‘You sit down,’ said Jeanette. ‘Even I can get cheese and biscuits onto the table. Jim will help me stack the dishwasher.’
‘Let me help,’ said Hattie. ‘I’ll do the dishwasher while you do the cheese.’
‘If we’re having cheese, we have to have port. Did you get any, Izzy?’ asked Xanthe.
Thankfully she had and it was down in the cellar, as she hadn’t planned on opening it until Christmas Day but now that the Carter-Joneses weren’t coming it didn’t matter so much.
‘I’ll go down and get it.’
‘You’ve got a proper cellar. How wonderfully creepy,’ said Alicia. ‘Ross, you should go with Izzy, protect her from any ghosts.’
‘We should get some ghost hunters in, you know,’ said Xanthe. ‘I bet loads of people died here. Specially down in the cellars. They were probably dungeons back in the day. We could do ghost tours, that would draw people here. Everyone loves a good ghost story.’
‘I don’t,’ said Izzy with a quick shudder, now not so keen on going down to the cellar.
‘I’ll go,’ said Ross, rising to his feet.
‘It’s not easy to find the wine rack, it’s a bit of a warren down there. I’ll go.’
‘I’ll have to come with you, then.’ He sounded resigned to the idea and shot his mother a mutinous look as if to say he was doing it out of duty rather than at her suggestion.
The cellar was dimly lit with an ancient lightbulb that cast more shadows than light and Izzy wished she’d brought the heavy-duty torch from the scullery. Ross followed in her wake, but he hadn’t said a word since they’d left the kitchen.
‘You okay?’ she asked, wending her way through the vaulted ceiling cellar and ducking under the arches between each small room. Duncan had helped find her way around down here those first two weeks she’d visited the castle. Thankfully, the way to the wine rack had an easy guide: left, left, right, right.
‘Fine,’ he said in that cool, calm tone of his that gave absolutely nothing away.
She had a feeling he wasn’t fine at all; the chaos of his mother and Xanthe combined was obviously affecting him. He’d chosen to escape from his mother’s overpowering personality while she’d learned to live with Xanthe’s loud volume, high drama lifestyle.
They arrived at the wine rack and Ross whistled.
‘You didn’t tell me you had all this down here.’
‘To be honest, I was worried it was all so old it might be like vinegar. I didn’t want to rely on it.’
Ross reached forward and removed a dusty bottle, squinting in the weak light at the label.
‘French. Bordeaux. 1959.’
‘Is that a good year?’
‘I haven’t got a clue. But it’s worth checking this out. You never know, they might be valuable.’
‘I’d have to pay someone to come and look at them.’
‘You could photograph each bottle and do some internet research.’
‘That’s not a bad idea.’ For some reason, she noted theyou. In recent weeks, he’d usedwea lot.
‘Right, where’s this port then?’
‘Up there on the right. Two bottles. We might as well take both of them up.’
They returned to the stairs but, when they reached the door at the top of the steps, it was closed. Izzy grasped the handle to open it, assuming it had blown shut or something but to her surprise the door was stuck fast.
She tried again, this time shoving her shoulder against it but the door didn’t shift.
‘Bugger, the door’s stuck.’
