Chapter Fifteen
Lowbridge Castle had come to life. They had a full schedule of community groups and small meetings. People were coming and going. Darcy was in her element playing Lady Lowbridge, the hostess with the mostess. Even Adam’s grandmother looked at least a degree or two less tense than usual.
Which left the laird himself as the only outlier. Adam knew he needed to take a leaf out of Bella’s book. Lowbridge was a foreign country to her, but she’d managed to carve a space for herself as surely as she had in Spain, or as she’d been confident she would in Edinburgh. Bella wasn’t second-guessing things. Bella was getting on with it.
If she could find her place anywhere, he, increasingly, couldn’t find his anywhere. If he went back to Edinburgh to carry on as normal, it wouldn’t be normal any more, would it? Wherever he travelled, the weight of duty on his shoulders would travel with him.
And even without that, would there still be a place for him in Edinburgh? Ravi’s updates, since his return to Lowbridge, focused more and more on the things they were doing to manage without him, and less and less on the things he needed Adam to sort out. Which should clear the path for him to stay right here in Lowbridge in the role he was born to. Feeling out of place here was simply not allowed. There was no option but to take a page from his fiancée’s book, and just get on with things.
He’d been avoiding the mountains of estate admin, but today that had to change. He grabbed a coffee in the kitchen and headed across the front hallway.
Unusually, Veronica wasn’t already ensconced at the desk. That meant that he could look things over without the pressure of someone looking over his shoulder despairing at him going too slowly or failing to understand. But it also meant that he would have to work out what he ought to be doing on his own.
He opened the account book and flicked on the computer. There was a pile of post on the desk. The first was an invoice. He knew how to pay an invoice. It seemed to be all his grandmother ever did. This one was from Pavel, apparently for work on the coach house gutters.
Adam forced himself to focus on the numbers. ￡55.78 plus VAT, which came, according to Pav’s total, to ￡66.94. He would simply have to take that on trust. No matter how many times Ravi told him working out VAT was easy, Adam found it anything but. He could picture his business partner’s incredulous face as he muttered, ‘But it’s just ten per cent twice.’ Adam fell down on not being able to work out 10 per cent once. Actually he fell down on not being able to make the original number sit still in his brain for long enough to get a proper hold of it to do any sort of sum.
Adam logged into the estate’s online business banking. Pavel was already listed as a payee. The next part was the part everyone else in the world found straightforward. You typed the amount you wanted to pay in and hit confirm. Even an idiot could do that. Adam re-read the figure and re-read it again. Easy.
Bella walked across the courtyard. It was a beautiful day. An ideal day in fact to take some pictures of the castle and the views of the loch. Her mind was racing with plans for the cookery school. They were going to need a website, maybe a proper printed brochure, definitely some social media presence. This place would make for incredible Instagram photos.
She only had her phone though. The camera was passable but not great. Flinty and Veronica were sitting together on the bench by the kitchen door, Dipper lying happily on the warm cobbles at their feet. Bella had come out from the front hallway, along the side corridor, so they hadn’t seen her yet. Would Veronica have a decent camera? She probably would, but it would probably be about a hundred years old and require her to hold up a separate flashbulb while everyone sat perfectly still for three full minutes. It couldn’t hurt to ask.
She made her way along the wall towards the two older women, the jutting out stonework of the kitchen corridor still obscuring her from their view.
‘You’ve got to admit she’s worked wonders though.’ That was Flinty.
Bella stopped. Her brain instantly latched on to the idea that she was the person under discussion.
Flinty chuckled. ‘And you weren’t expecting that were you?’
‘I had no expectations either way.’
‘Bollocks.’
‘I just hope,’ Veronica paused.
‘Spit it out.’
‘Well a girl like that in a place like this. Sooner or later she’s going to wonder what she missed out on, isn’t she?’
‘You don’t know that. She’s not…’ Flinty’s voice trailed away.
‘Well we’ll see.’ Veronica clearly retained doubts about Bella’s staying power.
Flinty cleared her throat. ‘How do you think the lad’s doing?’
‘What on earth do you mean?’ asked Veronica.
‘I don’t know. It’s a lot to be thrown into.’
Bella almost replied herself. Of course it was a lot to be thrown into, but this was Adam’s home. It was where he was supposed to be.
‘Of course Adam is fine. He’s just adapting.’ Bella caught herself nodding in agreement with Veronica.
‘You looked at him like a cat who’d brought you a half dead mouse when he turned up with the lass.’
Back to talking about Bella then, and in dead rodent terms. Marvellous.
‘I was, perhaps, a little taken aback by the engagement.’ Veronica’s tone was unruffled.
‘Well that’s fair.’ Both women fell quiet for a second before Flinty spoke again. ‘But when you know you know, don’t you?’
Another silence. This would be the moment for Bella to make a noise and pretend she’d just come outside this very second, but something about the silence begged not to be broken. And also Bella was really, really nosey.
Finally Veronica replied. ‘Margaret, I…’ Her tone dropped out of Bella’s hearing.
‘There you are!’ The voice behind Bella was loud and cheery, and was rapidly followed by the distinctive clatter of Darcy’s heels across the stones.
Veronica and Flinty jumped up and, Bella vaguely registered, apart.
Darcy continued, oblivious to whatever she was interrupting. ‘I couldn’t find anyone. Well I found Adam, but he’s in a grump staring at numbers and he didn’t look very happy to be bothered. You’re all out here.’
‘Just having a quick cuppa,’ Flinty explained, raising her, now apparently empty, mug in explanation.
‘And I was looking for a camera,’ Bella added. ‘I don’t know if any of you have a decent one. I thought it was a gorgeous day and there’s no groups in until this afternoon. It seemed like a good time to take some pictures for…’ She shrugged. She wasn’t sure how Veronica would feel about the idea of advertising.
‘For promoting the cookery school?’ Veronica asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘Good idea. Didn’t Alexander give you a new camera at Christmas?’ she asked her daughter-in-law.
Darcy nodded. ‘I told him there was no need. I use my phone but he knew I liked taking pictures.’
Bella brightened further. ‘You do?’
‘Oh yes. I did some modelling back in New York, but I was always trying to chat to the photographers and their assistants. Far more interesting than standing about wearing fancy mascara all day.’
Brilliant. ‘Right. You can be our official publicity photographer then.’
Darcy smiled. ‘Really? I mean I’m not that good and I don’t want to get in the way, and…’
Bella shook her head. Since they’d started getting busy at the castle Darcy had changed from the shadow of a woman Bella had met a few weeks earlier. Clearly she was still grieving, but having distractions and some sort of purpose was helping. ‘It would be so useful,’ Bella insisted. ‘Let’s get on with it.’
Adam checked the clock. Paying one invoice and opening the rest of the mail had taken him over an hour. Like everyone Adam had had the dream where he was in an exam and suddenly realised that he hadn’t revised, and not only that, but the paper was in an unknown language. All he could hope for at that point was that he woke up before the whole exam hall noticed that he was also naked. Right now Adam was living that nightmare every time he had to look at a row of figures.
He went back to the computer and opened his personal email. The top message in his inbox was from Ravi, with a link to a new housing development to the south of Edinburgh, and a note that the developer was planning low rise blocks of flats and wanted to put roof gardens on top to raise the value of the units.
Straight away Adam grabbed a notepad and pencil and started sketching, roughly at first, and then filling in more detail, noting names of plants and possible materials. After less than half an hour he was ready to snap a picture of the sketch on his phone and message it to his business partner as a starting point for a fuller design. Drawing, thinking about being outside, imagining how the plants he selected would grow and mature, mapping out one idea and then swapping it for something more appropriate for a roof top location – all of those things physically made Adam’s shoulder’s drop a little and the tension in his chest start to ease.
‘It’s a lovely day.’ He looked up to see his fiancée in the doorway. ‘Seems a shame that you’re stuck in here.’
‘Lots to do.’
She came and looked over his shoulder and the hand-drawn plan in front of him. ‘Is this for Ravi?’
‘Potential new client.’ He glanced over the design. It was rough, but he knew it was good. And thinking about planting made him think Bella was right. ‘It would be nice to get outside for a bit.’
‘OK. What do you want to do?’
He grinned. ‘What about that riding lesson we talked about?’
‘Oh.’ Her face tensed.
‘What?’
‘I mean, what do you want to do? I’m snowed. Darcy’s taking photos for the new website and I need to plan for the first proper sessions, and…’
‘Of course. It’s fine. I should probably get on here.’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I can make time.’
The landline phone on Adam’s desk rang. He glanced at it. It hadn’t done that once since he’d been back at Lowbridge. ‘Hello?’
The voice on the other end of the phone sounded young, female and slightly stressed. ‘Is that the cooking place?’
The what? ‘Erm…’
‘The cooking school?’
‘Oh. Yes. Hold on.’ He held the phone out to Bella. ‘It’s about the cookery school.’
She frowned and took the receiver. Adam could only hear Bella’s half of the conversation. ‘Yes it is… Yes, we do… We could… Tomorrow?’ He tracked the rising panic in her voice. ‘Tomorrow tomorrow? Like tomorrow?… Right.’ He watched her take a deep breath in. ‘Tomorrow. That’s fine. Let me grab a pen.’
He handed her a pencil and a used envelope and she scrawled down some details.
‘OK then. We’ll see you then.’ She hung up the phone. ‘We’ve got a booking. For tomorrow.’
‘I gathered.’
‘Hen party. They were supposed to be going to the McKenzie place but it fell through.’
‘How come?’
‘I don’t know. But I’m making cookies and cupcakes with them from seven until half nine tomorrow. They’re glamping near…’ She peered at her scribbled notes. ‘Ardarrock?’
‘Ardarroch,’ he corrected.
‘I can’t do that cee-haitch sound.’
‘Well that’s being English for you.’
‘Shut up. Right. So I’ll need to get ingredients in and,’ she frowned. ‘Baking trays. Cupcake trays. I wonder how many we have? I might have to borrow stuff.’ She was pulling her mobile out of her pocket. ‘If I ring Anna now she might be able to get everything ready to just pick up in the morning.’ She stopped. ‘Oh. The riding lesson.’
‘It doesn’t matter. You’re busy.’ And it was for the estate. It was good, Adam reminded himself. ‘Can I help with anything?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s fine. I’m on it.’
She kissed him on the top of the head before she rushed away. Adam leaned back in his chair. He could still go for a ride. He hadn’t ridden regularly for years but he could ask Darcy and maybe take a trot around the paddock to get back in the groove. Or just for a walk out along the cliff. He wasn’t helping here, so why shouldn’t he get out of the office?
‘What on earth have you done?’ His grandmother’s voice cut through the remaining embers of his earlier relaxation and sent him right back to feeling wedged into an entirely wrong-shaped hole.
‘What?’
‘I just had Pavel Stone on the phone. Apparently we sent him over six thousand pounds.’
Adam frowned. ‘Did we?’
‘Well I didn’t, and Darcy said you were in here doing goodness knows what.’
‘I paid his invoice.’
‘For how much?’
Adam rifled through the pile of papers in front of him and held it up.
Veronica took the sheet from his hand. ‘Sixty-six pounds and ninety-four pence.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Apparently Mr Stone received six thousand six hundred and ninety-four pounds.’
Adam closed his eyes. ‘Sorry.’
‘Sorry doesn’t really help. That will have sent us right to the limit of our overdraft.’
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s only thanks to Bella that it didn’t put it past that.’
‘Sorry.’
‘And thank goodness it was Mr Stone who will, he assures me, pay it straight back. Otherwise that money could simply be gone forever.’
‘Sorry.’ Adam could hear the petulance in his own tone.
Veronica nodded. ‘As you keep saying.’
Darcy bounced in from the hallway, with Bella a second behind her. ‘Oh, what about some shots of the laird at his desk?’ She paused for a second, her face uncertain, before she nodded brightly. ‘Sorry. Still a bit odd coming in here and not seeing Alexander.’
‘I know.’ Adam really did know. This was his father’s place, not his. His father had understood all of this, all of the tiny cogs that kept a place like Lowbridge going. He should be sitting in this chair, not Adam. He looked up into his fiancée’s face. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Taking photos. For publicity, for the cookery school.’ She shrugged. ‘And anything else.’
‘Right. Maybe later.’ He couldn’t sit here and pretend to be the perfect laird. He looked around the office, grasping for a reason. ‘We should probably tidy up a bit first.’
Bella nodded. ‘And we should concentrate on outside while it’s sunny.’
Adam waited for the two younger women to make their way back outside before he turned to his grandmother. He had to do better, didn’t he? Everyone else was chipping in to the best of their abilities and making Lowbridge work. He was the weak link here. ‘I am sorry. Show me again how to do it properly.’