Page 64 of A Dash of Scot
They were about to raise their glasses in a toast when a knock sounded at the front door.
“That must be the colonel,” Anise said, passing Poppy her glass and rushing from the room.
She returned a moment later with Colonel Austen, who looked sheepishly at them all holding their champagne glasses.
“I see we have much to celebrate,” he said.
“Indeed, we do”,” Mama said, looking slightly puzzled, then finally noticing Anise’s ring when her daughter wriggled her fingers in her direction. “What is that?”
“My lady,” Colonel Austen said. “I have asked Anise to marry me.”
Mama looked ready to faint, flicking open her fan once more out of habit, but Dougal took hold of her arm to keep her steady. “Two daughters married?”
Poppy was afraid she was going to rush out of the room in tears again, but she managed to stay put this time.
“Mama, the colonel is also giving you my dowry. We believe you deserve it and that Edward has done you wrong.”
“Oh, let us not talk about Edward and Mary at this most celebratory moment.”
But fate had other designs. At that moment, there was another knock at the door, and then the piercing voice of Mary in the small foyer outside the drawing room as she let herself in the house.
“What in the world?” Poppy, Anise and their mother said at the same time as Dougal and the colonel muttered, “Bloody hell.”
The drawing room door burst open. Mary, red-faced, her hair a little askew from what had to be a fast-paced journey from Edinburgh, stood there before them, glowering fire and brimstone.
“What’s the meaning of this?” she asked, staring each of them down as if they were schoolchildren who’d hidden the teacher’s books.
For a moment, Poppy stood shocked, imagining that Mary had somehow gained magical powers. That in her finely appointed drawing room in Edinburgh, she’d heard Dougal declare himself for her and that she’d snapped her fingers and appeared.
“I beg your pardon, Mary, but that is no way to enter your mother-in-law’s home.” Mama’s voice was stern, and for the first time that Poppy had ever seen, her mother looked down her nose at her daughter-in-law with an expression that would have put Poppy in the corner.
“Why, I never—” Mary started.
But this time, it was Poppy who stepped in. “How lovely to see you. What brings you to the Highlands?” She tried to keep her voice pleasant, but she feared the brittle smile on her face wasn’t helping.
Mary ignored her. “Dougal. Lucia has eloped with Campbell, and when I arrived at Castle Varrich, they told me I could find you here. And now I see the lot of you drinking champagne in the middle of the day.” This last part, she said as if she’d found them all drunk on whisky at breakfast.
“We have much to celebrate,” Dougal said. “I have asked Poppy to marry me. And Anise and Colonel Austen have also gotten engaged.”
Mary’s mouth fell open as she stared from one of them to the next, clearly shocked.
“What about Lucia?”
“I was never meant to marry her. And as ye mentioned, she’s properly wed to another. Now, let us no’ bring up such unpleasantness. Do ye no’ want to wish my fiancée your felicitations?” Dougal said brightly.
Mary visibly gritted her teeth, clearly having a lot of things to say, but either unwilling or unable to voice them. At last, she sniffed and held her nose in the air. “Well, I do hope you’re all happy with yourselves.”
It wasn’t so much a congratulation as an accusation, as if they’d done something to hurt her, which they hadn’t.
“Mary, our happiness doesna take away from yours.” Dougal’s voice was calm as he said it, and Mary remained stiff even as he pulled her into his arms for a one-sided hug, her arms hanging like two steel bars at her sides.
Was that the root of it, then? That Mary thought their happiness would somehow dip into her own? It was silly and irrational, but it also made sense. Mary didn’t see the world in the same way as anyone else. She didn’t see people outside of herself, autonomous. Everything that happened in the world was happening to her, or somehow, in her mind, she believed it affected her.
“I’m so very happy to have you as a sister-in-law times two,” Poppy said, taking Dougal’s place in hugging the cold stiffness that was Mary’s body. My goodness, was she this way with Edward? No wonder she wasn’t happy.
“That is,” Mary swallowed and grimaced at the same time as if she were swallowing bile but would rather toss up her accounts. “That is a fact.”
Poppy held in her laugh. How hard it was for Mary to compliment anyone.
