“Nonsense,” Fergus said. “It’ll do no harm. I couldn’t tell you how many gallons of wine and whisky have rained down on the castle’s furniture and rugs over the years, but I guarantee it’s a lot. So don’t fuss. I’ll let Mrs. Dunsmore know and she’ll take after it later on.”
Duncan went back to the sofa, but he sat at the opposite end, leaning against the armrest, clearly not wanting his perfectly pressed clothes to be dampened with whisky. Lucy sat again and held on to her empty glass, looking rather pale. She was obviously very upset.
“So, can you tell us more about the plan for the sale?” Josh asked.
Fergus pulled at a loose thread on his jumper, tugging on it until it broke. “The intention is to sell the house and the land, including the outbuildings and cottages, as well as most of the furniture and fixtures.” Fergus rolled the piece of yarn between his fingers. “First, I’ll repay the loans. The rest of the money will be put into a trust and, when I pass, what’s left will go to you, Duncan.”
Duncan’s eyes narrowed. “I see.”
“I intend to live as frugally as possible,” Fergus continued. “I’ve agreed with Knox that I’ll rent one of the estate cottages for a nominal amount. Perhaps I’ll finally have time to get to that book on Robert the Bruce that I’ve always wanted to write.” He tried to smile, but it was a weak attempt. “I want both of you to look around the castle tomorrow. Choose whatever you want to keep as a memento. Josh, there are some things I know your mother would like. You could take them with you on Sunday. And I hope you can break the news to her. I don’t have the heart to tell her myself.” He rubbed his eyes so hard it must have hurt. “So that’s it. That’s what I had to tell you. I never dreamed the estate would fail under my stewardship. And I wasn’t even meant to be here.”
Josh stood and put a hand on Fergus’s shoulder. “Don’t distress yourself. This isn’t your fault.” He glanced at Duncan as though expecting his agreement, but his cousin was staring into the flames, apparently lost in thought.
A gilt clock on the mantel struck midnight and roused Duncan from his trance. He stood. “I’m heading to bed. Lots to cogitate on. Come along, Luce.”
I finished my whisky and stood up to join Josh. When I leaned over to kiss Fergus’s cheek, he took hold of my hand. “Thank you, my dear. I’m sorry for all the doom and gloom. You came for a party, and it will be a good one. We’ll settle the deal with Knox tomorrow and then move on to the celebrations. Might as well go out in style, eh?”
Before I could answer, Mrs. Dunsmore appeared, as if conjured out of thin air or listening at the door. “I can take you to your rooms,” she said. “Master Duncan, you’re in the red room and Miss Cantrell is just down the corridor from you.”
Leaving Fergus in front of the fire with his half-drunk glass, Josh and I followed the others out of the library. Mrs. Dunsmore chatted while we made the long walk to the tower and didn’t seem to notice that no one was responding. She shepherded Lucy and Duncan into their rooms, which were on the same floor as ours. When she’d gone, Josh slipped into my room and kicked his shoes off before settling on the bed.
“That’s rather a shock,” he said. “Poor Fergus.”
“Yes, but it’s not unusual, is it, for an estate of this size to run out of money? In England, lots of country houses have been sold to the National Trust, which saves them from further damage, or even demolition.”
“It’s true. I assume Fergus will make more from a private sale than selling to the National Trust for Scotland, even assuming they were willing to buy it.” He sighed. “I had no idea Fergus was in such difficulties. I’ve not been up here for a year, and he’s bad at communicating by phone.”
We were quiet for a moment until I realized I was freezing. I snuggled up against Josh and pulled a blanket up around us.
“What do we make of Fergus’s aura now?” he asked. “It seems obvious that it’s linked to the sale of the estate.” He tucked the blanket more tightly around us. “Good God, is Fergus going to have a heart attack because of all this?”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking too. He’s very distressed.” I paused. “Tell me more about Duncan? He seems… a little aggressive?”
“He’s always been like that. He’s not a bad person. But he does speak before he thinks sometimes.”
“Rather like our boss,” I chuckled, but then I realized that Josh had closed his eyes. Within seconds, his breathing slowed. He had an enviable ability to fall asleep quickly, anywhere, and under the most adverse circumstances.
I clicked off the lamp and lay, wide awake, in the dark, listening to the unfamiliar sounds of the castle in the night.
4
I woke up to a room filled with thin grey light. We’d forgotten to pull the curtains closed last night; both of us had been exhausted, tired from our early start in London, and wrung out by the appearance of the aura and the news on the estate. Josh had slept soundly. Me, not so much.
Josh was still asleep next to me, face down, one cheek mashed into a pillow. As I pulled the covers up around us and listened to the rumble of the radiator, he snoozed on peacefully. There was no rush to wake him, so I slipped from the bed and hurried across the cold floor to the bathroom, which was surprisingly warm and cozy. The shower, a modern rainfall type, emitted plenty of hot water, soothing the ache in my shoulders, where my muscles always tightened in knots whenever I was stressed. My spirits lifted. We’d find a way to protect Fergus, I told myself. I hummed ‘The bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond’ while I washed my hair.
While I was getting dressed, I heard footsteps and voices in the hallway. “Come down for breakfast,” Duncan called through the door. “Stuff to talk about.”
He was right, of course. There was a great deal to discuss, but his attitude was starting to get on my nerves. He seemed to think he could boss us all around. I went back to the bed to see that Josh had kicked off the covers while I was in the bathroom. For a few seconds, I contemplated his lean, fair-skinned body, and then ran my fingers along his arm. When I found a ticklish spot, he yelped and jumped as though pursued by hellhounds. Complaining that he was cold, he pulled on my purple dressing gown, which looked ridiculous on him, and rushed to his own room. He was soon back with an armful of clean clothes.
I found a hair dryer and ran it over my hair, which was thick and long and took forever to dry naturally. Enjoying the stream of hot air, I raised my voice to ask Josh a question that had struck me when I woke up.
“Why did Fergus say he wasn’t meant to be here?”
Josh was rooting around under the bed, searching for something. He looked up and raised an eyebrow at me. “Last night,” I reminded him. “Fergus said he wasn’t even meant to be here. What did that mean?”
Josh had found a shoe and pulled it on before answering. “Fergus was the middle of the three siblings. My mum is the youngest. The older brother, Hamish, Duncan’s father, inherited the estate, but he died only six months after my grandfather passed away. He never even moved in. In theory, Duncan should have inherited, but before he died, Uncle Hamish changed his will and named Fergus. He picked his brother over his own son. You can imagine how well that sat with Duncan.”
So Duncan had a solid reason to resent Fergus and to feel betrayed by the decision to sell the estate. “Was there anything suspicious about Hamish’s death?” I asked. “That was a coincidence, surely, for him to die so soon after inheriting?”
Josh was padding around, looking for his other shoe. “No. He died of cancer. He’d been ill for a few months before Grandpa died. We all hoped he’d recover, of course, and run the estate for a while but… that didn’t work out. Duncan’s mother had run off with another man when Duncan was only four, so his dad’s death effectively left him an orphan.”
“And why—”
“Can I tell you the rest after breakfast?” he asked. “We should join the others and find out what time Knox is arriving. I want you to check Fergus again, to see if the aura is still the
re.”
“Of course.” I turned off the dryer and threw on an oversized cream-colored jumper while Josh stood by the door, waiting. He appeared to be on edge, but he held my hand after stopping briefly in his room to rumple the covers on the bed. “We don’t want to scandalize Mrs. Dunsmore,” he said with a quick smile.
Downstairs, we found Duncan and Lucy already at the breakfast table with plates of eggs and bacon in front of them. Josh led me to the sideboard, which held pots of tea, and warming trays of food. “Oh good, kedgeree,” he said, spooning a mound of rice and smoked haddock on to his plate. I couldn’t face fish that early in the day, so I opted for a bowl of porridge and drizzled milk and honey over it.
“Don’t let Mrs. Dunsmore see,” Josh whispered. “She’s a staunch proponent of putting salt and nothing else on your porridge.”
“That sounds very appealing,” I said, rolling my eyes at him. He grinned and added another spoonful of kedgeree to his plate. We sat opposite the others, angling our chairs to not disturb Arbroath who was sleeping under the table. Lucy’s fair skin was pale, and dark circles made her eyes look bruised.
Duncan still seemed angry, stabbing at his bacon with his fork. “So, what do you make of all this?” he asked Josh. “Bloody disaster.”
“I’m not thrilled about letting the property go,” Josh said. “But selling it makes sense. I think Fergus has thought it through carefully. He loves the castle. He wouldn’t sell if he didn’t think it was the only viable solution. And it seems as though there will be money left for you when the time comes, whenever that will be.” Josh glanced at me when he said that, and I took a big gulp of my tea.
“I intend to negotiate hard with this Knox fellow.” Duncan jabbed at a tomato, which shot off his plate and onto the floor. Arbroath was on it in seconds. He licked his lips and looked up, expectant, before putting a huge paw on Duncan’s knee.
“Get off me, you ugly thing.” Duncan pushed the dog away.
“Leave him alone. He hasn’t done anything wrong,” Josh said.
“Nor anything right either,” Duncan complained. “He smells and takes up too much space.”
“How are you this morning, Lucy?” I asked in a feeble attempt to defuse the tension.
“I didn’t sleep well,” she said. “I think I’ll go back up after breakfast and take a nap.”
Duncan patted her hand in an unexpectedly tender gesture. “You do that while we talk to Knox, and then I’ll take you out for lunch,” he offered. That was an improvement over his behavior the night before. The quiet moment quickly passed however. “And what of Mrs. Dunsmore?” he demanded, as he spooned sugar into his tea. “She’s been here since she was sixteen and her mother and grandmother worked here before her.”
Josh didn’t answer. Instead, he passed me a cut-glass pot filled with thick orange marmalade. “Homemade,” he said. “Mrs. Dunsmore’s speciality.”
I spread some on my buttered toast. It was delicious.
“Josh.” Duncan waved a fork at him to get his attention. “What if Knox doesn’t keep Mrs. Dunsmore on? What happens to her then?”
“I canna tell ye,” Mrs. Dunsmore said, coming in with a tray. “But I trust your uncle to look after us.” She started piling up plates and cutlery, and I stood to help her, uncomfortable with the idea of having staff waiting on me. “Sit ye down,” she said. “Finish your toast.”
When she’d gone, we sat in an awkward silence, which was, to my relief, broken by the arrival of Fergus. I wasn’t so thrilled though to see that his aura still swirled over his silver hair. I wouldn’t have expected anything to change overnight, but I always lived in hope. Josh caught my eye and I gave him a slight shake of my head. He pushed his plate away.
“Stanton Knox has been delayed a couple of hours,” Fergus was saying. “He’ll arrive at noon, and we’ll gather in the Great Hall when he gets here.”
“Good, because I have something to say.” Duncan pushed his chair back and stood up. “Tell Knox to go away, that you changed your mind.”
Fergus gestured to Duncan to sit back down, and he settled into a chair opposite him. “Why would I do that?” he asked.
“Because I want you to pass the estate on to me right now.”
Fergus lifted an eyebrow. “What would—?”
“Hear me out,” Duncan said. “I’ll take over management of the place. I can convert the loans…” He seemed to be calculating numbers in his head. “I’d develop the tenancy programs and invest the income properly—”
“Where would Fergus go?” Josh interrupted.
“He can rent a cottage on the estate. I mean, that’s the plan if this Knox chap buys it, right? So, no difference there. I’d turn the bulk of the castle into a hotel. There’s a developer friend of mine who knows all about that sort of thing. You met him, Luce, do you remember? Gary Croft?”
I looked at Lucy, who was gazing at Duncan with an indecipherable expression.
“Gary? Yes,” she murmured.
Duncan talked on about income streams and ROIs until I felt my eyelids droop.
“I think you’re overlooking a few things,” Josh said. “To start with—”
But Fergus seemed to have heard enough. “We’ll talk about this some other time,” he said. He stood up and walked out, Arbroath in tow.
“Let’s go for a walk by the private loch,” Josh said to me, getting to his feet. “It’s quite beautiful.”
“Strictly speaking, it’s a lochan,” Duncan said. “A baby loch. And it doesn’t even have a name.”
“Nevertheless, it’s still very pretty,” Josh said, tucking his hand under my elbow and helping me up. Still chewing my last piece of toast and marmalade, I was propelled from the room.
“Sorry,” Josh muttered. “He’s rubbing me the wrong way today.”
“Is he always like this?”
“We haven’t spent much time together, but I don’t remember him being this bad. As kids, our age gap meant we didn’t have a lot in common. When I was a teenager, we met up here once or twice, and he was always argumentative. I remember him having walloping great fights with his dad. Then, when he graduated, he got into finance, which appears to have exacerbated his confrontational tendencies. I suppose it’s a very competitive environment, and he seems to thrive in it. But asking Fergus to sign the estate over to him… I don’t know what he’s thinking, to be honest. We’ll talk about it later. For now, I want to show you some of the estate. It’s really quite stunning.”
When we reached the entry hall, Mrs. Dunsmore was there. She had a miraculous ability to simply appear wherever she was needed, it seemed. “Coats in that cupboard there,” she said pointing to a door. “And wellingtons in that one. You should find what’s necessary.”
Within a few minutes, we were bundled up in padded jackets and with thick socks under our rubber boots, mine a cheerful red, and Josh’s green. Appropriately dressed, I felt warm even when we walked outside, where I could see my breath. The mist had lifted, revealing a leaden sky that seemed so low I could touch it. The red gravel drive wound between the lawns towards the gate, beyond which stretched moorland, dotted with sheep. I noticed now that the lawns hadn’t been cut for a while and several of the hedges were in need of trimming. Grounds of that size must require a huge amount of upkeep.
Instead of going along the driveway, we turned left around the side of the house. A flagstone path ran between the main building and a line of dense conifers, dark and shadowy in the wintry light. The part of the building we were passing was built of smooth, creamy limestone, very different from the rough granite blocks of the tower. Ahead, the path jogged sharply right to accommodate a square extension that was cocooned in ivy. Even the windows were obscured by the thick green growth, but I caught a glimpse of wood where glass should be. I stopped, staring upward. “Is this part of the castle?” I asked. “Why are the windows boarded up?”
“It’s the east wing,” Josh said. “From the inside, you’d get to it via a door at the e
nd of the corridor near the library. But it’s been closed off for decades now, ever since a German bombing raid in the spring of 1941. Although the bomb didn’t explode, the roof was destroyed and the windows blown out. Several family members escaped injury, but my great-grandfather’s sister died. She’d been sitting in the upstairs salon. After that happened, he closed the whole wing off.”
“Have you ever been in there?”
“No. God knows what state it must be in now. My great-grandfather died a few months later, of a heart attack. From what I’ve heard, my great-grandmother never recovered from his death. She had no interest in repairing the bomb damage and besides, in the years following the war, there was no money and few materials for repairs. So the place grew more and more dilapidated. By the time my grandfather inherited, it would have cost a fortune to restore it all, and he never bothered.”
Saddened by the story, I followed Josh to the end of the building. Beyond was a large garden, similar to the one that lay to the front of the castle. Straggly topiaries in the shape of deer guarded empty flower beds. Untrimmed, the deer looked as though they were wearing woolly jumpers. To one side was a long red brick wall. “That’s the vegetable garden and fruit orchard,” Josh said. “Lovely in August, but not so much at this time of year.”
He pointed ahead, to where a ridge of craggy rock loomed over the gardens. “That’s where we’re going,” he said with a grin.
I looked down at my wellingtons. “These aren’t exactly made for climbing.”
“Follow me.” He headed towards an opening in a thick yew hedge and pointed to a narrow path that wound between two blocks of speckled brown granite. “We go through here. It’s mostly flat with a little incline at the end.” He set off, and I tramped along behind him. Above us, a hawk wheeled and screeched, a desolate sound that raised the hair on the back of my neck. My feet slid on loose pebbles on the trail, and I put my hands out to steady myself against the rocks. After fifty meters or so, the path angled upwards. The walls closed in on us as we ascended, but just when my claustrophobia threatened to stop me in my tracks, we reached the top, a flat expanse of granite, dappled with moss. Beyond, a gentle slope of boulders and shrubs fell to the shore of a small lake, a long, narrow body of water that lay calm and still.
The Complete Kate Benedict Cozy British Mysteries Page 88