The Vintage Girl Read Online Free PDF Page B

He mimed the
Antiques Roadshow
Mask of Fake Middle-Class Surprise. “ ‘This dusty old vase? Worth eight
million
pounds?’ ”
    “I definitely will
not
.” I cringed. “I can’t work with an audience, it … spoils the vibrations. Speaking of which,” I went on, keen to get off the topic, “how’s the Scottish dancing going? Has Alice injured anyone yet?”
    “No, no! She’s very good!” Now Fraser’s good-humored expression faltered, then reengaged manfully. “Takes a while for the penny to drop with reeling, but I’m sure she’ll get there.”
    “By this weekend?” I couldn’t help it.
    “Well …” His mouth twitched, and I felt as if we were sharing a secret. A warm, slightly guilty flower of excitement bloomed in my chest. “I’ve got a couple of practices lined up for the end of the week,” he confessed. “Just to put her at ease. But she’s really tried hard, and I appreciate her making the effort for me. She keeps saying she won’t let it beat her.”
    “No,” I said. That was Alice all over. I would have learned to reel backward over hot coals for a proper man like Fraser; Alice would learn so no one could accuse her of not being able to count up to eight.
    “I’ve stocked up on arnica,” he added, spoiling the effect a bit. “My brother, Dougie, swears by it for bruising, and he’s always falling off horses.”
    “I’m sorry, it’s a family failing, clumsiness.” I sighed. “I once gave someone a black eye just shaking hands.”
    “If that’s the worst family failing you’ve got, then I’m a lucky man!” Fraser replied gallantly, and I temporarily forgot how adolescent it was to nurse a crush on your sister’s boyfriend.
    Luckily, a big lorry slammed on its brakes next to Max’s precious bumper and gave me something real to worry about.
    *
    We made reasonable time on the motorway, especially after I relaxed my core muscles and Fraser spelled me at the wheel for a bit. By five-thirty, dusk had fallen and we’d wound through Berwickshire’s beautiful rolling countryside, dotted with gray sheep and neat stone villages, and were nearing Rennick.
    I slowed down to take in the local detail as we passed the
Welcome to Rennick, Home of Rolled Oats
sign. It was a pretty town with a terraced main street, a post office, an off-license, and a gun shop. Fraser directed me past the sturdy Victorian town hall and down a hedged side road to the Grahams’ farm, Gorse Bank.
    The car’s wheels crunched into a circular drive, and when the security light came on, I could make out a modest sandstone Georgian house, double-fronted, with lovely symmetrical sash windows. The sort of place the quiet but respectable gentleman usually lives in in Jane Austen novels. There was a mud-spattered Mitsubishi 4x4 outside, which wasn’t so Jane Austen, and when Fraser opened his door, I got a brief blast of pure North Sea air and a distant snatch of spaniels going nuts inside the house.
    “Do you want to come in for a coffee?” he asked, heaving the stag’s head out of the boot. One antler had shifted in transit and the eye had rolled to one side. “You can advise me where best to hang Banquo.”
    I shivered; the temperature gauge on the dashboard read nearly freezing. It might have been spring in London, but it felt more like midwinter up here. “That’s very tempting, but I’m supposed to be arriving at Kettlesheer for tea. I’m already ten minutes late.”
    “Well, tell them it was my fault for not navigating properly. I hope you’ll let me take you out for lunch this week?” Fraser was leaning into the car now, close enough for me to smell his cologne. Acqua di Parma. I knew that, because Alice bought it for him. “Least I can do to say thanks for the lift.”
    “That’d be lovely,” I said, mentally punching the air. Lunch with Fraser! In a cozy country pub! With a log fire and dogs and haggis and oatcakes or whatever the Berwickshire specialty was.
    “Marvelous. I’m around