‘You’re family? Oh, we’re so glad. Ethel and I worry about her being here in this place all alone. We didn’t know she had anyone. Is she really all right?’
‘I... Yes. She just...needs to stay in the village tonight. For personal reasons.’
‘Well, why shouldn’t she?’ the lady demanded. ‘All the times we’ve stayed here, we’ve never known her to take a night off, and she works so hard. But we can help. The doggies need their dinner, don’t you, doggies? And we can make our own hot-water bottles. If you light the fire in the sitting room, Ethel and I will feed the doggies and find the shortbread. Oh, and we’ll take the breakfast orders, too, so you’ll have them all ready.’ Her face suddenly puckered. ‘But if Jeanie’s not back by the morning... Ethel and I come for Jeanie’s porridge. We can cope without whisky but not without our porridge.’
* * *
The guests headed to the village for dinner, and by the time they returned Alasdair had whisky waiting. It wasn’t enough to keep the Americans happy, but the couple had only booked for one night and for one night Alasdair could cope with bluster.
But one night meant one morning. Breakfast. Ethel and Hazel had handed him the menus, beaming confidence. He’d glanced through them and thought there was nothing wrong with toast.
He couldn’t cope with breakfast—and why should he? This marriage farce was over. All he had to do was accept it. He could contact the chopper pilot, get him here first thing and be back in Edinburgh by mid-morning.
He’d be back in charge of his life—but Hazel and Ethel wouldn’t get their porridge and the Duncairn empire was finished.
He glanced again at the menus. Porridge, gourmet omelettes, black pudding... Omelettes were easy, surely. Didn’t you just break eggs into a pan and stir? But black pudding! He didn’t know where to start.
Did Jeanie do it all? Didn’t she have anyone to help?
The memory flooded back of Jeanie in the car. What had he said to her? That his car was...‘blocking your profits...’
The moment he’d said it he’d seen the colour drain from her face. The slap had shocked her more than it had shocked him.
An undischarged bankruptcy?
He didn’t know anything about her.
What had she said? ‘This is a business deal. If you’re buying, Alasdair McBride, surely you should have checked out the goods.’
He’d set Elspeth onto a background check. Yes, he should have done it weeks ago but he’d assumed...
Okay, he’d assumed the worst—that Jeanie was as money-grubbing as her ex-husband. It had just seemed a fact.
He thought back to the one time—the only time—he’d seen Jeanie together with Alan. They’d just married. Alan had brought his new bride to the head offices of the Duncairn Corporation and introduced her with pride.
‘Isn’t she gorgeous?’ he’d demanded of Alasdair and Alasdair had looked at Jeanie’s short, short skirt and the leather jacket and boots and the diamond earrings and he’d felt nothing but disgust. The demure secretary he’d seen working with Eileen had been a front, he’d thought. The transformation made him wonder just how much his grandmother had been conned.
He was about to find out. ‘You know what this means,’ Alan had told him. ‘I’m respectable now. The old lady thinks the sun shines out of Jeanie. She’s already rethinking the money side of this business. Half this company should be mine and you know it. Now Eileen’s thinking it, too.’
Eileen hadn’t been thinking it, but she had settled an enormous amount on the pair of them. ‘It’s easier than to have the inheritance of the company split when I die, and Jeanie’s excellent with money. She’ll manage it.’
The next time he’d seen Jeanie, she’d been back here and his grandmother had been dying. There’d been no sign of the tight-fitting clothes or the jewels then. There’d been no sign of the brittle, would-be sophisticate—and there’d been no sign of the money.
On impulse he headed upstairs to the room his grandmother had kept as her own. Eileen had spent little time here but when she’d known her time was close she’d wanted to come back. He had to clear it out—sometime. Not now. All he wanted to do now was look.
He entered, wincing a little at the mounds of soft pillows, at the billowing pink curtains, at the windows open wide to let in the warm evening air. Jeanie must still be caring for it. All signs of the old lady’s illness had gone but the room was still Eileen’s. Eileen’s slippers were still beside the bed.
There were two photographs on the dresser. One was of him, aged about twelve, holding his first big salmon. He looked proud fit to burst. The other was of Alan and Jeanie on their wedding day.
Jeanie was holding a posy of pink roses. She was wearing a dress similar to the one she had on today. Alan was beaming at the camera, hugging Jeanie close, his smile almost...triumphant.
Jeanie just looked embarrassed.
So the tarty clothes had come after the wedding, he thought.
So the marriage to Alan had been almost identical to the one she’d gone through today?
Maybe it was. After all, he was just another McBride.
He swore and crossed to Eileen’s desk, feeling more and more confused. The foundations he’d been so sure of were suddenly decidedly shaky.
What he was looking for was front and centre—a bound ledger, the type he knew Eileen kept for every transaction she had to deal with. This was the castle ledger, dealing with the day-to-day running of the estate. Jeanie would have another one, he knew, but, whatever she did, Eileen always kept a personal account.
He flicked through until he found the payroll.
Over the past couple of months there’d been a few on the castle staff. There’d been nurses, help from the village, the staff Alasdair had seen when he’d come to visit her. But before that... Leafing through, he could find only two entries. One was for Mac, the gillie. Mac had been gillie here for fifty years and must be close to eighty now. He was still on full wages, though he must be struggling.
The castle wasn’t running as a farm. The cattle were here mostly to keep the grass down, but still... He thought of the great rhododendron drive. It had been clipped since the funeral. There was no way Mac could have done such a thing, and yet there was no mention of anyone else being paid to do it.
Except Jeanie? Jeanie, who was the only other name in the book? Jeanie, who was being paid less than Mac? Substantially less.
What was a good wage for a housekeeper? He had a housekeeper in Edinburgh and he paid her more than this—to keep house for one man.
His phone rang. Elspeth.
‘That was fast,’ he told her, but in truth he was starting to suspect that what she had to find was easy. He could have found it out himself, he thought. His dislike of Alan had stopped him enquiring, but now... Did he want to hear?
‘I thought I’d catch you before you start enjoying your wedding night,’ Elspeth said and
