The Heir's Chosen Bride. Marion Lennox

the morning.’

      ‘You’re not staying here?’ she asked, startled.

      ‘This has been your home,’ he said. ‘I’m not kicking you out.’

      ‘We do have fourteen bedrooms.’

      He hesitated. ‘How do you know I’m not like Kenneth?’

      She met his gaze and held. ‘You’re not like Kenneth. I can see.’ She bit her lip and turned back to concentrate on her cumquat. ‘Bitterness leaves its mark.’

      ‘It’s not fair that I inherit—’

      ‘Angus and Rory between them left me all I need, thank you very much,’ she said, and there was now a trace of anger in her voice. ‘No one owes me anything. I’m not due for anything, and I don’t care about fairness or unfairness in terms of inheritance. Thinking like that has to stop. I have a profession and I’ll return to it. To kill for money…’

      ‘But if your baby had been a boy he would have inherited,’ he said softly. ‘It’s unjust.’

      ‘You think that bothers me?’

      ‘I’m sure it doesn’t.’

      ‘Fine,’ she said flatly. ‘So that’s settled. You needn’t worry. The escutcheon is firmly fixed in the male line, so there’s no point in me stabbing you in the middle of the night or putting arsenic in your porridge.’

      ‘Toast,’ he said. ‘I don’t eat porridge.’

      She blinked. This conversation was crazy.

      But maybe that was the way to go. She’d had enough of being serious. ‘You don’t eat porridge?’ she demanded, mock horrified. ‘What sort of a laird are you?’

      ‘I’m not a laird.’

      ‘Oh, yes, you are,’ she said, starting to smile. ‘Or you probably are. Fancy clothes or not, you have definite laird potential.’

      ‘I thought I was an earl?’

      ‘You’re that, too,’ she told him. ‘And of course you’ll stay that as long as you live. But being laird is a much bigger responsibility.’

      ‘I don’t even know what a laird is.’

      ‘The term’s not used so much any more,’ she said. ‘It means a landed proprietor. But it’s more than that. It’s one who holds the dignity of an estate. Angus was absolutely a laird. I’m not sure what sort of laird Rory would have made. Kenneth would never have been one. But you, Hamish Douglas? Will you make a laird?’

      ‘That sounds like a challenge,’ he said, and she jutted her chin a little and met his look head on.

      ‘Maybe it is.’

      He hesitated, not sure where to take this. Not at all sure that she wasn’t just a little crazy herself. ‘Maybe I’d best stay in town,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back in the morning to organise things.’

      ‘There’s not much to organise,’ she told him. ‘But you need to stay here. There’s only the Black Stump pub, and Thursday is darts night. There’s no sleep to be had in the Black Stump before three in the morning. Anyway, if anyone moves out it should be me. It’s your home now. Not mine.’

      ‘But you will stay,’ he said urgently. ‘I need to learn about the place.’

      ‘What do you intend to do with it?’

      There was only one answer to that. ‘Sell.’

      Her face stilled. ‘Can you do that?’

      ‘I’ve checked.’ Actually, Marcia had checked. ‘If I put the money into trust, then, yes.’ The capital needed to stay intact but the interest alone—plus the rent rolls from the land in Scotland—would keep him wealthy even without his own money.

      ‘You don’t need me to help you sell it,’ she snapped, and then bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry. I know selling seems sensible but…but…’

      She took a deep breath, and suddenly her voice was laced with emotion—and pain. ‘I’ll stay tonight. Tomorrow I’ll pack and go stay with my sister until I can arrange a flight home.’

      ‘Susie, there’s no need—’

      ‘There is a need,’ she said, and suddenly her voice sounded almost desperate.

      ‘But why?’

      ‘Because I keep falling in love,’ she snapped, the desperation intensifying. ‘I fell so far into love with Rory that his death broke my heart. I fell for Angus. And now I’ve fallen for your stupid castle, for your dumb suits of armour—they’re called Eric and Ernst, by the way, and they like people chatting to them—for your stupid compost system, which is second to none in the entire history of the western world—I’ve even fallen for your worms. I keep breaking my heart and I’m not going to do it any more. I’m going home to the States and I’m going back to landscape gardening and Rose and I are going to live happily ever after. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish my work. Bring your gear in. You can have any bedroom you like upstairs. The whole top floor is yours. Rose and I are downstairs. But I need to do some fast digging before Rose wakes from her nap. Dinner’s at seven and there’s plenty to spare. I’ll see you in the kitchen.’

      And without another word she brushed past him, out of the conservatory and back into the brilliant autumn sunshine. She grabbed her spade she’d left leaning against the fence and headed off the way they’d come. Her back was stiff and set—her spade was over her shoulder like a soldier carrying a gun—she looked the picture of determination.

      But he wasn’t fooled.

      He’d seen the glimmer of unshed tears as she’d turned away—and as she reached the garden gate she started, stiffly, to run.

      ‘Kirsty, he’s here. The new owner.’

      Susie had been crying. Kirsty could hear it in her voice, and her heart stilled.

      ‘Sweetheart, is he horrid? Is he another Kenneth? I’ll be right there.’

      ‘I don’t need you to come.’ There was an audible sniff.

      ‘Then what’s wrong?’

      ‘He’s going to sell.’

      Susie’s sister paused. She’d known this would happen. It was inevitable. But somehow…somehow she’d hoped…

      Susie had come so far. Dreadfully injured in the engineered car crash which had killed her husband, Susie had drifted into a depression so deep it had been almost crippling. But with this place, with her love for the old earl, with her love for the wonderful castle garden and her enchantment with her baby daughter, she’d been hauled back from the brink. For the last few months she’d been back to the old Susie, laughing, bossy, full of plans…

      Angus’s death had been expected, a peaceful end to a long and happy life, but Kirsty knew that her twin hadn’t accepted it yet. Hadn’t moved on.

      Kirsty was a doctor, and she’d seen this before. Loving and caring for someone to the end, watching them fade but never really coming to terms with the reality that the end meant the end.

      ‘So…’ she said at last, cautiously, and Susie hiccuped back a sob.

      ‘I’m going home. Back to the States. Tomorrow.’

      ‘Um… I suspect you won’t be able to get travel papers for Rose by tomorrow.’

      ‘I have a passport for her already. There are only a couple of last-minute documents I need to organise. Can I come and stay with you and Jake until then?’

      ‘Sure,’ Kirsty said uneasily, mentally organising her house to accommodate guests. They were extending the back of the house to make a bigger bedroom for the twins—and for the new little one she hadn’t quite got