Page 24 of Meet Me Under the Mistletoe
Isaac pulled up at the back of the castle, beside a far less impressive door than the one she had entered upon her arrival. Here, a little porch light offered friendly sanctuary and lit a courtyard filled with old whiskey barrels, troughs filled with plants, and various brooms and other outside work tools leaned up against a wall, as though just left while the owner took a tea break. Isaac pulled out his phone and speed-dialed a number. Nory could hear a jovial voice on the other end of the line.
“How did you know I wouldn’t be asleep?” came the voice.
“Because I know you. Who’s winning?”
The voice laughed—a hoarse sound that suggested many cigarettes smoked and much alcohol consumed over countless years.
“I am, of course!”
“Well, put your chips down for a minute and come and open the back door. I’ve got a guest here who would appreciate being taken to her room via the back stairs.”
“Be there in two,” said the voice, and the line went dead.
The door opened a moment later, and a stocky man in braces and an undone tie strode out to the car.
“It was nice to meet you again, Elinor,” said Isaac. “I think I like you better when you’re not pelting me with mud.”
Nory laughed. “Nory. Call me Nory. It was nice to meet you again too. Thanks for the cocoa and the clothes. I’ll get them back to you tomorrow. And for the record, you started it.”
Isaac smiled.
Nory climbed down out of the car, clutching her evening clothes in a carrier bag.
“Isaac,” said the man, nodding. “Madam,” he added, tipping an invisible hat toward Nory.
“Cheers, Andy, I owe you,” said Isaac.
“I’m keeping score,” Andy replied, and winked.
“Goodbye, Nory,” said Isaac.
Nory waved at Isaac, smiling, then turned to follow Andy into the castle. She heard the gravel crunch as Isaac drove away.
Andy led Nory through a maze of narrow corridors; it wasn’t exactly “upstairs downstairs” territory, but this area away from the guests definitely had a no-frills, business vibe about it. There were memos and timetables stuck to the walls with sticky tape, and the lights in the ceiling were the buzzy fluorescent tube variety—a far cry from the chandeliers dripping crystals in the public areas. They passed an enormous kitchen, a sea of stainless-steel humming appliances, and then a laundry room. The latter reminded Nory of the bag she was holding.
“Um, Andy, is there any chance I can have some washing powder?” She held up the bag in explanation. “I had a run-in with some manure.”
“I can leave it here with a note for the morning staff if you like. They can do it for you.”
“I’d rather not. It’s not a nice job. I can wash it out in the sink.”
She was pretty sure the dress was a lost cause anyway, but she needed the bra. Andy nodded and ducked into the laundry room, returning a moment later with a paper cup full of washing powder. Nory thanked him, and they continued on their way. Andy chitchatted without managing to say anything much at all, the polite nothingness that staff used with guests to fill the otherwise quiet air.
At last, they reached her door, having managed to avoid allher friends—though she could hear Jenna shrieking with laughter from somewhere on the floor below. Nory thanked Andy and closed her door, grateful to be in her own company.
While she rinsed out her bra and hung it over the towel radiator to dry, she thought about Isaac. He often used to call for her brother. Sometimes he’d even come upstairs to Thom’s bedroom to listen to music and do whatever teenage boys did when they were together. She’d peek at him through the crack in her bedroom door as he climbed the stairs and watch from her window as they left for the park, swaggering in that way cocky lads do. Isaac had been out of her league, of course. Even aside from the verbal and actual mudslinging between Isaac and her friends from the posh school, there was the age difference.Andhe was also her big brother’s mate—so notcool to have the nerdy baby sister simpering after you.
Nory climbed into the gloriously squishy four-poster bed and allowed herself to revel momentarily in living as the other half did. She wondered about the people who had slept in this room when the castle was a family home, before it became a wedding venue and a playhouse for the wealthy.
Her mind drifted back to Isaac, growing up here in the castle grounds, and then drawn back here again as an adult.Does anyone ever truly leave the place where they grew up?she wondered. Even if you never physically returned, a part of the place would always travel with you surely. Like an imprint, a tattoo on your psyche. At least that’s how Nory felt about the village of Hartmead.
She felt comfortably displaced, like a ghost still walking the halls of its old home. She hadn’t expected it to churn up so manyemotions, feelings she thought she’d left behind her, that sense that she’d only ever half-belonged in either of the places she called home. She could feel herself reshaping to fit into an old skin. She sighed, openedGood Omensby Neil Gaiman at her bookmark, and read until she fell asleep with the book open on her chest.
Nine
When Isaac’s RangeRover pulled into the courtyard behind the castle the next morning, the rest of the house party had already headed off to a morning of archery. The sky was the color of lentil soup, heavy and brooding with either rain or snow. It wasn’t common to have snow so early in winter—though it did sometimes happen this high up—but the weather forecasters had been warning of an extreme cold front closing in from the east. Nory—who had been sheltering from the cold wind in the porchway of the staff entrance—crossed to the car and climbed in, shivering as she pulled the door shut behind her.
“Good morning,” Isaac said.
