Christmas at the Island Hotel - Jenny Colgan Page 0,17

he had to do in this hotel as long as it didn’t involve walking up and down the side of a hill in the pouring rain all day for the next forty years like his father, three uncles, three brothers, and nine cousins were all doing. He would scrub the floor with a toothbrush if it meant not wearing nine jackets and getting sewn into his underwear.

“Well, go get him!”

Tam frowned. “Where is he?”

Gaspard shrugged. Isla sighed.

“You know?” demanded Gaspard.

Isla flushed bright red. She didn’t like being picked out to do anything. “Same place as you, in the roof—”

“Go! Get him!”

“But—”

“Feerst thing in my kitchen.” Gaspard flexed his arm, and all his tattoos stood out. His face suddenly looked rather menacing. “We say ‘Oui, Chef,’ okay? You are in a real kitchen now, leetle girl! Ees real job, not pretend! Okay? You understand? Not pretend?”

Isla froze.

“OUI, Chef!”

She had absolutely no idea what he was talking about as everyone stared at her.

“Come on,” he snarled.

And then he paused, until he drew out of the utterly humiliated Isla a rather half-hearted “Wee, Chef!”

He nodded curtly, and Isla scampered off up the stairs, feeling wretched. It had been all right being shy in Flora’s kitchen. Iona could pick up the slack for noisiness, and Flora was kind enough that she never noticed. Isla even spoke up from time to time. It wasn’t impossible, when she felt comfortable.

But when it came to strange foreign men yelling at her, or, like now, asking her to do something utterly preposterous like go up to a strange man’s bedroom . . . her face was absolutely flaming and she wanted to burst into tears, and the thought of how it would be to burst into tears on your very first day in a new job was so awful she couldn’t face thinking about that either. So she bit her lip incredibly hard and went past the corridors leading to the Rock’s twelve boutique rooms, all beautiful, and up a hidden staircase to the old attic rooms, which in their day had housed the servants. And now, she supposed, still housed the servants. All were open except for one at the very end of the hallway. She pulled herself together and knocked loudly.

There was no answer. She tried again, harder.

“Hello?” she said. Then, louder: “Hello?”

She touched the door, which, to her horror—she had been hoping to turn back and say she hadn’t found him—started to creak open. It was too late now; she was stuck there and would have to hope for the best.

“Uhm . . . Chef sent me upstairs to . . .”

There was still no sound of movement from inside the room. Curious, she pushed the door farther and glanced inside. The bed was completely unmade; possessions were strewn everywhere. But the room was empty of people. And the window was flying open.

She frowned. Surely he wouldn’t have made his escape; they were three stories off the ground. And it was only a job, not prison, whatever he thought. She blinked. Had he gone?

Isla found herself going to the open window, her heart beating quickly. She was struck suddenly by the most horrifying thought: What if he’d fallen? Tried to climb out and slipped on the wet pipes?

It was freezing in the room. The wind blew right in off the sea, and there were little flecks of rain bouncing off and around in the maelstrom. The curtains were dancing; papers were jumping off the desk.

Slowly she advanced.

“Uhm . . . Konstantin?” she said, the odd consonants taking shape in her mouth.

As she moved there was a sudden flurrying noise and a wouf!! as a massive, hairy something exploded in her face. She screamed and dropped her phone.

“What?” came a voice.

Shocked, she’d fallen back a few paces and tripped, sitting heavily down on the unmade bed. There was little space in the room for anything else. A bemused-looking figure with rumpled hair appeared at the window, standing as if in midair, only half his body visible. Isla was so shocked she could barely speak. With his white shirt and pale skin, she thought for one terrifying moment she was looking at a ghost.

“Oh,” he said, eyes wide. “Santa got my letter!”

He had a slightly flat, barely traceable Scandinavian accent. Isla jumped up as if the covers were hot.

“Wh-where . . .” she stuttered. Konstantin showed her that the window of his room let out onto a flat gable—dangerous, unfenced off, but wide enough for his big