‘No,’ she said, firmly replacing them in the basket. ‘It sounds as if you’re going to need them if you’ve all those visitors coming.’
‘Thank you,’ he whispered. ‘I didn’t know he’d invited the Kingsley-Scotts.’ He put a hand against Flora’s cheek, reassuring her, and stooped to kiss her.
‘You’d better get going, Alec.’ His father’s voice was sharp with impatience. ‘In fact, since you and your friends have been so kind as to do my work for me this evening, I think I’ll accompany you home. We can both give your mother a hand.’ He shouldered his rod and called Corry to heel. ‘Good evening, Ruaridh, Flora.’ He gave them a curt nod and she saw how cold his eyes were; his earlier joviality had evaporated. ‘Tell your father I’d like to speak to him tomorrow morning about the arrangements for the weekend.’
Alec hesitated, reluctant to leave, but his father snapped, ‘Come on, man, I haven’t got time to waste.’
Wordlessly, Ruaridh and Flora watched the two figures striding back down the hill. Then they gathered together their things, securing their hooks in the cork handles of their rods and pulling on the jackets they’d discarded earlier, before following more slowly in the footsteps of Alec and Sir Charles.
Flora was washing up the breakfast things when her father came back from his morning briefing with Sir Charles up at the house. Outwardly, his expression was as calm as ever, but she could tell he was out of sorts by the way he dragged the deerstalker from his head and threw it on to the table.
‘Are you in for a busy day with the guests?’ she asked him, drying her hands on the pinny tied around her waist. His duties as keeper had been unofficially expanded to those of ghillie as well, but she knew he’d rather be out on the hills than standing on a riverbank or rowing a boat while instructing inept guests on how to cast for salmon.
‘Aye,’ he grunted, his tone gruff, ‘but I’m not the only one. Sir Charles has asked for you to go up and help out with the dinner this evening. He wishes Lady Helen to accompany the fishing party, too, and so he wants you to finish off the cooking. I’m not happy about it. It’s not your duty. But you know how short-handed they are now.’
Flora nodded. The housekeeper had left at the end of the previous month, returning to care for her mother back home in Clydebank where there were well-paid jobs to be had in the munitions factories and the prospect of a far livelier social life than was to be found in the kitchen of Ardtuath House. And so, apart from Mrs McTaggart from the village who came in to clean in the mornings and do a little light cooking, Lady Helen was having to manage things on her own.
‘Don’t fret, Dad. I’m not bothered. I’ll be happy to help out. It’ll be good for Lady Helen to be included in the party for once – she never usually goes out with the rods.’
Flora’s words belied her conflicting emotions. It would be a chance to see Alec and she wanted to be of help, but she was all too aware that this was an opportunity for Sir Charles to put her firmly in her place.
‘It’s ridiculous, Himself carrying on inviting those people. The world’s changed for everyone except His Lordship, apparently. It’s not right that they expect you to skivvy for them.’
‘But Dad, we have our home because of him. And Lady Helen’s always been so good to us. I don’t begrudge them a helping hand every now and then. I wasn’t intending on doing anything else tonight, in any case.’
Ordinarily on a Saturday evening, she and Alec would go to a dance or a film in the hall at Aultbea, or for a picnic with Mairi, Bridie and Ruaridh on the rare occasions that they were all off duty at the same time and the weather was fine. But that evening Mairi was helping her mother at home, and Ruaridh had a date with Wendy. And she’d known for weeks that Alec would be expected to attend the dinner with the house party staying at Ardtuath.
‘Well, I still don’t like it,’ Iain grumbled, reluctantly going to gather up the rods and reels needed for the day’s fishing. From the boot room he called, ‘You’re to go up to the house after lunch. Lady Helen