‘Brilliant actress. Anyway, that’s my checklist complete. You’ve officially graduated from the Penny Scott school of waitressing. Get the orders correct. Serve and clear from the right. Don’t tell any of the guests to fuck off, however annoying they might be. Basically, that’s it. We can work on the rest as we go. So – are you up for it?’
Fran smiled. ‘I guess I am.’
‘Excellent. I’ll let Madame Beaufoy know. Earning “I’m helpful” stars on your first day? You’ll be Beaufoy’s bestie in no time.’
‘Madame Beaufoy doesn’t look like she wants a bestie, to be honest,’ Fran remarked.
Penny grinned. ‘Yeah. Well, maybe bestie is overambitious. Not fired. How about that?’
Maybe the staffing problems were down to the manager. Was that what Penny was inferring? Anyway, a shift as a member of the wait staff would give Fran a chance to see how things were set up in the kitchen – and, indeed, the dining room. How happy the guests were. Although she did feel a prickle of nerves at the thought that some of the guest satisfaction would depend on her successfully carrying out a job she’d never undertaken before. She’d worked in her local café for longer than she’d care to remember before her latest, and unexpected, change of direction, but Fran wasn’t sure cutting slices of Victoria sponge and making countless cups of coffee for the seaside crowd back in Lyme Regis would stand her in good stead for working fine dining. She supposed only time would tell.
‘I’ll get you some evening uniform and stick it on your bed.’ Penny necked the rest of her coffee and headed for the door. ‘If I were you, I’d get out back with your espresso and take a few minutes to yourself where nobody will spot you.’ She checked her watch. ‘Then can you come and give me a hand with some turndowns? In, say, fifteen minutes?’
Before Fran could agree, thank her – utter anything, in fact – Penny was gone. A fireball of energy. Fran left the room, too, taking the steps from one of the labyrinthian staff corridors out into the shade of a small semi-courtyard on the back quarter of the property. From the other side of the high wall, she could hear hoots and splashes from guests enjoying the huge pool, people blissfully unaware or uncaring about the staff who would shortly be scurrying around to fold back bedlinen for them and leave them a chocolate on their freshly plumped pillow. Fran sipped at her coffee. Maybe she’d made a mistake going undercover. If she’d announced who she was on arrival, she could be in that pool herself, right now, washing away the heat of the day and ordering a pre-dinner cocktail to sip while she reclined on a sun lounger.
Instead, she was sweating into a uniform which was – frankly – carrying far too much polyester in its construction to be compatible with such extreme weather. She did feel better for having had the coffee, though, and as she hugged the shade provided by the rough granite and mortar wall, she wandered all the way to the end of it, to see what lay beyond.
Away from the immediate sounds emanating from the pool, she became aware of other sounds. Birdsong became louder. Shielding her eyes against the glare, she glanced into the pristine cornflower blue of the cloud-free sky and watched specks with wings wheeling and gliding to and fro. This far from the chateau, the gravel underfoot had long since given way to a rough and weedy area of grass.
Tall grassy seedheads waved in what little air moved, brushing at her calves every now and again. That must have been why she didn’t notice it at first. Too preoccupied with the birds to notice another, but different, touch on her skin. Like feathers, or soft down, wrapping itself around her. Like the softest touch from ateasing lover. There but not there, gaining her attention through quiet stealth.
She glanced down at the same time as the cat let out a loud meow, winding its tail around her leg a little more firmly as it stared up at her.
‘Hi there, little guy,’ she said.
The cat replied with a rolling noise which sounded like a purr mixed with his own greeting. Unblinking, the cat stalked backwards and forwards, doing his best strut. Not that he needed to work hard to gain Fran’s attention. His striking fluffy ginger coat, jaggedly marked like a tiger with lines of lighter fur, huge green eyes and the longest white whiskers Fran thought she’d ever seen already had her transfixed. The way the very end of his impressive bushy tail flicked as if the limb had a mind of its own had her smiling.
Fran loved cats. More than that, she loved animals, full stop. As a kid, she’d always wanted a pet but had never been allowed so much as a bowl of guppies. To be fair, her mother, who had enough on her plate raising Fran solo and holding down two jobs, had remained firm throughout Fran’s childhood wheedling, plaintive requests and full-on tantrums. Her mother hadn’t ever softened her stance on pets, even when Fran returned to live with her after everything went to shit with Victor. And when her mother had died, suddenly and dramatically, an unexpected phone call had spiralled Fran’s life onto a completely different plane, one in which constant travel made it impossible to have any kind of pet.
But her current lifestyle had done little to dent Fran’s desire to someday own her own pet, and a cat was right at the top of her wish list.
The cat did another circuit of her legs and on closer inspection Fran noticed the fur looked unkempt, scruffy and mattedin places. She bent down to scratch between his ears. The movement must have startled him, though, and he skittered sideways, away from her hand. Staring at her reproachfully, his tail flicked again.
‘Sorry,’ Fran said with a grin. ‘Too much, too soon?’ She straightened and was rewarded with another circuit, another brush from the incredible tail. ‘Have you got a name?’ Aware she was holding a conversation with an animal, Fran grinned harder as the cat meowed again. ‘Did you say “Red”?’
The cat rolled onto its back, shimmied against the grass, then sprang back onto its feet.
‘Well, that’s what I’m going to call you. Think it suits you.’ Fran finished her coffee, congratulated herself on her inventiveness in the naming department, then watched as the cat turned and stalked away, heading for the chateau.
She wondered who he belonged to. There was no collar, no means of identifying an owner. But she shouldn’t assume he was homeless just because his fur was a bit matted, and he’d shown her a modicum of interest. It didn’t make him a kindred spirit. Just becauseshewas struggling to work out where to belong didn’t mean the cat was without a home.
Red picked up speed as he headed for the chateau, and Fran tracked him, wondering where he was going. Too late she realised she must have left the door wide open, and before she could do anything to stop him, the cat sprang up the stone steps and disappeared inside.
Jogging up the steps behind him, Fran paused momentarily as her eyes adjusted to the relative darkness of the corridor, then swore under her breath when she realised the cat had scarpered further into the building.
It was conceivable that the cat might belong to one of the staff, she supposed. Maybe Madame Beaufoy was a cat lover and hadsmuggled him in when nobody was looking. It wouldn’t have been something Wilding Holdings would have sanctioned, and somehow Madame Beaufoy didn’t strike Fran as an avid pet person. Or a rule-breaker.
Either way, Fran had let the cat into the building and now she couldn’t find him. What if he ended up licking his privates on the Egyptian cotton of one of the guest suite beds? Or shedding hair which could then waft into an unsuspecting soufflé?
Fran headed for the kitchens, reasoning the cat was more likely to zero in on food than sheets with an impressive thread count. However, with heat levels in the kitchen challenging that of a sauna, and with pots and pans making enough noise to rival an out-of-tune steel band, Fran didn’t think Red would have lingered long, even if this had been his destination.
Louis might be an amazing chef, Fran thought as she took another couple of steps into the gleaming, stainless-steel space and glanced around, but he had an intensity which was unnerving. His blade hovered in mid-air as he caught sight of her, and for a moment Fran thought he looked like he might launch it in her direction, punishment for having interrupted his concentration.
‘You need something?’ The chef’s expression softened by a degree, and he lowered his knife onto a partially chopped bunch of coriander. He wiped his hands absently on a towel looped into the straps of his apron as he waited for her to answer. Every inch of him demanded action, an instant answer – his whole frame turned towards her with a barely suppressed irritation at the interruption.
‘Um …’ Fran wasn’t sure how he would react to her asking if he’d seen a cat. Somehow, she thought it might involve his picking up the knife and making a thorough search of his space.More than that, if the cat was in here, she didn’t think things would end well.
‘Les chocolatsfor the guests are in the far fridge. Truffles. For the turndowns?’ His accent was as rich as the chocolate he was talking about, like his throat was coated in the stuff. Fran might not be good at speaking French, but that didn’t mean she didn’t enjoy the sound of it.
