Christmas at the Castle. Marion Lennox

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СКАЧАТЬ Holly listened, stunned.

      ‘We’re so sorry, miss,’ the man on the other end of the line said. ‘This should have been explained to you. Seeing your baggage has been missing for over twenty-four hours, you can spend what you need right away and you’ll be reimbursed within four working days. It also seems your grandmother has paid an extra ten pounds insurance for baggage cover so there’s no loss at all—you’ll get full reimbursement if the baggage isn’t found, plus a small amount extra for inconvenience. I apologise that this wasn’t explained to you two days ago.’

      ‘I...thank you,’ she managed and Angus took the phone from her grasp, added a few contact details and disconnected.

      ‘So now you can buy wellingtons,’ he said.

      ‘I...’ She fought for something to say and couldn’t. She stared at her feet. ‘Um...’

      ‘Just how broke are you?’ he asked gently and she flushed, but there seemed no point denying things now.

      ‘Um...really, really broke,’ she whispered. ‘Geoff maxed out my credit cards. I owe money to everyone and Gran used her grocery money to buy my plane ticket. I...thank you but I still can’t buy wellingtons because no shop will take an airline’s promise that the money’s coming. But I can wait four days.’

      ‘You can’t. Here’s a loan to tide you over.’ He hauled out his wallet, counted out a wad of notes and held them out.

      ‘No.’ What was she thinking? For some reason, her Gran’s warning came slamming back and she stood up and backed to the door. ‘You’ve given me a job. I can’t take any more.’

      ‘This isn’t a gift,’ he said mildly. ‘When the airline pays you, you can pay me.’

      ‘You don’t know me. How can you trust me?’

      ‘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 СКАЧАТЬ