Читать книгу Underneath The Mistletoe Collection - Джанис Мейнард, Marguerite Kaye - Страница 22

Chapter Thirteen

Innes did not return to the Home Farm until late that night, and he was gone for the rest of the next day. It was late and Ainsley had been lying wide awake for several hours, torn between fretting and anger, when she heard his footsteps in the corridor. They did not stop outside his room, but carried on to hers. She scrambled up in bed as the door was flung open. ‘You couldn’t leave it, could you?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘This!’ He strode over to the bed, waving a piece of paper at her. ‘Don’t pretend it wasn’t your doing, for she mentions you herself, and even if she had not, I recognise some of your handiwork—or should I say Madame Hera’s! “Take the opportunity to put the past to rest.” That’s one of yours,’ Innes quoted, his voice heavy with sarcasm, ‘and then there’s “free to make a fresh start.” One thing hasn’t changed. Blanche’s letters leave no room for misinterpretation.’

‘Blanche?’ Ainsley repeated. ‘You mean Blanche wrote to you?’

‘At your behest.’

‘Yes, but— No, I thought she would write to me, but—Innes, what does she say?’

‘That fourteen years is enough time to realise that love should conquer all and it’s time we surrendered to the happiness Malcolm sacrificed himself to give us,’ he said mockingly. ‘Wouldn’t your Madame Hera just love it if she did? Isn’t that exactly what you hoped for when you interfered?’

His words were like whiplashes, deliberately and painfully cruel. The old Ainsley would have been intimidated, frightened, silent. The new Ainsley was hurt, but also furious. ‘I hoped that you’d take the opportunity to at least listen to whatever she had to say,’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘What you call interfering was actually done through a genuine concern for your happiness, which, contrary to what you believe, I think you deserve. I hoped that you would credit me with actually caring about you, Innes, enough to risk meddling. Obviously I was wrong, and you are for reasons known only to yourself absolutely set on making the rest of your life as miserable as you can, though why you think that will make any sort of restitution when... Och, what the hell does it matter now what I thought! If you won’t listen to Blanche, why would I think you’d listen to me?’

Innes crunched the letter into a ball and threw it at the grate. ‘Dammit, Ainsley, it’s you who won’t listen! Why must you— I told you, I don’t want you to care for me. I told you...’

She had had enough. Pushing back the blankets, Ainsley got out of bed and stood before him, hands on her hips. ‘Do you think I could forget for a moment what you told me when it almost broke my heart!’ she exclaimed. ‘For goodness’ sake, Innes, just because you want something to be so doesn’t make it so! There are some things you can’t control, and how I feel is one of them.’

‘You think you’re so damn clever! Can you not see, you annoying, interfering woman, that how I feel is another?’ he said, yanking her into his arms.

He gave her no chance to respond, but covered her mouth with his. His kiss was passionate, dark and desperate. Exactly how she felt. Ainsley kissed him back with an abandon that left no room for thought. They staggered together, kissing, tearing at each other’s clothes, kissing. Her back was pressed against the wall. His hands were on her breasts, her waist, her bottom. She wrapped one leg around him to steady herself. He pulled his jumper over his head and tore at the opening of her nightgown, groaning as he took her nipple into his mouth and sucked hard, making her moan, arch against him, thrust herself shamelessly against the thick bulge of his arousal.

She clutched at his behind, her fingers digging into the taut muscles of his buttocks. His mouth enveloped her other breast now, tugging at her nipple, making her ache and thrust and moan. Her fingers fumbled with the opening of his breeches. Her hands slid in, wrapping around the satin-soft length of him, sliding up to the hot, wet tip, and back down. ‘Innes,’ she said, the strain in her voice making her sound as if she’d run a mile.

‘Ainsley,’ he said raggedly, ‘I need to be inside you.’

‘Yes.’ There was no hesitation in her agreement. She knew without a doubt that this was no beginning but an end, but she wanted him, needed to be part of him, this one last time. ‘Yes,’ she said, and when he hesitated, she arched against him. ‘Yes, Innes, now.’

His face was dark, colour slashing his cheeks, his eyes deep pools. He lifted her onto the edge of the bed, pulling up the skirts of her nightgown. She wrapped her legs around his flanks, bracing herself on the mattress. He kissed her. He lifted her. He entered her. She started to come as he slid inside her. Tension, unstoppable, winding tighter and tighter as she thrust, pulsing around him as he thrust for the second time, her cries harsh, loud, demanding more and harder and more. Not enough, she didn’t want it to stop, but she wanted him to have what she had. ‘Come now,’ she said. ‘Innes, come with me.’

He did just as she asked, though he did not spend himself inside her, and panting, spiralling out of control, clinging, she did not regret that, because she knew he would, and this had to be it, the last time, the perfect time. She kissed him deeply, her lips clinging to his, her tongue touching his, touching, clinging, kissing, telling him with her mouth what she could not speak. There were tears lurking, but she would not shed those. Only she kissed him again. His mouth. His jaw. His neck. Nuzzling her face into the hollow of his shoulder, closing her eyes and trying to etch it all in her mind, as his heart thundered under her and his chest heaved, and his hands held her so tight, as if he would not let her go, though she knew he would.

* * *

Ainsley knew, even as they lay there, breathing heavily in the aftermath of their union, that it was completely and irrevocably over. Innes cared for her, but it tormented him. He had lost himself in her to stop that torment, and she had lost herself in him because she could not resist him. But she could not carry on this way, and she would not allow herself to be the means by which he escaped his past.

‘I’m sorry.’

She dragged her eyes open as Innes rolled away from her, his expression troubled. ‘What for?’ she asked.

‘Not this, but the way it happened. You meant well—the idea for the hotel, writing to—to her. You meant well, I know that. I shouldn’t have lost my temper.’

But he wasn’t going to change his mind. Ainsley got to her feet and pulled on her wrapper. ‘I should have consulted you,’ she said, turning her back to him to tend the fire.

‘It would certainly have saved you a lot of effort.’

The final confirmation, as if she needed it. He was standing behind her now. ‘You must be tired,’ she said. ‘You should get some sleep.’

‘Ainsley, I really am sorry.’

He looked quite wretched. She surrendered to the temptation to comfort him one last time and went to him, wrapping her arms around his waist, resting her cheek on his chest. He pulled her tight, almost crushing the breath from her. ‘You do understand,’ he said.

‘I do, Innes.’ She looked up, brushing his hair from his eyes, and kissed him gently on the lips. ‘I understand perfectly,’ she said. ‘Now go and get some sleep.’

He went. He would have stayed if she had asked him, but she did not. Instead, she set about making her preparations to leave, packing a few necessities in a bandbox, leaving the rest to be sent on. She found Blanche’s balled-up letter lying under the nightstand and smoothed it out. Her own words, quoted in the other woman’s elegant hand, leaped out of the page at her, and at the end, a plaintive request from Blanche for a meeting. Nothing more. It was signed with a flourish, the first name only.

Innes had been joking when he suggested marrying Blanche would make all right, but there was still a chance it would. Blanche was his first love. His only one? How easy would it be for him to fall in love with her again if he could be persuaded his dead brother sanctioned the match? Blanche had always been intended to be the wife of the laird of Strone Bridge. She had been groomed for it. She had birth and money and beauty. She would be a laird’s wife worth her salt. A woman who belonged here. A woman blessed by the last laird. No usurper. A woman who was perfect in just about every way, including, no doubt, her ability to pop out any number of the requisite heirs.

Feeling slightly sick, Ainsley folded the letter carefully. Pulling Innes’s discarded jumper on over her nightclothes, she made her way softly down the stairs. Outside, the air was sharp with the first hint of frost. The stars were mere pinpricks, the moon a waning crescent, but she knew her way now, without looking. Up to the castle, along the path, to the terrace and her view. That was how she thought of it, though it would not be hers after today. Gazing out at the black shape that was the Isle of Bute, longing gripped her, tinged with anger. All her hard work had come to naught. When she was gone from here, there would be nothing of her left. Perhaps that was what Innes wanted, to forget all about her, and to immolate himself on the altar of the past. Tragic as it was, Ainsley was becoming impatient with his determination to earn a martyrdom. She loved him with all her heart, and more than anything, she wanted him to be happy, even if he did decide to marry Blanche. He had lived with guilt and regret for so long, she would not add to that with tears, with long goodbyes, with dragging out her time here.

Eyes straining into the inky blackness, she sought to capture the view in her mind for all time. Then she turned away and headed back to the Home Farm to complete her preparations. Before dawn broke she was tapping on the front door of Eoin’s croft, her luggage already left waiting down in the bay.

* * *

Dearest Innes,

I am writing this as myself, and not Madame Hera, though the truth is, in my time at Strone Bridge, I believe we have become more or less one and the same thing. No doubt reading this as Madame’s advice will make it easier for you to ignore. I expect you will. I wish with all my heart that you will not.

As you can see, I have rescued Blanche’s letter. I hope you forgive me when I confess to having read it. Innes, please do as she asks and meet her. If you cannot put your own demons of guilt to bed, then perhaps you can help her. The poor woman was but a child when these tragic events that have shaped both your lives took place—as indeed were you, though I know you do not agree with me on that score. You are in the unique position of being able to help each other. I beg you to try to do so.

As to the rest. Robert Alexander can answer any questions about my proposal for Strone Bridge’s future, which my documentation leaves unanswered. It is not pride—well, only a little!—that leads me to ask you to consider this, but a genuine belief that it will help save your estates and the people who live there. I’d like to think I’ve left something of value behind. I hope it’s obvious how much I have come to love the place and the people.

I leave it to you to manage the termination of our agreement in whatever way you think best. I leave Strone Bridge a much stronger person than the poor wee soul you met at the lawyer’s office all those months ago. I leave it ready to do battle with whatever the future holds, and confident that I can. You have helped me in too many ways to list. I do not regret a second spent with you. With all my heart I wish you happiness, because you’re wrong, Innes, it is something you well and truly deserve.

A.

Innes finished reading the letter, then started all over again, as if a second reading would change the content. He looked up from the breakfast table to discover Mhairi was still there, watching him with such an expression of compassion on her face that he knew there was no point in pretending.

‘Do you know when—or how—she left?’ Innes asked.

‘Eoin took her at first light. She left me a note asking to have the rest of her things sent on.’

‘Where to?’

‘It is a carrier’s address in Edinburgh.’

Innes looked at the housekeeper helplessly. ‘I don’t even know if she’s got any money. She has her allowance, but—I’ll need to— I’ll have to arrange to— She’ll need a place to stay. I...’

‘I think Mrs Drummond’s more than capable of sorting that out for herself, if you don’t mind my saying,’ Mhairi interrupted drily. ‘It seems to me that you’d better concentrate on sorting yourself out.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Blanche Caldwell is back at Glen Vadie, did you know?’

Innes tore his eyes away from a third, fruitless reading of Ainsley’s missive. ‘At Glen Vadie? No, I didn’t know. She wrote me a letter, though.’

‘Does Mrs Drummond know?’

‘About the letter?’

‘About Blanche, Innes,’ Mhairi spoke sharply. ‘If that good woman has gone haring back to Edinburgh to leave the way clear for you to pick up where you never should have started with that Caldwell woman...’

‘Dear God, do you think that’s it?’ For a moment, his heart leaped. If that was all it was, he could fetch her back. But for what purpose, and for how long? Innes slumped back miserably in his chair. ‘What are you waiting for?’ he demanded, seeing Mhairi, arms akimbo, was still there. ‘She’s gone, and she’s made it very clear she won’t be coming back, so go and pack her things and leave me in peace.’

* * *

But peace was not something Innes could find over the next few days. On the one hand, he was tracking Ainsley’s journey in his mind, wondering where she was, who she was with, whether she was thinking of him, whether she was missing him as he ached for her. On the other, he was determinedly trying to put her firmly out of his mind and refusing to allow himself to think about what was staring him in the face—or, more accurately, fighting to be heard from his heart.

He did love her. He had, despite all his best efforts, fallen completely in love with her. He loved her in a way he had never loved Blanche, as if she were part of himself. Without her, he felt as if that part was missing. It did not help that every corner of Strone Bridge reminded him of her. It did not help, lying in her bed, the scent of her on the pillow. It did not help, avoiding her favourite view, any more than it helped forcing himself to stare at it. Mhairi’s tight-lipped disapproval didn’t help any more than her misguided attempts to comfort him, or Eoin’s insistence that when he left her on the Isle of Bute, Ainsley had been ‘very well’, whatever that meant. Innes hoped she was very well. It was wrong of him to hope that she was as miserable as he, wrong of him to hope that she missed him as much, ached for him as much, loved him as much.

She had never said the words, but he was standing on the castle terrace looking out at the Kyles of Bute when he realised that she did love him, and it hit him then, how much he was wilfully throwing away. What was wrong with him? Looking up at the tower, he remembered exactly what was wrong with him. Standing in front of Malcolm’s grave a while later confirmed it. Guilt. The demons of the past. Ainsley was right.

Something glinted in the browning grass by the stone. Stooping to pick it up, Innes found a brooch. A simple thing of silver, with a name etched into it. He recognised it, for she had always worn it. So she had been here. He wondered how she’d managed it without his knowing, but it wasn’t much of a puzzle. Mhairi or Eoin, or both.

Finally, Innes allowed himself to consider the advice Ainsley had left him in her letter. Heading back to the Home Farm, he read it again. And again. He found the keys on the desk where Ainsley had left them. The tower key, he still had in his coat pocket. In the Great Hall, all Ainsley’s plans were still there as she had laid them out for him. So much work. He couldn’t believe how stupid he’d been not to see the love that had gone into it. He felt sick to the back teeth thinking of how ungrateful he’d sounded, how much it must have hurt her to have it all thrown back in her face.

He lit a lamp and picked it up. At the doorway, goosebumps prickled on his arms. Mhairi always said there was no mistaking what she called a presence. It grew cold, she said, as if you’d walked into an icehouse, and you got a sense of it, like a breath of wind over your shoulder. Innes whirled round, but there was nothing there.

The lock turned easily. He climbed the stairs slowly, his feet remembering the twists and turns as if it had been yesterday, and not fourteen years since last he was there. Past the first-floor landing and then the second. The door at the top was closed. Heart pounding, he took a deep breath, pushed it open and stepped inside.

Nothing. Standing on the threshold, lamp held high, he felt absolutely nothing of his brother’s presence. Mouth dry, he made his way over to the window. The view, in the gloaming, was as Ainsley had always said: spectacular. He opened the casement and forced himself to look down. The ground rose up to meet him, dizzying. Innes drew back hurriedly, looking over his shoulder, feeling like an idiot but unable to stop himself.

No Malcolm. Instead, he saw the table, so carefully set out. The scale model that Robert must have made of the castle and its grounds, the tied cottages, the newly landscaped gardens. Setting the lamp down, Innes pulled up a chair, picked up the sheaf of papers covered in Ainsley’s distinctive scrawl and began to read.

Edinburgh, two weeks later

Ainsley put down the book she thought she’d been reading when she realised she’d been turning pages for the past half hour and could remember not a single word. Getting up from the nest of cushions and blankets she’d made for herself on Felicity’s worn but comfortable sofa, she wandered over to the window. Outside, the streets of Edinburgh’s New Town were quiet, for it was the Sunday after Christmas, and the church bells of St Andrew’s and St George’s were silent, the morning services well underway.

Felicity was spending the week with her family, so Ainsley had the flat to herself. While Felicity had been here, she’d forced herself to pin a smile onto her face and get on. With Felicity absent, Ainsley had allowed herself a few days to mope. Not that she was regretting what she had done, but she needed time to make sure it had sunk in. Innes hadn’t been in touch. Though her luggage had arrived at the carrier, it had contained no note from him. Not that she’d been expecting it. She certainly hadn’t been expecting him to rush after her, and even if he had it wouldn’t have changed anything, so there was no point in wishing for such a stupid waste of effort.

Sighing, bored with the circles her mind was running round, she pressed her forehead to the windowpane. Next week, the first of the New Year, she would start to look for a room. Even if she’d remained at Strone Bridge as agreed, that time would now be over. She wondered how Innes would see in the New Year. Ainsley—or Madame Hera—had been invited to a party hosted by the Scottish Ladies Companion. She knew she ought to go.

Outside, a post chaise pulled up on the cobbled street. Her heart did a daft wee flip, then sank as the door opened and a maidservant descended, followed by a young woman. Ainsley watched listlessly as the baggage was unloaded. Farther along the crescent, a man had appeared. Tall, dressed in black, he was making his way slowly along, checking the numbers on each of the doors.

It wasn’t him. Why should it be him? All the same, Ainsley gazed down in dismay at her crumpled gown, put a hand to her hair, which was falling down from the loose knot she’d put it up in this morning. She dare not leave the window to consult the mirror over the fireplace. Not that it could possibly be Innes. Even though he did walk like Innes.

It was him. Her heart stopped and then began to race as she looked down into his face. Such blue eyes. He raised his hand in recognition. She couldn’t move. He disappeared up the steps. The bell clanged. Still partly inclined to believe he was a figment of her imagination, Ainsley went down to open the door.

‘It is you.’ He looked tired. He looked—nervous? Afraid? ‘Has something happened?’ Ainsley asked, panicking. ‘Is someone— Is everyone...?’

‘Fine. They’re all fine.’

‘And you?’

Innes shrugged. He smiled, or he seemed to be trying to smile. ‘I don’t know. I’m hoping to find out. Can I come in?’

‘How did you know I’d be here?’

‘Eoin finally gave me Miss Blair’s address.’

‘She’s not here. She’s gone to her parents for New Year.’

‘Ainsley, can I come in?’

She opened the door wider and Innes stepped through, following her up the stairs to the living room. She closed this door behind her, then simply leaned against it, unsure what to say, refusing to allow herself to think about what this might mean. It had been hard enough to leave him the first time. ‘What is it?’ she asked, and her voice sounded sharper than she meant, but it couldn’t be helped.

Innes took off his greatcoat and put it over one of the chairs. His hat went on the table, and his gloves. He stood in front of the fire, hands clasped behind his back. Then he went over to the window, where she had been standing a few moments ago. Then he joined her at the door. ‘I don’t know where to start,’ he said. ‘I had a speech, but I can’t remember it now.’ He waited, but she could think of nothing to say. ‘I’ve seen Blanche,’ he said.

Ainsley’s heart plummeted, even as she told herself firmly that this was good news. ‘Good,’ she said, as if saying out loud would make it so.

Innes nodded. ‘Yes, yes, it was.’ He took another turn round the room, to the fireplace, to the window, back to her. ‘You were right. Or Madame Hera was,’ he said with another of those lopsided smiles.

‘Good,’ Ainsley said again, this time with a firm nod. ‘I’m glad.’ She didn’t sound glad. She sounded as if she were being strangled. ‘Did it help?’

Innes ran his hand through his hair. He had had it cut. Suddenly she couldn’t bear that he’d had it cut and she hadn’t been there. She blinked furiously, but a tear escaped and ran down her cheek. She brushed it away quickly, but another fell.

‘Ainsley...’

‘It’s nothing. I’m fine.’ She pushed him away and went to sit on the sofa, pulling the comforting woollen blanket over her, not caring how she looked or what he thought. ‘Just tell me, Innes, and get it over with.’

‘I thought you’d be pleased.’

‘I am! I will be,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘Would you just tell me?’

He stared at her in astonishment, and then he laughed. ‘Don’t tell me Mhairi was right.’

When she had nothing to say to this strange remark, Innes came to sit beside her. He was smiling, this time in a way that made her heart, which had become as wayward as her voice, start to do what felt peculiarly like a dance. ‘Ainsley, you can’t possibly be thinking that I would want Blanche?’

She shrugged, though the gesture was somewhat obscured by the blanket covering her. ‘You did before,’ she said, and though she sounded like a petulant child now, she couldn’t help adding, ‘You told me yourself that she is beautiful, rich, well born.’

‘But I’m married to you.’

‘Not really. I told you in my letter that I would cooperate with however you saw fit to end it.’

‘And in the meantime, you don’t mind if I’m bedding my first love, is that it?’

‘No!’ Though he had not raised his voice, he sounded angry. Ainsley pushed back the blanket and got to her feet. ‘You should not use a word like that in reference to your— To someone— To Blanche,’ she said, picking up the poker and applying it furiously to the coals.

‘Ainsley, I’m not bedding Blanche. I’ve no intentions of bedding her or even of making love to her. I can’t believe you would think that. I’m married to you.’

‘Not for much longer.’

The poker was wrested from her fingers. She was yanked to her feet, and held very tightly in an embrace. ‘I came here in the hope of persuading you to make it for life. Please tell me I’m not wasting my time, Ainsley.’

Now her heart felt as though it was about to jump out of her mouth. The way he was looking at her, as if his life depended on her. But it did not. Surely it did not. She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you’re doing here.’

‘I’m trying, in a very, very roundabout and long-winded way, to tell you that I love you. My only excuse for doing it so badly is that I’ve not said it before. Not like this. I’ve never meant it like this, and if you mention Blanche one more time...’

‘It was you who mentioned her.’

He laughed. ‘I was trying to show you that I’d understood. That I’d done what you advised. That I’d taken the opportunity to “put the past to rest”, to quote Madame Hera.’

‘That was me, actually.’

‘But, as you pointed out to me, they are become one and the same person.’ Innes pushed her hair back from her face. ‘I thought I had to prove myself worthy before I told you, but I think I did it the wrong way round. I love you, Ainsley. I love you with all my heart, and though I can live without you, I can get by with my guilt and my demons persuading myself that it’s all I deserve, I don’t want to. I want to be happy, and the only thing that will make me truly happy is you.’

She had never believed there was such a thing, but she could have sworn what she saw in his face was the light of love. She had so many questions, but right now all that mattered was that. ‘I love you,’ Ainsley said, ‘I love you every bit as much, and I could do as you said, too, I could live without you, but, Innes, I really don’t want to.’

‘You don’t have to. Dearest, darling Ainsley, you don’t have to.’

He kissed her in a way he’d never kissed her before. Gently. Tenderly. Tentatively. He kissed her as if he was afraid she would not kiss him back. He kissed her as if he was begging that she would. ‘Ainsley, I know it’s all back to front, but I love you so much,’ he said. And then he kissed her again, and she told him, with her hands and her lips, how very, very much his love was returned.

Later, Innes thought, kissing her. There would be all the time in the world for explanations later. What mattered now was that he loved her, and she loved him, and she was in his arms and he could finally admit just how much he had missed her and how close he had come to losing her. He kissed her, whispering her name over, whispering the words over, kissing her, touching her, pulling her so close there was no space between them. He never wanted to let her go. He wanted to make love to her right now. Make real love. Make love that he’d never made before. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe how much I love you. I can’t believe how daft I’ve been not to realise.’

He kissed her again. She laughed. She kissed him. She laughed. She kissed him. They fell, kissing, laughing with happiness, on to the sofa. And there, they made love. Laughter giving way to sighs, and then seamlessly to bliss. Love. Who would have thought it? Love.

* * *

‘I meant to do this the other way round,’ Innes said afterwards, lying splayed on the couch, with Ainsley draped languorously on top of him.

She giggled. ‘Is this a new variation in the palace of pleasures you haven’t told me about?’

‘Hussy!’ He grinned. ‘I meant that I planned to tell you what’s been happening since I read your parting letter before declaring myself, but if it’s variations you’re interested in, my wanton wife, then I am sure I can come up with something.’

‘Really? Already?’ Ainsley wriggled against him, her smile teasing. ‘Are you trying to live up to the Drummond reputation for potency?’

Her face fell at her own silly words. Though she tried to hide it, he saw the flash of pain there as she moved away from him. ‘Listen to me a moment,’ Innes said urgently, pulling her right back to where she had been, lying over him. ‘I love you exactly as you are. You need to believe me.’ He touched her face gently. ‘Strone Bridge is our legacy. It’s all the legacy we need, and your love is all I need. I don’t need you to prove it any other way than by being by my side, for better or for worse. I don’t need a bairn, and I don’t want you to go down the track of thinking that, or of thinking that you’ve somehow failed me if it doesn’t happen. I need you to promise me that you believe me.’

A tear rolled down her cheek. ‘Innes, you need to understand, I’ve been told by a doctor it’s simply not possible.’

‘And you need to understand that I mean what I say. I want you. That’s all that matters to me. If it turned out I could not have a child, would you walk away?’

‘Of course not!’

‘Well, then, is this not a case of what’s good for the goose being good for the gander?’

‘Shouldn’t it be the other way round?’

‘Ainsley, I’m serious. I want you to be my wife. My real wife. My forever wife. My only love. I won’t have this become an issue between us. I want us to have a fresh start in everything. I want us to be married. Will you marry me, my darling?’

‘Again?’

‘If that’s what it takes.’

‘Love me, that’s all that it takes, and I promise, I won’t let anything come between us.’

She kissed him softly on the mouth. Then she smiled at him, and Innes thought that maybe it was true what they said, that hearts could melt. He hugged her tightly, then he sat up, pulling her into the crook of his arm, wrapping the blanket around them. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I think I owe you a story. It’s a long one, but I’ll give you the gist of it now.’

He frowned, thinking back on all that had happened over the past two weeks. ‘It wasn’t finding the brooch that made me get in touch with her, or even her letter, but yours,’ he concluded some time later, smiling fleetingly down at Ainsley. ‘Your leaving like that brought to me my senses about how I felt for you. I’d always thought Strone Bridge was haunted by the ghosts of the past, but that was nothing compared to how it felt without you there. I kept expecting to see you at every turn. Especially at that view of the Kyles. Then there was Mhairi. And Eoin. And Robert—my goodness, that man went on and on about you. Everyone, asking me where you’d gone, when you’d be back.’

‘Really?’

He laughed. ‘You’ve no idea how much people have taken you to their hearts. It’s not just me. You’re part of the place, Ainsley.’

She kissed his hand, her eyes shining. ‘It’s part of me, too. I missed it nearly as much as I missed you.’

‘Who’d have thought it?’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘It was when I was away the last time with Eoin I realised I’d come to think of it as home, and to think of you there, too. It scared the living daylights out of me.’

‘That’s when you told me about Malcolm?’

‘Aye, there are no flies on you.’ Innes kissed her again. ‘That letter you left me—you said I deserved to be happy. That was the biggest problem, for I just couldn’t see that I did. But then I was standing there in the tower looking at all the hard work you’d put into those plans, and I realised it wasn’t just about me, but you, too. And Blanche—that point in your letter hit home, too. Was I actually glorying in my guilt, or so used to it that I couldn’t see a way of escaping it? That turret room, I thought it held the bogeyman, but it was just a room with a view. You were right about that. It was there I began to think maybe you could have been right about other things. So I went to see her at Glen Vadie.’

Ainsley scrambled upright. ‘And?’

‘And it turns out things were not quite as I’d imagined,’ Innes said wryly. ‘Blanche ran away because she couldn’t bring herself to marry Malcolm, as I told you. She wrote the letter to him, thinking that it was the right thing to do, to tell him, though she could not find the courage to do so to his face. She didn’t think what it would do to him, because she didn’t really think about what she’d said. That she didn’t love him. That she couldn’t marry him. She didn’t say that she wanted to marry me, because she didn’t.’

‘What?’

‘I know. It’s farcical. Or it would be if it weren’t so tragic. I’m not the only one who’s been tying themselves in knots of guilt for the past fourteen years, nor am I the only one who swore off love, either.’ Innes shook his head. ‘I still can’t believe it. She’s been living in London unmarried all these years, until she met her man Murchison and fell head over heels at the age of thirty-two. So when your letter found her, out of the blue, she was delighted at the chance to finally come clean.’

Ainsley’s jaw dropped. ‘Blanche never wanted to marry you?’

‘I know, love, it’s unbelievable,’ Innes said, grinning.

She slapped him playfully. ‘You know what I mean.’

‘I do.’ He sobered. ‘She said the same thing as you about Malcolm—that he’d have wanted us both to be happy. He thought, in his tragic, misguided way, that was what he was doing, clearing the way to make us so. It finally clicked with me, after you’d gone, that paying him back by making myself miserable was a stupid thing to do.’

‘And Blanche?’

‘Realised the same thing, not so very long ago, but all she did was confirm what you’d been telling me, Ainsley.’

‘So she’s as lovely on the inside as she is on the outside.’

He laughed. ‘I expect she is, but there is no one as lovely as you for me. I thought I’d just proved that.’

‘I hope you’ll prove it again very soon.’

‘Now, if you like.’

She smiled at him, the smile that sent the blood rushing to his groin, the smile he’d thought he would never see again. He kissed her on those delicious lips that were made for kissing. ‘Now, and always,’ he said, ‘and for ever, too.’