It was Sebastian, a grey scarf wound around his neck, a matching grey hat tucked under one elbow, and his concentration on the final few buttons of his thick tweed jacket. His stride was purposeful – that was, until he glanced up and saw Jess. His expression morphed and his eyebrows ran through a series of manoeuvres as he stopped in his tracks and stared at her.
‘Oh. Hello. I wasn’t expecting to find anyone out here,’ he said.
‘I thought I might walk to the village and have a look around. I haven’t made it past Robbie’s cottage so far.’ Jess jiggled at Digby’s lead. ‘And he needed a leg-stretch, so …’
‘I was intending to head that way myself,’ he said. It sounded as though he was having second thoughts now he knew that’s where she was going. His frown added to her surmise.
‘I can always go another time,’ Jess said, making to turn in a different direction.
Sebastian reorganised his expression, shaking his head. ‘No, there’s no need for that. We can walk down together, if you like.’
‘If you’re sure?’ She almost said ‘if you’re sure you want to be seen with the hired help’, but stopped herself in time. At least this way she wouldn’t get lost.
‘Let’s go,’ he said, sticking his hands into his pockets as he set off down the path that led to Robbie’s cottage.
Jess followed, Digby tugging at his lead and criss-crossing in front of her as he tried to sniff the bushes on both sides of the path. If this was the way he behaved when her aunt walked him, Jess decided it was a minor miracle it hadn’t been the dog who had caused Vivi’s accident. Instead, it had been a slip at the top of the stairs of her mid-terrace. In fact, her aunt maintained she’d only been foundbecauseof Digby, his incessant barking bringing the neighbours to her door.
It wasn’t anything like as far to Kirkshield village as Jess had been expecting. Because of the size of the castle, and the fact that she’d arrived by taxi via the main entrance – a gated driveway which had been at least a trillion miles long, lined by huge trees and designed, Jess reckoned, to make anyone brave enough to approach feel instant inferiority – she’d thought it would take longer. But turning left past Robbie’s cottage they came to a well-maintained but far less impressive tarmac track tucked between hedges, the conclusion of which merged with the narrow public road and led to a stone bridge which spanned the river, with Kirkshield village nestling just beyond the water.
Sebastian seemed content with quiet, but it left Jess feeling awkward.
‘Is Olivia your only sibling?’ she asked, more to break the silence than anything else.
He drew in a sharp breath, as though she’d interrupted an important thought. ‘No, I also have a younger sister, Freya. She lives in Austria with her family. She and her husband have two little boys. Freddie and Karl. And you?’
Now it was Jess’s turn to suck in some oxygen, to take a moment to decide what to say. To choose how much information to give. Not that her background was a secret, but that didn’t mean it was something she blurted at every opportunity.
‘Basically, it’s just me and my aunt Vivi,’ she said, opting to leave out the series of forgettable foster homes, the random pretend siblings who had come and gone over the years, the fact that her life had been a mess until she’d lucked out and been placed with Vivi. ‘She’s Digby’s real owner, but she fell and broke her hip recently, so she told me I’m in loco parentis until she’s ready to take him back.’
Sebastian paused, turning his full attention on her for the first time since they’d begun to walk. ‘No brothers or sisters? What about your parents?’ he asked, then shook his head. ‘None of my business, sorry. Don’t answer if you don’t want to.’
Jess shrugged. ‘It’s OK. My parents died in a car accident when I was a toddler, so I don’t really remember them. Never had any siblings.’ She drew the line at filling in the details, didn’t feel the need to reveal that her father had been three times over the drink-drive limit, or that Jess had been in the back of the car at the time and only survived thanks to being strapped into her car seat.
Sebastian’s expression softened into something closer to empathy than she’d seen since she arrived at the castle.
‘God, that’s terrible. I’m so sorry. Thank goodness you had an aunt to take you in.’
She was grateful he didn’t probe any more deeply into her life before Vivi, or the circumstances which found her able to call Vivi her aunt after years of what Jess referred to as ‘foster home ping-pong’. Anyway, her past didn’t define her. Jess buried a laugh. She’d memorised that line from some online life coach she’d followed for a while on Instagram; in her mind she could recreate the overplayed pathos with which the woman recited it.
‘So, what made you decide to head to Scotland and take this job?’ Sebastian asked, changing the subject as they wandered down the final part of the tarmac track.
Jess paused, wondered where to begin. The agency – Home From Home – had been set up by Vivi and her husband some years ago. After his death, Vivi had continued to run the business and so there had always been the offer of agency work at Jess’s fingertips. But it hadn’t been her first choice. Jess had had far grander ambitions when she was a teenager; she had always dreamed of being a singer, touring with a successful band. Agency placements were only ever supposed to be fillers, a way to earn money when the gigs were short on the ground. The temporary nature of them fitted perfectly with Jess’s plans, and suited the almost constant itch she felt to keep moving.
But the band she sang with broke up, pretending it was because of artistic differences rather than the fact they couldn’t get anyone to book them, and so Jess was left with no group to be lead singer for. Finding it harder than she’d anticipated to get anyone interested in hiring her for solo performances, inch by inch she’d stopped singing altogether, allowing temping for Home From Home to take the lead instead.
It had been a stupid, naive dream anyway, to think she was good enough to make a living from performing. For every Mariah Carey there were probably thousands of other singers, just as capable of kicking out those notes, but never getting the breaks. At least, that was what Jess told herself. It was no big deal. Life was tough – especially in the creative arts – and there was no point crying about it.
Except she had. She’d cried about it for far too long and still wasn’t sure the bruises of her failure would ever completely fade. Instead, she’d decided to live with them and concentrate on the important things. Keeping a roof over her head, paying bills, eating – that sort of thing. Not exciting, but an important part of no longer living life as a crazy, self-obsessed dreamer.
A glance at Sebastian had Jess realising he was expecting an answer – and that she’d completely forgotten his question.
‘What was the question? Sorry, I kind of got lost in my thoughts there for a second.’
Sebastian shook his head. ‘Doesn’t matter. We’re here now, anyway. Shall I give you the official tour?’
‘Would you mind? That would be great,’ Jess said, wandering onto the bridge and peering over the side at the water flowing swiftly beneath them, the silver of the tumbling water like a sheet of rippling aluminium, broken every now and again by white foam as it battered the rocks. She allowed him to lead the way over the bridge and into the village.Hisvillage. The idea that Sebastian actually owned all these properties was inconceivable, as was the fact she was about to be shown around it by him. The whole thing was bizarre.
Sebastian felt his mood nosedive further as he and Jess walked through Kirkshield and he took stock of the properties. To the casual observer the place looked as picturesque as ever. The houses ranged in size from tiny cottages through to The Old Goat pub and the largest tenant farm, just visible in the distance, set apart from the rest of the village up its own track.
