Her gran’s throat moved up and down over a convulsive swallow. ‘The library. I was about to take his cup of tea up to him. But—’
‘I’ll do it for you.’
Why Lucas couldn’t fetch his own cup of tea was not worth arguing about with her gran. Beatrice Pennington was an old-school housekeeper. The upstairs and downstairs divide had never been breached in the whole time Ruby had lived with her grandmother.
Lucas’s parents, Claudia and Lionel, had occasionally invited her and her gran to join them for Christmas and other gatherings, but Beatrice had been adamant about keeping the distinction of employer and employee in place. Ruby had quietly and covertly rebelled by finding a hideout position, from which to observe the grand and often raucous dinner parties Claudia and Lionel had hosted. The Rothwells had lived in a completely different world from the one she had been born into. She’d been endlessly fascinated by their glamorous, exciting whirl of wealth and flamboyance and over-the-top decadence.
Ruby couldn’t help noticing her gran wincing as she prepared the tea tray. ‘Have you hurt your arm?’ she asked. ‘Here, let me look at you.’
‘It’s nothing.’
Ruby took the kettle out of her grandmother’s hand and set it back on the bench. She turned her gran’s wrist over and saw the angry red welt of a recent burn. The skin was raw and weeping, the edges a purply-red that hinted at a possible infection. ‘Gran, that needs dressing. It looks like it’s getting—’
Her grandmother pulled her wrist out of Ruby’s hold. ‘Stop fussing, lass. I’ve had worse in my time.’
‘Maybe, but you’re older now, and wound infections can turn nasty in a blink. You really should see a doctor. You might need a skin graft or something. I can take you after I’ve spoken to—’
‘I don’t need a doctor,’ her gran said with a determined edge to her voice. ‘Now, take that tea up to the master before it gets stone-cold.’
Ruby shook her head in frustration, and then glanced at the tea tray. ‘Oh, yum, parkin. I haven’t had that in months.’ She reached for a second cup and plate, and placed them on the tray next to the others.
Her gran looked aghast. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m going to have afternoon tea with Lucas.’
‘You’ll have me fired, that’s what.’ Her gran’s tone was gruff, but her expression was set in deep trench lines of worry.
Ruby scooped up the tray. ‘You know, you really should think about retiring. This place is too big for you now, and you’re not getting any younger.’
‘I’ll retire when I’m good and ready and not a moment before.’
Ruby knew better than to argue with her gran in one of her mulish moods. But that was another conversation she would have to have with Lucas Rothwell—about her gran’s retirement.
‘I’ll help you with dinner after I’ve spoken to Lucas.’
The library was on the ground floor, several hundred metres from the kitchen, which only reinforced Ruby’s concerns about her gran’s increasing age and frailty. The harsh Yorkshire winters would be hard on her gran with her aching joints. How long did Lucas Rothwell expect her grandmother to wait on him hand and foot? Even though he spent less time at Rothwell Park than he had previously, it was ridiculous to expect a woman nudging eighty to remain in domestic service without help.
It was clear the castle was not being cleaned the way it used to be. Dust bunnies were in their dozens along the corridors, and cobwebs hung like lacework from the wall lights, as well as from the chandeliers. It gave the castle a ghostly atmosphere that was a little creepy to say the least. Surely Lucas could afford a team of people to run his damn castle. There were three gardeners, for God’s sake. He had made a fortune as a landscape architect, working on massive projects all over Europe. Why not have three housekeepers?
There was a service lift to the upper storeys of the castle, but that was no help with the long corridors and galleries in each commodious wing. The library was in a wing all of its own, overlooking the rolling moors in the distance, divided here and there by dry stone walls and hedgerows. The door was closed, so Ruby placed the tray on a nearby hall table and then gave the door a light knock with her bent knuckles. Thetap-tap-tapsound echoed hauntingly along the wide corridor.
‘Come in.’
The deep burr of Lucas Rothwell’s voice sent a light shiver along the flesh of Ruby’s arms and set those bats’ wings in her belly flapping again. He could be intimidating at times, but she was no longer a timid child. She was a proud and successful businesswoman, and she had an important business proposition to discuss. She would not be bashful around him now. She would be brusque and businesslike.
Game face on, Ruby turned the door handle and then picked up the tray and nudged the door further open in order to enter the library. But something stopped her going any further. The room—dark at the best of times, with all that ancient woodwork and the shelves stacked with valuable old books—was cast in long ghostly shadows.
Lucas was sitting with his back to her in one of the two wing chairs set in front of a quartet of tall narrow windows, situated between sections of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The sky outside had clouded over even more since her arrival—it was now a gunmetal-grey—and specks of rain hit the windows, pecking at the glass like tiny invisible beaks.
‘Who is it?’ Lucas’s voice sharpened and he rose from the chair and turned to face where Ruby was standing in the doorway.
He was dressed in a black rollneck jumper and black trousers that made him seem even taller than his impressive six foot three. And he was wearing sunglasses, the aviator sort, which were as effective as aKeep Outsign. He cocked his head, his nostrils flaring slightly, like a wolf trying to pick up a new scent.Herscent.
The thought sent another shiver coursing over her flesh and a warm blush over her cheeks. If only she didn’t blush so easily around him. What was it about Lucas Rothwell that made her feel like a gauche teenager instead of a fully grown adult?
The Embarrassing Incident—Ruby always capitalised it in her head—when she was sixteen was partly to blame. More than partly, if she was honest. Whenever she was in his presence—which was rare these days, thank God—she couldn’t help but think of the clumsy, tipsy pass she’d made at him at one of the Rothwell parties she had sneaked into. And the stern dressing-down he’d given her that had rung in her ears for hours afterwards.
Eleven years had passed since that cringeworthy night, but it was as fresh in her mind as if it had happened yesterday. But she wouldnotlet it get in the way of achieving her goal. Harper and Aerin were relying on her to secure Rothwell Park as a wedding venue for Delphine Rainbird, a famous American actor, who was marrying her bodyguard, Miguel Morales. The exposure for their wedding business would be fantastic, let alone the amount of money Delphine was willing to pay to have her fairy tale wedding in a castle on the windswept moors of Yorkshire.