“What do you mean?” I asked. I didn’t usually wear a lot of makeup—just concealer and blush and sometimes mascara—but I thought I’d given myself smoky eyes rather well. Especially for my first time.
“I mean, you look like Cleopatra meets Catwoman meets a stripper,” she said.
“Jo!” her mom scolded, playfully slapping her shoulder. The simple loving gesture made me ache for my own mom. “It’s not that bad, honestly!”
They took me inside, sat me down at the small vanity in the bathroom, and proceeded to scrub my face clean to start over.
“Whatever made you think to put eyeliner on the rim inside your eyelashes?” Jo marveled. “Doesn’t it burn?”
“Well, yeah,” I admitted, gritting my teeth against the rough washing. “But I figured it was supposed to. Like how no one tells you how much high heels really hurt or how scratchy a bra strap is.”
“Did your mum never teach you how to apply makeup, love?” Mrs. Dougall clucked.
I shook my head. My mom was too busy fighting the forces of darkness, I thought bitterly. Before I could even start to feel sorry for myself, though, my brain conjured up an image of Gavin. I missed him with a pain inside that echoed how much I missed my mom. Maybe even more. I guessed this was what love was all about. When you reached a certain age, you stopped needing your parents and started needing a soul mate to love and to love you. I wondered if Gavin was my soul mate. Why else would I be so obsessed with him after so little time together? I would have given anything to see him again. If I could gaze into his eyes just one more time . . .
“Hey, dreamer,” Jo said. “Open your eyes.”
My reflection in the mirror startled me. Mrs. Dougall had worked a small miracle. My eyes were somehow brightened, and framed by dewy black lashes I didn’t know I had. My skin was glowing and a little sparkly. My blonde hair was suddenly shiny, and half swept up in a neat chignon with loose curls dancing on my shoulders.
“You clean up pretty good, Hamilton.” Jo grinned.
I smiled back, and noticed I had sticky lips. “Lip gloss?” I smacked. “Really?”
“Absolutely.” Mrs. Dougall pressed her hands against my arms. “Makes your lips extra kissable. The boys won’t be able to resist the pair of you!”
“Mummy!” Jo giggled.
There was only one boy I wished couldn’t resist me, and smile as I might, I was fairly sure I wasn’t going to see him.
I’d never been in the back of a British limousine. I’d only ever been in the back of an American one, and that was when I was five and the flower girl in my next-door neighbor’s wedding. I’d had too much soda and candy—everyone kept bribing me to shut up or stand still—and their plan backfired quite horrifically when I threw up all over the bride’s dress. I was hoping this ride would end better.
“How is it that Anders can have a big party on a Friday night when he didn’t even go to school today, and hasn’t even been for more than two weeks?” I asked Jo, who was perched next to me on the slippery leather seat. I still couldn’t believe they’d sent a car to pick us up. “Everyone knows he’s been back from the Bahamas for days. You can just skip school in Scotland?”
“The Campbells can do anything they want,” Jo replied, staring out the tinted window. “They practically own the whole county.”
“Is it true what they say about the Campbells?” I asked. “About them murdering innocent people in their beds?”
She turned back and grinned wickedly. “Where’d you hear that?”
“My grandfather. So, is it true? For all their wealth and fanciness, do people secretly hate the Campbells?”
“Not everyone. Elsie and her pack would change their name to Campbell in a heartbeat. But, yeah, a lot of the Highlanders don’t like the Campbells. There’s a famous hotel in Glencoe, near where the massacre took place, called Clachaig Inn. They have a sign that says, ‘No Campbells.’”
“Shut up!” I said.
“No, ’tis true. I’ve seen it.”
“That’s awesome,” I said.
As the car pulled into the sweeping, circular drive, I got my first peek at Campbell Hall. “Hall” really didn’t describe it. Neither did “mansion.” It was a palace crowned with two giant turrets, glittering lead-paned windows, numerous carved stone balconies, and a four-story entrance more ornate than the front door of a cathedral. There was something eerily familiar about it that made the hairs on my arms stand on end, but I couldn’t place what it was.
“Why is it black?” I asked Jo, noting the eerie color of the stones on the front fa?ade.
“Soot,” Jo answered. “They made their money mining coal on their property. I guess everything comes with a price, even the biggest private residence in Europe.”
A giant, glistening fountain, big enough to swim laps in, stood in front of the house, circled by a line of chauffeured cars like ours.
From the car to the foyer, we were greeted by five different people (“Servants,” Jo whispered in my ear). A uniformed man opened our car door and helped us step out; another man opened the huge, carved front doors and welcomed us; two stiff-lipped women, one for each of us, took our coats; and a man wearing bright white gloves escorted us down the hall to the grand ballroom.
The walls were set with stone columns and lined with tapestries and huge paintings of scowling men, all wearing the same dark-green-and-blue tartan. Our heels clicked on the marble floor, and I grabbed Jo’s arm tightly, terrified I might slip and break something. Jo was spinning around, taking it all in, and literally shaking with excitement.
“Are you all right?” I asked. “Do you have a fever or something?”
“This is exactly how I imagined it. Only a little better,” she whispered. “I can’t believe I’m here. Me. A Dougall, in Campbell Hall!”
Our guide pulled open a six-paneled door, and we were blasted in the face with a song. “It’s getting hot in here! So take off all your clothes!”
I had expected a string quartet and crumpets, but it seemed even Scottish lords had MTV-style birthday parties. The room was dark but bouncing with strobe lights, a huge disco ball, a DJ booth, and more than two hundred revelers.
Jo was apparently expecting exactly this, since she grabbed my arm and dragged me inside, shaking her body to the pulsing beat. Thankfully, she was too shy to actually join the mob, so we skipped past the throbbing mass on the dance floor and headed directly for the back wall. It was lined with long banquet tables covered in food. Turns out there were crumpets after all . . . and sushi, sausages, shrimp, mini meat pies, and even iced “biscuits” that had “Happy Birthday Anders” printed on them.
Just as I picked up a cookie, Elsie and her friends spotted me. Game on.
“Love your dress, Dewdrop,” Elsie said. “It really flatters your bits.” She motioned at her breasts, and I realized she was making fun of mine.