“What’s funny?” he asks with a wide smile and windblown rosy cheeks.
I give a tiny shake of my head. Nothing except he reminds me of an overgrown puppy. In a totally good way.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it last night,” I offer again as my conscience tweaks. One man offered to take me out, and another got me into bed. Or maybe that should be the other way around? Either way, it sounds worse than it is.
“Och, no bother.”
Okay, so he’s not pining for me, which is good, but that wasn’t the most flattering of responses. As he begins to shift his weight from one foot to the other, it becomes painfully obvious he isn’t going to offer to take me out some other time.
Maybe he does know, comes my immediate thought. Maybe he doesn’t want to tread on his boss’s boots. Not that it matters, I guess. There’s no way I could make him the piggy in the middle of this clusterphuck. I can’t see how Cameron would stand a chance, even if he was interested in me. Which he’s clearly not. Not much, anyway. And I’m not even talking about their stations in life: Cameron, the gardener, versus Alexander Dalforth, the Duke. Or even Cameron the gardener who is the employee of the duke. I’m thinking more about their temperaments because one reminds me of a Labrador and the other a jungle cat. So I guess I can write off using dating Cameron as a decoy or a shield if the need ever arises. Not that I’d considered that as an option up until now.
But that’s a thought, I guess. A thought to explore some other time that isn’t now. And now . . . now I’m considering someone else.
“Did you still go? To the pub, I mean?” Someone has to keep this conversation going, I guess.
“Aye, it was Friday,” he replies in the tone of of course I did. “I went with Moses.” He pushes back his cap and ruffles a hand through his hair.
“Moses?” I repeat, struggling to hold back my smile. “I don’t think I’ve met him. Does he work at the castle?”
“Nah, he’s just one of the guys I went to school with. Before you ask, his family is no’ religious. He just wore sandals to school once, and the name has stuck ever since.”
“That’s kind of brutal,” I reply with a giggle. “Especially for a place where men wear skirts.” My heart lurches a little as an image flashed through my head of Alexander wearing his. And how little he wore under it.
“You know why it’s called a kilt?” Cameron asks, a touch mischievously. “Because that’s what happened to the last person who called it a skirt.”
“What? I don’t get it.”
“They were kilt,” he says with faux menace.
“Oh. Now I get it. No kilt jokes in front of a Scotsman.” Cameron watches me for a beat, and I get the sense he’s considering something. And something might just add to my list of current complications, flattery be damned. “Well, I’d better get to it,” I say brightly, lifting my gaze to a wide blue sky. There’s no rain today, just an abundance of brilliant sky.
“Aye. Me, too, I suppose.” He pulls his old man’s cap down, twisting the brim a little.
“See you around.” I turn with a wave.
“Holly?”
The way he says my name stops me in my tracks, bringing my shoulders up around my ears. What now? I don’t turn fully, looking over my shoulder instead.
“Yeah?”
“Did you say Mari was ill yesterday?”
“Yeah. That’s why I couldn’t go to the pub with you. There are guests at the castle, and Chrissy needed me to pitch in.” Which is mostly the truth, I guess. But the rest? I’m not so sure it was fate.
“That’s weird because she was in the pub last night.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I say with a shrug. Apart from that, Mari has it in for me, I think. “She’s not here this morning, either.”
“Well, she was there last night, looking hale and hearty.”
As hale and hearty as his pink cheeks? Could Mari be the reason he seems no longer interested in me? And if so, what do I care?
About a teaspoon amount, if I’m honest with myself. Maybe even less. I have bigger problems this morning. Sometimes I just want to see what I can get away with is just a little too complex for comfort.
When I reach the kitchen, the atmosphere in there is . . . awkward. It’s almost like everyone had taken a vow of silence. Dougal and his crew are busy preparing lunch, so I guess they have an excuse, but Chrissy and Sophie barely glance up as I reach for the French press.
And yes, I’m a chicken. A chicken who needs coffee to face the kind of conversation I need to have.
“Coffee, anyone?”
“No’ for me, hen,” Chrissy says from her position in front of an ironing board and a pile of table linen. Her response is cordial enough, yet she still doesn’t lift her gaze.
Oh, well.
“What’s on the menu for today?” I ask, lifting a lid from a cauldron-sized pot as I wait for the kettle to boil. Phew, that is stinky.
“That’s just stock,” Dougal mutters, his eyes on one of his crew as he makes tiny quenelles of chocolate ganache. Much more appetising.
“Well, they look yum.” No answer. “Is there another big meal tonight?”
“No,” Chrissy answers. “Just a small supper party for family and friends. You can just relax tonight.”
Welp, I wasn’t offering to help either, I think as I smother a cynical smile. Last night was my limit. “No Mari today?” I ask of no one in particular.
“No, she’s still no’ well,” wee Sophie offers up. “She called in sick this morning, so Lady Isla says.”
Ah. And there is the reason for this awkwardness. Sounds like they’ve all been given a talking to by Isla, is my guess. Don’t sully the name of the duke. Or maybe: be nice to Holland because I need her to look after the kids. Either way, I preferred the atmosphere of yesterday, I decide, as I take my coffee to the kitchen table and begin to flick through my phone.
I’ll finish my coffee, and then I’ll be on my way.
On the way to face the duke.
“Hey, Griffin!” I call out, spotting him across the lawn. I know Alexander isn’t likely to be out here, but I think I already mentioned I’m a total chicken shit.
Why do now what you can put off for a little longer, right?
“Do you have a sec?” I add as he lifts his head in acknowledgement.
Crossing the verdant cushion that Cameron and his crew seem to spend so much time tending, Griffin steps up onto the ornamental bridge, the soles of his shoes clipping against the stone.
“For you, I have all the sex,” he kind of answers, coming to stop in front of me.
“You mean lots of seconds. As in time?” Because that sounded a little wrong.
“Yes. I have lots of time for you, Holly. Lots of time to sex you.”
“Ha, funny.”
“Only if you want it to be.” Folding his arms, he presses his butt up against the side of the bridge.
“What?”
“I’m more a fan of the intense kind of sex, myself.”
“Oh, I am kind of regretting calling you over here.”