The Vintage Girl by Hester Browne Read Free Book Online

sudden departure hadn’t happened.
    “Are you here to Simplify us?” he inquired. “I’m not surprised Alice sent reinforcements ahead. I think the junk in this place would defeat even her fearsome skills.”
    “Oh, it’s not
junk
,” I began. Max’s clientele were always so self-deprecating about “tatty old rugs” used to line dog baskets, which then turned out to be priceless Persian treasures.
    “
Junk
’s maybe too strong a word,” he agreed. “How about …
museum-quality bric-a-brac
?”
    “Robert? Robert, are you out there?” hissed a woman’s voice before I could retract my dropped jaw. The voice sounded as if it were coming from deep, deep inside a well of despair, but in fact it was coming from the porch. “Janet’s
asking
for you! And I need
help
! Your dad’s about to offer everyone the carrot schnapps!”
    I spun round and saw a small woman peering out into the darkness. The light above her head was turning her silvery blond hair into a halo of frizz, and she was wearing a sequined cardigan with dangling bell sleeves that she kept shoving nervously up to her elbows. It looked too big for her, as did the majestic porch itself.
    I rushed over to the source of heat. “Evie Nicholson,” I said, shaking her tiny hand. “Is it Ingrid? I’ve come to value your antiques. I’m so sorry I’m late. I didn’t realize you were having a party.”
    “Oh, we’re not! I mean, I didn’t realize we
were
until they started arriving just as I was putting some tea on …” She shoved the sleeves up and they slid down her arms almost immediately. Underneath the glitz was a rather Sunday-night T-shirt.
    If I was being brutally honest, she wasn’t
quite
what I’d pictured as the chatelaine of a house like this. I’d been thinking more … Princess Margaret crossed with Helen Mirren. With some tartan.
    Suddenly she pulled herself together and gave me a sweet, if deranged, smile. “Sorry, come on in. You must be frozen!”
    As she spoke, a man hove into view behind her, and he was much more what I’d been expecting. He was sporting a pair of red tartan trousers, a pink golf sweater, and a tie adorned with golden stags’ heads. The comedy Scotsman look was accessorized with a large crystal tumbler of some orange liquid, and a shock of pale red hair that—I peered as discreetly as I could in the weak light—was either a very bad wig or just very unfortunate.
    “What’s going on here?” he inquired with a genial beam. “Catriona with you? And that antisocial son of mine?”
    “Evie, my husband, Duncan,” said Ingrid. Did I detect a touch of
froideur
, or were we all just freezing? “Duncan, this is Evie Nicholson. The antiques consultant.”
    “Evie!” Duncan set his tumbler on a nearby stone eagle, and clasped my hand in both of his. I normally hated golf-club handshakes, but frankly I was grateful for any warmth I could get. “How marvelous. Do come in. Come in …”
    He started to usher me inside, then paused and peered over my shoulder. “You too, Robert. In. Now. Don’t go sloping off. You’ve been spotted. And there are people you need to talk to.”
    Robert muttered something, but I wasn’t lingering outside to catch it.
    *
    By some impressive trick of Scottish architecture, it was almost colder in the entrance hall than it was outside. The huge fireplace, big enough to roast a horse in, lay empty apart from a stone jar stuffed with dried thistles, and the draft whistled a merry tune direct from the Russian steppes through the leaded windows. The hall was stone-flagged, and littered with large oak chairs and hulking carved boxes that might have contained the remains of Jacobite rebels or spare cannonballs.
    I could see glass display cases everywhere—ships in bottles, fossils, iridescent shells, barometers—and what wasn’t oak was hung with tapestries. My pulse quickened. The hall wasn’t breathtaking just because of the cold. It took my breath away because I could totally