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“So you’re paying for it yourself.” She let out a sigh. “You need a keeper, lassie.”
The timer went off on the oven, and Grace went over to dish up their food. She returned with two steaming bowls of cock-a-leekie soup and a freshly baked loaf of walnut bread.
“Perfect.” Donna’s mouth watered.
“You need to get your strength up for dealing with Flora, Joyce and Ann.”
“No kidding.” The soup was delicious, with leeks that melted on her tongue and chicken that was tender and tasty.
“I saw you saying goodbye to Duncan,” Grace said as she buttered her bread.
Donna focused on her soup, aware that she must have witnessed the kiss they’d shared when Duncan had backed her up against his car. Her body was still vibrating from it. She felt a hand curl around hers and looked up to find Grace’s understanding smile.
“Are you okay?” she said.
“Yeah.” She had no choice but to be otherwise. She reached for the bread, as an excuse to retreat, and cleared her throat. “I’m leaving the mansion after the ball. I’ll be staying with Agnes while I look for a new job.”
“Are you sure?”
Donna nodded and focused on her soup. It was hard to look Grace in the eye when all she saw was sympathy there. “He doesn’t need me anymore. He’s a changed man—he’s smiling and laughing and working again. I don’t think he’ll ever be the man he was before he lost his wife, but he’s ready to get on with his life.”
“But not with you?”
“No.” Sh
e looked back out of the window. “His love for Fiona is too big to allow room for someone else.”
“That’s not how love works, my darling. Love is never-ending. The bigger it is, the more it can encompass. And if you have learned to love well, and deeply, as Duncan has, then there will always be the space and resources to love more.”
Her words were like needles jabbing her skin. “I asked him, Grace. He said there wouldn’t be another.”
She let out a sigh. “What did I tell you about listening to men? No good ever comes of it. You have to pay attention to his actions, and that boy loves you.”
Donna shook her head. Grace was wrong. Duncan felt affection for her, and he liked her, but there was nothing more. Fiona had taken it all when she’d left.
“Will you stay and look after him once I’m gone? For a wee while, anyway?”
“You mean until he fires me?” Grace smiled ruefully. “Aye, I’ll stay, but I think you should too.”
“I can’t, Grace. I’m sorry if that disappoints you.”
“You numpty.” Grace stood and came round the table to enfold Donna in a hug. “Don’t you know by now that there’s nothing you could do that would ever disappoint me?” She straightened and wiped her eyes. “Now, it just so happens that I made cake for pudding.”
With that, she turned and strode towards the pantry, leaving Donna to finish her food in silence.
***
“Are you sure about this?” Mairi asked as they loaded the last of Donna’s boxes into the back of a van Keir had borrowed to help her move.
She’d spent the afternoon and early evening dealing with the many people there to set up for the ball and then packing up her things in the housekeeper’s apartment.
“It’s the right thing to do.”
She watched as Agnes shut the doors to the van, with most of her belongings inside. All that was left were the clothes and toiletries to get her through the next two days and a few things she had to pick up from around the house—like her copy of The Hobbit from Duncan’s office, and the painting he’d given her, which hung facing her desk. Once these things were gone, there would be nothing left of her in the mansion.
“I think you’re making a sensible decision,” Agnes said as she came to stand beside them.
“Of course you do.” Mairi frowned. “Your heart is a block of ice.”
