by Lizzie Lamb
But it was only Cat, calling ‘Fl - i -ss,’ as she made her way through from the conservatory. She’d taken to calling in most mornings to help, and despite her initial reservations, Fliss’d found her engaging company and a cheerful worker. With Mitzi and Angus away, the only other people she saw on a regular basis were Murdo and the wee girl who came to clean the house.
‘Hi,’ she called back, ‘any deliveries for me this morning?’
‘Yes. Lots. Murdo’s bringing them down as soon as Ruairi can spare him.’
‘Good.’
‘I can’t wait to see what we’re unwrapping today. It’s, like, so cool?’ her inflection rose at the end of her sentence. ‘Just like Christmas.’
‘I’m expecting the machine for removing hard skin from feet and elbows to arrive today,’ Fliss informed her.
‘Ugh. Gross. I don’t know how you do that. Touching people’s feet. Let alone give them Brazilians …’
‘I’d be a pretty poor sort of beauty therapist if I didn’t want to touch my clients. Although,’ she continued, full of mischief, ‘once, when I clipped a client’s toenail it went sailing through the air landed in my cleavage.’
‘Double gross,’ was Cat’s shuddering response. ‘So, what’s first?’
‘I’m waiting for the posters, flyers, and tariffs to come back from the printers. Hopefully, Murdo’s nephew - Lachlan, is it? - can start hand-delivering them. Mitzi’s already given her girlfriends the heads-up and the appointment diary is filling. These flyers are for the locals who’ll be our bread and butter trade once the initial excitement of the Open Day dies down and the summer visitors leave.’
She didn’t have time to ponder over what would happen to her when her contract expired at the end of October. Would Mitzi keep her on? Or would she be heading south with the geese at the end of autumn?
Cat took on a haughty expression. ‘They’ll come all right. They’ll be queuing round the loch to book an appointment. For the price of a beauty treatment they get the chance to come onto the Kinloch Mara estate and gawp at us up at the Big Hoose.’
‘At Ruairi’s insistence we’ve roped off a designated area at the side of the Wee Hoose where clients can park and make their way to the centre without disturbing anyone. Clients will arrive in ones and twos for their appointments. It’s hardly likely we’ll be attracting coach parties,’ she added sharply, being rather bored with this particular argument.
Didn’t they want Mitzi’s business to succeed? Were the Urquharts too grand to sully their hands with anything as vulgar as trade? Cat looked suitably chastened for a few seconds then bounced right back.
‘The flyers will be fabby, you’ll see,’ she said in a clear attempt to placate. Fliss didn’t comment, it was a sore point that Mitzi had asked Isla to design the artwork for the flyers, posters, letter headings etc. And had dispatched them to the printers without seeking her approval. That task would have been a delight for her, given the career in fashion and design she would have chosen if her life had panned out differently.
‘I hope so,’ she said, tight-lipped. Since the cunning linguist jibe, she’d avoided Isla and it galled her to think that she’d probably executed the commission with ill grace - and made a complete hash of it.
Cat was quick to pick up the vibe and to reassure her.
‘Honestly Fliss - don’t worry. Isla has a real talent for that sort of thing. She has Mumma’s flair for design, too. If only Ruairi didn’t insist on us going to Uni, life would be peachy. I mean, I’m not in the least bit academic … I’ve been sent to so many crammers to prepare me for the International Baccalaureate that I’ve lost count. I keep trying to tell him it’s a waste of money, but he won’t listen,’ she prattled on as they crossed the hall and went through the small sitting room to the conservatory.
The therapy centre was beginning to resemble the treatment room Fliss had first envisaged. Beauty and holistic products were arranged on white rattan units with towels, robes and disposable slippers stacked neatly beside them. The treatment couch had a large roll of disposable paper positioned at one end - a length of which was stretched over the bed and covered by a cream cashmere blanket. At its foot, Fliss had laid out a towel, disposable slippers and a waffle bathrobe ready for her first client.
Waxing and exfoliating equipment was set out on a glass and chrome workstation that wouldn’t have looked out of place in an operating theatre. Cosmetics, pots of nail varnish and beauty products for clients to purchase were enticingly displayed on freestanding shelves which backed on to the house. The air was redolent with essential oils from an electric incense burner/humidifier that Mitzi had seen in a spa in London and ordered at great expense.
‘The trouble is,’ Cat continued, the calming properties of Rosa Damascene essential oils seemingly unable to take the edge off her anxiety, ‘Ruairi had to leave university when Papa died. He feels he missed out and wants to make sure that the same thing doesn’t happen to us. He’s a real brainbox, and as far as he’s concerned it’s university for Isla and me - or gutting herring at the smoke houses in Port Urquhart.’
Now that was something Fliss’d pay good money to see!
‘What do you want to do?’ Fliss kept her thoughts private, feeling a little sorry for Cat. The contrast between the drunken teenager she’d put into the recovery position on the night of the party and the fresh-faced girl in front of her couldn’t be more marked. Sure - some of the heavy eye makeup and ear piercings were back in place. But she wasn’t a bad kid - simply almost ruined by a toxic combination of maternal deprivation and over indulgence.
‘Don’t laugh - but I’d like to be a veterinary nurse. I’d give anything to get hands-on experience at a practice in Port Urquhart.’ Cat’s sigh signified that her ambition was out of the question.
Fliss had seen her groom and work the dogs, help with the herds of pedigree highland cattle and sheep, drive out with Murdo to check the grouse nests and get the shooting butts ready for the Glorious Twelfth. She’d cheerfully mucked out the stables and cleaned the horses’ livery, so Fliss guessed she must be serious about wanting to be a veterinary nurse.
‘Why don’t you simply tell Ruairi that you don’t want to go back to boarding school and take A Levels? If you came up with a serious alternative - such as looking for work experience in Port Urquhart, maybe he’d listen to you … help you, even. He must be on first name terms with the local vets?’
‘I guess … do you think he’d be able to find me a placement?’
‘Something tells me that the name Urquhart might wedge open a few doors,’ Fliss observed dryly. ‘But, he’s your brother. You know him better than I do!’
‘That’s the problem - I do.’ They rolled their eyes in an unplanned synchronised movement and then collapsed in a fit of giggles.
‘Okay, complete change of subject - do you know where I can find the key for the large cupboard under the stairs?
‘Oh, that cupboard … I do, but it won’t be much use to you. Cat fished a heavy key out of an Arts and Crafts vase on the window ledge in the sitting room and Fliss followed her back into the hall. Cat then opened the cupboard door and switched on the light.
A hoarse ‘wow’ was all Fliss could manage as she entered the cupboard, which - Tardis like, was much bigger on the inside. It was stacked to the roof with a miscellany of expensive goods. Cashmere twinsets, jars of organic honey, bottles of malt whisky, hand thrown pottery, boxes of homemade fudge and self-published poetry anthologies in Gaelic.
‘What is this?’ she asked. ‘Is Mitzi storing up funeral goods to accompany her into the afterlife?’
‘This is just some of the junk left over from Mumma’s failed attempts at running a business. Not to mention the stuff she’s bought off her girlfriends when their businesses went tits up.’
‘There must be thousands of pounds of stuff here. Why doesn’t Mitzi just get rid of it? Put it on eBay?’ In a moment of epiphany, Fliss suddenly understood why Ruairi was reluctant to let Mitzi r
e-open the therapy centre. More money down the drain, money that could be better spent on the estate. ‘How could Mitzi - where has the money come from to buy all this - ah, Angus?’
‘Give the girl a lollipop.’
‘Does Ruairi know about this cupboard?’ Cat arched a what do you think eyebrow as she switched off the light, locked the door and handed the key over to Fliss. Leaving Fliss with the impression that she’d passed on the responsibility for the cupboard along with the key.
‘Now you know why Mumma’s so anxious for the therapy centre to work out. When she’s impressed Ruairi - and made him eat his words, she’ll tell him about her secret stash, the money she’s lost and offload it - somehow.’
‘No pressure then.’ Fliss’s heart bungeed all the way down to her Birkenstocks. ‘Ruairi …’
‘Yes?’
‘Ruairi!’ they exclaimed in unison as he came through the sitting room and joined them in the hall.
‘We - I - didn’t hear you come in.’ Fliss reddened, knowing they must look the picture of guilt standing with their backs against the locked door, arms folded defensively across their chests. Surreptitiously, she slid the large key into the pocket of her shorts. Cat, seemingly drawing upon years of being caught out by her brother, threw a sorry, I’m out of here look over her shoulder. Then she left, slamming the front door behind her.
‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ Fliss began, wishing she had an escape route, too. She’d wanted her next encounter with Himself to be on her terms, when she was feeling confident and assured - not caught out like a naughty schoolgirl with a secret.
‘Evidently.’ There was no mistaking his inference that she was up to no good and he’d caught her in the act.
Doing what exactly she wanted to ask?
Dipping her hand in the till; ordering duplicate equipment and sending half to a lock-up in Pimlico for her use after her contract expired? Seducing half the men under seventy on the Kinloch Mara estate starting with Jaimsie the piper and finishing up with Murdo Gordon?
She sucked in a lungful of air and held onto it, like a pearl fisher preparing for a dive. At this rate, she’d have to carry a supply of paper bags around with her in case she hyperventilated every time their paths crossed.
‘Was there something you wanted? Something specific?’ she asked, releasing the breath.
‘I’ve stayed away - as per your instructions - but I’m curious to see how you’re getting on.’
‘Very well, thank you.’
‘That was … short and sweet.’
‘Well, I’m rather busy.’
‘Show me.’
‘That was … curt and succinct,’ she volleyed back. She started to walk towards the therapy centre, paused and then turned to face him, hands on her hips. ‘You know, this is all getting rather tiresome. Does it have to be different day, same argument every time we meet?’
‘Of course not. Please show me,’ he amended with a smile that would have been heart-meltingly attractive - if she’d been taken in by his Mr Nice Guy act.
‘Follow me,’ she said, moving away from the cupboard. He had an uncanny knack of knowing exactly what she was thinking and this secret was on a strictly need to know basis - for Mitzi and the therapy centre’s sake.
Crossing the hall, she felt his eyes on her. Typical of him to come calling unannounced and catch her off guard she thought, glimpsing at her dirty shorts, shrunken t-shirt and skanky hair in the mirror above the pier table. The last thing she wanted was to give him an unrivalled view of her cellulite and less than Persil-white underwear so she gestured for him to precede her into the second sitting room. Then she paused at the door to the conservatory and gave him a sharp look which warned he was on her patch, at her invitation. And he’d better remember it.
She gestured for him to enter the therapy centre and he made his way from the display unit to therapy bed, touching things and nodding without commenting. She knew she’d done a good job but suspected that hell would freeze over and the camels perform Torville and Dean’s Bolero before he’d admit it.
He examined the humidifier with some interest and she used the breathing space to study him unobserved. He wasn’t wearing his usual kilt but a pair of faded black Levi 501’s which clung to his thighs and fitted snugly over his sexy rump. He looked tanned and relaxed, the result she suspected of being at home and doing what he loved - looking after his estate.
His customary rugger jersey had been exchanged for a long-sleeved t-shirt that bore the legend: HARD ROCK CAFE - HO CHI MINH CITY. It was close fitting and outlined the planes of his chest; and for a moment she was back to the library when, frustrated by her obduracy, he’d pulled her up close. Fleetingly, her breasts ached as she remembered how it’d felt to be held captive against the hardness of his upper body. Then she dismissed the frisson as nothing more than a surge of pre-menstrual hormones and reminded herself that he was a shark. An attractive one, admittedly - but a shark none the less.
‘Well. Go on,’ she said, giving his buff body one last sweeping look before adopting her default position; brain engaged, hormones disengaged. ‘I’m bracing myself.’ For dramatic effect, she held on to the therapy bed like she was on the rolling deck of a ship - preparing herself for his next sarcastic comment.
‘It certainly looks the part,’ he said with slow deliberation, followed by one of his trademark pauses which implied that all of it - the therapy centre, the equipment and her cutesy uniform were nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
‘It - looks - the - part,’ she repeated slowly. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment, shall I?’
‘It was meant as one,’ he added smoothly and then changed the subject. ‘Will it be ready in time for the Open Day?’
‘It’s ready now. Mitzi had converted the conservatory and ordered most of the equipment last summer when …’ she paused - realised that she was on dodgy ground, and then rushed on. ‘… When she first came up with the idea of opening a therapy centre. All I had to do was make logistical sense of everything, reorder out of date stock and complete the process. We’re good to go; all we need are paying customers. The appointment book is already three quarters full for the first month.’
‘I won’t ask to see the appointment book. Last time you nearly bludgeoned me to death with it.’ He delivered the line straight-faced but his lips quirked in a half-smile. ‘You’ve set it up much quicker than I expected.’ This time she took it as a compliment.
‘That’s because I’m good at my job.’
‘I’m sure you are.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Just that. You’re good at what you do.’
‘I’m good at what I do,’ she parroted, sensing the sting in the tail. ‘How can I convince you that I’m here for one reason and one reason only? This therapy centre represents a once in a lifetime chance for me - a chance to have my dream come true.’
‘And what might that be?’
‘To run my own business. To open my own salon.’ For a second his suspicion wavered, then the scepticism was back in place and she was stung into replying more forcefully. ‘But of course all that’s secondary to my primary purpose in coming to Kinloch Mara.’
‘Which is?’
‘To seduce its Laird, scam Mitzi and Angus out of a shedload of money before making my way south leaving you with a mountain of unpaid bills, a ruined business and egg on your face.’ He took a step forward but she turned her face away from him and held him back with a speak to the hand gesture. ‘Don’t bother to deny it; your expression says it all. And if you really must know - I’m getting rather fed up with this particular argument.’
‘Look, I didn’t mean …’ he began, openly taken aback by the vehemence of her outburst.
‘Oh, I think you did. And to be quite honest, I think your bating of me has gone far enough.’
She walked over to a rattan unit and made a great play of arranging products. Damn the man. In less than five minutes he’d made her hormones zing, her blood pressure surg
e to a dangerous level, destroyed her peace and most probably exorcised the friendly spirit she’d been sharing the house with these past few weeks.
She was dismayed to find tears of anger and frustration stinging her eyes. Don’t you cry, don’t you dare cry. Don’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that you care about his opinion of you.
‘Was there something else?’ she asked in a husky voice.
‘Actually, yes.’ Now it was his turn to appear unsure of himself. ‘I’ve come to ask you to dinner.’
‘Dinner?’ She swung round to face him, not caring if he saw the sheen of tears in her eyes. She hadn’t seen that one coming. ‘With you? You mean - like a date?
A date? How had that slipped out? A lengthy, embarrassed silence stretched out between them.
‘God. No,’ he responded at last, with just a little too much vehemence than was necessary, or flattering. ‘Not a date. I meant - dinner up at the Big Hoose. Mitzi and Angus are arriving back tomorrow afternoon and the fatted calf - well, fore rib of beef to be more accurate - has been brought out of the freezer to mark the occasion.’
Now it was his turn to shift uneasily on the spot, tear his eyes away from her and focus on the view of the loch through the windows. A flush of colour swept across his cheeks but she couldn’t decide whether it was an outward sign of his displeasure at being practically propositioned by her; or his discomfiture at everything the word date implied.
She cringed, willing Kinloch Mara in that instant to be transported to the edge of some tectonic plate where a fault line could open up and swallow her whole.
‘I misheard. I thought you said … great,’ she began, back-pedalling in an attempt to preserve her dignity.