owns the Dunbar Estate, would be only too happy for us to live in the main house, but when the lodge and the log cabins are full, as they are at the moment, we feel that we need to be here on the spot, just in case there are any problems. Do take your coat off and sit down.’
Waving them to a couch in front of a cheerful fire, she sat down opposite and smiled at them both, before asking, ‘So what kind of journey did you have?’
Her mouth so dry with nerves that she could hardly speak, Cathy managed, ‘It was very good on the whole. Though I was rather surprised to run into snow quite so soon.’
Reaching to pour the tea, Margaret said, ‘Yes, we’ve had several quite heavy falls already this season, which of course is good for the skiing, if not for travelling… Sugar?’
‘No, thank you.’
When she had handed them a cup of tea each, she offered a plate of homemade cake. ‘Janet makes the best fruitcake you’ve ever tasted.’
Unsure whether she could swallow it, Cathy declined, but, with an appreciative murmur, Carl accepted a piece.
‘You don’t know what you’re missing, S—’ On the verge of saying Sis, he pulled himself up short and changed it to, ‘Sweetheart’.
‘It certainly smells delicious,’ Cathy said and, wishing she was anywhere but where she was, added, ‘But I’m not really hungry.’
Margaret smiled at her. ‘In that case, as we’re all invited to have dinner at Dunbar tonight, it would make sense not to risk spoiling your meal.’
Then in a heartfelt voice she added, ‘We’re so pleased and relieved to get a nice married couple like you. Last season was an absolute nightmare. Unfortunately, André, the ski instructor we hired, proved to be a real Casanova. We had several complaints from women, and one from an irate husband, who found André and his wife together in one of the ski huts. She swore that André had lured her there, and her husband threatened us with legal action.’
Refilling their cups, she went on, ‘We decided there and then that in the future we would only consider a married couple. So earlier this year, before the season started, we took on a couple who said they were married and gave their names as Mr and Mrs Fray. But we soon discovered that they weren’t married at all, and each considered themselves free to roam, so we felt justified in asking them to leave…’
Her face burning, Cathy didn’t know where to look. This was proving even worse than she had imagined.
CHAPTER THREE
‘OF COURSE,’ Margaret went on, ‘the skiing proper is just getting underway, but so far things seem to be going reasonably well. Though we had something of a scare last night when a couple out on a day’s cross-country skiing went missing. Thank the Lord they were eventually found safe and sound…
‘But here I am keeping you when you’re probably dying to be alone… Your flat is over at the main house. Carl has already settled in, so hopefully it should soon start to feel like home.
‘There’ll be pre-dinner drinks in the study at seven, which should give you just about enough time to unpack and get settled in.’
Only too anxious to go, Cathy rose to her feet and, with a murmur of thanks for the tea, pulled on her coat and headed for the door, followed by Carl.
Feeling mean and despicable, she wished heartily that she had never agreed to this deception.
But if she hadn’t come up to Scotland she would never have met Ross Dalgowan. And meeting him meant more to her than she could say. Just those few hours they had spent together had changed her life and given her a bright and shining hope for the future.
This time the foyer was empty and, as they reached the porch door and went out into the falling snow, Carl muttered, ‘I’m sorry, Sis. I could tell you were loathing every minute.’
‘I just feel so bad about it,’ Cathy said helplessly. ‘She’s such a nice woman and I hate having to deceive her.’
‘I don’t like it any more than you do,’ Carl assured her as they made their way to the car, which was already covered with snow. ‘But, having once started, we’ve just got to carry it through… Now, you jump in, and I’ll drive.’
Having helped Cathy in and slammed the door, he cleared snow from the wing mirrors before sliding into the driver’s seat.
Reaching to fasten his seat belt, and noticing her unhappy face, he begged quietly, ‘Please, Sis, this chance means so much to me. I know already that the job is exactly what I’ve been hoping for, and if it wasn’t for having to deceive people I like, I’d be on top of the world…
‘Believe me, as soon as they’ve got to know me, and I’ve proved that I can do the job and that I’m no Casanova, I’ll be more than happy to tell them the truth.’
‘Suppose when you do they’re so angry at the way you deceived them that they tell you to leave?’
‘Having come this far, that’s a chance I’ve got to take. I hope they won’t. I already love it here. But if they do then we’ll get other jobs, find somewhere else to live. Until then, I’m relying on you to support me.’
With a sigh, she told him, ‘Very well, I’ll do my best, but I’m no good at living a lie.’
‘Neither am I, really,’ he said as the engine sprang into life. ‘I nearly gave the game away just now by calling you Sis…’
The wipers pushing aside the accumulated snow, and their lights making a golden tunnel through the white, they set off up a steady incline, the four-wheel drive coping well with the loose snow.
‘But once we’re over this initial period of meeting people and settling in,’ he went on, ‘and we’re both doing the jobs we came here to do, it should prove to be a great deal easier.’
She could only hope so, Cathy thought and, in an effort to drop the uncomfortable subject, asked, ‘How far is it to the big house?’
‘Dunbar itself is about a mile up the drive, but if you’re on foot and go out the back way there’s a shortcut through the coppice that only takes a matter of minutes.’
As they reached the top of the rise and turned a corner to begin their descent, Cathy saw lights gleaming through the trees.
In her mind’s eye she had formed a picture of ‘the big house’ as being grey and square and dour, stark and uncompromising in its ugliness.
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
Through the dusk and the falling snowflakes she could just make out an old grey house cradled lovingly in a snowy fold of the hills.
Long and low, it had a hotchpotch of crooked chimneys and gable ends, mullioned windows and creeper-covered walls.
It was picturesque and beautiful, and, staring at it, entranced, Cathy murmured, ‘My house.’
‘What?’ Carl asked, startled.
‘The house,’ she explained. ‘Seeing it in the falling snow like this reminded me of a house I once
