‘I commend your charity, but I don’t see what that’s got to do with me.’
‘Because that’s your accent, Mr Strachan. Under that practised rural brogue, you have the vowel sounds and intonation of someone from the high-rises of the Mountkelly Estate, or very bloody close indeed.’
‘Fuck.’ Half a mile. This woman that I’d known for barely two hours had placed me half a mile from my inglorious slum of a birthplace and in doing so stripped away the fragile veneer that made me who I was now. My first response was self-protection. ‘Don’t say anything, please? To Blaine, I mean. This… what you’ve just told me. It’s a little sensitive, if you get me.’
‘Like I said. I’m not I’m not in the business of destroying people.’
Lilith
It was the things I hadn’t shared with him that disturbed me most. The way he smoked a cigarette palmed into his hand like it was the last one for a week, or how he positioned himself so that he could see whoever came into the room, or how the product that was Blaine Albermarle scared him shitless no matter how hard he tried to hide it.
For once, I wanted to switch off my gift. Standing on the moonlit patio with this hauntingly beautiful man, I suddenly felt unbearably sad.
The skittering of claws on pavement broke the moment. A small, elderly lurcher came trotting out of the bushes and put her paws on Finn’s knees, wagging her brindle tail in delight.
‘You’ll get me killed, bloody dog,’ he softly chided, and bent to stroke her head. ‘How the hell did you get out this time, huh?’
‘Your dog?’
‘Kind of. A stray. Mainland guests left her behind about two years ago.’ He gave a sad smile. ‘Too old and too ugly, weren’t you, Bran?’
‘Clever name. Bran – the noble hound of the great Finn Mac Cumhail himself.’
‘Shite!’ Finn grinned up at me at the mention of Ireland’s mythical warrior and this time it was his real smile, glorious and open. ‘No-one around here knows that! How the fuck d’you know about Finn Mac Cumhail?’
‘The estate project I mentioned? The mural was based on the great Irish legends, and I’m a bitch for research. I’ve got one of those horrendous personalities that needs to know every detail about whatever I’m working on.’ I didn’t add that my current commission was the misjudged first exception to this rule.
The smile faded as quickly as it had arrived. ‘Well good luck on this one,’ Finn said, just as Blaine returned to the dining room and called us in for a nightcap.
Chapter Seven
Lilith
My first morning at Albermarle Hall found me imposing my usual routine on my new surroundings, and by six o’clock I had worked out that three circuits of the island made for one mile of challenging running. The English morning air hit me like a bucket of iced water, and it took all my concentration to steady my breathing as I adjusted to my new surroundings and picked my way over the rocky, unforgiving terrain.
I was completing my tenth lap when Henry appeared on a grassy rise above the shore. ‘You weren’t kidding when you said you were an early bird, were you?’ he called. He wore a blue and white striped apron over his neatly pressed trousers and shirt and looked every inch the butler. ‘Shall I serve breakfast in twenty minutes?’
‘Sure. Nothing too heavy, thanks. Just cooling down now.’
Water the colour of tea soaked into my trainers as I walked along an expanse of gravel by the lakeside for my final circuit. In daylight the Hall looked even more like a citadel, perched imperious and threatening on its craggy islet, and it appeared that apart from the little jetty that had been constructed recently, there was no easy place to land. With a shiver that I hoped was more to do with the chill of the morning, I realised it would also be one hell of a place to try to leave.
*****
By seven I was washed and changed into my working uniform of tracksuit bottoms and paint-spattered t-shirt and sitting alone in the palatial dining room, toying with the remains of a bowl of muesli. The silence was deafening.
Henry reappeared to refill my green tea. ‘Is everything to your liking?’
I considered the polite response, then went for the truth. ‘No, not really. I feel like I’m rattling around in here and I’ve got a severe case of MP3 withdrawal. I don’t suppose there’s anywhere a little less imposing to eat, is there?’
Henry bit his bottom lip. ‘Um, Lady Albermarle usually insists that guests are served here. It’s part of the service we provide -’