A Winter Wedding: Strangers at the Altar / The Warrior's Winter Bride. Marguerite Kaye

and there were few of those. My father was not the most sociable of men.’

      They exited the servants’ hall and entered the main kitchen, which had two bread ovens, a row of charcoal braziers, a stove the size of a hay cart and the biggest fireplace Ainsley had ever seen. Out through another door, they wended their way through the warren of the basement, past linen rooms and still rooms, pantries and empty wine cellars, and then back up a steep flight of stairs to another door that took them out to the kitchen gardens.

      Innes turned the lock and turned his back on the castle. ‘As you can see, the place is uninhabitable,’ he said.

      He sounded relieved. She couldn’t understand his reaction to it. ‘Is the building itself in such a poor state of repair, is it the cost of restoring it you’re worried about?’

      ‘It’s sound enough, I reckon. There’s no smell of damp and no sign that the roof is anything but watertight, though I’d need to get one of my surveyors to take a look. But what would be the point?’

      ‘I have no idea, but—you would surely not wish to let it simply fall into ruin?’

      ‘I could knock it down and get it over with.’ Innes tucked the weight of keys into his coat pocket with a despondent shrug. ‘I don’t know,’ he said heavily, ‘and I think I’ve more pressing matters to consider, to be honest. Maybe it was a mistake to start with the castle. For now, I think it would be best if you concentrated on the immediate issue of making the Home Farm a bit more comfortable. Speak to Mhairi, she’ll help you. I’ll need to spend some time out on the lands.’

      Ainsley watched him walk away, feeling slightly put out. He was right, their living quarters left a lot to be desired, and it made sense for her to sort them out. ‘Whatever that means,’ she muttered. The idea of consulting the rather forbidding Mhairi McIntosh did not appeal to her. Madame Hera had suggested that Timid Mouse appeal to her housekeeper’s softer side. Ainsley was not so sure that Mhairi McIntosh had one.

      Besides, that wasn’t the point. She had not come here to set up Innes’s home for him, but to provide him with objective advice. How was she to do that if she was hanging curtains and making up beds while he was out inspecting his lands? Excluding her, in other words, and she had not protested. ‘Same old Ainsley,’ she said to herself in disgust. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself!’

      * * *

      Dear Madame Hera,

      My husband’s mother gave me a household manual on my wedding day that she wrote herself. It is extremely comprehensive, and at first I was pleased to know the foods my husband prefers, and how he likes them served. However, I must say that right from the start I was a bit worried when I read what his mother calls ‘The Order of the Day’—and there is one for every day. I do try to follow it, but I confess I see no reason why I must do the washing on a Wednesday and polish the silver on a Saturday, any more than I see why we have to have shin of beef every single Tuesday, and kippers only on a Thursday. And as to her recipe for sheep’s-head soup—I will not!

      I tried to tell my husband that his mother’s way is not the only way. I have many excellent recipes from my own mother that I am sure he would enjoy. I tried, with all my wifely wiles, to persuade him that I could run the household without following his mother’s manual to the letter. He spurned my wifely wiles, Madame, and now he is threatening to have his mother, who has a perfectly good house of her own, to come and live with us. I love my husband, but I do not love his mother. What should I do?

      Desperate Wife

      Ainsley pulled a fresh sheet of paper on to the blotting pad. It was tempting to suggest that Desperate Wife invite her own mother to stay, and even more tempting to suggest that she simply swap abodes herself with her husband’s mother, but she doubted Felicity would print either solution. Instead, she would advise Desperate Wife to put her foot down, throw away the manual and claim the hearth and home as her own domain. It was Madame Hera’s standard response to this sort of letter, of which she received a great many. Mothers-in-law, if the readers of the Scottish Ladies Companion were to be believed, were an interfering lot, and their sons seemed to be singularly lacking in gumption.

      Claiming this hearth and home as her own had turned out to be relatively easy. Yet looking around the room, which in the past ten days, like the rest of the Home Farm, had been made both warm and comfortable, Ainsley felt little satisfaction. Mhairi McIntosh had proved cooperative but reserved. She had not looked down her nose at Ainsley, nor had she mocked or derided a single one of her suggestions, which had made the task Innes had given her relatively easy, but it was not the challenge she had been looking forward to. She had, in essence, been relegated to the domestic sphere when he had promised her a different role.

      Irked with herself, Ainsley tucked Madame Hera’s correspondence into her leather folder and pushed it to one side of the desk, covering it with the latest copy of the Scottish Ladies Companion, which Felicity had sent to her. There could be no doubt that Innes needed help, but he had made no attempt to ask her for it. Though she rationalised that he most likely thought he’d fare better with his tenants alone, as the days passed, she felt more excluded and more uncomfortable with trying to address this fact. She was not unhappy, she was not regretting her decision to come here, but she felt overlooked and rather useless.

      Standing on her tiptoes at the window, she could see the sky was an inviting bright blue above the monstrous hedge. Ainsley made her way outside, making for her favourite view out over the Kyles of Bute. Tiny puffs of clouds scudded overhead, like the steam from a train or a paddle steamer. It was a shame that the dilapidated jetty down in the bay was not big enough to allow a steamer to dock, for it would make it a great deal easier to get supplies.

      She had to speak to Innes. She had a perfect right to demand that he allow her to do the task he had brought her here for. The fact that he was obviously floundering made it even more important. Yes, it also made him distant and unapproachable, but that was even more reason for her to tackle him. Besides, she couldn’t in all conscience remain here without actually doing what she’d already been paid to do. She owed it to herself to speak to him. She had no option but to speak to him.

      Mentally rehearsing various ways of introducing the subject, Ainsley wandered through the castle’s neglected grounds, finding a path she had not taken before, which wended its way above the coastline before heading inwards to a small copse of trees. The chapel was built of the same grey granite as the castle, but it was warmed by the red sandstone that formed the arched windows, four on each side, and the heavy, worn door. It was a delightful church, simple and functional, with a small belfry on each gable end, a stark contrast to the castle it served.

      The door was not locked. Inside, it was equally simple and charming, with wooden pews, the ones nearest the altar covered, the altar itself pink marble, a matching font beside it. It was clean swept. The tall candles were only half-burned. Sunlight, filtered through the leaves of the sheltering trees and the thick panes of glass in the arched windows, had warmed the air. Various Drummonds and their families were commemorated in plaques of brass and polished stone set into the walls. Presumably their bones were interred in the crypt under the altar, but Ainsley could find none more recent than nearly a hundred years ago.

      Outside, she discovered the graveyard on the far side of the church. Servants, tenants, fishermen, infants. Some of the stones were so worn she could not read the inscription. The most recent of the lairds were segregated from the rest of the graveyard’s inhabitants by a low iron railing.

      Ainsley read the short list on the large Celtic cross.

      Marjorie Mary Caldwell

      1787-1813, spouse of

      Malcolm Fraser Drummond

      This must be Innes’s mother. Below her, the last name, the lettering much brighter, his father:

      Malcolm Fraser Drummond

      Laird of Strone Bridge

      1782-1840

      The laird had married early. His wife must have been