Good Manors Page 3

  Mary skillfully butted in and stopped Gerald before he could spew any more random facts at me.

  Coming round from the side of the building, the young, floppy-haired confused boy was being followed by a tall man in a sharp suit. His black hair curled slightly and bounced with every purposeful step.

  “India Grace, I presume?” He stuck out his hand.

  “Yes, from Good Manors magazine,” I replied and reached forward, gripping his fingers in my own.

  “Ah, good. I’m Xander Patrick, owner of Mallard Hall.”

  “Nice to meet you, Xander.”

  His grip was firm and businesslike, his gaze similar. Not a hint of warmth in the blue eyes that glared back at me. He wasn’t very happy to see me. My heart trembled. Had he found out who I was? Did he know I had been the architect of the manor’s downfall?

  “Well, you’ve met the gang. They’ll look after you. I’m rather busy right now but I’m sure I’ll see you round.”

  I wanted to ask questions but before I could open my mouth again he’d let go of my hand and walked away. His elegant figure soon disappeared from sight.

  “Don’t mind Mr. Patrick,” Mary chuckled. “He’s a bit distracted at the moment. Harriet could give birth any second now.”

  Well, that explained it. He was married with a heavily pregnant wife. No wonder he didn’t want me around the place. Shame he was taken, there was something very aesthetically pleasing about Xander Patrick.

  “Right, well, if you follow me I’ll take you up to your room, give you time to settle in. I’ll come and get you in an hour or so then Gerald can give you a tour.”

  I nodded along, not really listening to her babbling. The young lad, Harry I think he was called, grabbed my luggage and followed us in. Of course we went in around the side—only the tourists used the front doors anymore, so Mary told me. That was pretty standard for most of the public halls I visited.

  I didn’t have time to take in any detail as Mary rushed me down a corridor and upstairs to the small room that was to be mine for the duration of the stay.

  “It’s not much, but all the posh renovated rooms are for the visitors to see. I hope you don’t mind that you’re in a poky servants’ room—most of us are.”

  “You live here then, Mary?”

  “Oh yes, two rooms down the corridor, in fact. Now, is everything okay for you?”

  “Yes, it’ll be fine.” I smiled reassuringly.

  “Good, good. I’ll leave you be. I’ll send young Harry up for you in an hour or so. Give you time to unpack and unwind before you get started.”

  “Thank you.”

  Mary bobbed and glided out of the room then closed the heavy wooden door behind her.

  The room was spartan but clean and practical. I sat on the bed and it seemed pleasantly firm and not too squeaky. The walls were plain white, the curtains chintzy floral to match the bedcover and that really was that for detail. I popped my clothes in the dark wood wardrobe and chest of drawers that dominated one side of the small room then checked out the door adjacent to me.

  The en suite bathroom was small and perfectly functional. Clearly it was relatively new, just popped into the next room along because it was the same size as the bedroom itself. I knew I’d be perfectly comfortable for the few nights I’d be there.

  Some manors would set me up in a grand guest bedroom but they intimidated me. I didn’t feel like it was the kind of room I belonged in. I was always much happier in a more modest setting. I took some time to check over my camera and set up my laptop. I had to keep focused on my job. If I let my mind slip for even a moment I would spiral down into self-defeating depression again and I promised myself I wouldn’t let that happen.

  The news of Lord Mallard’s death had hit me really hard. I’d quit journalism and hidden away from the world for months afterward. I’d locked myself away in my flat and wished for death—had set out to take it one day in fact. A life for a life—at the time it had seemed fair. I’d be forever grateful to the person who’d pulled me out of that flunk. I’d tell them every day if I could but it had been a random incident with a stranger I’d never seen again that had changed the tide. I’d often mused that maybe she was an angel.

  The knock on the door startled me into action.

  “Miss, you’re wanted in the main hall by Gerald. He’s going to take you on the tour.” Harry’s tone of voice didn’t lift or fall. I wondered if he ever expressed emotion.

  “Oh, great. Let me grab my camera bag and notepad.” I picked up my things and followed the young man downstairs.

  “Have you worked here long?” I asked as Harry walked in front of me back the way I’d come with Mary earlier. I was glad he was with me. I was notoriously terrible with directions and had gotten lost in a fair few stately manors in the past.

  “Not long, miss, no. Mr. Patrick hired me and a couple of other lads earlier in’t year. I’ve done casual work for him on and off since being a kid so I jumped at the chance of working here proper like now I’m grown up.” That was the longest sentence Harry had strung together since I’d arrived and he’d even managed to appear somewhat animated.

  “Grown up?” I laughed.

  “I’m eighteen now, miss, I’ve got to look after myself. I can do that working for Mr. Patrick.” He looked contented, well, the bit of him I could see under his hair.

  “Are you enjoying it here?”

  “Oh, it’s not bad, miss, not bad. Always something different going on.”

  He waited for me at the bottom of the stairs and even smiled. It was awkward to tell but I was pretty certain it was a smile and not just wind. He’d be a fairly good-looking guy one day, when he grew into his limbs and decided to cut his hair.

  “Thanks, Harry.” Gerald nodded at me and waved the young man away. “You can get back to the shop now.” From the look on Gerald’s face, he wasn’t too keen on the younger lad.

  “Ah, Miss Grace, I hope your room is sufficient for you.” His grin was disconcerting. Half of it was missing.

  “Yes, more than ample. And you can call me India.”

  He nodded and continued talking. “Now, we decided it would be a good idea to give you a tour of the place first so you can get a bit of an overview. Then tomorrow you can spend time in different parts of the estate and look at them more in depth.”

  “Sounds good to me.” I found it useful to get the lay of the land early on, then I could work out exactly where to concentrate my future efforts, so I could find the interesting characters and the real stories behind the posh façade. That was what people read the article for, that was what I always felt pressured to find, and it wasn’t always easy.

  Gerald was a mine of information, most of it completely useless or tidbits I already knew. I nodded a bit and took the odd photograph as we toured the public parts of the building. It was a beautiful hall, lovingly renovated. I was impressed by how much had been put into it. The attention to detail was staggering.

  “We’re looking to adding new rooms over the next few years, the library and the old working kitchen, if we can raise the funds, of course. It costs a pretty penny to run all this. Hence why we’ve got the new-fangled shop. It’s supposed to make money.”

  “Is it?” I asked, innocently. Or at least I aimed for innocently.

  “Oh, yeah. Sort of, I suppose. More of a waste of time in my opinion, but then Mr. Patrick does like his little projects.” Gerald chuckled and led me out of the grand house into the gardens.

  “We’ll go over and take a look now, Miss Grace, then I’ll take you over to see the master’s very latest project. He’d be well made up if they featured in your article.”

  I just nodded and followed Gerald across the graveled courtyard to a building that looked later than the original building, probably a stable added on a century or so after the original place was built. Or maybe the old equivalent of a granny flat or even a house for a mistress of an ancient Mallard.

  I shook my head and took a deep breath. I
didn’t want to think about old Mallards. That was too painful. I focused on how well the place seemed to be doing, wanting to bury the guilt of decades past. It was a shame the old place had passed out of the family’s hands but at least it was being preserved. I didn’t want to think about what had happened to the rest of the Mallard family.

  Getting closer to the red brick building, I noticed the modern double-glazed doors and started to see the modifications that had been made to the original exterior.

  Inside it could have passed for a posh supermarket, with shelving and refrigerated cabinets. It was a very homey and welcoming environment, helped by Mary’s ever smiling face.

  “Hello again, miss. I hope Gerald’s taking good care of you.”

  I nodded with fake enthusiasm, just to be polite.

  “This is my pride and joy, built from nothing. Everything in here is sourced from the local community—a good chunk of it comes from the estate itself. Most of the meat on this counter is from the various livestock on our farm.” Mary puffed her ample chest out with pride.

  “Yes, yes, well, Miss Grace will be here with you tomorrow so you don’t need to tell her everything now,” Gerald snapped sulkily.

  Mary rolled her eyes then shook her head. “Right, fine, Gerald. I guess you’re rushing off somewhere important.”

  “Yes, we are,” he snapped again. “Come along, Miss Grace.”

  Gerald turned to head back out of the door, and Mary leaned over the counter and whispered, “Gerald hates any modern additions. I’ll show you the good stuff tomorrow.”

  It was clear that there were some interesting characters to get to know at Mallard Hall. That would make my article easier to write.

  “Okay, now we’ll go out to the farm and check out the other one of Mr. Patrick’s crazy new projects.”

  The green surroundings kept my interest when we walked because Gerald was talking but I wasn’t listening. Something about the original landscaping and the architect, all boring twaddle that was definitely not story worthy. I realized I would have to write the article of my lifetime to do this place justice and compensate for the hurt I’d done. I knew I’d never be able to make up fully for the mistakes of my youth but I had to try. Amending for those mistakes consumed my every action.

  “So before we go in, miss, we need to wash our hands. So we don’t pass anything on to the sheep and vice versa.”

  I snapped back to paying attention to Gerald and followed his lead, washing my hands then drying them on my jeans.

  “Now we need to be quiet, miss. Harriet’s in here and she’s a bit jumpy.”

  “Harriet?” I mused. “Does she work on the farm as well then?” I remembered Xander mentioning something about Harriet being pregnant. It seemed weird that a pregnant woman would be allowed to work with livestock, especially if she was so close to dropping the sprog.

  “Well, I guess you could say that. She’s meant to be anyway. She’s the master’s latest hare-brained plan.” Gerald sighed. It seemed like a very rude way to reference the master’s wife.

  “Are they only recently married then?”

  “Married?” Gerald looked over his shoulder at me as we walked into the darkened, cool interior of the barn. “Mr. Patrick is devoted to Harriet but they’re not married, good Lord no.” He laughed.

  Well, that put me in my place. I supposed a man in this day and age didn’t need to be married to a woman to be having a kid with her.

  “But surely a heavily pregnant woman shouldn’t be out here in a barn. Not unless she’s giving birth to some kind of messiah anyway.” I laughed at my poor joke, but Gerald just looked confused.

  “Woman? What woman? Harriet is a Castlemilk Moorit.”

  “What’s that? Sounds rude to me.”

  “A sheep, Miss Grace. Harriet is a sheep.”

  Looking over the metal barrier, sure enough there was a sheep. Shaggy fleeced and horned. Harriet didn’t look too impressed at all.

  “Oh, I see.”

  “Why, what did you think she was?”

  “Mr. Patrick’s wife.”

  Gerald’s shoulders shook, his mouth curled up into a bow, and he bent forward to slap his knee. All without making a sound. When the laugh came it began with a concerning wheeze and ended in a whooping cough. No wonder Gerald didn’t look like he laughed much—it sounded like if he did too much of it it’d kill him.

  “No, the master’s single. Not had a woman here since his mother passed this six months since, and there weren’t many before that to be truthful.”

  “I got the wrong end of the stick then.”

  “Aye, you did, miss. This is Harriet, she’s expected to birth any day now, hence Mr. Patrick’s anxious demeanor. He paid a pretty penny for her. She’s a rare breed and he wants to make a flock. Sell the fleeces to make cash. To use ’em as a draw. He wants to have loads of different rare breeds in the end, but at the moment it’s just Harriet here.”

  “She seems like a very lovely animal,” I responded. Sheep weren’t a specialism of mine, even though I’d done a couple of years at veterinary college before I’d followed my heart into journalism. Harriet did look healthy to me even if I didn’t know the specifics of her breed. She made a snuffling, lowing sound, so Harriet appreciated my complimentary words.

  “Aye, I suppose she is. Complete folly like, but that ain’t her fault.”

  “Seems like a sound business plan to me. People are all about the rare breeds and local sourcing these days.” I wasn’t sure I liked Gerald’s moaning tone. Anything new seemed to be dismissed by him, like he wanted to live in the past.

  “Just what I keep telling him, Miss Grace, but Gerald is stuck in his ways.”

  I jumped and looked round. Xander Patrick’s frame filled the doorway.

  Gerald didn’t even have the good grace to look flustered.

  “She’s not looking any closer to birthing, Mr. Patrick. Do you think we need to get the vet up?”

  Xander pulled air between his teeth and rolled up his short sleeves.

  “I don’t know, Gerald, but I’m inclined to let nature take its course a bit longer. She’s not in any distress.” He kicked himself over the barrier with little effort then moved across the straw toward the expectant mother, who seemed not to be at all worried about the invasion of her space.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” he murmured lovingly. “How are you doing?”

  Xander had been quite cold and aloof when we’d first met. I saw a completely new side to him as he tenderly stroked the fleece of his pride and joy.

  “She’s a beautiful animal,” I commented. The atmosphere felt a little heavy, like I’d walked in on an intimate moment that I wasn’t part of.

  “She’s an absolute peach. There’s only a few flocks of the Castlemilks in the world, you know. Harriet is one of the rarest sheep in the UK at the moment.”

  “Wow, really?” I hadn’t realized how valuable she was. After all, she was a sheep—those I’d had dealings with had never been worth a particularly large amount of money.

  “Yep. When I was looking into a sheep to buy I thought I might as well start with the rarest.” Xander’s face lit up, like he was talking about a child. “She’s going to be the savior of this place.”

  Gerald coughed heavily, and considering I’d not heard him cough before I was certain it was a tactical sound, not an actual malaise.

  “Well, her and the shop and the tours. We’re not that badly off.” Xander shrugged, his cheeks reddening.

  I wondered if they’d turn the same shade when he was fucking and blinked a couple of times to get that image out of my head.

  “Well, it’s not news that Mallard Hall has been struggling to survive and I know it’s not easy to bring a stately home back from the brink. I think you’re doing all the right things, though. I’m no expert but I’ve seen my fair share of failing country houses and this one doesn’t feel like it’s failing.”

  Gerald mumbled something, but Xander smiled widely at me.

>   “Thank you, it’s really good to hear a stranger say that. I keep telling myself it’s getting better, but, well, it’s been a struggle.”

  I swear I saw tears in his eyes but he looked back to Harriet, and Gerald intervened. “Right, miss, I think that’s that for the tour. We’ll be getting together for dinner at seven, will you join us?”

  “Sure.” I nodded and followed him out of the barn. “Bye,” I shouted back in the general direction of Xander, but he didn’t respond. What a strange man he was.

  Chapter Four

  Xander Patrick

  ‘I’m no expert but I’ve seen my fair share of failing country houses and this one doesn’t feel like it’s failing.’

  I’d felt my eyes welling as I’d thanked India for her words. I’d been working far too hard for such a little thing to set me off. Grief was a weird beast, rearing its head at the strangest moments.

  Mum had striven to bring the hall back from ruin—it seemed so cruel that the cancer had gotten to her before she’d seen the fruits of all her determined attention. Mum was better than the way her life ended. Every ounce of vitality had drained from her. In the last weeks she had been merely a body—all personality and soul had left her already.

  I’d dropped everything to care for her in those end days, that had been tough, but as much of a negative impact it had had on the hall’s recovery, I wouldn’t change that for anything. Mum had been my rock all through my life. My mum was my childhood.

  An only child with a silly stutter and acute shyness, I hadn’t done well with my peers. My mum had been a teacher before she’d met and married my dad so she’d homeschooled me from when I was six years old. Some would say that I missed out on a proper education but my top-level qualifications would tell you otherwise.

  Dad’s death had been a shock, but I couldn’t say I really grieved for him. I had been more concerned about my mum, and all I’d cared about was her happiness and wellbeing.

  Mum hadn’t looked twice at another man from that day on, though many had tried to court her. She had been focused solely on the hall and bringing it back from the brink.