His gloomy mood matched the weather beyond the glass. The heavy rain showed no signs of letting up and had now been joined by a thin mist rolling in from the dales. He could barely make out the dark shadow of the protective curtain wall which separated their land from the single road snaking up through the village. A dim light flashed giving rise to his hopes that this might be them at last, but the headlights vanished an instant later, the vehicle passing rather than turning into the heavy iron gates he’d left open. ‘They should’ve been here by now.’
‘They’ll get here when they get here,’ his brother’s relaxed voice from somewhere behind the paper he was reading was enough to make Tristan want to punch him in the nose. ‘I’m sure Jess is just being sensible and taking her time.’
Their great-aunt harrumphed. ‘Phoning out of the blue to say one is setting off without so much as a day’s notice to one’s hosts doesn’t strike me as the actions of a sensible woman.’
‘It wasn’t out of the blue. I offered Jess the job knowing her circumstances, and that we’d have to move quickly if she accepted it. She was willing to book herself into a hotel for a few days, but what’s the point in wasting money unnecessarily?’ Hearing the defensiveness in his tone, Tristan attempted to moderate it as he continued. ‘I’ll try to minimise any disruption, Aunt Morgana, I promise.’
She gave him a look blistering enough to peel the lacquer from the wood panelling at his back but said no more on the subject.
‘I’m sure Arthur’s right and there’s nothing to worry about.’ Lucie offered him a reassuring smile. ‘Come and have a cup of tea.’
Abandoning his watch with one last glance out the window, Tristan slouched over to drop himself onto the floral sofa next to his sister-in-law. They’d complied with his request to take afternoon tea in this rarely used front parlour rather than their usual cosy family room just off the great hall so they would know the instant Jess and the children arrived. It would be churlish of him to refuse a cup of tea when he could have left them in peace and skulked around here on his own.
‘Maybe the weather got too bad and she decided to stop for a while?’ Lucie suggested after handing him a plate of sandwiches to go with his tea. ‘I wouldn’t fancy driving in this on my own, never mind with two little ones on board.’
‘Yes, you’re probably right.’ But wouldn’t she have called? Tristan slid his phone from his pocket to check the reception. Thankfully, the booster they’d had installed over the summer at considerable expense was holding up even in these dank conditions. It was early in the year for it to be so gloomy, but the forecasters were promising the rain was a temporary blip and high pressure would be moving in to bring one last taste of summer by the weekend.
Half a cup of tea and two sandwich fingers later, he was up by the window once more. Folding his newspaper, Arthur tossed it onto the footstool beside his armchair and rose. ‘For goodness sake, if you want something to do why don’t you come and take the dogs out with me?’
‘You’re going out in this?’
‘Doggy bladders don’t care what the weather’s like.’ Crossing to his side, Arthur clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Besides, if we’ve worn them out they’re less likely to scare our new arrivals.’ The last was said to his wife with a wink.
‘They can be a bit of a handful if you’re not used to them,’ she said with a rueful grin. ‘Oh, what the heck, I’ll come out with you as well.’
Their arrival in the great hall was greeted by a few enquiring woofs from the dogs who were all cosied up before the fire. As the three of them made their way towards the coat cupboard beside the front door, those woofs rose in volume and were soon joined by the skitter of claws on stone as Nimrod and Bella, their pair of matched greyhounds shortly followed by Tristan’s wheaten terrier, Pippin, came over to see what was going on. When Arthur appeared from the cupboard clad in a Barbour jacket and flat cap, the excitement level in the hall reached fever pitch and Tristan found himself almost toppled over by the milling pack as he raised one foot to wedge it into his wellington boot. Once dressed similarly to his brother, he pulled open one side of the enormous wooden front door and stepped aside expecting a stream of fur to rush past him. Nimrod stuck his nose outside, gave a sniff and promptly sat down on the stone floor. Tristan couldn’t say he blamed the dog, to be honest.
Arthur was having none of it, however, and he marched out the door and down the steps, pausing at the bottom only long enough to toss a couple of tennis balls out across the wide gravel drive. The temptation proved too much and Nimrod shot up and out after the balls, the rest of the dogs following closely on his heels.
Once he was out in it, Tristan decided it wasn’t that bad. The earlier wind had dropped, and if he kept his face ducked down, his cap kept the worst of the rain off. Though the rest of the dogs followed his brother and Lucie as they made towards the path leading through the formal gardens and to the broader open spaces of the parkland beyond, little Pippin kept close to Tristan’s heels, only circling off now and then when one delicious scent or another proved too tempting to ignore.
Happy to let them range ahead, Tristan found himself breaking away from the path and headed towards the open gates at the end of the drive. As he reached them, he ordered Pippin to wait before poking his head past the heavy stone pillar securing the left-hand gate to stare down the hill. Other than a few static lights shining from the houses and cottages lining the lower half of the hill, all was quiet. The oppressive rain laid a strange stillness over everything like a thick wet blanket. ‘What are you doing?’ he muttered to himself. ‘It’s not like staring down the road is going to make them arrive any quicker.’ It still took him a few more moments before he could persuade his feet to move.
Not ready to return to the house, Tristan wandered away from the gates towards his latest obsession. Tugging a torch from his pocket, he shone a thin beam of light through the dirt-encrusted window of the old gatehouse. The saggy old sofa he, Arthur and Iggy had persuaded their father to put in the sitting room when they’d claimed it as their private den still stood before the fireplace. It looked more black than the pale green velvet he remembered, possibly a trick of the light, but more likely from mildew. He pulled a face, wondering just what else might be lurking in the depths of its cushions after so many years of neglect. They’d outgrown it after going off to university, and he doubted very much anyone had been inside in the dozen or so years since.
Ever since Uncle Lancelot had taken it upon himself to convert the rooms above the stable blocks from which he ran his successful horse stud, Tristan had been pondering the idea of carving a private space for himself on the castle grounds. It wasn’t that the castle didn’t have more than enough bedrooms to accommodate them all several times over, but now the long-term future for the castle looked healthy, it was time to start making plans of his own. A home of his own. He’d have to speak to Maxwell, the family’s butler, to see if he knew where the keys were and check the place out before he got too far ahead of himself.
Ignoring the little voice in his head that whispered perhaps now wasn’t the best time to take on yet another project when he had so much already on his plate, he circled around to the other side of the gatehouse, shining his torch through each window in turn. The kitchen was small, but how much space did he need? Though Lancelot and Constance lived above the stables, they still joined the rest of the family for most evening meals. The old wood-fed stove was a bit too primitive for Tristan but could easily be replaced with a microwave and an electric hob. He flashed the torch around the rest of the room. The tile floor looked pretty sound and the wooden cupboards were mostly intact apart from one door hanging loose off its hinges.
His progression round to the two rooms which had once served as bedrooms
