Reid is staying with us,’ Cal said smugly.
‘Reid?’ He could almost hear Mrs Peterson’s eyebrows rising. ‘I thought the agency said her name was Thomas?’
Damn. He wasn’t good at subterfuge. But he’d have to get better quickly if he was going to disguise his brother’s pregnant mistress as a nanny for the next month and a half.
‘A mix-up at the agency, it seems. Our new nanny is Miss Heather Reid.’
‘I’ve stopped bothering to learn their names,’ Mrs Peterson replied. ‘Did the agency get the time of the interview wrong, too?’
‘Yes. Yes, they did.’ Mrs Peterson valued promptness highly, and what was one more little white lie if it smoothed the relationship between the nanny and the housekeeper of Lengroth Castle? ‘In fact, Miss Reid was technically fifteen minutes early.’
‘Hmph.’
Across the desk, Heather was looking most amused by his attempts to pacify his housekeeper. He resisted the urge to toss the rubber duck at her to stop her silent laughter.
‘So if you could please come up to the office and take Miss Reid for a tour of the castle, and to meet the children...?’
There was a loud sigh on the speakerphone. ‘I suppose,’ she said, and then the line went dead.
‘Mrs Peterson is not a big fan of nannies?’ Heather asked.
‘To be honest, the last few we’ve had haven’t really tried to endear themselves to her.’ Cal tried to smile reassuringly. ‘Mrs Peterson is a sweetheart when you get to know her, I promise.’
Heather looked sceptical.
But when Mrs Peterson arrived a few minutes later—Cal suspected she hadn’t wasted time going all the way back down to the kitchen...she’d probably figured she’d be needed to show the nanny out before she even got that far—Heather smiled sweetly at her and talked about how excited she was to get to know the children and the castle.
‘We’ll see how long that lasts,’ Mrs Peterson muttered ominously.
As they shut the door behind them Cal let out a long breath and sank down into his chair to process the last half an hour. Much as he’d far rather take a nap, there were still so many things to deal with.
So, taking stock...
Pluses: he had someone to look after Daisy and Ryan, hopefully for the rest of the summer, so he could get on with fixing everything their father, his brother, had screwed up before his death.
Minuses: that person was pregnant with Ross’s child, and was basically another scandal waiting to happen.
Cal didn’t think Heather was about to go running to the papers, seeking a pay-out for the headline Adulterous Earl Fathers Baby from the Grave or anything, but he knew better than most that appearances could be deceiving. At least this way he’d be keeping the scandal close to home, until he was sure of Heather’s character. And the baby was a Bryce—he definitely believed that much.
Another nephew or niece for him to not know how to love. After all, it wasn’t as if he’d ever been given any examples of loving parenthood, or even a loving relationship.
‘Your heart’s as cold as a Scottish winter,’ his latest ex-girlfriend had told him as she’d walked out. ‘The view might be nice, but you wouldn’t want to live there.’
She might have had a point, he had to admit. But his life wasn’t the problem here. Ross’s was. And not just because of Heather.
With a sigh, Cal pulled over the folder sitting on the corner of his desk, sending the rubber duck toppling over as he did so. The folder’s cover was blank—purposely. Cal didn’t need a reminder to know what was inside it.
Another of his big brother’s follies.
Living the lives they did, the Earls of Lengroth had never been particularly good at holding on to their money. Fortunately the estate was still reasonably lucrative—with most of it rented out to farmers or tenants in the linked village. But the castle took a lot of upkeep, which required all that money.
At least it did when there was someone sensible at the reins—usually an estate manager or the current Countess of Lengroth.
Ross, however, seemed to have believed he could do it all himself. Or maybe he’d felt he needed to, in order to keep his secrets. Because what Ross mostly seemed to have done with the estate finances was gamble it away.
Cal’s eyes fluttered closed as he tried, for an unsavoury moment, to imagine his perfect big brother at the gambling tables, throwing away his children’s inheritance. Or in a London bar, seducing Heather Reid.
The latter was alarmingly easy. With that river of copper hair, and those soft green eyes, Cal could easily imagine any man’s attention being drawn to her, even across a darkened bar.
He opened his eyes again. Not helping, Cal. Especially since he liked to think—in his better moments—that he might actually be able to resist the kind of scandalous fall from grace that seemed to afflict all the Earls of Lengroth sooner or later.
‘But I’m not the Earl,’ he muttered to himself.
He was going to do everything in his power to stop Ryan from following that same path. But first he had to finish fixing Ross’s mistakes.
He flipped open the folder, ready to start again.
Most of the basic gambling debts he’d dealt with up front, the moment he’d found them. He should have used the estate money, he knew, but that was Ryan’s, and Cal didn’t want his nephew to be saddled with money troubles from the outset. Fortunately Cal’s own property business in the States was lucrative enough that he’d had enough personal wealth to fill the hole. His accountant hadn’t been happy about it, but then neither was Cal, really.
More problematic to deal with were the times when Ross had clearly tried to use his title and minor celebrity in place of money. Or to impress, Cal supposed. He wasn’t sure what else would explain the obligation sitting on top of the pile, waiting for him to fix it. An email from a magazine editor, confirming plans made with Ross for later in the summer.
‘Why on earth would Ross have invited a reporter to come and stay at the castle?’ he wondered aloud, rubbing a hand over his eyes as if that would change the contents of the printout in front of him.
It didn’t.
Only one way to find out, Cal supposed.
He picked up the phone to try and explain to this editor that, with Ross dead, there was no way in hell he was letting a journalist anywhere near Lengroth Castle this summer.
* * *
She’d left the rubber duck in Cal’s office, Heather realised as Mrs Peterson showed her yet another identical green and grey room in the cold, dead castle. She should have brought it with her—either as a peace offering or a sign that she couldn’t be intimidated by flying bath toys.
Except
