Page 38 of Highland Games
Brad stared out at Zoe from the front cover. He was classically and conventionally good looking. High cheekbones, long dark lashes, tanned skin with a hint of swarthiness from day old stubble, and thick black hair cut short. He was responsible for kickstarting Zoe’s puberty with a film calledThe Boyfriend Plan, in which he played a small-town bad boy, who pretends to be dating a pastor’s daughter to help keep him out of a juvenile correction facility. The pastor’s daughter agrees to his idea as a form of rebellion against her domineering father, and to gain acceptance from the cool kids at high school. The film was everything you expected: racy enough to earn it a 15 certificate, but with a suitably moral ending, and innocent enough for parents to allow their kids to see it. The film had changed Zoe’s life, and she watched it over and over again, especially the scenes where the heroine locked lips with Brad.
Morag snatched the magazine from Zoe and thumbed through it. ‘You’ll never guess, but he’s Scottish!’ She reached the interview and photoshoot, cracked the spine of the magazine, and laid it down in front of her with a flourish. ‘Get a load of that braw man. I’ve never wanted to be a kilt so bad, I can tell you.’
Zoe’s eyes widened as she took in the image of Brad Bauer, lying back on a four-poster bed, naked except for a length of tartan material. His hair was tousled, a faint sheen of sweat caressed his chest, and he was staring directly out at Zoe. The tagline read ‘My Scottish Dream’. She swallowed.
‘Good grief, Morag, this is, er, um—’
Morag let out a hoot. ‘Aye, it’s pretty racy stuff, I nearly put it on the top shelf.’
Zoe tore her gaze from Brad’s body to skim through the article, quickly getting the gist that he saw himself as the next Braveheart. She turned the page, then the next, then the next; photo after photo of Brad Bauer draped in tartan fabric and little else. If he’d intended to cause a storm then he had succeeded. This was gale force filth. Zoe sat back. If only she could use these on the castle website, they’d have no issues attracting visitors.
There was a faint knocking on the post office door and Morag glanced at her watch. ‘Got to open up, love, you stay out here as long as you like. Fancy another bath?’
‘Could I possibly have a quick shower? That would be amazing.’
‘Of course, love, help yourself, and take the magazine. It’s not good for my health having him around.’
Twenty minutes later, a clean and rosy Zoe left Morag’s with Brad Bauer in her bag. She could continue working on content for the new site offline, and now she felt more presentable she wanted to see Rory. She walked quickly up the road towards the castle, her feet and heart tripping over themselves in their haste to see him. She shook her head. Did she really have it that bad? However, rounding the castle wall and stepping into the courtyard to be greeted by him, she knew it was far worse than she could have possibly imagined.
14
Rory stepped out of a door to a long, low building at the side of the courtyard, brushing sawdust and wood shavings off his clothes and stood in front of her.
He was devastating. It had only been a few hours since she’d seen him, but he appeared even bigger, even stronger than she remembered. A thick shirt and old trousers did nothing to disguise the power of his body. His eyes were pools of endless darkness and blue fire, drawing her to her doom.
He stared at her blankly, as if he had forgotten who she was and was trying to place her, then opened his mouth to speak and coughed.
Zoe could see wood shavings in his hair.He must have sawdust in his throat. Her feet walked her forward before her brain caught up to the fact she was moving. He stepped back but stopped when she reached out, plucked a delicate curl of wood and dropped it to the cobbles.
He bent his head for her and, with trembling fingers, she picked through his hair to remove the rest. The heat from his scalp radiated out through the dark gold waves. She wanted to feel that heat warming through to her bones, filling every part of her. Her need for him was getting so strong, so deep, her hands shook visibly with the desire to grab him and pull his mouth to hers.
He tossed his head like an angry bull and stepped back, striding towards the castle. Zoe followed him, desire, hurt and embarrassment scorching through her. Why was he so cross? She wanted to say something to break the ice, but didn’t know what or how.
He opened a small, unassuming door in the back of the castle and led Zoe along a rabbit warren of stone-flagged corridors. The floor was worn down in the middle by hundreds of years of footsteps. She could see other rooms off the corridors, piled high with dusty boxes, furniture and accumulated junk. These were the rooms the servants used. Functional and utilitarian, no need for comfort or grandeur. The ceilings were low and Rory had to dip his head. He filled the corridor, blocking out the light. Eventually, he rounded a corner and passed through a fire door into the main body of the castle.
The ceilings were at least twice the height of the corridors they had just walked through. From her research, she knew the estate was an earldom and had been in the hands of the MacGinley family for generations. The front of house rooms were built for status; for proclaiming wealth and power. Zoe followed Rory into the great hall and stared up at the portraits lining the walls. They were hung four metres from the ground, hundreds of years of inbreeding and entitlement sneering down on those below them.
She shivered. ‘Why can’t they have been painted smiling? They were the ones with all the money but they look bloody miserable. Typical upper-class nobs. Turning their noses up at everyone and never having to work a day in their lives. They weren’t the peasants hauling wood, herding cattle and shovelling shit.’
Rory’s cheeks flushed and Zoe winced. ‘Oh god, sorry, I didn’t mean to imply you’re a peasant.’
Rory raised an eyebrow, and gave a wry smile. The sun came out in Zoe’s heart. ‘There’s nothing wrong with shovelling shit. It’s very Zen, and it keeps you fit. Anyway, I’d rather be a peasant than one of them.’ He looked at the portraits and continued. ‘They didn’t have to empty their own commodes, but it didn’t mean life was easy. The women were treated like property, married off by their fathers to benefit the estate, and the men were unlikely to live to a ripe old age. They were either killed in battle, executed for choosing the wrong side, or murdered by a younger brother.’
Zoe shrugged. ‘Maybe, but not any more. It’s just their inbuilt sense of superiority that gets me, and how they treat people. Willie worked for the estate his whole life and I don’t think they ever paid him a penny. He was happy as Larry but it wasn’t right. They took advantage of him.’
There was a pause, then Rory spoke. ‘He got the cabin and the land. It’s worth quite a bit. He could have sold it.’
Was he trying to bait her? His face was blank, she couldn’t read him. ‘Leasehold. He got the cabinleaseholdremember? And Willie would never have sold. He didn’t want to live anywhere else. Mum says he was little more than a slave for an entitled bully.’ She shook her head. ‘Sorry. I’m not a fan of the MacGinleys, or hereditary peerage, but it’s not going to stop me doing my job. I promise.’ She walked to one of the tall windows, shaded by blinds. ‘Can I open them?’
Rory nodded. She pulled on the rope: light flooded in. The room was now much less foreboding and she walked around, imagining the potential beyond a few day-trippers. There were spaces on the wall at the far end of the hall. Faint outlines where two paintings had hung.
She gestured to them. ‘What used to hang there?’
Rory’s face was shuttered. ‘A couple of portraits that got water damage. They’re being sent for restoration.’
He walked out of the room. Zoe sighed. His moods were like the Scottish weather: ever changeable. But she did just throw his boss under the bus. She followed him through the castle on a whistle-stop tour from room to room: library, study, billiard room, dining room. On and on through rooms trapped in time. Rooms that hadn’t seen life for years. Dusty and tattered around the edges, smelling of age and neglect.
She made notes and snapped photos as they went.
