‘Because that’s all I’m interested in.’ The pucker became a full-blown crease, and Fran shook her head. ‘Anyway, he just told me he’s only helping look for Red because his daughter loves cats and I assume he wants to be able to go home and tell her about him.’
Penny considered Fran’s words. She supposed it could make sense. Although, if Fran was to stop still and take a good, hard look in the mirror, Penny reckoned any guy choosing to spend time with her in the dark had to be some kind of a saint if he was doing it purely to be able to tell his kid about their search for a cat.
It was perfectly conceivable that the guy was a happily married family man, and he was telling the entire truth. Although Penny wondered how it would work for him, going home and explaining to his wife how he spent the latter part of an evening in the company of a drop-dead gorgeous member of the chateau staff solely to look for a stray moggy.
‘He’s married, then?’ Penny asked.
Fran’s frown intensified. ‘I presume so. Not that it matters.’
‘Yeah, I know you keep saying how little it matters.’
Fran noticed the rise in Penny’s eyebrows. ‘I’m not interested. End of.’
‘OK. No need to get all flustered. Does he wear a wedding ring?’
‘No.’ Fran answered way too quickly, her cheeks colouring as she took in Penny’s amused expression. ‘At least, I don’t think so,’ she added.
In Penny’s opinion it was a thin attempt by Fran to muddy her previously crystal-clear waters of a reply.
‘And anyway, that doesn’t mean anything,’ Fran finished with a defiant edge to her words.
‘True enough,’ Penny conceded, stifling a yawn. ‘I don’t know about you, but I need some sleep. Another day at the coalface tomorrow.’ She’d probably only manage to get a few hours’ decent sleep, but for once she actually did feel tired. Trying to work Harry out was exhausting her, mentally if not physically.
Fran sighed. ‘I already need a day off, and I’ve only been here two days.’
‘Well, see Madame Beaufoy tomorrow and sort out your shifts properly. So far, you’ve been doing everything.’
‘I haven’t done anything more than you.’
‘Yeah, but I’m a bundle of pent-up energy. Amongst my many other shortcomings, my family thought I had ADHD when I was a kid, but I never got an official diagnosis. After a while they settled on “pain in the arse” as an unofficial diagnosis, tolerated my craziness as best they could, and when I said I was going travelling for a while, they all breathed a collective sigh of relief.’
Fran couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sympathy as Penny wished her a cheerful goodnight and headed for her room. She was putting a positive spin on it, but somehow Fran thought it must be far worse to still have people at home whom you loved, but weren’t bothered if you were there or not.
Whereas, for Fran all that remained at home was her rented flat. She was still coming to terms with calling ithers. The place was still chock-full of reminders of her mum, from the spatula her mother favoured hanging on the utensil rack, to her winter coat hooked on the back of the door. Fran hadn’t managed to face sorting through, let alone clearing out, any of her mother’s possessions. Not yet. It was all still there, as if her mum was going to walk back in. As if she was still on her way back from the shops and had simply been delayed. By six months. As if the drug-driver hadn’t careered down the Lyme High Street in his van, mounting the pavement by the gift shop at the top of the hill and skittling pedestrians in all directions. As if there hadn’t been several hospitalisations as a result of his actions, and one fatality. Fran’s mum.
It had been in all the papers, splashed across social media with everybody wanting their say. How terrible it was for the driver to have felt so depressed that he’d had to resort to drugs. How the local council, or the police, or the driver’s employers, or the government were to blame. How the antiquated design of the roads in central Lyme Regis had been an accident waiting to happen for decades. How there should have been bollards or a more defined pavement, or better traffic calming methods in place … How lucky it was that no children were killed, that the only fatality had been an older woman. As if a woman in her fifties was somehow disposable.
Fran bit back her anger, all over again. Of course, she was happy no children had been injured; nobody would want that. But her mother had been the only constant presence left in Fran’s life.
A subsequent phone call had set Fran’s life spinning in a completely different trajectory and was the reason she found herself at Chateau les Champs d’Or. It promised her a future she’d least expected, but her fragility remained.
Maybe that went some way to explaining her determination not to give up on Red. The need for connections to other living beings still existed within Fran, even if the need was so fragile right now that she was only able to extend the offer to a cat.
Levering the tiny window open as far as it would go, Fran breathed in a little of the fresh night air. Confident she was tired enough to sleep through anything, the need for fresh air outweighed the worry about noise nuisance. After a cool shower, Fran left her hair damp and pulled on a thin T-shirt, slid underneath a single sheet, and closed her eyes.
Chapter 11
The following morning dawned hot and sticky, the relentless tendrils of sunshine already scorching their way across the ceiling of Fran’s bedroom as she prepared for a new day at Chateau les Champs d’Or.
A cold shower gave relief from the heat for all of about ten minutes, enough time for Fran to get dressed, head along the labyrinthian staff corridors and knock on Madame Beaufoy’s door. She’d been putting off this moment for long enough.
In the still air of the previous night, Fran had taken stock of her situation. According to the information she’d gained from Penny, and her own personal experience since she’d parachuted herself into her position as unexpected staff member, the luxury and excellent service being experienced by the guests of the hotel was being achieved at the expense of a very stretched hotel staff. And it was time for Fran to gather some proper details and irrefutable information to take to the powers that be at Wilding Holdings. After all, she wasn’t here on holiday, or to learn the ins and outs of housekeeping. Her role was to make a comprehensive report on the functionality of the hotel, on levels of guest satisfaction and on the smooth and effective running of the place.
And she was just as able to make her investigations and discover the information she needed from the position in which she’d placed herself. The covert manner of her investigation wasn’t the problem. If she’d entered the chateau as a guest, she would still be making the majority of her report without alerting anyone to her true reason for being at the hotel. It wasn’t as though she had ‘hotel inspector’ stencilled onto her luggage, or‘make the service over and above with this one’ tacked above her room number. That was the whole point. Finding out how things ran at Chateau les Champs d’Or was the priority, and her worries about Madame Beaufoy putting two and two together and making four where her name and the empty suite were concerned would be a bridge to cross if necessary. It was more important to find out whether the kind of shifts she had done so far were usual, or whether Penny was working at double-speed of her own volition.
None of that stopped her hands from turning slick or her throat from seizing when Madame Beaufoy threw her door wide and beckoned Fran inside.
‘I have been very remiss,’ Madame Beaufoy said, before Fran had a chance to speak. ‘I was so pleased to have an extra set of hands at work that I did not even ask for your name when you arrived. I have been trying to catch up to you ever since, but you have been like the early morning mist, like a ghost.’
