The Forbidden Promise

He nodded. ‘Red? Goes nicely with lasagne.’ He looked toward the cookbook where the bottle of wine stood. ‘I could open some if you want?’

Kate was about to say she would only have some if they were having some when Liz saved the situation from a politeness tipping point by hopping up and bringing the bottle to the table, turning back to fetch three wine glasses.

‘Good to see your manners haven’t failed you completely.’ Liz told James as she opened the bottle. It made a satisfying plucking noise as the cork was withdrawn. He shrugged and started tucking into his plate of lasagne.

The clock on the wall ticked away, providing an awkward soundtrack for the dinner. Kate’s PR training kicked in and she started on the small talk.

‘This is wonderful,’ she said truthfully.

‘Thanks,’ James mumbled.

Silence threatened to engulf the room again.

‘James is really rather talented in the kitchen,’ Liz enthused. ‘I joke he’ll make someone a lovely wife one day.’

He shrugged then shovelled another fork load of lasagne into his mouth.

As Liz and Kate continued small talk amongst themselves about the weather and the village nearby, James practically hoovered his food down. Kate stole small glances at him every now and again. He’d probably be quite good-looking, if only he’d smile. She glanced back at him a few minutes later and found him looking directly at her. ‘Right. That’s me done,’ he said suddenly. ‘I’m off to bed.’

He put his plate in the sink, took his wine glass with him and left the kitchen. He was avoiding her already; Kate was sure of it.

If Liz hadn’t been sitting there Kate would have breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God he’d gone. He knew how to suck the atmosphere from a room.

‘Oh, don’t mind him,’ Liz said, obviously spotting her expression. ‘He’s going to take a little while to get used to the idea of you being here. Between you, me and the gatepost,’ Liz said quietly, ‘he feels a bit undermined.’

‘Undermined?’ Kate helped herself to another portion of lasagne and Liz did the same.

‘He’s used to ruling the roost. Whole teams of people worked under him at the office. Before he left to come and help me. But of course you’re now here, and you’re an expert in a field James knows absolutely nothing about. So he’s not really sure how he’s going to manage you.’

‘I see,’ Kate said. But she didn’t really see and wasn’t sure how she was going to alleviate James’s concern. ‘Well,’ Kate tried. ‘I’m only here for six months so the plan is to sort of … get you started on the PR side of things – make sure my travel contacts in the media are onside over the next few months, make sure they visit and write glowing reviews, introduce you to all of them when they visit so you have an ongoing relationship with them. I plan to make decent headway and then I’ll hand over the reins to you and James. Hopefully at the end of my time here, you’ll be beating visitors off with sticks and might be able to hire someone locally just for a few days a week.’

‘I know, I know, dear. We talked about this on the phone. All the other candidates droned on and on about how they’d need to move here permanently. How they’d be expecting a resettlement package and all that.’

Kate was pleased her honesty had paid off and she hadn’t been as offensively demanding as some of the other applicants had obviously been.

‘So don’t worry about the nitty-gritty at this stage. For now,’ Liz continued, looking conspiratorial, ‘we need to work out how to get the visitors in and then we need to worry about the PR after that.’

‘Well, that should be easy,’ Kate said confidently. ‘Good PR and a turnaround in visitors go hand in hand.’ She knew her job inside out. It was a rare kind of travel journalist who said no to a free all-expenses-paid mini-break with their partner in exchange for a decent review. And with decent reviews, came an upsurge in tourism – unless there was something very wrong with a hospitality property. Kate could do this in her sleep. And the rest of it, planning out themed articles months in advance in line with what journalists were requesting for their features, that was just good relationships and diarising. ‘You did mention on the phone you didn’t have much in the way of visitors and I admit you are very out of the way. You weren’t too sure about the events programme and we were going to take a look over the bedrooms to see what could improve but …’ Kate cut to the chase. ‘Liz, how many visitors does Invermoray House get?’

‘None, dear.’

‘None? Oh I don’t just mean out of season,’ Kate clarified, wondering why Liz was quoting the unimpressive out-of-season number. Although none, even for that time of year, was a worry.

‘We don’t get any visitors at all. Over any time period,’ Liz explained. ‘We don’t have any kind of events programme. We have never opened the house to paying visitors. We’ve never offered overnight stays. I love the idea of turning us into some sort of boutique bed and breakfast but we wouldn’t even know where to begin. I mean, do we need some kind of catering licence from the council to offer breakfasts or afternoon teas? But for now, what you see is what we are: a family home that needs to start paying its way. That’s why you’re here. We need you to help us do all of this. We need you to save Invermoray House.’

CHAPTER 7

What on earth had she got herself into? She’d done this job for years. But normally she turned up, following in the footsteps of a well-executed business plan, was pretty much thrust a strategy and then off she’d run and drum up interest with the glossy magazines, bloggers and the Sunday supplements. She’d take journalists out for lunch. She’d organise snazzy, all-expenses-paid press trips and then sit back and wait for the editorial coverage to roll in. She’d had it quite easy. She would be the first to admit to herself; although she’d never dared tell anyone else that, especially her clients.

But this was different. If Liz had outlined exactly how amateur this operation was, would she have come? God, no. She was a publicist, not a business strategist. She was the cherry on the cake, not the cake itself.

Kate looked at her watch as she lay in bed, unable to sleep. Ordinarily, it would be too late to text someone, but she knew Jenny would be awake and doing something slightly bonkers such as an all-night spin cycle class. ‘Help,’ Kate messaged. ‘They have no idea what they’re doing.’ She paused before typing again. ‘And neither do I,’ she finished with a flourish before sending a follow-up with a very brief summary of the situation.

Kate watched three dots appear on the screen, indicating Jenny was composing a reply.

‘You’ve handled worse than this, I’m sure,’ she replied. ‘Remember that diabolical spa that thought they were good enough to get coverage in Vogue? You can do this blindfolded. Do you need more in the way of a pep talk or can I go to my trampoline disco class now?’

Kate replied with a heart symbol and left Jenny to her latest late-night exercise fad.

She wasn’t ready to sleep yet and was annoyed with herself that she’d forgotten to ask Liz what the Wi-Fi code was for the house. Kate actually rather suspected there wasn’t one. After trying unsuccessfully to connect her laptop to her phone’s 3G, she gave up and just scrolled through sites using the hazy 3G on her phone. She had one bar of signal and so had to wait an interminable amount of time for a page to load, but at least it was loading. She was looking up famous country houses, to see what they were doing to drum up business. She couldn’t possibly be expected to formulate the entire business strategy, could she? If so, what the hell had James been doing until now, if not that very thing? Liz had said he was some hotshot who’d come home to Invermoray to run the house. Run it into the ground, clearly.

Kate thought of all the country houses she’d visited over the past few years, though there weren’t that many. She googled Longleat, near Bath, remembering it thrived thanks mainly to a Safari Park. That was out of the question. She moved on to Chatsworth, Blenheim Palace and then looked more locally at Cawdor Castle before realising she was completely out of her depth.

This was a disaster. She’d been hired under false pretences. Although she suspected Liz had no idea of the difference between PR and business strategy and now they were all in this mess together.

She switched her phone off and put her head in her hands. She had two options. She could give in, explain to Liz that she’d been mistakenly hired for a job she wasn’t qualified to do. Or she could breathe deeply and be pragmatic.

The sun streamed through a chink in the curtains and Kate blinked and looked at her watch. It was early, but not so early she could try to grab forty more winks before starting her first day at work. She’d had very little sleep, had been up all night formulating a rough kind of plan and had engaged in a stern chat with herself on more than one occasion to force herself to continue. She wasn’t going to give in. For one thing, she could imagine the smug joy on James’s face when she confessed she had no idea what she was doing and that it was probably best for all concerned that she drive back to the airport and not darken their door again. The image of his self-satisfied face riled her. But it was something else stopping her. Kate always made a point of giving clients the best service she could offer. She’d always told them that she treated their business as if it was her own. And she meant it. What would Kate try to do if Invermoray was her house?

And so, with careful, methodical planning, throughout the night she’d filled a notebook with short-term, and long-term ideas for raising cash. In short, she created something vaguely resembling a business plan. She’d made a point of not sleeping until she’d run out of ideas. And the ideas kept flowing, which meant she hadn’t slept. So it was with an exhausted excitement that she stood zombie-like in the shower and tried not to fall asleep upright.

‘I can do this,’ Kate whispered as she stood in the kitchen and loaded the silver cafetière with coffee, ‘I can do this.’ In the morning light things weren’t as bad as she thought. Often she’d make suggestions to clients about how to tweak their business. She understood getting people through doors. What they wanted. What they needed. With the hash they’d made of it at Invermoray so far, things could only get better. Kate had rallied her confidence and had chosen to wear skinny jeans tucked into ankle boots and her nicest shirt, which wasn’t too crumpled from being packed away. She needed to find out where the iron was. Overall, she hoped the outfit conveyed seriousness to her role without being too staid.

‘I can do this,’ she repeated.

‘It’s not that complicated,’ James said as he entered the kitchen, startling her so that she spilled coffee granules over the counter.

‘Fill with boiling water, leave a few minutes and then push the plunger,’ he continued.

‘Right, yes.’ She knew how to make coffee.

‘Jolly good,’ he said dryly. ‘Enough in there for me?’ His tone was lighter, not by a lot, but he certainly wasn’t on as much of an offensive as he had been last night.

Kate made them both coffee as James scraped a kitchen chair out and sat down at the table. Maybe this wouldn’t be as awkward as yesterday.

‘So …’ he started and then stopped.

‘So …?’ Kate echoed. She was wrong. The awkwardness was seeping back into the room.

‘So you’re basically the cavalry,’ James said with a thin smile. ‘Come to rescue us because we’ve cocked it up?’

‘Oh no,’ Kate said quickly. ‘No no no. I see us as more of a team …’

‘Pfft,’ James replied.

She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. And it was hardly fair given she didn’t know she was meant to be the cavalry.

‘Do you know,’ he started, looking out the kitchen window, ‘I gave up my job to come back here. I don’t know why now. I’ve been here all of five minutes, I think I’ve just about worked out where things are going wrong, I’ve sorted what I believe is a decent plan of attack and then without a chance to do anything about it I get …’

‘You get …?’ Kate prompted.

‘I get you … to be blunt … thrust upon me. Who’s running who? Who’s in charge? You or me? I’ve got no idea. But if you think you can just strut in here and throw orders around, you’ve got another—’

‘That’s really not why I’m here,’ Kate cut in. And then she noted what he’d said. ‘I’m sorry, you’ve only been here five minutes? What do you mean?’

‘Three months,’ James said. ‘I’ve been back for all of three months. I wasn’t going to. I came back after Dad died, got things sorted for Mum. But I had a job. A life. One I enjoyed, so I went back to that. And then Mum issued her call to arms and like a dutiful son I said I’d come and help. So I apologise for my hostility towards you yesterday, but I want you to see it from my point of view. I wasn’t expecting … well … you know.’ He gestured towards Kate and then sipped the coffee she handed him. But he clearly wasn’t done and she watched him take a deep breath. ‘In truth, I wasn’t expecting to be told I was shit quite so soon, especially when I don’t really want to be here.’

Kate nodded slowly. He’d been here for three months. Which meant that when she’d been hired a month ago and had worked her notice period, he’d only been here for two months when Liz had interviewed her. It sounded cut-throat but perhaps Liz just knew things needed to move at a quicker pace than they had been then.

‘I’m sorry,’ Kate said. ‘I don’t know what to say. Only, I think I’ll be good at this and—’

James’s eyebrows lifted. ‘You think you’ll be good at this?’ he repeated. ‘What the hell does that mean? Have you not done this before?’

Kate was spared answering as Liz arrived. ‘Ah, good morning, all. Kate, shall we have the tour after breakfast and then we can talk plans as we go?’

Across the kitchen table, James’s eyes narrowed.

CHAPTER 8

They moved through the house, Kate clutching her notebook and pen, writing things down as Liz and she discussed plans. Kate tried to keep the horrified expression from her face as they looked in some of the other guest bedrooms that were even chintzier than her own. Most had en suites, which would be a blessing when it came to offering bed and breakfast packages. No guest wants to traipse down a hall in the middle of the night in search of a loo. It doesn’t exactly scream luxury and so Kate offered up a silent word of thanks to the McLay ancestors who’d seen fit to install additional bathrooms.

The polished ballroom and well-planted orangery were in good condition, although a pane of glass had smashed on the far side of the orangery and had been boarded up. Kate resisted asking how long it had been like that. A while, she suspected, and made a note in her pad to get it fixed. This was really a job James and Liz should have already tackled, but as she moved further through the house with Liz it was clear they were at sixes and sevens and Kate would have to take on a lot of everyday tasks if they were going to get Invermoray suitable for visiting journalists and paying guests.

By the time they finished the tour of the house, Kate’s notebook was full of jobs that needed doing, the first of which was to organise the official paperwork to change Invermoray House from a residential property to a bed and breakfast.

‘You can give that job to James,’ Liz said. ‘He’s good at that sort of thing.’

Curiosity got the better of Kate. ‘What did James do? Before he came back home?’

‘Oh, something in computers,’ Liz said dismissively. ‘He’s been in Hong Kong living the high life and, to be honest, I never quite understood what it was he did, tapping away all day on a keyboard. All sounded very dull, but like most dull things, it made him an awful lot of money.’

Did Liz have another reason for calling James back home other than helping run the house? Kate would try and work that one out later.

‘Shall we look at the gardens?’ Liz suggested.

Kate nodded. She had seen them, briefly, from her window last night and was rather excited to see them in daylight. As she walked, her mind whirred. Where was all this money James had made then? And why wasn’t he ploughing it into the estate? Perhaps it was wrong of her to assume he would spend his hard-earned cash on his mother’s house, even if it would be his one day, especially if he didn’t want to be here – a fact he had made abundantly clear.

The ornamental gardens were a view to behold. Kate had been expecting another ramshackle sight but the gardens were lush and well maintained, the hedges clipped in linear fashion.

‘This is my passion project,’ Liz confessed. ‘I do spend rather a lot of time gardening.’

‘I can see. It’s beautiful,’ Kate said softly. The gardens, bordered by angular hedges, swept down towards the loch. At the centre was a statue of a globe held by three cherubs. Dahlias, hydrangeas and begonia beds held a stunning array of peach, pink and orange flowers.

‘I’ll confess I probably spend far too much time out here, and not enough in there.’ Liz gestured back towards the house. ‘I’ve probably spent too long with my head in the sand. Or the flowers. After my husband died, I’m not sure I was really up to it … saving the house, I mean. In fact, I’m not sure I understood the house needed saving until recently. It all became a bit topsy-turvy without me really noticing. By which point James had come back, and seemed better equipped to handle the day-to-day running of the house – quite willing too. And I think I rather left him to it.’

Liz brightened. ‘But not anymore. I’ve placed too much pressure at his door and now it’s time he had help. Not that he accepts it, of course. But in time he’ll come round. Now, I wonder if I can leave you in James’s capable hands for the remainder of the tour?’

At this, Kate’s heart plummeted into her stomach. ‘Of course.’

‘Good, I want you to see the ghillie’s cottage. I do think it would make rather a good holiday let but it’s a bit of a journey round the far side of the loch so I think it’s best James drives you.’

Kate’s heart lifted itself back into place at this. A holiday cottage. She knew that would bring in much-needed revenue, although given the state the rest of the house was in, she dreaded seeing the condition of the cottage.

James was in the estate office, a low-level outbuilding made of the same grey stone as the main house and nestled between the house and the disused stables. Kate was distracted by the stables’ distressed wooden doors hanging off their hinges. Through the open, wonky doors, she could see the stable was being used for storage. Furniture and all sorts of boxes stood piled up at odd angles. It may be worth a ransack later, to see if anything could be salvaged and used. There were clearly a lot of items and she was starting to see how easy it was to hoard. Generations of McLays had been adept at collecting.

The junk in the stables was nothing to the carnage that awaited her in the estate office. Liz led the way but it was a squeeze to get inside the room. Boxes of paperwork and filing cabinets jostled for space. There was barely an inch of floor. They picked their way across the room towards the set of two large mahogany desks where James sat facing them, watching warily as they approached. Kate was careful not to slip on pieces of paper that had obviously fallen to the floor from the piles of paperwork that needed a more permanent home.

James closed his laptop slowly and gave both Kate and his mother a look that indicated he was being ambushed. Why was this man always on the offensive? Why the near-open hostility? Kate knew he felt replaced, although if he gave her half a second to explain, and his mother too for that matter, he’d be able to understand that she wasn’t there to bring the house down around his ears, but to work with him to save it. She would make a point of convincing him to like her later. Even if it killed her, Kate had to get him onside.

‘James, darling,’ Liz placated.

James lifted an eyebrow, making it clear he knew he was being buttered up.

‘Would you be a dear and take Kate over to the ghillie’s cottage? Explain what you’ve done and what you’ve been doing in general?’

James took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. ‘Yeah. Sure. I’ll take Kate over and explain myself to her.’

‘Goodo,’ Liz said as she left, entirely misunderstanding his tone.

‘I don’t need you to explain yourself,’ Kate said once Liz had gone. ‘Not to me. I just …’ She paused and tried a less flustered approach. ‘I think you and I have got off on the wrong foot.’

He put his arms behind his head. ‘Do you, now?’

‘Yes,’ Kate said. ‘You don’t? You enjoy meeting new people and there being a permanent air of awkwardness?’

‘Who says it’s awkward?’

Kate looked at him wide-eyed.

‘And who says it’s permanent?’ James continued. ‘By all accounts you’re only here for six months.’

It was Kate’s turn to breathe deeply. ‘Are you always like this?’ she muttered under her breath.

‘Pretty much,’ he replied.

‘Good to know. Listen,’ she said, ‘forget about the tour. Just hand me the keys to the cottage and I’ll go on my own.’

‘The key’s under the mat but you’ll never find the cottage on your own.’

‘We’ll see. Where is it exactly?’

‘It’s on the far side of the loch, through the trees. But there’s no path from the loch anymore. The footpath that once was there has overgrown and the ferns and trees have grown up around it. The cottage is almost hidden now. I’ve been driving round from the woodland. I’ve cut a vehicle path through it and hacked my way through the rest to make a footpath to the front door. Take the Land Rover if you want. Just, try and drive a bit more carefully than you normally do.’

Kate ignored that last comment. ‘I’m sure I’ll find it on foot. I could do with the walk.’

‘OK, so you’re not listening,’ he said, exasperation tingeing his voice. ‘You won’t see it. You’ll miss it completely.’

‘Key’s under the mat you say?’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah, be my guest.’

Kate had never been so glad to get out of a place in her life. James was positively hostile, rude and unbelievably arrogant. And so … knowing. She breathed down the clean highland air and walked round towards the ornamental garden in order to find the path down to the loch.

‘You won’t find it,’ Kate mimicked James as she slipped through the arched opening in the hedge towards the shore. Was the cottage invisible then? Stupid man. She walked along by the water’s edge. The sun streamed down onto the expanse of still water. Kate paused to take in the view, feeling the warmth of the sun on her face and arms. Despite James’s behaviour, her shoulders were unstiffening and she felt her body relax. A few moments standing in front of a peaceful loch were far more effective than the weekly yoga class she’d been taking back in London. A walk through the woods was just what the doctor ordered and she skirted the loch, feeling the comforting crunch of pebbles and shingle under her boots.

On the far side, Kate turned back by the tree line and faced the house. It really was a handsome building: imposing, baronial, stately – especially from here, where the view across the water and the ornamental garden gave the house an immaculate air, masking the near dilapidation inside. Kate smiled at her luck having landed a job here, then headed into the woods.

How long had she been walking? Half an hour? An hour? She really hadn’t thought this through at all. The large pine trees loomed skinny and tall and their leaves rustled overhead as a hint of a breeze swept through before growing silent almost as fast as it had started. The ground was blanketed in green spindly ferns. It was a job to know where to place her feet, hoping they landed correctly on the ground, out of sight, beneath the deep greenery. Every few yards or so a clump of tall purple foxgloves grew, unexpectedly sturdy and tall between rocks and crevices. Further along, Kate smiled to see thistles, feeling like a tourist at having spotted Scotland’s national flower. The purple flowers crowned them, completely juxtaposed with the rest of their oversized spiky appearance, transforming them into a thing of unexpected beauty. A large rock protruded by a series of trees, grouped together. She had passed this; she was sure she had. Was she going round in circles? What had first appeared striking woodland now appeared almost malevolent.