and summoned the red-faced waiter with a flick of his wrist. ‘Your aunt always drinks champagne with dinner. What’s your preference, Miss Morgan? Or may I call you Caroline?’
‘I don’t drink, thank you,’ Caro said a little too tersely. She was aware that he was looking at her oddly, but she was still too shocked by her aunt’s appearance to care if he thought her over-prim. Mind you, she thought twenty minutes later, anyone would appear prim next to Aunt Charlotte. The first bottle of champagne was swiftly dispatched and the second took only a little longer as Aunt Charlotte, it seemed, had mastered the art of elegant gulping. By the time the soup dishes had been cleared and plates of steaming-hot ham and potatoes set before them, the third bottle of champagne had been opened. A pang of unease went through Caro as she realised that Harold drank only a little himself, and appeared to be quite happy to encourage Aunt Charlotte’s excesses.
She sipped the glass of water she had ordered for herself and looked around the dining room with critical eyes. It was comfortable, certainly, and warm. The service had been attentive enough—overly attentive, in fact, as the waiter had missed few opportunities to ogle down the front of her aunt’s dress—and the food was adequate. But if this was one of Dunedin’s best restaurants, then the Castledene, cleaned and polished, with the chandeliers dusted and lit, would be in a class of its own. When she had pestered her father to take her on one of his business trips to Sydney—which she frequently had—he had always treated her to lunch in one of the substantial hotels of the town. It was here that she had leaned to appreciate fine dining, surroundings and service. Why shouldn’t Dunedin have the same? After all, it was said that there were fortunes made daily in this town and the Castledene had plainly been built to take advantage of those fortunes.
It was just a matter of restoring the Castledene to its earlier glory. As she watched Aunt Charlotte push her untouched plate away and reach for her glass again, Caro began to understand why the hotel had fallen on hard times in the first place.
As if reading her thoughts, Aunt Charlotte looked archly over the top of her glass.
‘Not drinking, darling?’ Her voice, soft and musical as ever, was distinctly slurred.
‘I don’t like alcohol, Aunt Charlotte,’ Caro said carefully.
‘Hmph! Like your mother, are you? Emma didn’t like drinking. Not like your father. Ben used to like a drink.’ She gave a laugh and slumped back in her seat. One pink nipple popped up out of her dress and she gave no sign of noticing as Harold considerately tucked it back into her bodice. ‘Oh, yes,’ she went on, ‘your father could put it away, all right. Oh, the things I could tell you about your father—’
‘But you’re not going to, my dear, are you?’ Harold cut in smoothly, much to Caro’s relief. ‘Let me fill up your glass.’ He turned the full charm of his smile on to Caro. ‘Now, Miss Morgan. What do you think of Dunedin?’
Caro laid her knife and fork down precisely on her plate. ‘Apart from the cold, which is quite a novelty, I like what I’ve seen so far, Mr Thwaites.’
‘Good, good.’ He topped up Charlotte’s glass and looked askance at Caro. ‘Sure you wouldn’t like just a drop, Miss Morgan?’
‘Thank you, no,’ Caro said firmly. ‘But what I would like is to talk to you about the Castledene.’
He sighed dramatically. ‘What a dreary subject for a chill night, Miss Morgan. Surely we can find a more convivial subject on which to converse?’
‘It seems to me that it’s a subject we must discuss, and urgently, too.’ She looked pointedly at her aunt. ‘Don’t you agree, Aunt Charlotte?’
‘About what, darling?’ Her aunt smiled fuzzily at her and Harold leant over to speak in a stage-whisper in her ear.
‘Your niece wants to talk about business, Charlotte.’
‘Oh, do you? How tiresome,’ Charlotte pouted. ‘I don’t.’ She giggled and Harold propped her up carefully as she began to slide to one side.
Caro took a deep breath and began patiently, ‘Aunt Charlotte, the hotel has been forced to close down…’
‘No it hasn’t, silly,’ her aunt murmured into her glass.
‘Yes, it has,’ Caro corrected her. ‘You’ve lost staff, you can’t afford to pay the staff you have, there’s no money to stock the kitchen and feed the guests. You’re trading insolvently, Aunt Charlotte!’
Her aunt blinked at her. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, darling.’
She plainly hadn’t. Caro turned her attention to Harold who, despite his languid pose, had in fact been watching her sharply. ‘Mr Thwaites, the bar seems to be doing very well. How much rent do you pay my aunt for it?’
‘That, my dear, is between your aunt and myself,’ he said courteously enough.
‘Well, whatever it is, it’s obviously not enough!’ Caro retorted. ‘That bar was full of men this evening, all buying considerable amounts of alcohol—’
‘Which is an expensive commodity in this country,’ he broke in. ‘Besides which, may I ask how you know how well the bar is patronised, Miss Morgan? You would never cross the threshold of such a place, surely?’ As she hesitated, she saw the gleam of amusement in his eyes. ‘That was not wise, Miss Morgan. Anything could happen to you in a public bar. I’d advise you not to do anything so foolhardy in the future.’
He was probably right. For one disconcerting second she remembered the cold, dead eyes of the stranger in the bar. But far too much was at stake for her to be deterred by Harold’s veiled threats and she plunged on regardless.
‘Tomorrow I’d like to see the books for the hotel and I intend doing a thorough inventory.’ He shrugged, so she added provocatively, ‘And that includes the bar, too.’
His expression grew decidedly chilly. ‘The bar is run as a separate business, Miss Morgan. You’re not to set foot in it.’
‘Oh, stop it, stop it,’ Charlotte waved her hands at them helplessly. ‘Don’t argue. You know I hate people arguing…’
‘You’re quite right.’ Harold said soothingly, even while sending Caro a look of pure malice. ‘We don’t want to upset you, do we, Miss Morgan?’
Caro looked at her aunt and was instantly contrite. Under her makeup Charlotte was very pale, and the champagne glass was shaking in her hand. Caro helped her aunt to her feet and, when the waiter brought their coats, insisted on Charlotte wearing her own warm coat back to the Castledene. Charlotte protested briefly about how unbecoming the garment was to her, but was either too drunk or too unwell to complain for long. Caro felt her aunt’s feverish, bird-like frame as she buttoned up the coat for her and felt an overwhelming sense of protectiveness. Poor Aunt Charlotte, in appearance so much like Caro’s mother, but with none of the quiet contentedness that was part of Emma’s personality. And while Caro was firmly of the opinion that a woman should be able to look after her own interests, it was all too clear that Charlotte was relying far too much on the highly dubious goodwill of Mr Thwaites.
Resolving to tackle Harold again first thing in the morning, Caro followed his and her aunt’s unsteady progress back through the streets of Dunedin. It had stopped snowing, but the sidewalks were slippery with snowdrifts. On the corner of Castle Street Charlotte collapsed and Harold had to carry her the rest of the
