I laughed and spread my napkin on my lap. “Will Kate and Elliot be joining us?” I asked, although the answer was self-evident: Only three places had been set.
“Good heavens, no,” said Sir Percy. “Time is money, my dear girl. They’ll eat at their desks and like it.” He noted the flicker of disapproval in my eyes and laughed heartily. “I jest, Lori, I jest. I have tried many times to pry my young assistants away from their desks but have yet to succeed. Cook sends bounteous feasts to them in the office, I promise you.”
I smiled ruefully. I should have known that he’d been joking. Sir Percy Pelham was many things, but a tyrant he was not.
“Sir Percy,” said Damian, “might I add a few comments about security?”
“Fire away,” said Sir Percy, and turned his attention to the pea soup.
Damian turned to me. “You and your sons are Sir Percy’s only guests at the moment. There’s no need for you to memorize the staff’s names and faces. Andrew and I know who belongs here.”
I hadn’t planned to memorize any names or faces, but I nodded wisely.
“Andrew and I have familiarized ourselves with Erinskil’s residents as well,” Damian went on. “You needn’t worry about them.”
“There are bound to be travelers visiting the island,” I pointed out. “Maybe I shouldn’t leave the castle. Abaddon might come to Erinskil disguised as a tourist.”
“He might,” Sir Percy acknowledged, looking up from his soup, “but we don’t get many tourists. Just the odd bird-watcher and a handful of island-baggers.”
“Island-baggers?” I said.
“Tourists who collect islands,” Sir Percy translated. “They have to be jolly intrepid to collect Erinskil. The interisland ferry can’t land here, you see. Visitors have to take a launch from the ferry to the concrete jetty—a bit of a challenge in rough seas. Apart from that, there aren’t many places for them to stay. They can either pitch a tent—an unpleasantly damp choice—or use one of the two guest rooms at the pub. No, Erinskil will never play host to a horde of tourists, and we can easily keep watch over the few that do come.”
“No tourists?” I said, surprised. “I would have expected the place to be crawling with them. The island looked amazing from the air. Don’t people come here just for the scenery?”
“Other islands have dramatic scenery and more besides,” said Sir Percy. “Stately homes, gardens, distilleries, stone circles . . .” He shrugged. “We have a ruined monastery, of course, but otherwise it’s just birds, sheep, and rocks.”
“If there’s no tourism,” I said, “how do the islanders make a living?”
“Now, that’s a most interesting subject.” Sir Percy the businessman waxed enthusiastic. “Feel the sleeve of this jacket,” he said, holding his arm out to me. “The fabric was woven right here on Erinskil. Supple as cashmere and tough as nails.”
“It’s beautiful as well,” I said, admiring the tweed’s heathery shades.
Sir Percy planted his elbows on the table and tented his fingers. “The islanders formed a cooperative some sixty years ago, to make tweed.They raise the sheep, process the wool, and weave it in Stoneywell, using traditional tools and techniques. It’s terribly exclusive and therefore frightfully expensive.They sell it via the Internet these days. As Erinskil’s laird, I’m pleased to say that it all seems to tick along quite happily.”
I looked up from my salmon. “Did I hear you right, Percy? Did you call yourself the laird of Erinskil?”
“Indeed I did,” said Sir Percy proudly. “Bought the title off the Earl of Strathcairn when I bought the island from him. Dundrillin was originally known as Strathcairn Castle. It was built by the ninth earl, a chap who took the role of laird to heart. He was a bit of a loon, if truth be told. He constructed the castle and armed it with cannons to protect his people from marauding Norsemen, blithely disregarding the fact that he was some eleven hundred years too late.”
I smiled inwardly. My first impression of the castle had been more accurate than I’d realized. “Why did the Earl of Strathcairn decide to sell the island?”
“He was strapped for cash,” Sir Percy replied. “Couldn’t maintain his ancestral seat, let alone a castle that had seen better days. Dundrillin took a bit of a battering during the Second World War, you see, when the island was evacuated and used by the Royal Navy for target practice. A bomb-disposal unit was stationed here for several years after the war, to rid Erinskil of the unexploded ordnance that kept popping up in odd places.”
I glanced at the crimson-clad walls and the deep embrasures surrounding the windows. Everything seemed to be intact. “Why wasn’t the castle pulverized?”