Christmas at the Castle

Home was Manhattan. He had a sleek apartment overlooking Central Park and Christmas plans were set in stone. Since Louise had died he’d had a standard booking with friends for Christmas dinner at possibly the most talked about restaurant on the island. He’d make his normal quiet drive the next day to visit his mother, who’d be surrounded by her servants at her home in Martha’s Vineyard. She loathed Christmas Day itself but reluctantly celebrated the day after with him. Then the whole fuss of Christmas would die down.

‘If no one applies by tomorrow, I’m calling it quits,’ he told the small black scrap of canine misery by his side. He’d found the dog the first day he’d been here, cringing in the stables.

‘It’s a stray—let me take it to the dog shelter, My Lord,’ his estate manager had said when he’d picked it up and brought it inside, but the scruffy creature had looked at him with huge brown eyes and Angus had thought it wouldn’t hurt to give the dog a few days of being Dog of the Castle. Angus was playing Lord of the Castle. Reality would return all too soon.

The little dog looked up at him now and he thought that when he left the dog would have to go, too. No more pretending. Meanwhile...

‘Have another dog biscuit,’ Angus told him, tossing yet another log onto the blazing fire. The weather outside was appalling and the old Earl had certainly never considered central heating. ‘This place is on the market so we’re both on borrowed time, but we might as well be comfortable while we wait.’

The little dog opened one eye, cautiously accepted his dog biscuit, nibbled it with delicacy and then settled back down to sleep in a way that told Angus this room had once been this dog’s domain. But his father had never kept dogs.

Had his father ever used this room? It seemed to Angus that his father had done nothing but lie in bed and give orders.

Who knew which orders had been obeyed? Stanley, the Estate Manager, seemed to be doing exactly what he liked. Honesty didn’t seem to be his strong suit. Angus’s short but astute time with the estate books had hinted that Stanley had been milking the castle finances for years.

But he couldn’t sack him—not now. He was the only servant left, the only one who knew the land, who could show prospective purchasers over the estate, who could sound even vaguely knowledgeable about the place.

Angus had decided he’d do a final reckoning after the castle was sold and not before. His plan had been to get rid of the castle and all it represented and leave as fast as he could. This place had nothing to do with him. He’d been taken away before his first birthday and he’d never been back.

But first he had to get through one Christmas—or not. If he could find a cook he’d stay and do his duty by the kids. Otherwise, Manhattan beckoned. The temptation not to find a cook was huge, but he’d promised.

A knock on the great castle doors reverberated through the hall, reaching through the thick doors of the snug. The little dog lifted his head and barked, and then resettled, duty done. If this castle was to be sold, then there was serious sleeping to be got through first.

Stanley’s humourless face appeared around the door. ‘I’ll see to it, My Lord,’ he said. ‘It’ll be one of the villagers wanting something. They’re always wanting something. His Lordship taught me early how to see them off.’

He gave what he obviously thought was a conspiratorial nod and closed the door again. His footsteps retreated across the hall towards the great door leading outside.

Angus opened the snug door and listened.

‘Yes?’ Stanley’s voice was as dry and unwelcoming as the man himself. As apparently the old Earl had encouraged him to be.

‘I’m here about the advertisement for help over Christmas.’ Surprisingly, it was a woman’s voice, young, cheerful and lilting, and Angus leaned on the door jamb and wondered how long it had been since he’d heard a woman’s voice. Only two weeks, he conceded, but it seemed as if he’d been locked in this great grey fortress for ever.

He could see why his mother had fled. The wonder of it was that she’d stayed for two years.

‘You look very young to be a cook,’ Stanley was saying dourly, to whoever it was outside the door. Stanley’s disapproval was instant and obvious, even at a distance. ‘Do you have any qualifications?’

‘I’m not a cook; I’m a chef,’ the woman said. ‘I’m twenty-eight and I’ve been working with food since I was fifteen. I’ve worked in some of the best restaurants in Australia so I’m overqualified for this job, but I have a few weeks to spare. If you’re interested...’

‘Can you make beds?’ Stanley asked, even more dourly.

‘No.’ The woman sounded less confident now she wasn’t talking of cooking. ‘Or at least I can pull up a mean duvet but not much more. My grandmother, on the other hand, used to be the housekeeper at Gorse Hall, and she’s interested in a job, too. She can make really excellent beds.’

‘This is one job,’ Stanley snapped. ‘His Lordship wants someone who can cook and make his bed.’

‘So is it just His Lordship I’m cooking for? Can’t His Lordship make his own bed?’

‘Don’t be impertinent,’ Stanley retorted. ‘You’re obviously not suitable.’ And, with that, Angus heard the great doors starting to creak closed.

That should be the end of it, he told himself with a certain amount of relief. He’d agreed to advertise for a cook. He’d put the advertisement in the window of the general store and no one had replied until now. So be it. Once Stanley had got rid of her he could ring his half-brother and say regretfully, Sorry, Ben, I couldn’t find someone suitable and I can’t put you up for Christmas without staff. I’ll arrange to fly you and your family up to do a tour before the castle is sold, but that’s all I can do.

Easy. All he had to do was keep quiet now.

But... Can’t His Lordship make his own bed? What was it about that blunt question that had him stepping out of the snug, striding over the vast flagstones of the Great Hall, intercepting Stanley and stopping the vast doors from closing.

Seeing for himself who Stanley was talking to.

The girl on the far side of the doors looked cold. That was his first impression.

His second impression was that she was cute.

Very cute.

She was five feet three or five four at most. She wasn’t plump, but she wasn’t thin—just nicely curved, although she was doing a decent job of disguising those curves. She was wearing faded jeans, trainers, a thick grey sweater and a vast old army greatcoat without buttons. She wore a red beanie with a hole in it. A few strands of burnt-copper curls were sneaking through. Her lack of make-up, her clear green eyes and her wide, generous mouth which, at the moment, was making a fairly childlike grimace at Stanley, made him think she couldn’t possibly be twenty-eight.

Maybe Stanley was right to reject her out of hand. What sort of person applied for a job wearing what looked like charity rejects?

‘Are you backup?’ she queried bitterly as he swung the door wider. Whatever else she was, this woman wasn’t shy, and Stanley’s flat rejection had seemingly made her angry. ‘Are you here to help Lurch here tell me to get off the property fast? I’ve walked all the way from the village on your horrible pot-holed road. Of all the cold welcomes... You could at least look at my résumé.’

Lurch? The word caught him. Angus glanced at Stanley and thought the woman had a point—there were definite similarities between his father’s estate manager and the butler from the Addams Family.

‘It is only the one job,’ he said, and found himself sounding apologetic.

‘Chef and Housekeeper for this whole place?’ She stood back and gestured to the sweep of the vast castle. The original keep had been built at the start of the thirteenth century, but a mishmash of battlements, turrets and towers had been added ad hoc over the last eight hundred years. From where she was standing, she couldn’t possibly take it all in—the great grey edifice was practically a crag all by itself. ‘This place’d take me a week to dust,’ she said and then stood back a bit further. ‘Probably two. And I’m not all that skilled at dusting.’

‘I don’t want anything dusted,’ Angus told her.

‘I’m not serving my food on dust.’

‘Forgive me.’ He was starting to feel bemused. This woman looked a waif but she was a waif with attitude. ‘And forgive our cavalier treatment of you. But you don’t look like a cook to us.’

‘That’s because I’m a chef,’ she retorted. Her cheeks were flushed crimson and he thought it wasn’t just the cold. Stanley’s rejection was smarting.

‘Can you prove it?’

‘Of course.’ She hauled a couple of typed sheets from the pocket of her greatcoat, handed them over and waited while he unfolded and skimmed them.

He felt his brows hike as he read. This was impressive. Really impressive. But...

‘You’re asking us to believe you’re a chef from Australia—yet your résumé is typed on letterhead paper from the Craigenstone Library.’

‘That’s because Doris, the librarian, is a friend of my grandmother,’ she said patiently. ‘I’m here on holiday, visiting my Gran, and Gran doesn’t have a printer. For some weird reason, I failed to bring copies of my résumé with me.’

‘So why are you applying for a job?’

‘It seems I’m not,’ she said. ‘Lurch here has told me you’re not interested, so that’s it. Meanwhile, I’m freezing. You’ve made me stand in six inches of snow while you’ve checked out my résumé and I’ve had enough. Merry Christmas. Gran was right all along. Bah, humbug to you both.’

And she turned and stalked off.