15. Edie
EDIE
“You haven’t sent me that book,” Janey says with a waggle of her finger.
It’s morning and I’m hovering in the kitchen, drinking coffee and telling myself I’m not waiting around to see if Rory’s anywhere to be seen.
“I forgot,” I lie. My confidence was knocked when Charlotte sent it out on submission to publishers, even though I had a few sweet replies from editors who said they liked it but couldn’t see where it would fit right now. That felt like a nice way of saying “it’s a bit shit”.
“I’ll send it when I go back upstairs later.” I pick up the car keys and finish the last of my coffee.
“Are you off for an adventure?”
“I’m going to pick up a few bits,” I say, vaguely. Gregor’s standing by the stove and I don’t want to get into a conversation about forgetting to bring tampons and my period being just around the corner. “Thought I’d go and explore the village nearby. It says there’s a shop on Google Maps? ”
Gregor turns and offers Janey one of the cookies he’s taken out of the oven.
“Watch yourself,” he says, “they’re hot.”
Their eyes meet for a second and I notice Janey’s cheeks have flushed a pretty pink as she turns back to me.
“Yes, we’ve got all modern conveniences,” Janey teases. “We’re quite civilised. If you’re going to town, pop into the coffee shop and have one of their Swedish cardamom buns – they’re heavenly.”
I notice a message from Anna on my phone as I slide it into my bag. It’s a slightly acidic remark about not forgetting now I’m hanging out with the country set that I need to pay her back that money I owe her.
The road down to the village twists through the moorland and over a long stand of pine woods neatly planted in rows.
The only traffic I come across is a tractor and a huge forestry truck loaded with an enormous stack of thick pine trunks.
Both drivers give me a nod and a wave, I guess because I’m driving a car that belongs to the castle.
This must be how it feels to be one of the landed gentry.
Except I get to the village of Loch Morven and the people there are just as friendly.
It’s a million miles from London, physically and psychologically.
I’ve left the Golf in a little car park by the sea wall and strolled along the path that looks down over a pale sandy beach.
In the distance there’s a little harbour, and a white painted boat is sailing off towards the distant islands.
Faded bunting flaps between the old-fashioned iron streetlamps, and the whole place looks like a painting.
There’s a little convenience store and a white-painted hotel with wooden seats outside where some walkers are sitting drinking beer with their dogs lying peacefully at their feet .
“Edie, hi!”
I’m so startled when I open the door to the coffee shop that I almost pull it closed on my face. It’s dark inside and I can’t see a thing for a moment while my eyes adjust from the bright sunlight outdoors.
Kate’s standing by the counter in a short denim skirt, thick tights and a pair of purple Doc Marten’s boots.
“I thought it was you. How’s it going?”
“Better for seeing all this.” I tip my head in the direction of the glass shelf stacked with cinnamon-scented pastries and delicious croissants and buns.
“Come and join me. I was going to sit and do some accounts stuff with a coffee, but I’d far rather have a chat. What would you like?”
“I’ve been instructed to try the cardamom buns.”
“Janey’s favourite.” Kate grins. “And a coffee? Tea?”
We get our food and head over to the table by the window.
“This is my favourite spot. It’s impossible to snag in summer when the tourists are here, but this time of the year I can pretty much always nab it.”
The cardamom bun is every bit as good as Janey said it would be, soft and sticky with just the right amount of spice. I close my eyes for a second and take in the familiar sounds of a coffee shop, the chattering and the whoosh of the machine, the clinking of glasses.
“You okay?”
My eyes pop open. “Sorry, I was just having a moment where I felt at home.”
“Culture shock up at the big house?”
“Something like that. I mean it’s beautiful, and my bedroom – well, rooms – they’re amazing. ”
“But it takes a bit of adjusting to get used to staying in a castle, yeah?”
“Is that weird?”
“I’d say it was weird if you didn’t find it strange. There’s a reason Jamie lives in the cottage on the estate.”
“I wondered about that.”
“It’s called the cottage, but it’s a miniature castle with five bedrooms.” She rolls her eyes.
“Anyway, I half-wondered if he’d move back after his father died, to be honest I…
” She trails of for a moment and looks at me thoughtfully.
“Oh, I suppose you’re writing his memoirs, you’ll get a handle on the old bugger soon enough.
Anyway, what was I saying? Yeah, I wondered if he’d move back once his dad was out of the way, but – well, who wants to be living at home in their thirties, even if home is a castle? ”
“They could have different wings.”
Kate makes a face. “I can’t see Rory going in for a flat share, can you?”
I laugh. “Alright, you’ve got a point.”
“Plus, he’s got his own stuff to get over.”
I take a sip of coffee. I don’t want to pry but I’m dying to know what she means.
“He didn’t get on with his dad. Now he’s trying to rebuild the foundation, pull it back into shape. Has he told you what they do?”
“Ish.” I think of our ride round the estate the other day. “Lots of good works and community stuff, rewilding, that sort of thing?”
“He takes the responsibility very seriously. The way Rory sees it, he’s just a guardian for that place, and it’s his job to make sure everyone thrives.
” Kate rips off a piece of her pastry and chews it thoughtfully.
“Trouble is if you ask me – and nobody does – he forgets he needs to thrive, too. The estate isn’t supposed to come at the expense of his own happiness. ”
I think about how careworn he looked the other night on the phone, and the dark shadows under his eyes. “He does seem a bit frazzled.”
“You cut Rory in half, and you’d see the word duty through the middle, like a stick of Blackpool rock.” Kate rolls her eyes. “And I say that with love. He’s like a big brother to me. I’ve known him for years.”
“And the stables, how do they fit in?”
She leans back in her chair. “Well, there’s always been ponies here at the estate –traditionally they used the Highlands for carrying deer down from the moor, and for pulling carts and things like that.”
“But nowadays they don’t?”
“Oh yeah, they’re still used for shoots. It’s impossible to get vehicles across a peat moor, and the ponies are strong and sure footed. We’ve been breeding them here for a hundred years and there are Loch Morven Highlands as far across the globe as Australia.”
“That’s amazing.”
“Yeah, my little horses do quite well.” She picks up a raisin and pops it in her mouth.
“And the Arabs – the Arabian horses – well, that was Rory’s mother, the duchess.
She was mad about them, and she brought the mares and our first stallion over in the 1980s and it took off from there.
Funnily enough even though they’re pretty they don’t make anywhere like the same sort of money. ”
“That’s an amazing job to have.”
“You say that. You’re a writer. I think that’s impressive. ”
I lift a shoulder. “It sounds more impressive than it is, I think.”
“Have you written anything I’d have heard of?”
I shake my head. “So far I’ve only done ghost-writing.” I’m going to assume that Kate’s not into cats or tarot cards.
“That must be weird. So you see your book on the shelves in the bookshop, but you can’t tell anyone you wrote it?”
“Exactly like that.”
“And you don’t want to be famous?”
I shake my head. “I don’t want to be famous at all, can’t think of anything worse.”
“You sound like Rory. He’s allergic to the press, which is unfortunate given he’s just inherited one of the biggest estates in the Highlands, half of London and a good chunk of California.” She laughs. “Oh and New York.”
“New York?”
Kate nods, her dark ponytail swinging. “Yeah, they’ve got a building overlooking Central Park and the most amazing penthouse. I’ve stayed in it once.”
“No wonder,” I start to say, then realise I’m thinking out loud.
Kate cocks her head in query.
“Oh, just thinking about something… something Rory said the other day.”
“He’s a dark horse, that one.”
“Unlike his brother?” I think of Jamie, who seems as sunny and open as Rory is closed off and taciturn.
Kate presses two fingers to her mouth for a moment and glances away before she speaks. “Oh, Jamie’s another thing altogether.”
Rory is a dark horse indeed. Strange to think that the night we spent in New York he’d come from his own apartment.
Stranger still to realise that what I thought was a fancy hotel room must have felt like slumming it to him, not that he’d seemed to mind.
My stomach twists at the memory. The idea of a New York penthouse feels too posh to imagine and yet I’m staying in his actual castle.
“Doesn’t it feel weird to you to know that all that land is theirs?”
Kate shakes her head. “I think if he was someone else, maybe. But Rory’s not the sort of person to throw his weight around. Or his money, for that matter. Have you seen the state of his Land Rover?”
I laugh. “Yeah, it’s a bomb site.”
“Exactly. He went to the local school with us, you know, his mother pushed for that. She wanted him to have his feet on the ground. God knows if it had been up to his father he’d have been sent to Eton at the age of seven or something, and you can imagine how he’d have turned out then.”
I think about the reams of notes and the scrawled writing in the notebooks. Even the briefest reading I’ve done has given me an inkling of what the man was like. “Like his father?”
Kate points her last piece of pastry at me for emphasis. “Bingo. The thing about Rory is he wouldn’t let on who he was or where he came from unless you dragged it out of him. Even then, he’d downplay it all. He’s funny like that.”
“So he’s not the type to show off?” I press my lips together to suppress a smile at the idea of me mistaking one of the richest men in Britain for a bartender. “I mean this whole mean and moody thing doesn’t exactly scream ‘I’m a Duke’.”
“Not even a little bit,” Kate agrees. “But don’t think he doesn’t take it all seriously.
The estate, the foundation, all of it. I worry sometimes that the whole thing’s too much for one person to take on, especially when nobody really knows how bad it got under his dad.
Some of it’s public, but there’s more, I think even Rory’s still piecing it together. ”
“You mean his father again?”
Kate nods, her brows lifting for a second. “God knows what went through that man’s head.”
“Talking of which,” I say, glancing at my watch, “I probably ought to get to the shop and get back before I get too comfortable in my role as secret estate spy. I don’t want him coming to check up on me and realising I’ve been living my best life in a fancy coffee shop.”
“The only coffee shop,” Kate says, laughing.
“Don’t worry, nothing goes un-noticed in Loch Morven.
He’ll know all about it one way or another by the end of the day.
I’d better get the laptop out and sort out these accounts.
Come and see me up at the yard soon? We can have a coffee there and you can fill me in on all the scandal you uncover. ”
“I’ve signed an NDA. My head will be on the block if I start spilling state secrets.”
Kate laughs. “Okay, I’ll make wild guesses, and you can tell me if I’m right. The rumour mill is rife among the estate staff.”
“Deal.” I put my bag on my shoulder and pick up the bag of cardamom buns I’ve bought for Janey and Gregor.
I wave as I leave the coffee shop, the salt air blowing off the sea as I open the door and step back into the village.
My mind is buzzing, not with thoughts of the book, but questions about Rory.
I tell myself it’s about the job, but I’m lying to myself.
There’s something else, something I felt when he looked in the hallway.
Like he was trying not to feel anything.
It makes a weird sort of sense, having a no ties night in Manhattan with someone you’re never going to see again.
No wonder he’s so guarded with the weight of all that stuff on his shoulders.
I drive back across the moors, trying to think about work but my mind keeps pulling me back.
I want to find a way to get him to open up.
I want to know what’s going on behind that stern patrician demeanour.
And I want to know what Kate means by the estate gossip, too.