Christmas at the Castle

‘I...thank you,’ she managed and Angus took the phone from her grasp, added a few contact details and disconnected.

‘So now you can buy wellingtons,’ he said.

‘I...’ She fought for something to say and couldn’t. She stared at her feet. ‘Um...’

‘Just how broke are you?’ he asked gently and she flushed, but there seemed no point denying things now.

‘Um...really, really broke,’ she whispered. ‘Geoff maxed out my credit cards. I owe money to everyone and Gran used her grocery money to buy my plane ticket. I...thank you but I still can’t buy wellingtons because no shop will take an airline’s promise that the money’s coming. But I can wait four days.’

‘You can’t. Here’s a loan to tide you over.’ He hauled out his wallet, counted out a wad of notes and held them out.

‘No.’ What was she thinking? For some reason, her Gran’s warning came slamming back and she stood up and backed to the door. ‘You’ve given me a job. I can’t take any more.’

‘This isn’t a gift,’ he said mildly. ‘When the airline pays you, you can pay me.’

‘You don’t know me. How can you trust me?’

‘You’re my employee.’

‘Yes, and Geoff was my partner and look what he did,’ she snapped. ‘I could walk out the door and spend this on riotous living and you’d never see me again.’

‘In Craigenstone?’ He grinned. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s not a lot of riotous living to be done in this place.’

He was looking at her oddly. She caught herself—she needed to make an effort to recover.

Wicked ways. Kilts and brawny arms and a wicked smile. Her imagination and the reputation of the Earl of Craigenstone were doing stupid things to her senses. Pull yourself together, she told herself and somehow she did.

‘I had...I had noticed,’ she said and managed to smile. She looked down at the proffered notes. Warm feet...

‘This is...wonderful. I could buy myself some wellingtons and a woolly jumper and some coal.’

‘You have no heating?’

‘Um...no.’

‘I’ll run you back to the village and we’ll collect some coal on the way.’

‘You’re kidding. You’re an Earl!’

‘I didn’t think Australians held with the aristocracy,’ he said, bemused. ‘Americans certainly don’t.’

‘Yet you are one.’

‘Only until this place is sold,’ he said, humour fading. ‘I intend the title to disappear with it.’

‘So Gran’s ogre disappears?’

‘I’m an ogre?’

‘That’s why I’m not letting you buy coal or drive me home,’ she said. ‘It’s very nice of you, as is lending me this money, and I appreciate it very much, but if Gran opened the door and an Earl was standing on her doorstep, loaded with coal, she’d have a palsy stroke. Whatever that is.’

‘A palsy stroke?’ he said dubiously.

‘I hear that’s what they had in the olden days,’ she explained. ‘When Earls knew their place and servants knew theirs. Swooning and palsy strokes were everywhere and I don’t have my smelling salts with me. So no. I know my place. Gran and I will keep to the servants’ quarters and cook and dust while you’re all elsewhere and I’ll keep to my kitchen, and you’ll hand over menus of twenty courses to be cooked in two hours, and Gran will creep in at dawn and light your fires...’

‘You’ve been reading too many romance novels if you think I want servants creeping in at dawn...’

‘That’s as it may be,’ she said with asperity. ‘But Gran has a very clear idea of what’s right and wrong and we’ll do this her way or not at all. So thank you but we’ll buy our own coal. When would you like us to start?’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow!’

‘It’s two weeks until Christmas,’ he said and looked ruefully round the room. ‘This room and my bedroom seem the only places that are habitable. The castle’s been under dust-sheets since my stepmother left. Any cooking’s been done by Stanley on a portable gas ring—heaven knows if the range still works.’

‘I need a stove!’

‘That’s why I want you tomorrow—we may need to order one fast. Meanwhile, I need to get the place warm...’

‘That’ll take a year!’

‘I’ll do my part,’ he said. ‘Can you do yours, Miss McIntosh?’

‘Holly,’ she said, ‘My Lord.’

‘Angus,’ he said back.’

‘It’s Holly and My Lord,’ she said primly. ‘Gran won’t stand for anything else. The British Empire was built by those who knew their place and didn’t step out of it.’

‘So you intend to be subservient.’

‘That’s the one,’ she said cheerfully. ‘As long as you do what I tell you, I’ll be as subservient as you like.’

‘As long as I do what you tell me...’

‘If I have a cooking range that hasn’t been used for years I’ll be telling you right, left and centre,’ she said and rose and shoved her feet determinedly back into her soggy trainers. ‘Thank you very much, My Lord. Gran and I will see you at nine tomorrow, and Christmas will begin then.’ She reached out and shook his hand, then reached down and patted the little dog. ‘Goodbye until then,’ she said. ‘Twenty courses or not, suddenly we’re going to have a very yummy Christmas.’

* * *

Angus stood in the doorway and watched her go. She’d refused his offer to drive her; she’d refused his offer to send Stanley and she was trudging down the road towards the village looking like a bereft orphan thrown out into the snow.

A bereft orphan with spirit.

‘You’ve made a mistake, My Lord,’ Stanley said gloomily. He’d appeared—gloomily—behind him. ‘She’ll cost you a fortune.’

‘Tell me, Stanley,’ Angus said, in a voice any of his colleagues would have recognised and snapped to wary attention. ‘How much do we have in the petty cash account?’

‘I...’

‘We have the rent roll from the cottages for the last month, I assume,’ Angus said. ‘That should cover our costs nicely. I suspect it’s far too late to get central heating installed into this place by Christmas but I want every chimney swept, I want coal in every fireplace and I want oil heaters in every room. After Christmas I may need to reforest a small nation to nullify any environmental impact, but this castle will be warm by Christmas. Can I leave that to you, Stanley?’

His voice was silky-smooth. He was watching Stanley’s face and he knew exactly what the man was thinking.

The rent rolls for this place were colossal. They were supposed to come into a cash account at the start of the month, then roll over at the end of the month into one of his father’s income-bearing accounts. What he suspected Stanley was doing and seemed to have been doing for years was siphoning the rent roll into his own account for the thirty days. Angus’s father must never have noticed, but Angus thought of the interest Stanley must have earned over the years he’d been employed...

However...Stanley had put up with his father, and somehow he’d held the estate together. And he couldn’t sack him now—he needed him. But then he thought of Holly in her soggy trainers and he thought of the misery caused by dishonesty everywhere.

Stanley would need to scramble to get that money back into the account, he thought, hit by a wave of sudden anger. The reputation of the miserliness of the Earl of Craigenstone stopped right now. Dishonesty stopped now, too. Up until now he’d tolerated a bit of petty theft, he’d tolerated Stanley’s surliness because to change things in the short time he had here had seemed pointless. But now... Now things did need to change. Suddenly Castle Craigie was aiming for a Very Merry Christmas.

* * *

‘He’s nice... He’s lovely and he’s hired us both. At such a salary! Each!’

Holly practically bounced into the kitchen, where Maggie had been disconsolately staring at a packet of pasta and an unbranded can of tomatoes. Now she stared as if her granddaughter had lost her mind.

‘What?’

Holly told her the salary and then repeated it for good measure. ‘And we start tomorrow. We get to stay in the castle and we get to stay warm.’

She grabbed her grandmother and hugged her and then, because she was excited, she did a little jig, dragging Maggie round the kitchen with her.

But Maggie had to be dragged. There was no matching excitement in her, and finally Holly stopped and let her go.

‘What?’

‘There’s a catch,’ Maggie said flatly. ‘There’s always a catch.’

‘There’s not. He’s getting a chef and an awesome housekeeper and he’s prepared to pay. I was getting those sort of wages in Sydney before...’

‘Before you trusted Geoff,’ Maggie retorted. ‘Have you learned nothing? Men!’

‘Gran, he rang the airline and got a real person. And look.’ She dug her hand into her greatcoat and hauled out the banknotes. ‘This is an advance on what the airline is paying me. It seems you bought me insurance. Gran, this is...’

‘Give it back!’

‘Are you out of your mind?’

‘He’s the Earl of Craigenstone. You never, ever trust such a man. We’ll be indebted. He’ll be demanding... You know what he’ll be demanding?’

‘Droit de seigneur? Any village maiden he wants?’ Holly stared down at the notes in her hand and couldn’t suppress a giggle. ‘Gran, this is not the Dark Ages. This means dry shoes. And you know, for dry shoes I might even agree to a bit of...’

‘Holly!’

‘Okay, sorry,’ she said, settling again. ‘You needn’t worry; after Geoff, I am not the least bit interested in unswerving servitude, or even interest, but we do have a job and we can walk away at any time.’

‘And this money?’

‘Will be repaid as soon as the airline pays me. We’re not walking into the lion’s den. Come on, Gran, it’ll be awesome.’

‘How many people are we catering for?’

That stopped Holly in her tracks. She stared at Maggie, who stared straight back.

If they were in front of a mirror they would have seen a weird reflection, Holly thought. Maggie looked like Holly with fifty years added. They looked like two curly-haired Scotswomen, the only difference being the colour of their hair—copper versus grey—a few wrinkles and an Aussie accent versus a broad Scottish burr.

‘I don’t know,’ Holly admitted, hauling her attention back to catering. ‘The butler said...’

‘Who?’

‘The man who opened the door. Dour, lean and mean. He looks like Lurch from the Addams Family.’

‘Stanley,’ Maggie snapped. ‘Estate manager. Reminds me of a ferret. Lurch used to make me laugh. Stanley doesn’t.’

‘Well, he implied we’ll only be cooking and making beds for His Lordship.’

‘If he’s paying these sort of wages, he’ll have invited half of New York.’

‘We can cope,’ Holly said belligerently and then went back to thinking about the man she’d just left. ‘Gran, he’s gorgeous.’

‘There’s no gorgeous about it,’ Maggie snapped. ‘The man’s the Earl, and he’s had deceit and tyranny bred into him for generations. I’m glad I’m coming with you, lass, or heaven knows what trouble you’d get into.’

‘So you will do it?’

‘We don’t have much choice,’ Maggie said grimly. ‘It’s follow His Lordship’s orders or starve. Nothing’s changed in this village for five hundred years, and it seems it’s not changing now.’

* * *

He made three phone calls. The first was to his mother, who was as upset as he’d thought she might be.

‘I’m staying here until after Christmas,’ he told her. ‘I know how you feel about the place, Mom, but I’ve told you about these kids. This place is important to them. It’s the least I can do. I’ll give them Christmas here and then it’s done.’

‘You won’t turn into an Earl?’ She’d tried to say it as a joke but it didn’t work. He heard her fear. ‘That place traps you.’

‘My father trapped you, not the castle,’ he told her. ‘I will come home after Christmas.’ He hesitated. ‘Mom, why not come over, too? We could lay a few ghosts. We have an awesome cook and housekeeper. If you don’t mind meeting Delia...’

‘I don’t mind meeting Delia. Contrary to first wife, second wife mores, I don’t hate her. She was my only friend in the castle. I understand why she married him and I feel sorry for her, but I still won’t come. That place holds nothing but bad memories.’

‘Hey, I was born here. Isn’t meeting me a good memory?’ He was trying to lighten things but she wouldn’t be lightened and he hung up with a sigh.

Then he rang his friends and got the opposite reaction.

‘You’re spending Christmas as an Earl? In a Scottish castle? Awesome! How about making it a party?’

‘I’ll be looking after kids.’

‘But a party!’

He disconnected fast before he found himself with a castle full of American financiers for Christmas, and then finally he rang the kids. Expecting joy.

But, instead of joy, he was met with silence.

‘I almost hoped you wouldn’t ring,’ Ben said flatly.

To say he was surprised would be an understatement. After the pleading the kid had made on behalf of his family...

‘Don’t you want to come any more?’

‘Yes, but now we can’t,’ the boy said. ‘There’s something wrong with Mum’s back. The doctor says something’s hitting a nerve and she has to go into hospital on Friday for an urgent operation. Gran says Mum can’t look after herself afterwards, so we all have to go to Gran’s apartment ’cos Gran won’t move, and it’s even smaller than this one. And I have to sleep with my sisters and there’s no one there we know and it’ll be the pits. I asked Mum could we go to the castle by ourselves and she said no, not if you’re even remotely like our dad, and we looked you up on the Internet and you do look like him and it’s hopeless.’

There was a long silence. Angus stared down at the ancient flagstones in the hall and the ragged little dog wound himself round his ankles and looked up at him. Expectantly?

I’m not my father. He didn’t say it out loud but he thought it really, really loudly.

‘Let me talk to your mum,’ he said at last and, moments later, he was talking to Delia. He could hear her wariness—and her weakness and her pain.

‘I have a cook and a housekeeper,’ he told her. ‘If the kids really want to come...’

‘I can’t let them,’ she said and took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry but I don’t know a thing about you. I only know you’re the Earl and that’s hardly a recommendation.’

‘But the kids...’

‘They’ll cope without this reunion Ben’s set his heart on. Kids are resilient.’

Yes, Angus thought. This lot had needed to be. And then he thought he’d hired Holly and Maggie for nothing.

‘It’d be different if you were married,’ Delia was saying. ‘If... If I could meet your wife... I just want someone there I can trust. And I hate Stanley. You’re not married?’

‘No.’

‘There you are, then.’

‘I’m employing...’

‘I don’t care who you’re employing. No.’

‘But I am engaged. My fiancée will be here and she’s lovely. Your kids will like her and you can trust her even if you can’t trust me.’

What had he just said? The words seemed to have come from nowhere. He didn’t think them through; they were just...there. But then he had this vision...

Holly, going down to see this woman. Holly, pleading the kids’ cause.

Delia was right, he thought grimly. He looked too much like his father to engender trust, but Holly could talk the leg off an iron pot. Anyone would trust Holly.

If she agreed...

But he’d already said it. What had he done?

‘What’s her name?’ Delia asked, sounding suspicious.

‘Holly McIntosh.’ What was he doing?

‘How do I know what she’s like?’

‘She’s great,’ he said warmly. ‘Well, I would say that, wouldn’t I? I’ll need to ask if she’ll come down to London to meet you.’ He needed to at least concede that. ‘But if she’s happy to do it, I’ll pop her on the train to London the day after tomorrow. If you like her, as I’m sure you will, she could bring the kids back with her. Then you could concentrate on your health. If you’re better in time to travel, maybe you and your mother could still join us for Christmas Day.’

There was a sharp intake of breath from the other end of the line. Angus understood it. He was doing sharp intakes of breath all over the place himself.

He’d just landed himself with a fiancée! What had he done?

He’d lied.

But Ben’s voice was still echoing. He hadn’t been able to deny him.

But what hourly rate would Holly demand for this? He thought of facing her with this new job description, and suddenly he found himself grinning. He might even enjoy the bargaining.

‘I never wanted to come back to the castle,’ Delia said. ‘I only said I would when Ben begged.’

‘I can understand that,’ Angus said gently. ‘But, with Holly here, I think you’ll find it a very different place. Holly will make it different.’

‘You sound like you love her.’ Delia sounded astounded and Angus thought: join the club. You sound like you love her? Astounded was too small a word for it.

‘And Ben looked you up on the Internet,’ Delia was saying. ‘You’re not engaged. Or...it says you were, years ago, but your fiancée was killed in a ski accident.’

Delia was sounding suspicious again, and Angus decided, lies or not, engaged or not, it was time to turn back into the aloof financier he was.

‘My private life is private,’ he said curtly. ‘Thankfully, not everything’s on the Internet. But, if you agree, I’ll have Holly with you the day after tomorrow. No pressure. If you don’t like her and trust her then we’ll leave it but I think you will.’

‘Really?’

‘I promise. As long as Holly agrees to come to London.’

And as long as Holly agreed with all the rest.

* * *

Holly and Maggie had steak for tea. With chips. With apple pie afterwards. They also had a bottle of wine and then started on another. They’d stoked the fire up, courtesy of Angus’s loan, they sat back by the fire after dinner and they grinned at each other like Cheshire Cats. Two well fed, warm Cheshire Cats.

‘He’ll probably work us into the ground,’ Maggie said, trying to sound pessimistic and failing.

‘We’re both used to hard work and if he works us too hard we walk out and leave him to it,’ Holly retorted and then she thought of the man she’d just left and added, ‘but he won’t.’

‘He’s the Earl.’

‘He’s a nice man.’

‘I thought you said there was no such thing as a nice man.’

‘Well, a nice person,’ Holly conceded.

‘But you think he’s gorgeous. Every generation there’s scandal in that castle because some silly girl thinks the Earl is gorgeous.’

‘He’s just nice,’ Holly said stubbornly, but gorgeous did pop into her mind and waft around for a bit.

‘We’ll see,’ Maggie said darkly and poured another glass of wine for them both. Then she giggled. ‘I see you and me in the servants’ hall for Christmas and I don’t see us gnawing on the turkey carcass. I see us carving the best bits for us.’

‘Gran!’

‘We might even have fun,’ Maggie conceded. ‘If we can avoid the Earl.’ And then she paused.

She needed to pause. The knock on the cottage’s thick wooden door reverberated around the living room, imperative, urgent. Maggie frowned. ‘It’s nine at night. Who... One of the neighbours?’

She half rose but Holly was before her. ‘Let me.’

‘Take the poker, Holly, love,’ Maggie said but Holly, sated with apple pie, wine and heat, was in no mood for axe-murderers. Without the aid of a poker, she opened the door. A blast of snow rushed in, but not as much as she might expect.

The snow was blocked.

On the doorstep stood Maggie’s greatest fear. Their new employer. The Earl of Craigenstone himself.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you so late at night,’ he said, while Holly stared at him stupidly and thought...What? ‘But I have an additional position to fill and I wondered if you’d add it to your position as cook...as chef.’

‘What?’ Holly said, thoroughly confused.

‘I’m in a bit of trouble,’ the Earl said. ‘I’ve made a promise I intend to keep but, to do so...Holly, I need a fiancée. Just for Christmas. I need you, temporarily, to agree to marry me.’

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