Highland Mist by Rose Burghley Page B

then he added, “Toni!”
    That night they dined in a room that was almost oppressive with magnificent solid oak furniture, and although the sideboard was crowded with Georgian silver that caught every ray of light from the pendant chandelier, the room remained sombre even after they were seated at the table.
    Celia should have brightened any room, and she probably did dispel a little of the gloom. She was wearing a dress of scarlet satin that for some reason didn’t fight with her hair, and a wide collar of pearls adorned her slender throat. There were pearl studs in her ears, and her teeth were like small and perfect pearls between her scarlet lips as she talked and smiled continuously.
    Toni, for some reason, had chosen black ... a shadowy black net dress that emphasised her youthful gravity, and highlighted her burnished brown hair. To a casual observer she and her mother might have been sisters; but only to a casual observer. For Celia scintillated like the many facets of a diamond, and had all the poise in the world; whereas Toni...
    Euan MacLeod’s shrewd blue eyes were often on Celia, but then they were often on Toni, too. The girl was completely unawakened, he thought. A brown-eyed Peter Pan who might never grow up unless ...
    And marriage to Charles Henderson, he was fairly certain, would never enable her to grow up.
    But it was Celia he took for a short stroll on the terrace, in the moonlight after dinner. And it was Celia who clung to his arm. It was Celia’s perfume that filled every corner of the drawing-room until they went to bed, and when he went to bed at last it was that perfume that clung to his nostrils.
    He discovered that she had dropped a small lace-edged handkerchief in the hall after dinner, and he had picked it up and put it in his pocket. He had forgotten to return it.
    Now he put it away carefully in a drawer of his dressing-table.

 
    CHAPTER ELEVEN
    Charles arrived for the weekend, but in the few days before his arrival Toni discovered a lot about Inverada, and found she had a great capacity for enjoying herself in a simple way.
    Celia was no walker, but she seemed glad to get Toni out of the house with instructions to go for a nice long walk, and have a good look at the scenery. Admittedly it was at its best at that season of the year, and Toni acted upon the advice with alacrity, not minding because no one accompanied her, and the miles she tramped were lonely miles. Celia insisted that there was a great deal to be done at Inverada, and she and Euan must work together to bring about a transformation of the present house. She was all for getting an Edinburgh firm of interior decorators to inspect the place and be responsible for the greater part of the transformation; but Euan—who would be footing all the bills—disagreed with this. He didn’t think Inverada was the type of house to be taken over by a firm of interior decorators, who might beautify it but destroy its atmosphere.
    Toni agreed with him, but Celia looked faintly mutinous when she realised she was to be opposed in a favourite scheme. She tried cajolery, persuasiveness, even slightly flagrant coquettishness, to get her way, but Euan remained firm. He had no objection whatsoever to Celia walking him round the house and appealing to him with her enormous blue eyes, but he was a man of iron and his mind was made up.
    While he was tenant of Inverada he would do nothing to spoil it, but Celia could have all the new curtains and carpets and fabrics for chair-covers, and so forth, she wanted, provided they didn’t clash with their period background. And he was willing to allow a few reputable craftsmen to get to work on the background—the damp-stained panelling and the peeling paintwork—if she would not urge him to go farther than this.
    So Celia ceased making demands and became sweetly appreciative, and the two of them went into conferences daily over the agreed work of restoration and Toni put on her sensible brogue shoes