Page 92 of Playing to Win

Colin opened his mouth as if to answer, then shut it, no doubt recalling thatHow do you dowas a greeting, not a question.Well done, Andrew thought.

“Welcome to Dunleven,” Mum said with a smile, then turned at the sound of footsteps. “And here’s Lord Kirkross.”

Dad ambled out onto the porch, his welcome as warm as Mum’s.

Colin greeted Andrew’s father smoothly, shaking his hand and offering a nod of the perfect angle and duration. As they all turned to go inside, his glance at Andrew somehow combined relief and terror.

Andrew took his hand again and offered an encouraging smile. He would have given a thousand pounds to know what Colin was thinking right now.

= = =

So. Much. Tweed.

It was true what they said about the countryside. Enormous tracts of land without a human in sight. Lords and ladies who defined the wordsubdued. And of course the ubiquitous tweed, in case one needed to go trudging through damp underbrush at a moment’s notice.

At least Colin had got through the introductions without any faux pas or “solecisms,” a word he’d learned fromDebrett’s.

He stepped through the castle’s front door, and immediately his feet stopped working.

It looked even bigger from the inside. The hall in front of them was split into two. The archway to the left opened onto a sitting area beside a grand wooden staircase. The archway in front of him displayed a hall that ran the length of the building, with a rose-red carpet that seemed to stretch into infinity. The ceilings, here in the foyer and down the hallway, were made of white plaster, peaked like in a cathedral, with stone carvings at the center of each peak.

“It’s all so gorgeous,” Colin whispered, craning his neck to gape at the foyer’s massive brass chandelier.

“Thank you,” Lady Kirkross said. “We maintain it as well as we can afford to, at least the parts our guests see. Some sections are crumbling, but that’s the way it is with old houses.”

“I can imagine.” He couldn’t imagine. As they made their way down the hall, Colin tried to focus on the chatter among Andrew and his parents, rather than calculating whether his entire flat could fit inside each room they passed.

They lingered for drinks in the drawing room, where a small blaze burned in a marble fireplace, which was fronted by a fuzzy gray rug. Colin answered Lord and Lady Kirkross’s questions on his university studies and plans for starting his own business someday. He spoke at half his normal speed, so they could understand his Glaswegian accent, and asked polite questions in return, using as cues the dozens of family photos and portraits arranged on side tables, the mantelpiece, and the piano.

He was keeping his composure rather well, he thought, until the fireplace rug suddenly stood up and shook itself.

“Oh my God, it’s a dog,” he blurted, nearly spilling his drink. As he recovered, Colin was grateful hadn’t said “Fucking hell!” or worse.

“Spenser, come and meet Colin.” Andrew pursed his lips, making a kissing sound. The dog turned, banging its hip into the glass coffee table, and made straight for Andrew, whose face he started licking methodically. “Not me, you old horse.”

Colin put out his hand, which promptly filled with a fuzzy gray muzzle. “A deerhound, right? I’ve never seen one in real life, only on the Crufts dog show on TV.” He scratched behind Spenser’s ear, and the dog leaned his head into it, giving a huff of pleasure. Colin glanced at Andrew to see his face looking nearly as blissful as the dog’s. “Talking of animals,” Colin said, “I’ve noticed you’ve no—that is—” He stopped, fearing himself out of line.

“That we’ve no what, Colin?” Lady Kirkross asked.

“Heads.” He waved a hand at the walls. “Of deer and all. Most estates—when I’ve seen them on TV, there’s taxidermy everywhere.”

Lord Kirkross laughed. “We are mavericks in that respect.”

“Dunleven had plenty of dead animals on display before it was in Charles’s hands.” Lady Kirkross gestured to her husband. “But we got rid of them the day we moved in.”

“As a child I always found them disturbing.” Andrew’s father gave a mock shudder. “But I fear when I’m gone, the heads will return.”

“Over my dead body,” Colin heard Andrew mutter.

“Sorry?” his mother asked.

“Nothing.” Andrew scratched Spenser’s hip with the toe of his shoe. “I’d just rather not ruin the evening by discussing my brother, even obliquely.”

Fortunately Dermot, the butler, arrived then to announce that dinner was served. They went out through a side door onto a wide brick porch. Colin looked out over the lawn beyond, imagining how fast he could dribble a football over the manicured grass.

“See? I told you she’d love it.” Andrew pointed to the center of the adjoining rose garden, where the bronze yeti he’d bought from the Skymall catalog stood amid the bushes.

“My ability to humor you has no limits,” Lady Kirkross told her son.

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