!
Another phantom giant reared up at her with outstretched arms. Her brain knew this was only one of the hedge corners carved into fantastical shapes by the gardeners. But her heart skipped a beat all the same. Another rustle reached her ears. An animal out foraging for food? Or a pair of lovers keeping each other warm on a chilly stone bench? Sharda hardly liked to walk on lest she disturb just such a scene. But if she stayed here, she might freeze to death. Gah, if she had an ounce of sense, she would march back to the house and put an end to all thoughts of escape.
Had there ever been such a pack of wretched alternatives?
Another noise, this time a definite crunch of feet—or large paws—on gravel. Steps approaching for certain. Sharda did not know where she was going, only that she wanted to be as far away as possible from those approaching feet. Hastening down the tight avenues, she turned at random at each hedgy intersection…until she struck a dead end. A dead end that grabbed her with two hands.
She should scream. All that came out of her lips was a startled squeak.
“Oh! So, you’re not some brigand but”—her captor’s hands padded up Sharda’s arms—“a lady. Well, thank god for that. You gave me a scare and make no mistake.”
This stranger could not be gladder than Sharda at discovering the other’s sex. She struggled to make out the contours of the woman’s face. Well, of course, this masquerade made it difficult to determine exactly what anyone looked like even in the brilliant ballroom. But the woman’s evident relief disarmed Sharda at once. As did her low, warm voice.
“I am so terribly sorry!” Sharda lowered her voice to its normal register. “I was not looking where I was going. I did not mean to frighten you.”
“It’s not your fault, lass. Why does Lady Belleville keep this place such a dungeon? I’d swear to over a hundred flames in just one chandelier inside, and yet here, we have not so much as a rushlight.”
Her voice was friendly without being hearty, and it had a lovely Scottish burr besides.
“It is a bit gloomy,” Sharda agreed, “though perhaps she counted on a moon for illumination.”
“Such a hostess leaves nothing to chance. She’s only making sure her guests do not stray. Or, if they do, that the mastiffs will get them. Oh, now I have frightened you. Look, you are shaking.”
Sharda could hardly look, but she still clutched at the sleeves of the woman’s gown. How utterly mortifying. She forced her trembling fingers to release the invitingly warm fabric. “Not at all. I’m merely chilled. I have been out here for some time.”
Sharda was now intensely grateful that shadows and masks prevented her from seeing the other woman’s expression. She must think her a madwoman.
“May I ask what you’re doing freezing your fair toes in this gloomy garden, lass?”
“I might ask you the same—”
“Miss Holkar? Are you out here?”
Edward’s haughty accents cut through the crisp air. Sharda’s breath caught in her throat, and her hands flew back to her companion.
“Quick! We must hide!”
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