He stared around at the two dogs with their heads hanging out of the window. Abbot was staring down at the road as if considering jumping. He wouldn’t. Alasdair had been around this dog long enough to know a three-foot jump in Abbot’s mind constituted suicide.
A moth was flying round Costello’s nose. Costello’s nose was therefore circling, too, as if he was thinking of snapping. He wouldn’t do that, either. Risk wasn’t in these two dogs’ make-up and neither was intelligence.
‘They’re dumb,’ he said, feeling dumbfounded himself.
‘I like dumb. You know where you are with dumb. Dumb doesn’t leave room for manipulation.’
‘Jeanie...’
‘Dumb or not, it’s yes or no. A year at the castle, no insults, the dogs—and respect for my privacy. The only way this can work is if you keep out of my way and I keep out of yours.’
‘We do still need to share the castle.’
‘Yes, we do,’ she agreed. ‘But you’ll be treated as a guest.’
‘You mean you’ll make the porridge?’
Her expression softened a little. ‘I kind of like making it,’ she admitted.
‘So we have a deal?’
‘No more insults?’ she demanded.
‘I can’t think of a single insult to throw.’
‘Then go home,’ she told him. ‘I’ll be there before breakfast.’
‘Won’t you come back now?’
‘Not with you,’ she said flatly. ‘I’ll follow separately, when I’m ready. From now on, Alasdair McBride, this is the way we do things. Separately or not at all.’
* * *
How was a man to sleep after that? He lay in the great four-poster bed in the opulent rooms his grandmother had done up for him during the renovation and he kept thinking...of Jeanie.
Why hadn’t his grandmother told him of her plight?
Because he’d never asked, he conceded. Eileen had known of the bad blood between the cousins. Revealing the mess Alan had left Jeanie in would have meant revealing even more appalling things of Alan than he already knew.
So she’d let him think Jeanie was a gold-digger?
No. Eileen wouldn’t have dreamed he’d think Jeanie was mercenary, he conceded, because anyone who met Jeanie would know that such a thing was impossible.
Except him. He’d met her, he’d judged her and he’d kept on judging her. He’d made the offer of marriage based on the assumption that she was out for what she could get, and he’d nearly destroyed his chances of success in doing it.
Worse, he’d hurt her. He’d hurt a woman who’d done the right thing by Eileen. A woman Eileen had loved. A woman who’d agreed to a marriage because...because he’d told her of the charities Duncairn supported? Because she could spend another year acting as a low-paid housekeeper? Because she loved two dopey dogs?
Or because she’d known Eileen would have wanted him to inherit. The realisation dawned as clear as if it were written in the stars.
She’d done it for Eileen.
Eileen had loved her and he could see why. She was a woman worthy of...
Loving?
The word was suddenly there, front and centre, and it shocked him.
Surely he was only thinking of it in relation to Eileen—but for the moment, lying back in bed in the great castle of his ancestors, he let the concept drift. Why had Eileen loved her?
Because she was kind and loyal and warm-hearted. Because she loved Eileen’s dogs—why, for heaven’s sake? Because she was small and cute and curvy and her chuckle was infectious.
There was nothing in that last thought that would have made Eileen love her, he decided, but it surely came to play in Alasdair’s mind.
When she’d almost fallen, when he’d picked her up and held her, he’d felt...he’d felt...
As if she was his wife?
And so she was, he thought, and maybe it was the vows he’d made in the kirk so few hours ago that made him feel like this. He’d thought he could make them without meaning them, but now...
She was coming back here. His wife.
And if he made one move on her, she’d run a mile. He knew it. Alan had treated her like dirt and so had he. Today he’d insulted her so deeply that she’d run. This year could only work if it was business only.
He had to act on it.
There was a whine under the bed and Abbot slunk out and put his nose on the pillow. The dogs should be sleeping in the wet room. That was where their beds were but when he’d tried to lock them in they’d whined and scratched and finally he’d relented. Were they missing Jeanie?
He relented a bit more now and made the serious mistake of scratching Abbot’s nose. Within two seconds he had two spaniels draped over his bed, squirming in ecstasy, then snuggling down and closing their eyes very firmly—We’re asleep now, don’t disturb us.
‘Dumb dogs,’ he told them but he didn’t push them off. They’d definitely be missing Jeanie, he thought, and he was starting—very strongly—to understand why.
* * *
Why was she heading back to the castle? She was out of her mind.
But she’d packed her gear back into her car and now she was halfway across the island. Halfway home?
That was what the castle felt like. Home. Except it wasn’t, she told herself. It had been her refuge after the Alan disaster. She’d allowed Eileen to talk her into staying on, but three years were three years too many. She’d fallen in love with the place. With Duncairn.
With the Duncairn estate and all it entailed?
That meant Alasdair, she reminded herself, and she most certainly hadn’t fallen in love with Alasdair. He was cold and judgemental. He’d married her for money, and he deserved nothing from her but disdain.
But he’d caught her when she’d fallen and he’d felt...he’d felt...
‘Yeah, he’d felt like any over-testosteroned male in a kilt would make you feel,’ she snapped out loud.
Her conversation with herself was nuts. She had the car windows open and she’d had to stop. Some of the scraggy, tough, highland sheep had chosen to snooze for the night in the middle of the road. They were moving but they were taking their time. Meanwhile they were looking at her curiously—listening in on her conversation? She needed someone to talk to, she decided, and the sheep would do.
‘I’m
