Christmas at the Castle

‘You’re my employee.’

‘Yes, and Geoff was my partner and look what he did,’ she snapped. ‘I could walk out the door and spend this on riotous living and you’d never see me again.’

‘In Craigenstone?’ He grinned. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s not a lot of riotous living to be done in this place.’

He was looking at her oddly. She caught herself—she needed to make an effort to recover.

Wicked ways. Kilts and brawny arms and a wicked smile. Her imagination and the reputation of the Earl of Craigenstone were doing stupid things to her senses. Pull yourself together, she told herself and somehow she did.

‘I had...I had noticed,’ she said and managed to smile. She looked down at the proffered notes. Warm feet...

‘This is...wonderful. I could buy myself some wellingtons and a woolly jumper and some coal.’

‘You have no heating?’

‘Um...no.’

‘I’ll run you back to the village and we’ll collect some coal on the way.’

‘You’re kidding. You’re an Earl!’

‘I didn’t think Australians held with the aristocracy,’ he said, bemused. ‘Americans certainly don’t.’

‘Yet you are one.’

‘Only until this place is sold,’ he said, humour fading. ‘I intend the title to disappear with it.’

‘So Gran’s ogre disappears?’

‘I’m an ogre?’

‘That’s why I’m not letting you buy coal or drive me home,’ she said. ‘It’s very nice of you, as is lending me this money, and I appreciate it very much, but if Gran opened the door and an Earl was standing on her doorstep, loaded with coal, she’d have a palsy stroke. Whatever that is.’

‘A palsy stroke?’ he said dubiously.

‘I hear that’s what they had in the olden days,’ she explained. ‘When Earls knew their place and servants knew theirs. Swooning and palsy strokes were everywhere and I don’t have my smelling salts with me. So no. I know my place. Gran and I will keep to the servants’ quarters and cook and dust while you’re all elsewhere and I’ll keep to my kitchen, and you’ll hand over menus of twenty courses to be cooked in two hours, and Gran will creep in at dawn and light your fires...’

‘You’ve been reading too many romance novels if you think I want servants creeping in at dawn...’

‘That’s as it may be,’ she said with asperity. ‘But Gran has a very clear idea of what’s right and wrong and we’ll do this her way or not at all. So thank you but we’ll buy our own coal. When would you like us to start?’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow!’

‘It’s two weeks until Christmas,’ he said and looked ruefully round the room. ‘This room and my bedroom seem the only places that are habitable. The castle’s been under dust-sheets since my stepmother left. Any cooking’s been done by Stanley on a portable gas ring—heaven knows if the range still works.’

‘I need a stove!’

‘That’s why I want you tomorrow—we may need to order one fast. Meanwhile, I need to get the place warm...’

‘That’ll take a year!’

‘I’ll do my part,’ he said. ‘Can you do yours, Miss McIntosh?’

‘Holly,’ she said, ‘My Lord.’

‘Angus,’ he said back.’

‘It’s Holly and My Lord,’ she said primly. ‘Gran won’t stand for anything else. The British Empire was built by those who knew their place and didn’t step out of it.’

‘So you intend to be subservient.’

‘That’s the one,’ she said cheerfully. ‘As long as you do what I tell you, I’ll be as subservient as you like.’

‘As long as I do what you tell me...’

‘If I have a cooking range that hasn’t been used for years I’ll be telling you right, left and centre,’ she said and rose and shoved her feet determinedly back into her soggy trainers. ‘Thank you very much, My Lord. Gran and I will see you at nine tomorrow, and Christmas will begin then.’ She reached out and shook his hand, then reached down and patted the little dog. ‘Goodbye until then,’ she said. ‘Twenty courses or not, suddenly we’re going to have a very yummy Christmas.’

* * *

Angus stood in the doorway and watched her go. She’d refused his offer to drive her; she’d refused his offer to send Stanley and she was trudging down the road towards the village looking like a bereft orphan thrown out into the snow.

A bereft orphan with spirit.

‘You’ve made a mistake, My Lord,’ Stanley said gloomily. He’d appeared—gloomily—behind him. ‘She’ll cost you a fortune.’

‘Tell me, Stanley,’ Angus said, in a voice any of his colleagues would have recognised and snapped to wary attention. ‘How much do we have in the petty cash account?’

‘I...’

‘We have the rent roll from the cottages for the last month, I assume,’ Angus said. ‘That should cover our costs nicely. I suspect it’s far too late to get central heating installed into this place by Christmas but I want every chimney swept, I want coal in every fireplace and I want oil heaters in every room. After Christmas I may need to reforest a small nation to nullify any environmental impact, but this castle will be warm by Christmas. Can I leave that to you, Stanley?’

His voice was silky-smooth. He was watching Stanley’s face and he knew exactly what the man was thinking.

The rent rolls for this place were colossal. They were supposed to come into a cash account at the start of the month, then roll over at the end of the month into one of his father’s income-bearing accounts. What he suspected Stanley was doing and seemed to have been doing for years was siphoning the rent roll into his own account for the thirty days. Angus’s father must never have noticed, but Angus thought of the interest Stanley must have earned over the years he’d been employed...

However...Stanley had put up with his father, and somehow he’d held the estate together. And he couldn’t sack him now—he needed him. But then he thought of Holly in her soggy trainers and he thought of the misery caused by dishonesty everywhere.

Stanley would need to scramble to get that money back into the account, he thought, hit by a wave of sudden anger. The reputation of the miserliness of the Earl of Craigenstone stopped right now. Dishonesty stopped now, too. Up until now he’d tolerated a bit of petty theft, he’d tolerated Stanley’s surliness because to change things in the short time he had here had seemed pointless. But now... Now things did need to change. Suddenly Castle Craigie was aiming for a Very Merry Christmas.

* * *

‘He’s nice... He’s lovely and he’s hired us both. At such a salary! Each!’

Holly practically bounced into the kitchen, where Maggie had been disconsolately staring at a packet of pasta and an unbranded can of tomatoes. Now she stared as if her granddaughter had lost her mind.

‘What?’