The Heir's Chosen Bride. Marion Lennox

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