‘Oh God, yes. Yes – so sorry.’
‘Of course you can,’ the older woman said, giving Robin a warm smile. ‘I’m already looking forward to it – especially the compère part.’
‘Thank you Maggie,’ Robin gushed, clasping her hands together in front of her. ‘Thank you so, so much.’
‘Now go get him, Bobbin.’
‘It doesn’t sound quite as animalistic as Tiger,’ Robin said, giving her a rueful smile.
Maggie laughed and shook her head, her long, unruly hair blowing around her face. ‘You don’t need animalistic. From the way he was kissing you, I’m not sure if you’re going to need much in the way of persuasion tactics at all.’
When Robin got back to the guesthouse, she saw that Will’s car was parked on the street, and realised she would have to wait to put her plan into action. For the next couple of days she concentrated on getting everything else in place, phoning local food vendors, asking Ashley and Roxy if they wanted to stay open that evening, talking to Stefano and Nicolas about providing a mezze menu for the extra custom that would be there on the night. Alongside a traditional burger or hotdog van, having the café and restaurant providing a cosier, sit-down service at either end of Goldcrest Road would widen the appeal, and she wanted her audience to be as diverse – and as large – as possible.
She made sure that it dominated the guesthouse social-media pages, checking with Lorna that she was happy with the way it was being promoted:
Welcome the start of summer with an open-mic night on the prom, in association with the Campion Bay Guesthouse. Special guests Crow’s Feet and guitarist Lorna Gregory. A selection of tracks to get you in the holiday mood. Food stalls and refreshments available! To sign up to perform, get in touch here.
Lorna was planning to continue with the busking, saying that everything she could do to get her confidence up before the concert would be beneficial, and Robin had heard her playing in her room. She’d offered Sea Shanty as a practice room too, as the high ceiling would provide better acoustics. She knew a few of the tracks; ‘Wonderwall’ by Oasis, a couple of Ed Sheeran songs and a few of Taylor Swift’s more country-style tunes.
Paige had been ecstatic at the idea of a music night, her eyes almost popping out of her head when she heard Robin had managed to sign up local band Crow’s Feet, and had immediately offered her and Adam’s services, asking Lorna if she could help with the playlist. She was due to come round that evening.
Lorna seemed to be taking all the attention and fuss in good spirits, which boded well for the music night, and had also been impressed at the calibre of band she would be performing alongside. The lead singer of Crow’s Feet was the son of one of Robin’s mum’s friends. She had got his number and phoned him as soon as they had returned from the Artichoke, knowing she couldn’t waste any time, and he had readily agreed to be a part of the event. She had confessed to Lorna that – not knowing him very well – she hadn’t realised his band was more than a group of friends getting together in a garage at the weekends.
Robin was also relieved that the tension between her and Paige seemed to have disappeared. Things were slotting into place; now all she needed was someone confident and charismatic, with a talent for engaging an audience, to introduce the performers on the night.
She’d checked the website the evening before and now, on a warm, still Wednesday that held all the promise of summer, she wrote a note on the whiteboard informing her guests she’d be out for a couple of hours, put her phone volume on loud, and climbed into her Fiat.
It had been several years since her last visit to Eldridge House, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been on a guided tour of anywhere – save for the private introductions she and Neve had been given when setting up one of their Once in a Blue Moon Days. Today, she was putting herself in the hands of one of their newest tour guides.
Ever since Will had told her what he did, Robin had been imagining him in that particular role, though not always in a typical setting. She’d pictured him giving her and Molly a tour of Campion Bay, of the cliffs and the beach and the crazy-golf course. She’d imagined him holding their attention as they visited some of her old haunts in London, and there had been a few daydreams that involved only the two of them, a personal tour of her own guesthouse, finishing up beneath the pinprick lights in Starcross. That one always made her heart beat faster, and wasn’t good for her composure.
Now, she was about to see the man in action, to find out what a tour led by him was actually like and, hopefully, convince him to be a part of the Goldcrest Road event at the same time. Surely, he would have to see how wanted he was – not just by the other residents who had already proved their generosity to him, but by her. She needed him to know that her feelings for him were genuine, and if that meant disrupting one of his tours, then so be it. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
Eldridge House looked beautiful in the sunshine, with a sand-coloured pebble approach between manicured lawns and squat topiary bushes. The building itself was a creamy stone, with gabled windows and a red tiled roof. It looked luxurious, the perfect place for the wedding of your dreams, the rooms thick with opulence and history, and Robin felt herself checking for the usual things – access and entrance, the size of the windows, perfect backdrops for photos – that she had done when scoping out Once in a Blue Moon Days.
As she walked towards the main door, the pebbles crunching satisfyingly beneath her shoes, the sun glinted off the windows. The heat radiated around her, and a thin trickle of sweat made its way down her spine. She wasn’t that far from the coast, but she noticed the change in the air, the loss of her beloved sea breeze that, even on the hottest days, added a freshness, some respite from searing temperatures.
But she knew, as she stepped from the glare of the sun into the cool of the stone building and approached the small kiosk to buy her ticket, that it wasn’t only the heat that had caused perspiration to prickle to the surface. Now that she was here, away from her guesthouse, where she was wholly in charge, her determination began to ebb away. What would he do when he saw her? Would he refuse to let her come on the tour, tell her he wouldn’t host it while she was there?
‘Excuse me, miss.’ A man who looked younger than Adam, with unkempt hair and large framed spectacles, leaned forward inside the kiosk. ‘Did you want to buy a ticket?’
‘Oh yes, sorry. And I was hoping to go on one of the guided tours,’ she said, even though she knew it started in twenty minutes, had triple-checked the website to make sure she wouldn’t miss it.
He confirmed it for her. ‘It starts from the bureau over there. Here’s a free booklet – or you can buy the guidebook for three-fifty.’
‘No thanks,’ Robin said, collecting her ticket and booklet, and walking further into the room. It had thick wood panelling covering the walls, high, small windows and red brocade chair covers. It could be forty degrees outside, or three feet thick with snow, and nobody would know, it was so closed off from the world. It struck her, as she approached a low sofa that had a Please do not touch sign on it, that in many ways this wasn’t so different from Tabitha’s house. How could Will get any vitamin D when all he was doing was going from there to here? She hoped a large part of the tour took place in the sun-kissed grounds.
She wandered around the room, reading plaques about the history of the house and taking none of it in, glancing every few moments at her watch, the minutes ticking past excruciatingly slowly. She was conscious of a few more people milling in the hall. A couple in their forties, the woman, her dark hair in a short bob, clutching the guidebook; and a group of six older people, including one man with a walking stick and a woman walking alongside him, a thin, wispy scarf in rainbow colours shrugged loosely around her shoulders. The group were intent on one of the paintings hanging high on the wall, already sounding knowledgeable about it.
Robin hid her smile behind her hand, remembering Will’s story about the man who had spent a whole tour at Downe H
all correcting him, and wondered how these people would fare if they turned out to know more than he did. And then she remembered that his tour was about to be disrupted by her, and her pulse began to thump in her ears.
A young family walked in: parents and a girl of six or seven, her long hair in two cute plaits either side, looking up with amazement at the high ceiling. Her father crouched down beside her, pointing out a bust of a man on a plinth next to the door, and then lifted her up to give her a closer look.
There was a change in atmosphere, murmurs among the people in the hall as a door closed and loud footsteps sounded on the floor. Robin recognised the footfalls instantly. She inhaled deeply, a shudder working its way down her neck and all the way to her feet.
‘Uhm, Will?’ It was the young man who had sold her the ticket. ‘You have twelve people on your tour this morning.’
‘Cheers, Jim,’ Will said, and Robin’s heart leaped at the sound of his voice. ‘At least it’s more than two today.’
‘Twelve’s brilliant!’ Jim said enthusiastically. ‘Did you still want me to show you the storeroom later? I’m only on tickets until one thirty, and Mrs Howden said that half the house’s history is up there, and the more you know the better you’ll be.’
‘We’d better not disappoint Mrs Howden, then, had we?’ Will said in response, and Robin could hear the amusement in his voice. ‘That would be great, I’m keen to know all I can. I guess it’s too much to hope that the storeroom has large, panoramic windows that let in lots of sunshine?’
Jim laughed, and Robin wondered if he looked up to Will, or if she was reading too much into the conversation. She could imagine that younger men would respect him: he had a kind of unaffected confidence, but no arrogance, no awareness of how admired he was – unlike Tim. Robin thought he sounded happy, confident. This was the old Will, the one she had first met, having dinner with her at the taverna, stripping to his boxers in her hallway, rather than the downcast version he had been a few days ago.
She almost didn’t want to turn round, wishing she could stay hidden in the corner of the room, leave him to get on with his job and not dampen his spirits by being there. But she’d come this far, she wanted to fight for Will and show him that she wasn’t prepared to let him slip through her fingers. She tried to summon up some of Molly’s brazen courage as Will spoke again, this time to the whole room.
‘Who’s here for the guided tour?’ he asked. She could hear people start to move towards him. ‘I’m Will, and I’m going to be taking you on your tour today. It will last around an hour, and will hopefully give you a good overview of Eldridge House and its history. If you have any burning questions, then please ask them. I can’t claim to know everything, but I’ll do my best, and I can always follow up on facts I’m unsure of afterwards. Hi,’ he said, greeting the other visitors, ‘nice to meet you.’
‘I’m coming!’ It was the young girl with pigtails.
‘You are?’ Will asked. ‘Then I’m going to make it extra fun, especially for you.’
Robin couldn’t hold back any longer. She took a deep breath and approached the group. The woman in her forties was looking at Will with rapt attention, before he’d imparted a single fact. Will turned towards her, his smile freezing on his face as their eyes met.
‘Hi,’ she said.
She watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed. ‘Hello. Are you here for the tour?’
He sounded easy and relaxed. She was sure she was the only one who had noticed the telltale note of tension at the edge of his voice.
‘I am. If that’s OK.’ She cursed inwardly. She had come here to make him listen to her, and already she was checking that it was all right for her to be in the same room as he was. She was hopeless.
‘Of course. The tour’s open to everyone.’ His smile was forced, stopping short of reaching his eyes and sprinkling them full of warmth.
‘Great. Thanks.’
‘Right.’ Will addressed the group. ‘Thank you all for coming to Eldridge House. I hope we can make your visit as interesting and enjoyable as possible. We’ll start downstairs, I’ll take you through the rooms here, then move to the upper floors and, finally, I’ll show you some of the highlights of the magnificent grounds, which – on a day like today – are definitely worth exploring. Anyone have any questions before I start? Feel free to ask as we go round, though if it’s juicy gossip about current members of the Eldridge family, then it’s more than my job’s worth to give you any details.’
‘Are you one of Lord and Lady Eldridge’s sons?’ the woman with the rainbow scarf asked.
Will laughed gently. ‘No.’ He flashed his eyes in Robin’s direction, as if wanting to share how ridiculous that concept was with someone who knew him. ‘No, I’m only a tour guide. I have met the family, but only briefly. Shall we get going?’
‘Course, lovey,’ the woman said, as if he’d been talking solely to her. ‘You look very handsome, as if you could be one of those young lords. I saw a film where the heir to a castle pretended to work there, to see what visitors were saying about them. People do like to talk, don’t they?’ She looked up at him expectantly, and Robin watched him hesitate.
‘As much as that would be a great story, I’m afraid there’s nothing like that going on with me. Although,’ he said, leaning in close to her, his eyes glinting, ‘if I was a member of the family, spying on guests as you suggest, I wouldn’t want to admit it and blow my cover. What do you think about Jim on the ticket kiosk? Does he look like he has noble blood? I’ll leave you to make up your own mind.’
The woman clasped her hands together in glee.
‘But there is a murky past here, isn’t there? If you go back a few centuries.’ This from the older man with the stick. His stance was so straight that Robin thought he might be ex-military.
Will nodded slowly, glancing at the parents of the young girl. ‘There are some dark aspects in the history of the house, certainly. We’ll work up to that, and if you’ll all follow me to the first room, I’ll tell you how Eldridge House came to be built here.’ He took the time to look at each of his guests, saving Robin until last, and then led them through a low, arched doorway.
The temperature dropped as they walked into a large hall with a stone floor and stained-glass windows. It was much brighter in here, but the windows tinted the sun’s light, giving the room a surreal glow. Robin shivered slightly, and looked up to find that Will’s gaze was on her. He turned away as she caught his eye.
‘Right then!’ He clapped his hands together, the sound echoing across the space and making a couple of people jump. ‘Our story starts here. If you’re listening carefully, then I’ll begin.’
As Robin followed the group round the house, she silently congratulated herself on being right. Will was a wonderful tour guide. He revealed the history of the building with precisely the right amount of drama, making each tale sound interesting, engaging his guests in the distant lives of the family’s ancestors. He brought them to life without overselling it, or turning it into pantomime. Everyone was rapt. The dark-haired woman had stepped slightly away from her husband, and kept subconsciously tucking her short hair behind her ear. In every room, he found something of interest for the little girl; a painting low on the wall, a strange sculpture that made her giggle, fabric with a shimmering thread running through it. Will was confident, charismatic and unquestioningly believable in his navy, logoed T-shirt, dark jeans and the familiar tan Wrangler boots. She imagined that, had he wanted to, he could lead them all into the lake and they’d follow.
And yet she hadn’t summoned the courage to ask him about the music night. She was waiting for the perfect moment, now unsure if it was ever going to come. She had followed him through elaborate living rooms, bathrooms with high-sided bathtubs and sumptuous four-poster bedrooms without uttering a peep.
‘This is the master bedroom,’ Will said, leading them into a glorious corner room on the second floor, with windows on two sides and pink and gold furnishings, the c
arved posts of the bed like twisted rope. ‘Anyone have a hankering to stay here for the night, enjoying the views?’
‘Ooh, yes please,’ the dark-haired woman said. ‘Though the bedspread looks like it might be scratchy.’
‘Have you stayed here?’ asked the woman who had fancied Will as one of the family.
‘In this room?’ Will raised an eyebrow. ‘No. I’ve had the pleasure of staying in a luxurious room recently, one with a canopy of stars on the ceiling rather than fabric, but not here. Besides …’ He paused, and Robin held her breath, wondering why he’d made such an obvious reference to her guesthouse. ‘Would any of you feel comfortable about staying in this room if you knew that a murder took place here?’
There were a couple of gasps, the little girl looked up at him wide-eyed, and Robin watched Will closely, seeing the amusement in his eyes as he dropped in this piece of drama.
‘Who was murdered?’ someone asked. ‘Are we talking recently, or five hundred years ago?’
Will held up a finger, turned away from them and opened one of the drawers of a large dresser, taking out a small book. For a moment, Robin thought he had pictures or illustrations of the murder, but as she watched he crouched down beside the little girl and opened the first page. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is a story about a queen. She lived somewhere close to here, maybe in this very house, looking out at the deer and rabbits in the grounds, ruling over her faithful people.’ He waited while she took the book with both hands, her face alive with the excitement of a story solely for her. The girl’s parents exchanged a smile, and Robin felt her heart squeeze.
Will stood, took a step forward and lowered his voice. ‘The murder was three hundred and fifteen years ago,’ he said. ‘The son of a visiting family, the Montagues, took a fancy to Bartholomew Eldridge’s eldest daughter, Verity. Lord Bart, protective of his daughter and seeing the Montagues as too low-standing to make a suitable match, set a trap for young Henry, luring him to this room on the pretence that Verity would be waiting for him. Instead it was Bartholomew himself, intending only to scare Henry off. But things went terribly wrong, and Henry didn’t come out of the altercation alive.’
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