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toy cars were worth more than his real one? Ha!”
    “Who’s this?” I asked.
    “My great-grandmother Violet. Painted just after she got engaged to Ranald, that chap there.” He indicated a companion portrait on the other side of the fireplace: another dark-eyed McAndrew male, this time in shiny-buttoned regimental uniform, with a thick mustache and rather luscious brown eyes that hinted at a devilish streak beneath the stern exterior.
    “What a handsome couple,” I said, instantly imagining them holding court in this very room, sitting on those big sofas. Yes, I could picture Ranald warming himself beside the fire after a brisk hunt through the rolling moors that surrounded the house. And Violet in a sumptuous day dress, arranging flowers from the hothouses round the side of …
    “Do you have hothouses here?” I asked. “Or an orangery?”
    Duncan frowned. “I don’t know. There was some form of piggery during the war, I think. Now then, dinner!” He rubbed his hands together. “Mhairi will show you to your room. Dinner at half past?”
    I’d have liked to hear a bit more about Violet and Ranald—how they met, what her fortune was made in, all that—but Mhairi had now appeared and she didn’t look in the mood for reminiscing. I replaced my barely touched sherry glass on the silver salver and followed her out into the bone-chilling hall and up the stairs.
    It was almost impossible not to feel as if I were stepping into one of my own most colorful daydreams.

Six
    I trailed behind Mhairi as we tackled the glorious oak staircase in silence, my eyes widening with each step. My attention skipped from one intriguing glass case to another, and more McAndrews, draped in their distinctive orange-and-black tartans and posed standing on dead things, even the women. I ran my hand up the thick banister and wondered how old the tree was that had made it—it must have seen Henry VIII, at least.
    “Mind the halberd,” said Mhairi as we ducked beneath a scary pike thing. She had a proper Scottish accent, like deep-fried haggis.
    “It’s magnificent,” I breathed, walking backward to take it in, but not wanting to get left behind.
    “Aye. It’s a pain to dust.”
    At the top of the stairs, we headed down a book-lined corridor, and Mhairi pushed open a solid oak door with an enameled coat of arms. It gave out a proper haunted-house creak.
    “Your case’s in here.” Mhairi delivered each pronouncement as if words were strictly rationed.
    “Thank you!” I squeaked.
    She reached around for the brass switch, and a low light flooded the room. “There’s a bell if you need anything.”
    My eyes widened.
    My overnight wheelie case was lying open, embarrassed, on the counterpane of a real four-poster bed, the sort monarchs chose to die in, all crimson velvet hangings and gold swags. There was more crimson and gold at the bay window, a marble fireplace with a selection of ticking clocks, and a rococo dressing table that wouldn’t even have fitted through the door of my flat.
    That was the headline furniture. Alongside that were assorted mahogany chairs, gilt mirrors, a chaise longue for swooning onto, a wardrobe big enough to house Narnia plus any other mystical universe, and a linen chest with a vast Japanese Imari dish containing silver and gold glass balls.
    I gazed in delight at the dressing table, with proper silver brushes with which to brush my hair before dinner!
    I turned to ask Mhairi how far up the scale the McAndrews dressed for said dinner, but she’d already gone, leaving me free to explore my room like a child in a sweet shop.
    Needless to say, once I was sure I was on my own, I lost no time in holding on to the bed frame and imagining a maid lacing me into a very tight corset. Mhairi’s great-grandmother had probably hauled tight enough to make even the whalebones squeak for mercy.
    *
    The bathroom wasn’t so much a mere bathroom as a whole other room, and it took me nearly fifteen minutes to run