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.’
