Unobtainium 1: Kate on a Hot Tin Roof by Niall Teasdale Read Free Book Online Page A

Unobtainium reactor, in 1910 and it was once again possible to see the beauty of the surrounding countryside from the town itself.
    Hodges was waiting on the platform when they arrived, ready to collect their bags. He was a man in his mid-twenties, quite handsome in his chauffer’s uniform with a peaked cap. He did his best not to look excessively surprised at the woman disembarking with Charles, taller than either of them and strikingly beautiful. Hodges was not used to seeing Master Charles with a woman, unless it was a married friend’s wife. The girl’s eyes just put the icing on the cake.
    ‘Hodges, this is Kate,’ Charles said, handing a single case over to the chauffer. ‘Kate, Hodges is the family chauffer. That means that he drives our cars for us.’
    ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance,’ Kate said, bobbing a curtsey.
    ‘There’s no need to be doing that for me, Miss,’ Hodges said. ‘I’m just a servant, though I thank you for the honour.’ He had something of an accent, but not a local one; Charles’s father had found him in London, just out of the Army.
    ‘Kate is a… special case,’ Charles said. ‘I’ll be briefing the staff later, but you’re to treat her as a guest. However, save your curtsies for the family, Kate. Did Mrs Wooster teach you that?’
    ‘Yes. She said it was correct for a gentleman or a lady when I met them. I not worked out how to tell yet.’
    ‘You’ll get the hang of it.’
    ‘Pardon, sir,’ Hodges asked, ‘but is the young lady foreign? I’ve never seen eyes like that and her accent is… different.’
    ‘She was born in Richmond, Hodges, but I doubt you’ll find anyone like her anywhere else in the world. Come, let us be on our way.’
    The drive always took longer than Charles liked. The old Bentley was not swift and it took its time getting up hills. Kate’s delight at their surroundings seemed to make light of the journey, however.
    ‘Has she never seen hills before, sir?’ Hodges asked from the front seat.
    ‘No, Hodges. Kate has been kept in the dark, locked up, for her entire life. This is the first trip she has ever had which did not involve the back of an ambulance.’
    Hodges was silent for a second. ‘Sir, I assume she’s not a criminal, so why would someone do that to her?’
    ‘Father,’ Kate said, ‘was making me special.’
    ‘Her father ?’
    ‘Yes, Hodges,’ Charles interrupted, ‘and Kate is rather more sanguine about the entire affair than I appear to be. Perhaps we could discuss something else.’
    ‘Right you are, sir. The weather is due to be fine this week.’
    Charles burst into a fit of laughter. ‘Good. Very good.’
    ‘I don’t understand,’ Kate said, looking bewildered. ‘Why is that funny?’
    Rhidorroch.
    Rhidorroch Hall was a three-storey, two-winged building in the Georgian style. Hunter Hall had had the entire thing constructed when he bought the park. Charles occupied the east wing when he was at home, along with his grandmother and the laboratory, which took up a substantial amount of space.
    There was, however, plenty of room for a few spare rooms and with Kate installed in one of them, Charles went down to talk to his father. He had seen Alexander and Georgina watching from the upper floor of the west wing and Alicia peeking out from another window, but none of them had come down. Lilian would wait for later to see the newcomer, Charles was sure of that.
    Alexander was in the drawing room when Charles found him, standing before the fireplace. Georgina was sitting in one of the large chairs nearby. Alexander was not an especially tall man but was approaching sixty fairly gracefully though his hair had gone fully grey in his forties. He had the Hall looks, as did Charles. Neither of them would be classed as handsome, but they could hold their own against the majority with their heads held high. Charles had never really cared about his looks, while his father did. That presented primarily in his father