But her words confused. Cilla didn’t have a boyfriend. But hadn’t Lachlan asked her to mention a boyfriend in the Netherlands to prevent parental matchmaking? She’d never had the opportunity—but perhaps Lachlan had.
“Uh, yes.” Cilla whirled around, set her suitcase on a bed, and opened it. Lying to the person who had been kindest to her hurt most of all.
“What’s his name? What’s he like?”
“His name is ... Dirk.” Although they’d never stepped out, she could picture his face, recall his laugh. “He was funny, brave—he was in the resistance.”
“Was?”
Cilla had slipped, and she sucked in a breath. She grabbed the red suit she’d wear tomorrow and hung it in the wardrobe. “I haven’t seen him in almost a year, and we hadn’t dated long. I’m fine. I really am.”
Mrs. Mackenzie murmured in sympathy.
Cilla whirled around, spread her arms wide, and grinned. “I came here for a party. Farewell, 1941. Welcome, 1942. May you treat us far better than your predecessor did.”
Mrs. Mackenzie chuckled and headed for the door. “I’ll leave you to freshen up. The guests will be arriving around five o’clock. Come down whenever you fancy.”
“Thank you.” One glance in the mirror, and Cilla startled. Lipstick worn off, hair a tangled mess from riding in the wind. Maybe her appearance was what had amused Lachlan.
After she fixed her hair and makeup, Cilla headed downstairs. Voices rose from the drawing room. The sofas and upholstered chairs had been exiled to the perimeter of the room, the other furniture had been removed, and three large trestle tables filled the center.
Lachlan sat at a table with a dark-haired naval officer and a brunette in a soft pink evening gown.
All three stood, and Lachlan swept his arm toward her. “Cilla, please meet my friends, Lt. Arthur Goodwin and Irene Drever. Arthur and Irene, this is Cilla van der Zee, the apprentice lightkeeper at Dunnet Head.”
Cilla shook hands with Irene, a pretty little thing with huge blue eyes in her heart-shaped face, then with Arthur. “I’m glad to meet you. Lachlan has much good to say about you.”
“Is that so?” Arthur said in an English accent, and darkbrown eyes narrowed at Lachlan. “Yet he hasn’t mentioned one word of you. Why is that, Lachlan?”
Bright pink stained Lachlan’s cheeks. Of course he hadn’t mentioned the double agent he was working with.
Cilla clucked her tongue with a playful smile. “You’re trying to matchmake for poor lonely Lachlan, yes?”
“Why, yes.” Arthur stood about two inches shorter than Cilla and carried himself with absolute confidence.
Cilla sat on a wooden bench to signal the others to return to their seats, and she gave Arthur and Irene a mischievous lift of her eyebrows. “If he’d mentioned me, he might have exposed himself to teasing. Since I have a boyfriend in the Netherlands, he would have suffered teasing for nothing. And he hates teasing, calls it pure torture. Whatever you do, donottease this man. He simply isn’t strong enough.”
Lachlan leaned arms on the table, each strong enough to break one of Cilla’s like a twig, and he grumbled, but with a flicker of a smile.
“I say.” Arthur nudged his girlfriend with his shoulder. “What a shame she has a boyfriend. She seems the right sort for our Lachlan.”
Irene wagged her head. “But do we know the right sort, Arthur? We’ve failed miserably.”
More grumbling from Lachlan. “Aye, you have.”
Cilla laughed and whacked his arm lightly. “If that’s how you speak to women, the failure is yours, not theirs. Is that how you speak to Irene, Arthur?”
“To Irene? Never.” Arthur embraced her around her waist. “She’s the sun in my northern winter, the sugar in my tea, the—”
“The blather in my ear.” Irene hefted out a sigh.
Oh, Cilla liked them. “How did you meet?”
“We met in March.” A sweetness radiated from Irene’s face. “He was a customer at my parents’ café in Kirkwall. He wouldnae stop pestering me for a date.”
“Why would I? I knew in an instant she was the one for me.”
Cilla smirked at Irene. “I gather you weren’t so easily convinced.”
