Chapter 44
‘Every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason.’
I’d had the keys to the pub in my possession for only twenty-four hours.
A light frost was retreating from the flagstones and Rocky was sniffing around the backyard, getting acquainted with the odour of an old fox that lived somewhere nearby.
I was inside, laying out tape on the sticky floor, trying to imagine a kitchen into existence.
My breath clouded in front of me. The whole place smelled like a wet cave.
Then: tyres on gravel. Rocky began to bark.
I stepped outside, rubbing warmth back into my hands, expecting Dom. Instead, a silver-grey Defender was rolling over the weeds, coming to a stop in the car park.
The man who climbed out looked like someone used to bad weather. Tall, lean, dark wool coat, and heavy boots that meant business. He shut the car door and stood for a moment, looking up at the pub as if assessing the damage. The frown line across his forehead deepened.
Rocky trotted over, tail wagging like a metronome. The man crouched down. ‘There’s a good dog,’ he said, rubbing Rocky behind the ears.
‘Can I help you?’
The man looked up and then noticed me properly. Cognac brown eyes, dark hair pushed back by the wind. Not conventionally handsome, but the sort of face that made you look twice.
He straightened slowly. ‘Florence Elliot?’
His accent was Scottish. Cool and terse.
‘That’s me,’ I said.
‘Lachlan Shaw. Architect.’
So this was Dom’s architect. He looked up again at the threadbare thatch and the sign hanging off its last hinge. ‘You’ve got your work cut out.’
Something about the tone made my hackles rise. ‘I’m aware.’
He gave a brief nod and headed over to where I was standing. ‘Dom said you had a vision.’
‘I do.’
His eyes moved to the boarded windows. ‘Good,’ he said.
A pause.
‘Because you’re going to need one.’
Inside, I heard him inhale sharply at the smell of old beer and damp.
The light was coming in grey and thin through the window grilles.
I walked him through the framework of my idea: the open kitchen here, long counter seating there, exposed beams cleaned up but not stripped of their age.
A snug in the corner. Tables, mismatched but warm.
He said nothing. No nods or any expression other than that frown. He just observed and listened. His silence was deafening, and I was over-talking to compensate.
Every now and then his eyes flicked to the ceiling, floor, or windows.
I gestured towards a doorway behind the bar. ‘Guest rooms upstairs. As many as we can fit comfortably. A small manager’s flat tucked behind the kitchen. But the bar’s the heart of it. That’s what I want to get right.’
He stepped around a warped section of flooring without comment, then ducked beneath a beam and glanced towards the stairwell.
‘Original staircase?’
‘Yes, pretty sure it is.’
‘Hmmm.’
I pushed the door open to the back and led him into the courtyard. ‘Kitchen garden here. Herbs, seasonal veg, maybe chickens if we can manage it. Firepit, tables, lights. A place people want to stay in. And, over there,’ I was pointing at the stables. ‘More guest rooms.’
He scanned it all, arms folded. The wind caught his coat but he didn’t move.
‘It’s ambitious,’ he said, at last.
‘It has to be.’
‘You have budget?’
‘I’m working with Dom on it, but we have to keep it tight.’
A pause.
‘Experience running a site like this?’
‘I’ve led teams. I’ve built things, back in the days of our family business.’
He gestured for us to head back inside. ‘You’ll need steel here,’ he said, tapping a beam above him. ‘And that chimney’s potentially lethal.’
‘Okay. But it’s stood there for more than three hundred years so I think we can keep it going a while longer.’
‘Hmmm…’ The noise was not dismissive but it wasn’t quite approval.
He looked at me a moment longer than necessary, and there was something faintly assessing in it.
It was definitely not flirtation or friendliness.
It felt like he was measuring my depth somehow, testing my steeliness.
‘Sentiment is how people bankrupt themselves.’
‘Caution’s how they never get started.’
He gave a small, near-imperceptible twitch at the corner of his mouth. Almost a smile.
We walked in silence through the back hall and up the stairs. At the top we entered what had once been a bedroom. The wallpaper peeled at the corners, the carpet was threadbare and smelled faintly of cat pee.
‘Structurally?’ I asked.
‘I’ve seen worse,’ he said, opening a window. ‘Ventilation’s poor. We’ll need insulation across the whole upper floors, as well as any roof repairs. You’ll have to strip this right back.’ He looked back at me. ‘What’s your vision here?’
‘Simple rooms. Not luxury, but not bleak. Local touches. Natural materials. Textures that age well.’
‘No frilly curtains and floral duvets, then.’
‘No way.’ I could have kicked myself for sounding so defensive. ‘This place isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about people feeling rooted. Not just passing through.’
‘You want them to feel safe and secure,’ he said, studying me.
‘Sure. If only for a night.’
He hesitated before speaking again. ‘You’re not what I expected.’
‘What did Dom tell you?’
He shrugged. ‘Just told me to get down here and check the place out, and that his sister was taking the reins.’
‘So, were you expecting me to be ready with a clipboard and hard hat?’
‘Maybe, like your brother. His briefs are to the point and about the financial return. But you’ve actually thought this through.’
‘I want to build something with a soul.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘You think this place has one?’
‘I think it’s waiting for someone to reveal it.’
He ran a hand through his dark hair. ‘I don’t do sugar-coating.’
‘Good. I’m allergic to sugar-coating.’
Another pause.
‘Then we’ll get on fine.’
The silence between us stretched. Rocky flopped down at my feet.
‘Alright, Florence Elliot,’ he said, low and steady. ‘I don’t normally take on work outside of London, but as a favour to your brother, I’ll take the job. You’d better be ready to argue your points.’
‘Always.’
We walked together to the gravel, where his Defender waited. He paused by the door, looked back at the building, then at me. ‘You know, most people would’ve walked away from this place.’
‘I’ve walked away from worse.’
‘So have I. But not always in time.’
A month later Alice and I were tucked into a corner booth at The Swan.
It was an old coaching inn with fireplaces that gave off little warmth.
Despite that, it was busy. Half her village seemed to be crammed in.
Pint glasses clinked, someone’s dog snored under a table, and I could hear the quiet hum of British country life.
Alice raised an eyebrow at me over the rim of her glass of Gavi. ‘So. Lachlan.’
I sighed and dropped my forehead to the table. ‘Please don’t make me talk about him.’
‘Oh no, we are talking about him. You’ve been texting me in all caps.’
‘He’s infuriating. He argues about everything. Everything. He sent me a revised drawing for the kitchen wall and he’d removed the whole built-in shelving unit, just deleted it like it didn’t matter.’
Alice sipped. ‘Is it possible he just has a strong opinion?’
‘No. It’s more than that. He’s got a tone. A superior, quietly smirking, “I know best” tone. I’d forgotten what it was like to work with a man who thinks his taste is an evolutionary advantage.’
She laughed. ‘Sounds a bit like someone else I used to know. Tall. American. Narcissist.’
I winced. ‘Tall is the only similarity. And I was in a marriage contract with Chase. Lachlan and I are purely business.’ I leaned back, staring at the ceiling’s damp patch. ‘The thing is, I actually want to convince him that my ideas work, but he’s so pig-headed he doesn’t damn well listen.’
‘What does Dom think?’
‘He’s leaving us to it. Said to sort ourselves out and find a way to make the place great.’
‘Is he married?’
I shrugged. ‘Never asked him. Besides, I cannot imagine who on earth would put up with him. He’s only interested in the purity of the architectural lines of the building and bloody function.’
‘That is what an architect does by trade.’
‘I know that. It’s just that I know what the feel of the place should be, and he refuses to engage in that aspect.’
Alice leaned over and topped off my glass. ‘So what now?’
‘I push back. I win the shelving battle. I get my kitchen the way I see it.’
‘And if he pushes harder?’
‘Then I push harder still.’
Alice smiled and raised her glass. ‘I think I’m seeing a glimpse of the old Florence Elliot coming back. Thank God for that.’