The House (Armstrong House Series Book 1)

by A. O'Connor

  She stood up, lit up a cigarette and started walking around.

  “Yes, we are going to relocate there. So it’s going to be a home for us. Tony likes his parties and to entertain, so it will have to be a show place as well. That house, I believe, used to have a reputation of being one of the best houses in the country for balls and parties.”

  “That’s right.”

  “We want it to have that reputation again. I want it to regain its reputation for glamour and beauty.”

  As he looked at her he thought that if anyone could do it, she could.

  “I’ve a clear idea of how I wish the house to be. I want it restored as much as possible to the original interiors that were there.”

  He nodded approvingly.

  “With, of course, a modern feel. Tony hates antiques – he says you never know who’s had them before you!” She gave a light laugh. “So we’ll have very chic modern furniture but with the walls, ceiling, features to be as close to the original as possible.”

  “I see. I can’t find any good records in libraries of what the inside of the house was like, only the outside. And of course it was so long ago nobody who lived then is around to tell us . . . There may be something in the artwork stored in the ballroom. I can take a look and see.”

  “Yes, if you could.”

  The front door opened and they could hear two men talking loudly and jovially.

  “Here’s Tony now,” said Kate.

  Nico began to tidy away the drawings as Tony came in with another man who Nico immediately recognised from the press as Steve Shaw, the head of Eiremerica Bank.

  “Hello there, again,” said Tony as he shook Nico’s hand before going over and kissing Kate.

  “Nico was going through the plans with me,” explained Kate.

  “Very good. Are you joining us for dinner, Nico?” asked Tony.

  “No, he was just leaving,” Kate said.

  “Nonsense, I’m making meatballs – you’ll love them!” said Tony.

  “No, I really should be going,” said Nico.

  “I insist,” smiled Tony.

  Nico realised when Tony Fallon insisted, it wasn’t wise to resist, even if his wife looked displeased that Nico had overstayed his welcome.

  It was all very informal. They were ushered into a giant kitchen and all had to sit around an island while Tony cooked. As if being in the company of the head of Eiremerica Bank wasn’t enough, they were soon joined by several other guests who were captains of industry or well-known faces from the entertainment industry. Nico felt out of his depth, and nobody seemed that much interested in him anyway, as they fawned over Tony and Kate.

  “When you’re redesigning that house we’ve just bought make sure you renovate that kitchen into a super-duper one for me, Nico,” said Tony as he served meatballs on to everyone’s plates.

  “Tony does all the cooking in our home,” Kate said. “He says the kitchen is the main room in any house and he practically lives here.”

  “I’ve done some of my best business deals over my kitchen table,” said Tony as he continued to serve.

  “Yes, we plan to do a total overhaul of the semi-basement,” said Nico. “The kitchen was designed as a working room for cooks and kitchen maids – on strictly utilitarian principles.”

  “What house is this?” asked Steve, suddenly alert, looking at Nico as if he had seen him for the first time.

  “We’ve bought an old country pile and Nico is rebuilding it for us,” said Kate.

  “How very exciting,” said a woman called Melanie who Nico recognised as a television presenter. “I hear that’s all the rage. I know one friend who is a developer who bought an old manor and got an underground car park put in and a car elevator, so his wife can bring the car up into the kitchen to unpack the groceries!”

  “Well, I’m afraid Nico has banned us from installing anything vulgar, haven’t you, Nico?” Kate looked at him teasingly.

  “Where’s the house and who did you buy it off?” questioned Steve.

  “Typical banker – you only stopped short from asking how much we paid for it,” Kate mocked him, causing Steve to look embarrassed.

  “The house is down the country, and we actually bought it from this man here,” said Tony, placing his two hands firmly on Nico’s shoulders.

  Everyone looked at Nico.

  “And how did you come to own the house?” questioned Melanie curiously, studying Nico.

  “It’s been in my family for generations,” said Nico, made uncomfortable by all the sudden attention.

  “It’s in a terrible state though. It hasn’t been lived in for –” Tony stopped and looked at Nico. “Well, when was it last lived in?”

  “Not for nearly ninety years. The last person who lived there was my grandfather, Pierce Armstrong,” said Nico.

  “That was Lord Pierce Armstrong, wasn’t it?” asked Kate.

  He looked at her, surprised. “You certainly have done your homework, haven’t you?”

  “I always do when I’m buying something.” She held his look.

  “Lord Armstrong? That sounds intriguing – are you a lord, Nico?” questioned Melanie, getting excited.

  “I’m afraid not – the title went one way and the money the other. There’s some distant cousin in England who got the title – my mother had no brothers, you see, to inherit it. All I got was the draughty, dilapidated house – and I don’t even own that any more!”

  “What a shame!” Melanie immediately lost interest in him again.

  “So – you will soon all be having weekends with us at our country estate,” said Tony, bemused at the thought as he sat down to join them to eat.

  Later, everyone had gone and Kate was stacking the dishwasher in the kitchen.

  “I wish you hadn’t asked Nico to join us tonight,” she said.

  “Why? He’s seems a nice enough fella,” said Tony.

  “I just don’t want to blur the lines with him. We employ him to do a job for us. I don’t want him thinking he’s our friend.”

  “Ah, will you come on! Most of those people there tonight depend on us for their living in one way or another.”

  “He’s just a bit pompous sometimes.”

  “Is he? Hadn’t noticed. In what way?”

  “I just think he looks down on us a little,” she said.

  “What?” Tony was incredulous. “Why would a tuppenny-ha’penny architect look down on us?”

  Kate closed up the dishwasher. “Oh, for reasons you’ll never understand.”

  Kate looked at Tony’s puzzled and confused face. Going over to him, she put her arms around him and smiled. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. Who cares what Nicholas Armstrong-Collins thinks anyway?”

  You seemingly, thought Tony.

  92

  As the months went by, planning permission was granted and work began on the house. Nico was busy overseeing the work and made the trip down regularly from Dublin. He was busy in his own life as well as the divorce became final. They had paid off the mortgage on his former home with Susan and he’d bought a house for himself in Ranelagh. By the time they had paid off the Armstrong debts and legal fees, there was only loose change left.

  “At least you’re not saddled with any debt any more,” Susan had pointed out. “You’re free now.” She had looked at him wryly. “Free to concentrate on your work – without any distractions.”

  He didn’t mind being away from Dublin for a while after the long-drawn-out divorce. So he spent a lot of time at Hunter’s Farm. The beauty of being an architect was he didn’t always need to be in the office and could work from the farm, which also allowed him to be near Armstrong House to supervise the work there. The drawback to the whole situation was the constant interfering presence of Kate Fallon. He quickly discovered she was a hard taskmaster who wanted to be involved in every aspect along the way.

  “With the money she’s paying, even with that stupid twenty-per-cent discount you threw at her, if she wants you dancing
to Swan Lake around that house down there, then you do it!” insisted Darrell when Nico complained of her interference. It was easy for Darrell to say that, he wasn’t the one who had to put up with her, thought Nico.

  He was in the house inspecting the work as the team of builders were busy renovating around him. The house was beginning to take shape. The rooms that had been destroyed by fire had been rebuilt and plastered, the roof had been replaced. Even the stairs were being lovingly restored.

  “Oh, here’s trouble.” said one of the electricians as the familiar red Ferrari roared up to the front.

  “Not again!” Nico said out loud. “She must be keeping Ashford Castle going with the amount of business she’s giving them staying there.”

  A minute later, Kate came striding in, momentarily examining the new front door which she had sourced in Italy.

  “You know, you really should not be in here without a hard hat and protective clothing,” Nico said as she walked over to him in high heels and a business suit. She gave him a withering look and ignored him.

  “I could get into trouble with you swanning around here like that,” he continued.

  “Your problem, Nico, is you worry too much about things that will never happen.” She continued with her inspection.

  He seethed as he followed her through the rooms while she examined the work.

  “You’re way behind schedule,” she pointed out.

  “No, we would be on target,” he said evenly. “But you’ll find we are simply working to a new schedule caused by your own interruptions.”

  She swung around to face him. “I hope you remember there’s a clause in our contract saying that you have to compensate us, if you go a certain time past the schedule.”

  “I think you’ll find that does not stand because you caused the delays.”

  She turned and kept on walking briskly. “I think you’ll find it does.”

  She somehow enjoyed winding him up. It was so easily done. Seeing he was getting more annoyed, she pushed a little further. “Why not get it checked out by a lawyer . . . if you can still afford one after that divorce you had.”

  He became incensed. “Excuse me, do you think that’s an appropriate thing to say?”

  “Is it not? Why not have it checked out by the lawyer while you’re checking the contract.” She stopped and ran a hand over a plastered wall. “Look at this, Nico – this is a bad job.”

  He ran a hand over it. “Actually – no, it isn’t.” He looked dismissively at her. “What would you know about plastering, to be fair?”

  His attitude angered her. “I think I’ve been involved in enough construction of shopping centres to know a bad plastering job when I see one,” she said.

  “Who’s the architect around here?” he demanded.

  She made a sarcastic face and raised her hands. “Oh, I’m sorry, is there an architect around here? I didn’t realise there was!”

  “You know something?” He took off his hard hat and flung it on the ground in front of her. “You’re so fucking clever? You finish the building of your damned house yourself!”

  He turned and stormed off, causing all the builders to cheer loudly.

  Kate turned around to the men and said, “What an exit! I thought I was supposed to be the Diva around here!”

  The builders clapped and cheered even louder.

  “Excuse me, Mrs Fallon, we’ve found something – could you come and take a look?” asked the foreman.

  “Certainly,” she said and she followed him upstairs to one of the bedrooms where they were removing the old floorboards. She peered into the crevice where there were stacks of old letters, some in bags.

  “Get them out,” she said.

  He pulled the bags out and brushed the dust off them. Kate took out a couple of the bundles. She saw they were addressed to Lady Clara Armstrong, Armstrong House.

  “Do you want me to place them in the ballroom with all the other crap?” asked the builder.

  As an actress she loved reading through scripts and old books, and she would love to delve through these letters to an actual person who lived in the house.

  “No, it’s fine, I’ll take these with me, thanks,” she said, putting the bundles of letters back in the bags. She picked them up and headed back to her car.

  Nico parked outside Hunter’s Farm, marched up to the front door and let himself in. He strode down the corridor and into the sitting room where he poured himself a drink.

  “Damned woman!” he said out loud.

  His mobile rang and he saw it was Darrell.

  “Yes?” he snapped.

  “Oh – you sound in a bad mood.”

  “I am. I’ve just walked off the Fallon job.”

  “Ah, Nicholas!” Darrell was irate. “What’s the problem this time?”

  “The same as the last time – Kate Fallon! She’s impossible to work with. She’s parading around all the time giving orders, undermining me, no respect. She prances around that building site as if it’s a movie set, in glitzy frocks, delivering witty one-liners – usually at my expense!”

  Darrell chuckled. “You’ll kiss and make up tomorrow. You always do.”

  “Not this time. I’m not going back. I’m way behind with all my other work because of her demands. I’m staying down here a couple of weeks to try and catch up, which means I won’t have Alex this weekend.” He walked over to the leather-top desk and turned on his computer.

  “Right – I’ll talk to you later,” Darrell said, deciding to finish the conversation rather than to listen to any more of Nico’s moans.

  Nico poured himself another drink and rested against a sideboard while he drank it. He looked at the framed photo of his ex-wife Susan smiling from a silver frame on the sideboard.

  “And you can piss off too!” he said, grabbing the photo and turning it face down.

  Kate carefully laid the stacks of old letters on the glass table in their house in Dublin. Most of them seemed to be letters to Clara. But what intrigued her was a group of letters addressed to Lord Pierce Armstrong at a military headquarters in France. But these letters were unopened.

  She turned on her laptop and started to do an internet search through hereditary peers of Britain and Ireland.

  The front door slammed and Tony came bounding in.

  “Hi, love.” He bent down and kissed her. “What are they?” he said with a note of disgust, pointing down at the old letters.

  “We found them today hidden under floorboards in the house. They are letters to Lady Clara Armstrong mostly dated 1915 and 1916 – isn’t that exciting?”

  He peered down at them. “Hmmm – and who was Clara Armstrong when she was at home?”

  “I’m just checking on a hereditary peer site. Here she is – she married Lord Pierce Armstrong, who was Nico’s grandfather, in 1914 – that’s all it says about her. She must be Nico’s grandmother.”

  “Does he know you have them?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t you think you should give them to him, in that case?”

  “Perhaps. I want to take a look through them first.”

  “But why would you want to?” He stared at the letters in puzzlement.

  “I want to know about the people who lived in our house before us, that’s why.”

  “I see!” He raised his eyes upwards. “Always the actress – researching for your new role as mistress of the house?”

  “Besides, Nico walked out on the job today.”

  “Oh no – why?”

  “He can’t take direction.”

  “And you can’t take a back seat!” he accused her.

  “Don’t worry – he’ll be back in a couple of days – with another twenty-per-cent discount no doubt!”

  He bent down and kissed her approvingly. “I trained you well! I’d better quickly change into my tuxedo. We’re running late for tonight’s charity ball. Why aren’t you changed yet?”

  “Oh Tony, I’ve got a terrible headache. I think I m
ight have to miss it,” she pleaded.

  “But they’ll all be expecting you!”

  “I know! I’m sorry!”

  He looked at her with the letters spread around her. “You just want to spend the night reading through those silly letters, don’t you?”

  “Do you mind?” She looked guilty.

  “I guess not,” he sighed, smiling. “I’ll see you later.”

  93

  Kate was lying out on their bed reading a magazine. Tony came out of the bathroom and joined her. Her mobile started ringing and she answered it.

  “Mrs Fallon, it’s Jeff Maguire here, foreman at the building of your house here.”

  “Oh yes, Mr Maguire, how is everything?”

  “You tell me, Mrs Fallon! Nico Collins hasn’t turned up for the past three days and we’ve gone as far as we can go without Mr Collins signing off on the work.”