The Heir of the Castle (Harlequin Romance) (6 page)

He was astonished. Did she know what she was giving up?

But Laurie was peering out of the window again, across the gardens to the wall next to the sea that was lined with cannons. ‘Can we get down on the beach from here?’

He nodded. ‘It’s not the easiest path.’

‘I think I’ll manage.’ She’d lifted one eyebrow at him, as if daring him to imply anything otherwise.

He wasn’t sure whether to be angry or intrigued.

The whole purpose of the weekend was to find out who would inherit the castle. Laurie was a lawyer. Maybe she’d found a loophole in all this and knew she could mount a legal challenge. The thought sent a prickle across his skin.

He’d been assured that no matter how crazy this whole scheme appeared, legally it was watertight—whether he liked it or not.

But that would be an explanation as to why she didn’t really want to engage with the Murder Mystery Weekend. Why she wanted to spend her time exploring the estate. Maybe she was already drawing up plans in her head about what she wanted to do with the place, or how to sell it off for the highest profit.

‘Callan?’ Her voice was quiet and her hand rested gently on his.

His mind was running away with him again. Every time he thought about this place or the people in it, his mind naturally went for the worst-case scenario.

He looked down, trying to ignore the warmth spreading up his arm. She was looking up at him with her smudged nose and hair and her big brown eyes. Questioning the fact that for a few minutes he’d been lost in a world of his own.

There was still a light dusting of flour across the pink shoulders of her shirt. Her dark brown hair was swept up in a clasp, with stray strands escaping. The flour was like the first fall of snow at the start of winter.

She blinked, her cheeks flushing a little as he continued to stare. Her head tilted to the side. ‘What time can we meet?’ she prompted.

He started. Meet. Yes. That was what he was supposed to be doing.

‘Half an hour.’ His words came out automatically. ‘I’ll meet you in the entrance hall.’

She gave a little nod of her head and disappeared through the kitchen door.

Callan stared at his hand. The skin that she’d touched felt on fire. He couldn’t understand. It just didn’t figure.

Laurie just didn’t figure.

A movement caught his eye. Marion was staring at him with her arms folded across her chest.

‘What?’ The words snapped out, louder than intended.

She gave him a little knowing smile, then turned her back and started busying herself around the kitchen.

For the first time, in a long time, Callan felt unnerved. And he couldn’t quite work out why.

CHAPTER FIVE

L
AURIE
WASN
’
T
QUITE
sure why her stomach was churning, but it was. She frowned at her reflection in the floor-length mirror. Red Capri pants probably weren’t the most appropriate for a cliff-side clamber but that was the trouble with travelling light. Thank goodness Marion had found her a pair of wellington boots, and they even matched her trousers.

She took a deep breath, grabbed her jacket and headed along the corridor towards the stairs. The phone in her pocket beeped and she pulled it out. Work.

Her stomach sank like a stone. Funny how a simple text could have that effect on her. A missing file. On a Saturday. She glanced at her watch. If she’d been in London right now she’d probably have been in work too. How sad was that? She couldn’t help but glance at the mysterious woman in the portrait at the top of the stairs. Was it possible that her glare was even more disapproving than normal, and even more focused on Laurie?

She wondered if this castle had any ghosts. She’d need to ask Callan about that later. She tapped out a quick reply with a number of locations for the missing file.

As she reached the bottom of the curved staircase Robin, the Murder Mystery Weekend co-ordinator, rushed over, clipboard in hand. ‘Ms Jenkins, I didn’t see you at breakfast this morning. Was something wrong?’

Yet another person with a disapproving glare. She shrugged. ‘Sorry, I was busy.’

He frowned. ‘You do realise that in order to get a good idea of who the murderer is, you have to take part in all the activities.’

She bit her tongue to stop the words rolling off that she really wanted to say. It wasn’t his fault Angus McLean had made this a stipulation of his will. This was just a guy doing a job.

She gave him her sweetest smile. ‘Some of the activities just aren’t for me.’

He looked horrified. ‘But you have to take part. You have to speak to as many of the other characters in order to build up an idea of who the murderer is.’ He eyed her haughtily. ‘And they need the opportunity to speak to you too.’

She sighed. ‘Listen, you and I know that I’m not the murderer, so it doesn’t really matter whether the other “characters”—’ she lifted her fingers in the air ‘—speak to me or not. As long as I tell you at the end who I think is the guilty party, everything will work out fine.’

‘Ms Jenkins, you’re really not entering into the spirit of things. It spoils things for all the other participants too.’

She was starting to get annoyed now, and feel a little guilty, which made her even madder. She straightened herself up to her full five feet five inches. ‘Well, I guess since the other participants are my new-found family, it’s up to me whether I want to spend time with them or not.’

She turned and strode away as best she could in the ill-fitting red wellies. Callan was leaning against the wall next to the door with his arms folded across his chest and an amused look on his face. He pulled the main door open and picked up a jacket. ‘Ready?’

There was a little spark of something in his eyes and if he said something smart right now she would take one of these wellies off and hit him over the head with it.

‘Ready.’ She barely turned her head as she walked straight out of the door and onto the gravel courtyard.

This place was driving her crazy.

She spun around, hands on her hips, and Callan nearly walked straight into her.

‘What kind of person was Angus McLean?’

He started. ‘What?’

‘What kind of person was Angus McLean? Was he some kind of sick sadist that would try and pitch his unknown relatives against each other for some kind of pleasure? Did he actually think anyone would agree to this?’ Now the words were coming out she couldn’t stop them. ‘Was he sane? Did a doctor check him over after he wrote that mad will?’

Callan hesitated for the tiniest second, then obviously thought better of getting into an unwinnable fight with an angry woman. He put his arm around her shoulders and steered her in the direction of the stairs, leading down to the impeccable gardens, fountain and maze. Her feet moved without her even really realising it, the weight of his arm behind her just making her flow along with his body. Before she knew it she was guided along to the bench in front of the trickling fountain.

Callan nudged her to sit down and she did. With a thump.

It was as if all her frustration was coming out at once.

Callan waited for a few minutes, letting them sit in silence and listen to the peaceful trickle of the fountain.

It was a beautiful setting. The bronze fairy was spouting the water from her mouth, through her hands. The water flowed down into the round pond with a mosaic bottom of blue and green tiles. The sun was high in the cloudless sky and the temperature was warm in the shelter of the lowered set of gardens.

Eventually Callan spoke, his voice deep and calm. He was leaning forward, his arms resting on his knees. ‘Angus McLean was completely sane. Frank Dalglish, the solicitor, was worried there might be a legal challenge to the will and made sure that Angus was examined by a doctor.’

‘Oh.’ Laurie’s brain was spinning, questions firing everywhere, but Callan’s voice had a real weight to it. He was completely sincere. And she realised he probably wasn’t amused at her outburst. She could smell his aftershave again, the one that seemed to play with her self-control and turn her brain to mush. Or maybe that was just the sight of his muscled arms?

‘He was no sadist. And he certainly wasn’t sick. Angus McLean was one of the best guys I’ve ever met.’ He leaned back against the bench and ran his fingers through his hair, mussing it up. She liked it better that way. He shook his head. ‘Truth is, Laurie, I don’t understand any of this any more than you do. I spent twenty-five years around Angus McLean. I never suspected for a second that he had children. I could never understand why he wouldn’t sell me the place. He kept telling me he wanted to keep it in the family—but as far as I knew, there wasn’t any.’

He was upset. He was hurting. No matter what her thoughts were on Angus McLean she had to try and remember that this was someone who had been dear to Callan. His experience was totally different from hers.

Something registered in her brain. She looked up at the castle.

It was hard to believe but as a potential inheritor of Annick Castle she hadn’t even given a moment’s thought to how much it could actually be worth.

She gulped. The figures dancing around her brain made her mind boggle. She turned to face him. ‘How on earth could you afford to buy a place like this?’ She held up her hands. ‘I have no idea how much Annick Castle would cost, but what kind of job do you have?’

She couldn’t even begin to understand how someone could make enough money to buy Annick Castle. Her question probably seemed cheeky, but she was the kind of girl who usually said what came to mind. And she wasn’t going to stop just because she was here.

‘If I tell you will you be able to reply in one hundred and fifty characters or less?’

It took a few seconds for the penny to drop. She couldn’t help it; her mouth fell open.

‘You? You own Blether?’ She couldn’t believe it. The Scottish equivalent of Twitter, with a slightly longer letter count, had started as a rival company six or seven years before. It had taken the advertising market by storm. Those ten little letters made all the difference, but still allowed short, sharp messages.

He gave a rueful smile and nodded. ‘Guilty as charged. I owned an Internet search engine before that. Blether came about almost by accident.’

She was stunned. Everyone knew exactly how successful the company was, but she’d never really heard anything about the owner. ‘How so?’

‘I was annoyed one night and came home and spouted off to Angus about it. He told me to stop bellyaching and do something about it. He challenged me to make something bigger and better.’

She shook her head. ‘And the name?’

He shrugged. ‘How could it have been anything else? Blether—the Scots word for people who talk incessantly.’ He raised his eyebrows at her. ‘You should be able to relate.’

Her reaction was automatic; she elbowed him in the ribs. ‘Cheeky.’

They sat quietly for a few more seconds as she tried to take in everything he’d just told her. He must be worth millions—no, probably billions—and here he was, sitting at Annick Castle for a crazy Murder Mystery Weekend. It just didn’t make sense.

‘So, your background is in computers, then?’

He shook his head. ‘It should be, but it isn’t. I did pure mathematics at university.’

‘You did?’

He smiled and looked up at the castle. She could see the fondness in his eyes, see the memories flit across his face. ‘I wasn’t doing too well at school before I met Angus. My father didn’t believe in homework. And as a child I had other skills that were my priority.’

Something about the way he said the words sent a chill down her spine. He hadn’t emphasised them, or been too explicit, but it was almost as if the skills he was hinting at were survival skills.

‘Once I started spending time with Angus he used to sit me down at the kitchen table at night and go over my homework with me. He was methodical—and strict. He discovered I had a natural aptitude for maths and he bought me textbooks and journals that challenged me.’

‘So you did your homework here?’ It seemed the safest question to ask, without prying too much.

‘Pretty much. Angus helped me with my exams. He even helped me fill in my application for university.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘I got into Cambridge—and Oxford, but in the end I went to Edinburgh. I didn’t want to leave Scotland.’

‘You didn’t?’ She didn’t mean to sound so surprised; it just came out that way. It hadn’t even occurred to her for a second to turn down her university place at Cambridge. Did people actually do that? And how distracted would she have been if she’d met Callan at university?

He stood up and arched his back, obviously trying to relieve some tension. ‘Look around you, Laurie. What’s not to love?’

It was the way he said the words. So simple. Without a second thought.

And she did look around her.

At the magnificent sand-coloured castle looking out over the Scottish coastline.

At the immaculate maze.

At the colourful, impeccably kept gardens.

At the forest and vegetation around them, set against the start of a mountain range.

It was almost as if something sucked the air out of her lungs.

She lived her life in London. She spent her day jumping on and off the tube, breathing in other people’s air. She was surrounded by high-rise buildings and streets that often never saw any sunlight. Continual fights over parking spaces, and eternally rising rents.

She didn’t have a single friend in London that had a garden. Her own flat had a window box that she rarely filled with flowering shrubs—on the few occasions that she had she often forgot to water them.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d walked on grass. How long had it been since she’d gone to Hyde Park?

‘You want me to tell you a little of the history of the place?’

She nodded. She knew absolutely nothing about Annick Castle.

Callan sat back on the bench, resting his arm along the back as she settled next to him. His arm was brushing the top of her shoulders. It was as if a whole host of butterflies were flapping their wings against her skin. ‘The castle was built originally in the fifteen-hundreds.’ There was a gleam in his eyes. ‘There’s even a rumour that Mary Queen of Scots once stayed here. It was enlarged, rebuilt and the gardens planted in the seventeen-hundreds. The Earl of Annick’s family owned the estate for years. They were connected to the Kennedy family in Scotland who can trace their ancestry back to Robert the Bruce. In later years they had connections with some of the most powerful families in America.’

‘I had no idea. So how did the castle end up in the hands of Angus McLean?’

‘There were a number of properties like this all over Scotland. Some of them were poorly maintained because of the costs involved, others just weren’t lived in all year round. In 1945 a lot of them were handed over to the National Trust in Scotland. But this one had caught the eye of Angus’s father—he owned a pharmaceutical company and was about the only person who hadn’t gone bankrupt after the Second World War. He bought the place for a song.’

Laurie let a hiss of air out through her lips. Maybe not this castle, but something had been here for five hundred years. It was amazing. All that history in one place.

She could be sitting in the same place that Mary Queen of Scots had once stood.

Callan had reached out his hand towards her and she took it without question, letting him pull her up from the bench. Warmth encapsulated her hand. There was a chilly breeze coming off the sea and part of her wished he would wrap her in his arms.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘You wanted to see the grounds. Let’s go down to the swan pond.’

She followed him along the gravel path, winding past the fountain and flower beds. Small things started to prick her mind. Some of the plants here were a little wilder, a little less trimmed. The bushes weren’t quite as shaped as the ones underneath the castle windows.

‘Who looks after the grounds, Callan?’

He turned, his hand gesturing towards another set of steps. ‘Bert mostly. He has a few of the local boys who come and help him, but he generally scares them all off within a few months.’ He pointed back at the perfect green lawn. ‘Last year Angus persuaded him to let another company come in and cut the lawns and do the edging.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘You’ve no idea the fight that caused.’ There was a real affection in his voice.

She walked down the steps that were sheltered by some thick foliage. When she reached the bottom she let out a little gasp. She turned to face Callan. ‘When you said swan pond I was thinking of something much smaller.’

He gave a nod and a smile. ‘Some people don’t even know it exists. The castle grounds are sheltered and on an incline. It means that you have to walk down steps at each level.’ They walked closer to the edge of the pond. It was the size of around four football pitches and Laurie could see a few white swans bobbing in the middle.