by Karen Swan
Instead, she pulled the photograph of the brunette out of her jacket pocket and set it down on the worktop, ready to secretly slide back into his bag in the morning when she heard him go into the bathroom. Had he missed it? Noticed it was gone? She climbed back into the bed, shivering from her midnight dash and tucking the duvet in tightly.
He’d said only three words but they had told her enough – that he didn’t hate her, in spite of the way she’d played him. That they were still, just about, friends. She would make it up to him tomorrow she determined, closing her eyes as the firelight flickered on her face, and this time falling straight to sleep.
It was early when she awoke. Earlier than she usually rose. Blearily, she hoisted herself up on her elbows and checked the time on her phone. Not yet six.
She frowned. Why was she awake? She’d been fast asleep, dreaming, she was sure: something about Pip, riding a dragon. A dragon? And it had blue eyes that flashed and—
Pip.
In an instant, she remembered last night, the terrible fuss and cries as her sister had collapsed in the snow, Taigh O’Mahoney carrying her into the Hare, an ambulance being called.
How was Pip? She needed to ring, she thought, looking up and reaching for the landline. She could never get mobile coverage down h—
The bedroom door was ajar.
The sight of it made her go perfectly still. She remembered Ben too – their fight yesterday afternoon, the tentative rapprochement in the middle of the night. ‘Ben?’ she called softly, wanting him to answer but not wanting to wake him either.
Nothing. She felt her heart rate accelerating like a sledge down a hill. She pushed the duvet back and swung her legs onto the floor. She walked over slowly, staring through the crack and seeing the red glow from her alarm clock casting a faint haze in the dim light. The curtains were drawn in there. He was still sleeping.
With a wave of relief, she realized he couldn’t have closed it properly behind him last night, when she’d disturbed him coming back in. Closing her hand around the knob, she shut the door as quietly as she could. She breathed out one long, slow breath: waking early was bad enough, without waking to a scare too.
Wandering over to the sink for a glass of water, she wondered if it was too early to ring her mother to find out how Pip was doing. They’d travelled together in the ambulance so they’d need collecting from the hospital, if Pip was well enough to come home today – unless Willow was going to do it? Perhaps she would be doing it if Mam was going back to the Dower House? That would probably make more sense. She should ring her first then and find ou—
She put her glass down and stared at the counter, not understanding at first why the sight of it made her freeze. There was a scald stain in the wood from where she’d once placed a pan when Bertie’s knock had come at the door unexpectedly. But it wasn’t what was there that was so shocking. It was what wasn’t.
The photograph was missing – and that meant only one thing.
She tore into the bedroom, flinging the door open so hard it bounced against the back wall. The curtains were still drawn but the bed was made and the bathroom was empty: towels folded, pillows plumped . . .
‘No!’ she cried, tears springing to her eyes as she took in the scene of desertion. Not a sign of him remained. Ben Gilmore had gone.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
‘Yes, I promise, I won’t move,’ Pip said as her mother tucked the blanket tightly around her and pulled the curtains so that the glare of sunshine wasn’t hitting her straight in the face.
Pip looked around the small bedroom, feeling like a child again: hot Ribena on the bedside table, a book beside her, the TV set up on a small table at the end of the bed.
‘You really did all this?’ she asked Willow, who was arranging a milk bottle with cut stems of eucalyptus and holly berries, the closest thing she’d been able to find to flowers in the garden.
Willow straightened up, looking proudly at the canary-yellow walls, the pale-pink bedroom chair, the red eiderdown. It had the same chaotic, thrown-together, mismatched vibe of the castle, only with less stuff. ‘Well, I had nothing else to do. I was trying to make it homely.’
Pip noticed their mother’s head lift up at her words and her gaze slid between the two of them, seeing how they never quite made eye contact, talking across – rather than to – each other. She had never understood what had happened between them – Willow wouldn’t be drawn and her mother simply acted as though nothing had changed. But it had. Somehow she knew something terrible lived between them now, a sleeping monster.
‘Now, your next antibiotic is due in an hour and a half. I’ll bring some lunch up for you then as you shouldn’t have it on an empty stomach.’
‘Thanks, Mam.’
Her mother reached over and kissed her forehead tenderly. She looked down at her with still-frightened eyes. ‘Rest,’ she said firmly.
‘I will. I promise.’
Her mother squinted at her through slitted eyes. ‘I never trust it when you’re being obedient.’
‘Even I recognize I’ve hit the wall, Mam.’ Pip sank her head back into the pillow. ‘I’ll stop this time, I promise.’
‘Good.’
Pip watched as her mother left the room carrying out the dirty clothes ready to put in the wash, tutting at the way she’d thrown off her boots – and for a moment she had a sense of déjà vu, remembering, glimpsing, the mother she’d been before their worlds had slid into gentle ruin, fussing over them all, lovingly despairing.
Willow came to sit at the end of the bed, her back leaning against the wicker Bergère footboard, her feet tucked under the eiderdown. ‘Well, it may have almost killed you – again – but at least you’ve got Shalimar back. You can relax now.’
‘She’ll be wondering where I am though. She was only in the stable a couple of hours before I went out again – and didn’t return.’ Pip felt a twinge of anxiety spike through her again.
‘She was absolutely fine when I looked in this morning. Fergus kept dropping his head over her side of the stall. I think they probably slept like that, nuzzling each other’s necks all night. I don’t think they missed you at all.’
‘Aww.’ Pip grinned, soothed.
‘And I spoke to Kirsty on the way over. She’s going to deal with everything for the next few days – turn them out, poo-pick, give them fresh bedding, soak the oats and whatnot.’
‘You’re a good sister, you know that?’
‘Hmm, you won’t say that when you hear what I’ve got to tell you,’ Willow said, staring suddenly at her hands and looking like she was about to throw up. She took a deep breath, looking ashen.
‘You’re selling up,’ Pip said for her.
Willow’s mouth dropped open. ‘Today. How did you know?’
Pip looked back at her, trying to hide how her heart suddenly felt like a heavy thing. Losing Lorne, today. She’d known it was coming; Willow had warned her – in general terms, at least. But the reality of it. The finality of it. It was as though their father was dying a second time: the knighthood had gone with the knight, and now the castle too . . . ‘Because I saw the buyer at the carols last night – my Hunky Hero no less. Why else would he have been there, unless he was trying to ingratiate himself with the locals?’
Willow didn’t reply.
‘When are you going to tell Mam?’
Willow visibly deflated. ‘Christ knows. She’s not been around all week. Ever since I said we had to move down here, she’s been avoiding me by staying at the Flanagans’ – and don’t say that’s me being paranoid. She’s totally avoiding me.’
‘Of course she is,’ Pip agreed, seeing how her sister’s face fell. ‘It strikes me you and she are long overdue a frank conversation. And not just about the castle.’
Willow kept her gaze firmly on the eiderdown. ‘Nah. As soon as the paperwork’s signed, I’m out of here, Pip. I need to get back to Dublin.’
Pip frowned. ‘What would you do a thing like that for?’
/>
‘Because it’s where my life is now.’
‘Could have fooled me,’ Pip scoffed. ‘You’ve done a fine impression of someone enjoying country life – bracing walks with the dogs every day, decorating houses, arranging flowers, flirting with handsome strangers at Daniel O’Donnell parties . . .’
They stared at one another from opposite ends of the bed, their legs overlapping the other’s like an apple-pie lattice, and for a moment Pip thought she’d get her to admit it, that actually she did love it here, she did belong—
‘Knock knock.’
They both turned to see Ottie’s fair silky head peering round the door.
‘Jeesht, you look worse than me,’ Pip said as their biggest sister wandered in with a bag of jammy doughnuts from the bakery and Horse & Hound magazine. She tossed them down on the bed and leaned over to give her a kiss on the cheek.
‘How you feeling?’
‘Better than you, by the looks of things.’
‘One bad night’s sleep. One,’ Ottie muttered, climbing into the other side of the end of the bed and tucking her feet under the eiderdown too. ‘Chilly out there today.’
‘Still snowing?’ Pip craned her neck to see better but from her semi-recumbent position she could only see a white sky and twiggy treetops.
‘Not at the moment. Brief hiatus, thank God.’ Ottie looked around the room interestedly, becoming aware of her surroundings. ‘Huh. It’s sweet in here, isn’t it?’
‘It is now Willow bust a gut making it nice,’ Pip said, her eyes sliding between the two of them, noticing how they didn’t talk to each other directly either, the tension between them set hard.
‘You did all this, Will?’
‘I told you that yesterday,’ Willow said flathy.
‘Yes, but . . . I didn’t realize you meant you’d done it like this.’ Ottie appraised her through a fresh filter. ‘You’ve got a good eye for colour.’
‘Guess you’re not the only painter in the family,’ Pip teased, but Ottie gave only a stiff smile in return. Pip rolled her eyes. Were her two sisters trying to out-misery each other? It was like sitting with The Glums.
From downstairs, they heard a knock echo through the house; the bronze lion’s-head knocker rapped against the front door.
‘Ugh, please not more visitors,’ Pip groaned. ‘The bed’s not big enough.’
That raised a smile at least, and Pip reached into the bag and handed them each a doughnut.
‘So, anyway, Will’s got some news,’ Pip said, taking a bite of hers and instantly hitting the jammy spot, a river of red oozing down her chin.
‘Oh yeah?’ Ottie asked, looking across at Willow as she picked a portion of doughnut with her fingertips, like it was a croissant.
‘Pip!’ Willow chastised, looking panicked. Pip knew her little sister had been dreading telling Ottie as much as she was their mother. But it was like ripping off a plaster – it had to be done fast.
‘What? You can’t keep it from her. If it’s happening today, you’re going to have to come clean about it.’
‘Clean about what? What’s dirty?’ Ottie asked.
Willow took a deep breath, her shoulders rising up to her ears. ‘I’m selling the castle. Well, the estate. Tonight. The contracts are ready to be signed.’
There was another long pause, both of them looking at Ottie, waiting for . . . something. ‘. . . Oh. Right.’
‘. . . Right?’
‘Okay then.’ Ottie shrugged.
Willow looked across at Pip, in case it was some kind of trick. ‘This was not how I envisaged this going,’ she cried. ‘I’ve been bracing for tears, hysterics, thrown shoes. What is wrong with you both?’
‘Half dead,’ Pip shrugged, taking another bite of doughnut, almost finishing it.
‘Me too,’ Ottie agreed flatly and Pip frowned that she didn’t even appear to be joking; her big sister really did look like she’d been steamrollered.
‘Ask her who she’s selling to,’ Pip prompted helpfully.
‘Pip!’ Willow cried again, still holding her doughnut like it was a ball.
‘Who are you selling to?’ Ottie asked obediently, but she didn’t look like she cared about the answer; she didn’t look like she cared about much right now – not Lorne, not even the doughnut.
Willow bit her lip nervously. ‘It’s an English fella called Connor Shaye. He’s got a private members’ club chain: Home James.’
‘Hmm . . . I think I might’ve heard of him.’ Ottie frowned slightly, sounding vague, still disengaged. Disinterested. Distant.
‘I’ve seen him,’ Pip grinned, pretending to singe her fingers and blow on them. ‘Ooh, smokin’!’
Even Ottie cracked a half grin at that. ‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. No good though for either one of us,’ Pip pouted. ‘Willow got there first.’
‘I did not!’
‘Sure you did. You were snogging the face off him when I decided to go for my midnight swim the other week.’
‘That was before I knew who he was!’ Willow said hotly.
‘That guy?’ Ottie asked in surprise. ‘The one whose number you didn’t get?’
‘Nothing’s happened between us since we . . . since I decided to sell to him.’
‘Yeah. ’Cos it looked strictly platonic between the two of you last night,’ Pip said with her best sardonic tone. She looked at Ottie. ‘You shoulda seen him, mooning over her from the other side of the green, everyone wassailing all around and her, here, bloody oblivious.’
‘I’m amazed you noticed anything, given you were in the process of coughing up a lung,’ Willow quipped.
‘Eww!’ Ottie and Pip both protested, laughing.
Ottie readjusted her legs over Willow’s, looking like she’d woken up a little. ‘Well, aren’t you the dark horse, little Will,’ she said. ‘I had no idea there was all this action going on in your life.’
Willow opened her mouth to protest again but there was another quick rap at the door and their mother walked in.
‘Honestly, I could hear you girls shrieking from downstairs,’ she said, coming in with a large brown-paper-wrapped box. ‘I thought there was a riot happening.’
‘Just discussing Will’s lov—’
‘Pip!’ Willow shrieked.
Pip chuckled tiredly with delight, her eyes widening at the sight of the parcel. ‘Ooh, what’s this? Pour moi?’ She reached for it.
‘No, not for you, I’m afraid, darling. Your sister.’ And she held it out to Ottie.
Pip looked scandalized.
‘For me?’ Ottie asked in amazement. ‘But . . . how did the courier know I was even here?’
‘It was Taigh and he didn’t. He’s doing the delivery round and was about to go to yours next when he heard the racket and I said you were all up here.’
‘Taigh?’ Pip looked over towards the door expectantly. ‘Well, isn’t he coming up?’
‘No. He said he had to get on.’
‘Oh.’ Pip blinked. ‘Right.’
‘Oh, girls, really, what are you . . . have you untucked the covers?’ their mother tutted. ‘I was trying to make Pip cosy.’
‘She is cosy,’ Ottie shrugged, finally taking a bite of doughnut. ‘Although she could do with shaving her bloody legs. Ugh, they’re prickling me!’
Pip rubbed her leg up and down for good measure, making both of them squeal.
‘And what are you all doing eating doughnuts in bed?’ their mother despaired. ‘You’ll get sugar in the sheets and Pip’ll never sleep tonight with sugary sheets.’
Their mother untucked the offending sheets at the side of the bed and began sweeping out non-existent sugar granules – they were all on top of the bed – before tucking her (them all) back in again.
But Pip and Willow didn’t care about sugary beds; they were watching as Ottie slowly opened the box, trying not to rip the paper. ‘I just don’t know what this could be . . .’ she murmured. ‘I haven’t bought anything recently. Have I?’
<
br /> ‘How would we know?’ Pip asked, throwing her hands out to the side questioningly and spraying sugar all over the pillows.
‘Christmas present?’ her mother suggested.
‘Fat chance.’
‘Paints?’ Willow tried.
‘No.’
‘Oh jeesht, just hurry up and open it already,’ Pip muttered, losing patience as Ottie began folding down the Sellotape strip in order to reuse the packaging paper.
Ottie pushed the paper to one side and lifted out a large matt-black box tied with an ivory satin ribbon. She pulled on the ties and opened it, peeling back the dense layers of tissue like they were the petals of a rose, her mouth falling into a perfect ‘o’ as she saw the bundle of red silk folded inside.
‘Wow!’ Willow cried.
‘Jeesht!’ Pip spluttered.
‘Oh no!’ Ottie whispered, her fingers tearing at the small envelope of the notecard that lay on top.
‘For a Red Dress life, you first need a red dress. Thanks for everything, Ben.’
‘A red dress life?’ Willow asked in bewilderment, as Ottie read the words over and over, her fingers threading the smooth silk.
‘Ben?’ Pip lay back in the pillows and smiled. ‘Who’s the dark horse now?’
‘Mam?
Willow stood on the landing at the bottom of the ladder.
‘Up here.’ Her mother’s voice sounded distant – in every sense.
Willow climbed the rungs and peered into the cavity of the attic. It was an entirely different beast to the roof rooms of the castle, where they could stand and play and do star jumps if they so chose. Here, the low roof meant passage across the rafters was on hands and knees only.
She peered into the dimly lit space, a hand-held torch providing only a narrow cone of light in which to see. ‘What are you doing up here?’ she asked, watching her mother rifle through a large chest.
