Chapter 6 #2
“It’s so wet,” Erin said. “And flammable. And entirely inappropriate for princes and princesses.”
Alexandra would, Erin suspected, probably think it was hilarious and join them anyway if given half a chance. This was precisely why Erin was not giving her half a chance.
There was a knock at the door.
“Enter,” Erin called, because apparently they were doing things the posh way now even when standing ankle-deep in damp towel.
One of the housekeepers—Maureen, Erin thought, a small Scottish woman with forearms of steel and an expression that said she’d seen everything and been impressed by very little—stepped in.
She took in the scene with one sweeping glance: the towels, the sagging duvet, the children shaped like damp laundry.
“Oh, love,” she said. It was unclear whether she was addressing Erin or the mattress.
“We had a blizzard,” Frank offered. “It was tactical.”
Maureen’s mouth twitched. “Aye, I can see that,” she said. “You’ve done the laundry a right treat.”
“I’m so sorry,” Erin said automatically. Apologising to staff for her children’s antics had become a reflex. “We’ll help clear it up, of course. I just—could we get… I don’t know. Replacement everything?”
Maureen’s expression did that tiny, almost imperceptible shift that Erin had learned to interpret over the years. Not reluctance. Not disapproval. Just a kind of bracing.
“That’s the thing,” Maureen said. “We’ve had a wee… issue in the laundry wing.”
The word wee did a lot of heavy lifting there. Erin’s stomach sank.
“What kind of issue?” she asked.
“Pipe burst,” Maureen said. “The snow’s weighed on the roof wrong, and there’s been some… leakage. Half the dryers are out. We’ve got sheets queued up back to the stairs. We’ll get to it, don’t you worry, but it won’t be tonight.”
Erin stared at the mattress again. “So this…” she said slowly, “…is not going to be fixed any time soon.”
“If I put it in the queue,” Maureen said, eyeing the waterlogged sag, “we might have a bed for you by Hogmanay. Maybe.”
Hogmanay. New Year.
Erin’s brain, unhelpful traitor that it was, immediately supplied the image of Alex in something slinky, champagne in one hand, midnight countdown echoing through the castle while Erin tried to get comfortable on a damp patch.
She shoved the thought away.
“Right,” she said. “Okay. So. Plan B. Spare rooms?”
“Full to the gunnels,” Maureen said. “We’ve shifted some of the older staff out of the coldest wing and into the guest rooms while we get the heating stabilised. And Ms. Grey- Hughes-Wilding has… claimed one for the emergency Christmas staging area.”
Of course she had.
“There is a wee attic room two floors up,” Maureen continued. “It’s got a bed, at least, and dry linens. But it’s no’ exactly… royal.”
Erin imagined Alex’s face if she suggested they decamp to the attic like characters in a Dickens novel. To be fair, Alex would probably find it romantic. Erin’s knees, on the other hand, would lodge a formal complaint.
“How small is ‘wee’?” she asked.
Maureen held up her hands, outlining a space roughly the size of a generous cupboard. “Cozy,” she said diplomatically. “For two.”
“And four children?” Erin asked.
Maureen’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re not planning on putting all four bairns in with you as well, are you?”
“Not if I can possibly help it,” Erin said fervently. “No offence, small people.”
“None taken,” Florence said. “You snore.”
“I do not snore,” Erin said automatically.
“You do a little,” Hyz said. “When you fall asleep reading.”
Traitors. All of them.
Maureen gave her a sympathetic look. “We’ll do what we can, Sergeant,” she said. “I’ll see if we can rustle up a temporary mattress for the floor. Might be we can borrow something from the staff wing. It won’t be fancy, but it’ll be dry.”
“Dry is my new favourite luxury,” Erin said. “Thank you. I appreciate it. And again, I’m sorry for the… indoor weather system.”
Maureen’s lips twitched again. “Och, this is nothing,” she said. “Last week, one of the under-chefs tried to deep-fry a Christmas pudding while drunk. Nearly took his eyebrows off. We’ve had worse in this castle than a few soggy towels.”
With that, she retreated, already pulling out her phone to no doubt rally a small army of laundry soldiers.
The door closed behind her. Silence, for a moment, fell in the soggy, overheated room.
Erin let out a breath.
“Okay,” she said. “Status update. Our bed is dead. The laundry is flooded. The heating is patchy. The children are damp. We are relocating.”
“Relocating where?” Matilda asked.
“Somewhere that doesn’t squelch,” Erin said. “New objective: dry socks, dry pyjamas, dry… everything.”
“What about you and Mummy Alex?” Florence asked. “Where will you sleep?”
“In a cozy attic love nest,” Vic’s voice chimed from the doorway.
Erin turned. Vic leaned against the frame, hair frizzing slightly from the humidity, clipboard nowhere to be seen for once.
“You heard,” Erin said.
“It’s a stone castle, love, not a soundproof bunker,” Vic said. “Also, Maureen texted me a photo.” She flicked her phone screen toward Erin, revealing a picture of the devastated mattress. “RIP Bed. You served the monarchy well.”
Erin groaned. “I can’t believe this.”
“I can,” Vic said. “This place is a sitcom waiting to happen. Good news, though: I’ve already started Operation Sleeping Arrangements. Code name: Project Musical Beds.”
“I don’t like that code name,” Erin said. “It sounds like a swingers’ retreat.”
Vic waggled her eyebrows. “Bit of festive spice—”
“Don’t,” Erin said. “Don’t finish that sentence.”
Hyzenthlay had climbed fully out of the fort now and was standing with her hands on her hips, taking in the damage like a foreman at a construction site.
“We can all sleep in my room,” she suggested. “I have a bunk bed. We can make a rota. Or build a mega-bed on the floor.”
“No one is building anything,” Erin said, “for at least an hour.”
“If it helps,” Vic said, “Alex said she’s happy to slum it. Her exact words were, ‘I once slept in a tent in Kenya. I’ll survive a slightly lumpy mattress.’”
Erin’s heart did a stupid twist. Alex would say that. Alex would make the best of it. Alex would turn it into a story to tell later, when all of this was funny instead of vaguely soul-crushing.
Erin wanted to be that light about it too. She did. But all she could think about was that every logistical setback pushed sex further and further down the list of priorities.
You can’t have sex on a mattress that makes squelching noises. You can’t have sex in a room where four children are building a pillow fort. You can’t have sex in a tiny attic while the heating groans and someone texts you about reindeer logistics.
“You look like someone cancelled Christmas,” Vic observed, tilting her head.
“Just recalibrating expectations,” Erin said, forcing her mouth into a smile. “At this point, if I manage a nap alone, I’ll count it as a sexual experience.”
“That’s bleak,” Vic said. “Very relatable, but bleak.”
Erin rubbed a hand over her face. Her skin felt hot and tight from the humidity.
“Okay,” she said. “Vic, can you take Hyz and the triplets to your room and start the ‘dry everything’ process? Julia’s there?”
“Julia is always there, in a metaphorical sense,” Vic said. “But yes, she’s there in a literal sense too. Come on, small wet people. We’re going to raid the emergency pyjamas.”
“Emergency pyjamas?” Matilda perked up. “Do they have patterns?”
“They have dinosaurs,” Vic said. “And stars. And possibly a unicorn.”
“I call unicorn,” Florence said immediately.
“It’s every woman for herself,” Vic said. “Move, move, move.”
The children tumbled out of the fort, shedding damp socks and leaving little footprints on the carpet. Hyzenthlay paused just long enough to look back at Erin.
“Sorry,” she said. “About the bed. I didn’t think.”
Erin’s irritation deflated.
“I know,” she said, softening. “It’s okay. It’s… just a bed. We’ll sort it. Just… next time, simulate your snowstorms in a room with less upholstery, yeah?”
Hyzzie nodded gravely. “I’ll perform experiments in the bathroom,” she said.
“On second thought—” Erin began, but Vic had already herded them all out, singing some nonsense marching tune.
The door closed.
The silence that followed was almost physical.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
Automatically, she pulled it out, expecting a message from Julia or Patel about the power situation. Or maybe Alex, checking in.
Instead, the notification banner at the top of the screen showed the security ops group chat. The one that only lit up when something was properly… interesting.
She thumbed it open, a prickle of residual adrenaline sparking in her chest.
The latest message was from Lewis, the lead on external logistics.
There’s… an issue with the reindeer delivery.
Erin stared at the words for a long, incredulous second.
Of course there is, she thought.
Of course there bloody is.