Mutt was already beside her, making gestures as though she only had to say the word and he’d lift her again, but she put him off with a sharp look. He dropped back, rubbing the back of his neck helplessly.
‘You can’t stay up on the top floor now,’ Beatrice told her, moving to the reception desk and its computer. ‘We could swap you with…’ Her eyes lit up like light bulbs. ‘Actually, leave it with me. You sit in the bar for ten minutes. I’ll sort it all out in a jiffy.’
‘An upgrade? Why?’ Ruth asked, standing bemused at the door to her ground-floor room.
‘Will it cost us extra?’ Mark shouted from the bed where he had a laptop over his legs.
‘No, it’s on the house,’ Beatrice assured him. ‘You are our competition winners after all and what with your silver wedding anniversary coming up this year, we’re moving you to our honeymoon suite. It’s called the Princess room.’
Mark scoffed loudly, and Ruth flustered to cover his rudeness.
‘That’s nice of you. We’d love to move. Wouldn’t we, Mark?’
‘There’s complimentary champagne and chocolate truffles all set out for you. Do you need a hand packing?’ Beatrice rubbed her hands together.
‘We can be ready in twenty minutes,’ Ruth assured her, and so that afternoon Nina had hobbled into the Firths’ freshly made up double with en suite and bay view, while Mark and Ruth stood aghast one floor above, contemplating in horror the six-foot-tall fairy-tale bed in all its refurbished, gauzy white glory.
‘Well,umm, it’s… it’s…’ Ruth looked to Mark, pleadingly.
‘It’s different,’ he said, taking the key from Beatrice, who was still standing in the doorway looking oddly hopeful and excited.
‘Enjoy the bubbly and the lovely view along to the jetty. Dinner service doesn’t start for another hour and a half,’ she’d said, before slipping away, closing the door ever so quietly.
‘Is that woman all right?’ Mark said when she was gone.
Ruth ignored him. ‘You’d better open that bottle before the ice melts in the bucket.’
She walked around the room, taking it all in, not entirely sure how she felt about their new habitation. Beatrice had told them the Princess room was almost always booked up but it had just become free yesterday and it was theirs for the rest of their stay. Ruth wasn’t sure why it was so popular. It definitely wasn’t for everyone. You’d need to be an Olympic gymnast to get up that ladder and safely under the sheets for a start.
Mark did as he was told, and he soon presented his wife with a frothy glassful.
‘Well… here’s to us,’ Ruth said. ‘Happy anniversary.’
‘Oh yes, happy anniversary.’ They clinked glasses and Ruth perched tentatively on the vintage green velvet chaise by the window, which Beatrice had recently had reupholstered.
‘Twenty-five years, eh?’ Ruth said before she drank. ‘It was a nice wedding, even if it wasn’t quite the big white thing little girls dream of.’
‘Hmm,’ Mark only nodded in agreement, looking around for somewhere to sit and realising there was only the spot beside his wife, unless he wanted to crawl into the bathtub which, mortified, Ruth thought he might well prefer. She patted the spot beside her and in the ensuing silence he shuffled over to join her, hoiking his trousers up at the knees as he sat.
‘Still, we got to have the twins as page boys, didn’t we?’
This brightened Mark up. ‘That we did. Have either of the boys phoned today?’ he added, looking hopeful.
‘No.’ Ruth shook her head.
Silence again. Ruth topped up their glasses and the couple gulped their champagne in the looming shadow of the towering honeymooners’ bed.
Chapter Twenty-three
After the Rescue
‘Scotch broth,’ Beatrice informed Nina as she set the bowl down before her. ‘And that’s salty Highland butter and freshly baked oat bread.’
She’d reserved her a seat by the fire in the bar room after insisting she couldn’t possibly eat alone any longer, not now she’d had this terrible accident and she needed watching. Nina had relented because she had a point; shewasgetting sick of her own company, and after the twenty-four hours she’d just had, she couldn’t face another lonely evening working in her room.
Seamus hadn’t replied to her email about the possible leads she’d established while in Scotland. Not all that surprising. He was a very busy man. Eventually, after some fitful painkiller-induced naps, Mitch had called her back and made it clear Seamus wasn’t interested in hearing from her until she had something more concrete, something they could sell. Something unique.
‘I’ve put a hold on your flight, take another few weeks. OK?’
