Underneath The Mistletoe Collection. Marguerite Kaye

to say, there were more kisses than tears.’

      He couldn’t look at her. His hands were dug deep in his pockets as he stood before her, gazing over her shoulder at the cross on the grassy mound. ‘Blanche refused to go along with it at first, but I was determined. Carried away with my own sense of honour, I thought I was,’ Innes continued in a voice that poured scorn on his own youthful self. ‘I pushed her. I was determined, and Blanche was in the end a pliant and a dutiful wee thing, so she agreed, and the betrothal was formalised at a party in the Great Hall. I thought myself heartbroken, needless to say, but I told myself that I’d done the right thing by my brother and I told myself that what she felt— Well, I told myself that I knew best and she’d come to realise it. I told myself a lot of things, all of them utter drivel. I was that sure I was right, it didn’t even occur to me to ask what anyone else thought. What a fool I was.’

      Ainsley made a sound of protest. Innes shook his head. ‘No, I really was, and arrogant with it. If you give me a minute, I’m nearly done. I just need a minute.’

      He took a deep breath, then another, obviously steeling himself. Ainsley had no option but to wait, feeling quite sick at what he told her, and at what the telling of it was doing to him.

      With a little nod, as if in answer to some internal dialogue, Innes continued brusquely, ‘Blanche wrote to Malcolm. It hadn’t occurred to me that she’d do that, that she’d want to try to explain herself—and me, too, in the process. She had the letter delivered after she’d fled. She had relatives in London. They were happy to take her and her fortune, I assume. I don’t know. She ran, and Malcolm got her letter, and when he showed it to me, I am ashamed to say what I felt was anger. I’d done my best to make all right, and she’d thwarted me. I didn’t think of her feelings or even his at first, only mine.’

      Innes was speaking quickly now, the words tumbling out, as if they’d been packed deep inside him all these years. ‘So I was angry with her. I think I even went so far as to tell Malcolm I’d get her back for him, persuade her to marry him. The arrogance of me! It was that word I used, persuade, that betrayed me. Malcolm had suspected of course, but he had not been sure. “What do you mean, persuade her?” he asked me, and you should have seen the look on his face. Even now I can picture it. “How could you persuade her? Why should you?” I felt sick. Then, when the accusations finally came, I tried to lie to him, but we could never lie to each other, Malcolm and I, I should have remembered that from the first. So finally I told him, trying to sound as noble as I thought I’d been, only in the face of it, seeing his face, seeing his hopes, his dreams, crushed—for he had loved her truly, you see. Unlike me. He really had loved Blanche. “I’d have given her up,” he told me. “I only ever wanted her to be happy. How could you think I would marry her, knowing that she wanted you?”’

      Ainsley sat as still as stone, her attention riveted on Innes, but he kept his eyes on the cross. His voice was cold now, as stripped of emotion, as his face was stripped of colour. Listening to him, she felt chilled.

      ‘I told him it all,’ he was saying, ‘and Malcolm—Malcolm got quieter and quieter. When I asked him if he forgave me, he said there was nothing to forgive, but that he wanted to be left alone, and I was so racked with guilt that I wanted nothing more than to leave him. Then he said that I should go after her. That I should make her happy. He said again that all he ever wanted was for us to be happy, and then he closed the door on me, and—and those were the last words he ever spoke to me.’

      Ainsley was lost for words, but Innes was not finished tearing himself apart. ‘So you see,’ he said, with a painful crack in his voice, finally meeting her eyes, ‘my brother took his own life, but it was me who killed him. And now I have his lands, too,’ he said with a bitter laugh. ‘I have all of it, and I deserve none of it.’

      ‘You do not have Blanche,’ Ainsley whispered. ‘You gave her up, though you loved her.’ It was dreadful, but that was the thing that hurt the most.

      ‘Don’t go thinking there was anything noble about that,’ Innes said with a sneer, ‘because there was not. I didn’t love her. That’s why it was so easy to try to hand her back to Malcolm like an unwanted parcel, only I was so carried away with my own lofty gesture that I didn’t notice that until later.’ He rubbed his knuckles into his eyes, looking deeply weary. ‘When it came down to it, what I really wanted was to give my brother a reason to side with me against our father. If Malcolm was beholden to me for the love of his life, then he’d take my part, he’d help force my father to let me leave Strone Bridge on my terms. Do you see, Ainsley?’ Innes said earnestly, clasping her hands in his. ‘I was selfish at every step of the way. It cost my brother his life. I owe it to Malcolm to restore the heritage I deprived him of. I can atone here for what I’ve done, but I don’t deserve to be happy. This morning, I caught a glimpse of what that might be like. A timely reminder of what I deprived my brother of. I don’t deserve it, but you do. Do you understand now, why I told you?’

      Sadly, Ainsley understood only too well. He thought to drive her away. He thought to disgust her. She felt only unutterably sad, for his tragic confession changed everything and nothing. ‘I understand that I can’t make you happy,’ she said, ‘but if what you intended was to make me despise you, then you have failed. You were all so very young.’

      ‘That is no excuse.’

      His tone made it clear he would not be swayed. Only a few months ago, Ainsley would have accepted this. ‘It is,’ she said. ‘We all make mistakes through lack of experience. If I had loved John as much as I thought I did, perhaps he would not have died.’

      ‘That’s ridiculous. You know—’

      ‘I know now how much my own lack of confidence contributed to the—the deterioration of our marriage, but I did not know then,’ Ainsley said heatedly. ‘I know now, thanks to your encouragement, that I’m neither useless nor unattractive.’

      ‘Ainsley, he did that to you—’

      ‘No,’ she interrupted him determinedly. ‘I am not saying John was without fault, but nor was he entirely to blame. We were a—a fatal combination, but, Innes, how were we to know that?’ She clutched tightly at his fingers, pulling him towards her. ‘I have learned so much since I came here. I still feel guilty, and I still have regrets, but I am no longer eaten up with them. John is dead, and there’s nothing I can do about it, save make sure I don’t make the same mistakes again. You can do the same. Would not Malcolm want you to be happy?’

      He held her gaze for a long moment, then flung her away, getting to his feet. ‘That’s not the point. I understand that you’re trying to make me feel better, but you can’t. You don’t understand.’

      ‘I do.’ She got slowly to her feet, feeling quite leaden. ‘You have made up your mind that I must go, and that is the one thing upon which we agree. I ask only that you allow me to remain here until I can— There are some things that I...’

      ‘Of course. Obviously we must wait to ensure that there were no consequences from this morning.’

      It took her a moment to understand his meaning, and when she did, another moment to control the tears that welled suddenly into her eyes. Ainsley turned towards the sea, hoping to blame the breeze. ‘A few weeks,’ she said, thinking that would suffice to both torture her and accustom her.

      ‘The end of the year,’ Innes said. ‘An ending and a beginning.’

      She whirled round, thinking for an awful moment that he was making fun of her, but his expression was as bleak as she felt. The thought that he was finding this almost as difficult as she was, however, was no comfort at all. ‘Until the end of the year,’ she agreed.

      They made their way back past the chapel in silence, each wrapped up in their own tortuous thoughts. It was not until they reached the terrace again, and both stopped of their own accord, that Ainsley remembered her plans for the castle, but immediately abandoned any notion of sharing them with Innes right now. Instead, she asked one of the two unanswered questions. ‘What about Blanche? What happened to her?’

      Innes