29. Edie
EDIE
The castle feels different the moment I wake up.
Flowers are everywhere. Hallways that used to smell of old wood and beeswax polish are now scented with roses and massed bunches of lilacs from the garden.
Petals drop onto the gleaming surfaces and are swiped away in moments by the small army of unfamiliar faces who’ve appeared over the last week or so, making up bedrooms and sweeping corridors until the place feels like the hotel that Anna seems to be treating it as.
Crates of glassware clink as they’re rolled across uneven parquet flooring and somewhere in the distance, I can hear someone playing The Entertainer on the grand piano in the ballroom.
The place is full of strangers, glossy-haired women with tiny hips and elegant posture and men in cashmere with sunglasses on their heads despite the grey skies outside.
A teenage boy echoing Anna’s demand for oat milk, and Gregor catching my eye and giving me a conspiratorial look that makes me giggle as I eat toast at the big morning kitchen table, where thankfully the guests don’t seem to be welcome .
And yet Janey still takes the time to make me feel like I belong here, in a way the people arriving with their expensively monogrammed luggage don’t.
It’s easy in a place like this to feel like I’m at home and that’s –down to the staff, and Rory’s firm but fair leadership.
It’s weird that someone so grouchy and offhand can be so utterly adored by everyone who works for him.
I slip my plate into the dishwasher and head to the library, because it might be the day of the ball but it’s still a workday for me.
And then – proving that reality isn’t real anymore – I almost crash into a pretty, dark haired woman I recognise from somewhere.
It’s only once I’ve apologised and she’s smiled and headed off towards the pool that I realise she’s a minor royal – not one of the big ones, but she’s been on the front cover of Hello .
I close the library door and pause for a moment. I thought this ball was for the estate workers and the community, that’s what Rory said. But there are people in the hallway talking about Saint Tropez and Miffy’s birthday in Mustique and it’s like stepping into another world.
I work for a couple of hours, then head for the pool, mostly because I want to have a peek and see who’s in there.
I find Anna sprawled on a lounger like she’s in Saint Tropez herself and not the rainy Scottish Highlands.
She’s in a navy one-piece and a pair of enormous, oversized sunglasses, an iced coffee balanced on the side table, her tanned legs arranged just so to make her thighs look as skinny as possible.
I wonder if she’s helped herself to a few more chapters of the memoir while she’s at it – not that she could.
I’ve changed my password and locked my laptop in the safe in my room.
“Ah, the worker,” she says, peering at me from over the top of her glasses .
“There are people everywhere,” I say. “Like—” I look across as two tall blondes emerge from the changing room and lower my voice. “Like them. Millions of them. Like an invasion of the gossip pages from Tatler magazine.”
Anna takes off her glasses and studies the women for a moment, watching as they slip into the pool.
“Don’t look so shocked. You really think a duke throws a party and doesn’t invite half of Mayfair?
” She smirks. “These people don’t play by our rules, Ede.
They make the rules. And then they break them. That’s how you know they’re rich.”
Jamie’s nowhere to be seen. Rory’s disappeared into the machine of the estate, a low voice behind the office door.
I stare at her. Behind her the water sparkles like a postcard as the sun breaks through the clouds and lights up the room.
One of the girls gives a high whinny of laughter.
I feel that old familiar feeling of wanting to hide away, make myself invisible because this sort of place is too good for me and I don’t belong here.
I’m Edie, who always had second-hand clothes and never quite fit in.
Never the main character, always a ghost, even in my own story.
And then I square my shoulders. Not tonight.
Not after everything I’ve done here, all the work, the late nights in the library.
The thousand times I could have thrown the old duke’s bloody impossible to read diaries across the room or in the fire, knowing nobody else would ever know what I’d missed.
The lies and the misdeeds and the bullshit I’ve transcribed, knowing none of it will ever be acted on or revealed.
Fuck it. Just for tonight, I’m going to put on that dress and pretend I belong.