Page 45 of The First Taste

“Unfortunately, that’s a regular occurrence.”

“Wow. I mean… ”

“Yeah.” She looks at me flatly and purses her lips. “I’m not sure what Keir told you that you were signing up for, but she is a handful. I love my niece, but I’m worried that if we don’t curb her behavior now, she could be acting like that as an adult. I mean, can you even imagine?”

I slowly shake my head. “I honestly can’t.”

Saffron reaches out, squeezing my arm, and gives me a sad smile.

“Welcome to Drumman Castle.” She looks at her phone and sighs. “I have to get back to uni. But I’m sure we will spend a lot more time together, seeing as how my brother is usually too busy to parent his own daughter.”

My brows rise. But before I can say anything else, she heads out the front door, leaving me standing alone in the foyer. My mind is churning at full speed.

Who is Isla’s mother?

Where is she?

And what about the ruined, scorched part of this castle? Does that have something to do with Isla’s missing mother?

I can only hope to find out more in the coming days.

Fifteen

Ispent the rest of the evening having some blessed quiet time and unpacking my bags. My room itself was jaw dropping; a huge four poster bed, a window overlooking a heretofore unseen lake, and the whole damn room is practically oversized. So yes, I laid in the big bed with fresh white sheets and just luxuriated for a while.

But the whole time, I had a dazzling, daunting amount of questions. And now that I’m marching down the castle stairs into the main hall, they are pressing in on me.

What happened to Keir’s wife? Why does Isla claim to miss her? Where is she?

And more importantly, what about the blackmailing journalist? It seems too easy for that to just go away after we witnessed his death.… Right?

As I descend the stairs, I look out onto what is obviously the main hall. There are no windows to speak of, no drapery or decoration of any kind. It’s just smooth stone walls and a few ancient-looking deer and elk heads mounted on the wall. Even those look frayed and old, like they have definitely seen better years. I shake my head a little bit as I look at them.

That’s just gross.

I all but run into Keir and Isla when I round the stairs to come into the main hall. Keir is sitting on the floor, looking at his phone while Isla cuts colorful pictures out of a magazine and pastes them onto a photo collage. When I get closer, I realize that Isla isn’t being careful with her bottle of glue and there are pieces of magazine clippings stuck all over the wood floor, worn smooth from years and years of their ancestors footsteps.

I clear my throat, announcing my presence. Keir looks up with some surprise, as if I somehow just appeared here. Isla doesn’t even notice me or if she does, she certainly doesn’t let on.

“You made it downstairs,” Keir says.

Walking carefully around the area that Isla is currently ruining, I nod slowly. “I did. What are you guys up to?”

Keir’s gaze slides to Isla. He frowns and notices perhaps for the first time that she has made a rather large mess. He sucks in a breath and draws himself up, apparently not wanting to let on that Isla is defying his orders.

“We’re just hanging out. It’s pretty normal for a Wednesday morning, I would say.”

I keep circling and then I carefully kneel down, avoiding the collage she is working on. “Isla, why aren’t you in school today?”

She makes a frustrated little face, her mouth puckering up. Making a show of flattening out one of the pictures that she has cut out across the floor, she looks to Keir for help. The signal between them is implicit and no sooner has it passed that Keir opens his mouth to stand up for her.

“Isla isn’t feeling well. I told her that she didn’t have to go to school today.”

“No.” She looks at him, her brow wrinkling. “You told me that I didn’t have to go back this whole week. Right?”

I fold my arms across my chest and give Keir a puzzled glance.

He grimaces and shrugs a soldier. “I might’ve said that.”