this!’ came a shout from the door, and the partygoers tumbled out from the loud lit interior into the frost-stilled night. Out beyond the shore, on the darkness of the loch, lights flashed from every ship moored there. It was a fleeting display – they couldn’t risk giving away their position, even on New Year’s Eve – but a brilliant one.
Although it needed no deciphering, Ruaridh translated their message. ‘Happy New Year.’
In the hall, the band continued to play and some of the revellers went back again to dance on already tired feet. Others began to drift away.
‘Would you like to stay on?’ Alec asked Flora.
She shook her head. ‘I can’t. I promised Dad I’d be home. I know he’ll be waiting up so I’d best be getting off.’
‘Come on then, I’ll drive you back. I know, let’s first-foot him together!’
Flora laughed. ‘He’d love that. But we have neither cake nor coal nor whisky so it’ll not be much of a first-footing.’
‘We’ll stop off at my house on the way past and pick some things up. We’d better do it properly if it’s to bring luck to Keeper’s Cottage for the year ahead. Come on, let’s go!’
Ruaridh, Bridie and Mairi all declined the offer of a lift home, preferring to stay on at the party, which was showing no signs of ending just yet, and so Flora and Alec climbed into his car and sped along the empty road to Ardtuath House.
Even though the gates to the big house were rarely closed, their formal grandness was a stark reminder that it stood apart from the whitewashed cottages that were its nearest neighbours. Towering pines lined the drive, blotting out the night sky with a darkness of their own, concealing the house from the community surrounding it.
At the top of the drive, Alec killed the engine, glancing up at the windows, which to Flora’s eyes seemed to brood behind their blackout coverings. ‘Best not wake my parents if they’re in their beds already,’ he whispered.
They crept in through a side door, stepping from the crispness of the clear night air through a darkened boot room and into the warmth of the vast kitchen. From across the hall, the faint sound of music made them both pause. Putting a finger to his lips, Alec beckoned Flora to follow him. She hesitated before stepping through the doorway into the more formal part of the house. It felt strange being there with him now that their relationship was changing. He was so confident, so self-assured in his grand home, while the ornate cornicing and heavy antique furniture in the hall seemed to press in on her from all sides, stifling and constraining her usual sense of ease. But she took a deep breath and crossed the divide, the green baize door swinging shut behind her with a soft thud.
He pushed open the library door and the strains of a Debussy nocturne drew them across the threshold into the room. In an armchair beside a fire whose embers burned low, Alec’s mother sat with her hands folded in her lap, her head resting against one wing of the chair as she listened to the gramophone.
‘Hello, Ma,’ said Alec softly.
She turned to face them, the distant – and rather sad – look in her eyes transforming into a smile at the sight of her son.
‘Alec? And Flora too – how lovely.’
‘A good new year, Lady Helen,’ Flora said, feeling she had intruded on a private moment. In the firelight, she noticed a few strands of silver gleaming in Lady Helen’s hair, smoothed back into its usual elegant chignon. There had been a look of loneliness in her dark eyes that had surprised Flora. Surely she must be feeling less isolated now that her husband had come back to Ardtuath House?
‘And to you both too, my dears. How was the dance?’
‘It was fun, thank you,’ replied Flora politely.
‘Is Father in bed already?’ asked Alec.
His mother nodded. ‘He was tired. He’s been so busy in London since Christmas, closing up the house there.’ She turned to Flora. ‘I’m sure your father’s told you my husband has decided to stay up at Ardtuath now, which comes as a big relief to us all. London’s such a target for the Germans. What a luxury it will be for me, having both my menfolk home. At least this dratted war has one or two advantages.’
Alec crossed the room to his mother and stooped to kiss her cheek. ‘I’m just going to