Читать книгу The Forbidden Promise - Lorna Cook - Страница 8

Kate climbed back into the car and grabbed her handbag from where it had fallen into the passenger footwell. She took out her small bundle of good luck cards and reread her favourite, from her best friend Jenny. On the front was a picture of Kate holding an empty Champagne bottle upside down towards her mouth. She was pulling a stupid, but happy expression. It was only a few months old, but remembering the celebrations from the day she’d been promoted to senior PR manager still made her smile.

Inside the card wasn’t the usual ‘Good Luck’ message. Instead it said, ‘From drunken dare to worst nightmare. Knock ’em dead.’

Oh God, the dare. What had Kate been thinking, coming here on a whim and a dare? She couldn’t lay all the blame at Jenny’s door. It hadn’t been Jenny’s fault that Kate had quite simply had enough. If she had to turn up to promote any more bar openings with mediocre guest lists full of Z-list models and footballers’ wives treating her like dirt she would have screamed. What was it about the almost famous that made them think they could talk to her and her colleagues like they were skivvies? And then when one had accused her of flirting with her husband. Well, the fallout from that had been unbearable. She knew why she was here if she really stopped to think about it. She needed to rebuild her reputation, away from the claustrophobic glare of London, her office, her colleagues, everyone who knew the awful situation she’d got herself in that night. The shame of the accusation was what had driven her here, as far away as she could possibly get. After the indignity and humiliation of the formal warning she’d received at work the next day, Jenny had drunkenly applied online for two jobs for her.

‘You’ve always said you wanted to travel more,’ Jenny had slurred, loading up a jobs website on her laptop. ‘From Land’s End to John o’Groats. I dare you. Where do you fancy?’

‘Anywhere, anywhere, just fill the bloody forms in, attach my CV and hit send. It could be in Timbuktu for all I care. As long as I never have to deal with some reality TV contestant falling out of a bar drunk and into the lens of their own pre-organised waiting paparazzi, then it can be anywhere you like,’ Kate had declared.

Jenny had hit send, they’d clinked glasses and Kate had forgotten all about it. Until a week later when a rejection email from a hotel in Cornwall had fallen into Kate’s inbox. Apparently she didn’t have enough experience promoting regional food and had not even made it through to the interview stage. She felt a slight pang of regret over the loss of a job she hadn’t even known existed until that very moment. And it had set her thinking: maybe a change of scenery was the very thing she needed. No more awful bars. No celebrity hangouts. A chance to start afresh with her reputation intact.

And so when the second job application had proven fruitful and the owner of Invermoray House in Scotland interviewed Kate via an hour-long phone call and offered her the job at the end of it, she had jumped up and down for a full two minutes in joy.

‘Not much in the way of visitors,’ she had told Kate. ‘Which we’re hoping you can help with of course, dear. We’re very out of the way up here.’

‘Sounds perfect.’ Kate had felt triumphant, knowing soon she’d be away from run-of-the-mill PR assignments. And it wasn’t as if she had a relationship to tie her down. She’d been single for about a year and very happy about it. ‘I accept.’

But now it was a different story. Lost and in the fading light, Kate had never felt so alone.

By the time she eventually found it, her satnav back up and running, Invermoray House was bathed in twilight. Kate drove down the long driveway and onto the large gravel sweep in front of the house. Her eyebrows rose involuntarily as she took in the grandeur of the building, marvelling at the way it was downplayed as a house when it was more a castle. As she pulled up, the car headlights gave the baronial building a warm yellow glow.

Kate barely had time to drag her suitcases from the boot before the large wooden front door was pulled open and a lady in her mid-sixties walked towards her.

‘Can I help you?’ She had kind, smiling eyes and bob-length straight brown hair.

Kate recognised her voice. ‘I’m sorry I’m so late. You must be Mrs Langley-McLay?’

‘Yes, my dear.’ She gave Kate’s suitcases the once-over. ‘You aren’t Kate, are you?’

Kate nodded and Mrs Langley-McLay’s eyebrows knitted together.

‘Then you aren’t late at all, my dear. You’re a day early.’

Kate’s face fell. ‘What? I can’t be.’

The woman laughed. ‘We said we’d start tomorrow, so I assumed you would arrive tomorrow.’

‘Oh, I just thought …’ Kate’s voice trailed away.

‘Well.’ Mrs Langley-McLay moved forward to help Kate with her cases. ‘There’s nothing wrong with being keen. You take that other case and we’ll see you inside. You must need a cup of tea and a sit-down after such a long journey. And then we’ll see you to your room. Or perhaps you’d like a gin and tonic instead of tea? I was going to have one before dinner.’

‘That would be lovely, Mrs Langley-Mc—’

‘Oh, call me Liz, or else it’s such a mouthful.’ Liz placed Kate’s suitcase by the bottom of the ornately carved mahogany stairs and indicated Kate should do the same with the other one.

Liz led her through the black and white tiled hallway, the roaring fire crackling away comfortingly in the large stone fireplace. Despite the fact it was mid-summer there was a nip in the air as dusk settled. Liz slowed down and peeked into the doorway of a room.

‘Oh good, he’s not here,’ she mumbled to herself.

‘Who isn’t?’ Kate asked as she followed Liz into the library. It was perhaps the grandest room Kate had ever seen. Rows and rows of leather-bound books lined tall shelves that stretched to the ceiling. A wooden ladder on wheels was positioned up against the shelves and for a moment she had a childish urge to leap onto it and slide around the room.

‘Not to worry. Not for the moment. Now, let’s fix ourselves a drink, shall we? Dutch courage and all that.’

Kate wondered why on earth Liz needed Dutch courage, but Liz changed the subject, asking about Kate’s journey before launching into work matters.

‘We’ve needed someone like you for quite some time.’ Liz moved over to a drinks trolley and lifted the lid of the ice container. She plunked several pieces into two cut-glass tumblers. ‘We’re in a complete state, as I explained on the phone, so you’ll be a bit of a jack of all trades while we get started.’ She gestured for Kate to sit on one of two red velvet Knole sofas and she did so on the one nearest Liz, her back to the door. The sofas were worn, with horsehair sticking through, and the rope that bound the back together had once been gold but was now utterly frayed. It was a stark contrast to the leather volumes and the oversized wooden desk positioned near the French windows, which although old looked as good as new.

‘Now there is a teensy issue with you arriving early. But it’s nothing I can’t factor in I’m sure. Only he might fly off the handle at first but his bark is far worse than his bite.’

Kate blinked as Liz handed her a drink. ‘Your husband?’

‘Heavens, no. My poor husband passed away a year ago. No, my son. But don’t worry, because I’m sure he’ll come round to it.’

‘Your son?’

Liz nodded and sat on the opposite sofa. Suspecting Liz wasn’t going to offer more information, Kate probed further.

‘Come round to what?’

‘To you, of course.’

‘Me? What about me? Me being a day early?’

Liz chuckled, but it was a nervous laugh and her eyes darted to the hallway as they both heard the front door bang shut.

‘To you being here at all.’

Kate stiffened as Liz continued. ‘You see, I hadn’t quite had a chance to tell him that I’d hired you. I was rather hoping to do it tonight, over dinner.’ Footsteps sounded on the tiled hallway floor, getting closer to the library. Liz sped up. ‘We were in desperate need of help and he flat-out refused to entertain thoughts of hiring someone. Says we can’t afford it, which is piffle. You’re an investment, of course. But he will rather blow a gasket at you being here. Terrible manners. Well … you’ll see.’

Kate heard the footsteps stop.

‘Thought I could hear voices,’ a man’s voice sounded from the doorway to the library.

Kate froze.

Liz spoke. ‘James, I’d like to introduce you to Kate.’

Kate stood and turned slowly towards the newcomer. Before she’d even seen him, she just knew who he was. As Kate faced him, a polite but nervous smile on her face, she watched recognition pass over his expression before his smile slipped. His hand, outstretched to shake hers, dropped.

‘Kate is here to—’ Liz started.

‘Finish me off?’ James interrupted her.

Liz looked between the two of them, clearly confused. Kate wanted to die.

‘We’ve met,’ James continued. ‘About an hour ago. I think it’s fair to say Kate can’t drive.’

‘That’s not fair,’ Kate spluttered. ‘You were on the wrong side of the road. You were in the road.’

‘I bloody wasn’t in the road. And pedestrians are supposed to face oncoming traffic.’

She was silenced.

‘And you were texting,’ James finished for good measure.

‘I wasn’t texting.’ Kate was earnest.

‘Oh Christ,’ James flared up again. ‘Is that why you’re here? Did you follow me? To see where I live? Hoping to get some kind of payout, accusing me of … what … exactly? Well, I warn you we haven’t got two pennies to rub together, so don’t bother.’

‘James.’ His mother put her hand on his arm to silence him. ‘Enough please. Kate is not here about that. Kate is here because we have employed her. I have employed her.’

James turned slowly and looked at his mother. ‘You have done what?’ His voice was dark, but Kate was relieved to find Liz maintaining her son’s gaze, clearly used to holding her own in a standoff.

‘I think this is best discussed outside, don’t you?’ The question was clearly rhetorical as Liz walked purposefully from the room. James looked at Kate and she smiled weakly with embarrassment. He shook his head in disbelief and followed his mother from the room, closing the door to the library behind him.

Kate’s whole body was stiff. She couldn’t believe it. She’d been hired, although not on a contract admittedly. She’d sub-let her flat to her brother, for Christ’s sake. She couldn’t go back to London now, tail between her legs on day one of her new job. What if James overruled Liz and sent her packing, which he was clearly about to try? Where would she go at this time of night? There was a pub down the road. Maybe they had rooms, although out here in the middle of nowhere Kate doubted there was need for a pub with rooms to rent. She slumped back down awkwardly on the overstuffed sofa and tried not to listen to the muffled argument on the other side of the door.

The phrases she could pick out were in James’s thunderous tones. ‘No money … can’t afford her … don’t need any help … can do it on my own.’

She exhaled loudly as she listened to James not handle the situation at all well. There was nothing she could do. She just had to await her fate. Kate looked around the walls at some surprisingly modern artwork and then spied a large book open on a table in front of one of the bookshelves. She wandered over, more for something to direct her nervous energy towards than out of any actual interest. It was an old Bible, the pages wafer thin beneath her fingers. She’d never been particularly religious and after reading the first few lines of the open page she gently closed the hefty book to look at its front cover. The title lettering had faded but she could tell it had once been gold. The black leather cover was crumbling in a few places, particularly the spine, its threads showing bare. She looked around – threadbare appeared to be a running theme in this room. Kate opened the cover slowly and carefully turned a few pages until she reached a page showing the Family Record. Trying to forget the argument outside, she became engrossed in what must be the Langley-McLay family Bible.

The names of the family members varied in colour, the ink of the earlier ones now faded sepia, the more recent names still black. The dates started in the early 1800s and the italic looped and swirled handwriting changed as each new family member’s name was recorded with his or her birth date.

Kate thought of the generations of children who had come and gone, grown old, married and moved away, gone to war and died, lived and inherited before passing it on to the next in line. She glanced at the second page of the Bible, as the dates moved into the First World War. One child was born soon after the war: Constance Amelia Rose McLay, born August 1919.

But what struck her about this name over all the others was the black fountain pen mark that had been scored through her entire name. Whoever had crossed her entry through had done so with such forceful intention that the nib had gone through several of the sheets underneath.

Kate’s first thought was that someone might have done this when Constance had died. But there was no date of death for anyone listed in the Bible – only births – and none of the other entries had been scored through.

Constance Amelia Rose McLay stood alone in having been deleted. Kate shuddered suddenly and looked around. She suddenly wished she was anywhere else but here. With Liz talking in clipped tones to her son outside the door Kate looked back down at the name.

She ran her finger slowly over the deep slice that the pen had made and wondered what kind of crime Constance McLay could possibly have committed that would see her name so meaningfully and forcefully removed from her family history.