Chapter 19
Clementine
Failed Romantic Strategy
I’m sitting at the large table in the living room, my elbows resting on it, my hands wrapped around a cup of tea I haven’t actually drunk yet.
Outside, the Highland sky has darkened.
The manor smells of cold wax and old wood, as usual.
Hamish is stretched out in front of the unlit fireplace as if he’s waiting for something.
I know this feeling.
It’s the one that comes right before I make a plan to clear my head.
I set my tea down and get to my feet.
I grab the spiral notebook lying on the arm of the chair—the one I use for work, not my recipe notebook—and a pen.
Then I sit back down.
I take a breath.
At the top of the page, I write:
CURRENT SITUATION
Left column: facts.
Fraser Manor.
Countdown to return to Paris officially underway.
Cameron McGregor, real estate agent, partner by circumstance.
Current communication strategy: leveraging the legend of the haunted couple to redirect the village’s curiosity and facilitate the property valuation.
Plan initiated on...
I stop.
Search for the date in my head and fill it in.
Then I continue.
Right column: objectives.
Complete the valuation.
Make a decision regarding the property.
Return to Paris.
I read everything over.
It’s neat.
It’s clear.
It’s exactly the situation as it currently stands.
I feel better.
Except in the left column, between partner by circumstance and communication strategy, I’ve written Cameron.
Just his first name.
For no reason whatsoever.
And farther down, Cameron again, followed by a dash and absolutely nothing else.
And at the very bottom of the page, in the margin, written smaller this time, Cameron a third time.
I let out a sigh and flip the notebook face down on the table.
Hamish lifts his head.
He looks at me with that placid expression that could mean anything—or nothing at all—but which I consistently interpret as judgment.
“Don’t judge me,” I tell him.
He lowers his head back onto his paws.
I pick up my tea.
It’s gone cold.
At that exact moment, someone knocks at the door.
I open it, and Ailsa walks in.
She’s carrying a brown paper bag, a bottle of red wine tucked under her left arm, and she looks like someone who has made a decision.
“Tonight is girls’ night!” she announces. “TV show, popcorn, wine. You’re not allowed to say no.”
“I don’t have a TV.”
She pulls a tablet out of her handbag and triumphantly waves it around.
“I planned for that. We don’t need one!”
I gesture vaguely toward the living room.
“We’ll set up in there.”
“Perfect.”
She comes inside, sets her things on the table, notices Hamish, and stops.
“There’s a sheep in your living room.”
“I know.”
“Okay, I have several questions, but I’ve decided not to ask them tonight.”
Ailsa studies Hamish skeptically.
Hamish studies Ailsa with the same indifference he reserves for everyone except, apparently, me whenever I start making plans.
“I offered him carrots to make him leave.”
“And?”
“He ate them and stayed anyway.”
Ailsa nods as if this confirms something important.
“Well, sweetheart, Glenfield has officially adopted you.”
She unpacks her bag.
Popcorn.
Chips.
A package of chocolate cookies from a brand I don’t recognize.
“I’ll grab some glasses,” I say, heading for the kitchen.
“Great. I’ll take care of everything else.”
I disappear into the kitchen.
I hear Ailsa moving the sofa, coughing as dust rises into the air, and muttering something about manors and modern living being fundamentally incompatible.
I find two glasses in a lower cupboard, rinse them, and head back.
Ailsa is standing in the middle of the living room.
And she’s holding my notebook.
The notebook with my plan.
She’s reading my notes.
I stop dead.
“Ailsa...”
Slowly, she lifts her eyes to mine.
For a second, her expression is unreadable.
Then it shifts into a mixture of disbelief and admiration.
“Clementine Fraser.”
“I can explain...”
She shakes her head.
“No need. Everything is perfectly clear. You and Cameron are messing with the people of Glenfield.”
The silence lasts two seconds.
“That’s actually a pretty accurate summary,” I finally admit.
Ailsa sets the notebook down.
Looks at me.
Then bursts out laughing.
A real laugh.
Loud.
The kind that shakes her shoulders and forces her to lean against the table to keep her balance.
“It’s brilliant,” she says between gasps. “Completely insane, but brilliant.”
“It was an unconventional solution to a practical problem.”
“You convinced all of Glenfield that you’re possessed by romantic ghosts.”
“We didn’t convince anyone of anything. We just... allowed a certain ambiguity to exist.”
“And it’s working?”
“Too well.”
“How so?”
I sit down.
Pour wine into both glasses.
Hand one to her and then give her a summary of recent events.
Ailsa peers at me over the rim of her glass.
“And you were holding Cameron’s hand through all of that?”
“Yes.”
“Voluntarily?”
I take a sip of wine.
“It was part of the plan.”
Ailsa places her glass down with the deliberate slowness of someone preparing an attack.
“Clementine.”
“What?”
“Cameron’s name is written all over that page.”
“I know.”
“In the facts column.”
“I know.”
“Twice in the margin.”
“Ailsa.”
“Is Cameron a fact, or is he something else?”
I grab the notebook and move it farther away, safely out of her reach.
“What show are we watching?” I ask, changing the subject.
We’re halfway through the second episode and nearly at the bottom of the popcorn bag when we hear the noise.
It doesn’t come from the manor.
I’ve learned to distinguish the normal creaks of old wood from sounds that actually deserve my attention.
This is different.
Hamish rises in one smooth motion.
He heads for the front door, which I left slightly open to air out the house.
“I think he wants to go outside,” Ailsa says, getting up to open the door wider.
But Hamish doesn’t leave.
No.
Instead, he steps aside to let someone pass.
Another sheep.
“Rosita!” Ailsa exclaims.
I’ve never seen Rosita outside the McGregors’ pasture.
Apparently, she has decided Fraser Manor is an acceptable destination tonight.
She walks in with startling confidence, looks around the room, glances at Ailsa, then me, and finally at Hamish.
What happens next is difficult to describe without sounding completely unhinged.
Hamish, who for days has been wandering through this manor with the regal air of someone who owns the place, who ignores my attempts to evict him with royal disdain, who eats my carrots and stays anyway, who settles under desks, in front of doors, and in the middle of hallways as if he belongs here...
Begins rubbing against Rosita with what looks suspiciously like affection.
Ailsa and I watch in silence.
Rosita greets him with a bleat I would describe as benevolent.
Hamish stops beside her.
They look at each other.
Then Rosita calmly settles onto the rug exactly where Hamish had been lying, as if this is the most normal thing in the world.
Ailsa looks at me.
“Even the sheep get a beautiful love story around here.”
I say nothing.
“Clementine...”
I can tell she wants to bring up Cameron and me again, so I cut her off immediately.
“Should we watch episode three?”
An hour later, the wine bottle is empty, and Ailsa is sitting with her legs tucked beneath her.
On the screen, two characters are arguing inside a Paris apartment that’s far too small.
I’m not really watching anymore.
I’m thinking about the room at the end of the hallway.
Brodie and Mairenn’s room.
I haven’t been back since Cameron helped me open it.
“Want to see something?” I suddenly ask Ailsa.
She turns toward me.
“If it involves another sheep, I’m out.”
“No. It’s a bedroom.”
One eyebrow lifts.
“Brodie and Mairenn Fraser’s bedroom,” I clarify.
Ailsa immediately straightens.
Curiosity lights up her eyes.
“Do I want to see the bedroom of Glenfield’s most famous Fraser couple? Are you kidding? I thought you’d never ask.”
We head upstairs.
The first-floor hallway is silent.
The floorboards creak beneath our feet.
When we reach the door, I pause for a second.
“What exactly is in there?” Ailsa asks.
“Their room. Their belongings. A photograph of them.”
I open the door.
The room smells of stale air and dried lavender.
The dresser sits against the far wall.
The framed photograph remains exactly where we left it.
Ailsa steps inside, looking around.
The small-paned window.
The narrow bed with its worn coverlet.
The objects resting atop the dresser.
Then her gaze settles on the photograph.
She moves closer.
Brodie Fraser standing, leaning slightly on his cane.
Mairenn beside him, hands folded, gaze direct.
Neither of them is smiling.
People in photographs from that era never smiled.
But there’s something in the way their shoulders touch.
The slight tilt of Brodie toward her.
The way Mairenn holds herself without stiffness.
Ailsa stays silent for a moment.
“They look... normal,” she finally says.
“Yes.”
“Not cursed at all.”
“No. From what I know, he built the manor for her. They got married. They lived here for a long time. Together. Happily.”
Ailsa turns toward me.
“And the village turned that into a ghost story?”
“The village needs drama.”
“And you and Cameron used that against them.”
“Yes. Or at least we tried.”
She looks back at the photograph.
“The real story is more beautiful,” she says softly.
“I know.”
“A man builds a home for the woman he loves. Marries her. Stays. That’s the real romance.”
Silence settles around us.
Outside, the wind moves through the trees.
Somewhere downstairs, either Hamish or Rosita is walking around, and we hear the soft clatter of hooves on wood.
“They simply chose to stay,” she says. “That’s all.”
I don’t answer.
Ailsa said it as though it were simple.
As though it were the kind of decision you make on an ordinary evening after a trip to the market and a girls’ night, standing in a bedroom that smells like lavender and passing years.
She looks at me.
“Don’t say what you’re about to say.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“You had the face of someone who was about to say something.”
She smiles, then heads for the door.
“Come on. Let’s finish the episode.”
I stay behind for one second longer.
I look at Brodie and Mairenn in their photograph.
Their touching shoulders.
The home he built for her.
I pull out my phone and open the notes app where I jot down recipe ideas.
Without thinking, I quickly type a title at the top of a blank note.
I read it once before locking the screen and following Ailsa into the hallway.
“What was that?” she asks, nodding toward the phone still in my hand.
“Nothing.”
“Come on. You can tell me.”
“A recipe.”
“For what?”
I slip the phone into my pocket.
“For the nights when you realize you have a problem.”