AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He smiled. “The Battle of Bannockburn, Robert the Bruce and King James I of Scotland. The Campbells were connected to them all.”
She leaned back in her chair. “Wow. That’s some family history. What about your immediate family? There are some interesting portraits in the hallway as we came in. And what about the haunting? What can you tell me about that?”
“There’s too many to tell you about. Pick a few and I’ll tell you about them.”
She took a bite of her toast and thought for a few seconds. “The sad-looking woman in the pink dress at the top of the stairs. Who is she?”
“Elizabeth Campbell. The portrait is around two hundred years old. She was married to Robert Campbell who owned the house and apparently was a tyrant. She died after a fall down the stairs. But did she fall, or was she pushed?”
Juliette gave a shudder. “Oh, that’s horrible. Is she the one that’s supposed to haunt the house? And who put her picture above the stairs? Doesn’t that seem a little macabre to you?”
He loved the fact she was passionate about things and embraced them completely. “I have no idea who haunts the house. There are a number of suspects.”
Her eyes widened. “I like it. It’ll work for the story. Who are the other suspects?”
She rested her hand on her chin and looked up at him with those big brown eyes. If this were anyone else in the world he’d think they were flirting with him. But not Juliette. She was all about the story. More’s the pity.
“Well, we have two duelling brothers. And a portrait of the two of them, that has an actual blade mark down it.”
“Really? How fabulous.” Her hand flew up to her mouth. “Oh no. I didn’t quite mean it like that.”
He shrugged. “Yes, you did. They ended up killing each other whilst they duelled their way through the house.”
She shook her head. “This story just gets better and better.”
He raised his eyebrows, “And they were fighting over a woman.”
She leaned back and put her hand on her heart. “I think my work here is done.”
He took a drink of his tea. “I can do better than that one.”
Her gaze narrowed and she leaned forward, giving him a beaming smile. “Go on then. Prove it.”
“Do you want the axe marks in the walls from the fight with another Clan, or the charcoal sketch of the ten-year-old kitchen maid that scalded herself to death?”
She gasped, “How awful!” and looked around herself. Almost as if the ghosts might appear miraculously behind her. “That happened – here? To a little girl?” Her face paled and she took a deep breath.
He leaned over and put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s all part of the history of Garnock Hall. You know Haunted Ever After works best when we make people scared or cry.”
“But what if the host cries?” He could tell she wasn’t joking. He’d seen her shed a silent tear in the past over some of the heartbreaking stories that they’d covered. But Juliette was always the professional. She straightened her shoulders and looked around again.
“This is going to make a great programme. How about we film all this background stuff tomorrow? We can do it around the house. Or outside – it will be really atmospheric with the snow.” Her eyes had a thoughtful look around them, as if she were already imagining what the TV programme could look like. She wasn’t just thinking about her own job, she was thinking about his too. He didn’t know whether to feel flattered or annoyed.
“Fine with me. But you do realise tomorrow is Christmas Eve?”
She pulled backwards. “Is it? Of course. So, it is.” She looked around her and over towards the ancient Aga stove. “Does the stuff in here work?”
He couldn’t help but laugh at her term. It was abundantly obvious she was as much a stranger to the kitchen as he was. He pointed at the stove. “It works. I switched it on earlier. It just takes a long time to heat up. One of the first models. Had it repaired a few times but it should be fine.”
“What about these?” The gas burners on the stove flickered into life as she twiddled some buttons.
“Stop foutering.” It was his automatic response.
She pulled her hand back and laughed. “Stop – what?”
“Foutering. Interfering – touching things you shouldn’t. Of course it works. How do you think I made the bacon earlier?”
She walked up next to him, her amusement written across her face. It was the first time since they’d got here that her eyes had truly sparkled. “You have got to let me use that word tomorrow while we’re filming. The audience will love it.”
“You think?”
“I know. They love that kind of thing.” She pulled open a few doors and stared at the empty cupboards. “So, we have an oven that works and a gas hob. But what about food?”
He was starting to feel a bit embarrassed. She folded her arms across her chest. “Nothing like inviting someone for Christmas and then starving them.”
“We’re only a mile from the village. If you write a list of what we need then I can pick those things up tomorrow.”
She stepped forward, she was right under his nose. He got a delicious waft of strawberries from her hair. Good enough to eat. She poked her finger into the middle of his chest. “Andrew Campbell, what makes you think – for one minute – that I would have any idea what to put on a Christmas menu list? I’ve never made Christmas dinner in my life.”
“Neither have I.”
Silence. Both of them stared at each other for a few seconds as the magnitude of their words sunk in. Christmas just wasn’t Christmas without the traditional dinner that went along with it. The aroma of a cooked turkey with stuffing and chipolattas. Potatoes roasted in goose fat. Brussels sprouts with bacon. Carrots glazed in something that he’d never quite worked out. Homemade lentil soup to start. Gravy to smother all the food.
This was going to be a disaster with a capital D.
*
A feeling of dread was creeping over her skin. A tiny part of her overactive imagination had already painted a house filled with wonderful smells, a lit fire and Christmas dinner at the traditional dining table. With the dim lights and her handsome Scotsman her imagination might already having been dreaming of a few other things that seemed a little unlikely.
Now, her brain was picturing this cold, drafty house marooned in the middle of nowhere, with no fire, no food and a grumpy Scotsman instead. She could still currently see her breath in the air. This was nobody’s idea of Christmas and it certainly wasn’t hers.
It didn’t matter that she wasn’t in Barbados with her family. It didn’t matter that Rod had dumped her for a younger and probably fitter version. At least at home in her flat, she would have had her meal-for-one, some kind of chocolate, some heating, definitely some wine and her own remote control. She didn’t care about present
s.
As for the one thing she had bought herself – her red fur-lined parka – she hadn’t imagined sitting wearing it all Christmas day to keep herself warm. If that boiler didn’t fire up sometime soon it was going to be a cold, cold Christmas.
Andrew was doing his best to try and look cheerful. “We’ll be able to get a turkey from one of the nearby farms. The rest of the stuff we can just wing. How hard can it be to make a Christmas dinner?”
Juliette groaned. “Isn’t there just a hotel we can go to for Christmas dinner? There must be somewhere around here?”
He pointed to the blackness outside the window. “I hate to point out we’re in the middle of nowhere. There isn’t anywhere for miles. To be honest, I’m not even sure.”
Juliette folded her arms across her chest. “What’s with asking me to make a list? Why the automatic assumption that I’ll know what to put on it? Isn’t that a bit sexist?”
Andrew took a step back. He seemed startled and like most men she knew he started to babble. “Eh, no. I didn’t mean anything by it. I just thought that maybe if we put our heads together, that we might be able to remember what to put on the list.” A smile had started to creep across his face; he knew he was making a mess of this.
“You didn’t say anything about putting our heads together.”
“I was going to – you just interrupted me before I could finish.” It was a lie, and they both knew it, but he was smiling at her again with his own arms folded across his chest.
She pulled a pad of paper across the worktop towards her. “Let’s do this turn about.”
“Where are we, in the school playground?”
She rolled her eyes. “If only. I never met any boys like you at school.” The words were out before she could pull them back. Things were ramping up in this cold kitchen. The boiler had finally spluttered to life and only just started to take the chill off the air. She could feel the rush of colour towards her cheeks and opened her mouth to make some joke about what she’d said but Andrew got in there first.
