The double swing doors that led to the dining room suddenly burst open and two people came through: Gaspard and a plain, doughy-faced woman.

“Thees is Kerry. She is my sous chef.”

Isla frowned. “Does Fintan know?”

Gaspard shrugged. “I don’ care. I need more help. Ees beeg job.”

Kerry was already tying on a cap round her head. Isla tried to smile hello, quite excited about the possibility of a female friend in the kitchen to take Iona’s place, but Kerry returned a stony look.

Gaspard looked around. “Where is my boy who cleans pots?”

“I don’t think he’s up yet,” ventured Tam, a stolid redhead from one of the most northern farmsteads who absolutely didn’t care what job he had to do in this hotel as long as it didn’t involve walking up and down the side of a hill in the pouring rain all day for the next forty years like his father, three uncles, three brothers, and nine cousins were all doing. He would scrub the floor with a toothbrush if it meant not wearing nine jackets and getting sewn into his underwear.

“Well, go get him!”

Tam frowned. “Where is he?”

Gaspard shrugged. Isla sighed.

“You know?” demanded Gaspard.

Isla flushed bright red. She didn’t like being picked out to do anything. “Same place as you, in the roof—”

“Go! Get him!”

“But—”

“Feerst thing in my kitchen.” Gaspard flexed his arm, and all his tattoos stood out. His face suddenly looked rather menacing. “We say ‘Oui, Chef,’ okay? You are in a real kitchen now, leetle girl! Ees real job, not pretend! Okay? You understand? Not pretend?”

Isla froze.

“OUI, Chef!”

She had absolutely no idea what he was talking about as everyone stared at her.

“Come on,” he snarled.

And then he paused, until he drew out of the utterly humiliated Isla a rather half-hearted “Wee, Chef!”

He nodded curtly, and Isla scampered off up the stairs, feeling wretched. It had been all right being shy in Flora’s kitchen. Iona could pick up the slack for noisiness, and Flora was kind enough that she never noticed. Isla even spoke up from time to time. It wasn’t impossible, when she felt comfortable.

But when it came to strange foreign men yelling at her, or, like now, asking her to do something utterly preposterous like go up to a strange man’s bedroom . . . her face was absolutely flaming and she wanted to burst into tears, and the thought of how it would be to burst into tears on your very first day in a new job was so awful she couldn’t face thinking about that either. So she bit her lip incredibly hard and went past the corridors leading to the Rock’s twelve boutique rooms, all beautiful, and up a hidden staircase to the old attic rooms, which in their day had housed the servants. And now, she supposed, still housed the servants. All were open except for one at the very end of the hallway. She pulled herself together and knocked loudly.