Page 18 of The Scottish Island Wedding

Sorrel: Hey @everyone Matty’s mum is like some kind of mafia dictator. I am sitting with her now can’t really chat but she is mad as a box of frogs

Heather: @Violet Sadly yes. I had no idea

Violet: @Bluebell @Sorrel Is Heather OK?

Bluebell: @Violet Me, Sorrel and Prim are here. We’ll look after her.

Heather: @Bluebell I’m hiding in the study. I ducked out of a meeting with El Generalissimo and left @Sorrel there holding things together for me

Violet: It’s OK @Heather, we’ve got you. I’m going to get there as soon as I can. Tomorrow or the next day.

Heather: I miss you @Violet. I don’t know if I can cope with all of this. And Matty’s disappeared.

Violet: @Heather He’s WHAT?!?

Primrose: @everyone Yeah we had like ten minutes to get to the castle for the welcome drinks because they arrived early, and then Matty didn’t come in. @Heather is he really working?

Heather: @Primrose I don’t know. We had a row and then he left. I just want to curl up in a ball and weep

Violet: That BASTARD, @Heather I cannot believe he would do this to you. I’m gonna break his legs

Heather: @Violet I don’t want you to do that but I appreciate the outrage… I was thinking for a short while that I was overreacting. I’m not, right?

Bluebell: @Heather No

Primrose: @Heather Hell no

Blossom: No @Heather you aren’t.

Violet: @Heather the only appropriate response is rage. Please do not waste tears on this “man”

Sorrel: @Heather, we love you. I’m keeping Elizabeth busy for now. Will update you later.

Heather: @everyone I’m going to check in on Aunt Chrissie. I’ll be back in a while.

Heather stood in the study, feeling unmoored and bereft. But she was grateful for her sisters’ support.

Two tears rolled slowly down her cheeks. Matty. Please come back, she begged him, in her mind. Please don’t leave me twelve days before our wedding.

NINE

‘How are you, Aunt Chrissie?’ her great-aunt had felt a little under the weather the night before, and Heather had been worried about her.

She sat on the end of her aunt’s bed; it was so soft that she felt she’d sunk into it. As well as probably being an ancient mattress, Chrissie’s bed was topped with two thick feather eiderdowns and a vintage embroidered quilt. Heather had always loved the quilts on the beds at the castle; it was a tradition that every Lady Balhennie made at least one, and there were quilts that dated back at least a couple of hundred years.

The variety of embroidery was amazing; some were candlewick bedspreads, made of white linen with white floral patterns; some featured American-style quilting, with geometric patterns depicting fruits and flowers; some used the colours of the Balhennie tartan as inspiration, or strips of the tartan itself. Some – Heather’s favourites, completed by her grandmother Balhennie who had passed away when Heather was very young – featured elaborate pink and yellow roses, meticulously hand-embroidered in circular patterns on large cream velvet and linen quilts.

‘Oh, not so bad, dearie. Not so bad.’ Chrissie reached for her glasses at the side of her bed. ‘You’re sweet to come and see me. I just felt a little unsteady after the drinks yesterday… when that happens, I just get into bed. I was up and about later but I still feel rather unsteady, hence I came back to bed. I’m not the lithe young thing that I was.’ She gave a wry chuckle. ‘I feel so decadent, being in bed in the daytime.’

Heather had always been close to her great-aunt, and she didn’t like the thought of Chrissie getting frail. However, of the two aunts, Chrissie had always been the one who was sensitive and gentle. Aunt Joan was tougher, though her thick skin and sharp tongue hid a similarly sensitive soul. Heather had often thought that Joan and Chrissie were a little like her and Violet.

‘Not at all. You enjoy it, Auntie,’ Heather sighed. ‘I could do with going to bed myself, but I’ve got to go back and rescue Sorrel from Elizabeth Campbell in a minute.’ She made a face. It was a huge strain trying not to mention the elephant in the room: that her husband-to-be, the Campbells’ own son, was absent from proceedings.

Heather had called Matty again as she’d made her way from the study up to her aunt’s room. She wanted to check in on Chrissie.

He still hadn’t picked up; it had gone straight to voicemail. Heather felt sick.

‘They’re not what you thought, are they?’ Chrissie asked; she might have been a little frail sometimes, but she was still a keen observer of other people, and Heather had inherited her talent for empathy.