Page 7 of A Recipe for Love
‘How is this thing still going?’ Adam asked.
‘Perfectly good car this. Plenty of life left in her. Jump in.’
Bella stepped forward.
‘Not that door!’ Flinty shrieked. ‘That one does nay open. Well it does open, but then it does nay close again and you’ll have to hang on to it all the way back.’
‘Right.’ Bella followed Adam round to the passenger side, where the open door let out a waft of eau de wet dog. Adam slid across the dog-hair-covered back seat, before she climbed in next to him. He reached for her hand. A wave of nausea grabbed her. He’d given her the chance to walk away and she’d chosen to stay on the ride. It was like the ghost house at the fair when she was a kid. About a third of the way through there was a route you could take if it was too scary and you didn’t want to go on. She’d never taken that turning then. Why start now?
She pushed the unease back down. They’d go to Adam’s family home for a couple of weeks, and then, once the funeral was over, they’d be back to the life they’d talked about. This wasn’t an unending path into the unknown. It was merely a temporary diversion. She pulled his hand to her lips and kissed the back of it. ‘Everything’s going to be OK,’ she said.
Despite Flinty’s instructions to try to sleep, Bella didn’t manage to do any more than doze during the first part of the journey. At first Adam kept up a smattering of small talk with the driver and with his fiancée, but as one hour on the road turned to two, and then to three, he became quieter and quieter until, by hour four, he was staring silently out into the night, apparently lost in his own thoughts.
Bella tried to nap, but the roads were narrowing and the turns getting sharper and the old rusty Land Rover jolted and shook them over every bump. Every time she thought they must be getting close to their destination, simply because it absolutely couldn’t be possible for the lanes to get smaller or more remote, she was wrong. ‘Are we nearly there yet?’
‘Getting closer. Another hour and a half at this time of night. Quicker in the daylight when you can see where you’re going,’ Flinty added cheerfully.
Bella chose not to dwell on her driver not being able to see where they were going, but her fingers gripped a little tighter to the seat beneath her. Eventually the car pulled to a halt. ‘I’d assumed you’d be in your room, but…’ Flinty glanced at Bella. ‘There’s a room made up in the coach house if that would be more comfortable for…’
Whatever the end of that sentence was going to be, Adam cut it off. ‘We’ll both be fine in the coach house.’
Bella surveyed the dark grey building in front of them. The dark night obscured much of her view but she could see that the wall was high and the windows small. It put her more in mind of a Victorian prison than an idyllic Scottish retreat.
Flinty hauled their bags out of the car. ‘Sorry. I didn’t have time to make up your room. And I didn’t know if you’d want to be in there or in… well in the laird’s room. Although I’m sure your grandmother will have something to say.’
Bella let the chatter wash over her. So long as there was a bed and she could get to it soon, she really didn’t care.
‘And there’s only one room made up.’ Flinty glanced at Bella.
‘One room will be fine.’
‘I’m not sure your grandmother…’
‘One room will be fine,’ Adam repeated.
‘Well, I’ll leave you to it.’ She stepped forward and squeezed Adam suddenly on the shoulder. ‘I know this isn’t what you expected, but you’re going to do all right, lad.’ She stepped back. ‘I’ll be up in the morning to do breakfast.’
Adam shook his head. ‘You don’t have to.’
‘I will though. So no point arguing about it lad. Sir.’
‘Lad’s fine.’
‘We’ll see about that.’
Bella staggered up the stairs behind Adam and into the room that Flinty had prepared for them. Well for him, but still. It was cold and a little unloved but it had a bed and a wardrobe and a small chest of drawers. She sat down on a rather tatty old velvet-covered chair, which sagged beneath her weight. ‘This has seen better days,’ she joked.
Adam glanced up. ‘Yeah. Should have looked after that better. It’d be worth a lot more.’
Bella shook her head. She’d seen her nan haggle chairs in much better state than this down to a tenner for a set of four at the car boot. ‘Cos it’s like a Chippendale or something clearly.’
‘No.’ Adam strolled over and ran his hand over the arm of the chair. ‘My granddad reckoned this was by his son. Chippendale the younger.’ He shrugged. ‘Worth way less than the real deal.’
‘You’re joking?’
Adam frowned. ‘I doubt we’ve got proper provenance for it anyway.’
Bella lifted herself very carefully from the seat. ‘I’m really taking my socks off in an actual Chippendale.’
