Christmas at the Castle. Marion Lennox

didn’t step out of it.’

      ‘So you intend to be subservient.’

      ‘That’s the one,’ she said cheerfully. ‘As long as you do what I tell you, I’ll be as subservient as you like.’

      ‘As long as I do what you tell me...’

      ‘If I have a cooking range that hasn’t been used for years I’ll be telling you right, left and centre,’ she said and rose and shoved her feet determinedly back into her soggy trainers. ‘Thank you very much, My Lord. Gran and I will see you at nine tomorrow, and Christmas will begin then.’ She reached out and shook his hand, then reached down and patted the little dog. ‘Goodbye until then,’ she said. ‘Twenty courses or not, suddenly we’re going to have a very yummy Christmas.’

      * * *

      Angus stood in the doorway and watched her go. She’d refused his offer to drive her; she’d refused his offer to send Stanley and she was trudging down the road towards the village looking like a bereft orphan thrown out into the snow.

      A bereft orphan with spirit.

      ‘You’ve made a mistake, My Lord,’ Stanley said gloomily. He’d appeared—gloomily—behind him. ‘She’ll cost you a fortune.’

      ‘Tell me, Stanley,’ Angus said, in a voice any of his colleagues would have recognised and snapped to wary attention. ‘How much do we have in the petty cash account?’

      ‘I...’

      ‘We have the rent roll from the cottages for the last month, I assume,’ Angus said. ‘That should cover our costs nicely. I suspect it’s far too late to get central heating installed into this place by Christmas but I want every chimney swept, I want coal in every fireplace and I want oil heaters in every room. After Christmas I may need to reforest a small nation to nullify any environmental impact, but this castle will be warm by Christmas. Can I leave that to you, Stanley?’

      His voice was silky-smooth. He was watching Stanley’s face and he knew exactly what the man was thinking.

      The rent rolls for this place were colossal. They were supposed to come into a cash account at the start of the month, then roll over at the end of the month into one of his father’s income-bearing accounts. What he suspected Stanley was doing and seemed to have been doing for years was siphoning the rent roll into his own account for the thirty days. Angus’s father must never have noticed, but Angus thought of the interest Stanley must have earned over the years he’d been employed...

      However...Stanley had put up with his father, and somehow he’d held the estate together. And he couldn’t sack him now—he needed him. But then he thought of Holly in her soggy trainers and he thought of the misery caused by dishonesty everywhere.

      Stanley would need to scramble to get that money back into the account, he thought, hit by a wave of sudden anger. The reputation of the miserliness of the Earl of Craigenstone stopped right now. Dishonesty stopped now, too. Up until now he’d tolerated a bit of petty theft, he’d tolerated Stanley’s surliness because to change things in the short time he had here had seemed pointless. But now... Now things did need to change. Suddenly Castle Craigie was aiming for a Very Merry Christmas.

      * * *

      ‘He’s nice... He’s lovely and he’s hired us both. At such a salary! Each!’

      Holly practically bounced into the kitchen, where Maggie had been disconsolately staring at a packet of pasta and an unbranded can of tomatoes. Now she stared as if her granddaughter had lost her mind.

      ‘What?’

      Holly told her the salary and then repeated it for good measure. ‘And we start tomorrow. We get to stay in the castle and we get to stay warm.’

      She grabbed her grandmother and hugged her and then, because she was excited, she did a little jig, dragging Maggie round the kitchen with her.

      But Maggie had to be dragged. There was no matching excitement in her, and finally Holly stopped and let her go.

      ‘What?’

      ‘There’s a catch,’ Maggie said flatly. ‘There’s always a catch.’

      ‘There’s not. He’s getting a chef and an awesome housekeeper and he’s prepared to pay. I was getting those sort of wages in Sydney before...’

      ‘Before you trusted Geoff,’ Maggie retorted. ‘Have you learned nothing? Men!’

      ‘Gran, he rang the airline and got a real person. And look.’ She dug her hand into her greatcoat and hauled out the banknotes. ‘This is an advance on what the airline is paying me. It seems you bought me insurance. Gran, this is...’

      ‘Give it back!’

      ‘Are you out of your mind?’

      ‘He’s the Earl of Craigenstone. You never, ever trust such a man. We’ll be indebted. He’ll be demanding... You know what he’ll be demanding?’

      ‘Droit de seigneur? Any village maiden he wants?’ Holly stared down at the notes in her hand and couldn’t suppress a giggle. ‘Gran, this is not the Dark Ages. This means dry shoes. And you know, for dry shoes I might even agree to a bit of...’

      ‘Holly!’

      ‘Okay, sorry,’ she said, settling again. ‘You needn’t worry; after Geoff, I am not the least bit interested in unswerving servitude, or even interest, but we do have a job and we can walk away at any time.’

      ‘And this money?’

      ‘Will be repaid as soon as the airline pays me. We’re not walking into the lion’s den. Come on, Gran, it’ll be awesome.’

      ‘How many people are we catering for?’

      That stopped Holly in her tracks. She stared at Maggie, who stared straight back.

      If they were in front of a mirror they would have seen a weird reflection, Holly thought. Maggie looked like Holly with fifty years added. They looked like two curly-haired Scotswomen, the only difference being the colour of their hair—copper versus grey—a few wrinkles and an Aussie accent versus a broad Scottish burr.

      ‘I don’t know,’ Holly admitted, hauling her attention back to catering. ‘The butler said...’

      ‘Who?’

      ‘The man who opened the door. Dour, lean and mean. He looks like Lurch from the Addams Family.’

      ‘Stanley,’ Maggie snapped. ‘Estate manager. Reminds me of a ferret. Lurch used to make me laugh. Stanley doesn’t.’

      ‘Well, he implied we’ll only be cooking and making beds for His Lordship.’

      ‘If he’s paying these sort of wages, he’ll have invited half of New York.’

      ‘We can cope,’ Holly said belligerently and then went back to thinking about the man she’d just left. ‘Gran, he’s gorgeous.’

      ‘There’s no gorgeous about it,’ Maggie snapped. ‘The man’s the Earl, and he’s had deceit and tyranny bred into him for generations. I’m glad I’m coming with you, lass, or heaven knows what trouble you’d get into.’

      ‘So you will do it?’

      ‘We don’t have much choice,’ Maggie said grimly. ‘It’s follow His Lordship’s orders or starve. Nothing’s changed in this village for five hundred years, and it seems it’s not changing now.’

      * * *

      He made three phone calls. The first was to his mother, who was as upset as he’d thought she might be.

      ‘I’m staying here until after Christmas,’ he told her. ‘I know how you feel about the place, Mom, but I’ve told you about these kids. This place is important to them. It’s the least I can do. I’ll give them Christmas here and then it’s done.’