Chapter 7
Yet another day dawned with Giselle ensconced in her chair outside the bothy, having slept poorly.
She was trying to work out how she was to make a living once the castle changed hands.
She’d attempted to look on the bright side, that someone might buy the castle and craft centre as a going concern, but she knew she was clutching at straws.
With Mhairi’s passing, an era had ended and nothing would ever be the same again.
Giselle wished she could summon the energy to make her usual early morning trek to the loch, but she felt too sad, too despondent.
What was the point? Very soon she might be packing up the contents of the studio and handing back the keys.
And most likely, she’d also be packing up the bothy and handing those keys back to the mortgage company as well.
Damn Rocco Moore.
She sat for a while longer, hoping the peace and beauty of the morning would soothe her, but when her phone rang she was glad of the interruption to her melancholy thoughts.
‘Where are you?’ Izzy demanded. Her sister’s face beamed out of the screen, lightly tanned and perfectly made up. She looked so together and so gorgeous that it made her heart ache.
Giselle felt self-conscious, wrapped in an old blanket with her hair a tangled mess. ‘At the bothy.’ She turned the screen to show her twin the view.
Izzy did the same. She was walking along a busy street and the backdrop to Izzy’s voice was rumbling engines and honking horns. ‘I thought you’d be rock scrabbling or dibbling about on the beach,’ she said, her face once again filling the screen. ‘It looks like a nice day in Duncoorie.’
‘It is.’
‘Then why aren’t you annoying the crabs and seagulls?’
Giselle managed a small smile at her sister’s teasing. She knew Izzy was immensely proud of her and very supportive, just as Giselle was of her. ‘Why aren’t you designing something fabulous instead of stomping along the street?’
‘Because I’m phoning you, silly. Anyway, I’m on my way to work right now. Why aren’t you?’
‘Didn’t feel like it.’
‘Oh, Zelle, was the funeral really bad?’
‘No worse than expected. The service was lovely.’
‘There’s no need to be brave about it. I know how much Mhairi meant to you. I only met her a couple of times, but she was such a lovely woman.’
‘She was.’ Giselle paused. ‘The new owner was there.’
‘Who is it?’
‘A cousin, apparently.’
‘What’s he like?’
As gorgeous as I remember. ‘He’s going to sell the castle.’
Giselle watched Izzy cross the road before her twin replied. ‘In a way, you can’t blame him. If someone handed me an old castle, I’d sell up, too.’
‘I know, but…’
‘You’re worried,’ Izzy finished.
That was an understatement. ‘Just a bit. He thinks it’ll go to a wealthy American with Scottish heritage, who won’t want busloads of tourists traipsing through the castle grounds.’
‘It might be sold to someone who likes tourists. They mightn’t keep the castle going as a hotel, but the craft centre is a good little earner, I bet.’
‘Hmm.’ Giselle wasn’t convinced. She’d worked so hard to make a life for herself on Skye – a life she loved – that anything which threatened it was going to worry her.
It was the uncertainty that was the worst. At least if she knew for definite one way or the other then she could plan.
Although what she would plan was beyond her ken right now.
‘I wish I was there to give you a hug,’ Izzy said. ‘You look as though you need one.’
‘I do. Please say you’ll visit soon.’ Izzy had more disposable income than Giselle, so it was far more likely that her sister would come to Skye than it was for Giselle to go to Milan. She played her trump card. ‘Mum and Dad would love to see you.’
‘I’ll try, but work is so hectic at the moment. It’s not long until Fashion Week.’
‘It’s always Fashion Week,’ Giselle grumbled.
‘Only twice a year.’
‘Aye, in Milan. What about New York, Paris, Berlin…?’
‘You forgot London.’
‘That was in June, and Mum and Dad went there to see you. You didn’t come to Scotland.’
‘I know, Zelle, and I’m sorry. You should have come with them.’
Giselle would have done if she could have afforded it.
Their parents would have paid if they’d known how strapped for cash she was, but she hadn’t wanted to worry them.
She was almost thirty: she should be able to stand on her own two feet without accepting handouts.
She’d contemplated trying to get a part-time job for a few weeks to supplement her income, but the tourist season in Skye took off in April, so all her energy had been focused on her art and the studio.
And, as a rule, she got by on what she earnt.
It was just the extras she couldn’t afford – like expensive trips to London.
Izzy broke into her thoughts. ‘Keep your chin up, Zelle. Gotta run, speak later. Ciao.’
‘Bye,’ Giselle said to a blank screen. Reluctantly, she got to her feet. There was no point sitting here fretting. She may as well go to the studio and make some more pictures, while she still could.
Rocco stretched, the vertebrae in his lower spine clicking as he did so, making him wince, and surveyed the damage.
Piles of papers, letters and photos were dotted around Mhairi’s sitting room, but at least they were in some kind of order.
Sort of. Without going through them with a fine-toothed comb, he wouldn’t know what to keep and what to throw out, but he didn’t have time for that now.
He would have them boxed up and arrange for them to be sent to his house in London, where he could pick through them at his leisure.
Or put them in the attic. He had an inkling he’d do the latter.
Life was too busy to be spent reading crinkle-cornered letters and studying black-and-white photos of people he wouldn’t have a hope in hell of identifying.
Mhairi’s sitting room sported a kettle, a solid earthenware teapot and a tin of loose-leafed Lady Grey tea. He preferred coffee to tea, but he’d been working for most of the day and was thirsty, so he made himself a cup.
As he waited for the kettle to boil, he strolled over to one of the wide windows.
This, he decided, must be the best room in the castle. With a double aspect, it had views to the south and the west, and all of it was of sky, mountains and water, with a few trees to frame it.
He watched the play of sunlight and cloud across the loch and the purpled hills beyond, and couldn’t decide whether it was shortbread-biscuit-tin pretty or wild and untamed.
He supposed it depended on one’s perspective – and the weather.
Yesterday and today had been bright and sunny, a bit breezy at times, but warm.
He imagined it would be very different in the throes of a gale, or in the depths of winter.
Right now, the scene was a calm one, with several boats on the water.
Movement near to the castle caught his eye and he glimpsed someone walking down the lane, the figure partly obscured by the trees as it headed for the shoreline.
It was unmistakably Giselle, and his heart gave a jolt.
Without stopping to consider what he was doing, Rocco bolted to the door and careened down the winding staircase.
By the time he found his way onto the lane, she was nowhere in sight, so he carried on walking in the direction he’d seen her heading.
Past the former boathouse, past Cal’s cottage, the narrow sliver of beach was empty, the jetty devoid of life apart from a large white gull with a wicked beak and a gimlet stare, who watched him with wary anticipation.
Rocco eyed it suspiciously, thankful he didn’t have a portion of fish and chips in his possession, as he might have had a battle on his hands.
The seagull looked like it could hold its own in a fight.
It flew off with a coarse squawk, and Rocco turned his back on it to gaze along the shoreline, one hand shielding his eyes from the sun’s glare.
A silhouette shimmered in the distance, picking its way over the rocks at the far end of the beach, and he recognised Giselle.
Every so often she would bend over and peer at the ground.
He assumed she was looking for fragments of sea glass and pretty pebbles, but she could just as easily be collecting whelks for her lunch or searching for washed-up pirate treasure, for all he knew.
Without knowing what he was going to say to her, he began to follow.
It was easy at first, over the soft sand, becoming more difficult when the beach petered out. He found he had to watch where he put his feet, and he wished he was wearing shoes with better soles. His tan brogues weren’t designed for rock hopping.
Little pools contained stranded clumps of kelp, and the occasional darting fish no longer than his finger, which were almost translucent.
Another pool held a crab the size of his palm, with wicked-looking pincers.
And everywhere there were barnacles or whelks clinging to the damp rocks. And seaweed. Lots of seaweed.
‘Found anything interesting?’ Giselle’s voice startled him, and he looked up from his rockpool gazing to find her regarding him quizzically.
‘A crab,’ he said. ‘And little fish.’
‘There’s a starfish in that one.’ She pointed, and he noticed a five-fingered (legged? tentacled?) starfish, coral-coloured against the dark rock.
‘Oh, wow.’ The small boy that he’d once been longed for a bucket and a net. Rock pooling, that’s what it was called, and he remembered the excitement and anticipation of turning over a pebble and seeing what wonders hid beneath.
‘Look.’ She held out a hand. A piece of dull blue glass sat in her palm. It didn’t look particularly exciting, but from the shine on Giselle’s face she was thrilled. ‘It’s probably from an old Milk of Magnesia bottle or Vicks VapoRub, or even from an old poison bottle.’
‘Poison?’
She nodded. ‘At the start of the twentieth century it became law to sell poisonous substances in easily recognisable bottles, and because so many people were unable to read, the bottles had ridges or were hexagonal in shape, so they couldn’t be mistaken for anything else, not even in a dark cupboard.
Some even had things like a skull or crossbones on them.
And the most popular colour for a poison bottle was blue. ’
He studied her face as she spoke, the spark in her eyes stirring something within that he didn’t have a name for. Envy, maybe? Or lust? It was more likely lust.
‘You found your passion.’
‘Yes.’
‘I saw your pictures.’ She said nothing, so he added, ‘The one in the gift shop, the big one of the loch, is impressive.’
‘Just the one?’
‘They all are. You have a talent.’
‘Thank you. What’s yours?’
‘Making money,’ he replied, without thinking.
‘It sounds like a curse.’
‘It is if you don’t have any,’ he retorted.
‘I doubt whether you know what that’s like.’
She had a point; he didn’t. But his father had worked bloody hard to make his asset management business a success, and so had his mother, who’d had to take over the reins after his father died.
They hadn’t had it as easy as Giselle assumed.
Yes, they were relatively well off, but it hadn’t always been the case.
And Rocco hadn’t had everything handed to him on a silver platter, either.
Apart from this castle, which had been a totally unexpected windfall.
‘Money makes the world go round,’ he countered.
‘Wrong. Love does.’
‘Love doesn’t put food on the table or a roof over your head.’
‘Money doesn’t buy you happiness.’
‘Maybe not, but you’ll be a damned sight more miserable without it.’
‘When is enough money enough? Or do you just keep making it, ad infinitum?’
‘I don’t make it for me. I make it for my clients.’
‘Is that what asset managers do?’
‘You remembered?’ He was surprised.
‘You said you had a job to go to in January.’
‘I did. My father’s firm. He owned an asset management company.’
‘Do you own it now?’
He could see her assessing him and finding him lacking, but in what, he wasn’t sure. ‘No. My mother does; I work for her.’ Technically true. He did. But he was also a director and a shareholder, and the business would be his one day.
‘Oh.’ She subsided a fraction, and he resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at her. She quickly rallied. ‘You won’t be short of a penny or two when you sell the castle.’ She made it sound as though having money was a cardinal sin.
Anger flared. ‘I suppose you’d like to help me spend it?’ he snapped. ‘Exotic holidays, fine restaurants, designer labels?’
She looked pointedly at his leather brogues, now damp from the salt water. ‘Hardly! I don’t need an exotic holiday when I’ve got this on my doorstep.’ She swept a theatrical arm at the loch. ‘And what use are designer labels on a beach?’ Another glance at his shoes.
His anger ebbed as swiftly as it had arrived, and he felt amusement stirring. ‘How about fine restaurants?’
‘I prefer fish and chips from the chippie,’ she replied loftily.
‘So, if I invited you to dinner at the castle, you’d refuse?’ His lips twitched.
‘Actually, I would.’
Her answer surprised him, but he wasn’t entirely certain she wasn’t calling his bluff. ‘Dine with me tonight,’ he urged.
‘No, thanks. I’m not joking: I really do prefer a portion of chips and a piece of cod from the chip shop.’
‘Fish and chips it is, then,’ he said. ‘I’ll pick you up at seven.’
Her mouth opened and closed like the fish in the rock pool, before she finally said, ‘You can’t; you don’t know where I live.’
‘I can find out. Your address will be on the studio’s lease agreement.’
‘That’s cheating.’
‘I call it ingenuity. See you at seven.’ He didn’t give her the chance to refuse, striding away over the rocks and hoping he wouldn’t twist an ankle.
He also hoped she would be in when he arrived to pick her up, because from the look on her face, he wasn’t entirely sure she would be.