The Kiss by Emma Shortt Read Free Book Online Page B

come.
     
     

Chapter
Nine
     
     
    December the twenty-first had come and the guests would be
arriving any moment, or so they’d been told.
    Eva checked the dining room to make sure the cutlery was all in
place, the glasses were sparkling and the flowers perfectly arranged. 
Everything was exactly how she had left it several hours ago, ready and
waiting. For lack of anything better to do she wandered back towards the foyer
intending to check the flowers there.
    Lily, one of the other staff was heading in the same direction,
she smiled in a friendly fashion and Eva smiled back.
    “Looking for something to do?” Eva asked.
    “Yep, you?”
    Lily nodded, sending her long golden hair shimmering around her
face. “There is nothing to do though. I’m so bored I started cleaning my room
and that is so not like me. No internet, no TV, nothing but books. I’d kill for
some real work right about now but this place was near on perfect when we got
here.”
    Evie couldn’t help but agree. Grace might have over egged the job
but she’d thought they’d still be busy, but there was nothing to do, like
literally nothing.“Well they’ve just given us some settling in time I
guess,” Eva said trying, maybe, to reassure them both.
    Lily raised one perfect eyebrow. “They’re paying us a fair bit to
spend near over a week lazing around.”
    Again Lily was right. Eva had spent over a week waiting, a week
with not really anything to do, certainly no ‘light waitressing’. Lily had
arrived before so had even more settling in time. It was all very odd
but Eva was trying not to question it too closely.
    This past week she had taken numerous luxurious baths, slept
peacefully in the comfiest bed in the world, sketched most of the statues, including
Adonis over and over again, and hit the gym constantly. She’d toned up a little
and relaxed a lot. It had been like a mini holiday interrupted only when she
was asked to arrange flowers or lay out silverware.
    “It’s been like a holiday,” Lily said, echoing Eva’s thoughts.
    “Yeah we’ll probably be worked to death soon though.”
    In a way Eva kind of hoped so, once the novelty wore off she’d
wanted to get busy. Eva didn’t enjoy idleness and she was eager to start
working properly. When Grace had called everyone in for a staff meeting and
informed them all that the guests would be arriving tonight Eva was actually
pleased.
    “I’m gonna check the library, again,” Lily said, “Maybe there’s
some dust on the gazillion books or something. Who even reads those books I
wonder? I don’t think this place even runs all year round.”
    “What do you mean?” Eva asked.
    “Well I was one of the first to get here,” Lily confided in a
hushed tone. Why it was necessary to whisper Eva didn’t know. “Everything was
covered up in those big white sheets, you know the type you see on TV. I helped
a little with that, removing dust covers and stuff—it was the most work I’ve
done so far. So I was thinking to myself that maybe this place is only open for
the time we’ve been employed for.”
    Eva shook her head, she too had spent a fair bit of time
wondering about the odd contract over the last few days—December through to
March—but she’d assumed new staff were brought in throughout the year, for
different seasonal periods. “But why would you have a huge house like this and
not open it up during the summer months? It’s stupid. Country houses make all
their money off tourists. There’s a package tour thing, I remember seeing it in
the newspaper. You get to visit a bunch of country houses over a few weeks and
believe me it wasn’t cheap.”
    “Maybe they just prefer opening for Christmas?” Lily suggested.
    “So why are we here till March? If it was a Christmas only thing
we’d be sent on our way in the New Year.”
    Lily nodded eagerly, clearly pleased to have someone to voice her
concerns to, or maybe just to gossip. “I don’t know, that’s my point. Why