Chapter 63

K onstantin did not sleep. Quite the contrary. As Candace stood at the bar, he considered going over to Isla’s, but remembered Iona’s ferocity and considered it a good idea not to. He was also very, very pleased he didn’t have a phone; the last thing he needed right now was to hear from his father about how he had somehow managed to bring even more disgrace on the family. Oh God. That was hellish in itself. It would be everywhere.

He’d just ignore it all. Presumably Gaspard wasn’t going to fire him—or even if he did, he thought defiantly, he could wash pots. He could find another job. Go out and seek his fortune. It hadn’t been bad here, not at all.

In fact, he thought sadly, he’d been enjoying it. Learning how to do something properly for the first time in his life. People liking him, really liking him, for himself, not for his money or his ridiculous house. He thought back to the camaraderie of the garage when they had built the statue, the patience (albeit laced with shouting) of Gaspard, taking him from knowing nothing to being actually reasonably useful. He’d been looking forward to the Christmas service, the first time to really stretch themselves at full mettle, to make a roomful of disparate people happy and warm and content. It seemed to him a rather fine way to live your life.

But now everyone was going to despise him, thinking he was just using their island to play Marie Antoinette, to pretend to be poor.

He hadn’t felt poor. But he felt every stare in the bar, every aggressive glance, as more and more people read and whispered about how he’d brought the island down.

In fact, here came the first person now. He stiffened, ready to defend himself, or if he couldn’t, at least take it.

It was Innes, whom he’d built the statue with.

“Well,” said Innes in his slow, careful way. “I see you’ve been shaking things up a bit.”

Konstantin winced. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“What about?” said Innes. “I don’t care that you live in a castle. Looks nice, if anything. And the statue is brilliant, so screw them.”

“But this might be really bad news for the hotel.”

Innes snorted. “I wouldn’t care about that. I don’t think Fintan wants anything to do with it and it’s killing Flora. I’d be happy if it fell in the sea.”

Konstantin smiled. “I like the way you think.”

They chinked glasses.

“How is Agot?” asked Konstantin. “Does she still hate me?”

Innes sniffed. “She hates everyone who tells her she can’t skate.”

“Have you got her ice skates?”

“There’s nothing to skate on, is there? All the water here is salt! Eilidh sent for some from Aberdeen, but they’ll be wasted.”

“It’s a bad Christmas for everyone,” said Konstantin, and they chinked glasses again sadly.

KONSTANTIN SMILED AT his kind friend, then got up himself and made his lonely way out into the dark, made miserable by how unhappy he had made his lovely little Isla, how the look on her face had cut him to the quick, how much he missed her, how everything was in ruins.