Okay, so I’m living in the tower of a definitely,absolutelyhaunted castle, and my new client is profoundly strange and incredibly talented, and outrageously hot.Andhe might be heading down the path to becoming a hoarder.
I should call Faye immediately and yell at her for signing me up for this job. I should tell her to shove the accounts and demand to get on the nexttrain back to London.
Instead, now that my belly is full, I can’t wait to get back downstairs to help Alaric … er, Lord Valerian.
This job is why I became a professional organiser in the first place. To work with hot lords— I mean, to save someone else from having to live the way I grew up, drowning beneath piles of rubbish.
I throw on a black hoodie to ward off the castle’s chill, grabbing my candelabra, phone and Winnie Wins kit (comprising of a portable speaker, wet wipes, Clutter Queens branded gloves, a purple Moleskine and matching pen) before heading back downstairs. I reach the first landing before realising that I have no idea how to get back to the other wing.
I spin around in circles, trying to remember. I strike off in a random direction, crossing my fingers that I won’t get lost in the castle, because Alaric won’t notice I’m missing until he smells my decaying corpse. As I step through a narrow doorway into a drawing room that doesn’t look familiar at all, someone squeaks behind me.
I whirl around, but there’s no one there.
“H-h-hello?”
“Mrrrrrrew?”
A black cat with white paws like tiny socks steps out from behind a dusty futon and regards me with regal disdain.
I exhale with relief. “Hey, kitty. You don’t look like you’re lost. I wonder if you could help me get back to the Stabby Chic room?”
The cat lifts her head, demanding payment. Beneath her chin is a small smudge of white fur. It almost looks as though Lord Valerian has dried his paintbrush on her by accident. I dutifully reach down and scratch her chin until she purrs gently against my hand.
“Meow!” The cat withdraws a few steps, throws me a look that indicates how much of an idiot she believes me to be, then turns on her little socks and stomps off.
“Wait—kitty!”
“Meorrw,” she calls from deeper in the house, as if she’s saying,Keep up!
I hurry after her, following her down windingstaircases and through cavernous rooms packed with even more racks of pottery and rolled-up tapestries. This is definitely not the way I came with Reginald.
Finally, we pass through another drawing room onto the main corridor. My shoulders sag with relief as I recognise the pile of teddy bears.
Alaric emerges from his office, a fresh paint smudge across his forehead. My fingers itch to wipe it away. “I see you have met Mirabelle.”
“Meorrrw,” says Mirabelle, clinging to Alaric’s trousers.
“She helped me find my way.”
“I’m not surprised. Mirabelle is the true mistress of Black Crag.” He bends down and scratches her behind her ears. She butts his hand and eyes me smugly, as if declaring that Alaric is hers. “I have put down my paintbrush. Where do you wish to begin?”
Where indeed? I gaze around the room Alaric has claimed for his study, and I can already picture it after I whip it into shape. We can use racks of open industrial metal shelves along that wall, so that the bare stone is visible behind them. Storage boxes for each project so that he only has to pull one out. A circular table in the centre of the room will display his locomotives with spotlights to highlight the fine features, and soft lamps over a pair of chairs beneath the window where he can sit and think, provided we can get electricity in here …
And we’redefinitelymoving that terrarium.
I’m getting ahead of myself. If I only have six weeks to present the best side of Black Crag to Alaric’s – Lord Valerian’s – mother, I have to focus on the most important rooms.
“Tell me which rooms we should prioritise for the ball and your mother’s visit,” I say. “We won’t be able to tidy every space. We’ll need the ballroom, obviously, and the drawing rooms adjacent for catering and seating? I presume your mother will stay in the guest room in the tower where I’m sleeping? That seems to be the tidiest room in the house?—”
“No, no, that room won’t do for her,” he shakes his head. “My mother will stay in the guest quarters in the west wing, near my rooms. She will wish to use my study for her correspondence,as well as the two drawing rooms and the ballroom for her infernal gathering, as you suggest.”
“What about your dining room?” I’ve been to enough rich people’s homes to know they go nuts for fancy dining settings. “Actually, whereisyour dining room? I haven’t seen it yet.”
Alaric frowns. “Don’t concern yourself with the dining room. I gave it over to a … ratherunusualdistraction. We keep that room locked.”
Am I imagining things, or are his porcelain cheeks darkening a little?
Alaric looks away, and I’m dying to ask him what’s in that room, but respecting client privacy is rule number one of the Clutter Queens’ Five Tidy Tenets of Client Happiness.
