damask covered the walls, fringed with heavy brocade tassels under the plaster coving at the top. There were antique tables covered in trinkets and family photographs, a grand piano, and a large squashy sofa in front of the vast marble fireplace. Off to one side of the hearth, in a high-backed leather armchair, reading his daily newspaper, was his grandfather. He looked so innocent. No one would guess he’d ignited a bit of a family row with this window obsession.
Marcus wasn’t exactly sure what the kerfuffle was about—something that had happened decades earlier, in a time when stiff-lipped silence had been the preferred solution to every problem—but his great-aunt Tabitha had warned him that Bertie was about to open a Pandora’s box of trouble, and nothing any of them learned about whatever the family had been keeping quiet for more than half a century would make anyone any happier.
Disruption was the last thing he needed—especially as he’d spent the last couple of years getting everything back on an even keel. Bertie might live at Hadsborough now, but in his younger years he’d all but abandoned his duty to explore the world.
Unfortunately he’d passed his laissez-faire attitude down to his only son, and before his death Marcus’s father had just seen the castle as somewhere impressive to bring his business friends for the odd weekend. He’d also failed to keep hold of three wives, and the resulting divorce settlements had crippled the family finances further. But that was just the tip of the iceberg where his father had been concerned. It had taken centuries to build this family’s reputation, and his father had managed to rip it to shreds within twelve months.
So Marcus had left the City and come to Hadsborough to be by his grieving grandfather’s side. It was his job to claw it all back now. The Huntington family legacy had been neglected for too many generations. Taken for granted. These things couldn’t just be left to run their own course; they needed to be managed. Guarded. Or there would be nothing left—not even a good name—to pass on to his children when they came along.
‘Grandfather?’
The old man looked up from his paper, the habitual twinkle in his eye. Marcus nodded towards their guest.
‘I found Miss McKinnon, here, wandering in the grounds. I believe you are expecting her?’
If his grandfather had heard the extra emphasis in his grandson’s words he gave no sign he’d registered it. He carefully folded his paper, placed it on the table next to him, rose unsteadily to his feet and offered his hand to the stranger in their drawing room.
‘Miss McKinnon,’ he said, smiling. ‘Delighted to meet you.’
The old charmer, Marcus thought.
Faith McKinnon smiled politely and shook his hand. ‘Hi,’ she said. If she was charmed she didn’t show it.
‘Thank you for coming at such short notice,’ his grandfather said as he lowered himself carefully back into his chair. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, you resemble your grandmother.’
The blank, businesslike expression on Faith McKinnon’s face was replaced with one of surprise. ‘Really? Th-thank you.’
Marcus frowned. She’d been telling the truth, then. Yet the reliable hairs at the back of his neck had informed him she’d been lying about something.
Why was she puzzled that someone had said she resembled a family member? He glanced at the portrait of the third Duke over the mantelpiece and raised his fingers absentmindedly to touch the bridge of his nose. There was no escaping that distinctive feature in the Huntington family line. They all had it. Genetics had branded them and marked them as individual connections in a long chain. And, as the only direct heir, Marcus was determined not to be the weak link that ended the line.
He turned to his grandfather. ‘Miss McKinnon tells me you knew her grandmother?’
Before his grandfather could answer their guest interrupted. ‘Call me Faith, please.’
Bertie nodded and smiled back at her. ‘Mary and I were sweethearts for a time when I was in America after the war,’ his grandfather said. ‘She was an exceptional woman.’
Marcus turned sharply to look at him. Sweethearts? He’d never heard this before—never heard mention of a romance before his grandmother. It made him realise just how silent his family stayed on certain matters, that maybe he didn’t know everything about his own history.
‘Please do sit down, Miss McK…Faith,’ his grandfather said.
She chose the edge of the sofa, her knees pressed together and her hands in her lap. Marcus would have been quite content to remain standing, but he felt as if he was towering above the other two, somehow excluded from what they were about to discuss, so he dropped into the armchair opposite his grandfather, crossing one long leg over the other. But he couldn’t get comfortable, as he would have done if it had just been him and his grandfather alone as usual.
‘So, Grandfather…what has all this got to do with the window?’
At the mention of the window Miss McKinnon’s eyes widened and she leaned forward. ‘Gram said you need help with it?’
Marcus kept on watching her. Her voice was low and calm, but behind her speech was something else. As if his words had lit a fire inside her. Interesting. Just exactly what was she hoping to gain from this situation? He wouldn’t have pegged her for a con artist or a gold-digger, but they came in all shapes and sizes. Stepmothers one and two had proved that admirably.
His grandfather nodded. ‘It’s in a chapel on the estate here. I wouldn’t have thought any more of it, except that a few months ago my father’s younger brother died, and his widow found some letters my father had written to him in his personal effects. She wondered if I’d like to see them.’
Marcus squinted slightly. Yes, that would make sense. Now he thought about it, he realised it had been around that time that Grandfather had started muttering to himself and begun hiding himself away in the library, poring over old papers.
Bertie stared into the crackling fire in the grate. ‘My father died when I was very young, you see, and she thought I might get more of a sense of who he was through them.’
Marcus resisted the urge to scowl. After his recent heart surgery, and with his soaring blood pressure, the doctors had said his grandfather needed rest and quiet. No stress. They had definitely not prescribed getting all stirred up about a family mystery—if indeed there was one. It would be best to leave it all alone, let time settle like silt over those memories until they were buried. There had been enough scandal in the present. They didn’t need extra dredged up from the past.
Pursuing this thing with the window was a bad idea on so many levels. That was why he intended to get the facts out of his grandfather quickly and show this Miss McKinnon the blasted window, if that was what she really wanted. Because the sooner she was off the estate and he could get things back to normal the better.
CHAPTER TWO
FAITH frowned. While Bertie—she couldn’t quite get used to thinking of this gentle old man as a duke—was charming, she didn’t see what his family history had to do with anything.
‘I’m sorry…but how does this connect to the window in the chapel?’
At least she knew that much now. A church window. Next
