If Rocco had ever imagined meeting Giselle again (which he hadn’t), it wouldn’t have been at the funeral of a distant relative whom he’d never met, while he was planning on selling the property she’d left him, which would have a direct effect on Giselle herself.Honestly, he thought,you couldn’t write this stuff.
Feeling aggrieved, he strolled back to the castle and immediately went to his room. He should have stuck to his original plan of not attending the wake, but he hadn’t been able to resist the lure of speaking to her. He’d felt as though the spirit of their carefree youth had come back to him at the sight of her.
But you can’t go back, can you?And it would be a fool’s errand to try…
Taking off his jacket, he loosened his tie, flopped onto the bed and took out his phone, eyeing the laptop on the small desk under the window with disgruntlement. He wasn’t in the mood to work, but he knew he should. It was also lunchtime, and he was hungry, so he phoned reception and asked for room service. But apparently such a thing didn’t exist.
‘Are there any staff in the kitchen today?’ he asked, reining in his irritation.
‘They’re at the wake, Mr Moore.’ Was it his imagination or was there an unspoken censure to the man’s answer – that’s whereyoushould be…
‘Can you find someone to rustle me up a spot of lunch?’ Then he added, as an afterthought, ‘Please.’
‘I suppose I could ask Cook?’
‘Good idea. Something light, a salad perhaps. And bring it to my room.’ As he was replacing the receiver he heard the receptionist say, ‘Certainly, sir,’ and Rocco felt a little guilty at dragging Cook (who, he’d now discovered, had once been Mhairi’s cook for as long as anyone could remember, and Cook wasn’t her surname but her title) away from the wake, but he could hardly be expected to sort out his own lunch.
According to Cal, guests were booked into the hotel from tomorrow, so normal service should hopefully be resumed. Which reminded him: he needed to ask Cal about the occupancy situation with a view to agreeing on a date beyond which no new bookings would take place. Or should he instruct the man to operate the estate as normal until the castle had a confirmed buyer? At least the paying guests and tourists visiting the craft centre would continue to provide a steady income, which would ensure the estate wouldn’t fall into a state of disrepair. It could pay its own way while it was up for sale. Decisions, decisions…
His instinct was to wind things up as quickly as possible, to get rid of the estate so he could bank the money, but he didn’t want to let it go for a song simply because he couldn’t be bothered with the inconvenience of having to deal with it until such time as a buyer was found.
Rocco was at the window admiring the view again when a knock on the door informed him that his lunch had arrived. Instructing the guy to put the tray on the table next to his laptop, he decided he’d better make some inroads into his undoubtedly overflowing inbox while he ate.
The ever-efficient Nora had deleted the irrelevant, forwarded that which could be forwarded and starred those emails needing his attention. She’d also sent him several emails of her own, each with a succinct subject line.
Pleased to see there was nothing time critical, Rocco worked his way through them, responding where necessary, and he’d just eaten a final mouthful of Caesar salad when he realised it was time for the tour of his property so he could take a look at what he’d inherited. And as he changed into something less formal, he hoped he might see Giselle, for no other reason than she reminded him of a time when he’d been free to justbe.
As Cal showed him around the estate, Rocco learnt that the castle specialised in crafting breaks and that most people who stayed in one of its sixteen guest bedrooms enjoyed making pots or blowing glass or other such arty stuff, and that it catered to the upmarket crowd who were happy to pay for exclusivity.
The rest of the estate’s inventory was impressive: as well as Mhairi’s private suite, there was a dining room and a guest lounge, a drawing room, a parlour (aka Mhairi’s office), a staircase inside a turret, a great hall (where the wake had been held), a library… And that was just the castle itself. Rocco also owned a converted boathouse, the cottage Cal and his partner lived in, the jetty where he’d stood with Giselle earlier, a maze, a duck pond, gardens, woodland – and the craft centre. Rocco didn’t ask Cal to show him around each studio (he wasn’t overly interested, to be honest) but he took a keener interest in one of them when Cal told him it was rented by Giselle.
Well, well, well… Sea glass, eh?
He had a flashback of scorching sun, the smell of seawater and coffee, waves lapping at the rocks at the base of a gleaming white lighthouse and a beautiful girl lounging on the steps of it, like a silver-haired siren. And a heart-shaped piece of frosted red glass. When he’d given it to her, her eyes had lit up, and he’d kissed her under the hot Venetian sun until he hadn’t been able to kiss her anymore.
So she found her vocation, he mused, peering through the window at the display.
‘Would you like to see the gift shop?’ Cal asked.
Rocco would have liked to see Giselle instead, but the studio’s lights were off, and as there was no one inside, he agreed. He was quietly impressed with the items for sale in the shop. Clearly the crafters were a talented bunch of people.
He skirted past a display of three doll’s houses, remarkable for their attention to miniature detail, and came to a halt in front of a sizeable picture of the loch, the castle and the mountains flanking it. It was skilfully done, if a tad twee for his taste, the scene captured in various shades of sea glass, tiny pebbles and small shells.
It looked good hanging on the white wall of the shop.
The price tag made him raise an eyebrow. It didn’t seem nearly enough for the amount of work that must have gone into it. He would have paid double that, if he liked that kind of thing. He could see the appeal to tourists, though, and taking something like this home as a memento of a Scottish holiday was better than a tea towel printed with ‘I??Skye’.
‘I’ve seen enough,’ he declared, and didn’t miss the expression of relief that flickered across Cal’s face before he masked it.
Feeling a little wicked, Rocco said, ‘How long will it take to clear Mhairi’s suite of her personal possessions? I’m thinking of moving in there for the duration.’
‘The duration?’
‘I’ll be staying a little longer than planned. I won’t be leaving tomorrow after all. Will that be a problem?’ He hadn’t realised the estate was so large, and it would take more than today to get to grips with it.
He could sense the man itching to ask how much longer, but all Cal said was, ‘Not at all. I’ll get someone on it straight away. What would you like me to do with her things?’ He swallowed, and Rocco felt a dart of remorse.
‘Actually, never mind. My current room is fine, as long as it’s not needed. But her personal effects will have to be gone through and disposed of at some point.’
