Chapter 15
Fifteen
I spent the rest of the evening having some blessed quiet time and unpacking my bags.
My room itself was jaw dropping; a huge four poster bed, a window overlooking a heretofore unseen lake, and the whole damn room is practically oversized.
So yes, I laid in the big bed with fresh white sheets and just luxuriated for a while.
But the whole time, I had a dazzling, daunting amount of questions. And now that I’m marching down the castle stairs into the main hall, they are pressing in on me.
What happened to Keir’s wife? Why does Isla claim to miss her? Where is she?
And more importantly, what about the blackmailing journalist? It seems too easy for that to just go away after we witnessed his death.… Right?
As I descend the stairs, I look out onto what is obviously the main hall.
There are no windows to speak of, no drapery or decoration of any kind.
It’s just smooth stone walls and a few ancient-looking deer and elk heads mounted on the wall.
Even those look frayed and old, like they have definitely seen better years.
I shake my head a little bit as I look at them.
That’s just gross.
I all but run into Keir and Isla when I round the stairs to come into the main hall.
Keir is sitting on the floor, looking at his phone while Isla cuts colorful pictures out of a magazine and pastes them onto a photo collage.
When I get closer, I realize that Isla isn’t being careful with her bottle of glue and there are pieces of magazine clippings stuck all over the wood floor, worn smooth from years and years of their ancestors footsteps.
I clear my throat, announcing my presence. Keir looks up with some surprise, as if I somehow just appeared here. Isla doesn’t even notice me or if she does, she certainly doesn’t let on.
“You made it downstairs,” Keir says.
Walking carefully around the area that Isla is currently ruining, I nod slowly. “I did. What are you guys up to?”
Keir’s gaze slides to Isla. He frowns and notices perhaps for the first time that she has made a rather large mess. He sucks in a breath and draws himself up, apparently not wanting to let on that Isla is defying his orders.
“We’re just hanging out. It’s pretty normal for a Wednesday morning, I would say.”
I keep circling and then I carefully kneel down, avoiding the collage she is working on. “Isla, why aren’t you in school today?”
She makes a frustrated little face, her mouth puckering up. Making a show of flattening out one of the pictures that she has cut out across the floor, she looks to Keir for help. The signal between them is implicit and no sooner has it passed that Keir opens his mouth to stand up for her.
“Isla isn’t feeling well. I told her that she didn’t have to go to school today.”
“No.” She looks at him, her brow wrinkling. “You told me that I didn’t have to go back this whole week. Right?”
I fold my arms across my chest and give Keir a puzzled glance.
He grimaces and shrugs a soldier. “I might’ve said that.”
“You did,” Isla informs him, with a somber countenance. “I remember every single thing you said.”
His lips twitch. “You’re like an elephant. That’s what they say. Elephants never forget.”
She shrugged her shoulders and wipes a grubby hand down the front of her white T-shirt. “Maybe,” comes her noncommittal response. Keir leans forward and puts his phone away with a sigh.
“Isla,” he says tactfully, “what if I told you that Ella is here to watch you when I can’t?”
Isla gives a tiny snort. “I want Aunt Saffron. If you can’t be here, and can’t watch me, then Saffron can.”
He exhales his breath in a long stream. “We talked about this, bumblebee. Saffron is busy with school. Just like you should be. She can’t stay with you all the time. That’s why I brought Ella here.”
Isla looks up at me, distress written across her face. It’s an odd thing to see because she is so young. I wonder what made her so skeptical of people other than Keir and Saffron.
It really makes me wonder about Isla’s mother.
“Isla, we’ve talked about this. We’ve gone over why I can’t be here and why Saffron has to be in Glasgow. Remember?”
She crosses her arms and shoots him a baleful look.
“No.”
“Well, we have. Do you need a refresher on what we talked about?”
She pokes her tongue out at him, making a face. He sort of throws his hands up and shakes his head but he doesn’t correct her behavior at all. My eyebrows rise at his lax treatment of his daughter.
Isla throws her glue sick down forcefully and it scatters across the wood floor, eventually rolling under a chair.
Keir doesn’t even blink or seem to notice.
I see a micro aggression happening where Isla looks at him, sees that he didn’t notice her miniature tantrum, and picks up the scissors instead.
Before she has the chance to throw them, I launch forward and pluck the scissors from her hand.
She looks surprised, as if she was surprised that I have noticed her little melodrama.
But in the next second, her expression turns into a pout.
“What did you do that for?”
“You can’t throw scissors. It could really hurt someone, Isla.”
She snorts. “No. It wouldn’t hurt anybody. And you don’t even know what I was about to do anyway.”
My eyebrows rise and I look to Keir for support. He is rummaging around in his pockets again, looking for his phone. At this point, I’m not even surprised that Isla tries so hard to get his attention.
“Keir! Will you pay attention to what’s going on here?”
He glances up, a deer in headlights. “What?”
I take the scissors that I just took from Isla and set them down by my side with an exasperated noise.
“What’s the issue?”
I look at Isla, my eyes whitening. “Is he always like this?”
Isla blinks, swallows hard, and then nods very slowly. “Mostly,” she says.
“What did I miss?” Keir asks.
It’s clear to me that there is a major disconnect between these two. But I am not even sure where to begin. No wonder young Isla is acting out. She has no one to listen to her, no one other than Saffron and occasionally Keir.
I try a different tactic. “Isla, I was wondering if you would do me a favor and show me the castle and the grounds later? You know, since I bet you have the best knowledge.”
She shoots me a glance full of skepticism.
“I’m busy. Doing important things.”
“Oh yeah? Like what? I can do it anytime that you have. I am wide open and ready to explore the castle.”
Isla shrugs a shoulder. She sneaks a glance at Keir and then screws up her face. “I am busy, like I said. So is my dad. You should probably leave.”
I was expecting a little bit of pushback, so I don’t react to this statement. I just remain calm. Inside though, I am a quivering mess of feelings. Mostly I am worried that Keir is not supporting me at all.
Then again, what did I really expect? This whole situation is just completely new to me.
“Maybe we can pick a time to explore together later,” I say carefully. I peer at Isla.
She just shrugs a shoulder and stands up, brushing her grubby shorts off.
I look at Keir again and he is just sliding his phone back into his pocket. I grimace and frown at him.
“I have to go to Glasgow for business in a few days,” he says, a far off look in his eyes.
I stand up, my knee giving me trouble as I do. Isla is watching me with a calculating gaze, and I wonder what it is that she sees.
I turn to Keir, clasping my hands behind my back. “Why do you live all the way out here instead of somewhere like Glasgow or London? It seems counterintuitive to be so far away from your actual business.”
Isla cuts in, talking over Keir. “It’s because of Mommy.”
“Oh?” I ask, my brows knitting together.
Keir gives his daughter a tiny glare. “It is not. It’s because it’s much quieter here, that’s why.”
Isla opens her mouth to argue but Keir makes a gesture to cut her off. “That’s enough talk about Mom. Okay? I really don’t want you telling stories about her. And Ella, I would be very upset if I found out that you had asked Isla to talk about her mother when I wasn’t here.”
I scrunch up my face. “Are you forbidding me from asking about her?”
He clenches his jaw. “I don’t think I need to. It’s none of your business.”
“You’re only here until Mommy comes back anyway,” Isla tells me very seriously.
“Isla, we talked about this. Your mom is not coming back. She is not even allowed to be in the whole southwest of Scotland.”
Isla instantly adopts a hostile posture, crossing her arms and cocking her hip. It would be funny if the situation were a little different. “You don’t even know where Mommy is. Right? That’s what you told me.”
Keir drags in a breath. But before he can even say anything, Isla takes off toward the front door of the castle, leaving her questionable piece of art behind. Keir shakes his head and starts to peel pieces of magazine off the wood floor. He mutters as he pulls up glue covered pieces.
I tilt my head at him. I don’t know if he is asking for advice or not, but it’s evident enough to me that he doesn’t have any clear boundaries or rules in place for young Isla.
“Well?”
Keir looks up at me, his eyebrows rising. “Yes?”
I’d give a tiny, humorless laugh.
“You do realize that I am not in fact your nanny, right?”
He pulls up a piece of sticky magazine and shoots me a glare.
“Of course, I know that. I don’t expect much from you. Nor do I expect you to get along with my daughter. I just need you to act as if you’re going through the motions while we figure out what the situation is with the journalist and whether or not the video was accessed by anyone of importance.”
Tossing my head, I lift my chin. “Okay, good. Because it seems like you are in need of someone with an abundance of patience and kindness, who also has an attention span longer than yours.”
“I’m not sure what that's supposed to mean.” He pins me in place with his gaze.
“It’s supposed to mean that your daughter clearly needs your attention when you are here. I think that she acts out in order to make you look at her.”
He rolls his eyes. “You know an awful lot about us for a little girl who only arrived here yesterday. Is there anything else that you want to make sure that I know? Anything critical of my parenting technique?”
My cheeks redden. “No…”
Keir shoots me a hot glance and stands up, dropping several pieces of magazine to the floor.
“I think it would be wise if you didn’t attempt to put yourself into this situation. It’s complicated enough without you adding extra turmoil from your own life.”
My expression hardens. Without another word, I turn toward the staircase that I just descended and begin climbing the stairs. Keir watches me as I go, his expression stony.
How did I get myself into this situation? And more importantly, what do I have to do to get myself out again?