Читать книгу A Winter Wedding: Strangers at the Altar / The Warrior's Winter Bride - Marguerite Kaye, Denise Lynn - Страница 10

Chapter Four

The sun shone weakly from a pale blue sky dotted with puffy clouds, the kind a child would paint. Following in Innes’s wake along the narrow path of damp paving slabs, Ainsley could see that the gloom inside the Home Farm’s lower rooms was largely due to the height of the untended hedge. Emerging through an extremely overgrown arch, she came face-to-face with Strone Bridge Castle for the first time.

They were standing at the side of a long sweep of carriageway with what must have been a huge lawn on either side, though at present it was more like the remnants of a hayfield, part long yellowed grass falling over, part fresh green pushing through. The building loomed over them, such an imposing structure she could not imagine how she had missed its hulk yesterday, though the stone was indeed the grey colour the sky had been.

Ainsley walked backwards to gain some perspective. ‘This is the rear of the house,’ Innes said. ‘The drive meets the main overland road, which cuts over to the other side of the peninsula and Loch Fyne, though to call it a road... It’s far easier to travel by boat in this neck of the woods.’

‘We did not come this way yesterday?’

He shook his head. ‘The front of the house faces down to the shore. We came up that way. I’ll show you, we’ll go in by the main entrance, but I wanted you to see the scale of this damned monstrosity first.’

Strone Bridge Castle was indeed enormous, and though it was not precisely charming, Ainsley would not have called it a monstrosity. An imposing construction with a large tower at each corner, and another central turret projecting from the middle of the main building, it was like a castle from a Gothic novel. The sturdy turrets had unexpected ogee roofs, adding a hint of the east into the architectural mix, each roof topped with tall spires and embellished with slit windows. The turrets looked, with their rugged masonry walls and stolid, defensive air, quite at odds with the central part of the building, which was considerably more elegant, mostly Jacobean in style, with four storeys of tall French-style windows, a low Palladian roof ornamented with a stone balustrade and a huge portico that looked as if it had been added on as an afterthought. The overall effect was certainly not of beauty, but it was striking.

‘It looks,’ Ainsley said, studying it with bemusement, ‘as if someone has jumbled up three or four different houses, or taken samples from a book of architectural styles through the ages.’

‘You’re not far off,’ Innes said. ‘The main house was built about 1700. The roof and that central tower were added about fifty or sixty years after that, and my own father put those corner towers up. There’s no rhyme nor reason to it. As I said, it’s a monstrosity.’

‘That’s not what I meant at all. It is like nothing I have ever seen.’

‘One of a kind. That, thank heavens, is certainly true,’ Innes said grimly.

‘You are not fond of it, then?’ Ainsley asked. ‘Though there must be some interesting stories attached to a building so old. And perhaps even a few ghosts.’

He had taken her arm as they made their way over the untended lawn around the building, and now slanted her a curious look. ‘Do you believe in such things?’

‘Honestly, I’ve never considered the question before, but looking at this place, I could easily be persuaded.’

‘There is a tale of one of the lairds who went off to fight in the 1715 Jacobite uprising. He was for the Old Pretender. There’s a set of gates, right at the end of the carriageway, which he had locked, so they say, and made his wife promise never to unlock them until his return.’

‘What happened?’

‘He died in the Battle of Sheriffmuir. His wife had the gates unlocked for his corpse to pass through in its coffin, but—’ Innes broke off, shaking his head. ‘No, there’s enough here already to give you nightmares without adding a walking, wailing, clanking ghost to the mix.’

Ainsley stopped in her tracks, looking up at him in horror. ‘Walking and wailing and clanking?’

He bent down to whisper in her ear. ‘He rattles the chain that should have been kept around the gates. He walks just over there, on the carriageway. He wails for the treachery of his lady wife, who married his enemy less than a year after he was slain.’

She shuddered, looked over to where he was pointing, then looked back at him. ‘Have you actually seen him?’ Innes made a noncommittal noise. Ainsley narrowed her eyes suspiciously. ‘Has anyone ever seen him?’

‘None who have lived to tell the tale,’ he answered sorrowfully.

She punched him on the arm. ‘Then how can the tale be told! You made that up.’

He laughed, rubbing his arm. ‘Not all of it. The first part was true. The laird at the time did fight, he did die at Sheriffmuir and he did have the gates locked.’

‘Are there any real ghosts?’

His laughter faded as he took her arm and urged her on. ‘Plenty, believe me, though none that you will see, I hope.’

His expression was one she recognised. Don’t ask. Not because she wouldn’t like the answers, but because he would not. This was his home, this place that he was mocking and deriding, this place that he called a monstrosity. She wondered, then, if he really meant the bricks and mortar. Yesterday it was obvious that Innes had not wanted to come back to Strone Bridge. It was equally obvious from this morning that he’d not expected the place to be in such a state of disrepair, but now she wondered what else there was to disturb him here. What was at the heart of the quarrel that had so completely estranged him from his father?

How little of Innes she knew. His formative years had been spent here, yet he had left all of it behind without, it seemed, a backward glance, to make a new and very different life for himself. Why? It was all very well to tell herself it was none of her business, but—no, there was no but. It was absolutely none of her business, Ainsley told herself rather unconvincingly. Yet it was strange, and very distractingly intriguing, like the man himself.

‘You were a million miles away. I was only teasing you about the ghosts. I didn’t mean to give you the jitters,’ Innes said, cutting in on her thoughts.

‘You didn’t.’ Ainsley looked around her with slight surprise. They had reached the front of the house, and the prospect was stunning, for it sat on a hill directly above the bay where they had landed yesterday. ‘My goodness, this is absolutely beautiful.’

‘That’s the Kyles of Bute over there, the stretch of water with all the small islands that you sailed yesterday,’ Innes said. ‘And over there, the crescent of sand you can see, that’s Ettrick Bay on Bute, the other side of the island from which we set sail. And that bigger island you can just see in the distance, that’s Arran.’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a wonderful prospect. It is exactly the sort of view that one conjures up, all misty-eyed, when one thinks of the Highlands. Like something from one of Mr Walter Scott’s novels.’

‘Aye, well, strictly speaking Eoin was right in what he said yesterday, though. We’re only a wee bit farther north than Glasgow here, and Arran is south.’

‘As the crow flies,’ Ainsley said. ‘It doesn’t matter, it feels like another world, and it really is quite spectacular. There must be a magnificent view from the castle.’ She looked back at the house, where a set of long French-style windows opened out on the first floor to what must have once been a beautiful terrace at the top of a flight of stairs.

‘That’s the drawing room,’ Innes said, following her gaze.

‘How lovely to take tea there on a summer’s day. I can just imagine the ladies of old with their hoops and their wigs,’ she said dreamily.

‘The hoops and wigs are like as not still packed away up in the attics somewhere. My family never throws anything away. Do you really like this place?’

‘It’s entrancing. Do you really not like it?’

Innes shrugged. ‘I can see it’s a lovely view. I’d forgotten.’

Without waiting on her, he turned on his heel and began to walk quickly up the slope towards the central staircase. ‘Like someone determined to swallow their medicine as quickly as they can and get it over with,’ Ainsley muttered, stalking after him.

‘What was that?’

‘This may be a monstrosity to you, Innes, but to someone accustomed to a terraced house in Edinburgh, it’s magical.’

Innes stopped abruptly. ‘Ach, I’m like a beast with a sore head. I’m sorry. It’s not your fault.’

No, it was most definitely this place. Curious as she was, and with a hundred questions to boot, Ainsley had no desire to see him suffer. ‘We could leave it for today. Or I could look around myself.’

‘No,’ Innes said firmly, ‘it has to be done.’ He took her hand, forcing a smile. ‘Besides, you came here thinking you’d be lady of the manor—you’ve a right to see over your domain. I’m only sorry that it’s bound to be a disappointment.’

‘I did not come here with any such expectations. Aside from the fact that I know absolutely nothing about the management of a place this size, I am perfectly well aware that your people will regard a destitute Edinburgh widow without a hint of anything close to blue in her blood as nothing more than an upstart.’

Innes gave a startled laugh. ‘You’re not seriously worried that people here will look down their noses at you, Ainsley?’

‘A little,’ she confessed, embarrassed. ‘I hadn’t really thought about it until I arrived here yesterday. Then your boatman...’

‘Ach! Blasted Eoin. Listen to me. First, if there’s an upstart here, then it’s me. Second, for better or worse, I’ll be the laird while I’m here, and while you’re here, I will not tolerate anyone looking down their noses at you. Third, the state of your finances are nobody’s business but our own.’ He pulled her closer, pushing a strand of her hair out of her eyes. ‘Finally, though I have no intention of playing the laird and therefore there’s no need for you to play lady of the manor, if I did, and you did, then I think you’d play it very well. And on the off chance you couldn’t quite follow me,’ he added, ‘that was me saying you’ve not a thing to worry about.’

She felt a stupid desire to cry. ‘Thank you, I will try not to let you down.’

‘Wheesht, now,’ he said, kissing her cheek. ‘You’ll do your best, and that’s all I ask. Anyway, it’s not as if you are stepping into a dead person’s shoes. My mother died when I was eight years old.’

‘And your father never remarried?’

Innes gave a crack of laughter. ‘What for, he’d already produced an heir and a spare.’

‘What about your brother. Did he...?’

‘No.’

Another of those ‘do not dare ask’ faces accompanied this stark denial. And Innes would not be married either, were it not for the terms of the old laird’s will. Were the Drummond men all misogynists? Or perhaps there was some sort of dreadful hereditary disease? But Innes seemed perfectly healthy. A curse, then? Now she was being utterly fanciful. It was this place. Ainsley gave herself a little shake. ‘Well, then, let us go and inspect this castle of yours, and see what needs to be done to make it habitable.’

* * *

Everything inside Strone Bridge Castle was done on a grand scale. The formal salons opened out one after the other around the central courtyard with the Great Hall forming the centrepiece, heavy with geometric panelling, topped with rich fretwork ceilings like icing on a cake, or one of those elaborate sugar constructions that decorates the table at a banquet. Massive fireplaces and overmantels rose to merge the two, and everywhere, it seemed to Ainsley, every opportunity had been taken to incorporate heraldic devices and crests. Dragons and lions poked and pawed from pilasters, banisters and pediments. Shields and swords augmented the cornicing, were carved into the marble fireplaces and fanned out above the windows. It was beautiful, in an oppressive and overwhelming way.

The turrets that marked each corner were dank places with treacherous-looking staircases winding their way steeply up, and which Ainsley decided she did not need to climb. ‘They serve no real purpose,’ Innes told her. ‘A whim of my father’s, nothing more.’

* * *

After two hours and only a fraction of the hundred and thirty rooms, she had seen enough for one day. Back in the courtyard, she gazed up at the central tower, which was square and not round, and faced directly out over the Kyles of Bute. Bigger than the others, it seemed to contain proper rooms, judging from the wide windows that took up most of the sea-facing wall on each of the four stories. Ainsley wrestled with the heavy latch, but it would not budge.

‘It’s locked.’ Innes made no attempt to help her. ‘Has been for years. Most likely the key is long gone, for it’s not on here,’ he said, waving the heavy bunch of keys he carried.

Ainsley frowned at the lock, which seemed surprisingly new, and showed no sign of rust, wondering how Innes would know such a thing when he himself had not been here for years. ‘The view from up there must be spectacular,’ she said, looking back up at the battlements.

Innes had already turned away. ‘We’ll take a look at the kitchens.’

‘There must be a door from inside the castle,’ Ainsley said, frowning at the tower in frustration, trying to recall the exact layout of rooms that lay behind it. ‘Is that the dining room? I don’t recall a door, but...’

‘The door isn’t in the dining room.’ Innes was holding open another door. ‘Do you want to see the kitchens? I was hoping to get out to some of the farms this afternoon.’

He sounded impatient. Though this was all new to her, for him it was different. ‘I can come back myself another time,’ Ainsley said, joining him.

‘I don’t want you going up there,’ Innes said sharply. ‘It’s not safe.’

She cast a dubious look at the tower, thinking that it looked, like the rest of the castle, neglected though sound, but Innes was already heading down the narrow corridor, so she picked up her skirts and walked quickly after him.

A few moments later she forgot all about the locked tower, gazing in astonishment at the table that ran almost the full length of the servants’ hall. It looked as if it would sit at least fifty. ‘Good grief, how many staff does it take to keep this place running?’

Innes shook his head. ‘I’ve no idea. Even in my youth, most of the rooms were closed up, save for formal occasions, and there were few of those. My father was not the most sociable of men.’

They exited the servants’ hall and entered the main kitchen, which had two bread ovens, a row of charcoal braziers, a stove the size of a hay cart and the biggest fireplace Ainsley had ever seen. Out through another door, they wended their way through the warren of the basement, past linen rooms and still rooms, pantries and empty wine cellars, and then back up a steep flight of stairs to another door that took them out to the kitchen gardens.

Innes turned the lock and turned his back on the castle. ‘As you can see, the place is uninhabitable,’ he said.

He sounded relieved. She couldn’t understand his reaction to it. ‘Is the building itself in such a poor state of repair, is it the cost of restoring it you’re worried about?’

‘It’s sound enough, I reckon. There’s no smell of damp and no sign that the roof is anything but watertight, though I’d need to get one of my surveyors to take a look. But what would be the point?’

‘I have no idea, but—you would surely not wish to let it simply fall into ruin?’

‘I could knock it down and get it over with.’ Innes tucked the weight of keys into his coat pocket with a despondent shrug. ‘I don’t know,’ he said heavily, ‘and I think I’ve more pressing matters to consider, to be honest. Maybe it was a mistake to start with the castle. For now, I think it would be best if you concentrated on the immediate issue of making the Home Farm a bit more comfortable. Speak to Mhairi, she’ll help you. I’ll need to spend some time out on the lands.’

Ainsley watched him walk away, feeling slightly put out. He was right, their living quarters left a lot to be desired, and it made sense for her to sort them out. ‘Whatever that means,’ she muttered. The idea of consulting the rather forbidding Mhairi McIntosh did not appeal to her. Madame Hera had suggested that Timid Mouse appeal to her housekeeper’s softer side. Ainsley was not so sure that Mhairi McIntosh had one.

Besides, that wasn’t the point. She had not come here to set up Innes’s home for him, but to provide him with objective advice. How was she to do that if she was hanging curtains and making up beds while he was out inspecting his lands? Excluding her, in other words, and she had not protested. ‘Same old Ainsley,’ she said to herself in disgust. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself!’

* * *

Dear Madame Hera,

My husband’s mother gave me a household manual on my wedding day that she wrote herself. It is extremely comprehensive, and at first I was pleased to know the foods my husband prefers, and how he likes them served. However, I must say that right from the start I was a bit worried when I read what his mother calls ‘The Order of the Day’—and there is one for every day. I do try to follow it, but I confess I see no reason why I must do the washing on a Wednesday and polish the silver on a Saturday, any more than I see why we have to have shin of beef every single Tuesday, and kippers only on a Thursday. And as to her recipe for sheep’s-head soup—I will not!

I tried to tell my husband that his mother’s way is not the only way. I have many excellent recipes from my own mother that I am sure he would enjoy. I tried, with all my wifely wiles, to persuade him that I could run the household without following his mother’s manual to the letter. He spurned my wifely wiles, Madame, and now he is threatening to have his mother, who has a perfectly good house of her own, to come and live with us. I love my husband, but I do not love his mother. What should I do?

Desperate Wife

Ainsley pulled a fresh sheet of paper on to the blotting pad. It was tempting to suggest that Desperate Wife invite her own mother to stay, and even more tempting to suggest that she simply swap abodes herself with her husband’s mother, but she doubted Felicity would print either solution. Instead, she would advise Desperate Wife to put her foot down, throw away the manual and claim the hearth and home as her own domain. It was Madame Hera’s standard response to this sort of letter, of which she received a great many. Mothers-in-law, if the readers of the Scottish Ladies Companion were to be believed, were an interfering lot, and their sons seemed to be singularly lacking in gumption.

Claiming this hearth and home as her own had turned out to be relatively easy. Yet looking around the room, which in the past ten days, like the rest of the Home Farm, had been made both warm and comfortable, Ainsley felt little satisfaction. Mhairi McIntosh had proved cooperative but reserved. She had not looked down her nose at Ainsley, nor had she mocked or derided a single one of her suggestions, which had made the task Innes had given her relatively easy, but it was not the challenge she had been looking forward to. She had, in essence, been relegated to the domestic sphere when he had promised her a different role.

Irked with herself, Ainsley tucked Madame Hera’s correspondence into her leather folder and pushed it to one side of the desk, covering it with the latest copy of the Scottish Ladies Companion, which Felicity had sent to her. There could be no doubt that Innes needed help, but he had made no attempt to ask her for it. Though she rationalised that he most likely thought he’d fare better with his tenants alone, as the days passed, she felt more excluded and more uncomfortable with trying to address this fact. She was not unhappy, she was not regretting her decision to come here, but she felt overlooked and rather useless.

Standing on her tiptoes at the window, she could see the sky was an inviting bright blue above the monstrous hedge. Ainsley made her way outside, making for her favourite view out over the Kyles of Bute. Tiny puffs of clouds scudded overhead, like the steam from a train or a paddle steamer. It was a shame that the dilapidated jetty down in the bay was not big enough to allow a steamer to dock, for it would make it a great deal easier to get supplies.

She had to speak to Innes. She had a perfect right to demand that he allow her to do the task he had brought her here for. The fact that he was obviously floundering made it even more important. Yes, it also made him distant and unapproachable, but that was even more reason for her to tackle him. Besides, she couldn’t in all conscience remain here without actually doing what she’d already been paid to do. She owed it to herself to speak to him. She had no option but to speak to him.

Mentally rehearsing various ways of introducing the subject, Ainsley wandered through the castle’s neglected grounds, finding a path she had not taken before, which wended its way above the coastline before heading inwards to a small copse of trees. The chapel was built of the same grey granite as the castle, but it was warmed by the red sandstone that formed the arched windows, four on each side, and the heavy, worn door. It was a delightful church, simple and functional, with a small belfry on each gable end, a stark contrast to the castle it served.

The door was not locked. Inside, it was equally simple and charming, with wooden pews, the ones nearest the altar covered, the altar itself pink marble, a matching font beside it. It was clean swept. The tall candles were only half-burned. Sunlight, filtered through the leaves of the sheltering trees and the thick panes of glass in the arched windows, had warmed the air. Various Drummonds and their families were commemorated in plaques of brass and polished stone set into the walls. Presumably their bones were interred in the crypt under the altar, but Ainsley could find none more recent than nearly a hundred years ago.

Outside, she discovered the graveyard on the far side of the church. Servants, tenants, fishermen, infants. Some of the stones were so worn she could not read the inscription. The most recent of the lairds were segregated from the rest of the graveyard’s inhabitants by a low iron railing.

Ainsley read the short list on the large Celtic cross.

Marjorie Mary Caldwell

1787-1813, spouse of

Malcolm Fraser Drummond

This must be Innes’s mother. Below her, the last name, the lettering much brighter, his father:

Malcolm Fraser Drummond

Laird of Strone Bridge

1782-1840

The laird had married early. His wife must have been very young when she had Innes. Ainsley frowned, trying to work out the dates. Seventeen or eighteen? Even younger when she had her first son. Her frown deepened as she read the lettering on the cross again. Above Marjorie was the previous laird. Nothing between her and Innes’s father. Innes’s brother was not here, and she was certain he was not mentioned in the church. Perhaps he was buried elsewhere? What had Innes said? His brother’s death had been the trigger for the split between Innes and his father, she remembered that.

She could ask him. Taking a seat on the stone bench by the main door, Ainsley knew she would not risk antagonising him. She began to pick at the thick rolls of moss, which were growing on the curved arm of the seat. Theirs was a marriage of convenience. Her role as Innes’s wife was a public one—to appear on his arm at church on Sunday—and not a private one. She had no right to probe into his past, and she would not like it if he questioned her on hers.

Which did not alter the fact that he was preventing her from helping, and he quite patently needed help. She was bored, and she felt not only useless but rather like an outcast. What would Madame Hera say?

Wandering back along the path, with the sky, not surprisingly, now an ominous grey, Ainsley was thankful that Madame Hera had never been consulted on such a complex problem. There were a score of letters Madame Hera still had to answer, including the one to Desperate Wife. Was there an argument to defend the mother-in-law’s precious household manual? Perhaps there were traditions, comforting customs, that Desperate Wife’s husband valued or enjoyed, which he feared would be lost if the manual were ignored? Perhaps these very traditions were helping the husband adjust to his new life. Madame Hera rarely concerned herself with the men at the root of her correspondents’ problems, but it must be supposed that some of them had feelings, too. Perhaps Desperate Wife might have better success with what she called her wifely wiles if she put them to a more positive use, to discover what parts of the dratted manual actually mattered to him? Though of course, there was always a chance it was simply the case that he simply did like to have kippers on a Thursday.

‘I am glad one of us has something to smile about.’ Innes was approaching the front door from the direction of the stables. His leather riding breeches and his long boots were spattered with mud, as were the skirts of his black coat. He had not worn a hat since he’d arrived at Strone Bridge, and his hair was windswept. ‘What is so amusing, assuming it’s not my appearance?’ he asked, waiting for her on the path.

‘Kippers,’ Ainsley replied, smiling. He looked tired. There were shadows under his eyes. She had missed him at breakfast these past few days. ‘You do look a bit as if you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards. A very muddy hedge,’ Ainsley said. ‘I’ll speak to Mhairi when we get in, I’ll have her heat the water so you can have a bath. The chimney has been swept, so it shouldn’t take long.’

Innes followed her down the hallway to the sitting room that doubled as their study. ‘Thank you, that sounds good. Where have you been?’

‘I came across the chapel. I saw your father’s grave.’

He was sifting through the pile of mail that Mhairi had left on the desk and did not look up. ‘Right.’

She wondered, surprised that it had not occurred to her until now, whether Innes himself had seen it. If so, he had made no mention of it. Another thing he would not talk about. ‘I’ll go and speak to Mhairi,’ Ainsley said, irritated, knowing she had no right to be, and even more irritated by that fact.

* * *

When she returned, bearing a tea tray, Innes was sitting at the desk reading a letter, but he put it down as she entered and took the tray from her. ‘I think half the population of Strone Bridge must now be in Canada or America,’ he said. ‘We’ve more empty farms than tenanted ones.’

She handed him a cup of tea. ‘Why is it, do you think?’

‘High rents. Poor maintenance—or more accurately, no maintenance. Better prospects elsewhere.’ Innes sighed heavily.

‘I know nothing about such matters, but even I can see from the weeds growing that some of the fields have not been tilled for years,’ Ainsley said carefully. ‘Is the land too poor?’

‘It’s sure as hell in bad heart now,’ Innes said wretchedly, ‘though whether that’s through neglect or lack of innovation, new methods, whatever they might be. There are cotter families who have lived in the tied cottages for decades who have moved on. I’m sick of hearing the words, “I mentioned it to the laird but nothing happened”. My father’s factor apparently left Strone Bridge not long after I did, and he did not employ another, though no one will tell me why. In fact, no one will tell me anything. They treat me like a stranger.’

‘What about Eoin?’ Ainsley asked tentatively.

‘What about him?’

‘You said he was your friend. Couldn’t you talk to him?’

‘Eoin is as bad as the rest. It doesn’t matter, it’s not your problem.’

Innes picked up another letter. As far as he was concerned, the conversation was over. It’s not your problem. Ainsley sat perfectly still. The words were a horrible echo from the past. How many times had she been rebuffed by John with exactly that phrase, until she stopped asking any questions at all?

‘Don’t say that.’

Her tone made Innes look up in surprise. ‘Don’t say what?’

Ainsley stared down at her tea. ‘It is my problem. At least it’s supposed to be. It’s what you brought me here for, to help you.’

‘This place is beyond help. I can see that for myself.’

‘So that’s it? You’ve already decided—what? To sell? To walk away and let it continue to crumble? What?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘So you haven’t decided, but you’re not going to ask me because my opinion counts for nothing.’

‘No! Ainsley, what the devil is the matter with you?’

‘What is the matter?’ She jumped to her feet, unable to keep still. ‘You brought me here to help! You have paid me a considerable sum of money, a sum I would not have dreamed of accepting if I thought all I was to do was sit about here and—and fluff cushions.’

‘You’ve done a great deal more than that. I’m sorry if I have seemed unappreciative, but—’

‘I have done nothing more than Mhairi McIntosh could have done. Oh, granted, I married you, and in doing so allowed you to claim this place, which seems to me to have been a completely pointless exercise, if all you’re going to do is say that it’s past help, and walk away.’

‘I didn’t say I was going to do that. Stop haranguing me like a fishwife.’

‘Stop treating me like a child! I have a brain. I have opinions. I know I’m a Sassenach and a commoner to boot, but I’m not a parasite. I may know nothing about farming, but neither do you! Only you’re so blooming well ashamed of the fact, though you’ve no reason to be, because why should you know anything about it when you told me yourself your father did not allow you to know anything, and—and...’

‘Ainsley!’ Innes wrested the teaspoon she was still clutching from her clenched hand and set it down on the tea tray. ‘What on earth has come over you? You’re shaking.’

‘I’m not,’ she said, doing just that. ‘Now you’ve made me lose track of what I was saying.’

‘You were saying that I’m an ignoramus not fit to own the lands.’

‘No, that’s what you think.’ She sniffed loudly. ‘If I could have got by without asking Mhairi for advice on this house, I would have, but I couldn’t, Innes.’

‘Why should you, you know nothing of the place.’

‘Exactly.’ She sniffed again, and drew him a meaningful look. Innes handed her a neatly folded handkerchief. ‘I’m not crying,’ Ainsley said.

‘No.’

She blew her nose. ‘I’ve never known a wetter July. I’ve likely got a cold.’

‘It wouldn’t surprise me.’

‘I hate women who resort to tears to get their way.’

‘I’m not sure it ever works. From what I’ve seen, what usually happens is that she cries, he runs away, and whatever it was gets swept under the carpet until the next time,’ Innes said wryly.

‘You know, for a man who has never been married before, you have an uncanny insight into the workings of matrimony.’

‘I take it I’ve struck a chord?’

It was gently said, but she couldn’t help prickling. ‘Sometimes tears are not a weapon, but merely an expression of emotion,’ Ainsley said, handing him his kerchief. ‘Such as anger.’

‘Stop glowering at me, and stop assuming that all men are tarred with the same brush as the man you married.’

The gentleness had gone from his voice. Ainsley sat, or rather slumped, feeling suddenly deflated. ‘I don’t.’

‘You do, and I’m not like him.’

‘I know. I wouldn’t be here if I thought you were. But you are shutting me out, Innes, and it’s making me feel as if I’m here under false pretences. If you won’t talk to me, why not talk to Eoin? There’s nothing shameful in asking for help.’

Her tea was cold, but she drank it anyway. The silence was uncomfortable, but she could think of no way of breaking it. She finished her tea.

‘I’m not used to consulting anyone,’ Innes said. ‘You knew that.’

‘But it was your idea to have me come along here. An objective eye.’

‘I didn’t realise things would be so bad. As I said, it’s obvious that it’s too late.’

‘So you’re giving up?’

‘No! I’m saving you the effort of getting involved in something that is next to useless.’

‘Giving up, in other words,’ Ainsley said.

His face was quite white. The handle of his teacup snapped. He stared at it, then put it carefully down. ‘I don’t give up,’ he said.

She bit her tongue.

‘I’m not accustomed to— It’s been difficult. Seeing it. Not having answers. That’s been hard.’

Ainsley nodded.

‘They are all judging me.’

She sighed in exasperation. ‘Innes, you’ve been gone a long time. They don’t know you.’

‘I don’t see how you can help.’

‘I won’t know if I can, if you don’t talk to me.’ Ainsley tried a tentative smile. ‘At the very least, I would be on your side.’

‘Aye, that would be something more than I have right now.’ Innes smiled back. ‘I’ll think about it.’

‘Please do. I have plenty of time on my hands.’

He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, looking at her ruefully. ‘You might want to use some of it to partition this place off into his and her domains. I’m like a bear with a sore head these days, though contrary to what you might think, I quite like having you around. And that’s your cue, in case you missed it, to tell me you feel the same.’

Ainsley laughed. ‘Would I have suggested helping you if I had wanted to avoid you?’

‘True.’

‘Perhaps you should consider having some sort of welcoming party.’

‘Even though I’m not welcome.’ He shook his head. ‘No, I’m sorry, don’t bite my head off.’

Ainsley frowned, thinking back to the letter she had been reading that morning from Desperate Wife. ‘Sometimes traditions can be a comfort. Sometimes they can even help heal wounds,’ she said, making a mental note to include that phrase in Madame Hera’s reply.

‘Sometimes you sound like one of those self-help manuals, do you know that?’

‘Do I?’

‘“Engaging in marital relations,”’ he quoted, smiling. ‘“Undergoing a husband’s ministrations.” No, don’t get on your high horse, it’s endearing.’

‘It is?’

‘It is. What were you suggesting?’

‘Didn’t you say that there ought to have been a ceremony when we arrived?’ There was a smut of mud on his cheek. She reached up to brush it away.

‘A ceremony. I’m not very keen on ceremonies.’ Innes caught her hand between his and pressed a kiss on to her knuckles.

Was it just a kiss, or a kiss? It felt like more than just a kiss, for it made her heart do a silly little flip. But his mouth did not linger, and surely knuckles could not be—what was the word, stimulating? She wanted to ask him, but that would give too much away, and he might not have been at all stimulated. ‘A celebration, then,’ Ainsley said. ‘Lots of food and drink. Something to mark the changes. You know, out with the old and in with the new.’

‘Mmm.’ He kissed her hand again. ‘I like that,’ he said, smiling at her.

‘Do you?’ She had no idea whether he meant her idea or the kiss.

‘Mmm,’ he said, pulling her towards him and wrapping his arms around her. ‘I like that very much,’ he said. And then he kissed her on the mouth.

It was definitely not just a kiss. He tasted of spring. Of outdoors. A little of sweat. And of something she could not name. Something sinful. Something that made her heat and tense and clench, and made her dig her fingers into the shoulders of his coat and tilt her body against his. And that made him groan, a guttural noise that seemed to vibrate inside her.

One hand roamed up her back, his fingers delving into her hair, the other roamed down to cup her bottom and pull her closer. She could feel the hard ridge of his arousal through his trousers, through her skirts. She touched her tongue to his and felt his shudder, and shuddered with him, pressing her thighs against his, wanting more, wanting to rid herself of the layers of cloth between them, wanting his flesh, and then thinking about her flesh, exposed, thinking about him looking at her. Or looking at her and then turning his head away. Then not wanting to look at her. Like John. And then...

‘Ainsley?’

‘Your bath,’ she said, clutching at the first thing she could think of. ‘Your bath will be ready.’

‘Is something wrong?’

‘No,’ she said, managing a smile, forcing herself to meet his concerned gaze, hating herself for being the cause of that concern, frustrated at having started something she had not the nerve to finish, frustrated at how much she wished she could. ‘No, I just don’t want the water to get cold.’

‘The state I’m in, I think cold is what I need. What happened? Did I do something wrong?’

She flushed. Men were not supposed to ask such questions. Men hated discussing anything intimate. She knew that it was not just John who had been like that, because Madame Hera’s correspondence was full of women saying that their husbands were exactly the same. Why did Innes have to be different!

‘Nothing. I changed my mind,’ Ainsley said, mortified, not only for the lie, but for knowing she was relying on Innes being the kind of man who would always allow a woman to do so. And she was right.

‘A lady’s prerogative,’ he said, making an ironic little bow. ‘I’ll see you at dinner.’