‘Another one no’ like their room?’ Gene asked softly.
‘Hmph! This one’s surely the worst of the lot. Just arrived and wanting to leave, afore she’d evenseenher room. Aye, they’re small rooms, but they’re clean and they’re warm. This isnae The Ritz.Och, for crying out loud, Eugene, can ye no’ get these keys back up on their hooks? The inn’s almost fully booked for the first time in years thanks to the crafters and, honest to God, what do you look like carrying on with yur wee tub o’ keys in front of the guests?’
‘Aye, aye, I’ll sort it,’ came the brother’s dismissive, preoccupied reply in his feather light Highland brogue. ‘Take it easy, brother. You’ve got guests coming in, isn’t that whit ye wanted? Your idea’s working.’
‘It only works if they don’t think we’re some kind of joke. You have to take the inn more seriously now we’re busy again, for my sake, as well as our guests. It is, after all,yourinn. Is that… are those cobwebs on your shirt? For the love of—’
‘Found it! The princess room,’ Gene announced proudly.
Beatrice who had craned her head over the balustrade to better hear them found herself smiling at the strange set-up between the pair, and could only imagine the tensions that must run between them, daily testing this Atholl Fergusson’s patience. No wonder he was so grouchy. She quickly rearranged her expression as Atholl bounded back up onto the landing before her.
‘Right, shall we?’ Leading the way along undulating floorboards that gave Beatrice a seasick feeling, Atholl pulled up at the ever so slightly crooked door frame with its brass plaque declaring this ‘The Princess Room.’
As Beatrice followed him along the corridor she stopped to do a double take at its faded pictures and movie posters lining the panelled walls and hanging squint on their hooks. Every one of them featured Gene Kelly.
Atholl caught her incredulous expression. ‘They’re, um, my mother’s. She loves the musicals. I darenae take them down.’ He grimaced awkwardly having made the confession.
Beatrice had no intention of pushing him for more details about this eccentric mother. All she wanted to do was flop down on a comfy bed and try not to think too hard about how exactly she’d wound up in this place.
Without another word, he let the door open and Beatrice passed through.
After everything she had been through in recent months, she’d thought nothing could ever surprise her again; shock her and shake her, make her nerves sing and snap with anxiety and tension, yes, but surely nothing could simply surprise or delight anymore? Nevertheless, the room took away her breath and made her eyes widen in wonder. ‘Hah! What’s this?’
Atholl watched his guest through sharpened eyes, his arms folded as he leaned on the door frame. Beatrice stepped right up to the antique wooden bed with its tower of plump mattresses and quilts stacked one atop another, a confection of vintage lace and down, ponderously piled as high as the top of her head, and all canopied over with a flouncy awning suspended between the four intricately carved bedposts, the canopy almost touching the sloping, beamed ceiling itself.
‘How on earth are you supposed to get into it?’
Saying nothing, Atholl unfolded an arm and pointed a finger to the end of the bed, indicating she should walk around. Sure enough, on the other side of the mattress mountain was a wooden ladder, its rungs twined with gold ribbon and white silk roses, the same decorations which held back the fairy-tale bed’s four pale green chintzy curtains, tying them to the bedposts.
‘It’s incredible, but this can’t be safe, surely? What if you forget you’re up there, get up for a drink of water in the dark and fall to your death? There’s no way I’d be able to sleep up there!’
‘Your own wee room doesn’t look quite so small now, I take it?’ Atholl said, his eyes sly and glinting.
Beatrice felt a flush of irritation rise in her chest turning her cheeks red, a feeling which wouldn’t have been quite so strong had she not found herself struck by the way he was rolling up his shirt sleeves to expose modestly muscled forearms, dark and freckled with the summer sun, and realising she had let her eyes linger there a second too long.
There was a hint of laughter in his eyes telling her that even if he hadn’t picked up on her appraising glance – and she really hoped he hadn’t – hedefinitelyknew he’d aggravated her by being right about her preference for the other room after all.
Scanning the furnishings once more to avoid his smirking, she caught sight of the mustard-yellow chaise along the wall and the antique roll-top bath in the corner, at least twice as big as the sad little tub in the first room, and there were fluffy white towels on a stand beside it.
‘I’ll take it,’ she heard herself saying, before immediately cursing her newly acquired petty streak. She wasn’t going to show Atholl the sneaking shame that was threatening to burn her cheeks again, so she defiantly raised her face to his. ‘I’ll be going in the morning anyway. I’m sure I can surviveonenight.’
Not wanting Atholl to offer to bring her suitcase from the rejected room, she flounced back out into the corridor, making him press himself against the doorframe to let her past.
She didn’t care if his face was set sternly or if he overheard her remarking to herself, ‘What was I thinking, coming here?’, but she caught his exasperated shrug of resignation as she trundled her case into the princess room. That shrug told her he thought it wise to leave the emotional Englishwoman to fizz and boil by herself.
But she wasn’t done with him yet. She still had to risk asking the insistent question that had been worrying her since her arrival.
‘Is there a phone I can use?’ She held her mobile out for him to look at the greyed-out bars. ‘There’s no signal here. How do you manage?’ It came out more curtly than she wanted, but it was too late now.
‘Do you really need it? Can you no’ live without checking Instagram for a few hours?’
Beatrice had no intention of telling him she wanted to ring her sister to let her know where she was and why she hadn’t called round today.
‘Do you even know what Instagram is?’
She’d only briefly flirted with Instagram herself when looking with Angela – who’d been scoffing and disinterested – at glamorous celebrity parents showing off over engineered and very expensive baby slings and carriers. If tested now, she’d have been unable to explain exactly how to use the app, but again this was something he didn’t need to know. She never had settled on which carrier she’d like best, and it was irrelevant now.
Atholl was still huffing, pink-faced at her question. ‘Well, no, but my point is,thisis life here and now.’ He gestured to the low window by the landing, and she followed his gaze to the rain running in fast streaks down the pane. ‘This is the holiday you’ve been looking forward to for months.’
