watched her father fight a smile. ‘All right, if you won’t listen to me what about this boyfriend of yours? What does he think of you dashing off this way? And what about work? I thought you’d used up your annual leave.’
Not the ideal moment she had been waiting for, but … Poppy took a deep breath. ‘I don’t have a boyfriend, and I handed in my notice last month.’
Taking advantage of the stunned silence that followed her casual disclosure, Poppy made a hasty exit turning a deaf ear and closing the door on her father’s bellow.
Adrenaline still surging through his bloodstream, Gianluca, his chest heaving from the exertion of the swim to shore, dragged a hand over the salty water streaming down his face and watched for a moment as the boat he had owned for almost an hour—not his best financial investment—smashed itself to matchwood on the rocks, before turning his back on the scene of devastation.
The ten-mile track around the mist-shrouded mountain in a gale would, it turned out, even allowing for recent rock slides that had apparently washed away part of the track, have been the safer choice, but then hindsight was a marvellous thing.
The warnings of the locals that he had listened politely to before choosing to ignore them had clearly not been exaggerated, unlike the price he had paid for the vessel.
The guy who sold it to him had had no qualms when it came to fleecing a stranger—on another occasion Gianluca might even have admired his enterprise.
He shrugged, his firm lips twitching upwards at the corners into an ironic smile that faded as his lean body was shaken by a deep tremor and then another. He clenched his jaw and blinked away the water that still streamed steadily into his eyes and assessed his situation.
A man did not have to be a survival expert to work out standing here second-guessing his choices was not a good idea. The exposed pebbly beach offered zero shelter from the wind that cut through the wet clothes he wore like a cold surgical blade sending the chill of his skin bone deep, and blue had never really been his colour, he thought, grimacing as he rubbed the skin of his forearms to kick-start the circulation.
Standing here inviting hypothermia would only confirm the locals’ opinion that he was an idiot. According to them taking the small boat out in the storm had been inviting worse than hypothermia and as it turned out they had very nearly been right. Not that Gianluca, who possessed a pragmatic attitude to such things, wasted more than a moment contemplating how close he had come to a fate similar to that of the vessel.
He had chosen to take a calculated risk, something he had done before, though admittedly his own skin was not generally at risk, and in this instance the risk had not been entirely successful. On the plus side, he might be temporarily stranded but he had reached his goal.
He turned his back on the cauldron of grey foaming waves and directed his narrowed gaze speculatively towards the outline of Inverannoch Castle visible through the mist.
The turreted stone building, even in its present semi-derelict state, was imposing—in a grim and forbidding sort of way. Much, he mused, like the old lady who lived there, his godmother Isabel Ramsay.
He had been attending an international conference in Edinburgh where he had been guest speaker when he had received a phone call from his very anxious grandmother, who was worried after speaking to her old friend Isabel.
‘She’s putting a brave face on it, Gianluca, but she’s really upset, I could tell, and that’s just not like Isabel. Do you really think she could lose the castle? You won’t let it happen, will you?’
It would have been hard to fulfil his promise if he had gone down with his ship, he mused as he strode towards the steps cut in the stone cliff past what remained of an old harbour wall, a reminder of the glory days when the castle had been the destination of the rich and glamorous of the day. Possessing the balance of a natural athlete and a lean, toned body to match it, he did not slow as he negotiated the lethally slippery worn steps.
From the top of the cliff the castle, hidden by a forested area, was no longer visible. Someone who was not familiar with the area would not have seen the path through the trees. It took Gianluca a few moments to locate it. Years ago he had been as familiar with every track as he was with his own hand. Now … in recent years his visits to the castle had been to see his godmother and had not involved reacquainting himself with the landscape.
Unsure of his welcome, he had come back that first time eighteen months after his wedding. Since then a sense of duty had made him undertake the painful trip once or twice a year. Seven years now, he made the calculation with a sense of shock, but the visits were rarely more than fleeting overnight stopovers, the private helicopter either waiting for him or returning the next morning to pick him up.
A loud crack broke into his private reflections and Gianluca instinctively stepped back, narrowly avoiding the large branch that fell at his feet—no surprise there had been no pilot willing or suicidal enough to bring him out here today!
He had always supposed that it would have got easier over the years, but no—the place just held too many memories … He had judged it best to limit his contact and avoid falling into the trap of indulging in the sort of sentimental nostalgia that he despised.
Considering his reluctance to spend more than a night here, he had been surprised by how strongly he had reacted to the idea of the resident Ramsay being forced from her home and the crumbling castle being restored by others, not as a home, but a destination on a tourist map.
How would Poppy react if her grandmother was forced from her home?
He pushed the thought away—the past belonged in the past—and walked towards the densely packed trees that offered some shelter from the wind. They also reduced the daylight, such as it was that remained. Wishing he had had the forethought to grab a torch before he had abandoned the boat to its fate, he added a few scratches from overhanging branches to the bruises he could not yet feel. That was something to look forward to when he thawed out.
From this side of the trees he saw what had not been visible from the shore: the lights shining from the windows of the inhabited rooms in the west wing.
CHAPTER TWO
POPPY having finally managed to fan the flames of the open fire in the cavernous fireplace into life, had peeled off her gloves—she had no intention of relinquishing her padded jacket—and was warming her fingers by the flickering flames when the sound of the brass door knocker hitting the oak door once, twice and then again made her fall back on her heels. Eyes on the door, she scrambled to her feet, rubbing her hands on the seat of her pants.
On finding the place deserted when she had arrived earlier, she had frantically searched the castle from top to bottom, her hunt extending outside until the weather had closed in and forced her to retreat.
Was this the rescue party she had been praying for?
Or better still was it Gran herself who would stroll in and demand to know what all the fuss was about?
Had her grandmother been out there all along? It would be just like her not to allow the elements to interfere with her daily constitutional.
‘Gran?’ Heart thudding hopefully, she left the warmth of the fire. Even though Poppy hadn’t bolted the massive metal-banded oak door or turned the big old-fashioned key in the lock—there hadn’t seemed any point—it seemed to take her an age to manipulate the latch and open the door.
