“And Stockholm’s waiting for a reply,” added the man.
“Lori,” said Sir Percy, bounding to his feet, “let me introduce you to my personal assistants: Kate Halston and Elliot Southmore. Flew in yesterday to set up my office. You won’t see much of them, I’m afraid.Their boss is a tyrant.” He clapped Damian on the shoulder. “Must dash, old bean. Profit waits for no man.”
“I’ll show Lori to her suite,” said Damian.
“Excellent,” said Sir Percy. “We’ll take the grand tour of Dundrillin after lunch. And now, if you’ll excuse me . . .” My host swept his young assistants through the double doors and out of sight.
I got to my feet, grabbed my carry-on bag, and followed Damian into the murky corridor. We walked in silence until we reached the curved wall at the end of the passage, where a battered wooden door concealed, of all things unexpected, a modern elevator. I laughed out loud when I saw it.
Damian looked at me inquiringly.
“Whoever heard of a castle with an elevator?” I said as we stepped aboard.
“Sir Percy altered the castle a great deal after he purchased it.” Damian pushed the third button in a row of five, and the elevator began its smooth ascent. “It’s difficult to find employees who are qualified to provide the kind of maid service his guests require. It’s impossible to find maids willing to climb hundreds of stairs several times a day.” The elevator stopped, and his tone became instructive. “There are five levels in the northwest tower. Your suite is on the third. It’s known as the Cornflower Suite. The nursery is one floor up, on the fourth level.”
The metal doors slid apart to reveal a white-painted foyer with a terra-cotta-tiled floor and a frosted light fixture in the ceiling. The foyer had no windows, but it did have some unusual furnishings.
A pole lamp and a leather armchair sat to the right of the elevator, and a folding cot had been erected against the wall on my left, beside a small table equipped with a reading lamp and a battery-powered alarm clock. The cot was furnished with blankets and a pillow, and a well-worn canvas duffel bag had been stowed beneath it.
I turned to Damian. “Your bedroom?”
He nodded. “When you’re in your suite, I’ll be here.”
I formulated my next question carefully before asking, “What about . . . um, bathroom facilities?”
“A powder room is connected to the foyer,” he replied, gesturing to a door in the right-hand wall.
I eyed the door doubtfully. “Does it have a shower or a bath?”
“It’s sufficient for my needs,” Damian said shortly. “Shall we move on?”
He opened a door opposite the elevator and ushered me into one of the most extraordinary rooms I’d ever seen.
The Cornflower Suite was, essentially, one large round chamber. A massive fireplace built of smooth river stones stood in the center of the room, rising from the floor to the plastered ceiling. The ceiling’s exposed beams radiated from the chimney to the tower’s exterior walls like spokes in a wheel.
The huge fireplace divided the room into two distinct spaces: a sitting room and a bedroom. We’d entered the sitting room, which was as light and airy as the entrance hall had been oppressive. The floor was covered with a thick, cornflower-blue carpet, the walls were papered with a pretty blue-on-white floral print, and the furniture was white French Provincial. A writing table sat beneath a pair of narrow windows set deep in the tower’s external wall, and a heavy-duty glass door opened onto a half-moon balcony. The glass door and the decor’s pale shades gave brightness to a room that would otherwise have been as dark as a dungeon.
The blue carpet and flowery wallpaper continued in the bedroom, which was furnished in the same style as the sitting room. A drift of muslin hung in a half canopy over a king-size bed dressed with blue-and-white sprigged bedclothes and banked with lacy pillows, and a comfy armchair with a cushioned hassock sat before the fire. A full-length, gilt-framed mirror hung on the wall near the entrance to the bathroom, reflecting the light from windows that overlooked the sea.
My clothes had been put away in the bedroom’s wardrobe and chests of drawers, and my suitcases had been stashed on top of the wardrobe, presumably by Mrs. Gammidge’s minions. I hung my jacket in the wardrobe and placed my carry-on bag on the bed before I continued exploring.
The curved wall that would have stood at the bed’s head had been squared off to form a compact but well-equipped modern bathroom with a deep tub and a separate, glass-walled shower stall. A small mahogany bureau had been retrofitted with a basin and taps to serve as the sink, and the toilet was in its own half-walled space beside it. My toiletries had been stowed in the bureau.
I emerged from the bathroom to find my bodyguard waiting for me in the bedroom.