Back by the studded door, Mutt turned and observed her for a moment, his arms folded. He seemed to be thinking.
‘I’m not sure that was a question,’ she threw in, panicked. ‘Just an observation really.’
‘I am happy. I work hard and I like what I do. It might not be fancy enough for some people… but it makes me happy. I can work in great places like this. I get to work with Atholl at the inn. Who knows where my next job will take me.’ He shrugged and assured her again. ‘I’m happy.’
‘I’m glad. You’re good at what you do.’
‘But?’ he prompted.
‘But what?’ Nina said.
Mutt seemed to be about to say something, a hint of tension in his jaw, but it melted.
‘I suppose… I thought you’d think I wasn’t fulfilling my potential as well.’
‘As well? Who else thinks that?’
‘Nobody, it’s… it’s all right.’ Mutt swept the topic away with his hand and was reaching for the door handle to leave when Nina came up close and stopped him with a hand on his arm.
‘My dad’s a decorator. In Brighton.’
Mutt looked at her. ‘The New York trend forecaster’s a tradesman’s daughter?’
‘You needn’t look so surprised. I never claimed to be anything else, did I? You just assumed I was a spoiled brat.’
‘Well, I mean… there were moments when you acted like one…’
Nina laughed and thumped his arm and the leather dulled the impact. ‘I grafted to get where I was, OK? I worked really hard. Dad taught me how, I suppose.’
Mutt observed her once more, chewing his bottom lip a little. He seemed to make a decision on the spot. ‘Wait here.’
He headed in the direction of the suite’s private dining room once more, leaving Nina to watch after him. He returned after a moment, grinning wickedly and holding two glasses of whisky over ice, the bottle under his arm.
‘Private bar, fully stocked. Yours for only nine hundred a night.’
Nina took a glass. ‘Worth it, I’d say.’
‘Who wants to waste that kind of money?’ Mutt strode to another panel on the wall and hit a few buttons. The lights beyond the window suddenly came on, illuminating the low ruined walls amongst the scrubby heather and gorse immediately outside. ‘Not when you can have it all for free.’ He raised his glass to her. ‘For a wee while, anyway.Slàinte.’
Nina lifted her own glass and repeated his toast, before pausing to inhale the whisky vapours. ‘What is this? It’s so rich, like cigar smoke, and there’s something sweet too, caramel? And that same smell from Atholl’s workshop, heather and wood.’
Mutt looked at the label on the bottle. ‘You’re getting all that?’
‘Mmm.’ Nina drank, savouring the creamy burn.
‘You’ve got a really talented nose.’
‘Hah,’ Nina laughed. ‘Nobody’s ever said that about me. I guess I’m sensitive to these things.’
Mutt narrowed his eyes. ‘You said you could smell the lavender when we were at the willow school.’
‘I can, the whole village smells of it. Haven’t you ever noticed?’
‘Can’t say I have.’
‘Port Willow is lavender, sea salt and wet sand, and, thanks to you, paint. And the coral beach is something clean and chalky white, and the damp earth from the meadow, and there’s a horsey, hay sort of smell from the wet thatched roof at Atholl’s school. New York’s exhaust fumes, fresh bagels, coffee beans and… this sickly-sweet, appetising smell from the candied nuts stands. Ah, I can smell it now!’
Mutt only looked at her, smiling curiously.
