"My lips are sealed until you say otherwise," Peregrine promised. "Cross my heart." He made a crossing motion on the breast of his doublet. "Just don't make us wait too long," he added plaintively.
Laughing, the four of them drifted toward the conservatory, where the bandleader was inviting couples to take their places for Gay Gordons. As Julia seized Peregrine's hand and drew him toward the dance floor, assuring Ximena that the dance was not hard to follow, the wife of one of Adam's fellow opera supporters came bustling up to kiss him on both cheeks.
"Adam, my dear, I thought it was you! You Perthshire men always manage to cut such a dash, in your white waistcoats and white ties! What a splendid affectation! Come dance Gay Gordons with us! We need more couples. Don't worry, my dear, this one's easy," she added to Ximena, at her look of bewilderment. "Adam's a fine dancer. He'll talk you through it."
Chuckling his agreement, Adam led Ximena onto the dance floor, murmuring a quick sketch of the form of the dance as they took a place behind Peregrine and Julia, their left hands joined and right hands clasped behind Ximena's right shoulder. Perhaps twenty couples had lined up in a counterclockwise circle around the room by the time the music started.
After the opening chord, with its attendant bows and curtsies, the dance began with eight marching steps forward, turning after the first four to continue backward, then eight steps back, again with the pivot halfway through. Then Adam turned Ximena under his left arm for four bars while he executed a Highland setting step - and swept her into his arms for four bars of polka before they began the process all over again.
Ximena caught on quickly, and soon was executing her part of the dance with as much style as anyone else, laughing breathlessly by the time she and Adam exchanged bows at the closing chord. Beside them, a flushed and somewhat perturbed Julia drew up to inspect a rip in the hem of her lace flounce, where she had caught her heel toward the end of the dance.
"Oh, dear!" she murmured. "I was afraid I felt that tear. I knew I should have brought proper ghillies for dancing."
"I'm sorry, darling," Peregrine murmured. "Can it be fixed?"
"Oh, I expect so; but I don't know that I dare risk any more dancing tonight, in case it catches again and gets worse," Julia replied, disappointment in her voice.
"Now, now, let's not be rash," Ximena said, bending down for a closer look. "If all Scottish dancing is this much fun, you mustn't think of missing it! Lace is easy to fix - certainly within the skill of these surgeon's hands." Grinning, she twiddled her fingers in the air between them. "Do you know if there's somewhere we can retreat to make repairs?"
An appeal to Janet resulted in a three-woman expedition to an upstairs bedroom, where Ximena delved into her evening bag and produced a miniature sewing kit before Janet could even find a spool of thread.
"Now I am impressed!" Janet exclaimed. "Not only is she beautiful and witty, but she comes prepared!"
Smiling impishly, Ximena shrugged the compliment aside and reeled off a length of ivory thread. "It's always seemed to me that a surgeon should keep a needle and thread handy at all times."
"Tell that to my husband," Janet said archly. "He won't even sew on a button in a pinch!"
"Ah, but he's used to having his surgeries nicely scheduled," Ximena said with a rueful chuckle, threading up a needle. "When you work in trauma, you have to be ready for anything, any time. And I have to say, my own state of preparedness in this regard goes back to long before I became a doctor. In my younger days, I used to do quite a bit of rock-scrambling - archaeology field trips and the like. That sort of thing can be really hard on your clothes."
Her tone implied a whole range of sartorial mishaps, and Julia laughed as Ximena bent to begin mending the lace flounce.
"Adam never mentioned you had an interest in historical monuments. Have you had much chance to go out hill-walking here in Scotland? You could do a whole tour of the West organized around castle ruins and standing stones."
"So I hear," Ximena agreed. "No, I'm afraid I haven't done much exploring at all. The last time I was here, I let work rule my life. That's one mistake I don't intend to make again."
"There's a certain baronet who could stand to learn that lesson," Janet remarked. "I'm glad he's found you, Ximena." "So am I," Ximena said with a tiny smile, keeping her gaze firmly on her work.
When the repairs to Julia's hem had been completed, the three women made their way back down to the conservatory, still chatting companionably. The dancing continued for a while longer before the band adjourned to take a break. During the interval, while a pair of waiters topped up champagne glasses, the Frasers' two daughters began circulating among the guests with trays of savories - smoked salmon on buttered brown bread, thin slices of toast spread with wild venison pate, and oatcakes topped with haggis, prelude to the buffet that would follow shortly after midnight.
When everyone's glass had been charged, a dapper and handsome Matthew Fraser moved to the center of the room and tapped resoundingly on the side of a glass. As all eyes turned toward him and conversation subsided, Janet came to slip her arm through his, beaming with secret delight.
"My lords, ladies, and gentlemen," Matthew announced, "first of all, Janet and I should like to take this opportunity to thank you for joining us this evening. Initially, this little party of ours was intended simply to celebrate the coming of the new year, which is still about half an hour away. However, it has come to my attention that we have another reason to celebrate tonight. Having no wish to keep you in suspense, I now call upon my dear friend and most respected colleague, Sir Adam Sinclair. He has a very important announcement to make - one which a good many of us have been awaiting for a very long time. Adam?" The ensuing announcement, transmitted by way of a listening device planted earlier that day by a woman posing as one of the caterers, was picked up by a surveillance team operating out of a panel van parked beyond the Erasers' garden wall. The black-clad man listening at the receiving console pressed one hand to his earpiece as he turned to his companion and grinned.
"Well, well, Sinclair is announcing his engagement. This should add some spice to our report. Must be that black-haired bit of stuff we saw him walk in with."
He adjusted the tuning and listened a moment longer.
"Name's Ximena Lockhart," he dictated over his shoulder to his assistant. "Doctor Lockhart. Who'd have thought a package like that would come equipped with brains? American, too, judging by the accent. Sinclair must have been a very busy boy while he was away."
"I'll say," his companion agreed. "Well, the boss is going to be very interested when he hears about this. Just think of the possibilities!"
Chapter Sixteen
THAT same night, while Adam Sinclair and his friends prepared to usher in the new year with time-honored pledges of good fellowship, Francis Raeburn and a small number of handpicked associates were converging on one of Scotland's less well known National Trust properties, now closed for the winter - the bleak and desolate border fortress of Hermitage Castle.
The ruined castle was an apt location for what Raeburn had in mind. Sited just north of the Cheviot Hills that marked the age-old boundary between Scotland and England, Hermitage squatted ponderous and forbidding, even on the brightest of days. A shallow streamlet called Hermitage Water bordered it to the south, joined half a mile to the southeast by a lesser tributary called Whitrope Burn.
A narrow B-road ran parallel to the burn and then beside the confluence of the two streams, meandering from Hawick, twelve miles to the north, then southwestward through a sparse string of border villages to Gretna Green and Carlisle. Even in summer, Hermitage was well off the beaten tourist track; and in the dead of winter, as the year turned, it was populated only by rooks and shadows. Popular legend asserted that the sorcerous depravities of one of its former masters, William Lord Soulis, had caused the castle to sink into the ground for very shame.