Lorna Cook - The Forbidden Promise

The clock on the wall ticked away, providing an awkward soundtrack for the dinner. Kate’s PR training kicked in and she started on the small talk.

‘This is wonderful,’ she said truthfully.

‘Thanks,’ James mumbled.

Silence threatened to engulf the room again.

‘James is really rather talented in the kitchen,’ Liz enthused. ‘I joke he’ll make someone a lovely wife one day.’

He shrugged then shovelled another fork load of lasagne into his mouth.

As Liz and Kate continued small talk amongst themselves about the weather and the village nearby, James practically hoovered his food down. Kate stole small glances at him every now and again. He’d probably be quite good-looking, if only he’d smile. She glanced back at him a few minutes later and found him looking directly at her. ‘Right. That’s me done,’ he said suddenly. ‘I’m off to bed.’

He put his plate in the sink, took his wine glass with him and left the kitchen. He was avoiding her already; Kate was sure of it.

If Liz hadn’t been sitting there Kate would have breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God he’d gone. He knew how to suck the atmosphere from a room.

‘Oh, don’t mind him,’ Liz said, obviously spotting her expression. ‘He’s going to take a little while to get used to the idea of you being here. Between you, me and the gatepost,’ Liz said quietly, ‘he feels a bit undermined.’

‘Undermined?’ Kate helped herself to another portion of lasagne and Liz did the same.

‘He’s used to ruling the roost. Whole teams of people worked under him at the office. Before he left to come and help me. But of course you’re now here, and you’re an expert in a field James knows absolutely nothing about. So he’s not really sure how he’s going to manage you.’

‘I see,’ Kate said. But she didn’t really see and wasn’t sure how she was going to alleviate James’s concern. ‘Well,’ Kate tried. ‘I’m only here for six months so the plan is to sort of … get you started on the PR side of things – make sure my travel contacts in the media are onside over the next few months, make sure they visit and write glowing reviews, introduce you to all of them when they visit so you have an ongoing relationship with them. I plan to make decent headway and then I’ll hand over the reins to you and James. Hopefully at the end of my time here, you’ll be beating visitors off with sticks and might be able to hire someone locally just for a few days a week.’

‘I know, I know, dear. We talked about this on the phone. All the other candidates droned on and on about how they’d need to move here permanently. How they’d be expecting a resettlement package and all that.’

Kate was pleased her honesty had paid off and she hadn’t been as offensively demanding as some of the other applicants had obviously been.

‘So don’t worry about the nitty-gritty at this stage. For now,’ Liz continued, looking conspiratorial, ‘we need to work out how to get the visitors in and then we need to worry about the PR after that.’

‘Well, that should be easy,’ Kate said confidently. ‘Good PR and a turnaround in visitors go hand in hand.’ She knew her job inside out. It was a rare kind of travel journalist who said no to a free all-expenses-paid mini-break with their partner in exchange for a decent review. And with decent reviews, came an upsurge in tourism – unless there was something very wrong with a hospitality property. Kate could do this in her sleep. And the rest of it, planning out themed articles months in advance in line with what journalists were requesting for their features, that was just good relationships and diarising. ‘You did mention on the phone you didn’t have much in the way of visitors and I admit you are very out of the way. You weren’t too sure about the events programme and we were going to take a look over the bedrooms to see what could improve but …’ Kate cut to the chase. ‘Liz, how many visitors does Invermoray House get?’

‘None, dear.’

‘None? Oh I don’t just mean out of season,’ Kate clarified, wondering why Liz was quoting the unimpressive out-of-season number. Although none , even for that time of year, was a worry.

‘We don’t get any visitors at all. Over any time period,’ Liz explained. ‘We don’t have any kind of events programme. We have never opened the house to paying visitors. We’ve never offered overnight stays. I love the idea of turning us into some sort of boutique bed and breakfast but we wouldn’t even know where to begin. I mean, do we need some kind of catering licence from the council to offer breakfasts or afternoon teas? But for now, what you see is what we are: a family home that needs to start paying its way. That’s why you’re here. We need you to help us do all of this. We need you to save Invermoray House.’

What on earth had she got herself into? She’d done this job for years. But normally she turned up, following in the footsteps of a well-executed business plan, was pretty much thrust a strategy and then off she’d run and drum up interest with the glossy magazines, bloggers and the Sunday supplements. She’d take journalists out for lunch. She’d organise snazzy, all-expenses-paid press trips and then sit back and wait for the editorial coverage to roll in. She’d had it quite easy. She would be the first to admit to herself; although she’d never dared tell anyone else that, especially her clients.

But this was different. If Liz had outlined exactly how amateur this operation was, would she have come? God, no. She was a publicist, not a business strategist. She was the cherry on the cake, not the cake itself.

Kate looked at her watch as she lay in bed, unable to sleep. Ordinarily, it would be too late to text someone, but she knew Jenny would be awake and doing something slightly bonkers such as an all-night spin cycle class. ‘ Help ,’ Kate messaged. ‘ They have no idea what they’re doing .’ She paused before typing again. ‘ And neither do I ,’ she finished with a flourish before sending a follow-up with a very brief summary of the situation.

Kate watched three dots appear on the screen, indicating Jenny was composing a reply.

‘ You’ve handled worse than this, I’m sure, ’ she replied. ‘ Remember that diabolical spa that thought they were good enough to get coverage in Vogue ? You can do this blindfolded. Do you need more in the way of a pep talk or can I go to my trampoline disco class now? ’

Kate replied with a heart symbol and left Jenny to her latest late-night exercise fad.

She wasn’t ready to sleep yet and was annoyed with herself that she’d forgotten to ask Liz what the Wi-Fi code was for the house. Kate actually rather suspected there wasn’t one. After trying unsuccessfully to connect her laptop to her phone’s 3G, she gave up and just scrolled through sites using the hazy 3G on her phone. She had one bar of signal and so had to wait an interminable amount of time for a page to load, but at least it was loading. She was looking up famous country houses, to see what they were doing to drum up business. She couldn’t possibly be expected to formulate the entire business strategy, could she? If so, what the hell had James been doing until now, if not that very thing? Liz had said he was some hotshot who’d come home to Invermoray to run the house. Run it into the ground, clearly.