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“I get it.” She held up a hand. “If you don’t want to do it, don’t. Now, can you sign off on the carriage house renovation, so I can give the builder the go-ahead?”
“Where’s the paperwork?”
“Oh, I forgot it.” Those captivating eyes of hers got wider. “Never mind. Look it up on your phone. I emailed it to you.”
And the alarms in his head grew louder. Donna never emailed anything. She printed it out, shoved it under his nose and put a pen in his hand. Keeping his eye on her, he dug his phone out of his back pocket.
“For goodness’ sake, Duncan. You’re moving like a snail. Give it to me, and I’ll find the email.” She snatched the phone from his hand, but it slipped and went flying through the air.
The two of them watched in horror as sailed over the railing and landed with a crash on the marble floor of the foyer below them.
“So,” Donna said. “You’ll be needing another new phone then.”
Chapter 6
Donna had run after she’d trashed his phone, using errands in town as an excuse to get out of the mansion. Little coward. She was up to something, he’d bet the mansion on it. She’d also managed to fill his head with yet more paintings while she’d talked to him, which is why he found himself pacing up and down in the corridor outside his studio. He was so focused on the closed door of the room he couldn’t quite bring himself to enter, that he almost tripped over a strange woman.
“Who the hell are you?” he snapped.
“I’m the new cook. And you must be the lord of the manor.”
She looked him straight in the eye. No fear, but a healthy sense of self-preservation, he respected that. She clasped her hands in front of her as her lips thinned. In a glance, Duncan knew this wasn’t a woman who would let his snarling intimidate her. She wore grey polyester trousers with a pressed line down the front of the legs, a pink blouse that had obviously been starched, and had grey hair that was short and neat. She was all about control, and she wasn’t about to give any up to her difficult boss.
“The kitchen’s that way.” Duncan pointed in the general direction. It was big, and full of appliances, it wasn’t hard to find.
“Aye, I know. I’m looking for the housekeeper. I need to sort out the shopping and she forgot to leave me the mansion’s account details for the local stores. There’s nothing in the house except biscuits, white bread and potato scones.”
Duncan stopped pacing. “No bacon?”
“No nothing.”
“She must be going through another vegetarian phase then,” he said. “Make sure you add bacon to the list.”
“I don’t think so. If you eat too much of that, you’ll have a heart attack.”
He stopped dead and stared at her. “I like bacon. And meat. And salt and vinegar crisps.”
“Well, you should have hired the guy that cooks at the pub instead of me.”
His eyes narrowed. “I could still do that.”
“Aye, I heard about your itchy trigger finger. If you’re planning on firing me, can you wait until the end of next week? I’ve got an order of fresh vegetables coming from the farmers’ market this afternoon, and I don’t want them to go to waste. From what her sisters tell me, if I leave them here for you and Donna, they’ll either die of old age or get accidentally cremated.”
His lips twitched. The woman was funny. “What’s your name?”
“Grace Blain, and you’re Duncan Stewart.”
“I’ll give you until the vegetables run out.” He felt the need to be honest. “But you damn well better cook the food I like.”
“That might be hard. I threw out the fryer an hour ago.”
Now she was just pissing him off. “Why did Donna hire you?”
“Because she was desperate?” The woman grinned at him.
“Can you even cook?”
“Aye. And I’m good at it too.”
