Lorna Cook - The Forbidden Promise

Kate thought of all the country houses she’d visited over the past few years, though there weren’t that many. She googled Longleat, near Bath, remembering it thrived thanks mainly to a Safari Park. That was out of the question. She moved on to Chatsworth, Blenheim Palace and then looked more locally at Cawdor Castle before realising she was completely out of her depth.

This was a disaster. She’d been hired under false pretences. Although she suspected Liz had no idea of the difference between PR and business strategy and now they were all in this mess together.

She switched her phone off and put her head in her hands. She had two options. She could give in, explain to Liz that she’d been mistakenly hired for a job she wasn’t qualified to do. Or she could breathe deeply and be pragmatic.

The sun streamed through a chink in the curtains and Kate blinked and looked at her watch. It was early, but not so early she could try to grab forty more winks before starting her first day at work. She’d had very little sleep, had been up all night formulating a rough kind of plan and had engaged in a stern chat with herself on more than one occasion to force herself to continue. She wasn’t going to give in. For one thing, she could imagine the smug joy on James’s face when she confessed she had no idea what she was doing and that it was probably best for all concerned that she drive back to the airport and not darken their door again. The image of his self-satisfied face riled her. But it was something else stopping her. Kate always made a point of giving clients the best service she could offer. She’d always told them that she treated their business as if it was her own. And she meant it. What would Kate try to do if Invermoray was her house?

And so, with careful, methodical planning, throughout the night she’d filled a notebook with short-term, and long-term ideas for raising cash. In short, she created something vaguely resembling a business plan. She’d made a point of not sleeping until she’d run out of ideas. And the ideas kept flowing, which meant she hadn’t slept. So it was with an exhausted excitement that she stood zombie-like in the shower and tried not to fall asleep upright.

‘I can do this,’ Kate whispered as she stood in the kitchen and loaded the silver cafetière with coffee, ‘I can do this.’ In the morning light things weren’t as bad as she thought. Often she’d make suggestions to clients about how to tweak their business. She understood getting people through doors. What they wanted. What they needed. With the hash they’d made of it at Invermoray so far, things could only get better. Kate had rallied her confidence and had chosen to wear skinny jeans tucked into ankle boots and her nicest shirt, which wasn’t too crumpled from being packed away. She needed to find out where the iron was. Overall, she hoped the outfit conveyed seriousness to her role without being too staid.

‘I can do this,’ she repeated.

‘It’s not that complicated,’ James said as he entered the kitchen, startling her so that she spilled coffee granules over the counter.

‘Fill with boiling water, leave a few minutes and then push the plunger,’ he continued.

‘Right, yes.’ She knew how to make coffee.

‘Jolly good,’ he said dryly. ‘Enough in there for me?’ His tone was lighter, not by a lot, but he certainly wasn’t on as much of an offensive as he had been last night.

Kate made them both coffee as James scraped a kitchen chair out and sat down at the table. Maybe this wouldn’t be as awkward as yesterday.

‘So …’ he started and then stopped.

‘So …?’ Kate echoed. She was wrong. The awkwardness was seeping back into the room.

‘So you’re basically the cavalry,’ James said with a thin smile. ‘Come to rescue us because we’ve cocked it up?’

‘Oh no,’ Kate said quickly. ‘No no no. I see us as more of a team …’

‘Pfft,’ James replied.

She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. And it was hardly fair given she didn’t know she was meant to be the cavalry.

‘Do you know,’ he started, looking out the kitchen window, ‘I gave up my job to come back here. I don’t know why now. I’ve been here all of five minutes, I think I’ve just about worked out where things are going wrong, I’ve sorted what I believe is a decent plan of attack and then without a chance to do anything about it I get …’

‘You get …?’ Kate prompted.

‘I get you … to be blunt … thrust upon me. Who’s running who? Who’s in charge? You or me? I’ve got no idea. But if you think you can just strut in here and throw orders around, you’ve got another—’

‘That’s really not why I’m here,’ Kate cut in. And then she noted what he’d said. ‘I’m sorry, you’ve only been here five minutes? What do you mean?’

‘Three months,’ James said. ‘I’ve been back for all of three months. I wasn’t going to. I came back after Dad died, got things sorted for Mum. But I had a job. A life. One I enjoyed, so I went back to that. And then Mum issued her call to arms and like a dutiful son I said I’d come and help. So I apologise for my hostility towards you yesterday, but I want you to see it from my point of view. I wasn’t expecting … well … you know.’ He gestured towards Kate and then sipped the coffee she handed him. But he clearly wasn’t done and she watched him take a deep breath. ‘In truth, I wasn’t expecting to be told I was shit quite so soon, especially when I don’t really want to be here.’

Kate nodded slowly. He’d been here for three months. Which meant that when she’d been hired a month ago and had worked her notice period, he’d only been here for two months when Liz had interviewed her. It sounded cut-throat but perhaps Liz just knew things needed to move at a quicker pace than they had been then.

‘I’m sorry,’ Kate said. ‘I don’t know what to say. Only, I think I’ll be good at this and—’

James’s eyebrows lifted. ‘You think you’ll be good at this?’ he repeated. ‘What the hell does that mean? Have you not done this before?’

Kate was spared answering as Liz arrived. ‘Ah, good morning, all. Kate, shall we have the tour after breakfast and then we can talk plans as we go?’

Across the kitchen table, James’s eyes narrowed.

They moved through the house, Kate clutching her notebook and pen, writing things down as Liz and she discussed plans. Kate tried to keep the horrified expression from her face as they looked in some of the other guest bedrooms that were even chintzier than her own. Most had en suites, which would be a blessing when it came to offering bed and breakfast packages. No guest wants to traipse down a hall in the middle of the night in search of a loo. It doesn’t exactly scream luxury and so Kate offered up a silent word of thanks to the McLay ancestors who’d seen fit to install additional bathrooms.

The polished ballroom and well-planted orangery were in good condition, although a pane of glass had smashed on the far side of the orangery and had been boarded up. Kate resisted asking how long it had been like that. A while, she suspected, and made a note in her pad to get it fixed. This was really a job James and Liz should have already tackled, but as she moved further through the house with Liz it was clear they were at sixes and sevens and Kate would have to take on a lot of everyday tasks if they were going to get Invermoray suitable for visiting journalists and paying guests.