Chapter 50

Rory

With the exams over we met my mum and Phil at Manchester Airport and flew to Edinburgh. Once there we picked up the Honda CRV hire car we had ordered and drove to St Andrews. When we arrived at the house the first thing we did was put our bags in our room and showed Phil and mum to theirs. While I put the kettle on for coffee and unpacked the food we had brought with us Rebecca gave mum and Phil a more detailed tour of the house even though there was not much more to see.

As we sat in the kitchen Phil pointed out that this house was a good investment, for It had quite a high pitched roof into which we could insert dormer windows and possibly and add another two bedrooms. This of course would depend on getting planning permission which might be a bit more difficult in St Andrews. This would increase the value of our house tremendously as house values in the town were much higher than in the rest of fife.

I thought this was a good idea and said I would suggest the idea to Ross and get him to look into the possibility. The loan to his firm and been approved by our committee and he was interviewing several new graduates from Dundee University with a view to giving one of them a start in his office. This would mean he would have someone to put on tour request straight away

"I will invite him and his wife Laura round tomorrow and you can meet them. They are the first friends we have made here, though no doubt once we start at university there will be others."

Once we had unpacked and settled into our rooms we took mum on a tour of the town. She had never been there before though Phil was quite familiar with the place as he had often visited the university and had played golf on several of the many courses the town. She was impressed by its beauty and even more impressed when we took her for a walk along its extensive beach and the area between the famous links and the dunes alongside the beach. We had coffee in one of the clubhouses just off the beach which had an impressive dining room and while there booked a meal for the evening.

When we arrived back at the house I phoned Ross and invited him and Laura for dinner the next evening. While I spoke to him he thanked me again for arranging the loan. Laura then took over the conversation and told me she was looking forward to seeing us again and catching up with our news. I was then asked to let her talk to my lady and they conversed for some time.

When Rebecca put the phone down she told me that Ross and Laura were looking forward to meeting your mum and Phil tomorrow when they come for dinner. Both of my parents said they were looking forward to meeting the first friends we had made since buying the house in St Andrews. I think they were especially interested in doing so as they were also the owners of the first company we had loaned money to in our new situation.

Since we had spent several hours travelling and then had a tour of the town we decided to eat out. We took my mum and Phil to the Glass House and sampled their evening menu which was a lot more expensive that their bargain lunchtime fare. The food, however, was excellent and despite our protests, Phil insisted on picking up the bill. Since we had a bottle of wine with the meal and then stopped at one of the local hostelries and sampled some of the real ales which they stocked, we were quite merry when we walked back to our house.

Mum and Phil decided that they had eaten so well they would pass on supper and went straight off to bed. My lady decided she would like a nightcap so we had a hot chocolate before proceeding upstairs to our bedroom. The wine and the good food seemed to have made Rebecca horny, for we had no sooner entered the room than she gathered me in a passionate embrace and then told me that she hoped the alcohol had not reduced my ability to meet her needs.

Since the kisses she had given me had caused a stirring in my loins, so I felt I could assure her that I would rise to the occasion, if you will pardon the analogy. I undressed her and carried her to the bed and marvelled at the ease with which I could now undertake this task. This made me appreciate once more my lady's insistence that I should be a much fitter person than I was when I first met her.

I stripped off my clothes and then joined her on the bed. Taking her in my arms I kissed her passionately before turning my attention to her breasts and working my way down to her pussy which was already quite moist. By the time I had licked her to her first orgasm she was squirting into my mouth as she tried to muffle her screams so that as I entered her she was sopping wet. The moistness and the effects of the alcohol meant that I had to work hard to reach my own climax and as a result I rode her to two more orgasms before finally shooting my load into her womb.

As I flopped onto my back well and truly spent my lady rolled on top of me and smothered me with kisses.

"I have said this before," She said with a giggle, "You are a wonderful lover my darling. I don't think there has ever been a time when I have felt even the mildest of disappointments with your efforts

The following day we had a fuller tour of the town and again went out for lunch. In the evening Ross and Laura came to dinner and we introduced them to my mum and step dad. They got on famously and Ross and Laura expressed their gratitude for the fact that they had been included in our loan scheme. My mum had told them that it was me they should thank as I had thought it up and I was the one who had suggested that MacFarlane Enterprises should widen its scope now that they had representatives in the town.

I was quick to point out, however, that it may have been my idea, but it was Rebecca's mum who had been the prime mover in bringing that idea to fruition and organised the government grant. I also pointed out that it was her generous input of her own fortune into the project which in fact inspired the government to come up with the size of grant they gave us. Without her the thing would never have got off the ground.

Rebecca smiled at that and told them that her mother had worked away quietly in the background doing charity work in the town often finding it from her own resources. We never realised how much experience and influence this had given her in the politics of the area and the people who had real influence in that arena. It was this experience which enabled her to marshal powerful allies to help her get the project started.

"The more I listen to you both," Laura responded, "The more I become aware that your family must be very wealthy and have a powerful influence on your community as well as having a great deal of concern for its well being. It has certainly rubbed off on you and Rory, for you show that same concern and this is reflected on what you have done for us."

"More than that," Ross chipped in, "The fact that you could afford to buy a property in St Andrews for your student years confirms that, but from your attitude and your acceptance of people around you we never suspected how well off you were or the influence your family had in your local area."

"The thing about having money is something you often take for granted," Phil said. As the younger son and because my brother was a natural born businessman who would obviously take on the responsibility for the family firm I was left free to pursue my own goals and had the resources to do so without a struggle.

My brother on the other hand was never just in business to make money. He recognised early on he was an employer with a responsibility for the well being of thousands of people who did not have his resources to cope with the storms life can bring. Even today I would say that is his main motive in working so hard to ensure the prosperity of the businesses under his control. These two, he said pointing to Rebecca and myself, are fashioned in the same kind of mould and I am certain will pursue the same aims. It is for this reason that Rebecca's dad was knighted in the last honours list, though he would claim that it was his wife, rather than him who should have received that honour.

"I am surprised that with her charity work and her political contacts who are aware of the work she does that this has not happened," my mum said with a smile. "But I don't think she worries about things like that and most of the family's money is tied up in the business so their prosperity, like those who work for them depends on its success."

Rebecca.

As I listened to the way the route the conversation was taking over dinner I became more than a bit embarrassed. Rory and I felt we were doing what we wanted to do and what we had to do. My brother's death had made me aware of my family responsibilities but it also made me aware of the privileges it conveyed to me. It was both of these things which motivated me to do what I was doing. I also knew how lucky I was to find a soul mate who shared my aims and goals, perhaps in at an even deeper level than I did and would shoulder any burdens with me. We were not saintly characters.

Hey guys, I said I am just a lucky girl who was born into a wealthy family who made sure I did not grow into a spoiled brat. What is more I have been lucky enough to find a brilliant guy who loves me and who is willing to share the responsibilities I face with me and keep me on the right track." I smiled. "You Ross and you Laura have pointed out that there are also great benefits from being in my position, and being aware of all these good things, and also with having Rory I am in the position to reach out to help others when I can. There is nothing very special in that."

"I am glad to hear you say that," Becky darling, my future mother in law said. "Because it is that attitude which you share with my son which makes you both very special people, not only in my eyes, but in the eyes of your friends, here and back home."

Hearing Mary say that made me very emotional and I thought, "What was it that my dad quoted from that Scottish poet? 'Would some power give us the gift of seeing ourselves as others see us.' He did not say anything about how embarrassing and flattering it could be if you did not keep yourself aware that there was another side which perhaps they were not seeing. I think Rory and I should take stock of that. I will talk to him about it tonight when we are alone

Fortunately Phil steered the conversation away from Macfarlane Enterprises and on to the business Ross and Laura were running. He wanted to know what their long term aims were. Ross confessed that he had been so busy trying to get things off the ground that he had not really had time to think about long term aims.