“Well, he dithered a bit, but in the end he said he would take care of it. I rather implied that the mistake in omitting her had been his fault.”
Ian grinned. “You snake!”
“Well it’s all his fault, anyway, isn’t it?” said Cameron obstinately. “That will teach him.”
Tartan bridesmaids dresses… wrote Elizabeth at the top of a sheet labeled WEDDING. “I suppose you can get plaids in something other than wool,” she mused aloud. “But if not, let them sweat.”
For the remainder of the day, Elizabeth had been of very little use to the anthropology department. After Cameron’s phone call, she had tossed the technical journal into a heap of ungraded papers and departed for the library in search of more salient topics for scholarly research. She returned to her office several hours later, staggering under a load of books with titles like Love and Marriage Among the Royal Family; Elizabeth II: A Life; Royal Etiquette; and Backstairs at the Palace: or What the Butler Saw. Now back at her desk she was rooting happily through pages of Cecil Beaton photographs of the royal family, making notes about who was wearing what, and reading pages of italicized copy describing palace festivities.
“Pages in tiny military uniforms,” she said, scribbling furiously. “Wouldn’t Captain Grandfather love that? Not possible, though. There’d be trouble over whose army got represented. They’d better have kilts. Clan MacPherson tartan, of course. Cameron can’t tell one plaid from another anyway.” After some minutes of trying to think of any small boys who might qualify to act as pages at her wedding, Elizabeth was forced to cross them off her list. Neither she nor Cameron had any male relatives under twenty.
Her reverie was interrupted by the occupant of the adjoining cubicle. “Aren’t you here awfully late?” asked graduate student Jake Adair, poking his head around the partition between their desks. He glanced at the books spread out in front of her and smiled. “Switching to a different branch of anthropology?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “No. But thank goodness you’re here. I’ve been dying to tell somebody. I’m getting married!” Ignoring Jake’s protests that he had to meet somebody for dinner, Elizabeth proceeded to tell him all the details of the just-planned wedding. “And we’re going to honeymoon in Scotland, and meet the Queen at the Royal 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 Brontës, 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.