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‘By...marrying?’ Her voice came out a squeak but she was absurdly grateful it came out at all.
‘It’s the only way you can keep the castle.’
‘I don’t want the castle.’
That stopped him. His face stilled, as if he wasn’t sure where to take it from there.
‘No matter what Eileen’s will says, the castle should never be my inheritance,’ she managed. She was fighting to keep her voice as reasonable as his. ‘The castle’s my job, but that’s all it is. You’re the Earl of Duncairn. The castle’s your ancestral home. Your grandmother’s suggestion might be well-meant, but it’s so crazy I don’t believe we should even talk about it.’
‘We need to talk about it.’
‘We don’t. I’m sorry your grandmother has left you in such a situation but that’s for you to sort. Thank you, Lord Duncairn, for considering such a mad option, but I have scones to cook. I’m moving on. I’ll work until the lawyer asks me to leave and then I’ll be out of your life forever.’
* * *
Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t this. A straight-out refusal to even talk about it.
Okay, it was how he’d reacted, he decided, but he’d had an hour’s walk to clear his head. This woman clearly hadn’t had time to think it through.
To walk away from a castle... This castle.
What else was she angling for?
He watched her work for a bit while she ignored him, but if she thought he’d calmly leave, she was mistaken. This was serious.
Keep it as a business proposition, he told himself. After all, business was what he was good at. Business was what he was all about. Make it about money.
‘I realise the upkeep would be far too much for you to keep the castle long-term,’ he told her, keeping his voice low and measured. Reasoning as he talked. Maybe she was still shocked at not receiving a monetary inheritance. Maybe there was anger behind that calm façade of hers.
‘The company has been funding long-term maintenance and restoration,’ he continued, refusing to see the look of revulsion on her face. Revulsion? Surely he must be misreading. ‘We can continue doing that,’ he told her. ‘If at the end of the year this inheritance goes through and you don’t wish to stay, the company can buy the castle from you.’
‘You could afford that?’ she demanded, incredulous?
‘The company’s huge. It can and it seems the most sensible option. You’ll find I can be more than generous. Eileen obviously wanted you looked after. Alan was my cousin. I’ll do that for him.’
But at that she flashed him a look that could have split stone.
‘I don’t need looking after,’ she snapped. ‘I especially don’t need looking after by the McBride men.’
He got it then. Her anger wasn’t just encompassing Eileen and her will. Her anger was directed at the McBride family as a whole.
She was holding residual anger towards Alan?
Why?
He and Alan had never got on and their mutual dislike had meant they never socialised. He’d met Jeanie a couple of times before she and Alan had married. Jeanie had worked as his grandmother’s part-time assistant while she was on the island. On the odd times he’d met her she’d been quiet, he remembered, a shadow who’d seemed to know her place. He’d hardly talked to her, but she’d seemed...suitable. A suitable assistant for his grandmother.
And then Alan had married her. What a shock and what a disaster—and Jeanie had been into it up to her neck.
Until today he’d seen her as a money-grubbing mouse. The fire in her eyes now suggested the mouse image might possibly be wrong.
‘Jeanie, this isn’t about looking after—’
‘Don’t Jeanie me.’ She glowered and went back to rubbing butter. ‘I’m Mrs McBride. I’m Duncairn’s housekeeper for the next few weeks and then I’m nothing to do with you.’
‘Then we’ve both lost.’
‘I told you, I’ve lost nothing. The castle’s my place of employment, nothing more.’
‘So you wouldn’t mind moving to Edinburgh?’
Her hands didn’t even pause. She just kept rubbing in the already rubbed-in butter, and her glower moved up a notch.
‘Don’t talk nonsense. I’m moving nowhere.’
‘But you are moving out of the castle.’
‘Which is none of your business.’
‘I’m offering you a job.’
‘I don’t want a job.’
‘If you don’t have the castle, you need a job.’
‘Don’t mess with me, Alasdair McBride. By the way, the kitchen’s out of bounds to guests. That’s what you are now. A guest. The estate’s in the hands of the executors, and I’m employed here. You have a bed booked for the night. The library, the dining room and your bedroom and sitting room are where you’re welcome. Meanwhile I have work to do.’
‘Jeanie...’
‘What?’ She pushed the bowl away from her with a vicious shove. ‘Don’t play games with me, Alasdair. Your cousin messed with my life and I should have moved away then. Right away.’
‘I want to help.’
‘No, you don’t. You want your inheritance.’
‘Yes,’ he said and he lost it then, the cool exterior he carefully presented to the world. ‘Yes, I do. The Duncairn financial empire is colossal and far-reaching. It’s also my life. To break it up and use it to fund dogs’ homes...’
‘There are some very deserving dogs,’ she snapped and then looked under the table to where Eileen’s two dopey spaniels lay patiently waiting for crumbs. ‘These two need a home. You can provide for them first.’
‘Look!’ He swore and hauled his phone from his sporran—these things were a sight more useful than pockets—and clicked the phone open. He flicked through a few screens and then turned it to face her. ‘Look!’
‘I have flour on my hands.’ She glowered some more and she looked...sulky. Sulky but cute, he thought, and suddenly he found himself thinking...
Um...no. Not appropriate. All this situation needed was a bit of sensual tension and the thing was shot. He needed to stay calm, remember who she was and talk sense.
‘Just look,’ he said patiently and she sighed and rubbed her hands on her apron and peered at the screen.
‘What am I looking at?’
‘At a graph of Duncairn’s listed charitable donations made in the last financial year,’ he told her. ‘The figure to the left represents millions. It scrolls off the screen but you can see the biggest beneficiaries. My grandfather and my grandmother after him refused to make Duncairn a listed company, so for years now the profits have either been siphoned back into the company to expand our power base, or used to fund worthwhile projects. AIDS, malaria, smallpox... Massive health projects have all been beneficiaries. Then there are smaller projects. Women’s refuges, otter conservation, even dogs’ homes.’
And Jeanie seemed caught. ‘Those bars are...millions?’ she whispered.
‘Millions.’
‘Then what was Eileen thinking, to leave the lot to just one cause?’
‘You know what she was thinking,’ Alasdair said wearily. ‘We both do. She was blackmailing us into marriage, and as far as I can see, she’s succeeded. I have no choice.’ He sighed. ‘The value of the castle ought to be enough for you, but if it’s not, I’ll pay you what you ask. I’ll mortgage what I have to. Is that what you’re after? You can name your terms but look at the alternative to us both. Use your head. I have no expectations of you, and I’ll expect nothing from you as my wife. Eileen’s will says we have to share a house for one full year before the inheritance is finalised, but I have a huge place in Edinburgh. I’ll fund you well enough so you can be independent. Jeanie, do this, if not for the charities I represent, then for you. You’ll earn even more than the castle this way. You’ve won. I concede. We’ll marry and then we’ll move on.’
And then he stopped. There was no more argument to present.
There was total silence and it lasted for a very long time.
* * *
Marriage...
Third-time lucky? The thought flashed through her mind and she put it away with a hollow, inward laugh. Lucky? With this man?
What he was proposing was purely business. Maybe that was the way to go.
This was a marriage for sensible, pragmatic reasons, she told herself, fighting desperately for logic. She could even feel noble, saving the Duncairn billions for the good of all the charities it assisted.
Noble? Ha. She’d feel sullied. Bought.
He thought she’d walk away with a fortune. If he only knew... But there was no point in telling him about the bankruptcy hanging over her head.
‘Would you like to see through the place in Edinburgh?’ he said at last. ‘It’s good, and big enough for us never to see each other. I’ll have contracts drawn up that’ll give you a generous income during the year, and of course we’ll need a prenuptial agreement.’
‘So I don’t bleed you for anything else?’
‘That wasn’t what I was thinking.’ But of course it was. It was an easy supposition—a woman who’d angled for the castle would no doubt think of marriage in terms of what she could get. ‘But the castle will be worth—’
‘Shut up and let me think.’
Whoa.
This woman was the hired help. She could see him thinking it. She was his cousin’s leavings. The offer he’d made was extraordinary. That she would tell him to shut up...
He opened his mouth to reply, she glared—and he shut up.
More silence.
Could she? she thought. Dared she?
She thought suddenly of Maggie, her best friend on the island. Maggie was a fisherman’s wife now, and the mother of two bright boys. Maggie was solid, sensible. She imagined Maggie’s reaction when...if...she told her the news.
You’re marrying another one? Are you out of your mind?
She almost grinned. It’d almost be worth it to hear the squeal down the phone.
But...
Act with your head. Do not be distracted, she told herself. You’ve done this in haste twice now. Get this right.
Marriage.
For a year. For only a year.
She’d have to live in Edinburgh, on Alasdair’s terms.
No. Even the thought left her exposed, out of control, feeling as she’d vowed never to feel again. No and no and no.
She needed time to think, but that wasn’t going to happen. Alasdair was leaning back, watching her, and she knew if she left this kitchen without making a decision the memory of this man would make her run. Physically, he was a stronger, darker version of Alan.
Alan had betrayed her, used her, conned her, but until that last appalling night he’d never frightened her. But this man... It was almost as if he were looking straight through her.
So leave, she told herself. It’d be easy, to do what she’d first thought when the terms of the will were spelled out. She could stay with Maggie until she found a job.
A job, on Duncairn? There weren’t any.
She glanced around her, at the great kitchen, at the big old range she’d grown to love, at the two dopey dogs at her feet. This place had been her refuge. She’d built it up with such care. Eileen had loved it and so had Jeanie.
It would have broken Eileen’s heart if she’d known Alasdair was forced to let it go. Because of her? Because she lacked courage?
What if...? What if...?
‘Think about it overnight,’ Alasdair said, pushing himself away from the door. ‘But I’m leaving in the morning. I need a decision by then.’
‘I’ve made my decision.’
He stilled.
She’d poured the milk into the flour and turned it to dough without noticing. Now she thumped the dough out of the bowl and flattened it. She picked up her cutter and started cutting, as if perfectly rounded scones were the only thing that mattered in the world.
‘Jeanie...’
She shook her head, trying to figure how to say it. She finished cutting her scones, she reformed and flattened the remaining dough, she cut the rest, she arranged them on the tray and then she paused.
She stared down at the scone tray. They were overworked, too. They wouldn’t rise properly. She should give up now.
But she wouldn’t give up. She’d loved Eileen. Okay, Eileen, you win, she told her silently and then she forced herself to look at the man before her.
‘I’ll do it if I can stay here,’ she managed.
* * *
He didn’t get it. He didn’t understand where this was going, but business acumen told him not to rush in. To wait until she spelled out terms.
