The Vintage Girl Read Online Free PDF

composure. “Does she know the castle well?”
    “Like the back of her hand. She grew up running around the kitchens. Her family’s always farmed on the estate, and my granny was a lady’s maid at Kettlesheer, when they had a full staff to run the place.” Fraser discreetly turned off my turn signal to stop the man behind beeping at me. “It’s a lot for Duncan and Ingrid to do on their own,” he went on, little knowing how my stately home fantasy was now bubbling into full color with each word, “keeping a house that size watertight and clean, as well as fulfilling the social obligations, of course.”
    Social obligations!
    I realized I’d said it out loud.
    “Absolutely. Duncan and Ingrid have got to host the local ball once a year, throw sherry parties for the local hunt, sit on endless committees. And of course, it all costs money.” He paused, and his voice turned serious. “Which is where, as I’m sure Alice explained, you come in. If you could find one or two things they could sell, to the right people, it would solve a few problems.”
    The traffic had stopped again, and I allowed myself to look properly across the car, my best take-me-seriously face at the ready. I liked Fraser’s solemn expression. It spoke to me of illicit conversations in drawing rooms and carriages.
    “I’m sure there’s plenty up there that they could sell,” I said. “Max seems to think it’s a real treasure trove.”
    That was a direct quote, incidentally. When I told Max why I needed a week off work and the loan of the Duchess, his prized Mercedes, since my own battered Polo wouldn’t have made it past Luton, he’d come to life in the most spectacular fashion.
    “Kettlesheer?” he’d breathed, spreading out his bony fingers as if playing an invisible piano of longing. “That is number four on my top ten stately homes to get into. It’s
crammed
with stuff, and practically no one knows it’s there. How the hell did you manage that?”
    “Oh, contacts,” I’d said.
    “Well, it can’t have been through your social diary,” he went on with a waspish pout. “The McAndrews don’t socialize.” Max spent many hours indulging in and recovering from other people’s hospitality in the name of stalking antiques. He claimed his hangovers as a tax deduction and had a file of drunken notes scribbled on loo paper.
    “So, what should I look out for?” I’d asked.
    “Everything. Scottish silver, oils, Italian marbles dragged back from the Grand Tour … Every four generations there’s a McAndrew who makes a bloody fortune. Then the next three spend it.” From the distant look in his eyes, Max was gamboling around Kettlesheer with a pricing gun. “If they can’t buy it, they marry it and reel it in that way—they bagged an American heiress at the turn of the last century, must have brought some quality gear with her. For years, Derek Yardley’s been saying there’s a table up there worth a mint. But no one’s ever seen it, so I don’t know …”
    I was still on the American heiress: I loved Edwardiana. And Victoriana. Any -ana, really.
    “What sort of heiress?” I’d said. “Like Edith Wharton’s Buccaneers?”
    “Bucktoothed, probably. But very rich. Try to keep that tiny mind of yours on the antiques, not the photo albums, Evie.” Max had smiled with all his teeth and both eyes. I preferred him when he was shouting. “Don’t forget, if you need any help, just give me a call and I’ll come straight up. In fact, wouldn’t it be better if—”
    “No!” I hadn’t meant it to sound so emphatic, but the thought of having to deal with Alice and my mum checking up on me to see how my comfort-zone breakout was going while Max fingered the valuables and engaged in industrial-strength sycophancy was just too much.
    Fraser coughed, and I realized my knuckles were white on the steering wheel and the cars were moving again around me.
    “So, will you be holding valuation audiences? Like on television?”