Lorna Cook - The Forbidden Promise

‘What a bastard.’

She could have cried. What was she even doing here?

Kate climbed back into the car and grabbed her handbag from where it had fallen into the passenger footwell. She took out her small bundle of good luck cards and reread her favourite, from her best friend Jenny. On the front was a picture of Kate holding an empty Champagne bottle upside down towards her mouth. She was pulling a stupid, but happy expression. It was only a few months old, but remembering the celebrations from the day she’d been promoted to senior PR manager still made her smile.

Inside the card wasn’t the usual ‘Good Luck’ message. Instead it said, ‘From drunken dare to worst nightmare. Knock ’em dead.’

Oh God, the dare. What had Kate been thinking, coming here on a whim and a dare? She couldn’t lay all the blame at Jenny’s door. It hadn’t been Jenny’s fault that Kate had quite simply had enough. If she had to turn up to promote any more bar openings with mediocre guest lists full of Z-list models and footballers’ wives treating her like dirt she would have screamed. What was it about the almost famous that made them think they could talk to her and her colleagues like they were skivvies? And then when one had accused her of flirting with her husband. Well, the fallout from that had been unbearable. She knew why she was here if she really stopped to think about it. She needed to rebuild her reputation, away from the claustrophobic glare of London, her office, her colleagues, everyone who knew the awful situation she’d got herself in that night. The shame of the accusation was what had driven her here, as far away as she could possibly get. After the indignity and humiliation of the formal warning she’d received at work the next day, Jenny had drunkenly applied online for two jobs for her.

‘You’ve always said you wanted to travel more,’ Jenny had slurred, loading up a jobs website on her laptop. ‘From Land’s End to John o’Groats. I dare you. Where do you fancy?’

‘Anywhere, anywhere, just fill the bloody forms in, attach my CV and hit send. It could be in Timbuktu for all I care. As long as I never have to deal with some reality TV contestant falling out of a bar drunk and into the lens of their own pre-organised waiting paparazzi, then it can be anywhere you like,’ Kate had declared.

Jenny had hit send, they’d clinked glasses and Kate had forgotten all about it. Until a week later when a rejection email from a hotel in Cornwall had fallen into Kate’s inbox. Apparently she didn’t have enough experience promoting regional food and had not even made it through to the interview stage. She felt a slight pang of regret over the loss of a job she hadn’t even known existed until that very moment. And it had set her thinking: maybe a change of scenery was the very thing she needed. No more awful bars. No celebrity hangouts. A chance to start afresh with her reputation intact.

And so when the second job application had proven fruitful and the owner of Invermoray House in Scotland interviewed Kate via an hour-long phone call and offered her the job at the end of it, she had jumped up and down for a full two minutes in joy.

‘Not much in the way of visitors,’ she had told Kate. ‘Which we’re hoping you can help with of course, dear. We’re very out of the way up here.’

‘Sounds perfect.’ Kate had felt triumphant, knowing soon she’d be away from run-of-the-mill PR assignments. And it wasn’t as if she had a relationship to tie her down. She’d been single for about a year and very happy about it. ‘I accept.’

But now it was a different story. Lost and in the fading light, Kate had never felt so alone.

By the time she eventually found it, her satnav back up and running, Invermoray House was bathed in twilight. Kate drove down the long driveway and onto the large gravel sweep in front of the house. Her eyebrows rose involuntarily as she took in the grandeur of the building, marvelling at the way it was downplayed as a house when it was more a castle. As she pulled up, the car headlights gave the baronial building a warm yellow glow.

Kate barely had time to drag her suitcases from the boot before the large wooden front door was pulled open and a lady in her mid-sixties walked towards her.

‘Can I help you?’ She had kind, smiling eyes and bob-length straight brown hair.

Kate recognised her voice. ‘I’m sorry I’m so late. You must be Mrs Langley-McLay?’

‘Yes, my dear.’ She gave Kate’s suitcases the once-over. ‘You aren’t Kate, are you?’

Kate nodded and Mrs Langley-McLay’s eyebrows knitted together.

‘Then you aren’t late at all, my dear. You’re a day early.’

Kate’s face fell. ‘What? I can’t be.’

The woman laughed. ‘We said we’d start tomorrow, so I assumed you would arrive tomorrow.’

‘Oh, I just thought …’ Kate’s voice trailed away.

‘Well.’ Mrs Langley-McLay moved forward to help Kate with her cases. ‘There’s nothing wrong with being keen. You take that other case and we’ll see you inside. You must need a cup of tea and a sit-down after such a long journey. And then we’ll see you to your room. Or perhaps you’d like a gin and tonic instead of tea? I was going to have one before dinner.’

‘That would be lovely, Mrs Langley-Mc—’

‘Oh, call me Liz, or else it’s such a mouthful.’ Liz placed Kate’s suitcase by the bottom of the ornately carved mahogany stairs and indicated Kate should do the same with the other one.

Liz led her through the black and white tiled hallway, the roaring fire crackling away comfortingly in the large stone fireplace. Despite the fact it was mid-summer there was a nip in the air as dusk settled. Liz slowed down and peeked into the doorway of a room.

‘Oh good, he’s not here,’ she mumbled to herself.

‘Who isn’t?’ Kate asked as she followed Liz into the library. It was perhaps the grandest room Kate had ever seen. Rows and rows of leather-bound books lined tall shelves that stretched to the ceiling. A wooden ladder on wheels was positioned up against the shelves and for a moment she had a childish urge to leap onto it and slide around the room.

‘Not to worry. Not for the moment. Now, let’s fix ourselves a drink, shall we? Dutch courage and all that.’

Kate wondered why on earth Liz needed Dutch courage, but Liz changed the subject, asking about Kate’s journey before launching into work matters.

‘We’ve needed someone like you for quite some time.’ Liz moved over to a drinks trolley and lifted the lid of the ice container. She plunked several pieces into two cut-glass tumblers. ‘We’re in a complete state, as I explained on the phone, so you’ll be a bit of a jack of all trades while we get started.’ She gestured for Kate to sit on one of two red velvet Knole sofas and she did so on the one nearest Liz, her back to the door. The sofas were worn, with horsehair sticking through, and the rope that bound the back together had once been gold but was now utterly frayed. It was a stark contrast to the leather volumes and the oversized wooden desk positioned near the French windows, which although old looked as good as new.