7. Winnie

CHAPTER SEVEN

WINNIE

Faye: Hi Win, are you at the new client’s house? You’re an absolute star to take on this job. You know how much I detest the countryside. All that fresh air. All that dirt. I’m sure the Winnie Wins System will triumph again. I’m having lunch with Jennifer from iTV tomorrow and I’m telling her all about how amazing you are.

Don’t forget to get some great photos for the ’gram!

And can you get the accounts done for me by tomorrow? I know it’s supposed to be my month to do them, but I’m positively flat out. Ta, doll!

R eginald leaves me in my room. I scarf down the pastries and skull a bottle of raspberry-infused water and feel a hundred times better about life.

Okay, so I’m living in the tower of a definitely, absolutely haunted castle, and my new client is profoundly strange and incredibly talented, and he gave me the best kiss of my life out of some chivalrous effort to rescue me from that slimeball at the pub. And he might be heading down the path to becoming a hoarder.

I should call Faye immediately and yell at her for signing me up for this job. I should tell her to shove the account and demand to get on the next train back to London.

Instead, now that my belly is full, I can’t wait to get back downstairs to help Alaric…er, Lord Valerian.

This is the job I’ve been living for. This is why I became a professional organiser in the first place. To snog hot lords…er, I mean, to save someone else from having to live the way I grew up, drowning beneath piles of rubbish.

I throw on a black hoodie to ward off the castle’s chill, grab my candelabra, and head back downstairs. I reach the first landing before realising that I have no idea how to get back to the other wing.

I spin around in circles, trying to remember.

Where’s that red drawing room we walked through earlier?

Maybe if I’d been paying attention to Reginald instead of dreaming about that kiss…

I strike off in a random direction, crossing my fingers that I won’t get so lost in the castle that Alaric won’t notice I’m missing until he smells my decaying corpse. As I step through a narrow doorway into a drawing room that doesn’t look familiar at all, someone squeaks behind me.

I whirl around, but there’s no one there.

“H-h-hello?”

“Mrrrrrrew?”

A black cat with white paws like tiny cat socks steps out from behind a dusty futon and regards me with regal disdain.

“Hey, kitty. You don’t look like you’re lost. I wonder if you could help me get back to the Stabby Chic room?”

The cat lifts her chin, demanding payment. Beneath her chin is a small smudge of white fur. It almost looks as though Lord Valerian has dried his paintbrush on her by accident. I dutifully reach down and scratch her chin until she purrs gently against my hand.

“Meow!” The cat withdraws a few steps, throws me a look that indicates how much of an idiot she believes me to be, then turns on her little feet and stomps off.

“Wait, kitty.”

“Meorrw,” she calls from deeper in the house, as if she’s saying, “Keep up!”

I hurry after her, following her down winding staircases and through cavernous rooms packed with even more racks of pottery and rolled-up tapestries. This is definitely not the way I came with Reginald.

Finally, we pass through another drawing room onto the main corridor. My shoulders sag with relief as I recognise the pile of teddy bears.

Alaric emerges from his office, a fresh paint smudge across his forehead. My fingers itch to wipe it away. “I see you have met Mirabelle.”

“Meorrrw,” says Mirabelle, clinging to Alaric’s trousers.

“She helped me find my way.”

“I’m not surprised. Mirabelle is the true mistress of Black Crag.” He bends down and scratches her behind her ears. She butts his hand and eyes me smugly, as if declaring that Alaric is hers. “I have put down my paintbrush. Where do you wish to begin?”

Where indeed? I gaze around the room Alaric has claimed for his study, and I can already picture it after I whip it into shape. We can use racks of open industrial metal shelves along that wall, so that the bare stone is visible behind them. Storage boxes for each project so that he has only to pull one out. A circular table in the centre of the room will display his locomotives with spotlights to highlight the fine features, and soft lamps over a pair of chairs beneath the window where he can sit and think, provided we can get the electricity in here…

And we’re definitely moving that terrarium.

I’m getting ahead of myself. If I only have three weeks to present the best side of Black Crag to Alaric’s – Lord Valerian’s – mother, I have to focus on the most important rooms.

“Tell me which rooms we should prioritize for the ball and your mother’s visit,” I say. “We won’t be able to tidy every space. We’ll need the ballroom, obviously, and the drawing rooms adjacent for catering and seating? I presume your mother will stay in the guest room in the tower where I’m sleeping? That seems to be the tidiest room in the house?—”

“No, no, that room won’t do for her,” he shakes his head. “I should say that my mother will stay in the guest quarters in the west wing, near my rooms. She will wish to use my study for her correspondence, as well as the two drawing rooms and the ballroom for her infernal gathering, as you suggest.”

“What about your dining room?” I’ve been to enough rich people’s homes to know they go nuts for fancy dining settings. “Actually, where is your dining room? I haven’t seen it yet.”

Alaric frowns. “Don’t concern yourself with the dining room,” he says. “I gave it over to a…rather unusual distraction. We keep that room locked.”

Am I imagining things, or are his porcelain cheeks darkening a little?

Alaric looks away, and I’m dying to ask him what’s in that room, but respecting client privacy is rule one of the Clutter Queens’ 5 Tidy Tenets of Client Happiness.

“Okay, then. We’ll focus on your mother’s bedroom, the study, two drawing rooms, and the ballroom. If it’s alright with you, I’ll start work in your study. It’s the smallest of the rooms, and I think that if we can knock it out quickly, it will give us some momentum to tackle the other jobs.”

Alaric nods.

“The biggest challenge is going to be the loom. We’ll have to hire an expert to move it?—”

“I will arrange that. I was the one who placed it there, after all. I designed it, so I know how it comes apart.”

Wow.

Okay.

I decide to brush right over Alaric’s casual ‘I built a loom’ confession. “Do you have another room where you would like to set it up?” I ask. “I passed a yellow drawing room on my way from the tower that wasn’t nearly as crowded as these.”

My unwilling student lets out an ennui-filled sigh. “I shall move the loom to that room.”

“Good. Then we’ll have heaps of room for stage one of the Winnie Wins System.”

The what?”

“The Winnie Wins System. It’s my special system for helping my clients get clean and stay clean. It’s four letters that spell WINS, so it’s easy to remember. It’s so good that I trademarked it. Well, technically, the Clutter Queens trademarked it, but I’m one half of the Clutter Queens—” the half that does all the work. “The first stage is W – Whirlwind. We whip through these rooms like a storm of tidiness.”

Alaric looks like I’ve just suggested he jump into a bath of razor blades.

But I can’t stop. I’m on a roll. “We move all the items in the office to the centre of each room – that way, we can see exactly what we’ve got, what’s junk and what’s art, and how to categorise them. We toss the rubbish and sort everything into groups of like items, and decide where those items live. I’ll need to purchase some containers. Make that a lot of containers. And get some shelves made to fit the office wall. I have contacts who can get us a decent price. Do you have a budget in mind?”

“Money is no object,” he says. “You’ll need to speak with Reginald about the funds. He may need to sell some of my gold.”

Ooooookay.

I shrug. “That’s fine. As long as the bills get paid on time.”

“Would it be agreeable to you if I move the loom to the room another day? I’d like to assist you with the tornado.”

“The Whirlwind. And absolutely. I need you to tell me what’s junk and what’s special to you. I can’t make those decisions for you. But fair warning, I like to play music while I work,” I say.

“As do I.”

I recall the jazz music he’d been playing when I arrived. We have different tastes. I drop my phone and portable speaker on the corner of his desk. “Do you want to pick the playlist?”

“I’m sure whatever you enjoy will be…educational.”

I can’t help a cheeky grin as I flip through the playlists on my phone. Alaric watches over my shoulder, that delightful corner of his mouth quirking up as he takes in the names of all my playlists:

“Tunes for Drunken Wallowing?” he asks. “I Hate Patrick playlist? Naked Shower Dancing Songs?”

“I have a playlist for every occasion.” I am a professional organiser, after all.

I push play on my ‘Getting Shit Done’ playlist, which is a mix of old-school metal and bangin’ singalong pop tunes. The opening riff of Amon Amarth’s ‘With Odin on Our Side’ blasts from the speakers. Alaric leaps back, his eyes wide with terror.

“It sounds as though the Vikings are invading,” he yells.

“That’s accurate.” I turn it down a notch. What kind of a man is afraid of a riff? “Better?”

“Much.”

“Okay then, now that we have our soundtrack, it’s time to attack this room. We’re going to make three piles: Keep and display. Keep and organise for future art projects. And junk to throw away. By the end, you’re going to love the Winnie Wins System, I guarantee it. Now, this misshapen lump of metal, junk or modern art?”