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Amid the smoke that bellowed from the train as it pulled into Castle Craig station, Rose spied a slender blond man waving from the platform. "Happy Christmas," Jamie greeted her and Róża as he helped them down from the carriage and deftly took Róża's suitcase.
"Merry Christmas, Flight Lieutenant Beaufort-Stuart." Rose hesitated. "Or is it Lord now?"
"Oh, no," he laughed, "the Laird would be my older brother. And, please," he added as he guided them toward his car, "call me Jamie."
"All right, Jamie, may I present Róża Czajkowska."
He loaded their cases into the trunk and offered her his hand. "A pleasure."
Róża shifted her cane to her left hand and shook his maimed one. "For me as well," she said, smiling.
Soon they were bouncing down the rutted road to Craig Castle. When Maddie had first mentioned it, Rose had imagined a romantic ruin on the Scottish moor. She had been wrong. There was a moor, but Craig Castle had all the modern conveniences. Still, while its walls had been plastered and painted over, its immense size and round towers meant that it could never be mistaken for a mere country house.
Maddie met them at the imposing oak-and-iron door. "Rose!" she exclaimed, taking her by the shoulders. "And this must be Róża." Maddie glanced back at the elegant blonde descending the stairs. "Allow me to introduce my mother-in-law, Lady Beaufort-Stuart."
Rose suppressed the urge to curtsey and reminded herself why the Revolutionary War had been fought.
Lady Beaufort-Stuart spared Maddie an indulgent smile and then insisted, "You girls must call me Esmé." Thunder rolled on the landing. "And that would be Ross and Jock." The Glaswegians belatedly slowed to a walk as they caught sight of their adoptive mother. "Boys, you remember Rose from the wedding, don't you?" she asked.
"Oi!" Jamie hollered. "You lot, take these bags upstairs."
Rose and Róża glanced at each other. "You know," Rose said to Maddie, "we'll only end up climbing into one bed and whispering all night; we might as well share."
Maddie's face went soft, but she agreed sensibly, "No point turning out an extra room."
*
In the dining room, they met Jamie's brothers and friends, including "the Laird," whose left sleeve hung empty below the elbow. Rose could hardly believe the dinner that the staff had prepared for Christmas Eve: roast turkey with potatoes and parsnips, all of it covered with cranberry sauce and red-wine gravy, and all of that followed by pudding and trifle. It was as if rationing had bypassed the castle entirely.
Just when Rose thought she would burst, they retired to a drawing room. Ross and Jock had left dinner early, and now Rose saw why: butcher paper scrawled with minarets had been strung up like a backdrop, and the room's mismatched chairs were arrayed before it in a semi-circle. Ross, costumed in a vest but no shirt, declared himself to be what sounded like Aladdin. Jock joined him, a sheet piled on his head in a turban; apparently he was a genie. What the performance had to do with Christmas, Rose had no idea, but she still cheered the hero, booed the villain, and laughed at every pratfall.
Light flashed intermittently as Jamie captured photos of his family. Rose wondered if he had many of his sister, Maddie's friend who had been killed in action in France. She glanced at Róża; probably she didn't think such sentimental things.
After the curtain call, Maddie showed them to a charming tower room complete with four-poster bed. Rose unsnapped her valise, and then realized that she didn't know which way to face: toward Róża or away? In the end, she turned toward the wall. Her scars were red and raised even after two years; hypertrophic, the doctor had called them. Nothing Róża hadn't seen before, and they were quickly hidden by her nightgown.
It wasn't until they were beneath the covers that she felt Róża's hand on her hip, rubbing a scar through the nightgown. "These aren't so bad," Róża commented as Rose shivered at the curious sensation of flannel sliding over skin alternated with the absence of sensation when it slid against scars.
Rose reached down until she found the start of the cleft in Róża's calf. "Yes, you win."
Róża harrumphed, but after a hard day's traveling and a heavy meal, there were no more whispers, only sleep.
*
Christmas morning dawned gradually, like a pale pink hand slowly slipping from a dark purple glove. Rose tried to make it into a poem, but the meter wouldn't come out right. Instead, she watched Róża sleep until Ross and Jock began to thump about.
The Beaufort-Stuarts cheered each other's presents, sweaters and scarves and a toy car big enough to ride in for Ross. Once there was nothing left to unwrap, Maddie grabbed Rose's hand and dragged her outside; Róża trailed along suspiciously.
Maddie led them to a sagging barn. "Help me open it," she called, pulling on one of the wooden doors.
Inside was—
"Oh, no," Róża murmured.
—a de Havilland Puss Moth.
It was beautiful, with a glossy green fuselage and chrome wheel struts. "Can I," Rose stammered, "can I fly?"
"Of course you can," Maddie said, smiling hugely. "Both of you."
"Oh, no."
The Puss Moth had an enclosed cabin slung beneath one emerald wing. Its seats were staggered such that Róża sat slightly in front of Maddie but slightly behind Rose, who had taken the yoke. After a pre-flight check, Rose sent them trundling down a freshly mown field toward a scrub of trees.
"Zdrowaś Maryja," she thought she heard Róża pray.
Then they were aloft, and Rose whooped for joy. She opened the throttle and they roared above the moor. Soon, mudflats and beaches intermingled below them where the Ythan River spilled into the North Sea. "Maddie," she cried, "this is—"
"I know."
Róża leaned forward to place her hand on Rose's shoulder. "Happy Christmas, Rose."
She covered Róża's hand with her own and agreed, "The happiest."