6. Chapter 5
Mandy
Four days have passed, and Alexandra has mentioned neither mice nor Peter being at my house.
Instead, she has spent the last thirty minutes trying to sell me Morton Hall’s new head chef.
“He is very settled,” she says.
I look at her over my wine glass. “He has been here for two weeks.”
“Yes, but he has unpacked.”
“That is not a personality trait.”
“It suggests commitment.”
“It suggests he owns hangers.”
Alexandra gives me a patient look. “He is nice, Mandy.”
“I am not disputing that.”
“And funny.”
“Is he?”
“He made Hunter laugh during the interview.”
“That is a low bar. Hunter laughs when Bernard sneezes.”
Hunter, who is sitting on Alexandra’s other side with Peter beside him, lifts his pint. “It was a very dramatic sneeze.”
Alexandra turns towards him. “Tell Mandy Mark is nice.”
Hunter pauses with the glass halfway to his mouth. “Mark is nice.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Compelling.”
“He turns up on time, makes excellent food and has not yet shouted at anyone in the kitchen,” Hunter adds.
“There,” Alexandra says, as if he has delivered a character reference worthy of parliament.
“That sounds less like romance and more like probation feedback.”
Hunter shrugs. “From what I understand, they are not completely unrelated.”
Peter looks at me then.
Not the amused look he usually gives me when Alexandra starts meddling. Not the bright, teasing one that makes it too easy to forget we are in public.
This one is quieter.
Odd.
As if he is waiting to see what I will say, and already bracing himself for it.
“I am not interested in dating,” I say.
Alexandra waves a hand. “That is because your options have been terrible.”
“My options?”
“The village blokes.” She pulls a face. “Half of them are married, the other half think buying you a drink means explaining their divorce in detail, and the rest still live with their mothers.”
“That is an extremely generous use of rest.”
“I mean it. There have been no prospects.”
Peter’s fingers tighten around his glass.
I notice because I should not be noticing him at all.
“There is nothing wrong with being selective,” I say.
“That is not the same as retiring from the entire process.”
“I have not retired.”
“No?”
“I'm forty-three. I know what I want from life, and I am simply not accepting new applicants.”
Alexandra laughs, but Peter does not.
He looks at me again, and there it is. That same odd expression. Not hurt, exactly. Not annoyed, either.
More as though I have said something he expected and disliked anyway.
Peter sets his pint down. “Right. Before Lexi starts printing application forms for Mandy’s love life, let me offer a fresh disaster.”
My fingers go tight around my glass.
For one bleak second, I think he means us. That he has decided the neatest way to stop his sister matchmaking is to throw our secret onto the bar between the beer mats and the bowl of peanuts.
He does not look at me.
He looks at Alexandra.
“The bank is closing.”
The shift in Alexandra is instant. The teasing leaves her face so fast it might as well have been switched off.
“What?”
“My branch.” Peter reaches for his pint, then seems to decide against it. “End of next month.”
Hunter leans back. “Bloody hell.”
Alexandra stares at Peter. “Why did you not tell me?”
“I am telling you now.”
“You are telling me now because you wanted to distract me from Mark.”
“That is an added benefit.”
“Peter.”
“I was waiting for the official confirmation.”
“And you have it?”
“Printed, emailed and delivered with all the warmth of a parking fine.”
Her hand lands on his arm. “What happens to you?”
He glances down at her hand. His mouth tries for a smile and does not quite manage it.
“There are options.”
“What options?”
“Leeds.”
Alexandra pulls a face. “Every day driving all that way?”
“Unless I develop the power of teleportation.”
“That commute would be awful.”
“I have been led to understand motorways are character-building.”
“And the other option?”
“Regional role.”
“What does that mean?”
“Travelling. Hotels. Meetings in business parks where the sandwiches curl at the edges.”
Hunter grimaces. “I have attended those meetings.”
“Then you know.”
Alexandra’s grip on his arm tightens. “Do you want either of them?”
For a moment, Peter locks eyes with me.
Then his gaze drops.
“No.”
Only that.
No joke. No flourish. No Peter-shaped attempt to make it sound less serious.
Alexandra lets out a breath. “Then we will sort something else.”
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The royal we.”
“You are my brother.”
“I had noticed.”
“You should have told me.”
“You would have worried.”
“I am worrying now.”
“Yes, but with less time to create a spreadsheet.”
Hunter clears his throat. “She already has a spreadsheet planned out in her head.”
Alexandra turns on him. “Not helping.”
“I did not say what it was for.”
“You do not need to.”
Peter huffs a laugh, but it fades before it becomes anything useful. He rubs his thumb along the edge of his glass, back and forth, as if the condensation has personally offended him.
Alexandra watches the movement. “Are you all right for money?”
Peter stills.
“I am not destitute, Lexi.”
“I did not say you were.”
“I have savings.”
“How long will they last?”
“Depends how committed I am to eating.”
Her face tightens. “Do not.”
“I am joking.”
“I know. Stop.”
He lifts both hands, surrendering, but the smile does not return.
The bar carries on around us. Kelly laughs at something one of the two old men says as she collects empty glasses from a nearby table. The couple by the fire scrape the last chips from their bowl. A stool creaks as somebody shifts their weight.
At our end, nobody moves.
Peter looks at his pint. “If I do not find something local, I may have to think about the cottage.”
Alexandra goes white.
Not dramatically. She does not gasp or clutch her pearls. She simply stops being in motion.
Even Hunter says nothing.
I know what the cottage means to both of them.
Everyone does. Peter and Alexandra’s father built it for their mother, back when the village was still the kind of place where a man could buy a plot, annoy the council for six months and put up half a house with help from friends and the weather gods on his side.
It has uneven floors, a garden Peter complains about every summer and a front gate that has never closed unless threatened.
It is not just property.
Alexandra takes her hand away from his arm, slowly, as if she might bruise him. “You are not selling Dad’s cottage.”
Peter gives her a look that is almost gentle. “I said I'd think about it.”
“You are not thinking about it either.”
“Sadly, thoughts are harder to evict than tenants.”
“Peter.”
“I know.” He drags a hand over his beard. “I know.”
Alexandra straightens, decision already forming in her eyes. “You can do shifts here.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“I need extra cover anyway.”
“You hired someone last week.”
“Tom is part-time.”
“You were thrilled about Tom.”
“I can become less thrilled.”
“Lexi.”
“What?”
“You cannot fire someone because your brother needs a job.”
“I did not say fire.”
Peter gives her a look.
“I said less thrilled,” she says.
Hunter reaches across and covers her hand with his, his thumb brushing over her knuckles. “My love, before you solve this with panic and accidentally end up at a tribunal, may I offer something less in breach of employment law?”
Alexandra turns her hand beneath his and laces their fingers together. “Fine. Offer.”
Hunter looks at Peter. “I have been thinking about adding another person to the finance team.”
Peter’s expression closes almost before Hunter finishes the sentence. “Hunter.”
“I know that tone.”
“I do not need you to make up a job for me.”
“I am not.”
“You cannot expect me to believe this is a coincidence.”
“It is not a coincidence. It is timing.” Hunter shifts his pint out of the way and rests a forearm on the bar.
“I have needed another person for months. My Director of Finance keeps getting dragged into day-to-day work that someone else should be handling. Supplier payments, payroll checks, budget chasing, month-end bits, all the little fires that stop her doing the actual strategic work.”
Peter doesn't look convinced.
Hunter's voice settles into something steadier. “I mean it. Morton Hall is growing, or at least I am trying to make it grow, and I need her focused on the bigger picture. Forecasting, expansion plans, costs, all the things I should probably pretend I enjoy discussing.”
“You do enjoy discussing costs,” Alexandra says.
“I enjoy discussing costs when they prevent me making expensive mistakes.”
“You still wanted those ridiculous outdoor heaters.”
“They were elegant.”
“They were the price of a small pony.”
“And that is why finance people are important.”
Peter looks down at the bar. “There must be finance people with hotel experience.”
“There are.”
“Then hire one of them.”
“I might. But I would be an idiot not to ask you first.”
Peter’s laugh is short. “Because I am suddenly available.”
“Because you are good,” Hunter says.
The honesty stops him more effectively than any pretend argument could have done.
Peter looks down at his pint, but there is nowhere to hide at this end of the bar.
Alexandra is watching him with all the restraint of a woman trying not to wrap her brother in a blanket.
Hunter is calmer, but not casual. Even his hand, still loosely linked with Alexandra’s on the bar, has gone still.
“I mean it,” Hunter says. “You understand money, but more than that, you understand people. Half the problem with finance is getting everyone else to stop pretending numbers are something that happen in another room.”
Peter glances at him. “That is surprisingly philosophical for a hotel owner.”
“I have moments.”
Peter’s mouth twitches, then fades again.
Hunter looks back at him. “The money probably will not stretch to what you earned as a bank manager.”
“I assumed not.”
“And it would be less responsibility. I am not going to dress it up. You would not be running the place, and you would not have the title you have now.”
Peter’s jaw tightens.
There it is.
Not vanity. Not exactly. More the sudden, visible discomfort of being asked to step down from the version of himself he has been trying to hold together since the Ramblers walk.
Alexandra notices too. Her fingers shift as if she wants to reach for him, but she stays where she is.
Hunter does not soften the words, which is probably why they do not sound like pity. “But it is proper work. Useful work. And it would be local.”
“Useful,” Peter repeats.
“Yes.”
“You make me sound like a spare extension lead.”
“You are much less tidy than an extension lead.”
“Thank you.”
“But more charming.”
Alexandra looks at Hunter. “Debatable.”
Peter points at her. “I am wounded.”
“You will survive.”
For a second, the old rhythm is there. Brother and sister, taking swipes only because they both know where the bruises are not.
Then Peter’s gaze drops again.
Hunter takes a drink, gives him a moment, then says, “Come to Morton Hall on Monday.”
Peter looks up. “For what?”
“To talk. Properly. You can meet Rachel.”
“Rachel?”
“My Director of Finance.”
Peter runs his thumb down the side of his glass. “And you think I really am the right person?”
“I think you can sit down with Rachel, talk through what she needs, what the hotel needs, and what you might actually want. Then we see whether there is a job there that makes sense for both of us.”
“That sounds suspiciously reasonable.”
“I can make it more dramatic if that helps.”
“Please do not,” Alexandra says.
Hunter smiles at her. “Noted.”
Peter exhales through his nose. “Monday.”
“No pressure.”
Alexandra makes a noise.
Hunter turns to her. “Some pressure from your sister, obviously.”
“Enormous pressure,” she says. “Delivered with love.”
“That is the worst kind,” Peter says.
“It is the only kind you listen to.”
He looks at her then, and something passes between them that shuts the rest of us out for a moment.
The cottage sits behind it. Their father. Their mother. All the things I know only because St Claire remembers everything and tells half of it over bar counters.
Peter nods once, looking at the bar as though someone has set something fragile in front of him.
“All right,” he says. “I will come on Monday.”
Alexandra closes her eyes for half a second.
When she opens them, she looks ready to cry, organise a rota and cook Peter a meal, all at once.
Peter spots it immediately. “Do not start.”
“I have not said anything.”
“I can see the tears.”
“Dry eyes all around.” She wipes over her cheeks to hide the evidence of the contrary.
“I still don’t trust the expression on your face, Lexi.”
Hunter leans closer to her, his shoulder brushing hers. “It is the face of a woman heroically swallowing seven suggestions.”
“At least nine,” she mutters.
Peter gives her a tired smile. “You may make one suggestion.”
“Eat something proper tonight.”
“That does not count.”
“It absolutely counts.”
“It is not helpful.”
“It is more useful than moping around alone,” Alexandra says.
For the first time since the words bank is closing left his mouth, Peter laughs properly.
Not loudly. Not for long.
But enough.
I look down at my wine before I am caught smiling at him like an idiot.
It does not help.
When I glance back, Peter is already looking at me.