Chapter 4
It was Cecelia who loved to travel. Her dreams always came true, including the fact that she, being the only child of an actress and an Italian count, was also beautiful beyond imagination. Silky golden blonde hair, blue eyes and a bone structure to die for.
Edwina’s mother and father were not of the same stock. She was born not of a count, but of two college professors who gave her, their only child, the gift of practicality and the desire to learn. Unlike Cecelia who had the best educa- tion money could buy at Oxford, Edwina had received two degrees: one in Library Science and a second in Writing from the University of Michigan, her father’s alma mater. But beyond her superior education, Cecelia also possessed a star-quality beauty, not to mention strong entrepreneurial leanings.
Edwina’s widowed father, stern, yet of a kind nature, had fallen completely in love with Cecelia’s mother, an aged but still beautiful English stage actress. She was rich and unattached and her father had married the woman within a month—which was very unlike his conservative nature; the man who planned every detail of his life right down to the annual purchase of fresh, new underwear in January during the white sale.
The passing of Cecelia’s father had left her an Italian villa and who knows what else. With all the money Cecelia would attain, she would still boss Edwina around. Her elder by exactly twenty-three months, Cecelia insisted on acting the part even though they were only stepsisters. Cecelia had been twenty years old, she eighteen, when the pecking order had been established.
Edwina hated her name. Aptly named after her father’s mother, she rather wished she’d been called by her middle name, Emily. It sounded so much softer. But now her name and her life were set in stone. And having a beautiful, rich, and very spoiled stepsister, she’d been honor bound by some sort of human chain of events to choose a lifestyle that was very sane, very safe. Which she had done. A well-educated librarian had been her choice of vocation, pleasing her parents immensely.
So now she found herself bound by duty... once again... to save her sister’s cash outlay and was presently square in the middle of Scotland in the castle of a very handsome Scot. She brushed her long, chestnut brown hair and tied it back with a black ribbon.
Edwina wanted to laugh. If her sister were here, the hand- some Scot currently at Edwina’s service, Cecelia would have made a play for him at the hotel counter... no even earlier... on the plane. Cecelia would have finagled her way into the seat next to the handsome man and chirped up a conversation immediately. And with her golden blonde upswept hair around her perfect heart-shaped face, she would have succeeded.
Edwina giggled at the foolishness of it all. Time to get to the business for which she came—the castle tour. She fished through her small purse for Cecelia’s itinerary. She must make her way to the hotel and fight with the hotel’s owner that she was not Cecelia Grace Giatana but Edwina Emily Blair. Nothing about their names matched and Cecelia’s driver’s license picture that had been faxed ahead was clearly nothing like her own image. That’s when the problems started.
Snapping the folded paper out of her purse, she smoothed it on the small bedside table and sighed. She’d much rather be about the countryside, checking out plants and flowers native to Scotland. And what industries were about the area? How did Scotland carry its people? What were their likes and dislikes? Again she found herself wishing to study people and places, not ballrooms and buildings. It was Cecelia who bought buildings and turned them into elegant apartments or English bed-and-breakfasts. Not her. She hated business. Another difference between her beautiful, talented stepsister and herself.
Well, what was to be done? Edwina’s practicality surfaced, and she studied the paper. After a night of blessed sleep. . . hmm... what did one do in a castle in Scotland?
From the looks of the faxed paper she now held in her hands, she was to stay in one of Edinburgh’s finest, The Cannon Brae. At several hundred dollars per night, Cecelia had scheduled massages, beauty treatments, and all sorts of body shaping and exercises. Edwina hated exercise and would rather walk the downtown side streets meeting the people in the small shops, drive down a country road wondering who lived in this house or that, or read a book. Cecelia would much rather walk on a treadmill while listening to a CD about the newest diet fad than do anything Edwina considered interesting.
Well, it’s time to pack and be on my way—I’ve inconvenienced this man enough.
Before packing, she wanted to see the land that surrounded the castle. Walking on bare feet across the oval rug, then onto the wooden floor, she pulled back the heavy velvet drape and gasped. Blue and green hills sledded their way across the land. Up and down they rolled. Colorful spring flowers—yellows, purples, blues—performed their nature dance in the May winds.
The scene before her sent her mind fleeing into some dream place. Squinting, she could envision a tall, beautiful woman dressed in flowing white gauze traipsing over the hills singing some romantic Scottish ballad. A man dressed in the Scottish plaid would rein in his black steed and haul her up behind him, and they would disappear over the knoll into a life of pure happiness.
What foolishness! Edwina shook the cobwebs from her brain. Since when had she put on such an impractical countenance? Such puffery. Everyone knew that plain women with fifteen extra pounds could not look forward to such goings-on. She must get out of here before she turned into Cinderella. And her with a degree in Library Science. Perhaps the reading of too many books had mushed her mind.
Stomping back to her room, she slid her feet into her black flats and in doing so became just Edwina.
Checking the itinerary once again, Edwina packed the last of her things, making herself a promise she would buy a new pair of pajamas, and snapped her case shut. It was time to thank her host and remove herself from his home... castle.
A smile crept to her lips. Cecelia had never planned on meeting a handsome Scot, nor staying in his castle. Sure enough, if the man had laid eyes on her stepsister, he would have been smitten instantly. For Cecelia possessed what all men seemed to want. Beauty, charm, and intellectual savvy.
Edwina had not been born with any of it. But, she assured herself, she had been born with rational reasoning. And in her chosen field and simple lifestyle, she needed it desperately, especially now when it seemed her Cinderella senses had increased and her common sensibilities had decreased.