The Heir’s Chosen Bride

CHAPTER TWO

THIS was where he took over, Hamish thought. This was where he said, Thank you very much, can I have the keys?

The whole thing was preposterous. He should never have let Jodie insinuate her crazy ideas into his mind.

The thought of being left alone with his very own castle was almost scary.

‘Let’s not do anything hasty,’ he told Susie. ‘I’ll get a bed for the night in town, and we’ll sit down and work things out in the morning.’

‘You’re not staying here?’ she asked, startled.

‘This has been your home,’ he said. ‘I’m not kicking you out.’

‘We do have fourteen bedrooms.’

He hesitated. ‘How do you know I’m not like Kenneth?’

She met his gaze and held. ‘You’re not like Kenneth. I can see.’ She bit her lip and turned back to concentrate on her cumquat. ‘Bitterness leaves its mark.’

‘It’s not fair that I inherit-’

‘Angus and Rory between them left me all I need, thank you very much,’ she said, and there was now a trace of anger in her voice. ‘No one owes me anything. I’m not due for anything, and I don’t care about fairness or unfairness in terms of inheritance. Thinking like that has to stop. I have a profession and I’ll return to it. To kill for money…’

‘But if your baby had been a boy he would have inherited,’ he said softly. ‘It’s unjust.’

‘You think that bothers me?’

‘I’m sure it doesn’t.’

‘Fine,’ she said flatly. ‘So that’s settled. You needn’t worry. The escutcheon is firmly fixed in the male line, so there’s no point in me stabbing you in the middle of the night or putting arsenic in your porridge.’

‘Toast,’ he said. ‘I don’t eat porridge.’

She blinked. This conversation was crazy.

But maybe that was the way to go. She’d had enough of being serious. ‘You don’t eat porridge?’ she demanded, mock horrified. ‘What sort of a laird are you?’

‘I’m not a laird.’

‘Oh, yes, you are,’ she said, starting to smile. ‘Or you probably are. Fancy clothes or not, you have definite laird potential.’

‘I thought I was an earl?’

‘You’re that, too,’ she told him. ‘And of course you’ll stay that as long as you live. But being laird is a much bigger responsibility.’

‘I don’t even know what a laird is.’

‘The term’s not used so much any more,’ she said. ‘It means a landed proprietor. But it’s more than that. It’s one who holds the dignity of an estate. Angus was absolutely a laird. I’m not sure what sort of laird Rory would have made. Kenneth would never have been one. But you, Hamish Douglas? Will you make a laird?’

‘That sounds like a challenge,’ he said, and she jutted her chin a little and met his look head on.

‘Maybe it is.’

He hesitated, not sure where to take this. Not at all sure that she wasn’t just a little crazy herself. ‘Maybe I’d best stay in town,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back in the morning to organise things.’

‘There’s not much to organise,’ she told him. ‘But you need to stay here. There’s only the Black Stump pub, and Thursday is darts night. There’s no sleep to be had in the Black Stump before three in the morning. Anyway, if anyone moves out it should be me. It’s your home now. Not mine.’

‘But you will stay,’ he said urgently. ‘I need to learn about the place.’

‘What do you intend to do with it?’

There was only one answer to that. ‘Sell.’

Her face stilled. ‘Can you do that?’

‘I’ve checked.’ Actually, Marcia had checked. ‘If I put the money into trust, then, yes.’ The capital needed to stay intact but the interest alone-plus the rent rolls from the land in Scotland-would keep him wealthy even without his own money.

‘You don’t need me to help you sell it,’ she snapped, and then bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry. I know selling seems sensible but…but…’

She took a deep breath, and suddenly her voice was laced with emotion-and pain. ‘I’ll stay tonight. Tomorrow I’ll pack and go stay with my sister until I can arrange a flight home.’

‘Susie, there’s no need-’

‘There is a need,’ she said, and suddenly her voice sounded almost desperate.

‘But why?’

‘Because I keep falling in love,’ she snapped, the desperation intensifying. ‘I fell so far into love with Rory that his death broke my heart. I fell for Angus. And now I’ve fallen for your stupid castle, for your dumb suits of armour-they’re called Eric and Ernst, by the way, and they like people chatting to them-for your stupid compost system, which is second to none in the entire history of the western world-I’ve even fallen for your worms. I keep breaking my heart and I’m not going to do it any more. I’m going home to the States and I’m going back to landscape gardening and Rose and I are going to live happily ever after. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish my work. Bring your gear in. You can have any bedroom you like upstairs. The whole top floor is yours. Rose and I are downstairs. But I need to do some fast digging before Rose wakes from her nap. Dinner’s at seven and there’s plenty to spare. I’ll see you in the kitchen.’

And without another word she brushed past him, out of the conservatory and back into the brilliant autumn sunshine. She grabbed her spade she’d left leaning against the fence and headed off the way they’d come. Her back was stiff and set-her spade was over her shoulder like a soldier carrying a gun-she looked the picture of determination.

But he wasn’t fooled.

He’d seen the glimmer of unshed tears as she’d turned away-and as she reached the garden gate she started, stiffly, to run.

‘Kirsty, he’s here. The new owner.’

Susie had been crying. Kirsty could hear it in her voice, and her heart stilled.

‘Sweetheart, is he horrid? Is he another Kenneth? I’ll be right there.’

‘I don’t need you to come.’ There was an audible sniff.

‘Then what’s wrong?’

‘He’s going to sell.’

Susie’s sister paused. She’d known this would happen. It was inevitable. But somehow…somehow she’d hoped…

Susie had come so far. Dreadfully injured in the engineered car crash which had killed her husband, Susie had drifted into a depression so deep it had been almost crippling. But with this place, with her love for the old earl, with her love for the wonderful castle garden and her enchantment with her baby daughter, she’d been hauled back from the brink. For the last few months she’d been back to the old Susie, laughing, bossy, full of plans…

Angus’s death had been expected, a peaceful end to a long and happy life, but Kirsty knew that her twin hadn’t accepted it yet. Hadn’t moved on.

Kirsty was a doctor, and she’d seen this before. Loving and caring for someone to the end, watching them fade but never really coming to terms with the reality that the end meant the end.

‘So…’ she said at last, cautiously, and Susie hiccuped back a sob.

‘I’m going home. Back to the States. Tomorrow.’

‘Um… I suspect you won’t be able to get travel papers for Rose by tomorrow.’

‘I have a passport for her already. There are only a couple of last-minute documents I need to organise. Can I come and stay with you and Jake until then?’

‘Sure,’ Kirsty said uneasily, mentally organising her house to accommodate guests. They were extending the back of the house to make a bigger bedroom for the twins-and for the new little one she hadn’t quite got round to telling her sister about-but they’d squash in somehow. ‘But why? What’s he like?’

‘He’s gorgeous.’

Silence.

‘I…see.’ Kirsty turned thoughtful. ‘So why do you want to come and stay at our house? Don’t you trust yourself?’

‘It’s not like that.’

‘No?’

‘No,’ Susie snapped. ‘It’s just… He’s not like Rory and he’s not like Angus and I can’t bear him to be here. Just-owning everything. He doesn’t even know about compost. I said we had the best compost system in the world and he looked at me like I was talking Swahili.’

‘Normal, in fact.’

‘He’s not normal. He wears cream suede shoes.’

‘Right.’

‘Don’t laugh at me, Kirsty Cameron.’

‘When have I ever laughed at you?’

‘All the time. Can I come and stay?’

‘Not tonight. Tomorrow I’ll air one of the new rooms and see if I can get the paint fumes out. You can surely bear to stay with him one night. Or…would you like me to come and stay with you?’

‘No. I mean…well, he offered to stay at the pub so he must be safe enough. I said he could stay.’

‘Would you like to borrow Boris?’

‘Fat lot of good Boris would be as a guard dog.’

‘He’s looked after us before,’ Kirsty said with dignity. OK, Boris was a lanky, misbred, over-boisterous dog, but he’d proved a godsend in the past.

Faint laughter returned to her sister’s voice at that. ‘He did. He’s wonderful. But I’m fine. I’ll feed Lord Hamish Douglas and give him a bed tonight and then I’ll leave him to his own devices.’ The smile died from her words. ‘Oh, but, Kirsty, to see him sell the castle…I don’t see how I can bear it.’

The castle was stunning.

While Susie finished her gardening Hamish took the opportunity to explore. And he was stunned.

It was an amazing, over-the-top mixture of grandeur and kitsch. The old earl hadn’t stinted when it came to building a castle as a castle ought to be built-to last five hundred years or more. But into his grand building he’d put furnishings that were anything but grand. Hamish had an Aunt Molly who’d love this stuff. He thought of Molly as he winced at the truly horrible plastic chandeliers hung along the passageways, at the plastic plants in plastic urns, at the cheap gilt Louis XIV tables and chairs, and at the settees with bright gold crocodile legs. It was so awful it was brilliant.

Then he opened the bathroom door and Queen Victoria gazed down at him in blatant disapproval from behind an aspidistra. He burst out laughing but he closed the door fast. A man couldn’t do what a man had to do under that gaze. He’d have to find another bathroom or head to the pub.

More exploring.

He found another bathroom, this one fitted with a chandelier so large it almost edged out the door. The portrait here was of Henry the Eighth. OK. He could live with Henry. He found five empty bedrooms and chose one with a vast four-poster bed and a view of the ocean that took his breath away.

He decided staying here was possible.

Susie was still digging in the garden below. He watched her for a minute-and went back to thinking. Staying here was fraught with difficulties.

What had she said? She’d fallen in love with a castle, a compost bin, the worms she was digging out of the mud right now.

She’d cried.

The set look of her shoulders said she might still be crying.

He didn’t do tears.

The smile he’d had on his face since he’d met Queen Victoria faded. He put Susie’s emotion carefully away from him.

He sorted his gear, hanging shirts neatly, jackets neatly, lining up shoes. He had enough clothes to last him a week. Otherwise he’d have to find a laundry.

Marcia called him a control freak. Marcia was right.

Almost involuntarily, he crossed to the window again. Susie was digging with almost ferocious intensity, taking out her pain on the mud. He saw her pause and wipe her overalled arm across her eyes.

She was crying.

He should stay at the pub. Darts or not.

That was dumb. Fleeing emotion? What sort of laird did that make him?

He owned this pile. He was Lord Hamish Douglas. Ridiculous! If his mother knew what was happening she’d cry, too, he thought, and then winced.

Too many tears!

For the first part of his life tears had been all he’d known. When he’d been three his father had suicided. That was his first memory. Too many women, too many tears, endless sobbing…

The tears hadn’t stopped. His mother had held her husband’s death to her heart-over his head-for the rest of her life. She held it still.

Her voice came back to him in all its pathos.

‘Wash your knees, Hamish. Your father would hate it if he saw his son with grubby knees. Oh, I can’t bear it that he can’t be here to see.’

Tears.

‘Do your homework, Hamish. Oh, if you fail…’

Tears.

Or, as he’d shown no signs of failing, ‘Your father would be so proud…’ And the sobbing would continue. Endlessly. His mother, her friends, his aunts.

There’d been tears every day of his life until he’d broken away, fiercely, among floods of recriminations-and more tears-and made his own life. He’d taken a job in Manhattan, far away from his Californian home. Far from the tears.

He hated the crying-the endless emotion. Hated it! His job now was an oasis of calm, where emotions were the last thing he needed. Marcia was cool, calm and self-contained. Nary a tear. That was his life.

He shouldn’t have come, he thought. This title thing was ridiculous. He’d never use it. Marcia thought it was great and if she wanted to use the ‘Lady’ bit then that was fine by him.

Marcia would never cry.

He’d call her, he decided, retrieving his cell phone. Manhattan was sixteen hours behind here. Four in the afternoon here made it midnight back home. Marcia would be in bed, reading the long-winded legal briefs she read as avidly as some read crime novels.

She answered on the first ring. ‘Hamish. Fabulous. You’re there, then. Should I address you as Lord Douglas?’

‘Cut it out, Marcia,’ he said uncomfortably, and she backed off in an instant. That was the great thing about Marcia. She never intruded on his personal space.

‘I’m sorry. Did you have a good journey?’

‘Fine, thank you.’

There was a moment’s pause. Marcia was expecting him to say something else, he knew, but he was still watching Susie under his window. Susie was digging as if her life depended on it.

‘What’s it like?’ Marcia said eventually, all patience. ‘The castle?’

‘Crazy. Queen Victoria’s in my bathroom.’

‘Who?’

‘Queen Vic. It’s OK. I’ve changed to one with Henry the Eighth.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Portraits in the bathroom. The place is full of kitsch. Queen Victoria is a trifle…distracting.’

‘Oh.’ She sounded annoyed. ‘For heaven’s sake, Hamish, just take it down.’

That’d be sensible, he thought. He’d take all the portraits down. He’d send them to his Aunty Molly. As soon as Susie left.

‘Was there anyone there to meet you?’

‘Rory Douglas’s widow. The lawyer told us about Rory Douglas.’

‘He did,’ she said, and he could hear her leafing through documents till she found what she wanted. ‘I’ve got the letter here. He was murdered by his brother, which is why you inherited. What’s she like?’

‘Emotional.’

‘A lachrymose widow,’ she said with instant sympathy. ‘My poor Hamish, how awful. Will she be hard to move?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘If she’s been living there…she’s not a tenant for life or anything, is she? You can still sell?’

‘She offered to move out tonight.’

‘That’s great!’

‘I can hardly kick her out tonight,’ he said and heard her regroup.

‘Well, of course not. Will you need to use some of the inheritance to resettle her, do you think? Does she have somewhere to go?’

‘She’s American. She’s coming home.’

‘Not entirely silly, then,’ Marcia said with approval. ‘She has plans. What about you? How long do you think it’ll take to put the place on the market?’

‘I’ll paint a “For Sale” sign on the gate tomorrow.’

‘Be serious,’ she told him. ‘Hamish, this is a lot of money. If the place is full of kitsch you’d best clean it out so it doesn’t put potential buyers off. Will it sell as a potential hotel?’

That much he knew. ‘Yes.’

‘Then there are specialist realtors. International hotel dealers. I’ll get back to you with names.’

‘Fine.’

Was it fine?

Of course it was fine. What Marcia suggested was sensible.

He thought about posting Queen Victoria to his Aunt Molly.

He watched Susie.

‘Steak and chips.’

Hamish had only partly opened the kitchen door when Susie’s voice announced the menu. He blinked, gazing around the room in something approaching awe. This room was built to feed an army. It had huge overhead beams, a wonderful flag-stoned floor, an efficient gas range, as well as an old-fashioned slow combustion stove.

‘How do you like your steak?’ she demanded.

She was being brisk. She wasn’t crying. Emotion had been put on the backburner, and she was being fiercely efficient.

‘Medium rare,’ he said, and she smiled.

‘Great.’ Then her smile faded, just a little. ‘Medium rare, eh?’

‘Is that a problem?’

‘It might be,’ she said cautiously. ‘It depends.’

‘On what?’

‘On how it turns out. I was planning on beans on toast before you arrived. Much more dependable.’

‘You know where you are with a bean,’ he agreed, and she looked at him with suspicion.

‘Don’t you give me a hard time. Kirsty’s bad enough.’

‘Kirsty?’

‘My sister. She and her husband are the local doctors. Kirsty said I have to give you something good to celebrate your first night here. She dropped off the steaks a few minutes ago. She would have stayed to meet you but she has evening clinic and was in a rush. But she left Boris, just in case you turn nasty.’

Boris was-apparently-a nondescript, brownish dog of the Heinz variety who was currently lying under a high chair. A toddler-a little girl about a year old-was waving a rusk above the dog’s head, and the dog had immolated himself, upside down, all legs in the air, waiting with eternal patience for the rusk to drop.

The dog hadn’t so much as looked up as Hamish had entered. Every fibre of his being was tuned to the rusk. Some guard dog!

‘What will Boris do if I turn nasty?’ he asked, and Susie grinned.

‘He’ll think of something. He’s a very resourceful dog.’ She produced a frying-pan and then looked doubtfully at the steaks.

The steaks lay in all their glory on a plate by the stove. They looked magnificent.

‘How are you planning on cooking them?’ Hamish asked.

‘I’ll fry them,’ she said with a vague attempt at confidence. ‘That doesn’t sound too difficult.’

‘You’re cooking chips?’

‘They’re oven fries,’ she confessed. ‘Kirsty brought them as well. You put them in the oven, you set the timer for twenty minutes and you take them out again. Even I can’t mess that up. Probably.’

She was making a huge effort to be cheerful, he thought, and he’d try to join her.

‘Tell me you’re not responsible for Queen Victoria,’ he said and she grinned. She had a great grin, he thought. He was reminded suddenly of Jodie.

Jodie would love Loganaich Castle.

‘Aunty Deirdre is responsible for Queen Vic,’ Susie told him. ‘Angus gave her carte blanche to decorate the castle as she saw fit-but he also gave her a very small budget. I think she did great.’

‘She surely did,’ he said faintly. Susie brushed past him on her way to the fridge and he started feeling even more disoriented. She’d showered since he’d last seen her. Or since he’d last smelt her. She was wearing clean jeans and a soft pink T-shirt, tucked in. Her hair was still in a ponytail but it was almost controlled now. And she smelt like citrus. Fresh and lemony. Nice.

‘Mama,’ the little girl said. ‘Mama.’

‘Sweetheart,’ Susie said, and that was enough to slam reality home. His mother always called him ‘sweetheart’ when she was trying to manipulate him.

He stopped thinking how nice she smelt, and thought instead how great it was that he had his Marcia and his whole life controlled, and he’d never have to cope with this sort of messy tearful existence.

Susie was carrying a tub of dripping to the stove. She scooped out a tablespoon or more into the frying pan. Then looked at it. Dubiously.

‘What are you doing?’ he said faintly, and she raised her eyebrows as if he’d said something stupid.

‘Cooking.’

‘Deep frying or shallow frying?’

‘Is there a difference?

He sighed. ‘Yes. But with that amount of fat in the pan you’re doing neither. The chips are already in the oven?’

‘Yes.’

‘How long have they been in?’

‘Five minutes.’

‘How do you have your steak?’

‘Any way I can get it.’

‘Then you’ll have it medium rare as well, and I have five minutes before I start cooking. Can you find me an apron?’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘No.’

‘Gee,’ she said, stunned, but willing not only to hand over cooking but to be admiring while she was at it. ‘You really can cook?’

‘I can cook steak.’

‘Would you like to make a salad, too?’ Her voice said she knew she was pushing her luck. It was almost teasing. ‘I can mix up chopped lettuce and tomato but anything else is problematic.’

He sighed. ‘I can make a salad. But I do need an apron.’

‘An apron,’ she said, as if she’d never heard of such a thing.

‘Something to cover-’

‘I know what an apron is,’ she said with dignity. She looked down at her faded, work-worn clothes. ‘I just never use one. But I’ll bet that Deirdre was an apron lady.’

She turned and searched a capacious drawer by the door. ‘Hey!’ She held up something that took Hamish’s breath away. Bright pink with purple roses, bib and skirt, the garment had flounces all round the edge and a huge pink ribbon at the back. ‘Good old Deirdre,’ Susie said in satisfaction. ‘I knew she wouldn’t let me down. You’ll look great in this.’

Yeah, right. He could just see the next front page of the Financial Review. There were guys back home who’d kill to see this, and he was well known enough to hit the social pages of the tabloids.

He eyed Susie in suspicion. Mobile phones could also be cameras. If you wore an apron like this, you trusted no one.

‘You have a washing machine?’ he demanded, trying not to sound desperate.

‘I have a washing machine.’

‘Then I’ll make do without the apron.’ Some things were no-brainers. ‘Just this once.’

‘That’s big of you,’ she told him, laying the frills aside with regret. ‘Why are you tipping out the dripping?’

‘That was half an inch of fat, and if you thing I’m spoiling my first Australian steak, you have another think coming.’

‘Ooh,’ she said in mock admiration. ‘Bossy as well as a good cook.’

‘Watch your fries,’ he told her, disconcerted.

‘Hey, we’ll get on fine,’ she said happily. ‘You can cook. I can’t. A marriage made in heaven.’

Then she realised what she’d said and she blushed. The blush started from her eyes and moved out, and he thought, She’s lovely. She’s just gorgeous.

Rose chortled from her high chair and Hamish allowed himself to be distracted. He needed to be distracted. Whew!

Rose was a chubby toddler, dressed only in a nappy and a grubby T-shirt reading MY AUNTY WENT TO NEW YORK AND ALL SHE BROUGHT ME WAS ONE LOUSY T-SHIRT. She had flame-coloured curls, just like her mother, and huge green eyes that gazed at him as if expecting to be vastly entertained.

It was very disconcerting to be gazed at like that. He’d never been gazed at like that.

In truth, Hamish had never met a toddler.

This situation was getting out of hand.

Rosie chortled again, raised her hand and lifted her rusk. It fell. On the floor beneath, on his back, Boris did a fast, curving slide so his mouth was right where it needed to be. The rusk disappeared without a trace.

Rose and her mother-and Hamish-all gazed at Boris. Boris gazed back up at Rose in adoration, and then opened his mouth wide again.

Hamish laughed.

Susie stared.

‘What?’ he said, disconcerted, and she flushed and turned away.

‘N-nothing.’

‘Something.’

‘It’s just… For a minute…’ She took a deep breath. ‘The Douglas men,’ she said. ‘Angus and Rory had the same laugh. Low and rumbly and nice. And it’s here again. In this kitchen. Where it belongs.’

For a moment neither of them spoke. Did she know what power she had to move him? he wondered.

He’d never known his father. Oh, he had a vague memory of someone being there, a grey, silent, ghost-like presence, but that was all. He’d seen faded photographs of a man who didn’t look like him. He had no connection at all.

And suddenly he did.

He didn’t do emotion.

‘I’m hardly a Douglas,’ he said, more sharply than he’d intended. ‘My father died when I was three, and I’ve had no contact with anyone but my mother’s family.’

‘But you are a Douglas.’

‘In name only.’

‘You don’t want to be a Douglas?’

Not if it means all this emotion, he thought, but he didn’t say it.

‘Move over,’ he told her instead. ‘It’s time to put the steak on. Four minutes either side, which gives me time to whip up a salad. But there’s no time for idle chat.’

‘You don’t do idle chat?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll concentrate on my chips, then,’ she told him, and proceeded to sit on the floor, flick on the oven light and watch. Which was distracting all on its own. ‘I know when to butt out where I’m not wanted.’

‘I didn’t mean to be rude.’

‘Neither did I,’ she told him. ‘But maybe that’s the way we have to be. You don’t want to be a Douglas. I can’t bear to be near one. So let’s get tonight over with and then we can both move on in the direction we intend to go.’