The Most Scandalous Ravensdale. Melanie Milburne

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       CHAPTER TWO

      OKAY, THERE HAS to be catch. Kat unlocked the door of the Notting Hill Victorian mansion the house-sitting agency had assigned her. Call her a pessimist, but she knew from experience that anything that looked too good to be true usually was. But so far all she could see was luxury. The sort of opulent luxury she had dreamed of since she was a kid growing up on a council estate in Glasgow. Even the air inside the house smelt rich. The grace notes of an exclusive perfume and the base note of some sort of essential oil made her nostrils quiver in sensory delight. She closed the door and the stunning crystal chandeliers overhead tinkled against the bitter early January wind, as if disturbed by the whispery breath of a ghost.

      Kat ignored the faint shiver that crept over her scalp. She was being ridiculous. Of course she was. It was her nerves because of the audition next week. She could feel the moths fluttering in her belly even now. Big, winged ones, beating against the walls of her stomach like razor blades. If she got the part in the West End play and her career finally took off she would never have to waitress or house-sit again. She would be able to buy her own luxury mansion, have her own space instead of borrowing a stranger’s.

      Usually the houses she looked after were a little more modest than this. But she wasn’t complaining. Although, four weeks of living with such decadence was going to make it hard to adjust once she went back to a poky little bedsit—if she was lucky enough to secure one.

      Someone had kindly left the heating on...or maybe that was because of Monty, the cat Kat was supposed to be minding along with the house. Kat wasn’t a great fan of cats. She was more of a dog person. But apparently Monty was a delicate ‘inside’ cat, which meant there wouldn’t be any nasty unmentionable creatures to deal with because he wouldn’t be out at night hunting.

      Anyway, turning down a job because of a bit of a feline prejudice wasn’t an option just now.

      Besides, she was an actor, wasn’t she? She would pretend to like the cat.

      Kat wandered through the house looking for the cat...or so she told herself. What she was really looking at were all the photos of the couple that lived there. The Carstairses were both professionals—the wife was a GP and the husband a barrister, and they had two gorgeous kids, a boy and a girl who were both under five. They had taken the kids to Australia to see relatives—or so the agency lady had told her.

      It was hard to look at those photos and not feel a little twinge of envy. Well, maybe not just a little twinge. More like a large fist grabbing at her innards and twisting them until the blood supply was cut off.

      Kat’s childhood hadn’t looked anything like these kids’ childhoods. Firstly, she hadn’t had a father. She had one now but that was another story. Secondly, her mother hadn’t looked as relaxed and content as the mother in the photos. Her mother had spent most of Kat’s childhood inviting the wolf at the door in for sleepovers. And as for any exotic holidays abroad...the only ‘overseas’ holidays she’d had with her mother had been to visit her grandparents in the Outer Hebrides on the Isle of Harris. But typically those visits had only lasted a couple of days before her mother had got tired of the I-told-you-so lectures from her strict Presbyterian parents.

      Kat found more photos in the gorgeous sitting room that overlooked the even more gorgeous garden. Even though it was back to its bare bones, being the first week in January, it would be the perfect place for a couple of kids to play on long summer afternoons, or for two adults to sit out there with a glass of chilled wine and chat about their day while they watched the children gambolling about.

      Funny, but at her last damp and mouldy bedsit the rain had looked every bit as bleak and dismal as winter rain could be. It would drip down the panes of glass...on both sides, unfortunately. But at the Carstairses’ house the droplets trickled down—thankfully on the outside only—the triple-glazed windows like strings of glittering diamonds.

      Kat shifted her gaze to a photo in a frame on a mahogany drop-sided table next to the window. It was a Christmas photo: she could see a brightly decorated Christmas tree with heaps of beautifully wrapped presents underneath its branches. The same tree was still in situ—it was on her lists of tasks to pack it away before the family returned. There were ten or twelve people in the photo, the children in the front, the shorter adults at the sides and the tallest at the back. But there was one man who stood head and shoulders over everyone else. She picked up the photo with a hand that wasn’t quite steady.

      What was he doing there?

      Kat clenched her teeth so hard she could feel the tension turning the muscles in her neck and СКАЧАТЬ