Page 9 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm (Highland Cookery School #2)

Jodie barely slept, and when she did she dreamt fitfully of Gemma rising up from the stream next to the castle, like a troll under the bridge and decrying Jodie for her failure as both a girlfriend and a human.

Finally, she dragged herself from bed, through to the tiny bathroom, turned the shower up as hot as it would go, which turned out to be alternately scalding and freezing, and let the cycle of hot and cold shock her back into her body and out of the rolling wave of anxiety.

She was not about to be unmasked. Jodie was far away from anyone who knew her.

The only danger was that she would slip up and give herself away.

To avoid that she needed to be the best possible person that she could be.

And that meant the person least like Jodie.

Jodie was – she ran through the bank of quotes from her family, from her exes and from her former employers in her mind – unreliable, easily distracted, prone to making impulsive decisions and deeply disorganised. In short, Jodie was a mess.

As she got dressed, Jodie resolved that Gemma would not be like that at all. Gemma would be punctual. She would listen to instructions. She would think before she acted. She would have all her work perfectly organised in colour-coded binders. Jodie picked up her phone.

What felt like three or four minutes later at most, Jodie checked the time.

She’d been looking at pastel-coloured binders on the internet for nearly forty minutes, which meant she was now officially late for work.

Late for her first day in the job she desperately needed to not mess up, in a place that was literally four minutes’ walk from her front door.

Gemma would never have let that happen. Gemma would be over at the castle already, notebook open, pens neatly laid out, bright, professional smile plastered on her face.

And now Jodie had wasted another three minutes thinking about what Gemma would do.

She shoved her feet into her trainers, which didn’t go at all with the one pair of non-jeans trousers that she owned, grabbed her jacket and set off at a run down the path to the castle.

She hurtled into the kitchen. ‘Sorry. I…’

She stopped. Her only audience was the dopey-looking chocolate Lab she’d met the previous afternoon. She hauled the gorgeous doggy’s name from memory. ‘Hello, Dipper.’

Dipper wandered over and sniffed Jodie’s hand.

‘Where is everybody?’

The dog didn’t reply.

Jodie made her way tentatively further into the castle, through the grand hallway Darcy had brought her into the previous day. ‘Hello!’

‘In here!’

The voice came from somewhere in front of her but beyond that Jodie wasn’t sure.

She carried on into a corridor lined with doorways.

She stared at the row of closed doors, paralysed by indecision.

What would Gemma do? Gemma would knock politely on each one and open them until she found where she was supposed to be.

Jodie couldn’t entirely see that option working out.

What if she picked the wrong door and there was someone in there and they weren’t the right someone, or it was a bedroom or something and the person was still asleep and then she’d have woken them up and she’d have to explain who she was and… ?

‘She’s in there.’ Adam came out of the door three along from where Jodie was standing. ‘Sorry. She meant to come over to the Dower House rather than force you to hunt for her, but when she gets her head into work everything else sort of goes out of her brain.’

Jodie knew how that could be. ‘It’s fine. My fault. I’m late.’

Adam shrugged. ‘Barely. Go on through.’ He pointed at the door again. ‘She’s in the yellow room.’

The room Jodie was directed into was painted green against all previous advertising. Bella was sitting on the sofa, laptop on her knee, paperwork spread out around her. ‘Jodie!’ She looked up and grinned.

‘Hi. Sorry I’m a bit late.’

‘No. I didn’t tell you where I was going to be. You’ve probably spent the last hour wandering around this place getting stuck in cupboards with ghosts.’

‘Do you have ghosts?’

‘Only a couple. Only one that really bothers us.’ Bella scooped scattered papers from the seat next to her. ‘Come in. Sit down. Shall we start off by me telling you a bit more about everything here?’

Jodie tried – she did try – to concentrate on the stream of information Bella supplied about the castle and the estate and the Lowbridge family, followed by an even more rapidly delivered information dump about their plans for the place: the developing cookery school born out of Bella’s previous life as a chef; the walled garden that Adam’s father had loved and which Adam was currently nurturing back into productivity to supply fruits, vegetables and herbs for the cookery school; the coach house, earmarked for transformation into guest accommodation but currently little more than a badly heated money pit; the ballroom which was intended to be their function room for parties and weddings; and, of course, the land itself.

‘So historically that would have been the main thing. We still have sheep. I don’t really get involved with them.

’ She paused. ‘Apart from sometimes when they decide to follow me about the place. But they’re more Adam’s thing.

He understands all that rural stuff. And he’s responsible for the gardens and the land, but one or two weeks a month he goes back over to Edinburgh because he had a business there before he inherited all of this and honestly that’s the main thing keeping us going until we get everything else properly up and running.

And Darcy does the accounts and invoices and all that stuff.

Veronica, Adam’s grandmother, still helps with that.

’ Bella paused. ‘I say helps. I mean more “checks that we’re doing it properly”. ’

Veronica was the woman who’d questioned her about where in London she was from the evening before, wasn’t she? Would she be here checking on Jodie’s work as well? She shuddered slightly at the thought.

Bella didn’t seem to notice. ‘So shall we?’

‘Sorry?’ Jodie had been thinking all the ways Veronica might catch her out and had stopped listening to a single thing her new boss had been saying.

‘Shall we take a walk around? I know Darcy showed you some stuff yesterday but I don’t think you went in the coach house, and honestly there’s bits of the castle I still get lost in.’ She grinned. ‘Adam and his gran, and even Flinty, act like living somewhere like this is totally normal.’

‘I guess it is for them.’

‘Yeah. To the manor born and all that.’

Jodie ran through the characters in her head. ‘Flinty and Adam’s gran are the women who came round last night?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And are they together?’

‘Yep.’ Bella grinned. ‘So from what I can work out they had some sort of thing when they were young but then the baron – Adam’s granddad – set his sights on Veronica, and everyone said how lucky she was and her parents were super proud that she was going to be Lady Lowbridge and there didn’t seem to be a way out. ’

‘But they’re together now.’

‘Just recently. It’s adorable.’ Bella paused. ‘Never let either of them hear you say that though. Flinty would clip your ear, and Veronica would… I don’t know. Probably freeze the blood in your veins with one of her looks.’

That definitely fit with the image of Veronica that was forming in Jodie’s mind.

Bella was already striding out of the room. ‘So what did Darcy already show you?’

‘Not much. Only the Dower House really. I think she was trying not to overwhelm me when I’d only just arrived.’

‘Right then. The grand tour.’

She followed Bella outside, quickly trying to get her bearings. The castle buildings were arranged around a square courtyard. The Dower House was up the path from the front right-hand corner. Bella was leading her out towards the back left. Through there they discovered the stables.

‘Darcy’s domain,’ Bella explained. ‘She’s the horse lover.

Space for three more horses permanently stabled though so we could rent that out.

Un-serviced at the moment. If we were going to hire a stablehand we’d need to charge more, I guess.

’ She shrugged. ‘No idea what the going rate for stabling is though.’

Jodie shook her head. Surely even the real Gemma wasn’t an expert on stabling fees as well.

The tour continued around the outside of the castle and back into the corridor on the right side of the building. ‘We don’t really use these rooms at the moment.’ Bella swung open a door. ‘This could be incredible though.’

Jodie followed her boss into a decidedly faded but still impressive hall. The ceilings were double height, and although they’d come in a side door she could see that there were grand double doors at both ends of the room and on the far wall leading outside. ‘This is the ballroom?’

‘Yeah. Seen better days obviously, but it’s pretty much watertight for the time being at least. Thanks to Pavel.’

The room was past its heyday but Jodie could see the potential. ‘So if you did weddings would you do the ceremony in here?’

‘Could do. There’s the large dining room as well or the small hall, and the courtyard, and the church if people want that.’

‘In the village?’

Bella shook her head. ‘No. We have a chapel here.’

Jodie’s eyes widened.

‘I know. It’s insane.’ Bella looked around. ‘Come on.’ She led the way down the corridor and into the hallway Jodie had been through before – she recognised it from the suit of armour. ‘Don’t mind Colin.’

‘You named the suit of armour?’

‘Adam’s dad did, I think. I like it though. He sort of looks like a Colin.’ Bella stopped. ‘I was going to go to the kitchens but once we’re in there we might as well get settled with a cuppa so shall we do the rest of outdoors first?’