9. Edie
EDIE
I’ve been poring over the framed photographs in the hallway for about half an hour, trying to get a handle on the people who lived here and who live here now.
The pictures are crammed together in mismatched frames, as if they’ve been slung up on a whim whenever they’ve been developed over the years.
There’s no mistaking the late Duke of Kinnaird.
His bearing even in family photographs seems haughty and almost regal, as if he’s above such nonsense as having his photograph taken.
In one picture, he’s holding a dark-haired toddler, but something about the pose feels stiff, as if he’s holding a stranger’s child, not his own. Maybe I’m reading too much into it.
And yet in another, he’s wearing a pair of joke glasses and a bowler hat, so perhaps there was another side to him. I can feel my history researcher senses tingling; there’s something magical about bringing the past to life and working out the stories people leave behind.
“There you are!”
I jump in surprise and turn to see Janey with a basket under her arm. “Sorry, I was just looking at?—”
“The rogues gallery.” She snorts and hitches the basket on her hip. “Trying to get an idea of the family for the book?”
“Something like that.” I get the feeling I’m going to be piecing it together myself. Rory hasn’t exactly given me the impression he’s keen on my being here. I can still feel his eyes burning into me and the arrogant fury that seemed to fill the entire room before he’d even spoken a word.
“All done with Rory?”
I press my lips together and nod. That’s one way of putting it. Standing up to him is the most un-Edie-ish things I’ve ever done, and now I’m trapped here with no way of escaping the situation.
“Come on then, I’ll take you up and show you your rooms.”
Rooms? I trot along behind her, obedient as one of the Loch Morven dogs which seem to be everywhere.
We climb the sweeping staircase, and I run my hand along the silken wood, imagining all the times before that hands far better bred than mind have done the same thing.
The stairs are shallow and thickly carpeted, and we turn at the top of the balcony and head along another passageway.
This one doesn’t have any stuffed animal heads but seems to be the family storage point for ancient needlework, with rows of faded samplers in wooden frames hanging on dark red damask wallpaper.
Janey opens the door into a room which is bigger than Anna’s flat. There’s an enormous four poster bed and a long dressing table between the two full-length sash windows. It’s like the fanciest hotel room you could ever imagine, and?—
“And this is your sitting room,” Janey says, leading me through an archway and into a room which is the same size again. A heavy oak desk sits under one of the windows, all set up with stacks of paper, notepads, and a basket of pens and pencils.
“I wasn’t sure what you’d need, but everyone loves stationery, don’t they?” Janey smiles and pats one of the notebooks. I realize each one is a fresh new Moleskine and suppress a little squeal of delight. It’s a long way from churning out copy for Super Pets Insurance.
“The bathroom’s in here. Claire will be in to clean every day, so you don’t have to worry about running out of anything, but if you’re in the middle of writing and don’t want to be disturbed, you can just give me a shout on WhatsApp and I’ll sort out another time for her to come.”
I realize that I’m standing there with my mouth hanging open. The bathroom shelves are loaded with the kind of thick fluffy white towels that you see in magazines, and the toiletries are in brown glass bottles with hand-written brown paper labels.
“Is this all okay?” Janey looks at me with a concerned expression on her face .
I nod. “Amazing. Sorry. I just—well, I knew it was going to be fancy, I just didn’t realise how fancy.”
She laughs. “Oh, when we push the boat out, we do it in style.”
I think of Rory’s furious expression. I think if he’d realised it was me turning up, he’d have been pushing the boat out into the depths of the loch outside instead, after drilling several holes in the bottom of it.
“It’s amazing.”
“Not that you have to write up here of course. There’s the library and the sunroom – I haven’t showed you that part of the house yet – or you might want to have a swim and then write by the pool.”
It’s beginning to sound more like some sort of fancy retreat than a job. I can’t believe I’m getting paid to do this. The only fly in the ointment is six three, ridiculously hot, and – oh, that minor little detail – would rather I was anywhere but here.
There’s even a little welcome pack like a fancy hotel, with the Wi-Fi login code and contact numbers for Janey, the cleaning staff, the gardener, and the gamekeeper – just in case I have any garden or wildlife emergencies, I guess?
“I’ll let you get settled. There’s a fridge with drinks and some bits and pieces, but if you fancy a sandwich or something to keep you going until dinner, pop down to the kitchen and help yourself. Otherwise, dinner’s at eight in the dining room.”
After Janey leaves, I do what any self-respecting adult would do – I kick off my ridiculous boots and throw myself onto the four-poster bed in a star shape.
How’s it going?
Any news?
Have you been abducted en route?
I scroll through Anna’s string of messages and tap out a reply.
It’s absolutely awful.
No idea how I’m going to survive it.
I’m taking a photo of the view from my bed when Anna’s slightly schadenfreude response comes shooting straight back.
Oh no, poor you. I guess that’s the risk of taking a job sight unseen.
I watch the three little dots dancing on the screen as she composes a reply to the photo of the pale grey curtains which hang in luxuriant swags from the enormous, white-painted windows that look out over Loch Morven.
It’s an image which says it all. This place is insanely luxurious, and for once in my life I’ve fallen on my feet.
I love Anna, but she’s fiercely competitive – it goes with her job, I think. I can almost hear her teeth gritting.
Oh… very nice.
Don’t forget your rent next Monday
she adds, a second or two later. There’s something cool in the way she says it. No kiss, no emoji. Just a crisp reminder.
I get up and wander over to the window, watching the light dancing on the water of the loch below.
In the distance, there’s a stone boathouse, and beyond it, I can just make out a little wooden rowing boat with a lone figure at the oars. It all feels so far from anything familiar.
I start unpacking, placing my bits and pieces on the dressing table where they look small and a little cheap against the polished wood.
At the bottom of my bag, I find my lucky copy of Pride and Prejudice – battered and faded, its corners soft from years of reading and re-reading.
I won it in a school writing competition when I was twelve; it was my Jane Austen gateway drug.
And now, somehow, I’ve ended up in my own version of Pemberley.
I flip through the pages, and a pressed marigold slips out, landing softly in my lap.
I pick it up, remembering the day it was given to me by Grandma Rose, on the front step of our little house near Edinburgh. She wasn’t a gardener, but bright yellow marigolds sprouted up through the weedy scrub of rocks by the gate and she’d handed me one, telling me they symbolised determination.
“And you’ll need that,” she’d said grimly. A year later she was dead, and I was finished university and all alone in the world. I left Scotland then, heading to London because I thought it was the place where everything happened. It turned out it did, only not always to me.
The strange thing is that as soon as I got off the plane in Inverness, my heart felt at home in a way that doesn’t make sense. Maybe Scotland is in my blood, after all.
I finish unpacking, lie down and close my eyes for a five-minute nap.
I wake up an hour later and pour a glass of water from the fridge, wandering through to stare at my reflection in the bathroom.
Oh my god, I can’t believe I look so shit.
I can’t believe I look so shit in the house of the hottest man I ever met in my life who just happens to be a fucking billionaire duke who lives in a castle.
And I’m dressed in a horrendous grey suit that makes me look like cabin crew for a really shit airline with my hair scraped back from my face so I look like a giant sweaty moon with a halo of orange fuzz.
I need to work out what I’m supposed to wear to dinner.
And then what to wear for the next three months.
I need to look simultaneously effortlessly chic and writerly and also like I don’t give a damn what he thinks of me.
I strip off, throwing my hideous outfit on the chair which sits by the roll-top bath, and untie my hair to shake it loose.
There’s a massive walk-in shower in the corner – one with a rainfall head and a bonus hand-held jet for dealing with the frustration that builds up when you arrive to do a job and discover the man you’ve been trying not to think about for the last three months is your new boss, seemingly loathes you on sight, and your body hasn’t got the memo.
Right then, I feel a jolt of longing between my legs and press my thighs together as if to contain it, somehow.
I turn on the shower and let it run for a moment before I step onto the pale grey tiles, feeling the needles of water soak my hair and run down my body.
The shower gel is thick and luxurious. I rub into my skin, washing away the metallic odour of airports and plane seats and sweating in badly chosen clothes.
Slowly and deliberately, I massage my scalp with the shampoo as the rosemary and lavender scented steam fills the room, clouding the mirror opposite so my body is a hazy shape.
Water runs in rivulets down my shoulders, and I try to stop myself thinking about Rory.