Her Highland Boss. Jessica Gilmore

I know I don’t have the right, but I’m asking you to stay longer.’

      ‘But not as your wife.’

      ‘Legally as my wife. We both know that’s sensible.’

      ‘I don’t do...sensible. I’m not very good at it. I have three dumb marriages to prove it.’

      ‘Then do gut instinct,’ he told her. ‘Do what you think’s right. Think back to the reasons you married me in the first place.’

      ‘That’s blackmail again.’

      ‘It’s not. I know I stand to gain a fortune by this transaction. You stand to gain nothing. That’s what I hadn’t understood. But we can work things out. If the company ends up in my name, I can buy the castle from the bankruptcy trustees. I intended to buy it from you anyway, but I can arrange for you to be paid more—’

      ‘I don’t want anything,’ she snapped. ‘Don’t you get it? Don’t you understand that there’s nothing you can offer me that I want?’

      ‘You do want another year in the castle. At the end of the year—’

      ‘Don’t even say it,’ she told him. ‘I will not be bought.’

      Silence. What else could he say?

      He could fix things if she let him. Duncairn Enterprises was extensive enough to soak up the purchase of the castle at market price. He could also settle a substantial amount on Jeanie when her bankruptcy was discharged, but he knew instinctively that saying that now would count for nothing. Right now, he had enough sense to know it would make things worse.

      This woman—his wife—had married for a reason. She knew the good the company did. She knew how much the castle and the company meant to Eileen. He just had to hope those reasons were still strong enough.

      ‘Jeanie, do you really want to get on that ferry tomorrow?’ he asked. ‘The dogs want you back at the castle. The guests want you. This does seem like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Please?’

      ‘So...it’s not just the porridge.’

      ‘Not even the black pudding.’

      ‘Alasdair...’

      ‘There’ll be no strings,’ he said and held up his hands. ‘I promise. Things will be as you imagined them when you agreed to this deal. You’ll have a year’s employment. You can use the year to sort what you want to do next and then you can walk away. There’ll be no obligation on either of our parts.’

      ‘No more insults?’

      ‘I won’t even comment on your footwear.’

      She managed to smile again at that. It was faint but it was there.

      And then there was silence. It was so deep and so long that Dougal opened the door again. He stood uncertainly on the doorstep. He made to say something but didn’t. The silence lengthened. Finally he was dragged inside again by Maggie.

      Maggie, at least, must understand the value of silence, Alasdair thought. The last light went off inside. Even if, as Alasdair suspected, Maggie was still lurking, she was giving them the pretence that they were alone.

      The night was still and warm. The numbers of nights like this on Duncairn could be counted on less than a man’s fingers. Everyone should be out tonight, he thought. The stars were hanging brilliant in the sky, as if they existed in a separate universe from the stars he struggled to see back in Edinburgh. The tide was high and he could hear the waves slapping against the harbour wall. Before dawn the harbour would be a hive of activity as the island’s fishermen set to sea, but for now the village had settled back to sleep. There was no one here but this woman, standing still and watchful.

      Trying to make her mind up whether to go or stay.

      ‘Can I have the dogs?’ she said at last, and he blinked.

      ‘The dogs?’

      ‘At the end of the year. That’s been the thing that’s hurt most. I haven’t had time to find a job where I can keep them, and I can’t see them living in an apartment in Edinburgh with you. If I stay, I’ll have twelve months to source a job where they can come with me.’

      ‘You’d agree to keeping on with the marriage,’ he said, cautiously because it behoved a man to be cautious, ‘for the dogs?’

      ‘What other reason would there be?’

      ‘For the company? So Duncairn Enterprises will survive?’

      ‘That’s your reason, not mine. Dogs or nothing, My Lord.’

      ‘Don’t call me that.’

      She tilted her chin. ‘I need something to hold on to,’ she said. ‘I need the dogs.’

      He stared around at the two dogs with their heads hanging out of the window. Abbot was staring down at the road as if considering jumping. He wouldn’t. Alasdair had been around this dog long enough to know a three-foot jump in Abbot’s mind constituted suicide.

      A moth was flying round Costello’s nose. Costello’s nose was therefore circling, too, as if he was thinking of snapping. He wouldn’t do that, either. Risk wasn’t in these two dogs’ make-up and neither was intelligence.

      ‘They’re dumb,’ he said, feeling dumbfounded himself.

      ‘I like dumb. You know where you are with dumb. Dumb doesn’t leave room for manipulation.’

      ‘Jeanie...’

      ‘Dumb or not, it’s yes or no. A year at the castle, no insults, the dogs—and respect for my privacy. The only way this can work is if you keep out of my way and I keep out of yours.’

      ‘We do still need to share the castle.’

      ‘Yes, we do,’ she agreed. ‘But you’ll be treated as a guest.’

      ‘You mean you’ll make the porridge?’

      Her expression softened a little. ‘I kind of like making it,’ she admitted.

      ‘So we have a deal?’

      ‘No more insults?’ she demanded.

      ‘I can’t think of a single insult to throw.’

      ‘Then go home,’ she told him. ‘I’ll be there before breakfast.’

      ‘Won’t you come back now?’

      ‘Not with you,’ she said flatly. ‘I’ll follow separately, when I’m ready. From now on, Alasdair McBride, this is the way we do things. Separately or not at all.’

      * * *

      How was a man to sleep after that? He lay in the great four-poster bed in the opulent rooms his grandmother had done up for him during the renovation and he kept thinking...of Jeanie.

      Why hadn’t his grandmother told him of her plight?

      Because he’d never asked, he conceded. Eileen had known of the bad blood between the cousins. Revealing the mess Alan had left Jeanie in would have meant revealing even more appalling things of Alan than he already knew.

      So she’d let him think Jeanie was a gold-digger?

      No. Eileen wouldn’t have dreamed he’d think Jeanie was mercenary, he conceded, because anyone who met Jeanie would know that such a thing was impossible.

      Except him. He’d met her, he’d judged her and he’d kept on judging her. He’d made the offer of marriage based on the assumption that she was out for what she could get, and he’d nearly destroyed his chances of success in doing it.

      Worse, he’d hurt her. He’d hurt a woman who’d done the right thing by Eileen. A woman Eileen had loved. A woman who’d agreed to a marriage because...because he’d told her of the charities Duncairn supported? Because she could spend