I pull my hand out from under the blanket and run my fingertip over the puckered mark behind his ear. Use the sense the good Lord gave you, Tara, and let it be. Just let it be.
I know I should let it be, but the irrational, overwrought teen in me wants proof that Aidan feels this connection as deeply as I am feeling it.
“Will you tell me how you got this scar?”
His body tenses beside mine. “I will tell ya, but not now, not here,” he says. “I don’t want to spoil this moment talking about it.”
Aidan hasn’t moved. I can still feel the rise and fall of his chest under my arm, the warmth of his leg beneath mine, but I have the feeling that a part of him has retreated. I stop tracing his scar and shove my arm back under the blanket, suddenly chilled to the bone.
I say I understand, but I don’t.
Chapter Twenty-four
Aidan drops me off at the castle. I don’t see him the rest of the day, but I wake the next morning to find a CD on the floor in front of the connecting door, a folded piece of paper taped to the plastic case.
I remove the note and smile when I see the CD is a copy of “Casual Sex in the Cineplex” by the Sultans of Ping—an original copy, from the look of the cracked, scuffed jewel case. I flip the case over and, sure enough, “Where’s Me Jumper” is listed as one of the tracks.
I open the note. I have never seen Aidan’s handwriting, but the bold, energetic scrawl seems familiar somehow. Maybe not familiar, but fitting. Bold, energetic handwriting for a bold, energetic man.
Tara,
I found this CD in one of my old trunks and thought you might like it since you’re already a huge fan of “Where’s Me Jumper.” I was always fond of “Kick Me with Your Leather Boots,” but I think you’ll enjoy “Karaoke Queen.” I lost the liner notes ages ago. You can google the lyrics to learn the words. I look forward to another of your Bathtub Concerts—less bubbles this time, yeah?
Affectionately—which is a wee bit more than fondly,
Aidan
I am back in bed, reading Aidan’s note for the third time, when someone knocks on my door. I practically leap out of bed when I hear Miss Belle’s rolling voice in my head.
Grace and poise, Miss Maxwell, the anchors that keep a young lady from drifting into disgrace.
I am still wearing my pajamas—a silky, see-through chemise I bought at a lingerie boutique in Charleston called Bits of Lace—so I pull my robe out of the wardrobe and slip it on. It’s a fluffy white fleece robe like the kind they have at fancy spas, with a big cursive T embroidered in pink thread. Emma Lee gave it to me last Christmas along with a pair of lipstick-pink faux-fur slippers. I left the slippers at home, because I have an extremely low tolerance for the color pink. I can only stomach so much of the nauseating color before I’m reaching for the ipecac.
I take several poise-restoring breaths before I pull the door open, slow and graceful-like. I expect Aidan to be standing in the hallway, but it’s Sin. He’s wearing a gray flannel three-piece suit and a slow-burning, dimple-coaxing smile. The top two buttons of his crisp gray shirt are open, revealing a sexy V of smooth tanned skin, and he has one arm behind his back.
“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” he says, looking at my bed-head hair and bare feet. “Are we still on for lunch or has another Prince Charming swept you off your feet in my absence?”
He pulls his arm out from behind his back revealing a giant bouquet of frail, paper-thin pale pink peonies wrapped with a white velvet bow and my heart skips a guilty beat.
Tell him. Tell him you spent the night with Aidan.
Hush! A lady doesn’t kiss and tell. Besides, spending the night with Aidan didn’t change one damn thing. Didn’t he say—just as plain as day—that he couldn’t be your Prince Charming?
“Are those for me?” I say, stalling for time.
Sin looks around, frowning in confusion.
“Did another fairytale princess move into Tásúildun while I was in London?”
I laugh. “Be careful Rhys Sinjin Burroughes. I’m Southern born and raised, which means I have a genetic deficiency making it damn near impossible for me to resist flattery.”
“Flattery?” He slaps his hand to his chest. “You wound me. Mortally. Flattery is insincere praise, while my praise is quite sincere, I assure you.”
Damn you, Miss Belle! For all your schooling on grace and poise, you didn’t teach me a thing about how to respond when a fan-your-face gorgeous man shows up at your door wearing a Dolce and Gabanna suit that hugs him in all the sinful places, or what to do when you find yourself the object of affection for not one, but two dashing beaux!
I thank Sin for the flowers and promise him I will be ready to go to lunch in an hour—an hour and a half, tops. Then, I close my door and lean against it before I fall to the floor in a fit of vapors.
I grab my phone off the nightstand and dash off a group text.
To Emma Lee Maxwell; Manderley Maxwell de Maloret:
Hypothetically speaking, let’s say you were attracted to two men. Let’s say one of them was named Aidan, a sweet, strong, silent type who made you think of picket fences, even though he made it clear he wasn’t the marrying type. Now, let’s just say the other one was named Sin, a tall, dark charmer, who brought you expensive bouquets and made you think of naughty nights. If you were stuck smack dab in the middle of two men, which one would you choose?
Showered and delicately spritzed with my favorite perfume, I am putting the finishing touches on my face when my iPhone chimes.
Text from Emma Lee Maxwell:
Need more information. What kind of flowers? What color?
Text to Emma Lee Maxwell:
Pink peonies.
Text from Emma Lee Maxwell:
Pink peonies? Ooh, choose Sin.
I laugh. Leave it to my baby sister, the professional matchmaker, to get to the very center of a perplexing matter of the heart. I send her a kissy face emoji and go back to applying my second coat of mascara.
I take a cue from Sin in choosing my outfit—a black Raf Simons for Dior sheath dress and matching jacket. With the jacket on, it looks almost prim. The perfect Sunday dinner ensemble. Without the jacket, it’s all curves and cutout back. I finish my look with the two carat diamond stud earrings my daddy gave me as my high school graduation gift and slip my feet into the black Louboutins I wore when I filmed news segments for WCSC (an impulsive first-paycheck splurge, back when I foolishly believed Daddy would always be around to supplement my income).
I look in the mirror and feel a queasy kind of sickness, the queasy kind of sickness I used to feel before Grayson would pick me up to take me to the Carolinian Debutante Ball or the Charleston Rose Ball. I smooth my jacket and tell myself it’s only nerves. Just a pesky old case of the nerves, that’s all.
Maybe it’s your body’s way of telling you that you’re acting as phony as stinky, old Maribelle Cravath, with her fake as Splenda greetings and false smiles, because, let’s face it, dahlin’, you are not a lady-who-brunches-in-Louboutins kinda girl. Never have been, never will be. What was that your daddy used to say about people trying to be something they weren’t? Oh yeah. You can put pearls on a pig and call her Miss Petunia, but she’s still a pig.
The thing about hateful little voices inside your head? They’re just like pigs in pearls, you can’t trust ’em one darn bit.
I stick my tongue out at the girl in the mirror, just in case the hateful little voice in her head is looking, then grab my iPhone and purse and head out the door.
I am halfway down the stairs when my phone chimes again.
* * *
Text from Manderley Maxwell de Maloret:
Aidan. You have to respect a man honest enough to tell you what he’s willing to offer, even if it’s less than what you hope for. A well-tailored suit and expensive bouquet can hide a multitude of sins (excuse the pun).
Chapter Twenty-five
We eat lunch at a posh restaurant located in a hotel on the bank
s of Lough Eske. Traditional Sunday Carvery—tender roast beef with a slightly blackened, peppery crust, whipped potatoes, fresh vegetables, and thick, brown gravy. Sin called ahead to reserve a table by the fire and we sit there long after our plates have been cleared away and our champagne glasses refilled, basking in the warmth of the flames and the glow of friendship.
The conversation flows as freely as the champagne, and is equally sparkling thanks to Sin’s charm and wit. He is open and direct, possessing none of Aidan’s reticence.
Even so, I find myself wishing I was with Aidan and not Sin. Does that make me a shameless hussy, accepting flowers and eating lunch with one man while wishing I was with another? Apparently, even a hussy has a conscience, because mine is pricking at me to be honest with Sin. Better to let him down soft and easy now than crush him later.
“Right then.” Sin pushes our champagne glasses aside, rests his forearms on the edge of the table, and forms a steeple with his fingers. “Shall we talk business?”
“Business? What sort of business?”
“Castle business.”
I frown. “You want to talk about the castle?”
“I do.”
When I told Aidan I thought Sin invited me to lunch to talk about castle business, I was just playing at being humble. Shoot, y’all. I didn’t really think he invited me out just to talk about lead eavestroughs and glazing windows. Now, I realize I let all of Sin’s heart-holding and compliment-giving ways go straight to my head. It’s not the first time I’ve let myself get too big for my britches.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“The crippling cost of keeping a country house.”
“Be still my heart,” I say, drawling my Southern out.
“I am serious,” he says, holding my gaze. “I have a story I would like to share with you.”
“Do tell.” I smile sweetly and rest my hands in my lap. “I am all ears, Mister Burroughes.”
“My parents have a friend in Sussex, the heiress of a remarkable estate built by one of Henry VII’s most loyal subjects. It’s a massive house, filled with all of the treasures one would expect to find in a historic country house. Antique furniture, sculpture to rival the Eglin Marbles, loads of pricey bric-a-brac.” He leans forward and narrows his gaze. “Nithercott Park has more assets than Tásúildun, but the heiress is still struggling to keep it from crumbling around her. She spent one million pounds last year on roof repairs, eighty-four thousand pounds on oil for the Aga and heating, five-hundred pounds on firewood, and forty-nine thousand pounds for maid service.”
“Did you say forty-nine thousand pounds?”
“Yes,” Sin says, narrowing his gaze. “What do you think about those numbers?”
“What do I think?” I widen my eyes all innocent like. “I think we should give Mrs. McGregor a raise.”
“I don’t think you are grasping the precariousness of this situation.”
Emma Lee uses some slang word to describe when a man condescends to a woman. What is it? Manalyze? Manustrate. Mansplain! That’s it! Mansplain. Sin is mansplaining like I am a few crawfish short of a Low-Country Boil.
“We have a saying back home.” I lean forward and rest my forearms on the table. I’m about to do a little mansplaining myself, y’all. “Too poor to paint, too proud to whitewash. It harkens back to the days just after our Civil War, when so many plantation owners were feeling the pinch of poverty. You see, paint was expensive back then. Whitewash was a cheap alternative. I might be too poor to paint Tásúildun, Mister Burroughes, but I am not too proud to whitewash. So, if you have some suggestions on how I might economize, I would be happy to listen to them.”
“Now we are getting somewhere,” he says, shrugging out of his coat and rolling up his sleeves. “We need to do more than economize, Tara. We need to develop a revenue stream, a steady income to offset the expenses.”
“A revenue stream? We could open the castle to the public and charge an entrance fee.”
“I am afraid that would generate a trickle, instead of a stream.”
“Don’t be such a negative Nelly!” I say, warming to the idea. “I am sure there are loads of people who would pay five, maybe even ten pounds to tour a haunted Irish castle.”
“Have you heard of Dunluce Castle?”
Dunluce is a stunning medieval castle perched on the very edge of a plunging cliff on the coast of Northern Ireland.
“I visited it with Aunt Patricia once.”
“In 2009, Dunluce attracted over eighty-thousand paying visitors. By 2015, the number of paying visitors to Dunluce had dropped to less than forty-five-thousand.”
“That can’t be right,” I argue. “Wasn’t Dunluce used as one of the filming locations for Game of Thrones? The show is one of the most popular series on television. Surely—”
“The popularity of Game of Thrones helped boost tourism in Northern Ireland by nine million pounds, but Tásúildun was not used in the filming.”
I have been holding my breath but now I let it out in one slow, controlled exhalation, like air leaking from a punctured tire. Dunluce is in ruins, but they’re massive, breathtaking ruins.
“If Dunluce is struggling to attract visitors, Tásúildun doesn’t stand a chance.” I sit back. “We’re doomed.”
“Not necessarily.”
I sit up again, encouraged by Sin’s optimism.
“True, Tásúildun is much smaller than Dunluce and it doesn’t have the allure of having been a filming location for a popular television series, but it has a fascinating history and is located on some of the most stunning land along the Wild Atlantic Way.” He smiles, the way my daddy used to smile when he felt a fish tugging on his line. “The renovations Aunt Patricia made to Tásúildun were brilliant. She modernized while maintaining as much of the architecturally historic details as possible. For that reason, I think Tásúildun is a prime candidate to become Ireland’s next luxury country house hotel.”
“Hotel?”
I imagine children sliding down the banisters and playing ball in the porcelain room, tourists rolling their suitcases over the centuries old wooden floors and spilling their drinks on Aunt Patricia’s prized Indian rugs, and I want to cry.
“Hear me out.” He grabs my hand across the table and squeezes it. “A luxury country house hotel.”
“There must be hundreds of country house hotels in Ireland.”
“Bang on,” Sin says. “In fact, we are sitting in one right now. This was once the home of Red O’Reilly, a nineteenth-century mining expert who made his fortune in India. When his descendants couldn’t afford the upkeep, they sold the estate to a hotel chain.”
The waiter arrives with our bill and Sin hands him a black American Express card. I look around the room with fresh, critical eyes, at the floor-to-ceiling doors that open onto a slate terrace, at the sweeping manicured lawn, perfect for hosting larger scale events, and wonder how we could hope to compete with such a space.
“This place was built hundreds of years after Tásúildun and has obviously undergone a major, expensive renovation, how can we compete with them?”
“True, this hotel is beautiful and modern. Beyond that, it is unremarkable from the dozens of other castle hotels scattered around Ireland. Tásúildun could compete with them by offering the sorts of amenities modern travelers desire.”
“What sorts of amenities?”
“I am glad you asked,” he says, reaching into his front jacket pocket and pulling out a piece of paper folded in half. He unfolds the paper and slides it across the table to me. “I have done the research and come up with a list of the top projected trends in the hotel industry for the next ten years. You can take that with you and read it later. If you would like, I would be happy to paraphrase.”
“Okay.”
“Travelers are becoming more sophisticated and tech-savvy. They expect luxury, efficiency, and innovation. It’s not enough to offer designer soaps and turn-down service with Belgian chocolates. Traveler
s have higher-expectations.”
“What does that mean?”
“I predict the most successful hotels will offer unique experiences. Hotels with a persona, a brand that sets them apart from the Hilton and Marriott clones.”
“A persona?”
“Absolutely,” he says. “A hybrid with a persona. Travelers want the comfort of the familiar—room service, maid service, concierge—combined with the thrill of the unexpected. They want to be pleasantly nudged out of their comfort zone so they have something unique to share when they go home.”
“So, a luxury hotel with a hook, like underwater rooms or staff that dress in period-correct costumes?” I laugh as I imagine Mrs. McGregor in kirtle and bonnet. “Are you sure you’re not talking about an episode of Fantasy Island?”
“Fantasy Island?”
“Cheesy old American television series about people who travel to a tropical island to live out their wildest fantasies.”
“Less gimmicky, more tailored.”
I can’t imagine anyplace being more tailored than Fantasy Island, but this is Sin’s ball and I’m just here to dance.
“So how do we tailor the experience?”
“By capitalizing on Tásúildun’s most unique and impressive features. Our entire brand must be built around that which makes Tásúildun unusual. That is how we will distinguish ourselves as a truly remarkable hotel experience.”
Sin is such a persuasive speaker; I almost forget he is talking about turning our aunt’s beloved home into a hotel. A hotel! I couldn’t save Black Ash from the indignity of being wantonly and cruelly transformed from a family home into a . . . I don’t know what Black Ash will be transformed into but I’m guessing it’s going to involve a Japanese hotel conglomerate and a tacky neon sign.
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