Highland Fling (3 page)

‘But why were you having it here?
You
don’t look as
if you’re on holiday.’ He gave her a quick glance up and down as if to check on this. ‘Designer trouser suits aren’t exactly leisure wear in the Highlands.’

Jenny resisted the urge to check that she didn’t have too many buttons undone. ‘Marks and Spencer’s, actually, but thanks for the compliment. Would you like onions with your bacon, by the way?’ She’d just spotted a string of them and wanted to distract him from asking too many pertinent questions. Her mascara was probably all under her eyes by now and her lipstick wouldn’t have survived more than an hour.

‘Yes, please. And you haven’t answered my question.’

She could have gone on refusing to do so, but decided that mystery would only increase his curiosity.

‘I’ve got a job in the area. Only for a short time, but I might buy a tweed skirt or a kilt, if navy worsted makes me look out of place.’

‘So, where are you working?’

Now she was really tempted to tell him to mind his own business. It wasn’t fair on the Dalmains for her to tell a complete stranger that she’d been sent from afar to pry into their business. ‘It’s confidential and it’s not local. What about a tomato?’

‘I see. Well, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.’

‘I know. So what about the tomato?’

‘Yes, please. If you can manage that, of course.’

His curiosity and remarks about her appearance had been understandable if not acceptable, but this was a definite dig. ‘I’m sure I can. How long would you like it boiled for?’

He frowned, took a breath, let it out again and shook his head. ‘We seem to have got off on the wrong foot …’

‘Well, you have. I’m dealing with you with the tact and patience that are my trademark.’

Reluctantly, he laughed. ‘I realise that I should be grateful to you for even attempting to serve me –’

‘But you’re not,’ she helped him out. ‘You’re too accustomed to giving orders and getting your own way without having to say thank you to anyone.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, thanks for the character analysis.’

‘A pleasure. And, unlike the bacon butty, it’s free.’

‘Well, I did at least get the character analysis. The bacon butty still eludes me.’

Jenny took a breath. It was annoying to be unable to deliver something so simple, but further protest would just make her look more incompetent. She was about to demand that the man go away and come back in half an hour when Meggie appeared.

‘Ah, here’s the proprietor,’ Jenny said with relief. Very tempted to leap into her car and drive away in a shower of gravel, she felt obliged to check that Meggie was all right. ‘Everything OK?’

‘Absolutely. How are you getting on?’

‘Well, I hope you’re not planning to give her a permanent job,’ said Jenny’s customer. ‘She seems totally unsuited to the work.’

Jenny frowned at him. He was being very unfair and now she couldn’t leave without it looking like an escape.

‘Really?’ said Meggie, bright but dismissive. ‘Why
don’t you go and sit down at one of the tables, and we’ll bring it over to you?’

‘Now why didn’t I think of that?’ said Jenny, as soon as he was out of earshot. ‘He’s been hanging around watching me and asking awkward questions and I haven’t a clue where anything is.’

Meggie had taken out the bacon and added the onions. ‘Oh, I don’t know. You seem to have been doing a grand job.’

‘I haven’t done anything like this since I was a student. Several lifetimes ago.’

‘Not that long, surely? How old are you?’

‘Twenty-seven. How old are you, yourself?’

Meggie laughed. ‘Twenty-five, and I’m sorry for being so nosy. I’m always getting into trouble for being outspoken. Rude, my husband calls it.’

Jenny laughed back. ‘I wouldn’t call it rude, exactly.’

Meggie sighed. ‘Iain says I can be as rude as I like when the business closes. Then it’ll just be to him.’

‘The business closes? That seems a shame!’ The merry little tartan van suddenly seemed a haven in the gathering bleakness of the afternoon.

‘Well, only for the season, in theory. The trouble is, if I close early, and I may have to because of this little bundle,’ she patted her stomach, ‘I may not get this spot next year. There’s someone else after it, and it wouldn’t be worth my doing The Homely Haggis if I had to travel any further to get to it.’ Meggie sighed again.

‘How much longer has the season got to run?’ It already seemed quite late in the year for tourist-based businesses.

‘Only a few weeks. Come December I’ll close completely.’

‘Isn’t there someone who could do those for you? It seems a shame to risk losing the business because you’re pregnant.’

‘It does, doesn’t it?’ Meggie was pleased that someone understood her feelings. ‘But I’ve tried everyone local and they none of them can.’

‘I almost feel like doing it myself, except that I’ve just failed to make a bacon butty and a cup of tea and would obviously drive the customers away in droves.’

‘You wouldn’t, would you?’ Jenny bit her lip. Meggie was looking at her as if she had seen her saviour in her tea leaves, and Jenny hadn’t seriously been offering, more just making sympathetic noises.

‘Well–’

‘It would be so brilliant if you could. But would you be able to? It’s only weekends and the odd fine evening, but you will have your other work.’

This was the moment to say, no, she wasn’t offering, but she didn’t. Henry’s jibes about her being impulsive, and her own assertion that it was compassion came back to her. Why shouldn’t she be impulsive and compassionate if she wanted? It was her life, and it might need a little light relief in it.

‘I’m sort of tempted, partly to help you out and partly because it seems – fun.’

‘Oh, it is! It’s great! And it would only be for a short time. I reckon I could manage next summer, even with a baby, and Iain and I need the extra cash.’

Meggie was looking at her in a very persuasive way.

‘And you really can’t find anyone else to keep it open for you?’

‘I haven’t been able to so far. Until you came along.’

‘Meggie!’

‘Perhaps you’d better tell me why you’re going to Dalmain House. And how long you’re likely to be visiting. But before you do, just take this over to your favourite customer. Tell him it’s on the house as he’s been kept waiting so long.’

‘Not that long! I was doing my best.’

‘Just take it over. Then come back and get the tea. Please!’

With more than a little reluctance, Jenny crossed the shingle parking area. The heels of her boots, fine in Surrey, were too high for the Scottish Highlands.

‘Here you are,’ she said churlishly, putting down the plate. ‘Meggie says it’s on the house.’

He narrowed his eyes in a way that was both sinister and attractive at the same time. ‘Would that be Dalmain House?’

Jenny suddenly felt her mouth go dry. ‘What do you mean?’

He hesitated, just for a second, as if he was about to say something, but then thought better of it. ‘Nothing. I just thought that’s where you might be working, Dalmain House.’

‘What on earth gave you that idea?’

‘Well, aren’t you?’

‘It’s none of your business where I’m working!’

She wobbled furiously back to the van. ‘Bloody man! He’s just tried to make me tell him I’m working at Dalmain House, and it’s supposed to be a secret!’

‘Oh, why? Does he take sugar?’

‘Well, he’s certainly not “sweet enough already”.’

Meggie put a couple of sachets of sugar and a stirrer
into Jenny’s hand. ‘I’d take it myself, only it’ll make me want to wee again. But we need a talk.’

Grim-faced, Jenny marched back to the table, holding the mug of tea. ‘There you are!’ She put it and the sugar down on the table, noting with satisfaction that the sugar had gone on a puddle caused by a dip in the plastic.

‘Thank you. Oh and, miss?’

‘What?’ ‘Miss’ seemed like the ultimate insult.

‘You’ve got grease on your blouse. That won’t make a good impression at the big house.’

Jenny nearly twisted her ankle as she whisked back across the car park. ‘Oh piss off!’ she muttered under her breath.

‘It’s no good asking me to run this place for you!’ she told Meggie. ‘I’d swear at the customers.’

Meggie shook her head. ‘No you wouldn’t. Most of them are sweeties. And they’re so grateful! I really like this job. It’s so easy to make people happy!’

Jenny sighed. She certainly couldn’t say that about her job – at least, not the aspect of it that was occupying her now.

‘I’ll make you another hot chocolate and then tell you who’s who up at the House of Usher. If you tell me what you’re doing there, of course. Has Philip been fiddling the books?’

‘I shouldn’t think so, but that’s not why I’m here.’

Meggie raised a sceptical eyebrow and Jenny felt she might as well be as frank as she could be. ‘I’ve been sent by my client to see what’s going on in the business. I won’t make any decisions, I’ll just report back. But there’s been no suggestion that there’s been any fiddling.’

Meggie sighed. ‘Pity. Philip’s so much his mother’s blue-eyed boy, it would have been nice if, just for once, he’d done something really wicked. But I expect he’s just been his usual charming self.’

‘Don’t you like him?’ If Meggie was willing to give her information, she might as well get as much as possible.

‘You can’t really dislike Philip. He’s “awfully nice”.’ She put on an exaggeratedly posh English accent. ‘But he’s so lacking in initiative. He’d have made a perfect younger son. And my Iain, well, he’d have loved to get his hands on the family business.’ Meggie sighed. ‘So, do you work for the man the estate owes all that money to?’

Jenny licked her lips, slightly horrified that so much of Dalmain’s business seemed common knowledge. ‘It’s not quite as straightforward as that. It’s a syndicate which has invested in the business. I work for one of the members. Or I should say, one of the members is one of my clients.’

Meggie ignored this finer detail. ‘But if the syndicate has invested money, it will have to be paid back?’

And at a crippling rate of interest, added Jenny silently. ‘Eventually, yes. Not necessarily all at once.’

Meggie shrugged. ‘They never tell Iain and me anything anyway. We just put two and two together and make a bit of gossip. So, what do you do, exactly?’

‘I’m what’s called a virtual assistant. It’s like being a secretary only I never get to meet my boss, and I have several of them. People I work for, that is.’

‘Sounds complicated.’

‘It’s not really. With the Internet it’s so easy to communicate.
I usually work from home but when my client’ – no need to mention his name – ‘asked me to come up here and look into things myself, I was tempted by the thought of being more hands-on. It needn’t affect my other clients at all, and you can get lonely working from home all the time.’ As well as being expected to do all the domestic chores, she added silently.

‘I’m not sure Dalmain House will be able to offer much in the way of sparkling company, but there’s always me.’ Meggie laughed. ‘While I’m here. What did you say your name was, again?’

‘Genevieve Porter. Jenny for short.’

‘I expect the Matriarch will insist on calling you Genevieve, if she doesn’t just stick to Miss Porter.’

‘I quite like Genevieve, actually. It’s just a bit of a mouthful.’

‘Well then, Jenny, or Genevieve, how about standing in for me here, while I’m out of action? For just as long as you’re here.’ Meggie’s brown eyes were very appealing.

‘Really, I’d love it in theory, but I’d be useless! Look what happened just now, with that man.’

‘He was unusually difficult. And you wouldn’t be useless if you had a little training. And you’ll need somewhere to escape to. Dalmain House is like a cross between a museum and a funeral parlour, only not so cheerful.’

Oh God, don’t say Henry was going to be right about this, as well as everything else. ‘Really? Perhaps I should cut my losses and just go home …’

‘No, don’t do that!’ Meggie backtracked furiously. ‘It’ll be fine, I’m sure. And I will enjoy having you
around. A little female company of my own age will be wonderful. You said you got lonely.’

Jenny laughed. ‘Did I? But this place isn’t exactly jumping at the moment, now is it?’

Meggie shrugged. ‘Well, I know. And I’ve got a dreadful cheek to even suggest it. But you did sort of offer and you said you’d worked in a cafe.’

‘Well yes.’

‘The nicest thing about it,’ went on Meggie, sensing that Jenny was tempted, ‘is that people are always so pleased to see you. They’ve often come off the mountain,’ – she gestured to the heather-covered hill that swept on up towards the sky – ‘walked for miles in the pouring rain. A hot cup of something is just what they’re wanting and you provide it.’

‘I can see that would be satisfying.’

‘And there’s no worrying about it when you go home. You’ve either sold lots of hot drinks and bacon butties or you haven’t. You can just lock up and forget about it.’

Jenny sighed. She often found herself working very late, her brain still chewing things over. ‘That does sound attractive, I must say.’

‘And the mountains are famous. There are always walkers and hikers and things in these parts. Most of them are lovely.’

‘That one wasn’t.’

‘The exception, I promise. And he was quite attractive. All the local men are spoken for and you’ll need someone to have a joke with.’

Jenny laughed. ‘So you think I should take over The Homely Haggis to pick up men, do you?’ How would Henry feel about that?

‘There are worse ways. Unless you’re taken yourself?’

‘I am, in a manner of speaking, but even if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t want to mix business with pleasure. There’s no point in meeting a bonnie Scot I’d have to leave behind.’

Meggie shrugged. ‘I thought you could do your job anywhere.’

‘I can, but there’s the rest of my life! I mean, no offence, but I’m from the Home Counties, and this is rather a long way away from Bond Street, isn’t it?’

Meggie chuckled. ‘Here, I’ll give you my address and telephone number. If you’re going to be around long enough and want to help me, you can give me a ring. Or if you don’t, you can just come for a chat and a dram. I won’t put any pressure on you.’