Christmas at the Castle by Jenny Kane Read Free Book Online Page A

mine.’
    Tilting his head to one side, giving Charlie the impression he was enjoying the view, he added, ‘I would very much like to hear your proposal. How about we discuss it tonight over a drink at Scott Skinner’s? I haven’t made it there yet, and I hear it’s a nice pub.’
    With her brain privately grappling with the concept of being asked out for a drink by a handsome man who liked books, Charlie replied, ‘It is nice. I often go to Skinner’s to write when I need a change of scene from my desk at home. Oh, I’m Charlie, by the way. Charlie Davies.’
    â€˜I’m pleased to meet you, Charlie. So, you write?’
    â€˜Yes.’ Charlie pointed to the bookshelves, ‘I’m over there somewhere.’
    â€˜You are? Who are you, then? I mean, who else are you?’
    â€˜Erin Spence.’
    â€˜The Unbrave Heart Erin Spence?’
    Charlie’s pulse started to beat faster. He didn’t immediately connect me with The Love-Blind Boy. ‘Yes. Yes that was my first novel.’
    â€˜I love that book.’
    â€˜You’ve read it?’ Charlie was shocked. ‘Forgive me, but you don’t look like you’d be into women’s fiction.’
    â€˜I’m not as a rule, but my ex-girlfriend had the audiobook and we played it on a long journey once or twice. I enjoyed it. You have a very perceptive view of the male side of things.’
    â€˜Really?’ Charlie could feel herself blushing, ‘Thanks. It’s kind of you to say so.’
    â€˜Not at all. That drink tonight, then? Eight o’clock? With a meal as well, maybe?’
    â€˜To talk about my idea for the festival?’
    â€˜I’m making no promises, because I think I’d rather talk about you.’
    Charlie’s head buzzed with contradictory thoughts. Had she been right to agree to go out with Gervase? Only this morning she’d been thinking about how she felt about Cameron being back, and now she was going on a date with someone else. A part of her knew she’d only said yes in the hope that Alice and Cameron might see them. But so what if they did? Cameron isn’t going to be jealous, and I don’t want him any more anyway. And Alice wouldn’t notice in her current mode if I walked around naked with a pineapple on my head.
    A new thought entered Charlie’s head. Was there any point in going out with another man until Alice had gone home? Gervase would only have to see them standing next to each other and it wouldn’t be her that he wanted to take for dinner anymore.
    Suddenly, Charlie stopped moving. She knew she was being ridiculous, but somehow the thought of how Alice was always going to be there to eclipse her wouldn’t shift.
    Aware she was blocking the flow of Christmas shoppers, Charlie forced her legs to work, and walked briskly to the Bridge of Feugh.
    The Feugh had been Charlie’s mentor for years. When she’d first moved to Banchory from Aberdeen, a lone Englishwoman with her father’s shockingly Scottish hair and her mother’s ample curves, she’d stood on the stone bridge, staring into the fast-flowing water and asked if she’d been right to stay in Scotland rather than returning to London. With every question she’d thrown into its depths, like pebbles in a pond, foam would bubble and splash out answers.
    She still made regular pilgrimages to the Feugh, sometimes to watch the water, sometimes just to laugh at the rabbits that played with cavalier abandon in the car park. It was always full of tourists in the summer months, hoping they’d timed their arrival right to see one of the Feugh’s famous salmon jumping upstream. Whatever the season, the rush of the water, and the pattern of the sun or rain playing on it, would soothe her soul.
    Gripping the side of the bridge, grateful that the icy road meant traffic was avoiding it, Charlie thought back to how she’d pleaded with the