Marion Lennox - Christmas at the Castle

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?’

Holly told her the salary and then repeated it for good measure. ‘And we start tomorrow. We get to stay in the castle and we get to stay warm.’

She grabbed her grandmother and hugged her and then, because she was excited, she did a little jig, dragging Maggie round the kitchen with her.

But Maggie had to be dragged. There was no matching excitement in her, and finally Holly stopped and let her go.

‘What?’

‘There’s a catch,’ Maggie said flatly. ‘There’s always a catch.’

‘There’s not. He’s getting a chef and an awesome housekeeper and he’s prepared to pay. I was getting those sort of wages in Sydney before...’

‘Before you trusted Geoff,’ Maggie retorted. ‘Have you learned nothing? Men!’

‘Gran, he rang the airline and got a real person. And look.’ She dug her hand into her greatcoat and hauled out the banknotes. ‘This is an advance on what the airline is paying me. It seems you bought me insurance. Gran, this is...’

‘Give it back!’

‘Are you out of your mind?’

‘He’s the Earl of Craigenstone. You never, ever trust such a man. We’ll be indebted. He’ll be demanding... You know what he’ll be demanding?’

‘Droit de seigneur? Any village maiden he wants?’ Holly stared down at the notes in her hand and couldn’t suppress a giggle. ‘Gran, this is not the Dark Ages. This means dry shoes. And you know, for dry shoes I might even agree to a bit of...’

‘Holly!’

‘Okay, sorry,’ she said, settling again. ‘You needn’t worry; after Geoff, I am not the least bit interested in unswerving servitude, or even interest, but we do have a job and we can walk away at any time.’

‘And this money?’

‘Will be repaid as soon as the airline pays me. We’re not walking into the lion’s den. Come on, Gran, it’ll be awesome.’

‘How many people are we catering for?’

That stopped Holly in her tracks. She stared at Maggie, who stared straight back.

If they were in front of a mirror they would have seen a weird reflection, Holly thought. Maggie looked like Holly with fifty years added. They looked like two curly-haired Scotswomen, the only difference being the colour of their hair—copper versus grey—a few wrinkles and an Aussie accent versus a broad Scottish burr.

‘I don’t know,’ Holly admitted, hauling her attention back to catering. ‘The butler said...’

‘Who?’

‘The man who opened the door. Dour, lean and mean. He looks like Lurch from the Addams Family.’

‘Stanley,’ Maggie snapped. ‘Estate manager. Reminds me of a ferret. Lurch used to make me laugh. Stanley doesn’t.’

‘Well, he implied we’ll only be cooking and making beds for His Lordship.’

‘If he’s paying these sort of wages, he’ll have invited half of New York.’

‘We can cope,’ Holly said belligerently and then went back to thinking about the man she’d just left. ‘Gran, he’s gorgeous.’

‘There’s no gorgeous about it,’ Maggie snapped. ‘The man’s the Earl, and he’s had deceit and tyranny bred into him for generations. I’m glad I’m coming with you, lass, or heaven knows what trouble you’d get into.’

‘So you will do it?’

‘We don’t have much choice,’ Maggie said grimly. ‘It’s follow His Lordship’s orders or starve. Nothing’s changed in this village for five hundred years, and it seems it’s not changing now.’

* * *

He made three phone calls. The first was to his mother, who was as upset as he’d thought she might be.

‘I’m staying here until after Christmas,’ he told her. ‘I know how you feel about the place, Mom, but I’ve told you about these kids. This place is important to them. It’s the least I can do. I’ll give them Christmas here and then it’s done.’

‘You won’t turn into an Earl?’ She’d tried to say it as a joke but it didn’t work. He heard her fear. ‘That place traps you.’

‘My father trapped you, not the castle,’ he told her. ‘I will come home after Christmas.’ He hesitated. ‘Mom, why not come over, too? We could lay a few ghosts. We have an awesome cook and housekeeper. If you don’t mind meeting Delia...’

‘I don’t mind meeting Delia. Contrary to first wife, second wife mores, I don’t hate her. She was my only friend in the castle. I understand why she married him and I feel sorry for her, but I still won’t come. That place holds nothing but bad memories.’

‘Hey, I was born here. Isn’t meeting me a good memory?’ He was trying to lighten things but she wouldn’t be lightened and he hung up with a sigh.

Then he rang his friends and got the opposite reaction.

‘You’re spending Christmas as an Earl? In a Scottish castle? Awesome! How about making it a party?’

‘I’ll be looking after kids.’

‘But a party!’

He disconnected fast before he found himself with a castle full of American financiers for Christmas, and then finally he rang the kids. Expecting joy.

But, instead of joy, he was met with silence.

‘I almost hoped you wouldn’t ring,’ Ben said flatly.

To say he was surprised would be an understatement. After the pleading the kid had made on behalf of his family...

‘Don’t you want to come any more?’

‘Yes, but now we can’t,’ the boy said. ‘There’s something wrong with Mum’s back. The doctor says something’s hitting a nerve and she has to go into hospital on Friday for an urgent operation. Gran says Mum can’t look after herself afterwards, so we all have to go to Gran’s apartment ’cos Gran won’t move, and it’s even smaller than this one. And I have to sleep with my sisters and there’s no one there we know and it’ll be the pits. I asked Mum could we go to the castle by ourselves and she said no, not if you’re even remotely like our dad, and we looked you up on the Internet and you do look like him and it’s hopeless.’

There was a long silence. Angus stared down at the ancient flagstones in the hall and the ragged little dog wound himself round his ankles and looked up at him. Expectantly?