made a simple sauce to go with the pasta. She had found her iPod when unpacking the kitchen equipment, and it was amazing how comforting it was to have familiar music in the background as she cooked. If she carried on like this she would start feeling at home, Mallory thought wryly.
After supper they sat in the armchairs on either side of the fire, just as they had done the night before. Mallory kept her eyes on the flames and tried not to think about going to bed with Torr again-because whenever she did she found herself getting ridiculously nervous. At least last night she had been too tired to care where she slept, but it was different now. She had just convinced herself that her strange awareness of Torr had been no more than a momentary aberration when he came in after his bath. His hair was wet, and he was wearing a clean jumper and jeans, and her stomach did that funny little flip again.
Something else to put down to tiredness and the strangeness of living in a ruined castle, Mallory decided firmly. No wonder she was imagining things in this bizarre place.
‘Here,’ said Torr, handing Mallory a glass.
‘What is it?’ she asked, eyeing the golden liquid in surprise.
‘Whisky. This is the best malt there is,’ he added as he sat back down in his chair, ‘so don’t chuck it back. I just thought we should toast our first day at Kincaillie.’
Mallory’s smile was a little twisted, but she lifted her glass. ‘Here’s to living with our choices,’ she said in a dry voice, and then Torr did something totally unexpected.
He smiled.
‘To living with it,’ he echoed, and toasted her in return.
Thrown by the suddenness of his smile, Mallory took a bigger sip of whisky than she’d intended, and promptly started coughing and spluttering as the liquid burned her throat.
‘I told you not to gulp it,’ Torr admonished her.
‘Sorry,’ she croaked.
Eyes watering, she stared into the fire. Better that he thought her a reckless drinker than guessed just why she had gulped his precious whisky. Who would have thought that a simple stretch of the lips, a mere curve of the mouth, could be quite so startling?
She supposed it was because she was so unused to seeing Torr smile. There was something daunting about his usual expression, so forbiddingly unreadable, that when he had smiled just now it had been like looking at a stranger. His eyes had gleamed and his cheeks had creased, revealing strong white teeth and warming his expression in a way that left her feeling really quite…strange.
Mallory took another sip of whisky. She could feel it sliding down her throat, its warmth spreading out from her stomach. That would explain the peculiar tingle underneath her skin, anyway, and the way her cheeks felt as if they were burning.
She slid a sidelong glance from under her lashes at Torr on the other side of the fire. He was watching the flames too, legs stretched comfortably out in front of him and one hand loosely clasping his glass on the arm of the chair. He looked quite relaxed, Mallory thought enviously, as if it were perfectly normal to be sitting here in this draughty old kitchen while the entire castle crumbled about his ears.
Outside, the wind was picking up again, but here in the kitchen the only sounds were the spit and crackle of the burning logs and Charlie’s sighs of contentment from the hearthrug as he hogged the best of the fire.
‘Are you serious about doing most of the restoration work on your own?’ Mallory broke the silence abruptly, jerking Torr out of his abstraction, and he glanced across at her.
‘I won’t be on my own now,’ he pointed out. ‘You’re going to help me.’
‘Only for a year,’ she reminded him.
‘Ah, yes.’ Torr resumed his study of the fire. ‘Well, a year is a long time. We can make a good start.’
‘What will you do when you finish? If you ever do, of course! Sell it?’
He shook his head. ‘The estate is entailed, so I couldn’t sell it if I wanted to. No, I’m going to make Kincaillie the best and most exclusive hotel in Scotland.’
‘A hotel?’ Mallory couldn’t help laughing. ‘You’ve got to be joking! Who on earth would pay to come here?’
‘You’d be surprised,’ said Torr, a slight edge to his voice. ‘You may not appreciate peace and quiet and stunning scenery, but I can assure you that lots of people do. Kincaillie will be
He cocked an eyebrow at Mallory. ‘So, you see, I’ll need your talent for interior design eventually.’
Mallory thought of the damp, dismal rooms she had seen that afternoon. It was hard to imagine ever getting to the decorating stage, but what a challenge it would be! In spite of herself, she felt a flicker of interest.
She sipped her whisky thoughtfully. ‘You’d need proper building plans,’ she warned.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’m going to see an architect in Inverness next week. She’s worked on a number of innovative restoration projects, and comes highly recommended, so I’ve asked her to do a preliminary design. She’s been here to do a survey, and I want to go and see her initial ideas.’
‘Can I come?’ asked Mallory, brightening at the prospect of a trip away from Kincaillie.
He looked surprised. ‘I didn’t think you’d be that interested.’
‘I’m interested in the idea of a town,’ she said, ‘and I certainly don’t want to be left here on my own!’
‘Of course you can come, if you want, but you may have to get used to the idea of staying on your own sometimes,’ he warned. ‘We can’t spend the whole year without ever having a night apart. Anyone would think we were married,’ he finished dryly.
Mallory sat up straighter in her chair. ‘You don’t really expect me to spend the night here on my own, do you?’
‘You’d have Charlie for company,’ said Torr.
‘In case it’s escaped your notice, Charlie’s just a dog!’
‘He’d be protection against any intruders-not that you’re likely to get any round here.’
‘It’s not intruders I’m worried about,’ said Mallory, a tart edge to her voice. ‘At least a burglar would be some human company!’
‘You’re not telling me that you really believe in ghosts, are you?’ Torr said with a touch of exasperation. ‘I thought you were just being silly last night.’
‘No, I don’t believe in ghosts. It’s everything else that makes me nervous. I’m a city girl. I hate the isolation. The silence. I can’t tell you how much I long for the sound of a siren, or of someone’s door banging, or the neighbours shouting! And those mountains give me the creeps.’ She shuddered, thinking about the hills looming above them. ‘They’re so bleak and so big…Don’t they make you feel trapped?’
‘No,’ said Torr. ‘I feel trapped in a city. The hills and the sea make me feel free.’
‘It doesn’t look as if we’ve got much in common, does it?’ Mallory said with a painful smile.
Torr looked down at the glass he was clasping loosely between his hands. ‘No,’ he said in a flat voice. ‘It doesn’t.’
They finished their whisky in silence.
CHAPTER FIVE
TORR wanted to begin drawing up detailed specifications for the restoration work the next morning. He told Mallory that he was planning to work his way methodically from room to room, an exercise that was clearly going to take some time.
‘Do you want to come with me?’ he asked her. ‘It would give you an idea of what needs to be done over the next year.’
‘Since I’ll clearly be living here for that year, I think I would rather finish cleaning these rooms first,’ said Mallory. ‘We may as well make ourselves as comfortable as possible before we start on the rest of the castle.’
‘OK.’ Torr’s shrug was indifferent. ‘I’ll see you for lunch.’
Mallory was glad to be left on her own. She hadn’t slept well. She had been so tired by the time they went to bed that she had expected to fall asleep instantly, but, again, it hadn’t worked out like that. She had been too
