Page 75 of The Heir Apparent
She snorted. “No, off you go. Have your big reunion with your farmer.”
A week prior, the entire family had descended on the estate for the remainder of the summer. Granny, Amira and I had flown to Edinburgh and taken the train the rest of the way, while the Clarences arrived by private plane. Richard assured anyone who would listen that it was a free ride, provided by an unnamed wealthy friend who was passing through. The Highlands were Granny’s favourite place in the world, the place where she could be herself, dressed in slacks, with dirt under her fingernails and a cluster of dogs at her heels. It was my first time there as an adult, and I was learning that it was not as simple as my childhood summers spent lying in the tall grass.There were multiple outfit changes, an unending schedule of outdoor activities and cocktails so strong they made your eyes sting. Some nights Granny decided we should all eat in front of the television. The next night she’d ask that we sit down for a seven-course meal dressed in evening wear. By my second day at the estate, with its etiquette traps and gin-loosened tongues, I had wondered if I’d made a mistake inviting Jack and Finn there. But it was too late to undo things. And besides, Jenny was up north for the weekend at Granny’s request. She would at least tip the scales in favour of sanity.
I left the drawing room and walked through the labyrinth of hallways towards the main entrance. The walls were lined with the heads of glass-eyed stags that had met the wrong end of a rifle, dusty old tapestries and the portraits of my ancestors. Usually a guest who arrived at the estate was greeted by porters, taken to their quarters and handed an itinerary that would tell them exactly when they were allowed to appear in the castle’s main rooms for cocktail hour. But I had deliberately dropped out of the stag hunt at the last moment so that I could be there to meet Finn and Jack. It was eight months since I’d been strapped into the belly of the chopper and pulled away from them. It felt like no time had passed. It felt like years had passed.
When I approached the sloping stone archway, my heart was a wild thing. I could see them, backlit in the August sun. Jack turned when he heard my footsteps on the slate floor and I was struck anew by him, his broad shoulders and his brown eyes. He was in a t-shirt I’d never seen, and his hair was an inch longer than I was used to, but it was him. We both stopped and smiled, and I found myself embarrassed by the swell of emotion inside me.
“Lexi!” Finn shouted. His familiar sunglasses were hooked through his shirt collar. He had the vampiric look we both used to get when we were enduring the endless grind of night shifts in Hobart winter. He lifted me off the floor when I reached them and I laughed against his shoulder, realising how much I had missed him. For more than a decade, we had barely spenta day apart and now I’d muddled through nearly a year alone without him. At last he put me down and stepped back. “You look sofancy.”
Mary had me on a strict schedule of hydrafacials, hair treatments, peels, lasers, skin needling, manicures, lymphatic drainage massages and juices. I was shiny-haired, clear-skinned and perfectly groomed. I had deliberately dressed down that morning, pulling on old Levi’s and a grey sweatshirt, hoping I would look like myself, even as I stood barefoot and soignée in a castle.
Finn stepped aside and Jack and I exchanged tremulous smiles. I was rooted to the spot, overcome by the sight of him, and he stepped forward and gathered me in his arms. He smelled like the Jennings cottage, like home, and I imagined a PET scan of my brain positively glowing as the scent of him lit up everything inside me. He was warm and real and in my arms, no longer the distant voice on the phone.
“Hey,” he said softly. I could feel the fluttering pulse in his neck.
“Hi,” I whispered.
“Er, ma’am,” Barney said as he appeared next to the pile of bags in the doorway. “We’ll get Mr. Jennings and Dr. Vanderville’s luggage into their rooms now.”
“Thank you, Barney,” I said, distractedly. Jack and I had pulled apart but could not take our eyes off each other. “I’ll come as well.”
This, of course, was a great breach of etiquette, though I did not care, and Barney, who’d always adored Mum, allowed me to do whatever I wanted without raising an eyebrow. He led us through the halls to the guest lodgings in the east wing of the building. My fingertips brushed against Jack’s as we walked, our eyes forward, smiles on our faces as Finn regaled me with every detail of their journey.
“We flew via Perth, which is kind of an unending nightmare, but you do get to London quicker that way,” he said, stoppingmomentarily to glance at a wall adorned with antique pistols and rows of trophy antlers. “Anyway, business class rules, I loved it. Thanks, doll.”
“Yeah, about that—” Jack started.
“It was all paid for with points,” Finn and I responded in unison.
“I don’t know if I believe you two,” Jack said. “But I’m never going to get a straight answer, am I?”
“Nope,” we said. Jack reached out and caught my fingers in his.
Barney led us to the narrow halls of the guest apartments, where the gloom of the castle gave way to pastel paint shades and soft-pile carpeting. This extension had been added centuries after the main estate, and it was the only part of the house with any warmth. Members of the family insisted on remaining in the draughty sleeping quarters of the west wing because that was what we had always done.
At the end of a long hall, we came to a large guest room painted duck-egg blue. Barney stopped and extended a hand. “Your quarters, Mr. Jennings. I can have a valet unpack for you.”
I had asked for this room to be reserved for Jack because it overlooked the gardens of the south lawn, where the Scottish bluebells and primrose had been allowed to flourish. It was my favourite room, the place my mother had stayed the first time she visited the estate at age eighteen, charming Papa’s parents and leaving him no choice but to marry her. I liked to imagine her staying in this jewel box, barely out of girlhood, brimming with optimism that this was the place where she would be loved, where she could be part of a family.
“I, uh, thanks, no, I can do that,” Jack said, wandering into the room, which was the size of our living room in Hobart.
“Very good, sir,” Barney said in his lilting brogue and turned to Finn. “Dr. Vanderville, you’re across the hall, if you’ll follow me.”
When they left, Jack and I were alone for the first time since New Year’s Day. We stood in silence and again traded shy smiles that seemed to dissolve from our faces in a moment. Hiseyes told me everything I needed to know, and before I had even decided what to do, he was walking across the room and taking me into his arms. He held my face as he kissed me, his hands cupping my cheeks, running down my shoulders and to my waist. I’d felt his hands before, of course: our fingers had brushed when he passed me the Vegemite jar, or when he picked a thistledown out of my hair, or when I’d carefully extracted the splinter from his palm. But when he used those hands to pull me flat against him, holding me closer than I thought was possible, it was like I’d never felt them before. All the years that had passed between us, all the pain I’d inflicted on him, Georgia and Ben, the monumental decision I was yet to make—none of it mattered as I tasted his mouth for the first time.
Distantly, I heard Barney leaving Finn’s room in search of a valet to unpack his luggage. I pulled out of Jack’s embrace while I still had the willpower.
“Guys, this place is crazy,” Finn said, walking back into the room. “There’s a whole wardrobe full of clothes in my size in that room. Are they for me?”
“They are,” I said, clearing my throat. “Just a few spares of things you might need.”
My voice was as raw as my nerve endings, but Finn was too overwhelmed by his surroundings to notice that Jack and I were standing together looking stunned and glossy-lipped.
He opened Jack’s closet and briefly rifled through the contents. “Your suit’s nice,” he said.
I had asked Mary to stock Finn and Jack’s wardrobes with everything they would need, including tuxedos and kilts. The castle was a rather treacherous place for guests. It seemed lovely and old-fashioned and relaxed by royal standards, but every outsider was silently judged for failing the thousands of little tests the family set for them. Not only were you expected to bring your own outdoor shoes—despite the piles and piles of wellies in every corner—your choice of brand could sink you. Hunters were always sneered at, especially the polished blackones. Only mud-splattered Le Chameaus were acceptable. You should have the right clothes for fishing, hiking, church, a rainstorm, an unseasonable thirty-degree day, a black-tie dinner and a highland fling. There was no way of telling which of these events might unfold during your stay at the estate, so it was best to overpack. But if you brought too much luggage, the staff might also gossip about you. If you brought no gift for Granny, you were low-bred. If you arrived with something extravagant, you were gauche. You absolutely had to tip your valet. You had to participate in parlour games. You had to drink the cocktail put down in front of you. It was no wonder Mum had started coming down with unspecified ailments every summer in the days before we were meant to head north for Scotland.
“Anyway, what should we do now?” Finn asked. “When do we get to meet the big cheese?”
