12. Edie
EDIE
Eight-thirty in the morning, and I’m sitting at the desk of the late Duke of Kinnaird. Two can play that game – if he’s going to summon me for riding lessons at the crack of dawn, then I’m damn well going to prove I’m up to the job by getting here first and tackling the paperwork.
I’ve got a coffee from the kitchen, a pain au chocolat, a handful of grapes, and a fierce sense of purpose. I’m ready to go. Ready, and aching in places I didn’t even know I could ache.
I feel like my legs are going to fall off.
It was a great idea in theory, riding around the estate with Rory as he showed me what he was working to save.
Not such a great idea when we got back to the stable yard and I dismounted, only for my legs to almost give way underneath me so I had to grab hold of Moss’s mane to save face and stand for a moment gathering myself.
“It’s a killer when you haven’t ridden in ages,” Kate said, taking Moss’s reins. “How are your…” She tips her head southward. “Nether regions? ”
I burst out laughing. “Okay, I think?” I make a face. “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
“I’ll expect a report on the estate group chat.”
“Funnily enough I’m not signed up for that.” I can’t imagine Rory keeping everyone up to date with the gossip on a Loch Morven group chat.
“Well, you can come over and see me and let me know.” Kate grins, her freckled nose crinkling. “Not that I’m invested in the state of your fanny, to be perfectly honest, but it’s nice to have a new face around here to talk to. Have you got a car?”
I shake my head. Kate fiddles beneath the flaps of the saddle and slides it off Moss’s back, turning to cast an accusatory eye on Rory.
“Have you taken this girl hostage? How’s she supposed to get from A to B if she doesn’t have a car?”
He strides towards us, a saddle over his arm. “I have not, and we’ll sort you out with something. I assume you have a license?”
I nod.
“Leave it with me.” He narrows his eyes and looks at Kate. “I don’t need you leading her off the straight and narrow, MacEwan. She’s got a job to do.”
“All work and no play, Kinnaird.” Kate dumps the second saddle in his arms.
He grunts and heads off towards the tack room with the saddles. I drag my eyes away from the sight of his broad shoulders and the bulk of his arms. Kate gives me a fleeting sideways look. Okay, so she doesn’t miss a trick.
“Nice to have some new blood on the estate. Come and see me any time. I can fill you in on all the inside info you won’t hear anywhere else.” She laces her fingers together and stretches her arms over her head .
“I get the feeling that’s the very last thing Rory would want.”
“I’m certain it is.” Kate had shot me a conspiratorial smile and waggled her brows. “So, I’ll take it that’s a deal then?”
I’d met her grin with one of my own. “You’re on.”
We’d headed back to the estate, Rory pointing out various landmarks as we went, then I’d showered and come down to find some lunch in the kitchen. A set of car keys were sitting on the island.
“For you,” Janey had said, sliding them towards me. “There’s a little Golf in the garage round the back. I’ve sorted the insurance, so you can explore the area and find your feet a bit. Might make you feel a bit less trapped.”
It’s something to look forward to after I’ve tackled some work. Right now, I need to get a grip on what the next few weeks are going to look like.
First things first: this study feels like a mausoleum. I’m not sure why the curtains are half-drawn or why the whole room sits in gloomy half-light, but it doesn’t look like anyone’s touched it since the late duke passed.
I drag the heavy curtains open – they weigh a ton – and lift the catch on the sash window to let in some air. Crisp pine and cold, clean air rush in, cutting through the stale, heavy atmosphere. I breathe it in, grateful.
It’s better and brighter already. Dust motes dance in the sunlight and I can hear the crunch of gravel outside as someone arrives in the courtyard.
A moment later there’s shouting, and laughter and I see a familiar van arriving – the last thing I expected to see over here was a Tesco delivery – but everyone needs groceries, I guess.
If Rory’s the epitome of buttoned-up upper class restraint, his father must have been the diametric opposite.
It feels like digging through his dirty laundry, looking for the choicest pieces to pull together a generation’s history to be kept in the archives.
It’s a massive responsibility, and my stomach flutters with nerves.
There’s only one way to eat an elephant , I remind myself. One bite at a time .
The papers on his desk are yellowed and curling, ringed with coffee stains and splashes of goodness knows what else.
I pick up a piece and sniff it, catching a faint ghost of a whiff of whisky.
There’s an enormous wooden tea chest to one side of the desk, half-full of red leather diaries. I pick one up.
1981, January
I turn the brittle pages, squinting at the faded ink – his writing is legible, at least. That’s a start. I trace a finger along the lines as I read aloud, as if somehow that might help me get a feeling for the late duke.
“MacDuff is a damn fool. Went shooting with him yesterday and he’s complaining the gamekeeper’s been doing a half-arsed job, but he’s the one that’s been pocketing the funds for it.
That stable lad’s been running errands for him after hours, and if the rumours are true, those errands aren’t exactly business related… ”
I’m just getting into it, putting on a gruff upper-class accent and pressing my chin to my chest to do my best impression of a stereotypical aristocrat.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Rory’s voice cuts through the room like a whip, and I jump. The book slips out of my hands and crashes onto the floor, the pages coming unglued and flying across the carpet. His face is a mask of fury.
“I’m doing my job.” My pulse is rushing in my ears, and I feel inexplicably guilty, like I’ve been caught with my hand in the till.
“You don’t show up for dinner, then turn up in my father’s study without so much as a by your leave.” His jaw is clenched as he fixes me with that terrifying stony gaze.
I feel my face burning hot with indignant embarrassment.
“I took dinner upstairs. Janey said I could have it wherever I liked, and I had a zoom meeting at eight.” I’m not about to tell him it was Anna calling because she wanted to see the place for herself on a video call.
“You never said anything about waiting to get started. I assumed you’d want me to get straight to work. ”
Rory’s eyes flick over the desk, taking in the scattered papers and the piles of journals I’ve started to put into year order.
“These papers – these diaries – I need you to appreciate that this isn’t something you can leaf through casually.
Your job is to record them accurately, not dig for gossip. ”
I open my mouth to protest.
“And certainly not to mock centuries of heritage,” he adds, his eyes pinning me to the spot.
I stand up slowly, ignoring the fact that my poor thighs are screaming and my backside feels like I’ve done five hundred weighted squats. I stiffen my posture and raise my chin to look as haughty and self-righteous as possible.
“I’m doing my job, Your Grace. What exactly did you expect? I can’t write a memoir without knowing the man behind the words. You can’t just sweep him under the rug and pretend he didn’t exist.”
His expression darkens and he takes a step towards me. I watch his chest rise and fall under the crisp cotton of his shirt.
“I’m asking you to focus on the facts, Edie, and not get caught up in what you might perceive to be the juicy details .”
The words drip with scorn, and I feel myself withering slightly. “You want me to be a stenographer? Because if you want me to transcribe every single note and diary entry verbatim, I can do that, but it’s going to take a hell of a lot longer than three months.”
“No,” he says, and this time his voice is almost calm.
“I want you to tell the story for the family records, as discussed. But I need you to understand that this isn’t a history lesson.
” He gestures to the room, and with a sweep of his arm takes in the view outside that rolls down towards the loch.
“The estate, my family’s legacy, it’s all tangled up in these pages.
And if we don’t get it right, it could cost more than you could hope to understand. ”
A muscle works in his stubbled jaw, and he rubs a hand across his face, then rakes it through his hair. It falls stubbornly back over his forehead. I can’t figure out why he’s reacting like this to some vague ramblings about a gamekeeper.
“Everything is in those papers. Every lie, every mistake, every bad decision he made. I’m not going to let it all come undone because it’s fun to dig through his dirty laundry.”
I feel my cheeks sting pink as he quotes my own words back to me as if he can read my mind.
For a moment I don’t speak, and the air between us crackles with tension.
Despite the irritation building in my chest, I feel something, a strange pull towards him.
Maybe it’s the sheer force of his frustration, or the vulnerability that he’s determined not to show, but there’s something.
“If you want me to write this,” I say steadily, “you’re going to have to trust me.”
“It’s not you I don’t trust,” Rory says quietly, and I notice the tired shading beneath his eyes. “It’s my father.”
And for a moment I get a sense of the weight of all of it – the responsibility that comes with the privilege, the expectations that are inherited along with the castle and the land and all the rest. I love the history of this place, and the magic of the past that seems to haunt every passageway.
For Rory, though, it seems like some sort of poisoned chalice.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” he says, and turns and walks away.