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There had been a buzz about town for the last couple of days. Spending more time at the manor now than ever before, she got to see preparations start to formulate over their engagement party first hand. Imagining this must be how every event at the house started off and a little in awe of how much went on behind the scenes to the grand events.
A huge workforce of staff was called in to clean the large halls and downstairs’ rooms adjoining thoroughly; every detail was meticulously seen too, even the corners. Large chandeliers were lowered, dusted and cleaned to sparkle for the approaching day. Curtains removed and professionally freshened up. Floors buffed and polished. A crew of ten or fifteen people, bustling around for hours on end attending to every small aspect of making the place sparkle.
Cases of glasses, crates of alcohol and endless boxes were carried in over a few days and disappeared under Alice’s watchful eye to some secret storage place. Boxes of linens and place settings and beautiful table décor and candles. The stream of people who came and went with swatches and floral samples, cake samples, food samples, seemed overwhelmingly never ending and Rob, Abby and Alice, just took it all in their stride.
The event coordinator Deborah, Rob’s very efficient assistant, appeared only once; talking to everyone as though commander and chief before sweeping off with Hamish Munro’s folder of details in hand and setting things in place. Hamish had set the party in motion, but he left the minute details to the normally invisible employee, who was obviously used to this responsibility, judging by the speed in which tasks were dealt with and vans were arriving.
Rose couldn’t help but feel the anticipation and excitement every time she walked into the big hall. The room being set out far in advance, so preparations could be made, table decor calculated, and buffet food chosen, generally how it would all look with one corner being completely set up to trial the finishing touches.
Abby was old hat at this kind of thing, wandering behind the stream of people with checklists and ‘umming’ and ‘ahhing’. Nodding and signing sheets of paper, seemingly disinterested in most of it. Rose was overwhelmed with the vastness of it all and shuddered with fear every time Abby told her she would soon be wearing the crown as ‘Hostess with the mostest’, soon enough; Laird’s wife took over all of this kind of thing apparently. Along with a ring came the title and upkeep of this house, overseeing the social aspect and generally becoming the master of the party bar, just as Rob’s mother had been.
Rob, although still attentive to her, had withdrawn somewhat over the last couple of days. He was still dealing with work issues and she knew he was still on edge about the way things had ended with Morag. He was more aware of not shutting her out this time, really trying not to, and it was endearing to see him trying to get used to the new behaviour of sharing and letting her in. It couldn’t be easy for him, having to be the one, who after so long of looking after this fragile woman was now the cause of her pain and distance.
He disappeared briefly when he had too, but mostly he had been working from his home office. He liked having Rose close by, easy to find her and strip her naked when the longing overtook him, or he needed to relieve stress, and he had grown a huge attachment to Muffin, who sometimes stole the space between them in bed. Currently Muffin was in his office with him, using Rob’s lap as a nap cushion. It wasn’t the first time she had woken to find both gone in the early hours of the morning, seeing them in the distance outside. Rob jogging along the wood line with her little fur ball bouncing along beside him, tongue flapping free as he joyously kept pace with his new master.
Alice had taken a huge soft touch to Muffin, plying him with a never-ending trail of treats, homemade dog food and always a bone for him by the fire in the cosy room. Tommy had even made him an enclosure in the side garden, so he could be let out from the kitchen door to run wild, a new shiny kennel at the far end and of course lots of Tommy attention when he was out there too. He had become everyone’s stand in child, to adore and spoil mercilessly. Today he was sporting a woolly jumper, made by one of the knitting group ladies as the weather was cooling and had another ten packed in a box in Rob’s room from other equally generous needlers.
Her parents were arriving hours before the party and staying at her cottage. She had popped down from time to time to keep the place clean, light the odd fire and make sure it felt lived in. She missed it sometimes, but the lure of Rob was more than the lure of the cottage and he needed to be there right now, near his office so he could working later into the night. Near family, while they expected him to get involved in the preparations and everything going on.
Rose was starting to feel more at home in the manor anyway, enjoying her time lounging with him in the cosy or sharing tasks in the kitchen when they were hungry. She had set up her art supplies in a small unused study downstairs; borrowing an old desk from one of the disused bedrooms and shelves from another. This house had so many rooms and halls littered about, she wondered if she would ever see them all and learn to navigate her way around. It seemed every time she went wandering she found another door she had never been behind before, a labyrinth of canvas covered rooms and nooks galore.
She discovered the manor had a cellar purely by accident, when Muffin managed to get himself down there and had been crying relentlessly. Hearing him, but not finding him, in a surge of panic before Alice appeared rosy-cheeked from washing floors elsewhere in the big house. She had listened for a second, before leading Rose down a small hall, concealed behind the kitchen via a door that looked like a wall panel and into a creaky stairway down to a floored and musty wine cellar. Stacks and stacks of wooden racks, mostly full of dusty bottles and a whole sectioned off area where the party supplies were being kept. Crates and barrels of various alcohol and of course a huge corner dedicated to the whiskies that the Munro named graced in its familiar packaging. Muffin was hiding behind a stack of sacks, shaking in fear and shivering from the cool temperature down here. Relieved to be rescued and pampers and cuddled by his heroin’s.
There was only one more full day left before their party and Rose knew he still had not heard from Morag. The town was buzzing; elegant invites sent near and far and RSVP’s received with barely any declined. Yet from her, complete radio silence.
Munro family. Turner family. A gazillion locals and those further afield that had connection with the Munros had all RSVP’d to accept. Local news reporters for small town papers and magazines had shamelessly asked for open invites and she knew a couple of photographers for the latter were to appear when the festivities began. Rob hadn’t been kidding when he said this news would interest more than the local gossips. It seemed the entire north of Scotland and outer islands were buzzing about this event and many were travelling far to come. The Munro’s were a known family and as lots of them lived further afield, then this was becoming the party everyone wanted to attend.
Rob had been quiet all day, coming and going, always stuck to his phone or closed in his office with a serious expression on his handsome face. Or walking in and out with his nose in papers and oblivious to the chaos around him as he passed from office to kitchen for coffee and back again.
She had barely seen much of him since breakfast this morning, she knew he had managed to salvage some sort of resolution to his construction issues and business seemed to be returning to normal. She had to get used to this side of life with him, knowing the house and all the expensive perks were all possible because he worked hard and long hours. Because he was a huge deal in the Munro Empire and over seen far more than she even knew about so his father could stay in retirement. Not that any of it really mattered; she would have followed him anywhere, even if he had been penniless and living in a shack. Rob was enough, and all this just added to how much she loved him.
She opened the door to his office quietly, placing the tray of food and coffee on the side table and turned to leave him in peace. His focus was on his laptop and the landline fixed to his ear in mid conversation. He held up his hand to catch her attention and motioned for her to wait with a half-smile; Rose stood patiently, watching him type something while propping the phone to his ear, he said his goodbyes and dropped it back down, catching it easily and replacing it on the cradle.
‘Come here baby.’ He smiled lazily and stood up from his chair as she approached, guiding her to sit in the warm leather instead and planting a kiss on her as she slid past him obediently. He reached out across the smooth table in front of her, pulled over a pile of papers and a shiny dark folder, depositing them in view and sitting down on the edge of the table so he could look over her them too.
‘We’re moving!’ He declared huskily, a smile still stuck on his face and a knowing look in his eye. Rose looked up in alarm, immediate protest forming on her lips as she caught the humour in his smile and glanced back down questioningly as he tapped the papers. Looking down she realised the first few were paint charts and furniture brochures and a layout of the manor plans.
‘I’m confused.’ She looked back and forth from him to the pile of papers. Rob slid out the dark glossy folder from the base of the pile; an architect’s name and logo emblazoned in gold foil on one corner and flipped it open to reveal a spread of technical drawings and symbols, notes and details, that she didn’t understand.
