‘Sit down, Tristan,’ His great-aunt Morgana peered at him from over the top of the porcelain teacup which looked as pale and delicate as the hand holding it. ‘You’re making the place look untidy.’
Though age had shrunken her somewhat from the formidable figure she had cut during his childhood, nothing had dimmed the strength of her character and the old admonishment was enough to still his pacing. With worry gnawing at him, he resorted to staring out of the sitting room window once more. He’d never felt a sense of responsibility towards another person before, well not more than the usual consideration for his family. From the moment Jess had called him that morning to say not only would she be taking the job, but she and the boys were loaded up and ready to hit the road immediately, he’d been weighed down with the knowledge that he’d put himself firmly in the middle of her very delicate domestic situation. The urgency of their impending arrival hadn’t given him much time for introspection during the day as it’d been all hands to the pump to get suitable accommodation sorted out, but now there was nothing he could do but wait – and worry.
It wasn’t just Jess he would need to look out for. As he and Arthur had cleared out old boxes and rearranged furniture whilst Maxwell and Mrs W cleaned and Lucie had cut fresh flowers from the orangery and even managed to find a few old toys to brighten up the old nursery, it had struck Tristan that he needed to offer a place of security to two very vulnerable little boys. The doubts niggling at him now were not about his family, they’d taken the news that their new events planner came with some very special baggage with their usual open-hearted acceptance. It was himself he was bothered about. And more especially his motivation for offering Jess the job. Yes, he needed help, and yes, she was the perfect person to do it, but sitting beside her in the pub had reminded him of how much he’d missed being around her and he’d not been ready to say goodbye. Stupid, really, but as long as he kept any foolish yearnings for what might have been firmly to himself, there was no reason they couldn’t work successfully side by side as they had these past few years.
His gloomy mood matched the weather beyond the glass. The heavy rain showed no signs of letting up and had now been joined by a thin mist rolling in from the dales. He could barely make out the dark shadow of the protective curtain wall which separated their land from the single road snaking up through the village. A dim light flashed giving rise to his hopes that this might be them at last, but the headlights vanished an instant later, the vehicle passing rather than turning into the heavy iron gates he’d left open. ‘They should’ve been here by now.’
‘They’ll get here when they get here,’ his brother’s relaxed voice from somewhere behind the paper he was reading was enough to make Tristan want to punch him in the nose. ‘I’m sure Jess is just being sensible and taking her time.’
Their great-aunt harrumphed. ‘Phoning out of the blue to say one is setting off without so much as a day’s notice to one’s hosts doesn’t strike me as the actions of a sensible woman.’
‘It wasn’t out of the blue. I offered Jess the job knowing her circumstances, and that we’d have to move quickly if she accepted it. She was willing to book herself into a hotel for a few days, but what’s the point in wasting money unnecessarily?’ Hearing the defensiveness in his tone, Tristan attempted to moderate it as he continued. ‘I’ll try to minimise any disruption, Aunt Morgana, I promise.’
She gave him a look blistering enough to peel the lacquer from the wood panelling at his back but said no more on the subject.
‘I’m sure Arthur’s right and there’s nothing to worry about.’ Lucie offered him a reassuring smile. ‘Come and have a cup of tea.’
Abandoning his watch with one last glance out the window, Tristan slouched over to drop himself onto the floral sofa next to his sister-in-law. They’d complied with his request to take afternoon tea in this rarely used front parlour rather than their usual cosy family room just off the great hall so they would know the instant Jess and the children arrived. It would be churlish of him to refuse a cup of tea when he could have left them in peace and skulked around here on his own.
‘Maybe the weather got too bad and she decided to stop for a while?’ Lucie suggested after handing him a plate of sandwiches to go with his tea. ‘I wouldn’t fancy driving in this on my own, never mind with two little ones on board.’
‘Yes, you’re probably right.’ But wouldn’t she have called? Tristan slid his phone from his pocket to check the reception. Thankfully, the booster they’d had installed over the summer at considerable expense was holding up even in these dank conditions. It was early in the year for it to be so gloomy, but the forecasters were promising the rain was a temporary blip and high pressure would be moving in to bring one last taste of summer by the weekend.
Half a cup of tea and two sandwich fingers later, he was up by the window once more. Folding his newspaper, Arthur tossed it onto the footstool beside his armchair and rose. ‘For goodness sake, if you want something to do why don’t you come and take the dogs out with me?’
‘You’re going out in this?’
‘Doggy bladders don’t care what the weather’s like.’ Crossing to his side, Arthur clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Besides, if we’ve worn them out they’re less likely to scare our new arrivals.’ The last was said to his wife with a wink.
‘They can be a bit of a handful if you’re not used to them,’ she said with a rueful grin. ‘Oh, what the heck, I’ll come out with you as well.’
Their arrival in the great hall was greeted by a few enquiring woofs from the dogs who were all cosied up before the fire. As the three of them made their way towards the coat cupboard beside the front door, those woofs rose in volume and were soon joined by the skitter of claws on stone as Nimrod and Bella, their pair of matched greyhounds shortly followed by Tristan’s wheaten terrier, Pippin, came over to see what was going on. When Arthur appeared from the cupboard clad in a Barbour jacket and flat cap, the excitement level in the hall reached fever pitch and Tristan found himself almost toppled over by the milling pack as he raised one foot to wedge it into his wellington boot. Once dressed similarly to his brother, he pulled open one side of the enormous wooden front door and stepped aside expecting a stream of fur to rush past him. Nimrod stuck his nose outside, gave a sniff and promptly sat down on the stone floor. Tristan couldn’t say he blamed the dog, to be honest.
Arthur was having none of it, however, and he marched out the door and down the steps, pausing at the bottom only long enough to toss a couple of tennis balls out across the wide gravel drive. The temptation proved too much and Nimrod shot up and out after the balls, the rest of the dogs following closely on his heels.
Once he was out in it, Tristan decided it wasn’t that bad. The earlier wind had dropped, and if he kept his face ducked down, his cap kept the worst of the rain off. Though the rest of the dogs followed his brother and Lucie as they made towards the path leading through the formal gardens and to the broader open spaces of the parkland beyond, little Pippin kept close to Tristan’s heels, only circling off now and then when one delicious scent or another proved too tempting to ignore.
Happy to let them range ahead, Tristan found himself breaking away from the path and headed towards the open gates at the end of the drive. As he reached them, he ordered Pippin to wait before poking his head past the heavy stone pillar securing the left-hand gate to stare down the hill. Other than a few static lights shining from the houses and cottages lining the lower half of the hill, all was quiet. The oppressive rain laid a strange stillness over everything like a thick wet blanket. ‘What are you doing?’ he muttered to himself. ‘It’s not like staring down the road is going to make them arrive any quicker.’ It still took him a few more moments before he could persuade his feet to move.
Not ready to return to the house, Tristan wandered away from the gates towards his latest obsession. Tugging a torch from his pocket, he shone a thin beam of light through the dirt-encrusted window of the old gatehouse. The saggy old