Robbie glanced around the room, standing abruptly. One by one he removed every framed photo which contained Henry’s image, stacking them on the table until smudgy grey marks were all that remained on the walls to remind them of Henry’s overbearing presence. Then Robbie arched his eyebrows, a mischievous smile crossing his handsome features as he pointed to the frames. ‘Do you want to smash them, or shall I?’
Dee moistened her lips, then pressed them together. What Robbie was suggesting held a hint of irreverent danger, as though Henry’s spirit might return like Thor, booming his displeasure at the pair of them from the clouds in the sky. Then she smiled. ‘Take it in turns?’
Chapter 13
Back in the relative safety of the library, Sebastian tried to find a flaw in Jess’s suggestion. It was breathtaking in its simplicity, and it occurred to him that she had cut through all the crap in one sentence.
Just sell it.
Yes, he’d mooted the idea that someone like Edward Ellingham, with millions of pounds of investment muscle at his fingertips, might show an interest in buying the castle, possibly the grounds and forest as well. But that was all it had been. An idea. A way to shock the rest of his family out of the lethargy of the life they’d been living. To shake things up and force everyone to reevaluate.
Could it really be that simple? To make contact and invite this Ellingham character to the castle, float the idea with him and see what happened?
Before Jess had answered her phone call, before he’d shut himself away in the library to think, she’d added to the simplicity of her solution.
‘Sell this place,’ she’d said, finger hovering over the phone. ‘Settle all the debts and get back to what you really want to be doing. This building gets the investment it needs and goes on to do a different job. So do you. Everyone’s a winner.’
Sebastian swallowed. When she said it out loud, it sounded straightforward, but he knew it would be far from that. The earls of Kirkshield had lived here for almost a thousand years. Each generation was brought up to carry the title forward, with the castle, lands and tenanted properties entrusted into each earl’s safekeeping. So, although in a legal sense he did own everything, the unspoken understanding was that it was only ever entrusted to the current generation, to be kept safe for the next. And so on, ad infinitum.
To wilfully destroy something which had existed for nine hundred plus years was not a decision to be taken lightly. Although the villagers mostly rented their properties on lifetime tenancy arrangements, and so would be safe in their properties, there would be no such security for their employment. And where would his mother and Olivia go? In time, how would he explain his actions to his children?
There was no reason why Jess should understand his dilemma – no reason why she should care, either – except that, somehow, he hoped she would. Something about her carefree attitude, combined with her genuine, unfiltered suggestions, had caught his attention. And although he hadn’t caught hers in return – Robbie Keel seemed to have managed that already – there had been something about Jess, something which made him suddenly pleased he hadn’t managed to find anyone local who needed a housekeeper, and that she might stay a while longer. She had a lightness to her which had captured Sebastian’s attention, a brightness which seemed to go some way towards balancing out his shade.
Back in the kitchen, Jess grinned as she pressed her mobile to her ear, plopping herself onto one of the kitchen chairs and running her free hand over Digby’s ears.
‘Hi Aunt Vivi. How are you?’ Her question went unanswered.
‘You will never guess what I’m about to tell you,’ Vivi said, pausing long enough to give Jess time to have a go at divining the answer. She and her aunt played this game whenever Vivi had exciting news. Even if sometimes her exciting news was nothing more exciting than that time the neighbour’s cat had been stuck in another neighbour’s shed overnight and was found only because somebody’d needed one of the tins of paint stored inside.
When Jess had told Vivi that on a sliding scale of mundane to epic, the cat story scored a weak 2.5, the pitch of Vivi’s voice had soared by a good two octaves as she explained to Jess, as though she were a toddler, that if nobody had needed the paint, that cat could have been in there for weeks – months even – and all they would have found would have been a dried up husk of what had once been Princess Leia. And what’s more, Princess Leia was almost a pure Blue Persian, with only a small bit of local moggy in her makeup, so there would have been no way she would have been able to chew her way through the wooden walls to escape either, not with such a flat face.
Jess toyed with the idea of teasing her aunt with a variety of preposterous guesses as to the nature of her exciting news, but in the end, she played it straight.
‘No, you’re right, I’m sure I won’t be able to guess. Why don’t you just tell me?’
‘Oh, before I get to that, how is my Digby?’
‘Are you trying to big up your news even more by stalling?’ Jess asked, her amusement audible. ‘He’s absolutely fine. Loving the Highland air.’
Jess glanced down at the dog. Maybe it was wishful thinking to say his breathing had eased since they’d been in Scotland, but he didn’t seem to be quite as wheezy as normal. Perhaps life in the Highlands really did suit Digby.
‘Well, that’s excellent. Because you’ll never guess what …’
‘No,’ Jess said with a laugh. ‘I won’t. So, tell me before the anticipation kills me.’
‘I was talking to an old nursing friend, Jenny, the other day, swapping notes on my hip. You won’t know her, but we worked together at Leehurst General for years.’
Jess gave her aunt a non-committal mumble in the hope that the point of mentioning Jenny would become clearer.
‘I was telling her all about your adventure in the Highlands. And then we suddenly remembered Isla.’
‘Isla?’ Jess slid from her seat, setting the Aga kettle on one of the hotplates to make some tea. It sounded like this might be a long conversation.
‘We trained together a million years ago at nursing college in London. Four of us shared a flat – me, Jenny, Isla and someone else whose name escapes me. I do remember that girl had very ordinary brown hair – a bit like yours – was always trying to liven it up with rollers and suchlike. Never made any difference.’
Jess allowed the slur to pass unchallenged. She had learnt years ago that Vivi meant no offence with what could be interpreted as personal criticisms. She saw it as stating fact. Vivi took no prisoners with any aspect of life, and the people around her learnt to take her or leave her – because there was no changing her.
Vivi rattled on, ‘Well, we used to get the bus to St Thomas’ Hospital. I sat with Isla because we always shared a copy of the day’s newspaper, spread it across both our laps so we could read it. Funny what you suddenly remember, isn’t it?’
