It could have been the perfect summer, but for Reggie’s declining health. Two weeks ago, Reggie had collapsed getting out of the motorcar and Gloria, finally, had put her foot down. She’d taken Reggie to Vichy for the cure, but Reggie, reluctant to miss the opening day of the Newport Horse Show, had cut his treatment short. Now, they were returning to New York with a hired doctor in tow.
Duke saw them first, standing at the entrance to the first-class coach. He put his arm around Thelma so as not to lose her and charged forward, lifting his hat high in the air.
“We were worried you might not make it,” said Reggie, enveloping Thelma in a cloud of cigar smoke and brilliantine as Gloria and Duke said their goodbyes. Thelma gripped him tightly, hating how weak his arms felt around her. “Best of luck in Scotland.” He released her, inhaling the last of his cigar as he stepped an extra few paces away from Gloria and Duke. “He’ll be a lucky man to have you. Lucky indeed.”
Thelma warmed at his words. She arched an eyebrow, playacting for his benefit. “But who’s to say I’ll have him?” she replied, and Reggie chuckled.
She sobered. “Take care of yourself, Reggie.”
Reggie’s cheery expression dimmed. He threw his cigar stub onto the train track and took Thelma’s hand. “Promise me, my dear,” he said in a low voice, “that you’ll look after them. When the time comes.”
The train let out a blast of steam. A conductor blew a piercing note on a whistle, and Gloria threw herself into Thelma’s arms.
“Tell me everything—absolutely everything. I can’t wait to hear about it,” she breathed. She let go and Reggie helped her onto the train.
“Second and third compartments, darling,” he said, and Gloria disappeared into the depths of the carriage. Reggie stepped up, but lingered at the carriage door.
He looked at Thelma. With Gloria gone, Reggie let fall the armor of relentless enthusiasm that had carried him through the day. He looked, quite simply, ill: the world no longer a game, but already a memory.
Thelma nodded, and the strain in Reggie’s face lightened. He touched the brim of his hat, then turned to follow his wife.
* * *
Two weeks later, Thelma stepped off the train in Inverness at six in the morning, bundling herself in the thick of her overcoat as she searched the platform for Duke. She’d taken the overnight service from London, and while she hardly would have blamed Duke if he’d only sent a chauffeur to collect her from the station at this early hour, she was pleased to find him leaning against the ticket counter, dressed in his tweeds and looking every inch the country gentleman.
He bent to kiss her. “Made it, then,” he said fondly as he led her toward a waiting car. “How was your trip?”
“I wish I could tell you I slept, but I’m afraid I barely shut my eyes. I hope you don’t have some horrid Highland tradition where everyone wakes at seven to walk the glen—I may need a nap before I’m civil.”
Duke opened the car door and Thelma climbed inside as her maid helped the footmen strap a hatbox onto the boot. “We aren’t much for traditions up here,” he replied. “If a warm nap and a hot bath is all you’re good for today, that’s fine with me.”
The drive from Inverness took less than an hour, the car cutting through Highland mist as they passed rolling mountains covered in purple heather. Thelma curled into Duke’s chest, smiling at the easy intimacy between them, and at Duke’s evident pleasure in seeing her. She felt as though she was dreaming as the peaked roofline of Affric Lodge came into view: a compact gray-stone mansion with a fairy-tale turret, perched on a tree-lined outcrop overlooking a wide loch.
“Is that it?” she said, nudging Duke in the ribs. “That old mess?”
Duke laughed, snugging Thelma closer in a proprietorial sort of way. “It’s not as grand as you might think,” he said. “It’s not got electricity, nor a telephone. How will you stand that, I wonder? Averill’s always on about it. Says she loves the hunting but feels cut off from the world. A telegram’s not enough for her, I suppose.”
Thelma didn’t respond; she fit her hand in Duke’s, studying his ruby signet ring.
“What?”
“Suppose your children don’t like me.”
Duke snorted as the car trundled up the drive. “Why wouldn’t they?”
Notwithstanding its size, Affric Lodge was airy, its immense picture windows coaxing in the morning light that had broken through the fog. After freshening up, Thelma came down to find Duke in the dining room, helping himself to an array of breakfast foods while being regaled by a redheaded youth telling an animated story.
Duke cleared his throat when Thelma entered, and the young man sprang to his feet.
“Pleased to meet you,” he said, offering his hand in a warm imitation of Duke’s manner.
Thelma smiled. “You must be Christopher. How do you do?”
He beamed. Christopher was a miniature of his father, Duke’s handsome features set in a round, guileless face. “My friends call me Dickie,” he said in a trimmed Eton accent, “and I hope you will, too. I’m sorry Averill isn’t here to meet you, she’s out stalking.” He sat back down and helped himself to a mountain of scrambled eggs. “One of the gillies spotted a ten pointer just the other side of the loch yesterday afternoon.”
“Afraid her old man would nab it if she didn’t get after it first thing in the morning, eh?”
Thelma took a square of toast, letting the conversation between father and son wash over her. She was relieved to have been afforded a few more hours’ grace before meeting Duke’s eldest child. According to Duke, Averill—only four years Thelma’s junior—hadn’t inherited her mother’s gentle charm: she was strong-willed and obstinate, and shared Duke’s passion for hunting and riding.
“I may have made her slightly more in my image than I’d planned after Daisy died,” Duke had told her, furrowing his brow but smiling nonetheless. “She was thirteen when it happened. Old enough to understand, but young enough not to know what to do about it all. She followed me around like a damned puppy for months afterward. I couldn’t have her out on the moors with nothing to do so I gave her a shotgun, pointed to the birds and told her to have at. Rather a good way to cope, as it turned out, I think.”
Averill returned from stalking in time for afternoon tea, which had been served on the lawn overlooking Loch Affric. Though she had saved her new trousers for tomorrow’s sport, Thelma was wearing a jacket over her afternoon dress: the sun might have been sending ripples of light across the water but, as Elise reminded Thelma while she was dressing, it was still Scotland in late summer.
“Father!”