by Alice Ross
Alice Ross
The Cosy Castle
on the
Loch
SPRING
Cover by Sal McD
Enquiries: [email protected] Twitter: @SalMcD1
Contents
About the Author
Also by Alice Ross
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Epilogue
Coming next
About the Author
Alice Ross used to work in the financial services industry where she wrote riveting, enthralling brochures about pensions and ISAs that everyone read avidly and no one ever put straight into the bin.
One day, when nobody was looking, she managed to escape. Dragging her personal chef (aka her husband) along with her, she headed to Spain, where she began writing witty, sexy, romps designed to amuse slightly more than pension brochures.
Missing Blighty (including the weather - but don't tell anyone), she returned five years later and now works part-time in the tourism industry.
When not writing, she can be found scratching out a tune on her violin, walking her dog, or standing on her head in a yoga pose.
You can follow her on Twitter @aliceross22
Also by Alice Ross
The Trouble with Great Aunt Milly
Forty Things To Do Before You’re Forty
Lovelace Lane Series
The Little Cottage on Lovelace Lane
The Big House on Lovelace Lane
The Wedding on Lovelace Lane
Christmas on Lovelace Lane
New Arrivals on Lovelace Lane
The Cotswolds Cookery Club Series
A Taste of Italy
A Taste of Spain
A Taste of France
Countryside Dreams Series
An Autumn Affair
A Summer of Secrets
A Winter’s Wish
Regency
The Very Unaccomplished Lady Eleanor
Under the Willow Tree
Prologue
Once upon a time…
… there was a little girl called Flora who was very pritty and had long blonde shinee hare like Swan Lake Barbie.
One day, Flora visited a castel with her Aunty Denise - who always took her to castels. (Flora would rather have gone swimming but Aunty Denise said it played havoc with her hare.)
It was a very hot day at the castel so Aunty Denise bought Flora a can of cola. But when Flora was drinking the cola, a wasp crept out from under the rim of the can and stung her on the lip. Flora cried (but only a little bit), and then fell asleep.
Aunty Denise didn’t know what to do with sleeping Flora, and she couldn’t wait for her to wake up because she was getting a new kitchen fitted and had to go home to check on the workmen.
She decided to leave Flora at the castel until she woke up. But Aunty Denise didn’t know that a smelly, hungry dragon lived there who was even scarier than the shark in Finding Nemo.
A hansum prince came to the castel just as the dragon was about to put Flora between two slices of wholemeal bread – with a bit of lettuce and tomato (but no mayonnaise because Aunty Denise says it makes you fat), and eat her in a sandwich. The hansum prince had a can of dragon spray like mum used on the moskitoes when Flora was on holiday in Majorca. It made a bit of a pong, so the dragon flew away.
The hansum prince thought Flora looked very pritty when she was asleep, so he kissed her on the lips - even though she hadn’t brushed her teeth.
Flora woke up and the hansum prince fell in love with her and asked her to marry him.
Flora said yes because he was quite nice – even though he was a boy.
They had a big wedding with lots of flowers and a carriage with a white pony and everything. Flora wore a lovely dress with seekwins on it like Bride Barbie.
Flora and the hansum prince lived happily ever after in the castel and had two children (because Aunty Denise says any more than two is hard work).
The End
Flora Hamilton
Age 7 (in three weeks)
Chapter One
It was a beautiful March day in the Scottish Highlands, brilliant sunshine glinting off the dazzling blue water of Loch Duff as an osprey made a spectacular dive for a fish. Had a photographer captured the moment the bird emerged from the lake, a trout wriggling madly in its beak, the shot could well have qualified for a prize. As, indeed, could shots of many more idyllic bucolic scenes around the loch and its neighbouring village of Aberboyne: of lapwings returning, lambs frolicking, snowdrops blooming and catkins sprouting. It was the time of year when the place began yawning and stretching, shrugging off its grey winter mantle and replacing it with one embroidered in the pretty shades of spring. Each day, like an artist embellishing a canvas, an extra flash of colour would appear on the landscape – a smattering of yellow daffodils, a huddle of lilac crocuses, a clutch of glossy green buds. All admired and appreciated by the wonderful wildlife that abounded – pine martens, otters, deer, owls and… Flora Hamilton.
Usually.
Today, though, Flora scarcely noticed a thing as she marched along the narrow road that circled the lake.
She scarcely noticed the one gossamer-like white cloud smudging the sky, or the curves of the emerald green Cairngorms adorning the backdrop, or even the moss-covered rock on which she consequently stubbed her toe.
Because today Flora felt a bit sick.
Not a particularly unusual occurrence.
Flora always felt a bit sick when nervous. In fact, billed as the headline act of Aberboyne Primary at the Christmas concert when she was seven - for her solo recorder recital of Frosty the Snowman– she’d worked her tiny self up into such a lather that she’d actually been sick. Thankfully – for her – not on stage in front of the entire village, but in the wings - all over her teacher’s nice shiny black shoes.
A decade and a half later, Flora still cringed when she recalled the episode. But, as mortifying as it had been, she couldn’t help but wish a sixty-second blast of a wind instrument was all she had to worry about now.
Because, just thinking about what she had to worry about now, caused her stomach to heave and bile to fizzle in her throat.
Attempting to shift the uncomfortable sensations, she dragged in a deep breath, the coconuty scent of gorse zipping down her nostrils and catching the back of her throat, at the exact moment her destination came into view – Glenduff Castle.
A stunning nineteenth-century baronial house, garnished with fairy-tale turrets, Glenduff nestled right on the edge of the lake, from where it exuded an air of majestic magnificence. Whether shrouded in autumn mist, sprinkled with winter frost, surrounded by summer flowers or, as now, peppered with the first multihued signs of spring, this spectacular example of Victorian gothic splendour never failed to present a sight for the very sorest of eyes.
From around the same time as the ill-fated recorder performance, the castle had fascinated Flora. In her more formative years it had seemed a magical, ethereal place. One she’d fantasised about living in, after – naturally - marrying a handsome prince, and growing a cascade of lustrous golden hair that tumbled right down to her bum. She’d even written a story about it – one where beautiful blonde Flora falls into a deep sleep after being stung on the lip
by a wasp loitering in her Coke can. She’s awoken from her slumber by a kiss from a gorgeous member of a foreign royal family who has inherited the castle. He falls madly in love with Flora and begs her to marry him. Her teacher - of shiny black shoes fame - had said it showed great imagination and contained an impressive number of adjectives. It had been awarded a gold star and Flora had been as proud as punch.
However, despite having suffered an actual wasp sting on her lip while drinking the world-famous beverage, even at that tender age Flora had been aware that the chances of stumbling on a foreign prince, or even a home-grown one, in an obscure little place like Aberboyne, were slimmer than a supermodel on a cabbage soup diet. And the chances of her knot of long dark curls morphing into a lustrous golden mane, significantly slimmer.
Even so, life had seemed so simple back then.
Although not for everyone, apparently. Because, shortly after Flora’s ignominious recorder recital, her teacher with the shiny black shoes had deemed it all too much and had packed up and moved to the Algarve.
Flora, conversely, hadn’t moved an inch. Every one of her twenty-two years had been spent in Aberboyne. Indeed, with the exception of a school trip to London, every night of her twenty-two years had been spent in the village.
And therein, she was well aware, lay a large part of her problem.
Almost at the castle, Flora veered off the loch-side road and began striding along a narrow track that led to the back of the building. Referred to by the castle’s employees as the ‘tradesman’s entrance’, it did not, in her opinion, warrant the term. Tradesman’s entrances were, typically, uninspiring places, sheltered, by definition, from the public eye. The rear of Glenduff, however, was only marginally less striking than the front, consisting of a perfectly square courtyard embraced on three sides by two-storey outbuildings, and on the fourth side, by a stable block.
Amanda Douglas-Brown, the property’s new laird, had already implemented plans to transform the buildings - previously full of old junk - into little arts and crafts shops. And to convert the stable block into a tearoom. Flora thought these were wonderful ideas. Which was no surprise. In her opinion, Amanda generated wonderful ideas at the same rate the National Grid generated electricity, chucking them out with such exuberance that everyone within a half-mile radius became enthused.
Including the idea in which Flora would feature heavily today.
The idea causing her nausea.
Crossing the courtyard, her pace slowed significantly as the large wooden door drew nearer. The door she really really really didn’t want to step through today. Because, like a beetle approaching a vacuum cleaner, the moment she did, she’d be sucked into a maelstrom from which there would be no escape.
Reasons as to why she should execute an about-turn and scuttle off back home, battering her brain like heavy hail, she’d all but come to a standstill when, to her horror, the door flung open and the bony figure of Mrs Mack loomed before her.
At the depressing sight, Flora’s heart dived more dramatically than the osprey on the loch.
From a world population of over seven billion, Mrs Mack was the one person you absolutely definitely did not want to bump into when you were feeling anything less than one hundred and twenty-seven per cent. With her ashen pallor, monotone voice, and long snaking grey plait coiled about her head, the woman reeked of gloom as she drifted soundlessly about the castle, popping up where least expected and scaring the wits out of all unsuspecting souls in the near vicinity. She’d been housekeeper at Glenduff when the old laird had been alive. And, as no one had a clue as to her age - nor indeed anything else about her - very possibly when the laird before that had been in residence. As she came to a stop in front of her now, regarding her through narrowed, colourless eyes, a sense of foreboding skittered through Flora.
‘Morning,’ droned the old woman, employing her usual knack of making even the most innocuous of words sound like she was putting a curse on you.
Flora, though, determining not to reveal so much as the teeniest of chinks in her fragile armour – because then it, and she, would completely fall apart - hoisted up the corners of her mouth into a disarming smile and replied, with forced jollity, ‘Morning, Mrs Mack. How are you today?’
Lined grey features underwent a series of contortions before settling on an expression Flora could only describe as pained.
‘Och, hardly slept a wink last night,’ came the mournful reply. ‘What with my back and everything.’
Having no idea what ‘everything’ encompassed - the state of the Middle East? The price of vegetables? Global warming? - Flora promptly concluded that she’d rather not know. Focusing on the ‘back’ problem, she arranged her own features into something she hoped resembled a sympathetic expression, and said, ‘Oh dear. Have you thought about a new mattress?’
In her usual black attire of polo neck jumper, A-line skirt, woolly tights and sensible flat shoes – all of which remained the same whatever the season - Mrs Mack’s skinny form shuddered dramatically. ‘Won’t make a ha’porth of difference. It’s all in the bones, you see. The bones,’ she echoed, in a manner which put Flora in mind of Lady Macbeth, and which made her take an impromptu step back.
Ugh! She really didn’t need this today. She cast a longing glance at the door she’d been dreading stepping through just seconds earlier. In a bid to escape Mrs Mack, that option now seemed infinitely preferable. But, however much she wanted to, she couldn’t just make a dart for it. That would be rude and unprofessional – two things she prided herself on absolutely not being. ‘Well, best get on,’ she announced instead, adopting a business-like manner. ‘Busy day and everything.’
She made to manoeuvre around the old woman, but Mrs Mack, mirroring her action, blocked her path. ‘Rehearsal this morning, isn’t it?’
Flora doubted the tone could have been more portentous had the woman been talking about a global takeover by giant, marauding penguins. Nevertheless, she did her best to appear undaunted, dredging up another dose of amiability. ‘That’s right. Eleven o’clock.’
Mrs Mack nodded slowly, doing something weird with her mouth that made her lips disappear. Then, with one of her sniffs, she shuffled off towards the outbuildings.
Having the horrible sensation of her legs being filled with rapid setting cement, Flora remained stock-still, wondering what that had all been about. Concluding it was just Mrs Mack being Mrs Mack, she drew in a fortifying breath, tilted up her chin and dragged her reluctant limbs towards the door.
Just as Flora would recognise the foggy outline of Glenduff from several miles, so, too, would she recognise its smell – that of wood polish, brass polish and boot polish, mingling with the scent of over one hundred years of Scottish history. It had hit her the first time she’d walked through the door – for her interview with Amanda.
Flora had been working at the local golf club at the time. She’d started there at sixteen, helping out in the kitchen and waitressing at events - squeezing in shifts between studying, squirrelling away every penny for university. After her dad’s accident – and the cataclysmic knock-on effect on her plans - they’d offered her a position as an administrator in the office. The job description had been basic, but Flora hadn’t stuck to it. She’d grabbed every opportunity to learn from the more senior members of staff, helping out with anything from payroll and supply ordering, to marketing, and the organisation of events – including the exceptionally busy annual Golf Week. It had been a fun and varied role. But, with all the staff having been there forever, and none demonstrating the slightest inclination of moving, her chances of career progression had been way below par. Consequently, when she’d spotted the advertisement for the receptionist’s post at Glenduff, she’d fired off her application the same day, holding her breath until she received a reply, and buzzing with excitement when it had been one inviting her for interview.
Never having had a proper interview, Flora’s excitement had been swiftly replaced by nerves. Completely supe
rfluous given Amanda had put her at ease within minutes. Flora’s skill set and local knowledge had impressed her greatly. And she’d expressed both sympathy and admiration at her reasons for wanting to leave her current position. Unlike the golf club, though, the laird had gone to explain, Glenduff Castle was work in progress – in every possible way. She hoped, however, as her plans developed, that there would be career advancement opportunities for staff who showed promise.
Amanda had offered her the job there and then. And Flora had accepted before the laird had finished speaking. She’d then done her best to show promise, doing exactly as she’d done at the golf club. Refusing to limit her role to receptionist duties, she’d helped Amanda with all kinds of things – sourcing suppliers, compiling spreadsheets, drafting marketing plans, placing ads for new staff, and even – a couple of weeks ago – interviewing for a junior receptionist. ‘Indispensable’ Amanda had called her the other day. And, just as with her Princess Flora story, Flora had been as proud as punch.
Today, though, rather than sucking in the glorious smell of the building, she was far too preoccupied trying to relegate the encounter with Mrs Mack to the back of her mind, and not dwell on the fact that, for once, the woman’s gloomy presentiment perfectly mirrored her own.
Scuttling down the wood-panelled corridor, she passed her usual first stop - the staffroom. Formally a storeroom, the space now housed a couple of squishy sofas, a fridge and a microwave, and formed the first morning port of call for most of the workers - to dump their outerwear, grab a coffee, and to hear or impart titbits of gossip. With everyone undoubtedly buzzing about the day’s impending event, though, and, most significantly, her starring role in it, Flora couldn’t face the room today. She therefore made straight for the large mahogany desk in the entrance hall instead, where, for the last eight months, she’d worked as a receptionist.