Swept off Her Feet (14 page)

“Trouble at home?” Robert asked as I slammed my notebook shut before he could see my despairing asides about his family furniture.

“No, no, just my boss. He needs his hand held sometimes.”

“What . . .” Robert left a meaningful pause. “Literally?”

“Oh, no! God, no! No!” I shook my head, hard. “He wears a leather coat.
No.
”

“Ah, it’s that maidenly blush again,” Robert observed. “That’s not blushing, that’s . . . the cold.”

Robert checked his watch. “I don’t mean to hurry you out, but is there anything else you need to know about the Wi-Fi, or the house? That was Cat—I’ve got ten minutes before she and her mother appear to make their last plea on behalf of skirts for men. You’re welcome to stay and finish what you’re doing, but there won’t be much peace and quiet.”

“Is it an extension of the committee meeting?”

He sighed. “There’s an agenda, yes.”

Then it was a meeting I didn’t want to be at, eager though I was for more ball detail.

“I’d better leave you to it. But I suppose they just want it to be perfect,” I said, packing up my laptop. “Don’t you feel like
the leading man? The Kettlesheer heir surrounded by the most beautiful girls in the Borders?”

“More like a lamb to the slaughter,” he said, then added, as I opened my mouth to protest, “I know you think castles and reels and tartans—ooh, romantic!” Robert mimicked my breathiness so perfectly, I winced. “But keeping places like this running was never
romantic.
It was more about political strategizing and mergers. Cold-eyed business.”

“Maybe in the
very
old days—” I began.

“Oh, come on.” He looked at me as if I was being hopelessly naïve. “It wasn’t
that
long ago that Ranald McAndrew needed a strategic overseas investor to refloat his expensive castle, was it?”

“I’m sure it wasn’t like that,” I protested, not wanting to think of the vivacious girl in the drawing room steaming across the Atlantic as some sort of . . .
human checkbook
. “And if it is just business, surely you’re more qualified than anyone to take over? Because you
don’t
love it?”

“Ouch.” Robert’s face softened, and we regarded each other frankly, neither wanting to concede the other had a point.

“It can’t be
all
misery,” I said. “You’re hosting a white-tie-and-champagne ball at the weekend. Please. Humor me here.”

Robert leaned on the kitchen table, dropping his eyes, then raised them to mine. His face was open and honest, and a bit weary.

“I’ll tell you what it’s like,” he said. “It’s like being given a job you didn’t realize you’d interviewed for. And then being told you’ve got to judge Miss McWorld on top of that, while everyone points at the family tree in the hall and gossips about your sex life because you haven’t got married yet. And then introduces you to their daughter. And you’re, like . . .”

Robert illustrated it with a manic grin, and for a moment the storage-focused businessman fell away and he looked like any of the other panicky blokes herded in my direction at the singles dinners Alice and my mum dragged me to.

In a flash, I felt sorry for him. Sorry, in fact, for all the other male McAndrews who’d been frog-marched to face a selection of capable local girls they didn’t fancy as much as their fathers fancied the land the girls came with.

“I still think it’s amazing to belong to a house like Kettlesheer,” I said.

“But that’s just it. I belong to the house, not the other way round.” Robert raked his hand through his already tousled hair, and frowned at his cold tea. “What I want doesn’t seem to come into it.” He glanced up. “Sorry. I know, boo-hoo for me. You don’t need to hear all this.”

“Why not? I’ll be off on Friday. Looong before you have to staple your party face on for the Reel of Luck.”

Robert laughed. “You should stay for the ball. See for yourself.”

“Thanks, but I hear you have to have exact numbers,” I said ruefully. “I don’t want to spoil Janet’s battle plans.”

“I know the organizers,” said Robert, with a jokey tap of the nose. “I can get you in.”

I sighed, because my entire body was screaming
Show me the dance cards!
“I wish. But since we’re talking business, I’ve just had fair warning from my boss that if I don’t get back to London on Friday with a selection of priceless gems for your father to sell through us, I might as well not bother coming back at all.”

“Oh dear.”

“So if you know where the collection of Fabergé egg spoons has been hidden, now is the time to tip me the wink.”

“I wish I did,” said Robert. “Even if I think it’s a waste of time to sell them, I’d hate us to be the reason you lost your job. You’ll let me know if there’s anything I can do?”

He looked directly over the table, and again the shrewd brown eyes stalled my brain. Something fluttered in the air between us for a moment, and then it was gone.

“I should get back up to the house.” I hoisted my laptop bag onto my shoulder.

Robert pushed his bench back and got up to escort me to the door. “If I think of anything, I’ll let you know. And if you need the Internet, text me.”

“I haven’t got your number,” I pointed out.

“Hang on, I’ll get my phone—I’ll ring you.”

I lingered in the cool hall passage as Robert turned back to get his phone from the kitchen table, and my attention was drawn to a tarnished brass door handle.

My imagination gave a little fizz, picturing the housemaids in starched white headbands who must once have polished that, dreaming of the underbutler at the big house. Was this the old drawing room? Full of Violet’s stuff? It was a bit nosy, maybe, but a quick peek wouldn’t hurt. …

I pushed the door open as quietly as possible, and my heart skipped: the room was jammed with trunks, tables, standard lamps, some storage boxes, photographs stacked in silver piles, all smelling of lavender and leather and another time.

Violet’s life, from New York childhood to Kettlesheer widow, all waiting for someone to explore.

Without thinking, I began to
inch into the room, heading for the tempting packing crates like a sniffer dog, my mind full of Violet and her gilded life.

These rooms must have felt tiny after the airiness of Kettlesheer—after whatever splendid New York townhouse she had left. I spotted a photograph of Ranald, darkly dashing in cricket whites, the brooding McAndrew eyes burning over a luxuriant mustache; and an old gramophone, a lady’s sewing box with a beautiful tapestry lid, and a rocking horse with a dappled mane and faded ribbons.

Against the far wall was a painting of a dimpled blonde in tennis whites, a white band crushed against her curls and a racquet over one shoulder. Older than the portrait in the drawing room, a woman in her thirties now, but still the same mischievous glint in her smile. I got a familiar shiver of something exciting, and valuable. I wanted to know her. I felt like she was inviting me to explore her life.

I picked up a beaded evening handbag sticking out of an old banana box. It glittered with jet beads and gold links—

“I know. Where to start, eh?” said a voice from behind me.

I dropped the bag and jumped back.

Robert was standing a few paces away, holding his phone. He sounded more amused than annoyed.

“You’re welcome to have a look,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to sort it out for months.”

“Really? You don’t mind?” I asked. I was already edging back inside, running my gaze over the various boxes and crates with the quick “junk or gem” scan I used at auctions. Obviously, what I was really craving were photo albums. Photo albums were
people
. Parties. Weddings. Moments in real lives, like mine. What were Violet’s?

“Be my guest,” said Robert. “Phone number?”

I rattled off my mobile number almost without thinking as I opened the nearest box. It looked like the contents of a lady’s desk: notebooks and letters in faded ink, stiff wedding invitations, calling cards belonging to Lady Violet McAndrew.

Reverentially, I lifted the top card—an engraved order of service from Ranald and Violet’s wedding in London.

“Oh, they were married at St. George’s, Hanover Square!” I exclaimed.

“And?”

“It’s where all the smart society weddings were held. Look, they had the most beautiful hymns. . . .” Images swam in front of my eyes from other society photographs I’d pored over, the French lace veil, the gold-buttoned guard of honor outside, the masses of crisp white blossom—

There was a knock at the front door. The sort of firm knock designed to travel through ancient hallways without doorbells. The knock of a horsewoman.

“Oh, God,” said Robert, “they’re here.”

“Who’re here?” I asked, still entranced with bridal Violet, now
boarding the steam train to Berwick in my mind’s eye, the station platform at King’s Cross piled with her Louis Vuitton trousseau.

“Catriona and Janet. Listen, take that box if you want, and I’ll have a look through here later, see if there’s anything that might help you.”

“Thanks.” I stepped back into the hall. I could see two bold shapes through the door glass. “You should . . .”

“Right, yes.” Robert marched forward and opened the door to reveal Janet and Catriona on the step, now in matching quilted jackets and fur-trapper hats, each with a clipboard under her arm.

“Good afternoon!” barked Janet, her breath pluming in the cold air.

Catriona didn’t look thrilled. “Oh, hello, Evie.”

“Evie was just going,” said Robert, ushering me safely past them. “Ring me if you need . . . help.” He made a phone sign, his finger and thumb held up to his ear. It seemed a very London gesture, set against the backdrop of snowdrops and stone walls outside.

“I will.” I squinted against the sun. Robert was perfectly framed by his contradictory house: cream and cool behind him, mossy and old round the door.

I raised a hand in farewell to all three of them and set off back to the big house, the contents of Violet’s desk tucked under my arm, taking deep lungfuls of the clean Scottish air until my jittering pulse returned to something nearer its normal rate.

The forest path to the big house seemed much shorter on the way back—or maybe that was because I’d picked up my pace, eager to get back to sift through the box under my arm.

I saw the walk back through Violet’s eyes now. Through
gaps in the trees, I could make out grazing fields beyond the woods, sweeping away toward rolling gray hills on one side, while the woodland thickened on the other. Had she and Ranald ridden down here when she was still mistress of the big house? Did she look back with regret, once she’d been moved out? There were hoof prints here and there, in the dried mud. My fertile imagination immediately provided a chestnut horse, a sidesaddle riding habit, a large hat . . . with a veil?

I was startled out of that particular dream by a pheasant rattling unexpectedly out of the undergrowth and surging straight up into the taller trees. As I squeaked with shock, a couple of rabbits bolted out of the hedge and bounced across the fields, their white tails flashing against the grass.

I was the anti–Snow White. Wildlife didn’t flock to me so much as make a run for it.

I shouldered my bag and pushed open the wooden gate onto the main track. After a few minutes’ brisk marching, Kettlesheer’s turrets rose up through the trees ahead of me. The sun had set now, though it wasn’t yet dark, and one by one the lights went on in the downstairs windows like friendly beacons guiding me home.

For such a dramatic house, I thought, it had a surprisingly intimate pull. But then I felt like I’d been given a glimpse behind the tapestries, and now I didn’t just see Kettlesheer’s stately rooms, I was starting to see the people who had lived in them.

Inside, the hall was deserted, apart from a pile of post on the dark oak sideboard, a file marked
Cloakrooms
, and the keys to several Land Rovers.

Since there was no one about to herd me back to the junk rooms, I slipped upstairs to leave Violet’s box in my bedroom for later, then get looking for Max’s table.

It took all my self-control to leave the box on the bed and not leap into it, right then and there. But, I reminded myself, Max hadn’t been joking. He would sack me if I didn’t come back with the table, and now was my chance to get a proper poke around without Duncan at my shoulder, waving African hunting horns at me.

I wandered down the passageway, trying not to look directly at the suits of armor lined up against the walls. They were real Scooby-Doo specials, the sort that usually came with narrowed eyes flickering from side to side in the slits, only these had huge medieval swords attached. I wasn’t sure what the obsession with military hardware said about the family. Was there a ruthless streak running deep in the current McAndrews, under their soft English accents?

I shivered, imagining Robert in a boardroom, his eyes flashing with the wild-eyed courage that had once defended the Kettlesheer estate from English—

I caught my own moony reflection in a framed photograph of the staff, circa 1880, and pulled a face. I really had to get a grip.