The Windsor Knot

Garden Party!” she finished triumphantly. “I’m so thrilled about the prospect of meeting royalty.”

“Why? You’ve never been too impressed with me.

Elizabeth sighed. “Here we go again. My great-grandmother was a Cherokee princess. Sorry, Jake, it’s just not the same, somehow.” Jake Adair said very little about being Cherokee, but occasionally he liked to remind his colleagues of his noble origins.

“Okay.” Jake shrugged. “I won’t wear my ceremonial headdress to your wedding.”

“I hope I have your word on that,” said Elizabeth. “Tribal pageantry just won’t fit into my plans for the ceremony.”

“But kilts you’ve got?” he said, laughing. “I wouldn’t miss this wedding for the world. Now I understand the part about the Queen. And I remember meeting the groom-to-be. Dr. Dawson from marine biology, right?”

Elizabeth nodded.

“But you’re getting married where?”

“Chandler Grove, Georgia.”

“You’re not from Georgia.”

“Used to be,” said Elizabeth. “My parents moved away when I was in high school, so I don’t really have any friends in the town where they live.”

“Why not here at the university where your friends are?”

“No. I couldn’t possibly manage all the arrangements by myself. Besides, if I were here, I’d be distracted by work in the department.”

“That seems unlikely,” said Jake, nodding toward the pile of books on the royal family. “But why not get married in Scotland?”

“Would you know where to find a caterer in Scotland? No? Well, neither would I. Believe me, my aunt Amanda is the only person in the world who could stage a formal wedding on such short notice, and she’s in Chandler Grove. Besides, I’d trust Georgia’s weather over Scotland’s any day.”

“Okay. Never mind that’s it a six-hour drive for all of us. We’ll carpool. Just don’t expect us to wear morning coats.”

“Kilts will do.” Elizabeth grinned.

“About that ceremonial headdress…”

“Business suits will be fine, Jake.”

“So that’s settled. As I see it, you have just one more problem.” Jake looked grave. “Have you told the Big Zee about all this?”

“No,” said Elizabeth faintly. “I had forgotten all about him.”

“Lucky you,” said Jake.

The Big Zee, as department chairman Ziffel was known to his staff, was a man of little imagination and less humor. He would not be amused-or even civil-about Elizabeth’s proposed defection from her duties as an instructor for the summer term. “And remember that you’ve got to face him for your orals this fall,” Jake added ominously. “You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t pass your skull around the room for analysis.”

Elizabeth looked close to tears. “It’s only one morning course,” she said piteously. “Eight A.M. Any of us could teach it.”

“Yeah, but Mary Clare is gone for the summer, and I’ve agreed to play racquetball every morning with Laura Williams-oh, no. Don’t look at me like that. I need this exercise, and besides, Laura Williams-” He sighed. “All right. I’ll teach the damned course for you. But you’re going to have to tell Ziffel.”

Elizabeth nodded. “That’s nothing,” she said. “I’m going to have to tell Milo.”

Jake patted her shoulder. “Oh, yes. The old boyfriend. Don’t worry, kid. He’ll get over it. How do you feel?”

“Very much like Cinderella,” said Elizabeth. “I have a lot of messy jobs to do before I can go to the ball.”

CHAPTER 4

IT HAD NOW been several days since Cameron Dawson had become a groom-to-be, and he was beginning to feel comfortable with the idea. Upon reflection, he decided that he rather liked the fact that Elizabeth cared so passionately about things. Enthusiasm was something he generally lacked, having always been a bit of a plodder. He found it intoxicating to be with someone whose emotions came in primary colors, rather than in his own muted shades of prudence, moderation, and practicality.

He could imagine Elizabeth rushing about to learn everything she could about the royal family (just as she had done the Brontes, harp seals, and Clan Chattan in previous binges). She would be enjoying herself hugely. And of course the wedding would be her own Broadway production. Cameron was relieved to be on the quiet side of the Atlantic while plans for that got under way.

He looked out at the steady drizzle of an Edinburgh summer afternoon. Where Elizabeth was, in Virginia, it would be blazing hot under a shimmering blue sky. He wondered if climate influenced human personalities, or if it only seemed so in this case.

Cameron had put on his gray lambswool sweater. (Elizabeth went into peals of laughter once when he’d called it a jumper. Apparently, in America a jumper was some sort of dress.) He hadn’t wanted to put on the heat in the sitting room, for fear of complaints that he was being spoiled by living abroad. Heat? they would say. In June?

He was sitting at his mother’s pigeonhole desk with her address book for Christmas cards, trying to decide whom to invite to the wedding. Not that he thought anyone would actually fly to the United States to see him star in a ten-minute ceremony, but he supposed that some folks would feel left out if he didn’t notify them of the occasion.

The front door slammed. That would be Ian. While he was off from the university he was working part-time as a clerk and general dogsbody for an estate agent a few streets away. “It’s pissing down out there!” he called from the hallway. “Have you brought the cat in?”

“What?” said Cameron, who was concentrating on postal codes. “No. I haven’t seen him.”

Ian appeared in the doorway in a shabby green mac, dripping pellets of rain on the carpet. “Well, he’s getting quite old and Mother doesn’t want him out when it’s cold and wet.”

The Dawson family cat was a dignified sealpoint Siamese nearly twenty years old. He had been given to Ian as a third birthday present by their American neighbors, the Carsons, whose own cat had unexpectedly presented them with a litter during their yearlong stay in Edinburgh. Dr. Carson, who was guest-lecturing in American history at the university at the time, had called the kitten Traveller Lee, after the horse of his favorite Confederate general, Robert E. Lee. For years kitty Traveller had slept in Ian’s room in a doll bed donated by one of the Carson’s daughters, but now the old Siamese was arthritic and frail, and he preferred to curl up near a radiator, if denied the warmth of Ian’s lap.

“I haven’t seen him,” said Cameron. “Are you sure he isn’t up in your room?”

“I’ll check.” Ian clumped up the stairs, yelling for the cat, and came down again seconds later. “Nope. He’s out, and probably narky about it as well. I’ll have a look in the garden.”

Cameron went back to his list. That was the trouble with foreign brides, he thought. If she mailed the invitations to Scotland, the postage would cost a fortune, but it would spare him several hours of drudgery. As it was, she was sending him a package of printed invitations to do with as he wished, which would mean hours of folding and addressing, not to mention the chore of figuring out whom to ask in the first place. Adam McIver’s name was next on the list. Serve him right, thought Cameron, copying out his address.

Another door slammed, the back one this time, and presently Ian appeared carrying a towel from which Traveller’s little black face peered anxiously. “Found him,” said Ian. “He was under the forsythia bush, and he was in an awful bate about being cast out into the storm. Turn on the heat, won’t you, while I dry him off.”

He knelt on the hearth and rubbed the tea-colored fur while Traveller licked a paw and cleaned his whiskers.