Strange Intimacy. Anne Mather

soon as he had passed the window and seen that Isobel Jacobson was up, his reactions had been purely instinctive.

      And why? Why had he knocked at the door, and drawn attention to himself like that? Oh, he had guessed correctly that she was uncertain about how to light the Aga. It had been obvious from the way she’d been looking at it that she’d never used one before. But that wasn’t an excuse. Given her intelligence, she’d soon have worked it out for herself. Anyone could light a fire. There was no particular skill required. Just some wood, and a match, and a moderate amount of patience.

      But for some reason his reflexes hadn’t responded to logic. He liked to think it was because of what his mother had said the night before, but he was honest enough to admit that that wasn’t altogether true. There was no doubt that his mother’s attitude had annoyed him, but he hadn’t been thinking of his mother when he’d knocked at Isobel Jacobson’s door.

      ‘Er—hum!’ Colin cleared his throat, and then patted his chest, as if it hadn’t been a quite deliberate attempt to attract his brother’s attention. ‘Um-Clare tells me you’ve met Webster’s new receptionist.’

      Rafe became aware that he had been staring out of the long windows, without even seeing the reflective waters of Loch Caldy, which lapped only yards from the castle walls. But Colin’s words had finally penetrated his abstraction, and he focused rather grimly on his brother’s fair face. ‘What?’

      ‘I said, Clare told me you—you’d given her father’s new receptionist a lift yesterday,’ Colin paraphrased awkwardly. ‘Bit of an odd thing to do, wasn’t it? Mother thinks you only did it to embarrass her.’

      Rafe gave his brother an impatient look, and then walked round the desk and flung himself into the worn leather chair Colin had been occupying earlier. ‘Our mother is paranoid,’ he said succinctly. ‘And, as I understand it, Clare used to go to school with Mrs Jacobson. So she’s not exactly a stranger to her, is she?

      Or has Clare become so vain she’s forgotten her own roots?’

      ‘Of course not.’

      Colin flushed now, and then turned with some relief when there was a sound at the door. After the most perfunctory of taps, Cummins, who had been in service at Invercaldy Castle for the past forty years, came into the room, carrying a tray set with a coffee-pot and fine china cups. ‘On the desk, my lord?’ he enquired, with barely a glance at Colin, and Rafe nodded.

      ‘Thank you,’ he said, as the old man lowered the tray in front of him. ‘We can serve ourselves.’

      ‘Yes, my lord.’

      Cummins inclined his head deferentially, and then, with a half-hearted acknowledgment of the younger man, he walked rather stiffly out of the room.

      As soon as the door closed behind him, Colin exploded. ‘That fellow!’ he exclaimed. ‘If he weren’t nearing retirement. I’d insist that you get rid of him, Rafe. He’s barely civil at the best of times, and whenever I ask him to do anything he conveniently forgets.’

      ‘He’s old,’ remarked Rafe quietly, making no move to pour the coffee. ‘And he doesn’t care for Clare’s attitude either. Or had you forgotten?’

      Colin expelled his breath on a noisy sigh. ‘The man’s a servant, Rafe!’

      ‘He’s an employee,’ amended his brother evenly. ‘And deserving of some consideration.’ He paused. ‘Particularly at half-past one in the morning.’

      ‘All Clare wanted was some cocoa!’

      ‘Which she could have made herself.’

      ‘I doubt if Mrs Fielding would have approved of any of the family interfering in her kitchen.’ Colin clicked his tongue. ‘It wasn’t as if she got him out of bed. If I remember correctly, he’d been spending the evening playing cards with Lucas.’

      Rafe regarded him coolly. ‘It was his evening off.’

      ‘Oh, all right.’ Colin came towards the desk, and splashed cream into one of the cups. ‘The man’s a paragon, and Clare’s a snob!’ He filled the cup from the coffee-pot, and then spooned in several measures of brown sugar. ‘But she’s just trying to uphold the family honour. We are the local establishment, Rafe. We owe it to ourselves to maintain a certain—decorum.’

      Rafe’s lips curled. ‘Exclusivity, don’t you mean?’

      Colin looked up from tasting his coffee. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

      Rafe shrugged. ‘If you don’t know, I can’t tell you.’

      Colin sniffed. ‘Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing. You’re just trying to divert attention from your own shortcomings. OK, maybe Clare is a little brackish—at times, but in this case I think she has a point.’

      ‘Do you?’ Rafe placed his hands on the edge of the wood and, pressing down, brought himself to his feet. His mouth twitched a trifle wryly, as Colin took a couple of steps back from the desk, as if anticipating some sort of physical retaliation, but all he did was cross the room to where a tray of drinks resided on a bureau. He lifted a bottle of single malt, and poured an inch into a glass. ‘Fine. Your objections have been noted.’

      ‘But they’re not going to be acted upon, are they?’ exclaimed Colin, stung into a retort. ‘And what’s wrong with coffee, at this time of the morning? Must you ruin your constitution with that stuff before it’s even lunchtime? Honestly, Rafe, are you trying to kill yourself?’

      Rafe’s expression was cold. ‘Why should you care?’ he countered. ‘If I weren’t around, you and Clare would have a legitimate reason for acting like the lord and lady of the manor!’

      ‘That’s a foul thing to say!’

      Colin’s cup clattered noisily into its saucer, and, looking at his brother’s shocked face, Rafe felt a sudden spurt of remorse. It wasn’t fair to treat Colin as a whipping-boy. He had never shown any resentment towards his elder brother, and when Sarah died he had done everything he could to ease Rafe’s burden. Just because Clare had turned into a right royal pain in the butt was no reason to act as if Colin were personally to blame.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ he said now. ‘That was uncalled for.’ He grimaced. ‘You caught me at a bad moment, Col. I’m not in the best of tempers. You’ll have to forgive me.’

      Colin shook his head. ‘Think nothing of it, old man,’ he said gruffly, and Rafe thought how lucky he was that his brother was always willing to forgive and forget. ‘I shouldn’t go on at you as I do. Goodness knows, you’ve had enough to cope with as it is, without me sticking my big nose into your affairs.’

      ‘Mmm.’

      Rafe acknowledged his words silently, looking down at the liquid in his glass for a moment, before lifting it to his lips. But he only took a mouthful, allowing the undiluted spirit to numb his teeth and gums, before letting it slide smoothly down his throat. The truth was, he didn’t really know how he felt. He’d thought he did. Until recently, he’d have sworn he felt the same now as he’d done when Sarah died, but he simply wasn’t sure any more. For some reason, he had doubts, and they weren’t exactly welcome.

      Which was ridiculous, really. After all, when Sarah had died in childbirth, he had been convinced he’d never get over it. She had been so young, only twenty-eight, and having a baby had seemed such a simple, uncomplicated procedure. With all the advances in medical science, there should have been no danger of her dying in the delivery-room. But Rafe suspected the doctor hadn’t even realised the baby was dead until its lifeless little body had been extracted from Sarah’s womb. And Sarah had been so exhausted by the prolonged period of labour that she hadn’t had the strength to withstand the massive haemorrhage that had followed.

      It had happened so quickly. One week, he and Sarah had been picking out names for the baby, and the next he was standing beside her grave. And for weeks after that he had woken in the morning still expecting to find her lying beside