A Roll in the Hay, стр. 16
“Can we—?”
“Finn, just lay it on me. You look like there’s a national shortage of hair wax.”
“Don’t even joke about that,” Finn said. “So we submitted the plans the other day for the changes on the estate. The animal sanctuary, expanding the stables, and the new holiday cabins way on the outskirts, because we agreed that’s the minimum rental income you’d need to keep everything else running.”
Susannah opened the Land Rover door and tossed her things into the passenger seat.
“Well, it looks like, uh, someone has gone to the press and portrayed the plans as turning the estate into a tacky amusement park. There’s a whole story about how you didn’t inherit legitimately and that the estate was supposed to stay in the family. Basically—”
“All the stuff Robin has been threatening me with this past year. She’s obviously got tired of waiting for me to be intimidated.”
The door slam wasn’t satisfying enough, but damn if Susannah didn’t really put her back into it. The whole car vibrated with the force.
“It should be easy enough to shoot her down, no? Surely a word or two in the right places, a PR blitz of our own, and she’ll look like the nutty old soak that she is.”
Finn shrugged and handed over the newspaper with great reluctance. “There’s some personal stuff too. Nothing that anyone with sense is going to give half a crap about, Suze, but it’s definitely meant to come after your reputation, your marriage. The papers seem to be salivating over two ladies of a certain social status feuding through the press.”
It felt like ice down her spine, a steady trickle that rendered Susannah immobile on the rough surface of the small car park. She and Jimmy had always been circumspect about their arrangement as husband and wife, and for a brief period Susannah had wondered if Robin’s excessive interest in their home and business had been a ploy for Susannah’s attention. She had always attracted a certain kind of interest from women still firmly in the closet. The fact that Robin might try and use all that for leverage was enough to make Susannah want to throw up her coffee right then and there. She managed to resist, if only because the riding boots she’d put on that morning were close to brand new.
“Finn, you’re on damage control,” she finally managed, forcing herself to seem as composed as ever. “Hit back as hard as you need to, and whatever dirt we can unearth on Robin, on the family…”
“I thought you said we weren’t to go near Jimmy’s legacy?”
“That was before his bloody legacy started attacking me on a daily basis. Do I look like I want to give up everything because of some mudslinging in the press? That’s the evening edition, yeah?”
Finn nodded.
“Then get our version in every morning paper that’ll take it. Online, social media, hand-delivered flyers if we need to. Start a blog if they haven’t died off already. But I don’t want to look anywhere tomorrow and see her version over mine. Understood? As far as the public knows, whatever I do with the estate now is the late lord’s shared vision, and anything else would be an insult to his memory.”
“You got it, Boss.”
“And Finn?”
“Yeah?”
Susannah placed a hand on their shoulder, patting the starched line of Finn’s blazer. “Thank you. For having my back. I couldn’t do all this without you.”
“Well, you must be rattled if you’re throwing around compliments,” Finn answered with a modest grin. “I’ll nail her and Jonathan to the wall if I have to. Did you get the catering sorted in there? Maybe we should prioritise getting you another chef.”
“No, Joan will do it for now.” Susannah did her best to hide how tempted she was. “All about supporting local business, remember? It tends to stop them showing up at the door with pitchforks and flaming torches.”
“How very Beauty & the Beast of you.”
“I’d better get back to the office. I have a ton of calls to make. And Finn? This is probably a good time to get the missing staff positions filled. We’re going to need all hands on deck.”
“You’ve got that vet coming in this afternoon too.” Finn glanced over to where Tess was exiting the café, Waffles back on his leash. “I think he works out of the Jedburgh branch, but they’re all over the place.”
“Big firm. That’s what we’ll need for such a big project.”
“Right.”
“Right.”
Finn headed back to their car, a nippy little GT with a souped-up engine, and Susannah waited until it had roared out onto the street before walking around and getting in her own car. Before starting it, she watched Tess jogging around with Waffles, the happy dog barking his head off, and wondered what it might be like not to have the weight of the world on her shoulders every day.
No doubt that was her unbearable privilege talking, as Babs had once called it. Susannah had no intention of trading her stately home and investment portfolio for an easier life, one with just a single rent to worry about. Still, it didn’t stop her wondering what it might be like to get up and meander through a day without properties needing maintenance or tenants to chase for late payments.
She glanced down at the article and decided not to grant it space in her head for the moment. Self-pity could come later. She had work to do.
Susannah was waiting on the driveway to greet the arriving vet. She hadn’t bothered to change, since the interview, such as it was, would require a good walk around the existing stables and the areas Susannah planned to develop to house more animals. She had her riding boots and jodhpurs on, though she hadn’t had a chance to get out for a ride today. Maybe that explained the restless feeling in her bones. A day of waging war