Just Rose

37

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.