If the Shoe Fits Read online

  “You’ll find the available guest bedrooms up those stairs,” Colin told them. “The Langdons’ private quarters are in the rear of the castle and have been closed off. Once you have selected your rooms, I will have your luggage brought up.”

  “Thank you,” Megan said as she began to climb the staircase.

  A high-pitched wail echoed around the foyer as one of Ruby’s cats expressed his dismay at the long journey. “Just a few more minutes, Simon,” she said as she bent next to his carrier. “Let me pick out our room, and then you can come out of there.”

  Elle jogged up the stairs after Megan and Ruby. “You guys, I feel like I’m on a movie set or something right now.”

  “It’s surreal, all right,” Ruby said as they reached the top of the stairs. “Should we check out the rooms together before we decide?”

  “Sounds like a plan to me.” Megan was already walking down the hallway ahead.

  The first room they came to had a king-sized bed with a navy blue bedspread and an ornately-carved head and footboard that matched the rest of the furniture in the room. Megan twirled an imaginary skirt, batting her eyelashes like a cartoon princess as she danced her way across the room.

  Ruby snorted with laughter.

  “We should keep in mind which rooms would make the best guest rooms,” Elle said with a grin as she walked to the window and took in the sweeping views of the grounds below. A big part of their plan for Rosemont Castle involved opening some of its many bedrooms to guests looking for a “royal” vacation getaway.

  “That’s right,” Ruby said with a nod as she surveyed the room. “Which means we should look for out-of-the-way rooms and save ones like this for our guests.”

  “So this is a guest room. That was easy.” Megan led the way back into the hall.

  They wandered up and down the hallways, familiarizing themselves with the twelve—yes, twelve—available bedrooms on the East and West wings of the castle. All were decorated with a classic touch, some in earth tones, others in brighter colors.

  Elle ran her fingers over yet another intricately-carved headboard. “Do you think this is a Langdon piece?” In her research on the family, she’d learned that they owned Langdon Fine Furnishings, one of the top producers of handcrafted furniture in Europe. Its charitable division—the Langdon Family Foundation—provided furnishings and other household goods to families in need throughout the United Kingdom.

  “It would make sense,” Ruby said. “Now that you mention it, I can’t imagine Alistair Langdon having anyone’s furniture in this house but his own.”

  “It could be another selling point,” Elle said as she followed them out of the room. “If a guest likes something they see in their room, they can go home and order it for themselves.”

  “I’m not so sure they can.” Ruby grasped the handle on a door at the end of the hall. “I think Langdon Fine Furnishings is only available in Europe. I wonder what’s through here?” She pushed it open, revealing yet another hallway containing three bedrooms. These rooms were smaller and overlooked the wooded area behind the castle.

  “I think we’ve found our rooms,” Elle said as she peeked inside the first one, decorated a sunny yellow. It was bright and happy and easily her favorite room that they’d seen so far.

  “They’re perfect,” Megan agreed as she walked into the bedroom next door. It had a brightly-colored quilt striped with shades of red and burgundy, soft pink walls, and an oversized window with sheer curtains.

  Ruby crossed the hall and opened another door. It revealed a spiral stone staircase which led to both upper and lower floors. Eyebrows raised, Ruby gave Elle and Megan a look as she started up. Elle grinned as she hurried after her. About halfway up the stairs, Elle peeked out one of the windows and gasped. “You guys, we’re in the tower!”

  “You’re right.” Ruby picked up the pace, hurrying toward the doorway at the top of the stairs. She opened it, revealing a rounded bedroom inside. The room was bright with off-white walls and a cushioned ledge running around its perimeter, making one never-ending reading nook in front of the oversized windows. A day bed sat along the far wall, with white-painted wrought iron rails and a bedspread decorated with colorful butterflies. “Dibs,” Ruby said, as a smile spread slowly across her face.

  “What? No fair!” Megan walked to the window. “Holy crap, the view is amazing.”

  “I need more space because I’ll have Simon and Oliver in the room with me.”

  “Can you believe her?” Megan asked Elle with an amused grin. “She wants a bigger room because of her cats.”

  Elle held her hands out in front of herself. “I want the yellow bedroom downstairs, so this is totally between you guys.”

  “Please?” Ruby asked with a sweet smile.

  “Oh, fine,” Megan acquiesced. “That daybed is too small for me anyway. I’d rather have the bigger bed downstairs.”

  “You’re the best.” Ruby gave her a quick hug. “I’m going to get the cats set up in here and then we can finish exploring.”

  Elle walked back down the stairs to get a closer look at her new room. She swept her hand across the soft bedspread and walked to the window. Her room overlooked the rolling hills and thick woods of the Appalachian Mountains, and this view might be even more enchanting than the picturesque gardens visible from the front of the castle. Once they were all settled in, she wanted to go exploring in those woods too.

  A plush chair sat by the window, and Elle could already imagine herself curled up there with a book and maybe a little dog in her lap. After a half dozen false starts since she made the decision to pursue acting instead of college, she finally, finally felt like she was headed in the right direction with her life.

  “Ready to go exploring?” Ruby said from the doorway.

  Megan appeared beside her. “I know I am.”

  “So ready.” Elle followed them downstairs.

  Colin was waiting for them, and they let him know which bedrooms they’d picked out. With that taken care of, they headed for the front door, laughing and chatting excitedly, eager to explore the castle’s grounds.

  The heavy front door opened before they’d reached it, and Theo Langdon stood silhouetted against the late afternoon sun. It filtered through his dark hair, giving him a sort of golden aura, and Elle’s heart skittered in her chest. Okay, so the man was seriously hot, and he spoke with just a hint of a British accent that was ridiculously sexy.

  But he was also her landlord, and yeah…not going there. She’d ruined enough things in her life already. No way was she going to risk the best thing that had ever happened to her by lusting after a man who was practically her boss.

  “Could I have a moment?” he asked, addressing the three of them. Maybe it was Elle’s imagination, but his gaze seemed to linger a moment longer on her.

  Her cheeks grew warm. “Of course.”

  He led the way down the hall. Elle followed, surreptitiously glancing into every room they passed. She saw a lounge with plush seating and a baby grand piano and caught a glimpse of a library that was absolutely to-die-for before Theo led them into what appeared to be his office, motioning them toward a circular wooden table just large enough for the four of them.

  Once Elle, Ruby, and Megan had followed him in, he shut the door behind them. “I have some business to discuss with you ladies.”

  Elle sat in the chair across from him. “Should I get my laptop?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” he said.

  Ruby and Megan settled into the two remaining seats at the table.

  “We’d love to go over the details of our business plan with you,” Megan said, her brown eyes sparkling. “We’ve done a lot of planning since finding out we won the contest, and we have some really exciting ideas for bringing income into the castle.”

  “That’s not exactly what I brought you in here to discuss,” Theo said, and something in his tone made Elle sit up straighter in her seat.

  “As you know, my grandfather passed a
way recently,” Theo said. “He built this castle fifty years ago when he fell in love with my grandmother, Rose. She was an American, and they lived here pretty much full time. Now that they’re both gone, the family has decided that it would be in our best interest to sell Rosemont Castle.”

  2

  “Sell it?”

  Theo watched Elle’s sunny smile wither on her face as his words hit home. “Yes. That’s the primary reason I’m here.”

  Her brows wrinkled. “But we have a contract.”

  “I’m well aware of your contract,” he told her. “The family’s lawyer has been over it, and your deal is solid.”

  “So what then?” the brunette—Megan, if he remembered correctly—asked.

  “Well, unless we can come to an agreement otherwise, I intend to honor your contract with the magazine. You ladies get your six-month stint here at the castle while I wrap things up and look around for potential buyers.”

  “Who buys a place like this?” Elle asked, her green eyes wide.

  “Someone with a lot of disposable income,” he said dryly.

  “It would have to be worth millions—probably tens of millions,” the quiet one with the bun said.

  “Yes, and in the meantime, it’s costing the family close to a million in upkeep each year, which is quite a lot for a house no one lives in.”

  “But we’re here to fix that,” Elle said, squaring her shoulders. “If you’ll just hear us out, we’ve come up with some really solid ideas to help the house to pay for itself.”

  “I’m sure you have, and I’m sure my grandfather would have loved to hear them. Unfortunately, he didn’t live long enough to see this little endeavor through.” Theo tapped his fingertips against the tabletop, eager to be finished with this conversation.

  “But…well…” Elle glanced between her friends. “What’s the point of us setting up our program here if you’re only going to shut it down in six months?”

  “Indeed.” Theo leveled his gaze on her. “Which is why I’d like to make you an offer of my own, a lump sum payout to each of you. You could stay on at the castle for a few weeks, have a nice little vacation, then take your money and start a new venture.”

  “How much?” Megan asked, her eyes narrowed.

  “Ten thousand each,” he told her.

  “And what if we say no?” There was a stubbornness in Elle’s gaze that he hadn’t seen there before.

  “Then you stay. I can’t make you leave. I can only offer you an incentive to hurry this business along. I hope you understand that it isn’t personal. With my grandfather’s passing, I really do need to get the castle sold as quickly as possible.”

  All three of them stared at him, crestfallen looks on their faces. He didn’t like being the cause of that, but business was business. This place held too many painful memories for him, not to mention it was too damn big for one man to live in.

  “Isn’t it possible that the castle would be more attractive to buyers with our business already up and running?” the one with the bun asked.

  He rubbed his chin. He’d never considered selling the castle with their inn already established inside it. “I suppose that’s a possibility, but I certainly couldn’t make any guarantees.”

  “We’ll need some time to think about our options,” Elle told him.

  “That’s fine.” He stood. “Have Colin find me when you’ve made up your minds.”

  Elle stood too, facing him. “We will.”

  They walked into the hallway ahead of him. Elle still wore that pink dress and the sparkly shoes she’d had on when they arrived. He didn’t generally pay much attention to shoes, but these were sexy, the way her pink-painted toes peeked out from beneath all those rhinestones. Dragging his gaze back to her face, he found her watching him with an expression he couldn’t quite read. “Enjoy the rest of your day.”

  She nodded, turning away.

  Megan put her arm around Elle, steering her back toward him. “Actually, we were just about to go exploring when we bumped into you. Care to be our tour guide?”

  He shoved his hands into his pockets. “You’d be better off asking one of the staff.”

  “But you live here, right?”

  “I grew up here,” he answered her. “I don’t live here anymore.”

  “So you’re the perfect person to show us around,” Megan insisted. “Please?”

  Beside her, Elle was quiet, a pensive—almost wounded—look on her face, and he hated that he’d been the person to put it there.

  “Fine,” he said, sounding irritable even to his own ears.

  “We understand if you’re too busy…” the one with the bun said, looking uncomfortable.

  He cleared his throat, glancing again at Elle. “I can show you around quickly.”

  She fell into step beside him, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Actually, it would be great to have your perspective. Places like this are all about the history, you know?”

  “No,” he said with a shrug. “This place was only built fifty years ago. If you want history, you should visit our estate in England.”

  “Fifty years is still a long time,” she said. “And I love hearing the stories behind things. For instance, I’ve already seen three baby grand pianos. Why so many?”

  “My grandmother played, or so I’m told.”

  “You don’t remember her playing?” Elle asked.

  “She died before I was born.”

  “Oh, no.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “Your grandfather built this whole place for her, right? And she died so young. That must have just broken his heart.”

  Theo’s mother had died young too. He remembered his grandfather once saying that the castle was shrouded in tragedy, yet it still hadn’t dampened his love for the place. Rosemont Castle had been big and lonely with just Theo, his father, and his grandfather here. A few years ago, his father had died of a heart attack, and now with Alistair gone… “I don’t remember anyone here ever playing the piano.”

  “That’s such a shame,” Elle said.

  He showed the women around the rest of the ground floor; the kitchen, the dining room, the ballroom (yet another room that was never used), and his offices. He kept them out of his grandfather’s private quarters at the rear of the estate. Alistair’s personal belongings still needed to be cleaned out and sent home to England, and until then, he didn’t want anyone but himself and the staff back there.

  Oddly, all three women seemed most mesmerized by the library.

  “This is the kind of library where you need a step ladder to reach the top shelves. I could spend hours in here,” Megan said with a sigh, running her fingers over the spines of some of the books. “Look, Ruby, there’s a whole collection of Greek mythology.”

  Ruby. That was the quiet one’s name. Theo committed the name to memory as Ruby exclaimed in excitement over his grandfather’s collection.

  “You must have spent so much time in here when you were a kid,” Elle said.

  “Actually, no. I preferred to play outside.” He’d brought books from the library with him sometimes, though. There was a tree at the top of the hill where he’d fashioned himself a primitive treehouse—more of a bench to sit on, really. He’d spent countless hours up there as a boy.

  “I can’t imagine what it was like growing up in a place like this.” Elle gazed dreamily around the library. “Having all these books…a whole castle to play in…and the grounds…it must have been like something out of a fairytale.”

  “I’m a guy. I didn’t really think about fairytales.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You never ran around outside pretending to be a knight or a king marching into battle?”

  “Well, sure.”

  “I bet you even had your own horse to ride,” she said.

  “I did. His name was Bismarck.”

  “See, you’re full of stories, and you didn’t even know it.” She touched his shoulder with a smile, and he felt the warmth of her fingers through his shi
rt. Elle had captured his interest from the first moment he’d seen her, but he couldn’t allow the attraction to grow. He was here to close a business deal with her and her friends, and as such, Elle Davenport was strictly off limits.

  “If you really want stories, talk to Colin,” he told her. “He’s been here almost as long as Rosemont Castle has been. He knew my parents and my grandparents. He was even here when the queen visited.”

  The room went very silent, and all three women were suddenly staring at him, mouths agape.

  “The queen,” Megan repeated. “As in, the Queen of England?”

  “The only queen I know of who’d have reason to visit, yes,” he said with amusement.

  “But how could you even consider selling this place?” Elle asked, sounding outraged. “It has so much history! The friggin’ Queen of England has stayed here.”

  “In fairness, she’s also visited our estate in England.”

  Elle gaped at him. “So…do you know her?”

  “I’ve met her, yes. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I know her.”

  “Wait a minute.” Her gaze turned suspicious. “Are you considered royalty? Were we supposed to curtsy or something when we met you?”

  “I wouldn’t object if you wanted to curtsy.” He was just being a smartass now, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

  They all stared at him again, eyes wide.

  He couldn’t fight the smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “But you’re under no obligation to do so.”

  “Well, you’re the closest thing to royalty I’ll ever meet,” Elle said, and she dropped into an almost perfect curtsy in front of him.

  His gaze drifted to the swell of her breasts under that pink dress, and his mind somersaulted straight into the gutter. Then the other two were curtsying, and suddenly the whole thing felt ridiculous and not at all sexy. “All right, ladies. I was just joking. And I think we’ve finished our tour of the castle.”