Chapter Three

‘Now you’ve bought the estate,’ she said, ‘you also own Love Taxis, and you will close me down if I can’t repay my loan.’

‘That’s right.’ Of course he would close her down, whether she could repay the loan or not. That’s what he was here for. To put the estate in order and sell up what could be sold for a profit. The sooner he told her, the sooner she had time to get used to the idea.

‘Oh. I see.’ Rosalie stood up, and crossed her arms. ‘What exactly are you, Mr Petersen?’

‘Pardon?’ Her question shot straight to his heart and he spoke French without thinking. He’d asked himself that very same question far too often recently.

‘I mean, what business are you in?’

He took a few moments to consider his answer. ‘Buying and selling property, mainly. My father and I buy failing businesses, factories, department stores, hotels …’ Realising he was talking about his father in the present tense, he stopped and reached out for his glass.

He drank a sip of wine and carried on. ‘If we can, we turn them round before selling them on. If we can’t, we close them down and strip their assets.’

‘To make money.’

‘Of course.’

‘Why Raventhorn Castle? It’s not a business.’

‘I wasn’t party to the original deal with McBride, so I don’t know what attracted my father to this place,’ he conceded, ‘but I guess the potential for a hotel and holiday complex could make this place very attractive to investors.’

She gasped. ‘A holiday complex, here?’

He nodded.

‘You said you worked with your father, so yours is a family firm.’

‘It was at first. Then it grew.’ The truth was that it had grown far too big these past few years.

‘Is it a successful business?’

‘It is.’

‘Then why should you care about Raventhorn? Can you not forget about us for a few months, give us time to work things out?’

She looked at him. Her eyes were a deep, warm chocolate, so beguiling his mind went blank for a second.

He cleared his throat. ‘It’s too late for that. The sale went through last week, and, believe me, McBride got a very generous price.’

More than generous, in fact. Raventhorn had been vastly overpriced for a rundown estate, even if it included a castle, a wood and a loch, as well as a few acres of moorland – and now it seemed a pink taxi firm and a magic bed. According to the conveyance lawyers, his father had also shown unprecedented generosity in granting McBride’s wish to remain on the premises until the New Year.

Rosalie got up and started pacing the floor. ‘I don’t just run a taxi business, you know. I help people. There are hardly any buses left around here – normal buses, not tourist ones. Thanks to my cabs, people can go to the doctor when they’re sick, to the supermarket for their weekly shopping. They can meet their friends at the toddler group, at the pub or the ceilidh.’

‘You make it sound like you’re running a community service.’

Her face lit up. ‘That’s it exactly! Love Taxis is a community service. I don’t even charge proper fares because most people couldn’t afford them.’

‘That is no way to run a business. No wonder you can’t repay your loan.’

‘There’s more to life than balance sheets and fat bank accounts. There’s helping people, belonging to a community, looking after your friends and family. If you don’t understand that, then despite all your money, you and your father lead a very sad life.’

Her words swirled and echoed around him, inside him.

He looked at her and said quietly, ‘My father died in a helicopter accident a few weeks ago. In fact, purchasing Raventhorn must have been one of the very last business deals he made.’

Her face drained of all colour, she lifted her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.’

The phone started ringing in the hall upstairs.

‘I’ll get that,’ she said, before hurrying out of the kitchen.

He finished his glass of wine and thought about what she’d just said. He didn’t know what it meant to belong. He’d been brought up by a succession of nannies, then sent to boarding school in England when he was five. After that, he had studied at a top university in the States and at one of Paris’s ‘Grandes Ecoles’. Even though he’d managed the Petersen office in Paris for the past twelve years and enjoyed living in the French capital, he’d never felt at home there, or anywhere else, either. He closed his eyes.

No, that wasn’t totally true. There was one place where he’d once felt at home. On his grandfather’s farm, on the windswept North Jutland coast of Denmark, in a past so distant it often felt as unreal as a dream.

He grabbed hold of the bottle of wine and the two glasses before going after her. It was a shame about Rosalie’s taxi business but it couldn’t be helped. His job wasn’t to sort out the mess McBride had made of his finances, but to make a profit for Petersen and Son.

She slammed the phone down and walked into the drawing room. It was another call from an annoying call centre – at least she supposed it was, since nobody ever talked at the other end. It was happening more and more often, so often that Geoff had recently decreed they wouldn’t answer the landline any longer.

She paced the floor of the drawing room, but what she really wanted to do was scream in frustration. When would she learn to think things through before opening her mouth? By insulting Petersen and his father just then, she had probably ruined any chance of saving her business. She had also been terribly insensitive. Marc Petersen’s grief would still be raw, and she had unwillingly added to it with her thoughtless words.

She turned to the door when she heard his footsteps in the corridor. He placed their glasses and the bottle of wine on a small table and faced her. The reflection of the flames from the fire danced in his eyes. He didn’t look angry or upset at all.

She took a deep breath and stepped towards him.

‘I’m sorry for what I said earlier. It was wrong of me. I shouldn’t be so judgemental of the way you run your life, or your business. And I am sorry about your father. You must be terribly sad.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’

Surprised by the calmness of his tone, she looked up. His face was composed, his eyes cold and devoid of any emotion.

‘McBride really should have told you about the sale. He should also have made sure your taxi business was safe and all transactions conducted above board.’ He paused. ‘You should warn your staff about redundancies.’

She gasped. ‘No, I can’t tell them anything just yet!’

She moved away to stare at the flames in the fireplace. The reality of what was happening suddenly hit her. It wasn’t only the locals who relied on her. She had responsibilities towards her staff too. Duncan, her driver, had two young sons to support and his wife Brenda, who worked Saturdays at the bakery in Irlwick. Her two switchboard operators needed the income she provided too. Fiona was a talented, but struggling, artist, and Fergus hardly managed to scrape a living with what she was paying him on top of his pension. His wife Marion was Raventhorn’s cleaner, so they could both be out of a job soon.

How could an outsider like Petersen understand how important Love Taxis was around here? If only he could see her at work …

She drew in a breath. Of course! There was the solution.

‘Come with me tomorrow,’ she said.

He shook his head, looking shocked. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Give me just one day. You can’t do much here anyway since Geoff is in hospital.’

He sighed. ‘Spending the day with you wouldn’t influence my decision. I only take figures and accounts into consideration when I examine a business’s viability.’

She put her hand on his forearm, gazed into his cool grey eyes. ‘Please. I want to show you what I do, how vital my cab service is for Irlwick.’

He tensed under touch. ‘Miss Heart, I don’t think you understand. Your taxi firm isn’t what my company is about, no matter how important you feel it is. I would never consider investing in something so …’ He frowned, seemingly lost for words.

‘Small? Insignificant?’ she offered. ‘It may be small on paper, but it’s invaluable for our town.’ Her fingers squeezed his forearm. She felt his muscles tense again and heat rise from his body.

‘Just one day,’ she insisted, fluttering her eyelashes in a last attempt to sway him. If that didn’t move him, she’d shed a tear or two.

He gave her one of his cold stares. ‘Please spare me your feminine wiles, Miss Heart, and don’t even think about crying. It won’t work on me.’

How did he guess what she’d planned to do? So everything was lost, just like that. Her home, her business, her whole life … Very real tears now blurred her vision and pearled at the corner of her eyes.

He drew in a breath, and shrugged. ‘Oh, all right. I really don’t know why I’m agreeing to this. I’ll come with you for the day.’

She sighed with relief. ‘Thank you. Thursdays are always busy, with the toddler group in the morning and the dance at the Four Winds Hotel in the evening. You’ll be impressed when you see what we do, how we help local people, and how—’

‘Don’t get carried away. It won’t change my mind.’

His voice had grown deeper. His eyes turned a mesmerising dark grey, the colour of Bran Loch under a stormy sky.

Just as the thought of thunder and lightning crossed her mind, the electric bulbs flickered and went off with loud popping sounds. The glow from the fire cast shivering shadows on Petersen’s face and made him look rugged and untamed – a far cry from the conservative businessman she’d collected at the airport, and from the man who showed no emotion at the mention of the father he’d only just lost.

The fire crackled in the hearth, the wind howled outside and rain pounded against the windows. Petersen gazed down at her and her pulse started to race. An invisible force pulled her towards him, closer and closer until she felt she was falling.

A discreet ringtone startled her and she jerked back. As if on cue, the electricity flashed back on. He retrieved his mobile from his trouser pocket, and checked the screen. ‘Sorry, I need to take this.’

He pressed the answer button. ‘Good evening, Fizpatrick. I was expecting to hear from you sooner.’ He walked to the window, the frown creasing his forehead getting deeper as he talked about missed deadlines, accounts and bank balances.

Her face still hot, her throat dry and her breath shaky, Rosalie walked to the fireplace, grabbed hold of the poker and prodded the logs. What on earth had just happened? Physical attraction, sudden, powerful and electrifying, that was what. The kind of physical attraction she’d never experienced before, but that could, according to her friend Alice’s late night confessions, make you lose your head, your self-respect, and most of your clothing.

Disgusted with herself, she gave the log a hard jab. How could she even for one moment be attracted to Petersen? She disliked everything he stood for. He wanted Raventhorn, not because he had fallen in love with its history or its beauty, but because it would yield a profit. In the process he would put her out of business and throw Lorna out of her home without a second’s hesitation. He would also put her staff out of work, and without her taxi, village life would never be the same again.

Petersen was still on the phone. He sounded angry now, but like everything about him it was a cold, flat, restrained anger. ‘When we agreed the terms, you never mentioned you had doubts regarding your ability to fulfil your side of the contract. I don’t care if you spent twenty years building up your company, Fitzpatrick. The fact is, it belongs to me now. You have until Saturday to sort this mess out.’

There was a pause. ‘Don’t waste your breath. I said Saturday. After that, I’m stepping in.’

Rosalie’s blood ran cold. If she needed confirmation of Petersen’s character, that was it. She put the poker back on the rack, and turned to face Petersen. ‘I’m leaving now.’

She would sleep in her flat tonight. She didn’t fancy the idea of being alone with Petersen in the castle.

Still frowning, he slipped his phone back into his pocket. ‘Why are there no live-in staff at Raventhorn? That’s unusual for a place this size.’

‘We like to keep the manor to ourselves … although we’re never really on our own.’

He arched an eyebrow. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know if I should mention this just before bedtime, but you did say you didn’t believe in ghosts.’

She paused for effect, and was rewarded by the puzzled look on his face. ‘You see, we have our regular night-time visitors, here at Raventhorn. There’s Dughall McBride hopping about on his peg leg. He was the captain on a ship that was lost at sea sometime in the seventeenth century. There’s Old Finghall, who was slain by the McGunn clan and plays his bagpipes when the mood takes him. Then there’s Morag McBride who cries for the return of her man from Culloden. And Lady Isobel, of course.’

‘Really? Any other ghost I should worry about?’ He didn’t sound scared or worried at all.

‘No, that’s it. Most of our residents are harmless, if a little noisy at times. All except Isobel, of course. Not only does she take men to their death in the loch, but she is also known to play tricks with the lights and the doors. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was her switching the electricity on and off earlier.’

She made a show of checking her watch. ‘It’s late, and I bid you good night.’

He smiled, and humour sparkled in his eyes. ‘So having told me that the place is riddled with ghosts, you are now abandoning me?’

‘That’s right. If you get too scared, you can always knock on my door. It’s the blue one, across the courtyard.’

That would teach him to be mean to that poor man on the phone, and to upset her life. Between the howling wind, the creaking wardrobe in the Crimson Room and her silly ghost stories, Marc Petersen probably wouldn’t sleep a wink.

‘Lorna will cook your breakfast at half past seven. Our shift starts at eight thirty. I wish you sweet dreams.’

The shrill ringing of the phone interrupted her. ‘Not again!’ Much as she wanted to ignore it, she couldn’t. It could be Lorna calling because she was feeling unwell, or the hospital with news about Geoff.

It wasn’t Lorna, or the hospital.

‘Rosalie, lass,’ said a deep male voice at the other end of the line.

‘Fergus?’ Rosalie frowned. ‘You sound upset. What’s up?’

‘I’m afraid Duncan’s had a bit of bother,’ her switchboard operator answered.

Rosalie’s fingers gripped the phone harder. ‘What kind of bother? Has he had an accident?’

‘Kind of … Don’t worry, he’s fine. His cab isn’t, though.’

‘What happened?’

‘He had a pick up at the Duke’s in Kingussie. When his client didn’t show up, he went inside to see if he could find him. He had no luck, so he went back out, only to find that the cab’s windscreen had been smashed.’

Rosalie exhaled slowly. ‘All right. I’m going to the Duke’s right now to talk to him.’

‘There’s no need. He notified the police and phoned Niall who arranged to have the cab towed back to the garage. He said he’d fix the windscreen tomorrow.’

‘Where is Duncan now?’

‘Brenda came to collect him. He wanted to call you but I said I’d do it, and that he should go home. He told the police about the other incidents too,’ Fergus added, ‘and they’re on their way to talk to you.’

Guilt tightened Rosalie’s chest. There had been a lot of prank calls these past few weeks. Perhaps she should have called the police before. She asked Fergus if there were any more bookings for the evening, but he said that there weren’t, so she told him to lock up and go home.

‘Problem?’ Marc asked.

Yes, two, and you’re one of them, she almost retorted. Instead she put the phone down and nodded. ‘My taxi driver has had his cab’s windscreen smashed.’

Petersen frowned. ‘Was he injured?’

‘Thankfully, no, but the police are on their way to talk to me.’

They only had to wait half an hour for the police to arrive.

The two officers didn’t believe that robbery was the motive for the attack on Duncan’s cab.

‘He left his takings inside the car when he went into the Duke’s, and it was all there when he came back. So it was probably an act of random vandalism. However,’ one of the officers said, turning to Rosalie, ‘we have been told that you’ve have a few incidents recently.’

‘They weren’t really incidents as such,’ she protested. ‘They were only prank calls. All taxi drivers get them.’

‘Can you give us any details?’ he insisted.

She shrugged. ‘It’s nothing, really … Last Sunday night, for example, I was called to Loch Morlich, but there was nobody there. Then again on Monday afternoon, I drove all the way to Laggan but the client never showed up, and later that day the same thing happened at Loch Insh Nature Reserve. It really annoyed me because I wasted over two hours driving for nothing. Yesterday evening I went to Carrbridge Trekking Centre …’

She shivered, recalling how frightened she’d been in the deserted car park. ‘It was closed for the winter, and no one was waiting for me there either, so I didn’t hang about.’ She didn’t add that the sensation of someone lurking in the shadows, watching her, had given her goosebumps. Luckily Niall had turned up in his tow truck just as she’d been about to leave. He’d been on his way back from a call-out when he’d spotted her in the empty car park. She’d been so happy to see him she’d given him a big hug before he’d insisted on escorting her back to Irlwick.

‘Duncan told us he’s been getting similar calls these past few weeks,’ the policeman remarked. ‘The calls may be unrelated to tonight’s incident but you should keep a log from now on, and contact us if you are worried in any way.’ He closed his notepad, slipped it back into his pocket and he and his colleague took their leave.

Rosalie watched the red tail lights of the police car disappear into the night. ‘Lorna will be devastated when she finds out the taxi was vandalised. She might even want to postpone her trip to Norwich.’

There would be another, unwelcome consequence. Niall would propose again. Rosalie’s shoulders sagged. Her world had been turned upside down in the space of one evening. The only place she’d ever called home now belonged to a stranger. Geoff, the man she loved like a father, had betrayed her and Lorna. And Love Taxis was as good as finished …