Concealing his relief at having arrived at last, Lex drove into a courtyard, and parked as close as he could to the massive front door.
‘Only three and a half hours late,’ he said grimly.
He switched off the engine, and there was a sudden, crushing silence, broken only by the sound of Freya burbling to herself in the back seat. She had woken half an hour before, and Romy had been on tenterhooks in case she started to cry again, but her daughter seemed perfectly content to play with her toes and chat away in her own incomprehensible language.
‘OK,’ said Lex. ‘Now remember, the whole deal is riding on this meeting, so we’ve got to get it right.’
‘Right,’ said Romy.
‘If we want Grant to take us seriously, we’ll have to be professional, and that means making a good impression right from the start. We’re going to have to work hard to make up for turning up late with the entire contents of a Mothercare catalogue.’
‘Professional,’ Romy agreed. ‘Absolutely.’
The moment the wipers had stilled, the snow had started to build up on the windscreen, and already they could barely see through it.
Lex was calculating how quickly he could unload the car. ‘You take Freya,’ he told Romy. ‘I’ll bring the stuff.’
Romy thought doubtfully of everything she had brought with her. ‘It’ll take ages if you do it on your own. Why don’t we do it together?’
‘There’s no point in two of us blundering around in the snow,’ he said gruffly. ‘Take Freya into the warm. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to change and get rid of all this clobber before we meet Grant himself.’
‘All right.’ Romy drew a breath and looked at Lex. ‘I’m ready.’
He nodded and reached for the door handle. ‘Then let’s go and get this deal.’
It wasn’t far to the door, but it was bitterly cold and to Lex, labouring backwards and forwards in the dark through the snow, it felt as if he were trapped in an endless blizzard. Head down, he dumped stuff in the stone porch as quickly as he could before running back for the next load. At least someone was transferring it all inside, he saw, but he was very glad indeed to make the last trip, skidding and sliding over the snow.
Brushing the worst of the snow off himself in the porch, Lex shook out his sodden trousers with an irritable grimace. His feet were frozen, his hands numb, and melting snow was trickling down his neck, and he was cursing Willie Grant’s refusal to go to London and meet in a warm, dry office, where all sensible deals were made.
But this was the deal he wanted, Lex reminded himself. He bent to retrieve the last of Freya’s luggage and stepped through the door.
He found himself in a vast, baronial hall, complete with antlers on the wall, some sad, glassy-eyed creatures stuffed and mounted long ago, and even the requisite suit of armour standing to attention at the foot of a magnificent staircase.
Lex didn’t see any of them. He registered three things simultaneously. One, a small, portly man with a halo of white hair, holding Freya. Willie Grant himself, in fact, who turned to watch Lex’s approach.
Two, the fact that he, Lex, far from presenting a crisply professional appearance, was dripping snow everywhere and had a bright yellow bag decorated with teddy bears wearing bow ties in one hand and a huge pack of nappies and a pushchair in the other.
And three, Romy, terrified and trying not to show it, standing rigidly beside Willie Grant while an Irish Wolfhound, easily the biggest dog Lex had ever seen, sniffed interestedly at Freya’s feet.
Forgetting his humiliating appearance, Lex dropped the teddy bear bag and snapped his fingers. ‘Come,’ he said to the dog, who trotted obediently over to greet him.
‘Sit.’
The great rump sank to the floor.
‘Good dog,’ said Lex, and rubbed the huge head that came up to his chest, while Romy sent him a speaking look of gratitude.
Willie Grant’s expression was harder to decipher.
‘That’s Magnus,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t usually go to strangers.’
‘I like dogs,’ said Lex, giving Magnus a final pat.
It was too late to hide the pushchair and nappies. He set them down, tried to pretend that he wasn’t dripping everywhere, and stepped forward to offer his hand.
‘Lex Gibson,’ he introduced himself.
‘Willie Grant.’ Willie’s grip was firm and he studied Lex with interest, not unmixed with surprise.
‘I’m very sorry we’re so late.’
‘Oh, not to worry about that,’ said Willie. ‘Your secretary rang, so we got the message that you would be delayed and that you were bringing the wee lassie with you.’ He beamed at Freya and tweaked her nose. ‘She’s a bonny one, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, I’m sorry about that—’ Lex began, and then stopped short as Freya, clearly recognising him, broke into a gummy smile and reached out her arms towards him.
Instinctively, Lex took a step back, but Willie was watching Freya and didn’t notice. ‘Ah, I see who you want!’ he chuckled. ‘Old Willie’s not good enough for you, is he?’
And before Lex could react, he had handed Freya over and turned to take Romy by the arm.
‘Now come away in and have some tea in the library,’ he said and bore her off up the magnificent stone staircase, leaving Lex, aghast, holding Freya at rigid arm’s length.
It wasn’t often that Lex was at a loss for words.
‘Er…’ was the best he could manage.
‘Perhaps I should take Freya,’ Romy said quickly, trying to hang back. ‘Lex is rather wet.’
But Willie wasn’t to be deflected. ‘Oh, bring the wee one too, of course,’ he tossed over his shoulder at Lex. ‘You’ll soon dry off by a good fire. Ewan’s around here somewhere. He’ll take your stuff to your room while Elspeth’s bringing us some tea.’
That left Lex with little choice but to carry Freya gingerly after them, dangling between his hands. He was terrified that she was going to cry, but she just stared at him with those disconcertingly direct dark eyes.
The library was warm and cluttered, with heavy red velvet curtains closed against the night and a fire crackling behind a guard.
‘We put that up as soon as we heard you were bringing the baby,’ said Willie.
‘I was afraid she’d be a nuisance,’ Romy said, settling herself on the red leather sofa, and looking anxiously over her shoulder to see where Lex and Freya were.
To her dismay, the huge dog had followed them up the stairs and threw itself down on the rug in front of the fire with a great thud. Romy was convinced she could feel a tremor in the floor and wouldn’t have been in the least surprised if the ornaments had come crashing off the mantelpiece at the impact.
She had been terrified in the hall when Magnus appeared. On one level, Romy knew it was stupid. Just because one dog had bitten her when she was a child didn’t mean that every dog would bite. Perhaps it was knowing that they could that made her so nervous.
And this dog was a monster, the size of a small pony at least. When it had stuck its great muzzle towards her, she had frozen with terror. Unable to move, the breath clicking frantically in her throat, she had only been able to watch as it swung its head round to investigate Freya in Willie’s arms. Her daughter’s feet had been mere inches away from those huge teeth.
Willie didn’t seem to have noticed anything amiss. He’d been laughing with Freya, as if unaware