“Thank you.”
“Cacarrrrr!!”
“Honnnnkkkk!!”
I like him, thought Flora.
Chapter 12
It had happened the previous month. Entirely with Joel in mind, Colton had left a large bequest to a fostering charity on his behalf. This was embarrassing enough in itself, but they’d also asked him to speak, which he did, about his own childhood and his new life in Scotland, with a baby, and Colton’s hotel.
Afterward, Joel had found himself next to a portly short Norwegian man.
“You have a new baby?” the man had asked him.
Joel nodded.
“How’s it been?”
Joel half smiled, which was more or less as demonstrative as he could ever get in company. He had been up with Dougie at four, giving him a bottle as Flora slept, happy as Larry. He’d reminded himself to get started on Colton’s Christmas lights—Colton had likewise requested that the island be made more Christmassy, a responsibility that fell on Joel as his foundation’s lawyer—and looking round at the smart room he was in in London, with a huge, chic silvery tree and cutting-edge modern baubles, he made a mental note to remind himself again. Unfortunately, someone had just offered the possibility of him showing off pictures of Douglas, which made it immediately fall out of his mind again.
He whipped out his phone to show pictures of the little dark-eyed baby boy.
“Oh, he’s . . . he’s amazing.” The man smiled sadly, then he sighed miserably. “Ah. Then they grow up.”
“You have children?” said Joel, who was of the unshiftable view of new parents: that their children would of course be different.
“A son,” said the man. “Layabout, more like.”
He blinked.
“He needs a job, in fact.”
There was a pause.
“What kind of job?” said Joel carefully. He wasn’t crazy happy about bringing on board people’s privileged children. They tended to take up more time than was strictly necessary and be frankly horrified that they were expected to work every single day, that people might occasionally tell them that what they had done wasn’t wonderful and perfect, and that they couldn’t just get immediately promoted.
“Oh, anything,” said the man. “He should really start at the bottom. He’s never held a proper job. Have you got anything an idiot can do?”
Joel smiled. “Probably, but I’m sure you wouldn’t want to . . .”
But the man took another swig of his wine and was warming to his theme. “No, do it,” he said. “Get him cleaning floors, washing pots. I insist! I’ll sponsor the charity too if you do it. Yes. This is it.”
And Joel could hardly refuse that. And so it was arranged.
NOW, ISLA STOOD in the kitchen, looking at her watch. It was time for the new kid Konstantin’s shift to start—everyone else was there, but he hadn’t shown up yet. Which was not ideal, considering he only lived upstairs. Gaspard was late too, but she kind of expected that. Still, it was frustrating.
The double swing doors that led to the dining room suddenly burst open and two people came through: Gaspard and a plain, doughy-faced woman.
“Thees is Kerry. She is my sous chef.”
Isla frowned. “Does Fintan know?”
Gaspard shrugged. “I don’ care. I need more help. Ees beeg job.”
Kerry was already tying on a cap round her head. Isla tried to smile hello, quite excited about the possibility of a female friend in the kitchen to take Iona’s place, but Kerry returned a stony look.
Gaspard looked around. “Where is my boy who cleans pots?”
“I don’t think he’s up yet,” ventured Tam, a stolid redhead from one of the most northern farmsteads who absolutely didn’t care what job he had to do in this hotel as long as it didn’t involve walking up and down the side of a hill in the pouring rain all day for the next forty years like his father, three uncles, three brothers, and nine cousins were all doing. He would scrub the floor with a toothbrush if it meant not wearing nine jackets and getting sewn into his underwear.
“Well, go get him!”
Tam frowned. “Where is he?”
Gaspard shrugged. Isla sighed.
“You know?” demanded Gaspard.
Isla flushed bright red. She didn’t like being picked out to do anything. “Same place as you, in the roof—”
“Go! Get him!”
“But—”
“Feerst thing in my kitchen.” Gaspard flexed his arm, and all his tattoos stood out. His face suddenly looked rather menacing. “We say ‘Oui, Chef,’ okay? You are in a real kitchen now, leetle girl! Ees real job, not pretend! Okay? You understand? Not pretend?”
Isla froze.
“OUI, Chef!”
She had absolutely no idea what he was talking about as everyone stared at her.
“Come on,” he snarled.
And then he paused, until he drew out of the utterly humiliated Isla a rather half-hearted “Wee, Chef!”
He nodded curtly, and Isla scampered off up the stairs, feeling wretched. It had been all right being shy in Flora’s kitchen. Iona could pick up the slack for noisiness, and Flora was kind enough that she never noticed. Isla even spoke up from time to time. It wasn’t impossible, when she felt comfortable.
But when it came to strange foreign men yelling at her, or, like now, asking her to do something utterly preposterous like go up to a strange man’s bedroom . . . her face was absolutely flaming and she wanted to burst into tears, and the thought of how it would be to burst into tears on your very first day in a new job was so awful she couldn’t face thinking about that either. So she bit her lip incredibly hard and went past the corridors leading to the Rock’s twelve boutique rooms, all beautiful, and up a hidden staircase to the old attic rooms, which in their day had housed the servants. And now, she supposed, still housed the servants. All were open except for one at the very end of the hallway. She pulled herself together and knocked loudly.
There was no answer. She tried again, harder.
“Hello?” she said. Then, louder: “Hello?”
She touched the door, which, to her horror—she had been hoping to turn back and say she hadn’t found him—started to creak open. It was too late now; she was stuck there and would have to hope for the best.
“Uhm . . . Chef sent me upstairs to . . .”
There was still no sound of movement from inside the room. Curious, she pushed the door farther and glanced inside. The bed was completely unmade; possessions were strewn everywhere. But the room was empty of people. And the window was flying open.
She frowned. Surely he wouldn’t have made his escape; they were three stories off the ground. And it was only a job, not prison, whatever he thought. She blinked. Had he gone?
Isla found herself going to the open window, her heart beating quickly. She was struck suddenly by the most horrifying thought: What if he’d fallen? Tried to climb out and slipped on the wet pipes?
It was freezing in the room. The wind blew right in off the sea, and there were little flecks of rain bouncing off and around in the maelstrom. The curtains were dancing; papers were jumping off the desk.
Slowly she advanced.
“Uhm . . . Konstantin?” she said, the odd consonants taking shape in her mouth.