working, Martha, where’s the fire?’ I glanced over at the couple under the archway. The goddess threw her cigarette and stalked back inside, the boyfriend was still looking on.
‘No fire, I was just worried when you weren’t at home.’
‘I’m not always at home, Martha, I do have other things to fill my days you know.’ We both knew that was a skinny truth. ‘Look, I’ll call you when I’m home. I’ll be about an hour. Don’t freak out until at least ten p.m., OK?’
‘OK,’ she said, and already I felt guilty.
‘OK, love you.’
‘Love you, bye.’
The call ended and, thankfully, the boyfriend had gone.
The doors into the lobby were left open, revealing a grand welcome to the Manor with timber panelling to the walls and a huge staircase climbing at least two floors above me. An attractive brunette somewhere around fifty approached me with a smile. Her smart white blouse and black pencil skirt suggested she was staff of some sort.
‘Hello, may I help you?’ she said.
‘Hi, yes. I have a delivery for Mr Argyll.’
The cake was too tall to use the box lid, and her smile faltered when she caught sight of the cake.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘And which Mr Argyll is expecting this?’
‘I was asked to deliver it at eight-thirty sharp to a Mr Fergal Argyll.’ I smiled.
The lady nodded. That made sense to her.
‘Well, Mr Argyll’s in the games room, just through the double doors at the end of this corridor if you’d like to go through. Let me take your bag for you, dear, you have enough to carry.’
I wasn’t sure why I’d brought the bag in with me. It was unlikely anyone here would want to break into the van for it.
‘Thank you. I just need to get the delivery sheet for Mr Argyll,’ I said, rummaging through my bag.
‘Well I can sign that for you,’ she offered.
‘Oh, that’s OK. Mr Argyll needs to sign for it in person.’
The hallway was long, giving me more time to fathom how I was going to open the heavy double doors when I reached them. A nervous looking gentleman in a dull suit stepped through one of the doors, hurriedly stepping into the hallway.
‘Could you hold the door, please?’ I asked, before he could scurry off. The gentleman obliged, allowing me and my armful of cake to slip through unobstructed into the hubbub of the voices on the other side.
‘Good luck,’ he declared in an educated voice as the door closed between us.
Inside, I found myself standing in a room every bit as impressive as any I’d been in, bedecked with richly illustrated tapestries and wallpapers hanging against the warm tones of even more antique panelling. At the far end of the room a huge stone fireplace took up most of the wall there, others occupied by row upon row of books. It was a library-cum-games room, and smelled as it looked: cosy, old and vibrant. Charlie would have gone nuts for a room like this.
None of the twenty or thirty men, most in formal dress, slowed from their card games as I fumbled the cake onto the nearest surface. Laughter throbbed around me, along with cigar smoke and general merrymaking. This was very definitely a boys’ club, not a place for girls.
Which one is Fergal Argyll? I wondered, scanning the room for a face to match the name, or maybe the cake. Over at the fireplace, the colour of danger caught my attention again. The only other woman in the room, the goddess’ presence put me at ease instantly. I looked at her across the smoke and laughter and smiled that smile of sisterhood women have for one another. She lifted her chin and looked away, and like that I was on my own. I watched as she waltzed past her admirers to the loudest gentleman in the room.
He was raucously shouting at his fellow card players, rising to his feet when the goddess-cum-ice maiden approached his table.
‘Watch out, boys, here’s ma lucky charm,’ he declared in a gentle Scottish accent. His hand rested where her gown dipped at the small of her back. He was handsome, in his jacket and kilt, and suited the vibrancy of his surroundings. I’d put him somewhere around the fifty mark, although something about him seemed both younger and older.
The ice maiden accommodated him with a smile and then looked over at me, her gaze leading his.
‘What do we have here?’ he asked ‘Another gift from the dragon, perhaps?’
It was him. It had to be. ‘Mr Argyll?’ I said.
‘At your service, sweetheart. What can I do for ye?’ His short neatly cropped greying beard gave him the look of a laird, whilst darker hair falling forward over serious eyes were more the edge of a backstreet boxer.
‘I have a delivery for you, could you sign here, please?’
Argyll approached the table and peered down at his cake. The boom of his laughter made me jump for the second time tonight.
‘I take it this is te celebrate ma divorce papers?’ he asked, a look of contentment in his dark eyes. ‘I have te hand it te her,’ he ruptured, ‘she’s got a streak all right that woman. Have a look at this boys,’ he growled heartily, grabbing the cake from its box and spinning it around to show his company. ‘She always told me I got by not on the size of ma brain, gentlemen, but on the size of ma balls!’
He turned from his audience of dinner jackets and rested serious eyes heavily on me. He was a handsome man, if not flamboyant, and smelled of a heady mix of cigar smoke and brandy.
‘You, miss, have got the size of me about right.’ He grinned, looking to the pair of testicles in his hands.
‘Glad you like them, Mr Argyll. Would you mind signing for them?’
He put the cake back down on the table next to us and I held my pen out for him. His eyes still hadn’t left mine.
‘Ye don’t look convinced, darlin’. Here … Let me prove it to ye.’ I watched him cock his head, smiling, before my brain could register what was coming next. The ice maiden disappeared from view as Argyll’s kilt rose high into the air between us. His beard wasn’t the only thing greying. My eyes darted upwards, focusing on his huge hands. He had worker’s hands, years of hard graft ingrained in the set of his knuckles, like Charlie’s and my dad’s.
It was time for me to leave.
I left the delivery sheet alongside the cake and calmly turned for the way out. I didn’t need Mrs Ludlow-Ballbreaker’s money that badly. Jesse would have to lump it.
The ice maiden’s boyfriend stood watching, his eyes following as I crossed the room towards him. I hadn’t felt enough embarrassment to blush until I saw him watching me closely. It was no wonder Fergal Argyll was so sure of himself—judging by his son, he must have had a youth full of women clamouring for his attention.
A Scottish accent followed me out through the doors, slipping from the mouthful of cake Argyll was chomping
