“Are they okay?” Donna asked her sister.
“They read fine to me,” Mairi said, “but Keir’s made a good point. What if this art school woman calls Duncan?”
Donna sat up straighter. “I never thought of that. I’ll add a line telling her he only wants to be contacted by email.”
“What if he decides to ring her?” Mairi said. “You need to make sure that doesn’t happen either.”
“How?” It wasn’t like she could monitor him twenty-four seven.
“I don’t know,” Mairi snapped. “I have to go burn some energy. Sean will intercept all emails before they reach their targets. He’ll alert you when he has them, and you can substitute your versions for the real thing.”
“Targets?” Donna was beginning to regret this plan.
“What else are we supposed to call them? Targets sounds professional.”
“Professionally criminal,” Keir shouted in the background.
“He’s so dramatic,” Mairi said. “Anyway, I need to go. Keir is looking particularly fine this morning, and I need some of that. Tatty-bye.”
“Now I need to wash my ears out with soap,” Donna muttered as she hung up.
Why hadn’t she thought about the dean calling Duncan? She amended his message, telling Zoe he only wanted to be contacted by email. Then she made a quick call to Sean, to ensure he didn’t send the email from the dean’s account until she was ready to deal with her boss. Now all she had to do was stop Duncan from ringing Zoe. Not that she thought he would, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
Her life was getting more complicated by the second.
As she headed for the shower, another character walked out of the pages of Lord of the Rings and into her home—Gandalf, the wizard. Today, he was in his Gandalf the White incarnation, meaning he was less playful and more judgemental. He looked down his hooked nose at her, tugged on his waist-length beard and pointed a gnarly finger in her direction.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive! he said in a voice that would have resonated around a London stage.
“Oh, shut up, Gandalf,” Donna said and slammed the bathroom door behind her.
***
Duncan had dreamed of painting, and he woke in a cold sweat. It had been years since he’d planned paintings in his sleep. As soon as Fiona had been diagnosed, his nights had been filled with nightmares about losing his wife. Those nightmares had eased somewhat over the past few months, but he’d given up any hope of every dreaming about art again. He’d thought that part of his life had died along with his wife. Now, his mind was full of paintings again and he wasn’t entirely sure he liked it. Because each one of the images his subconscious had planned involved his housekeeper in some way.
It had all started with the sight of her in front of the open fridge. He couldn’t get the image out of his mind. It had ignited a flame within him. One that had been doused by the loss of his wife. The burning need to paint.
And now, it was alight again. Only this time, the need to work somehow felt like a betrayal of Fiona’s memory. He wasn’t sure if it was because the paintings in his head involved another woman, or because his art had somehow become entwined with his need for his wife.
He scoffed as he paced the halls of the mansion. It would take a team of professionals working round the clock to sort out his mind. Everything in his life had become a measure of his enduring love for Fiona. From painting to ensuring her dreams for the mansion were carried out to the letter. Hell, he couldn’t even leave the building without feeling like he was abandoning her.
He stopped in front of the picture window on the first floor, at the top of the grand staircase, and looked out over the mansion estate. Fiona had loved the symmetry of Georgian architecture, whereas to Duncan, the house had always looked like a huge, grey cube with windows. But he’d put aside his apathy for the place because Fiona wanted to restore the mansion and live in it, and he would never have stood between her and her dream.
He could feel her touch in every colour she’d picked out for the walls and carpets, in the fancy curtains that hung in fussy ruffles, in the antique furniture that seemed to fill the place to bursting. When she’d been alive, her laughter and enthusiasm had filled the building, and he couldn’t help but get swept up in her joy for everything Georgian as she restored the house to its former glory. Now, he felt hemmed in by the dark wood, patterned wallpaper and plaster detailing. It was everywhere, and it made him feel like he was trapped in a Jane Austen period drama.
He needed to breathe. He needed somewhere plain, and bare, and white, to rest his mind. He needed his studio. But going back in there without her felt like the worst betrayal of all—which made no sense because he’d been painting for years before he’d met Fiona.
He was stuck. Mired up to his neck in murky clay that hardened around him until he struggled to breathe. There was no solace to be had in his studio, no place to rest in the fussy mansion, and only guilt when he tried to leave. There wasn’t even any relief to be found in the rolling hills and manicured gardens that led down to the ocean. He couldn’t go on like this, and he knew that, but he didn’t know how to change things. He didn’t know how to let go of his dead wife and the remnants of the life they’d started building together.
“Good morning, Duncan.”
The sound of Donna’s voice was a fresh breeze blowing through the mansion. He turned away from the window to see her coming up the stairs from the foyer below. She was dressed in plain black trousers, flat black shoes and a sensible blue blouse. That inner light of hers, which shone so brightly, was in startling contrast to the mausoleum they lived in.
He shook his head to get rid of his maudlin thoughts. “I told you to wear whatever you wanted to work.”
“This is what I want to wear.”