CASTLE AT DOLPHIN BAY

Amidst a struggle for inheritance and a title, love and family triumph—against all odds!

Twin sisters

Kirsty McMahon is traveling to Australia with her heavily pregnant, widowed twin, Susie, to help her locate the baby’s great-uncle.

A castle in…Australia!

Angus Douglas is no ordinary uncle—he’s a Scottish earl with a faux-medieval castle and millions in the bank. The adventure has only just begun.

A whole lot of romance…

Kirsty and Susie are suddenly embroiled in an inheritance battle and a bid to save the castle from destruction, yet amidst all this, the twins each find the one big thing that has been missing from their lives.

The Doctor’s Proposal (#3896) was the first book in Castle at Dolphin Bay and was published last month.

Dear Reader,

I love ancient castles, handsome lords in kilts of ancient tartan and bagpipes on the battlements. My Scottish friends, however, tell me a feisty heroine is more likely to be hidden by fog or eaten by midges than she is to find the man of her dreams on yon Scottish parapet.

My Australian climate does have some advantages. Fine, I thought. I’m a fiction writer. I’ll transfer my Scottish castle to my favorite place in the world—Australia’s New South Wales coast. With a wave of my magic wand, I’ve therefore brought the romance of medieval Scotland to the turquoise waters of today’s Dolphin Bay. Add a family feud, a fortune to be won, a double set of twins and a couple of very sexy heroes… It’s far too much for one book so I’ve spread the fun over two.

My CASTLE AT DOLPHIN BAY duo, starting with The Doctor’s Proposal, has every element that good romance requires—including Queen Victoria in the bathroom and a murderer out on the bay. So far it’s two books, but if you enjoy them please let me know—via www.marionlennox.com. I may be forced to write another. And another:-)

Happy reading,

Marion Lennox

THE HEIR’S CHOSEN BRIDE
Marion Lennox

Marion Lennox was born on an Australian dairy farm. She moved on—mostly because the cows weren’t interested in her stories! Marion writes for the Medical Romance™ and Harlequin Romance® lines. In her non-writing life, Marion cares (haphazardly) for her husband, kids, dogs, cats, chickens and anyone else who lines up at her dinner table. She fights her rampant garden (she’s losing) and her house dust (she’s lost!). She also travels, which she finds seriously addictive. As a teenager Marion was told she’d never get anywhere reading romance. Now romance is the basis of her stories and her stories allow her to travel. If ever there was one advertisement for following your dream, she’d be it! You can contact Marion at www.marionlennox.com

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER ONE

Information required on whereabouts of Dougal Douglas (or direct descendant), brother to Lord Angus Douglas, Earl of Loganaich. Contact solicitors Baird and O’Shannasy, Dolphin Bay, Australia, for information to your advantage.

‘MR DOUGLAS, you’re an earl.’

Hamish groaned. He was hours behind schedule. The Harrington Trust Committee was arriving in thirty minutes and his perky secretary-in-training was driving him nuts.

‘Just sort the mail.’

‘But this letter says you’re an earl. You gotta read it.’

‘Like I read e-mails from Nigeria offering to share millions. All I need to do is send my bank account details. Jodie, you know better.’

‘Of course I do,’ she told him indignantly. Honestly, he was being a twit.

But she forgave him. Who wouldn’t? Hamish Douglas was the cutest boss she’d ever worked for. Jodie had been delighted when Marjorie had retired and she’d been given the chance to take her place. At thirty-three, Hamish was tall, dark and drop-dead gorgeous. He had ruffled black curls, which fought back when he tried to control them. He had deep brown twinkly eyes and the most fantastic smile…

When he smiled. Which wasn’t often. Hamish might be one of the most brilliant young futures brokers in Manhattan, but he didn’t seem to enjoy life.

Maybe he’d smile when he realised he really was an earl.

‘This one’s different,’ she told him. ‘Honest, Mr Douglas, you need to look. If you’re who these people think you are then you’ve inherited a significant estate. A significant estate in lawyer speak…I bet that means a fortune.’

‘I’ve inherited nothing. It’s a scam.’

‘What’s a scam? Is Jodie bothering you with nuisance mail?’

Uh-oh. Jodie had been rising, but as soon as the door opened she sat straight back down. Marcia Vinel was Hamish’s fiancée. Trouble. Jodie had overheard Marcia on at least two occasions advising Hamish to get rid of her.

‘She’s a temp from the typing pool. Surely you can do better.’

‘But I like her,’ Hamish had replied, much to Jodie’s delight. ‘She’s smart, intuitive and organised—and she makes me laugh.’

‘Your secretary’s not here to make you laugh,’ Marcia had retorted.

No, Jodie thought, shoving the offending letter into the tray marked PENDING. Life’s too serious to laugh. Life’s about making money.

‘What’s the letter?’ Marcia said, with a sideways glance at Jodie to say she didn’t appreciate Jodie knowing anything about Hamish that she herself didn’t. ‘Is it a scam?’

Jodie knew when to turn into a good secretary. She tugged on her headset, paid attention to her keyboard and didn’t answer. ‘What’s the letter?’ Marcia said again, this time directly to Hamish.

‘It’s some sort of con,’ Hamish said wearily. ‘And Jodie’s not bothering me any more than anyone else is. Hell, Marcia, I have work to do.’

‘I came to tell you the Harrington delegation’s been delayed,’ Marcia told him. ‘Their flight’s two hours late from London. Relax.’

He did, but not much. That meant rescheduling and…

‘I’ll rearrange your appointments.’ Jodie emerged from her headset and he cast her a look of gratitude. ‘Only I do think you should read the letter.’ She mightn’t like Marcia, she decided, but at least Marcia would make Hamish look at it.

He went back to frowning. ‘Jodie, get real. Letters saying I’m an earl and I’ve inherited a fortune are the stuff of a kid’s fantasy.’

‘But it doesn’t say send bank account details. It says contact a solicitor. That sounds fusty rather than scammy. Real.’

‘Let me see,’ Marcia decreed, and put out an imperious hand. Marcia was a corporate lawyer working for the same company as Hamish. She was the brains, he was the money, some people said—but Hamish had earned his money with his wits, and there was a fair bit of cross-over.

The two were a team. Jodie handed it over.

There was silence while Marcia read. The letter was on the official notepaper of an Australian legal firm. It looked real, Jodie thought defiantly. She wasn’t wasting her boss’s time.

And Marcia didn’t think so either. She finished reading and set the letter down with an odd look on her face.

‘Hamish, do you have an uncle called Angus Douglas? In Australia?’

‘No.’ He frowned. ‘Or…I don’t think so.’

‘Surely you know your uncles,’ Jodie said, and got a frown from Marcia for her pains. She subsided but she didn’t replace her headset.

‘My father migrated from Scotland when he was little more than a kid,’ Hamish told Marcia. ‘There was some sort of family row—I don’t know what. He never told my mother anything about his family and he died when I was three.’

‘You never enquired?’ Marcia demanded, astounded, as if such disinterest was inexcusable.

‘About what?’

‘About his background. Whether he was wealthy?’

‘He certainly wasn’t wealthy. He migrated just after the war when every man and his dog was on the move from Europe. He married my mother and they had nothing.’ He hesitated. ‘All I know…’

‘All you know is what?’ said Marcia, still staring at the letter.

‘While I was at college my roommate was doing a history major. I went through some shipping lists he was using, just to see if I could find him. I did. Apparently my father left Glasgow in 1947 on the Maybelline. There was no other Douglas on the passenger list so I assumed he was alone.’

‘Maybe he had a brother who migrated as well,’ Marcia said thoughtfully. ‘Maybe his brother went to Australia instead. Honey, this letter says someone called Angus Douglas, Earl of Loganaich, died six weeks ago in Australia and they’re looking for relations of Dougal Douglas. Your father was Dougal, wasn’t he?’

Hamish’s face stilled.

‘What?’ Marcia said, and Jodie watched her face change. She knew that look. She’d seen it when Marcia was closing on a corporate deal. The look said she could smell money.

‘There probably aren’t that many Dougal Douglases,’ Hamish said slowly. ‘But…my father’s address on the shipping manifest was Loganaich. I’d never heard of the place. I looked it up, and it’s tiny. I thought some day I might go find it, but…’

‘But you got busy,’ Marcia said, approving. He certainly had. Hamish had been one of the youngest graduates ever to gain a first-class commerce-law degree from Harvard. After that had come his appointment with one of the most prestigious broking firms in New York, and he’d whizzed up the corporate ladder with the speed of light. At thirty-three, Hamish was a full partner and a millionaire a couple times over. There’d been no time in his fast-moving history for a leisurely stroll around Scotland. ‘Hamish, this means you really might have inherited.’

‘This is cool.’ Jodie beamed, forgetting her dislike of Marcia as imagination took flight. ‘The letter says they’re not sure whether they have the right person, but it does fit. It says your father was one of three brothers who left Scotland in 1947. The oldest two went to Australia and your dad came here.’

‘He can read it for himself,’ Marcia snapped and handed it over to Hamish.

‘It’ll be a scam.’

‘Read it,’ Marcia snapped.

And Jodie thought, Whoa, don’t do that, lady. If Hamish was my guy I wouldn’t talk like that.

But Hamish didn’t notice. ‘It’s probably nothing,’ he said at last, but dismissal had made way for uncertainty. ‘But with the Loganaich connection… Maybe we should check.’

‘I’ll make enquiries about this law firm,’ Marcia said. ‘I’ll get onto it straight away.’

‘There’s no need…’

‘There certainly is,’ Jodie breathed. ‘Oh, Mr Douglas, the letter says you’re an earl and you’ve inherited a castle and everything. How ace would that be? A Scottish earl. You might get to wear a kilt.’

‘No one’s seeing my knees,’ Hamish said. He grinned—and then the phone rang and a fax came through that he’d been waiting for and he went back to work.

Castles and titles had to wait.

‘They think they’ve found him.’

Susie Douglas, née McMahon, was sitting on a rug before the fire in the great hall of Loganaich-Castle-the-Second, playing with her baby. Rose Douglas was fourteen months old. She’d been tumbling with her aunt’s dog, Boris, but now baby and dog had settled into a sleepy, snuggly pile, and the women were free to talk.

‘The lawyers have been scouring America,’ Susie told her twin. ‘Now they think they’ve found the new earl. As soon as he comes, I…I think I’ll go home.’

‘But you can’t.’ Kirsty stared at her twin with horror. ‘This is your home.’

‘It’s been great,’ Susie said, staring round the fantastically decorated walls with affection. The two suits of armour guarding the hallway were wonderful all by themselves. She talked to them all the time. Good morning, Eric. Good morning, Ernst. ‘But I can’t live here for ever. It doesn’t belong to me. I agreed to stay until Angus died, and now he has.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve been marking time for too long, Kirsty, love. Eric and Ernst belong to someone else. It’s time I moved on.’

‘You mustn’t.’ Yet there was a part of Kirsty that knew Susie was right. This moment had been inevitable.

Susie had come so far… After the death of her husband, Rory, Susie had fallen apart, suffering from crippling depression as well as the injuries she’d received in the crash that had killed her husband. In desperation Kirsty had brought her to Australia to meet Rory’s uncle. Lord Angus Douglas, Earl of Loganaich. It had been a grand title for a wonderful old man. In the earl they’d found a true friend, and in his outlandish castle Susie had recovered. She’d given birth to her daughter and she’d started to look forward again.

To home?

Susie’s home was in America. Her landscaping business was in America. Now Angus was dead there was nothing keeping her here.

But while Susie had been recovering. Kirsty, her twin, had been falling in love with the local doctor. Kirsty and Jake now had a rambling house on the edge of town, kids, hens, dog—the whole domestic catastrophe. Kirsty’s home was solidly here.

‘I don’t want you to go,’ Kirsty whispered. ‘Angus should have left this place to you.’

‘He couldn’t.’

‘I don’t see why not.’

‘This castle was built with entailed money,’ Susie explained. ‘After the original Scottish castle burned down, the family trust made money available for rebuilding. Angus managed to arrange it so he rebuilt the castle here in Australia, but he still couldn’t leave it away from the true line of the peerage. If I’d had a son it’d be different, but now it goes to a nephew no one knows. It belongs to a Hamish Douglas. An American.’

She said ‘an American’ in a tone of such disgust that Kirsty burst out laughing. ‘You sound as if Americans are some sort of experimental bug,’ she said. ‘Just remember you are one, Susie Douglas.’

‘I hardly feel American any more,’ Susie said, sighing. Rose rolled sleepily off Boris, and Susie scooped her baby daughter up to hug her. ‘I have my own little Australian.’

‘Half American, half Scottish, born in Australia. But she belongs here.’

‘You see, I’m not sure any more,’ Susie said, sighing again. ‘Angus has left me enough to buy a little house and live happily ever after here. But I need to work and there’s not a lot of landscape gardening to be had in Dolphin Bay.’

‘There’s me,’ Kirsty said defensively, and Susie smiled.

‘You know that counts for a lot. But not everything. I need a job, Kirsty. Rory’s been dead for almost two years. My injuries from the crash are almost completely resolved. I loved caring for Angus, but without him the castle seems empty. The only thing keeping me occupied is the upkeep on the castle and the garden, and once the new earl arrives…’

‘When is he arriving?’

‘I don’t know,’ Susie told her. ‘But the lawyers say they’ve found him and told him he’s inherited. If you were told you’d inherited a title and a fortune, wouldn’t you hotfoot it over here?’

Kirsty gave a bleak little smile at that. So much sorrow had gone into this fortune, this title…

‘I guess I would,’ she admitted.

‘Once he arrives there’s nothing for me to do,’ Susie told her, twirling the curls of her almost sleeping daughter.

‘Maybe he won’t come,’ Kirsty said, trying not to sound desperate. She wanted her sister to stay so much. ‘Or maybe he’ll want you to stay as caretaker.’

‘And leave it earning nothing? What would you do if you inherited this place?’ Susie asked.

‘Sell it as a hotel,’ Kirsty said bluntly, and though she added a grimace it was no less than the truth. Angus had built this place when his castle back in Scotland had burned to the ground. The old man’s whim had led him to rebuild here, in this magic place where the climate was so much kinder than Scotland’s. But now…the castle seemed straight out of a fairy tale. It was far too big for a family. Angus had known it could be sold as a hotel, and his intention was surely about to be realised.

‘It feels like a home,’ Kirsty added stubbornly, and Susie laughed.

‘Right. Fourteen bedrooms, six bathrooms, a banquet hall, a ballroom and me and Rose. Even if you and Jake and the kids and Boris came to live with us, we’d have three bedrooms apiece. It’s crazy to think of staying.’

‘But you can’t go back,’ Kirsty said again, and her twin’s face grew solemn.

‘I think I must.’

‘At least stay and meet the new earl. Maybe he’ll have some ideas rather than selling. Maybe he could employ you to make the garden better.’

‘We both know that’s a pipe dream.’

‘But you will stay until he gets here. That’s what Angus would have wanted.’

‘I miss Angus so much,’ Susie said softly, and her twin moved across to give her a swift hug.

‘Oh, love. Of course you do.’

‘The new laird might not even grow pumpkins,’ Susie said sadly, and Kirsty had to smile.

‘Unforgivable sin!’

‘We’ve got the biggest this year,’ Susie said, brightening. ‘Did I tell you, the night before Angus died I snuck into Ben Boyce’s yard and measured his. It’s a tiddler in comparison. Angus died knowing he would definitely win this year’s trophy.’

‘There you go,’ Kirsty said stoutly. ‘The new earl just has to collect his pumpkin and take over where Angus left off.’

‘The lawyers say he’s some sort of financier. An American financier valuing a prize pumpkin…you have to be kidding.’

‘I’m not kidding,’ Kirsty said. ‘You’ll see. He’ll come and he’ll fall for the place and want a caretaker and landscape gardener extraordinaire, and pumpkin pie for dinner for the rest of his life.’

‘He won’t.’

‘At least wait and see,’ Kirsty begged. ‘Please, Susie. You must give him a chance.’

‘Holiday?’ Hamish glared at his secretary in stupefaction. ‘You are joking.’

‘I’m not joking. Your holiday starts next week—sir. Oh, by the way, I’m quitting.’

‘You’re not making sense.’ Hamish was late for a meeting. He’d been gathering his notes when his unconventional secretary had burst in to tell him her news.

‘You’re having three weeks’ holiday starting next week,’ Jodie repeated patiently. ‘And I’m quitting.’

He gazed at her as he’d gaze at someone with two heads.

‘You can’t quit,’ he said weakly, and she grinned.

‘Yes, I can. I’m only a temp. I came here two years ago on a two-week agency placing, and no one’s given me a contract.’

‘But people don’t just leave—’

‘Well, why would they when the money’s brilliant?’ Jodie acknowledged. ‘But have you noticed that people do leave this firm? They start taking time off because they can’t cope. They’re constantly tired. They forget things. They stop being efficient and then they’re bumped. So all I’m doing is leaving before I’m bumped. Why do you think Marjorie retired so young? Listening to you and the girlfriend made me think…’

‘Me and Marcia?’

‘You and Marcia. She’s as pleased as could be about your new title—she can’t wait to get married so she’ll be Lady Marcia Douglas—but as for agreeing you don’t have time to go see a castle…’

‘It’s a fake castle,’ he said faintly.

‘A castle is a castle and it sounds cool,’ Jodie declared. ‘Just because it’s not six hundred years old doesn’t mean it’s not a real one. And Marcia’s idea of putting it on the market without seeing it is ridiculous. Anyway, I was talking to Nick, and he said—’

‘Nick?’

‘My partner,’ she said with exaggerated patience. ‘The man I share my life with. He’s a woodworker. He was a social worker with disadvantaged kids, but the work just wore him out. He loved it but it exhausted him. He’s almost as cute as you, and I talk about him all the time. Not that you listen.’

Hamish blinked. He hesitated and glanced at his watch. Then he carefully laid his papers on the desk in front of him. Jodie was a great, if unconventional, secretary, and it’d be more efficient to spend a few minutes now persuading her to stay rather than training someone new—

‘Don’t do this to me,’ Jodie begged. ‘You’re scheduling me into your morning and I don’t intend to be scheduled. I’m working on changing your life here. Not the next half-hour.’

‘Pardon?’

‘You see nothing but work,’ she told him. ‘The typing-pool gossip is that you’ve been blighted in love. That explains Marcia but it’s none of my business. All I know is that you’re blinkered. You’ve been given the most fantastic opportunity and you’re throwing it away.’

Hamish sat down. ‘This is—’

‘Impertinent,’ she told him, and beamed. ‘I know. But someone needs to tell you. Nick’s been given a contract to rebuild the choir stalls at a gorgeous old church up in New England. We’re both going to move. That’s why I need to quit. So then I thought if I was quitting I should try to save you first. Nick agrees. Spending your whole life making money is awful. Owning a castle and not visiting it before you sell it is madness. So I’ve cancelled every one of your appointments for the next three weeks, starting the minute you’ve finished with the Harrington committee. I haven’t just crossed them out of your diary but I’ve contacted everyone and rescheduled. Job’s done. As of next week I’m out of here, and if you have the brains I credit you with, so will you be.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Yes, you can,’ she told him. ‘Your Lordship.’

‘Jodie…’

‘Yes?’ She was beaming, as if she’d just played Santa Claus. ‘I’ve booked flights for you. From JFK to Sydney, and there’s a hire car waiting so you can drive straight down to Dolphin Bay. If you want to take Marcia they’re holding two seats, but I told them you’d probably cancel one.’

‘Marcia won’t come.’

‘No, but you will,’ she told him. ‘You’ve been in this job for nearly ten years, and no one can remember you taking a holiday. Oh, sure, you’ve been away but it’s always been on some financial wheeler dealer arrangement. Dealing with Swiss bankers with a little skiing on the side. A week on a corporate yacht with financiers and oilmen. Not a sniff of time spent lying on the beach doing nothing. Isn’t it about time you had a look at life before you marry Marcia and…?’ She paused and bit back what she’d been about to say. ‘And settle down?’

‘I can’t,’ he said again, but suddenly he wasn’t so sure.

‘I’ve cleared it with all the partners. Everyone knows you’re going and they know why. You’ve inherited a castle. Everyone’s asking for postcards. So you’re going to look pretty dumb sitting round this office for the next three weeks doing nothing. Or telling everyone that I’ve lied about you needing a holiday and you’re not taking one, yah, boo, sucks.’

‘Pardon?’ he said again, and her grin widened.

‘That’s not stockbroker talk,’ she told him. ‘It’s street talk. Real talk. Which I’ve figured you need. If you’re going to go from share-broking to aristocracy maybe you need a small wedge of real life in between.’

‘Look, you dumb worm, if you don’t get out of there you’ll be concrete.’

Susie’s hair was escaping from her elastic band and drifting into her eyes. She flipped it back with the back of her hand, and a trickle of muddy water slid down her face. Excellent.

This was her very favourite occupation. Digging in mud. Susie was making a path from the kitchen door to the conservatory. The gravel path had sunk and she needed to pour concrete before she laid pavers, but first she had to dig. She’d soaked the soil to make it soft, and it was now oozing satisfactorily between her fingers as she rescued worms. Rose was sleeping soundly just through the window. The sun was shining on her face and she was feeling great.

She needed to get these worms out of the mud or they’d be cactus.

‘I’m just taking you to the compost,’ she told them, in her best worm-reassuring tone. ‘The compost is worm heaven. Ooh, you’re a nice fat one…’

A hand landed on her shoulder.

She was wearing headphones and had heard nothing. She yelped, hauled her headphones off, staggered to her feet and backed away. Fast.

A stranger was watching her with an expression of bemusement.

He might be bemused but so was she. The stranger looked like he’d just strolled off the deck of a cruising yacht. An expensive yacht. He was elegantly casual, wearing cream chinos and a white polo top with a discreet logo on the breast. He was too far away now to tell what the logo was, but she bet it was some expensive country club. A fawn loafer jacket slung elegantly over one shoulder.

He was wearing cream suede shoes.

Cream shoes. Here.

She looked past the clothes with an effort—and there was surely something to see beside the clothes. The stranger was tall, lean and athletic. Deep black hair. Good skin, good smile…

Great smile.

She’d left the outer gate open. There was a small black sedan parked in the forecourt, with a hire-car company insignia on the side. She’d been so intent on her worms that he’d crept up on her unawares.

He could have been an axe murderer, she thought, a little bit breathless. She should have locked the gate.

But…maybe she was expecting him? This had to be who she thought he was. The new earl.

Maybe she should have organised some sort of guard of honour. A twelve-gun salute.

‘You’re the gardener?’ he asked, and she tried to wipe mud away with more mud as she smiled back. She was all the welcome committee there was, so she ought to try her best.

A spade salute?

‘I am the gardener,’ she agreed. ‘Plus the rest. General dogsbody and bottle-washer for Loganaich Castle. What can I do for you?’

But his gaze had been caught. Solidly distracted. He was staring at a huge golden ball to the side of the garden. A vast ball of bright orange, about two yards wide.

‘What is that?’ he said faintly.

She beamed. ‘A pumpkin. Her name’s Priscilla. Isn’t she the best?’

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘You’d better. She’s a Dills Atlantic Giant. We decided on replacing Queensland Blues this year—we spent ages on the Internet finding the really huge suckers—and went for Dills instead. Of course, they’re not quite as good to eat. Actually, they’re cattle feed, but who’s worrying?’

‘Not me,’ he said faintly.

‘The only problem is we need a team of bodybuilders to move her. Our main competitor has moved to Dills as well, but he doesn’t have the expertise. We’ll walk away with the award for Dolphin Bay’s biggest pumpkin this year, no worries.’

‘No worries,’ he repeated, dazed.

‘That’s Australian for “no problem”,’ she explained kindly. ‘Or you could say, “She’ll be right, mate.”’

This conversation was going nowhere. He tried to get a grip. ‘Is anyone home? In there?’ He waved vaguely in the direction of the castle.

‘I’m home. Me and Rose.’

‘Rose?’

‘My daughter. Are you—’

‘I’m Hamish Douglas. I’m looking for a Susie Douglas.’

‘Oh.’

He really was the new earl.

There was a moment’s charged silence. She wasn’t what he’d expected, she thought, but, then, he wasn’t what she’d expected either.

She’d thought he’d look like Rory.

He didn’t look like any of the Douglases she’d met, she decided. He was leaner, finer boned, finer…tuned? He was a Porsche compared to Rory’s Land Rover, she decided, limping across to greet him properly. She still had residual stiffness from the accident in which Rory had been killed, and it was worse when she’d been kneeling.

But the pain was nothing to what it had been, and she smiled as she held out her hand in greeting. Then, as she looked at his face and realised there was a problem, her smile broadened. She wiped her hands on the seat of her overalls and tried again.

‘Susie Douglas would be me,’ she told him, gripping his reluctant hand and shaking. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi,’ he said, and looked at his hand.

‘It’s almost clean,’ she told him, letting a trace of indignation enter her voice as she realised what he was looking at. ‘And it’s good, clean dirt. Only a trace wormy.’

‘Wormy?’

‘Earthworms,’ she said, exasperated. This wasn’t looking good in terms of long-term relationship. In terms of long-term caring for this garden. ‘Worms that make pumpkins grow as big as Priscilla here. Not the kind that go straight to your liver and grow till they come out your eyeballs.’

‘Um…fine.’ He was starting to sound confounded.

‘I’m transferring them to the compost,’ she told him, deciding she’d best be patient. ‘I’m laying concrete pavers to the conservatory, and how awful would it be to be an earthworm encased in concrete? Do you want to see the conservatory?’

‘Um…sure.’

‘I might as well show you while we’re out here,’ she told him. ‘You’ve inherited all this pile, and the conservatory’s brilliant. It was falling into disrepair when I arrived, but I’ve built it up. It’s almost like the old orangeries they have in grand English houses.’

‘You’re American,’ he said on a note of discovery. ‘But you’re…’

‘I’m the castle relic,’ she told him. ‘Hang on a minute. I need to check something.’

She limped across to the closest window, hoisted herself up and peered through to where Rose snoozed in her cot.

‘Nope. Still fine.’

‘What’s fine?’ he asked, more and more bemused.

‘Rose. My daughter.’ She gestured to the headphones now lying abandoned in the mud. ‘You thought I was listening to hip-hop while I worked? I was listening to the sounds of my daughter sleeping. Much more reassuring.’ She turning and starting to walk toward the conservatory. ‘Relics are what they used to call us in the old days,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘They’re the women left behind when their lords died.’

‘And your lord was…’

‘Rory,’ she told him. ‘Your cousin. He was Scottish-Australian but he met me in the States.’

‘I don’t know anything about my cousins.’ She was limping toward a glass-panelled building on the north side of the house, moving so fast he had to lengthen his stride to keep up with her.

‘You don’t know anything about the family?’

‘I didn’t know anyone existed until I got the lawyer’s letter.’

‘Saying you were an earl.’ She chuckled. ‘How cool. It’s like Cinderella. You should have been destitute, living in a garret.’ She glanced over her shoulder, eyeing him appraisingly. ‘But they tell me you’re some sort of financier in Manhattan. I guess you weren’t in any garret.’

‘It was a pretty upmarket garret,’ he admitted. They reached the conservatory doors, and she swung them wide so he could appreciate the vista. ‘Wow!’

‘It is wow,’ she said, approving.

It certainly was. The conservatory was as big as three or four huge living rooms and it was almost thirty feet high. It looked almost a cathedral, he thought, dazed. The beams were vast and blackened with glass panels set between. Hundreds of glass panels.

‘The beams came from St Mary’s Cathedral just south of Sydney,’ Susie told him. ‘St Mary’s burned down just after the war when Angus was building this place. He couldn’t resist. He had all the usable timbers trucked here. For the last few years he didn’t have enough energy to keep it up, but since I’ve been here I’ve been restoring it. I love it.’

He knew she did. He could hear it in her voice.

She didn’t look like any relic he’d met before.

Susie was wearing men’s overalls, liberally dirt-stained. She was shortish, slim, with an open, friendly face. She had clear, brown enquiring eyes, and her auburn curls were caught back in a ponytail that threatened to unravel at any minute. A long white scar ran across her forehead—hardly noticeable except that it accentuated the lines of strain around her eyes. She was still young but her face had seen…life?

Her husband had been murdered, he remembered. That’s what the lawyers had told him. Back in New York it had seemed a fantastic tale but suddenly it was real. Bleakly real.

‘Do you know about the family?’ she asked, as if she’d guessed his thoughts and knew he needed an explanation.

‘Very little,’ he told her. ‘I’d like to hear more. Angus was the last earl. He died childless. Your husband, Rory, was his eldest nephew, and he and the second nephew, Kenneth, are both dead. I’m the youngest nephew. I never knew Angus, I certainly didn’t know about the title, and I’m still trying to figure things out. Am I right so far?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Angus and my father and another brother—Rory and Kenneth’s father—left Scotland just after the war?’

‘Apparently the family castle was a dark and gloomy pile on the west coast of Scotland,’ she told him. ‘The castle was hit by an incendiary bomb during the war and it burned to the ground. As far as I can gather, no one grieved very much. The boys had been brought up in an atmosphere that was almost poisonous. Angus inherited everything, the others nothing, and the estate was entailed in such a way that he couldn’t do anything about it. After the fire they decided to leave. Angus said your father was the first to go. He boarded a boat to America and Angus never heard from him again.’

‘And Angus and…what was the other brother called—David?’

‘Angus was in the air force and he was injured toward the end of the war. While he was recuperating he met Deirdre. She was a nurse and her family had been killed in the London Blitz, so when he was discharged they decided to make their home in Australia. David followed.’ She hesitated. ‘The relationship was hard, and the resentment followed through to the sons.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘A situation where the eldest son gets everything and others get nothing is asking for trouble.’ She walked forward and lifted a ripening cumquat into her hands. She touched it gently and then let it go again, releasing it so it swung on its branch like a beautiful mobile. There were hundreds of cumquats, Hamish thought, still dazzled by the beauty of the place.

Did one eat cumquats? He’d only ever seen them as decorator items in the foyers of five-star hotels.

‘Angus rebuilt his castle here,’ she said. ‘It was a mad thing to do, but it gave the men of this town a job when things were desperate. Maybe it wasn’t as crazy as it sounds. He and Deirdre didn’t have children but David had two. Rory and Kenneth. I married Rory.’

‘They told me that Kenneth murdered Rory,’ he said flatly. It had to be talked about, he decided, so why not now?

She pushed her cumquat so it swung again and something in her face tightened, but she didn’t falter from answering. ‘There was such hate,’ she said softly. ‘Angus said his brothers hated him from the start, and Kenneth obviously felt the same about Rory. Rory travelled to the States to get away from it. He met me and he didn’t even tell me about the family fortune. But, of course, it was still entailed. Rory was still going to inherit and Kenneth wanted it. Enough…enough to kill. Then, when he was…found out…he killed himself.’

‘Which is where I come in,’ he said softly, trying to deflect the anguish she couldn’t disguise.

She took a deep breath. ‘Which is where you come in,’ she said and turned to face him. ‘Welcome to Loganaich Castle, my lord,’ she said simply. ‘I hope you’ll deal with your inheritance with Angus’s dignity. And I hope the hate stops now.’

‘I hope you’ll help me.’

‘I’m going home,’ she told him. ‘I’ve had enough of…of whatever is here. It’s your inheritance. Rory and Angus have left me enough money to keep me more than comfortable. I’m leaving you to it.’

CHAPTER TWO

THIS was where he took over, Hamish thought. This was where he said, Thank you very much, can I have the keys?

The whole thing was preposterous. He should never have let Jodie insinuate her crazy ideas into his mind.

The thought of being left alone with his very own castle was almost scary.

‘Let’s not do anything hasty,’ he told Susie. ‘I’ll get a bed for the night in town, and we’ll sit down and work things out in the morning.’

‘You’re not staying here?’ she asked, startled.

‘This has been your home,’ he said. ‘I’m not kicking you out.’

‘We do have fourteen bedrooms.’

He hesitated. ‘How do you know I’m not like Kenneth?’

She met his gaze and held. ‘You’re not like Kenneth. I can see.’ She bit her lip and turned back to concentrate on her cumquat. ‘Bitterness leaves its mark.’

‘It’s not fair that I inherit—’

‘Angus and Rory between them left me all I need, thank you very much,’ she said, and there was now a trace of anger in her voice. ‘No one owes me anything. I’m not due for anything, and I don’t care about fairness or unfairness in terms of inheritance. Thinking like that has to stop. I have a profession and I’ll return to it. To kill for money…’

‘But if your baby had been a boy he would have inherited,’ he said softly. ‘It’s unjust.’

‘You think that bothers me?’

‘I’m sure it doesn’t.’

‘Fine,’ she said flatly. ‘So that’s settled. You needn’t worry. The escutcheon is firmly fixed in the male line, so there’s no point in me stabbing you in the middle of the night or putting arsenic in your porridge.’

‘Toast,’ he said. ‘I don’t eat porridge.’

She blinked. This conversation was crazy.

But maybe that was the way to go. She’d had enough of being serious. ‘You don’t eat porridge?’ she demanded, mock horrified. ‘What sort of a laird are you?’

‘I’m not a laird.’

‘Oh, yes, you are,’ she said, starting to smile. ‘Or you probably are. Fancy clothes or not, you have definite laird potential.’

‘I thought I was an earl?’

‘You’re that, too,’ she told him. ‘And of course you’ll stay that as long as you live. But being laird is a much bigger responsibility.’

‘I don’t even know what a laird is.’

‘The term’s not used so much any more,’ she said. ‘It means a landed proprietor. But it’s more than that. It’s one who holds the dignity of an estate. Angus was absolutely a laird. I’m not sure what sort of laird Rory would have made. Kenneth would never have been one. But you, Hamish Douglas? Will you make a laird?’

‘That sounds like a challenge,’ he said, and she jutted her chin a little and met his look head on.

‘Maybe it is.’

He hesitated, not sure where to take this. Not at all sure that she wasn’t just a little crazy herself. ‘Maybe I’d best stay in town,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back in the morning to organise things.’

‘There’s not much to organise,’ she told him. ‘But you need to stay here. There’s only the Black Stump pub, and Thursday is darts night. There’s no sleep to be had in the Black Stump before three in the morning. Anyway, if anyone moves out it should be me. It’s your home now. Not mine.’

‘But you will stay,’ he said urgently. ‘I need to learn about the place.’

‘What do you intend to do with it?’

There was only one answer to that. ‘Sell.’

Her face stilled. ‘Can you do that?’

‘I’ve checked.’ Actually, Marcia had checked. ‘If I put the money into trust, then, yes.’ The capital needed to stay intact but the interest alone—plus the rent rolls from the land in Scotland—would keep him wealthy even without his own money.

‘You don’t need me to help you sell it,’ she snapped, and then bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry. I know selling seems sensible but…but…’

She took a deep breath, and suddenly her voice was laced with emotion—and pain. ‘I’ll stay tonight. Tomorrow I’ll pack and go stay with my sister until I can arrange a flight home.’

‘Susie, there’s no need—’

‘There is a need,’ she said, and suddenly her voice sounded almost desperate.

‘But why?’

‘Because I keep falling in love,’ she snapped, the desperation intensifying. ‘I fell so far into love with Rory that his death broke my heart. I fell for Angus. And now I’ve fallen for your stupid castle, for your dumb suits of armour—they’re called Eric and Ernst, by the way, and they like people chatting to them—for your stupid compost system, which is second to none in the entire history of the western world—I’ve even fallen for your worms. I keep breaking my heart and I’m not going to do it any more. I’m going home to the States and I’m going back to landscape gardening and Rose and I are going to live happily ever after. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish my work. Bring your gear in. You can have any bedroom you like upstairs. The whole top floor is yours. Rose and I are downstairs. But I need to do some fast digging before Rose wakes from her nap. Dinner’s at seven and there’s plenty to spare. I’ll see you in the kitchen.’

And without another word she brushed past him, out of the conservatory and back into the brilliant autumn sunshine. She grabbed her spade she’d left leaning against the fence and headed off the way they’d come. Her back was stiff and set—her spade was over her shoulder like a soldier carrying a gun—she looked the picture of determination.

But he wasn’t fooled.

He’d seen the glimmer of unshed tears as she’d turned away—and as she reached the garden gate she started, stiffly, to run.

‘Kirsty, he’s here. The new owner.’

Susie had been crying. Kirsty could hear it in her voice, and her heart stilled.

‘Sweetheart, is he horrid? Is he another Kenneth? I’ll be right there.’

‘I don’t need you to come.’ There was an audible sniff.

‘Then what’s wrong?’

‘He’s going to sell.’

Susie’s sister paused. She’d known this would happen. It was inevitable. But somehow…somehow she’d hoped…

Susie had come so far. Dreadfully injured in the engineered car crash which had killed her husband, Susie had drifted into a depression so deep it had been almost crippling. But with this place, with her love for the old earl, with her love for the wonderful castle garden and her enchantment with her baby daughter, she’d been hauled back from the brink. For the last few months she’d been back to the old Susie, laughing, bossy, full of plans…

Angus’s death had been expected, a peaceful end to a long and happy life, but Kirsty knew that her twin hadn’t accepted it yet. Hadn’t moved on.

Kirsty was a doctor, and she’d seen this before. Loving and caring for someone to the end, watching them fade but never really coming to terms with the reality that the end meant the end.

‘So…’ she said at last, cautiously, and Susie hiccuped back a sob.

‘I’m going home. Back to the States. Tomorrow.’

‘Um… I suspect you won’t be able to get travel papers for Rose by tomorrow.’

‘I have a passport for her already. There are only a couple of last-minute documents I need to organise. Can I come and stay with you and Jake until then?’

‘Sure,’ Kirsty said uneasily, mentally organising her house to accommodate guests. They were extending the back of the house to make a bigger bedroom for the twins—and for the new little one she hadn’t quite got round to telling her sister about—but they’d squash in somehow. ‘But why? What’s he like?’

‘He’s gorgeous.’

Silence.

‘I…see.’ Kirsty turned thoughtful. ‘So why do you want to come and stay at our house? Don’t you trust yourself?’

‘It’s not like that.’

‘No?’

‘No,’ Susie snapped. ‘It’s just… He’s not like Rory and he’s not like Angus and I can’t bear him to be here. Just—owning everything. He doesn’t even know about compost. I said we had the best compost system in the world and he looked at me like I was talking Swahili.’

‘Normal, in fact.’

‘He’s not normal. He wears cream suede shoes.’

‘Right.’

‘Don’t laugh at me, Kirsty Cameron.’

‘When have I ever laughed at you?’

‘All the time. Can I come and stay?’

‘Not tonight. Tomorrow I’ll air one of the new rooms and see if I can get the paint fumes out. You can surely bear to stay with him one night. Or…would you like me to come and stay with you?’

‘No. I mean…well, he offered to stay at the pub so he must be safe enough. I said he could stay.’

‘Would you like to borrow Boris?’

‘Fat lot of good Boris would be as a guard dog.’

‘He’s looked after us before,’ Kirsty said with dignity. OK, Boris was a lanky, misbred, over-boisterous dog, but he’d proved a godsend in the past.

Faint laughter returned to her sister’s voice at that. ‘He did. He’s wonderful. But I’m fine. I’ll feed Lord Hamish Douglas and give him a bed tonight and then I’ll leave him to his own devices.’ The smile died from her words. ‘Oh, but, Kirsty, to see him sell the castle…I don’t see how I can bear it.’

The castle was stunning.

While Susie finished her gardening Hamish took the opportunity to explore. And he was stunned.

It was an amazing, over-the-top mixture of grandeur and kitsch. The old earl hadn’t stinted when it came to building a castle as a castle ought to be built—to last five hundred years or more. But into his grand building he’d put furnishings that were anything but grand. Hamish had an Aunt Molly who’d love this stuff. He thought of Molly as he winced at the truly horrible plastic chandeliers hung along the passageways, at the plastic plants in plastic urns, at the cheap gilt Louis XIV tables and chairs, and at the settees with bright gold crocodile legs. It was so awful it was brilliant.

Then he opened the bathroom door and Queen Victoria gazed down at him in blatant disapproval from behind an aspidistra. He burst out laughing but he closed the door fast. A man couldn’t do what a man had to do under that gaze. He’d have to find another bathroom or head to the pub.

More exploring.

He found another bathroom, this one fitted with a chandelier so large it almost edged out the door. The portrait here was of Henry the Eighth. OK. He could live with Henry. He found five empty bedrooms and chose one with a vast four-poster bed and a view of the ocean that took his breath away.

He decided staying here was possible.

Susie was still digging in the garden below. He watched her for a minute—and went back to thinking. Staying here was fraught with difficulties.

What had she said? She’d fallen in love with a castle, a compost bin, the worms she was digging out of the mud right now.

She’d cried.

The set look of her shoulders said she might still be crying.

He didn’t do tears.

The smile he’d had on his face since he’d met Queen Victoria faded. He put Susie’s emotion carefully away from him.

He sorted his gear, hanging shirts neatly, jackets neatly, lining up shoes. He had enough clothes to last him a week. Otherwise he’d have to find a laundry.

Marcia called him a control freak. Marcia was right.

Almost involuntarily, he crossed to the window again. Susie was digging with almost ferocious intensity, taking out her pain on the mud. He saw her pause and wipe her overalled arm across her eyes.

She was crying.

He should stay at the pub. Darts or not.

That was dumb. Fleeing emotion? What sort of laird did that make him?

He owned this pile. He was Lord Hamish Douglas. Ridiculous! If his mother knew what was happening she’d cry, too, he thought, and then winced.

Too many tears!

For the first part of his life tears had been all he’d known. When he’d been three his father had suicided. That was his first memory. Too many women, too many tears, endless sobbing…

The tears hadn’t stopped. His mother had held her husband’s death to her heart—over his head—for the rest of her life. She held it still.

Her voice came back to him in all its pathos.

‘Wash your knees, Hamish. Your father would hate it if he saw his son with grubby knees. Oh, I can’t bear it that he can’t be here to see.’

Tears.

‘Do your homework, Hamish. Oh, if you fail…’

Tears.

Or, as he’d shown no signs of failing, ‘Your father would be so proud…’ And the sobbing would continue. Endlessly. His mother, her friends, his aunts.

There’d been tears every day of his life until he’d broken away, fiercely, among floods of recriminations—and more tears—and made his own life. He’d taken a job in Manhattan, far away from his Californian home. Far from the tears.

He hated the crying—the endless emotion. Hated it! His job now was an oasis of calm, where emotions were the last thing he needed. Marcia was cool, calm and self-contained. Nary a tear. That was his life.

He shouldn’t have come, he thought. This title thing was ridiculous. He’d never use it. Marcia thought it was great and if she wanted to use the ‘Lady’ bit then that was fine by him.

Marcia would never cry.

He’d call her, he decided, retrieving his cell phone. Manhattan was sixteen hours behind here. Four in the afternoon here made it midnight back home. Marcia would be in bed, reading the long-winded legal briefs she read as avidly as some read crime novels.

She answered on the first ring. ‘Hamish. Fabulous. You’re there, then. Should I address you as Lord Douglas?’

‘Cut it out, Marcia,’ he said uncomfortably, and she backed off in an instant. That was the great thing about Marcia. She never intruded on his personal space.

‘I’m sorry. Did you have a good journey?’

‘Fine, thank you.’

There was a moment’s pause. Marcia was expecting him to say something else, he knew, but he was still watching Susie under his window. Susie was digging as if her life depended on it.

‘What’s it like?’ Marcia said eventually, all patience. ‘The castle?’

‘Crazy. Queen Victoria’s in my bathroom.’

‘Who?’

‘Queen Vic. It’s OK. I’ve changed to one with Henry the Eighth.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Portraits in the bathroom. The place is full of kitsch. Queen Victoria is a trifle…distracting.’

‘Oh.’ She sounded annoyed. ‘For heaven’s sake, Hamish, just take it down.’

That’d be sensible, he thought. He’d take all the portraits down. He’d send them to his Aunty Molly. As soon as Susie left.

‘Was there anyone there to meet you?’

‘Rory Douglas’s widow. The lawyer told us about Rory Douglas.’

‘He did,’ she said, and he could hear her leafing through documents till she found what she wanted. ‘I’ve got the letter here. He was murdered by his brother, which is why you inherited. What’s she like?’

‘Emotional.’

‘A lachrymose widow,’ she said with instant sympathy. ‘My poor Hamish, how awful. Will she be hard to move?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘If she’s been living there…she’s not a tenant for life or anything, is she? You can still sell?’

‘She offered to move out tonight.’

‘That’s great!’

‘I can hardly kick her out tonight,’ he said and heard her regroup.

‘Well, of course not. Will you need to use some of the inheritance to resettle her, do you think? Does she have somewhere to go?’

‘She’s American. She’s coming home.’

‘Not entirely silly, then,’ Marcia said with approval. ‘She has plans. What about you? How long do you think it’ll take to put the place on the market?’

‘I’ll paint a “For Sale” sign on the gate tomorrow.’

‘Be serious,’ she told him. ‘Hamish, this is a lot of money. If the place is full of kitsch you’d best clean it out so it doesn’t put potential buyers off. Will it sell as a potential hotel?’

That much he knew. ‘Yes.’

‘Then there are specialist realtors. International hotel dealers. I’ll get back to you with names.’

‘Fine.’

Was it fine?

Of course it was fine. What Marcia suggested was sensible.

He thought about posting Queen Victoria to his Aunt Molly.

He watched Susie.

‘Steak and chips.’

Hamish had only partly opened the kitchen door when Susie’s voice announced the menu. He blinked, gazing around the room in something approaching awe. This room was built to feed an army. It had huge overhead beams, a wonderful flag-stoned floor, an efficient gas range, as well as an old-fashioned slow combustion stove.

‘How do you like your steak?’ she demanded.

She was being brisk. She wasn’t crying. Emotion had been put on the backburner, and she was being fiercely efficient.

‘Medium rare,’ he said, and she smiled.

‘Great.’ Then her smile faded, just a little. ‘Medium rare, eh?’

‘Is that a problem?’

‘It might be,’ she said cautiously. ‘It depends.’

‘On what?’

‘On how it turns out. I was planning on beans on toast before you arrived. Much more dependable.’

‘You know where you are with a bean,’ he agreed, and she looked at him with suspicion.

‘Don’t you give me a hard time. Kirsty’s bad enough.’

‘Kirsty?’

‘My sister. She and her husband are the local doctors. Kirsty said I have to give you something good to celebrate your first night here. She dropped off the steaks a few minutes ago. She would have stayed to meet you but she has evening clinic and was in a rush. But she left Boris, just in case you turn nasty.’

Boris was—apparently—a nondescript, brownish dog of the Heinz variety who was currently lying under a high chair. A toddler—a little girl about a year old—was waving a rusk above the dog’s head, and the dog had immolated himself, upside down, all legs in the air, waiting with eternal patience for the rusk to drop.

The dog hadn’t so much as looked up as Hamish had entered. Every fibre of his being was tuned to the rusk. Some guard dog!

‘What will Boris do if I turn nasty?’ he asked, and Susie grinned.

‘He’ll think of something. He’s a very resourceful dog.’ She produced a frying-pan and then looked doubtfully at the steaks.

The steaks lay in all their glory on a plate by the stove. They looked magnificent.

‘How are you planning on cooking them?’ Hamish asked.

‘I’ll fry them,’ she said with a vague attempt at confidence. ‘That doesn’t sound too difficult.’

‘You’re cooking chips?’

‘They’re oven fries,’ she confessed. ‘Kirsty brought them as well. You put them in the oven, you set the timer for twenty minutes and you take them out again. Even I can’t mess that up. Probably.’

She was making a huge effort to be cheerful, he thought, and he’d try to join her.

‘Tell me you’re not responsible for Queen Victoria,’ he said and she grinned. She had a great grin, he thought. He was reminded suddenly of Jodie.

Jodie would love Loganaich Castle.

‘Aunty Deirdre is responsible for Queen Vic,’ Susie told him. ‘Angus gave her carte blanche to decorate the castle as she saw fit—but he also gave her a very small budget. I think she did great.’

‘She surely did,’ he said faintly. Susie brushed past him on her way to the fridge and he started feeling even more disoriented. She’d showered since he’d last seen her. Or since he’d last smelt her. She was wearing clean jeans and a soft pink T-shirt, tucked in. Her hair was still in a ponytail but it was almost controlled now. And she smelt like citrus. Fresh and lemony. Nice.

‘Mama,’ the little girl said. ‘Mama.’

‘Sweetheart,’ Susie said, and that was enough to slam reality home. His mother always called him ‘sweetheart’ when she was trying to manipulate him.

He stopped thinking how nice she smelt, and thought instead how great it was that he had his Marcia and his whole life controlled, and he’d never have to cope with this sort of messy tearful existence.

Susie was carrying a tub of dripping to the stove. She scooped out a tablespoon or more into the frying pan. Then looked at it. Dubiously.

‘What are you doing?’ he said faintly, and she raised her eyebrows as if he’d said something stupid.

‘Cooking.’

‘Deep frying or shallow frying?’

‘Is there a difference?

He sighed. ‘Yes. But with that amount of fat in the pan you’re doing neither. The chips are already in the oven?’

‘Yes.’

‘How long have they been in?’

‘Five minutes.’

‘How do you have your steak?’

‘Any way I can get it.’

‘Then you’ll have it medium rare as well, and I have five minutes before I start cooking. Can you find me an apron?’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘No.’

‘Gee,’ she said, stunned, but willing not only to hand over cooking but to be admiring while she was at it. ‘You really can cook?’

‘I can cook steak.’

‘Would you like to make a salad, too?’ Her voice said she knew she was pushing her luck. It was almost teasing. ‘I can mix up chopped lettuce and tomato but anything else is problematic.’

He sighed. ‘I can make a salad. But I do need an apron.’

‘An apron,’ she said, as if she’d never heard of such a thing.

‘Something to cover—’

‘I know what an apron is,’ she said with dignity. She looked down at her faded, work-worn clothes. ‘I just never use one. But I’ll bet that Deirdre was an apron lady.’

She turned and searched a capacious drawer by the door. ‘Hey!’ She held up something that took Hamish’s breath away. Bright pink with purple roses, bib and skirt, the garment had flounces all round the edge and a huge pink ribbon at the back. ‘Good old Deirdre,’ Susie said in satisfaction. ‘I knew she wouldn’t let me down. You’ll look great in this.’

Yeah, right. He could just see the next front page of the Financial Review. There were guys back home who’d kill to see this, and he was well known enough to hit the social pages of the tabloids.

He eyed Susie in suspicion. Mobile phones could also be cameras. If you wore an apron like this, you trusted no one.

‘You have a washing machine?’ he demanded, trying not to sound desperate.

‘I have a washing machine.’

‘Then I’ll make do without the apron.’ Some things were no-brainers. ‘Just this once.’

‘That’s big of you,’ she told him, laying the frills aside with regret. ‘Why are you tipping out the dripping?’

‘That was half an inch of fat, and if you thing I’m spoiling my first Australian steak, you have another think coming.’

‘Ooh,’ she said in mock admiration. ‘Bossy as well as a good cook.’

‘Watch your fries,’ he told her, disconcerted.

‘Hey, we’ll get on fine,’ she said happily. ‘You can cook. I can’t. A marriage made in heaven.’

Then she realised what she’d said and she blushed. The blush started from her eyes and moved out, and he thought, She’s lovely. She’s just gorgeous.

Rose chortled from her high chair and Hamish allowed himself to be distracted. He needed to be distracted. Whew!

Rose was a chubby toddler, dressed only in a nappy and a grubby T-shirt reading MY AUNTY WENT TO NEW YORK AND ALL SHE BROUGHT ME WAS ONE LOUSY T-SHIRT. She had flame-coloured curls, just like her mother, and huge green eyes that gazed at him as if expecting to be vastly entertained.

It was very disconcerting to be gazed at like that. He’d never been gazed at like that.

In truth, Hamish had never met a toddler.

This situation was getting out of hand.

Rosie chortled again, raised her hand and lifted her rusk. It fell. On the floor beneath, on his back, Boris did a fast, curving slide so his mouth was right where it needed to be. The rusk disappeared without a trace.

Rose and her mother—and Hamish—all gazed at Boris. Boris gazed back up at Rose in adoration, and then opened his mouth wide again.

Hamish laughed.

Susie stared.

‘What?’ he said, disconcerted, and she flushed and turned away.

‘N-nothing.’

‘Something.’

‘It’s just… For a minute…’ She took a deep breath. ‘The Douglas men,’ she said. ‘Angus and Rory had the same laugh. Low and rumbly and nice. And it’s here again. In this kitchen. Where it belongs.’

For a moment neither of them spoke. Did she know what power she had to move him? he wondered.

He’d never known his father. Oh, he had a vague memory of someone being there, a grey, silent, ghost-like presence, but that was all. He’d seen faded photographs of a man who didn’t look like him. He had no connection at all.

And suddenly he did.

He didn’t do emotion.

‘I’m hardly a Douglas,’ he said, more sharply than he’d intended. ‘My father died when I was three, and I’ve had no contact with anyone but my mother’s family.’

‘But you are a Douglas.’

‘In name only.’

‘You don’t want to be a Douglas?’

Not if it means all this emotion, he thought, but he didn’t say it.

‘Move over,’ he told her instead. ‘It’s time to put the steak on. Four minutes either side, which gives me time to whip up a salad. But there’s no time for idle chat.’

‘You don’t do idle chat?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll concentrate on my chips, then,’ she told him, and proceeded to sit on the floor, flick on the oven light and watch. Which was distracting all on its own. ‘I know when to butt out where I’m not wanted.’

‘I didn’t mean to be rude.’

‘Neither did I,’ she told him. ‘But maybe that’s the way we have to be. You don’t want to be a Douglas. I can’t bear to be near one. So let’s get tonight over with and then we can both move on in the direction we intend to go.’

CHAPTER THREE

SHE woke to singing.

She must be dreaming, she decided, and closed her eyes but a moment later she opened them again.

‘“I’ll be true to the song I sing. And live and die a pirate king.”’

It was a rich, deep baritone, wafting in from the window out to the garden. Straight out of Gilbert and Sullivan.

Hamish?

It was early. Too early. She’d had trouble getting to sleep. Rosie was still soundly sleeping and she didn’t have to get up yet. She didn’t want to get up yet.

She closed her eyes.

‘“It is, it is a glorious thing, to be a pirate king.”’

She opened one eye and looked at her clock.

Six a.m.

The man was mad, she decided. Singing in the vegetable garden at six in the morning.

It was a great voice.

OK, she’d just look. She rolled out of bed, crawled across the floor under the level of the sill, then raised herself cautiously so she was just peeking…

He was digging her path. Her path!

The window was open and the curtains were drawn. Before she’d even thought logically, she’d shoved her hands on the sill and swung herself out. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

Hamish paused in mid-dig. He was wearing shorts. And boots.

Nothing else.

This wasn’t a stockbroker’s body, Susie thought as he set down his spade and decided what to say. The man had a serious six-pack. He was tanned and muscled—as if he’d spent half his life on a farm rather than in a stockbroker’s office.

He had great legs.

Oh, for heaven’s sake…

‘Whose boots are they?’ she demanded, and then thought, What a ridiculous question to ask. But the boots were decrepit—surely not carefully brought over from New York.

‘I found them in the wet room,’ he told her, looking like he was trying not smile. ‘There’s a whole pile. I figured if I inherited the castle with contents included, then at least one lot of boots must be mine. They’re a size or two big but I’m wearing two pairs of socks. What do you think? Will I take Manhattan by storm?’ He raised a knee to hold up a boot for inspection.

Boris had been supervising the path-digging lying down. Now the big dog rose, put out a tongue and licked the specified boot. Just tasting…

It was such a ridiculous statement—such a ridiculous situation—that Susie started to giggle.

Then she suddenly thought about what she was wearing and stopped giggling. Maybe she should hop right back in through the window.

But he’d already noticed. ‘Nice elephants,’ he said politely.

And she thought, Yep, the window was a good idea. She was wearing a pair of short—very short—boxer-type pyjama bottoms and a top that matched. Purple satin with yellow and crimson elephants.

There was a story behind these elephants. Susie’s two little step-nieces had wanted pyjamas with elephants on them. Harriet from the post office had been in Sydney for a week to visit an ailing sister and had thus been commissioned to find pyjama material with elephants. What she’d found had been royal purple satin with yellow and red elephants—the lot going much cheaper by the roll. Harriet had been so pleased that she’d bought the entire roll, and every second person in Dolphin Bay was now sporting elephant-covered nightwear.

‘They’re home-made,’ Susie managed. ‘I know the seam-stress.’ She managed a smile and Hamish thought—not for the first time—what a lovely smile she had. ‘She’ll make you some too if you like.’

‘No, thank you,’ he said hurriedly, and she grinned.

‘You could really take New York by storm with these.’

‘I don’t think Manhattan is ready for those pyjamas.’

There was a silence. She was trying not to look at his six-pack. He looked like he was trying not to look at her pyjamas.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked, as much to break the silence as anything. Though it was obvious.

The garden was in the full fruit of late autumn. The fruit trees were laden. The lavender hedge was alive with early-morning bees, everything was neat and shipshape, and the only discordant note was the path she’d started digging. She’d dug the first twenty yards. Twenty yards had taken her two days.

Hamish had dug another fifteen.

‘I assume you wanted the rest dug,’ he told her.

She bit her lip. ‘I did. It’s just…’

‘I’ve put the soil in the compost area,’ he told her, guessing her qualms. ‘I’ve left it separate so you can mix it as you want.’

One question answered.

‘And the worms are in the yellow bucket,’ he told her, answering her second.

He was laughing at her! He’d done what represented over a day’s work. She should be grateful. She was grateful! But he was laughing.

‘Worms are important,’ she said defensively, and he nodded.

‘I’ve always thought so. But not the kind that come out of your eyeballs.’

‘There’s no need to mock.’

‘I’m not mocking.’

More silence.

‘You don’t get muscles like those sitting behind a desk,’ she said tentatively. She felt she shouldn’t mention those muscles—but she was unable to stop looking at them.

‘I work out.’

‘You use a gym?’

‘There’s a gym in the building where I live.’

Of course. More silence while she tried again not to concentrate on muscles.

Oh, OK, she’d look. Guys looked at good-looking women all the time. She could do a little payback.

‘So I’m not doing the wrong thing?’ he prompted when the silence got a bit stretched—and she hauled her thoughts together and tried to think what she ought to be saying. What she should be looking at.

‘Of—of course you’re not. I’m very grateful.’

‘What are you planning on doing once you’ve dug?’

‘I have a pile of pavers under the lemon tree.’ She pointed. ‘There.’

He looked. And winced. ‘They look like they weigh a ton. You were going to lay them yourself?’

‘Of course I was.’

‘But you’ve been injured,’ he said. ‘The lawyer told me—’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You limp.’

‘I don’t limp much. I’m fine.’ She took a deep breath, moving on. ‘Not that it matters. They’re your pavers now.’

‘Susie, do you have to leave so soon?’

‘I…’

‘I’m here for three weeks,’ he said urgently. ‘I had a phone call this morning from the States. That’s why I’m up early. A combination of jet-lag and a phone call at four. The best way to sell this place—’

Do I want to hear this? Susie thought, but she hardly had a choice.

‘—is via a realtor who specialises in selling exclusive country hotels. He comes, assesses potential, and if he likes what he sees then he’ll put this place on his list of vendors and promote the place internationally. He’ll be in Australia next week. Marcia thinks I should persuade you to stay till then.’

Marcia? Susie wondered, but she didn’t ask.

‘Why do you want me to stay?’

‘You know the history of the place. The agent holds that important. If people come to an exclusive location they want the personal touch. They’ll want to know about Angus and the family and the castle back in Scotland. All its history.’

‘I’ll write it out for you.’

‘I’ll sell the place for more if you’re here to give a guided tour,’ Hamish said flatly. ‘Widow of the incumbent earl’s heir…’

‘If you think you’re going to play on Rory’s murder to get your atmosphere—’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You didn’t need to,’ she told him, and glowered.

‘But will you stay? I’ll pay you.’

‘Why will you pay me?’

‘Well…’ He considered. ‘You could still pave the garden.’ He eyed her, assessing and guessing her weakness. ‘You would like to get this path finished.’

‘I would,’ she admitted, and bit her lip.

‘Then I’m happy to pay landscape gardening hourly rates. Think about it,’ he said—and went right back to digging. Leaving her to think about it.

Which slightly discomposed her. She’d expected more…argument?

Staying on here was dumb, she thought. More than dumb. She looked at Hamish’s broad, bare back and she thought that staying could be unsettling. Would be unsettling. She hadn’t looked at another man since Rory had died and, of course, she never would, but there was that about Hamish which made her very solid foundations seem just a little shaky round the edges.

She didn’t want her foundations shaken. Her world had been shaken quite enough for one lifetime.

So she should go. Immediately.

But then…

She and Rose had lived here for over a year. She’d started packing after Angus had died, but her efforts had been desultory to say the least. She needed to get organised. Today’s deadline might not be actually feasible.

She thought about it for a bit more. She watched Hamish dig some more. He’d have blisters, she decided, seeing him almost inconspicuously shift the spade in his hands. She knew what he was doing. She’d done it herself often and often. He was finding unblistered skin to work with.

He was strong and willing but he wasn’t accustomed to this sort of work. He was a Manhattan money-maker.

The locals would hate the idea of the new laird being such a man.

But that started more ideas forming. Hamish was asking a favour of her. Maybe she could ask one of him. Angus’s death had left such a void. Maybe they could have a laird one last time, she thought. Maybe…

‘I’ll do it, but not for payment,’ she called out, and he looked up, surprised, as if he hadn’t expected to see her still to be there.

‘You’ll stay?’

‘Yes.’ She grinned. ‘I’ll even cook.’

‘More fries?’

‘I can do toast, too. And porridge if you’re game.’

He smiled at that, and she thought, Yep, there it was again. The Douglas chuckle and the Douglas smile in a body that wasn’t a Douglas body at all. It was a body she knew nothing about and wanted to know nothing about.

She had to get those foundations steady.

‘I look forward to meeting your toast, but not your porridge, Mrs Douglas,’ he told her formally, and she managed to smile back and then thought maybe smiling wasn’t such a good idea. He didn’t have enough clothes on. She didn’t have enough clothes on. It was too early in the morning.

He was a Douglas!

‘Tomorrow’s the Dolphin Bay Harvest Thanksgiving fête,’ she told him as he started digging again. ‘We need a laird.’

‘Pardon?’ He bent to separate some worms and then dug a couple more spadefuls.

‘The laird opens the fête. It’s traditional. No one’s doing it tomorrow because everyone’s still mourning Angus. But not having anyone there will be awful. Maybe we should do it in stages. Maybe we could use you tomorrow as the last of the Douglases.’

His spade paused in mid air—and then kept digging. ‘You know, I might not be the last of the Douglases,’ he said cautiously. ‘The Douglas clan appear to be quite prolific. In fact, if I give you the phone book you might find almost as many Douglases as Smiths, Greens and Nguyens.’

‘No, but as far as I know you’re the only Lord Douglas in this neck of the woods.’

‘Which leaves me…where?’

‘Opening the fête tomorrow.’

Another pause in the digging. Another resumption. ‘Which involves what exactly?’

‘Saying a few words. Just “I now declare this fête open”. After the bagpipes stop.’

‘Bagpipes,’ he said, even more cautiously, and Susie thought the man wasn’t as silly as he looked. Actually, he didn’t look the least bit silly.

And he’d guessed where she was headed. She could see the suspicion growing and she almost giggled.

‘It’s a very nice kilt,’ she said.

He set down his spade and turned to her in all seriousness.

‘Don’t ask it of me, Susie. I have knobbly knees.’

She did giggle then. ‘I can see them from here. They’re very nice knees.’

‘I only show them to other Douglases.’

‘Me, you mean.’

‘You and my mother.’

‘Not…Marcia?’

‘Marcia has the sense not to look,’ he told her. ‘I’d never have exposed them to you but you woke unreasonably early. Normally I have huge signs out. CAUTION: EXPOSED KNEES. So that lets me out of fête opening.’

‘Then I’m off to pack.’

‘Susie, this is a business trip,’ he said, and there was suddenly more than a trace of desperation in his voice. ‘I’m not an earl. I’m not Lord Douglas. In this day and age it doesn’t make any sense. I won’t use the title. I’ll sell the castle and I’ll get back to my ordinary life.’

‘You sound afraid,’ she said, and he cast her a look that said she wasn’t far off the mark.

‘That’s dumb. Why would I be afraid?’

‘It’s not so scary, standing in a kilt and saying a few words.’

‘People will expect—’

‘They’ll expect nothing,’ she said softly. ‘The people here loved Uncle Angus. He was their laird. You won’t know the story but this castle saved the town. After the war the men depended on the schools of couta to make their living—great long fish you catch by trawling in relatively shallow water. But some disease—worms, actually—hit the couta, and the men didn’t have boats big enough for deep-sea fishing. Everyone was starting to leave. It was either leave or starve. But then along came Angus. He saw this place, fell in love with it and realised the only thing that could keep it going was another industry. So he persuaded the guardians of his family trust—your family trust—to let him rebuild his castle here. The men worked on the castle while they gradually rebuilt the fishing fleet. The people here loved Angus to bits and his death has caused real heartache. You wearing a kilt tomorrow—no, it won’t bring Angus back, but maybe it’ll fill a void that for many may seem unbearable.’

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