Marcia looked at her watch. She tapped her foot. She looked at Hamish and saw indecision. Or maybe… decision. There was one thing that could always be said about Marcia: she was good at sussing which way the wind was blowing. She was excellent at not wearing herself out fighting the inevitable.
‘I’ll go, then,’ she said, visibly annoyed. ‘Honestly, Hamish, someone has to keep a business head on their shoulders in this whole debacle.’
‘They do,’ he agreed, but he was watching Kirsty, seeing Kirsty’s disapproval, thinking how very like her twin she was. Was Susie vibrating with the same disapproval?
Probably not, he thought. She’d be in her bedroom, sorting the last things she wanted to take from this place. She’d be thinking of Angus, or of Taffy, or of walking away from her vegetable garden and leaving her wonderful conservatory to be ripped apart. There’d be no room in her distraught mind for disapproval of one dumb would-be earl.
‘You’re not spending more time looking for the dog?’ Marcia was demanding, looking at him as if she didn’t know who he was any more. Which, come to think of it, was pretty much exactly how he was feeling about himself. ‘Everyone’s saying it’ll be dead.’
‘She’ll be dead,’ Kirsty said softly, and the look she gave Hamish then was slightly doubtful. ‘But we’ll give the grounds one more sweep after dinner.’
‘Miracles don’t happen,’ Hamish said flatly, and Kirsty gave him another odd look.
‘We’ll see. We certainly have enough pumpkins around here for a spell or two to happen.’ She shook herself, obviously perturbed that she was getting fanciful. ‘OK. I have a full casserole dinner ready to be brought in from the car, provided by the ladies of Dolphin Creek. Any crisis round here, sick baby, lost puppy, can’t solve yesterday’s crossword, you’ll be handed a casserole-so we have, at last count, eleven. Marcia, if you and Lachlan aren’t joining us, we’d better start now. We have a lot of eating to do.’
It was a very strained meal. They had eleven casseroles. Between them they ate about half of one, and that was with Kirsty and Jake’s twins helping. The two little girls were the only bright company during the meal, but even their chatter was pointed.
‘Daddy, why does Aunty Susie have to go back to America?’
‘That’s where her home is.’
‘But her home is here.’
‘This castle belongs to Lord Hamish now,’ Jake told them gently.
‘But everyone says Lord Hamish doesn’t want it.’
‘Lord Hamish doesn’t have to want it,’ Susie told the girls, with only a hint of a tremor in her voice. ‘It’s just the way things are. It’s his, and I don’t belong here any more.’
‘But you’re our Auntie Susie,’ Alice said tremulously, and Penelope agreed.
‘We want you to stay. And you haven’t got a puppy to take home now. You’ll be really, really lonely.’
‘I’ll have Rose,’ Susie said, her voice strained to breaking point. She rose to fetch the coffeepot from the stove and started to pour. ‘Coffee, Hamish?’
‘Please.’
‘None for me,’ Kirsty told her, and Susie stilled. She’d been facing the stove. Now she turned, very, very slowly, to face her twin.
‘You always have coffee after dinner.’
‘I… Not now.’ Kirsty seemed all at once uncomfortable and Susie’s face grew even more blank.
‘I was right,’ she said, and her voice was devoid of all expression. ‘At the fair. You deflected me with Taffy and I was so preoccupied I let myself be deflected. You’re pregnant.’
‘Oh, Susie,’ Kirsty said, her face twisting in distress.
‘That’s lovely news,’ Susie managed, and stooped to give her twin a hug. But there was no joy, Hamish thought, watching the tableau in incomprehension. What was going on?
‘I so didn’t want you to find out.’
‘Until when?’ Susie turned back to her coffee cups.
‘I thought…until you were settled back in America.’
‘Won’t this make a difference?’ Hamish asked, concerned. They both seemed on the edge of tears, but there were no tears. Just rigid control.
‘Sure,’ Kirsty said coldly. ‘Ask Susie to stay because I’m pregnant? How could I do that to her?’
Easy, Hamish thought, remembering his mother and his aunts. He knew exactly how emotional blackmail was done.
‘I won’t ask for the same reason Susie hasn’t asked you not to sell the castle. Not to destroy the greenhouse. I bet she hasn’t, has she?’
‘No, but-’
‘And if I did and you agreed?’ Susie said, suddenly fierce. ‘How do you think that’d make me feel for the rest of my life? And if Kirsty thought I was staying now just for the baby…she couldn’t bear it. That’s why she hasn’t told me. I don’t know where you come from, Hamish Douglas, but we don’t do emotional blackmail here.’ She swallowed and turned her back on him, facing her sister again. ‘You’re due when?’
‘Not until November. It’s early days yet.’
‘If I can, I’ll come back.’
‘Of course you will.’
‘To stay?’ Hamish said cautiously, and got another glare for his pains.
‘To visit. Like normal people do.’
‘But you guys are twins,’ he said, feeling helpless. ‘You should be together.’
‘They’ll be together for the birth,’ Jake said, putting his hand across the table to reach his wife, taking Kirsty’s hand in his and holding it firmly and with love. ‘If I have to sail across the Atlantic single-handed and haul Susie back here in chains, I promise you’ll be together for the birth. I’m covering the expenses and if Susie argues, then she’ll see what brothers-in-law are really made of.’
‘Oh, Jake,’ Susie said, choked.
And Hamish thought, Here at last come the tears. But they didn’t. Susie stared at her sister and her brother-in- law for a long moment-and then went back to her coffee-making.
With one mug of hot chocolate for the expectant mother.
CHAPTER TEN
KIRSTY and Jake and assorted kids left soon after. The arrangement was that they were taking Susie to the airport the next day-Jake had organised medical cover for the town from a locum service so both doctors could leave. They took all the kids home with them to give Susie a clear run with her packing.
‘We’ll be here at eight tomorrow to pick you up,’ Kirsty told her twin.
‘I’ll be ready,’ Susie promised.
And Hamish thought once again, Why didn’t she cry? She should be crying.
She cried at pumpkins. Why didn’t she cry now? Suddenly he thought he wanted her to cry. It’d be OK if she cried, he decided. It was the set, wooden expression on her face that he hated.
He stood in the hall and waited while she waved them off from the front step, and he was waiting for her as she returned.
‘What would you like me to do?’ he asked softly, and she glanced at him with suspicion.
‘Nothing.’
‘I’ll go down to the beach, then,’ he said. ‘Just for a last check.’
‘Taffy’s dead.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘Yes, I do. I’m not stupid. Ten-week-old puppy in this terrain… I see things how they are, Hamish. Not how I want them to be.’
‘You should be able to hope…’
