The light was so bright it hurt.
“Jeez, Percy,” I complained as the twins pressed their faces to my sides. “You could have warned us.”
“Awfully sorry,” he said contritely. “I’m accustomed to the parlor, but of course you’ve never been here before. Bit of a shock to the system, eh?”
“A bit,” I granted, blinking.
We’d stepped directly from the murky corridor into a room flooded with sunlight. The oak doors faced an uncurtained wall of mullioned windows. The leaded panes of wavy antique glass that would normally fill the Gothic frames had been replaced by single sheets of clear, modern glass that overlooked a vast expanse of blue sky and sparkling sea. The results were blinding.
When my eyes had adjusted to the glare, I realized that Sir Percy’s idea of a parlor, like his notion of a housekeeper, was very different from mine.The room was at least fifty feet long and thirty wide.
“It used to be twice as large,” said Sir Percy, following my astonished gaze. “Looked like an airplane hangar and cost a fortune to heat, so I lowered the ceiling and added a couple of walls to break up the space.” He pointed to a door on his left. “New dining room’s through there.”
The parlor no longer looked like an airplane hangar but like a homely, if grandly proportioned, living room.The walls had been smoothly plastered, painted a warm, buttery yellow, and hung with gilt-framed seascapes. Flower-filled vases set here and there filled the air with fragrance, and a dozen well-worn Turkish carpets covered the planked floor, overlapping each other in a muted riot of color.
None of the furniture matched, and all of it was slightly shabby. Assorted tables, sofas, and overstuffed armchairs were clustered around the stone hearth at the east end of the room or placed in half circles before the windows, as if Sir Percy could think of no finer entertainment than to spend a quiet evening watching the waves.
A refectory table sat opposite the oak doors, covered with a white linen cloth and set with Mrs. Gammidge’s light refreshment. Once the boys’ vision had returned to normal, I had to physically restrain them from launching themselves onto the piles of crustless sandwiches and mounds of fruit that had been arranged on china plates.
“You’ll spoil your lunch,” I said repressively, and limited them to one sandwich and one piece of fruit apiece.They took their booty with them to the deep window ledge behind the refectory table, removed their binoculars from the red plastic boxes, and curled up on the ledge to keep a lookout for pirates while they ate.
I dropped my carry-on bag on a nearby chair and asked if it was safe for Rob and Will to sit so near the massive pane of glass.
“Perfectly,” Sir Percy replied. “We’ve used tempered glass throughout the castle. An absolute necessity. Seagulls turn into cannonballs during a gale.”
“Speaking of cannonballs . . .” I began, recalling the weaponry on the northeast tower.
Sir Percy seemed to read my mind. “The cannons are purely ornamental,” he assured me. “I’ve sealed the barrels.”
“Good.” I looked around the room and shook my head. “You certainly know how to take a girl’s breath away, Percy. I’m flabbergasted.”
“Dundrillin’s a useful retreat,” he acknowledged, helping himself to a cucumber sandwich. “My sons and I use it during the summer months for business conferences, corporate powwows, and the like. Well-behaved clients are rewarded with holidays here. Everyone likes to say they’ve slept in a castle, Americans especially. We’ve made a number of quite lucrative deals while my guests have been under Dundrillin’s spell.”
I nodded. Sir Percy was a widower with four grown sons, all of whom held key positions in the flourishing Pelham business empire.
“How long has Dundrillin been in the family?” I asked.
“Hmmm, let me see. . . . ” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, as though casting his mind back over the centuries. “Dundrillin’s been in my family for at least . . . three years.” He laughed at my confusion. “Bought it when I got out of the oil business, dear girl. That’s where the name comes from, you see. Dundrillin Castle. Get it? Dundrillin? Done drilling?”
“I get it,” I said, with an obliging chuckle. “Why did you get out of oil?”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t fun anymore. “Too many cutthroats with too little finesse—just bully-boy tactics and greed. I’m as game as the next man, but I don’t relish gunplay during business hours. That’s how I met Hunter and Ross, in fact. Ah, speak of the devils. . . .”