Red Silk (Steamy Romantic Fantasy)

Part 4

Hi there! I'm returning to writing after a double brush with cancer and one with COVID, which turned my brain to mush for a few years. The italic part in the chapter is old  Scot, as true as I could write it without making the whole unintelligible. Enjoy!

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My first Scottish week was relaxing. The place was as beautiful as it was isolated. I took long walks around the bay, hiking through heather covered moors. I found hidden ponds in the valleys, my boots sank in bogs, and I learned to identify the peculiar scent of peat. Midges feasted on me and Eoghan taught me how to avoid them.

Wherever I went, Storm followed.

The tall stallion had made it his mission to escort me whenever I stepped outside the walls. I wondered whether he felt the need to protect me, watched me as a potential menace for his herd, or simply considered me good entertainment. I assumed it was the latter; I'd swear I saw him laugh when my boot was sucked off my foot by sticky mud.

Mary visited me daily, bringing me food under the pretense of needing my opinion on a new recipe. When I mentioned it to Eoghan, he shrugged.

"Indulge her," he said, "she loves having another human here who appreciates her culinary skills. She claims her talent is wasted on me, as I would eat just about anything."

I certainly didn't mind that, or my daily delivery of fresh pastries. Yet I worried it placed one burden too many on her shoulders.

The castle was rather small, a medieval fortified tower with a Renaissance house attached to the south side. Stables, pens, barns, workshops, and the antique version of a laundry room snuggled the base of the rampart, and that was it.

Still, this was the largest place I ever lived in, and the maintenance had to be a full-time job. Or several. I bet the past lairds had an army of servants. I expected to run into cobwebs and layers of dust in unused rooms or outer buildings.

Nope. All surfaces were squeaky clean. I couldn't fathom how Mary, or her husband, managed to maintain it so meticulously. Perhaps they had robot vacuums and mops, and they just did the dusting and bathrooms? When asked, they refuted it.

"The brownies," they quipped.

Right. I nodded and smiled, pretending to be in on the joke.

As I explored further, I began to notice plenty more things. Small things. Details really.

First was the aversion of the owner for steel. Aside from the rusted door said to defend access to the basement of the tower, I could find no sign of iron anywhere. Not a single nail to hold the furniture together. All visible metal was copper or silver, door hinges were made of leather, stoves were ceramic with glass inserts. I thought I had lucked out with the range top, until Eoghan revealed it was cast aluminum. His boss allegedly had an allergy to iron. Did that even exist? I was quite sure they were making this up.

Second were the electrics. No power sockets but in the kitchen and my room. Lights and fireplaces lit up on their own. I guessed there were sensors; I had yet to spot one. And how do you automatize a peat fire? Unless they were kept burning low and the air flux was increased by some machinery? But then, who was restocking them?

Third was the plumbing. I counted a dozen bedrooms, three dry toilets and one en-suite bathroom: mine. I assumed they had modernized the place for my comfort, which led me to wonder, why so little? If money wasn't an issue, bringing all accommodations up to modern standards would have raised property value.

Clearly Eoghan's boss fancied his house medieval style. Which was his right, after all.

I however, begged to differ. I've always been fond of my creature comforts, and I'm glad I was born in a century blessed with A/C and central heating, which this place was sorely lacking.