The Shadowy Horses

I frowned. ·”Should we tell Brian, do you think?''

"There's not much point. Brian can hardly report a theft to the police, now, can he? One look below deck and they'd have the boat swarming with excisemen," David said, grinning. "Come on, we'll be missing the crowning."

The crowning ceremony had, in fact, ended by the time we made our way back to Gunsgreen, and the Herring Queen was being settled in a horse-drawn carriage while the pipe band started up again, preparing to lead her away on parade. David's eyes teased me for jigging in place. "If I'd kent you liked the pipes so much, I'd have taken lessons."

"It's not the bagpipes, really," I confessed, "so much as the kilts."

"Oh, aye? My mother," he informed me, "doesn't think most men these days should wear the kilt. She says they've not got the behind for it." I could easily picture her saying that, though one could hardly accuse David of being inadequate in that department. He caught me looking and smiled more broadly. "I'll wear mine tonight, if you want, to the ceilidh."

"What does it look like, the Fortune tartan?"

"There isn't one. I wear the Hunting Stewart," he informed me. "Sort of an all-purpose tartan, for those whose families never claimed their own."

But then he wasn't a Fortune anyway, I reminded myself. Not really. What did the Anglo-Irish have, I wondered, in place of the Scottish tartan? What was the mark of the Quinnell family?

"You're doing it again," said David.

"What?"

"Staring."

"Ah." There was no trace of Peter in his features, I thought. None at all. Except, perhaps, in the sure, unhurried way his eyes slid sideways, angled down to lock with mine.

"Keep looking at me like that," he promised, "and we'll not make it to the ceilidh."

I smiled. "And you call poor Adrian vain."

"Nothing vain about it. It's simple fact. I'm no saint," he said, pulling me close with one arm around my waist.

"Careful," I warned, as his head began to lower. "Your mother might be looking out her window."

David said something decidedly rude about his mother, and kissed me anyway.

The voice that spoke behind us wasn't Nancy Fortune's, but it nonetheless brought us apart like a pair of guilty schoolchildren.

"Verity, my dear," said Peter, his richly theatrical tone cresting the music with ease, "you do have the most appalling taste in men."

XXXIII

"No, no," he went on, casting a critical eye over David, "I'm sure you can do better than this. I'll admit, a Scotsman is a marginal improvement on an Englishman, but my dear, what you really want now is a nice Irish chap."

David grinned. "Away with your Irishmen."

"Scoff if you will. But if I were some thirty years younger, my boy, I'd leave you at the post." His suave smile proved the point as he came to stand at my other shoulder, his hands clasped behind his back. "So," he said, rocking back on his heels, "how are you enjoying your day so far?"

I assured him I was enjoying it very well. "We've been all over. I'm surprised we haven't bumped into you, before now."

"I've been well hidden." Peter angled a confiding glance at me. "The young people quite wore me out, I'm afraid, so I gave them the slip and went up to see Nancy. Had a cup of coffee and a very jolly game of chess. And of course, one can see everything from her room, you know, without having to endure the crowds. She's got a lovely big window."

David winked at me. "What did I tell you? My mother's a regular spy."

"Well," I remarked, "she has to do something with her time, since the two of you insist on keeping her in the dark about the dig."

Both of them turned to stare at me. "My dear girl..." Peter began, but I didn't let him finish.

"She's longing to know what we're doing. And I must say I think that it's dreadful, your shutting her out."

Peter tried again. "But her doctors ..."

"Are idiots," I told him bluntly. "She's not made of glass. I would think the frustration of not knowing would do more harm than the ounce of excitement you're liable to give her."

Smiling, David lifted his gaze over my head to meet Peter's. "She may have a point, there."

"Perhaps," Peter said, "but she doesn't know your mother, my boy. One might begin by simply telling Nancy things, but it wouldn't end there. She would want to be out in the field, you see. Just to have a better view of things, that's what she'd say. And the minute I turned my back she'd be in there with trowel in hand ..."

"She could work with me," I offered. "Nothing strenuous about what I do. And it certainly wouldn't be anymore tiring than the work she does for the museum."

"She works two afternoons a week at the museum," David informed me. "If we had her up to Rosehill she'd be there from dawn to dusk."

"I just think you're both being very unkind." I said nothing further, but even I could feel the rigid set of my jaw as I turned to watch the Herring Queen parade pass by. Above my head, David and Peter exchanged glances again.

"We've been told," Peter said.

"So we have."

"Perhaps ... perhaps we ought to pay your mother a visit, after this"—Peter nodded at the passing parade—"is over. She'll have had enough of my company for one day, but I'm sure she'd be pleased to see the two of you."