‘No.’ Alex replied without thinking about it. ‘I mean, yes. I mean – it’s O’Neill. Dr O’Neill. I took my stepfather’s name.’
Why was she telling him that? It was hardly the time.
He peered in closer, bent almost in two, straining to hear her and made a gesture indicating he couldn’t. Christ, he was huge.
And here she was, sitting in the dry, just staring at him like an idiot while he was getting soaked to the skin. The wind whipped at the hood, almost tearing it off his head until he had to use one hand to hold it securely in place. His hair was plastered across his face and water ran down his nose and into his saturated beard.
‘…Walker,’ he shouted. And then he pointed at the house.
Nick Walker. The caretaker. Of course it was him. He must have been watching out for her and seen the headlights. She’d expected someone older. And less…bearlike.
And she was still just sitting there.
‘I just—’ she shouted, her voice very loud in the confines of the car. ‘I have bags – I’ll just get them and follow you in.’
She pointed back at the boot and grabbed her rucksack from the passenger seat, securing her coat before opening the door. The wind almost ripped it from her hands anyway. She struggled out, only to find he was already at the boot, lifting her suitcases out. Oh God, did he think she’d been telling him to do that? Ordering him around like some kind of servant? When she moved to help him, he just shook his head and then waved her brusquely towards the house.
Right, inside. Yes. Out of the storm. She was standing in his way.
With a bitten-off curse, Alex ran up the steps to the main door, which was thankfully open. She almost fell as the wind abruptly cut off, skidding on ancient tiles covered in rainwater and leaves. She stepped through the vestibule, with its generations of boots, umbrellas, and coats, through the ornate glass doors which shielded it, and into the house proper.
Shaking off the rain, she looked up, surprised to see that not a lot had changed. Dark wood climbed halfway up the walls, all those imposing doors, portraits and an ancient mirror almost as tall as she was and four times as wide. The silver backing was so distorted and mottled that from the corner of the eye it looked like it was full of dust and desiccated faces, with the reflection of all the paintings on the opposite wall. Whenever they had come here, her grandfather had escorted her and Theo through these very doors and down this long wood-panelled hallway, naming the faces staring down at them. He’d gone into such detail about the artists who had painted them, and the subjects, she’d worried there was going to be a test later on.
Which…there had been. She’d failed.
The entrance hall was lit by a series of electric lights designed to mimic gas lamps. Above the wood panelling, the walls were painted a deep forest green. At the far end the staircase rose, carved black oak, a graceful and elegant twist of leaves and berries, stately foxgloves on the newel posts, wild woodland motifs to go with the name of the estate.
Her attention was drawn to the door that led to the study, the one she had never been allowed to enter. In the more familiar drawing room, a fire crackled merrily in the fireplace. She could see her reflection in the oval mirror above the mantlepiece. There were a pair of sofas and an armchair with a Foxford blanket thrown over it. It almost looked…inviting…and normal.
The heavy main door slammed behind her, as Nick Walker kicked it closed. He dropped her suitcases and shook himself like some kind of great beast relieved to be in out of the rain.
‘Miserable night,’ he said, his voice a low growl, like somehow that was her fault.
He pushed back the hood, revealing hair as long as the beard and just as wet. All Alex could do was stare at him. She couldn’t tear her eyes off him. He looked like a lumberjack. Or a wolf man.
‘Give us a sec,’ he went on when she said nothing. ‘I’ll take these up for you.’
‘I’m sorry. I would have got them,’ she replied hurriedly. ‘I didn’t expect you to?—’
He shook his head, cutting her off. ‘I was expecting you hours ago. You must have had a horrible drive down. Probably should have stayed in the city.’
‘Probably,’ she agreed weakly, unsure of what else to say. It was a vast understatement. She was freezing and exhausted. Ready to drop, if she was honest. She’d barely stopped on the way down here from Dublin and that had probably been a mistake too.
He’d straightened up now, shrugging off the raincoat. He was impossibly tall and broad-shouldered. She didn’t think they made Irish men like that outside of old stories. Half of them looked like potatoes in a GAA shirt. The other half though…this was the other half…
There were reasons they were the heroes of legend, giants and warriors, beloved of women and men alike.
I’d have to climb him like a tree, she thought absently and then sucked in a breath. What the hell was she thinking? God, she really was overtired. She didn’t even know him.Andshe was staring again. Her cheeks heated up as she realised how wildly inappropriate this was.
He was an employee, for the love of all that was holy. Not her employee, sure, but the estate’s. Somehow. No one had really managed to explain how it worked yet. She wasn’t so sure that she had inherited the estate. More like it had inherited her.
‘I’m Nick Walker,’ he told her, running his hands through his long dark hair to get it back from his face, scowling. ‘Not sure if you caught that out there. I couldn’t hear you at all.’ He moved as if to offer her his hand to shake and then pulled back as he noticed the water still dripping off his fingers. ‘I’ll get us some towels and make some tea. Sit down inside and warm up.’
She shed her coat and hesitated, looking for somewhere to hang it. Nick Walker just took it from her and turned around, hanging it from a coat rack just inside the main door next to his own. Water pooled underneath on the bright tiles.
Alex noticed there was a puddle forming around her too. She glanced at the fire longingly. But tea would be so good as well. ‘Can I help?’
He shook his head, and little splashes of water flew out in all directions, and she thought of a great shaggy hound shaking himself off.
