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‘And where are you off to this fine morning, my dear?’
Keir’s friendly housekeeper waylaid Glenteign’s newest employee as she was about to get into her car the next morning. The day was seasonably warm and bright, and Georgia was wearing a dark lime cotton sweater with white tapered linen trousers, very conscious since his remark about Noah’s shirt not to appear too casual for her employer’s liking.
Pushing her sunglasses onto the top of her head, she smiled, already feeling very much at home with the older woman.
‘I’m off to Lochheel. I need to go to the post office for the Chief. He was going to take me himself, but he’s got several phone calls to make this morning and can’t spare the time.’
The truth of it was—because he’d definitely got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning, judging by his extremely tetchy mood—Georgia was glad to be going on her own. It would also give her a chance to enjoy some of the spectacular countryside without having to make stilted conversation with her new boss.
‘That’s usually the way of it…’ Moira sighed. ‘The man just always has so much to do! Considering he’s scarcely been Laird here for two minutes, it’s an absolute credit to his skill and dedication that he’s already achieved so much!’
Georgia frowned, thinking. ‘So his brother was Laird here before him? Is that right?’
‘Until he was killed in that terrible car accident in America…yes, he was. Nobody thought that Keir would ever come back here again…even for a visit! But Robbie’s death changed everything for him.’ The kind brown eyes of the other woman crinkled with concern around the edges for a moment, as if she’d inadvertently revealed more than she should have. ‘Look at me, standing here chatting away when I need to get on! Enjoy your drive to Lochheel, lassie. No doubt I’ll see you again later.’
For a few moments, as the housekeeper bustled away to get on with her own busy tasks, Georgia stood stock still on the gravel drive beside her car, her mind captured by what Moira had said about nobody thinking that Keir would ever come back to Glenteign and how his brother’s death had changed everything for him. Was that why he had warned her during their first dinner together that she should not be so quick to make ‘careless judgements’?
Having clearly assumed that he must love living at Glenteign, Georgia was now getting the distinct impression that he didn’t, and that there were good reasons why he didn’t…But how tragic—to live in such an amazing place, with all the advantages that most people could only fantasise about, and yet secretly wish you were somewhere else.
Sometimes the ironies of life just got to her—they really did. There was Georgia, living in a small cramped house in Hounslow, directly beneath the flight path of the planes out of Heathrow, struggling to keep her head above water, dreaming of the peace and quiet of a place like this and wishing that money wasn’t such an issue. And there was Keir, living with the complete antithesis of her own situation and yet apparently deeply unhappy. How was anybody supposed to make sense of it all?
Shaking herself out of her reverie, she got into the car, briefly studied the map she’d left on the seat, then gunned the engine and drove off. Although she would take great pleasure in enjoying the scenery as she drove, she would find Lochheel and locate the post office as quickly as she could—then get back to Glenteign to at least try and alleviate some of the burden of work that was clearly getting her new boss down…
They’d scarcely taken a moment to even glance at the cups of tea Moira had brought them at varying intervals that afternoon, they’d both worked so hard. Now, as Georgia sat in front of the elegant Victorian mirror on her dressing table and applied a deep plum lipstick, she told herself she was feeling far less tense at the idea of accompanying Keir to the classical concert than she had been earlier.
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