Page 61 of A Recipe for Love
‘You should teach people to cook!’
Bella shook her head. ‘I’m not that good.’
‘Bollocks.’ Jill’s cheeks reddened. She flicked her eyes skywards. ‘Sorry. You’re great. You’re a professional chef, right?’
‘Well yeah, but I just learnt from my nan and then on the job. I’m not a chef chef.’
‘I think you’re plenty good enough to teach people who don’t know the handle end of a whisk from…’ Jill frowned. ‘From the other bit.’
Darcy nodded. ‘Oh you should. You could do baking classes, and different cuisines, and…’
Could she? The idea of doing something that put her back in the kitchen appealed and sharing her love of food might be fun. ‘I don’t know. Where would we even do it?’
‘Well there’s the main kitchen at the castle,’ Flinty said. ‘And then the bakery and the scullery. There’s a second oven in the scullery. Bit old but still works perfectly well.’ She frowned. ‘You could probably fit six or eight in the main kitchen for a demo.’
‘I don’t know.’
All of the ladies of the Ladies’ Group joined in the chorus of approval for the cooking lesson plan.
‘We’ll need a name,’ Flinty said.
‘The Lowbridge Cookery School?’ offered Darcy.
‘Lowbridge Loch Cookery School?’ suggested Nina.
‘The loch isn’t even called that,’ Anna pointed out. ‘Not officially.’
‘No, but it’s what everyone actually calls it,’ Nina replied.
Netty held up her pad.The Highland Cookery School!
The Highland Cookery School. It had a ring to it. Bella added the suggestion to her list.
Adam had to knuckle down. That was so often the case. Adam needed to learn to focus. Adam needed to concentrate. Adam needed to stop his attention wandering and get his head into the estate accounts and administration.
He fought to tune in to what his grandmother was saying. He was sure it was the same stuff she’d been saying every day since he got here, but it hadn’t stuck yet and seemed determined not to go in now.
‘Since Covid, you see, we haven’t had the income from visitors, and the number of shooting and fishing licences was dwindling before that anyway. A few of the locals still fish but your father was loath to put the price up too much for them.’
Adam’s father had always preached that the family were the custodians of the land, but the whole community had a right to it. Locals paid peanuts for their fishing rights – barely enough to contribute to the cost of keeping the riverside clean and in good order, which should, Adam reflected, have included maintenance of the bridge.
‘Since John McKenzie took over up the way we don’t get very many shooting parties. Again, there’s only a few of the locals who still shoot. And the younger people don’t so much, do they?’
‘I guess not.’
His grandmother shook her head. ‘So that’s something to think about.’
It certainly was. The thing he was supposed to be thinking about was too huge, though. The whole future of Lowbridge – the house, the estate, the village, the title itself – was suddenly resting in his hands. ‘Right. Is there anything…’ He couldn’t say ‘smaller’ could he? ‘Anything more immediate?’
‘Well there’s the inheritance tax. We can’t deal with that properly until we’ve got the Confirmation, but we ought to start planning for it. Your father had insurance that should cover the lion’s share of the inheritance tax.’
‘Good?’ That was good, right?
‘Well yes, but the lion’s share isn’t the whole amount. We will have a shortfall. I’ve talked to Mr Samson and we don’t have probate yet and that could take an age but we’re probably going to be a hundred thousand or so short.’
‘How much is the lion’s share?’
Veronica stared at him. ‘Well, you’re inheriting the land, the house, and the cottage in the village, plus all the fixtures and fittings and bits and bobs. I don’t know precisely yet, but I would imagine the total bill will be around two million.’
