Forever might not be for very long, she thought, remembering the old man’s frail handshake, but right now he was in bed happy, probably asleep, and so should she be. She was happily exhausted. But...
But what?
But nothing. She pushed back her covers and padded across to the long slit window through the two-foot thick stone walls. The moonlight was playing on the snow. In the distance she could see the twinkling lights of the village—did everyone have a Santa Claus on their chimney?
‘God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world,’ she murmured, and it was, but sleep was far away.
She’d loved Angus today. He’d thrown himself into Christmas heart and soul. He’d played dumb games with the kids, he’d seemingly made everyone happy, he was a host whose kindness spread to each and every one of his guests.
Christmas had been wonderful because of Angus.
Angus...
She’d go and check the ovens, she told herself, feeling desperate that sleep wouldn’t come and her dreams only had one direction. A Liege Lord in a kilt to die for...
No! Ovens, she told herself fiercely. She’d discovered the huge cleaned-up range was fantastic for bread-making but it needed to be stoked and damped down for the night and she hadn’t quite got the hang of it. She could just go see...
She shoved her feet into her furry boots and headed downstairs, pleased to have purpose behind her insomnia—and her errant thoughts. But then...
Angus was in the hall. He had his back to the great hearth, where the yule log smouldered and where lesser logs burned with dancing flames.
He looked up as she came downstairs, but he didn’t smile. It was almost as if he was expecting her.
‘I’m...I’m going to check the ovens,’ she said, struggling to make her voice work.
‘Maggie and I already checked them. Maggie says they’ll be perfect for your bread.’
‘I...thank you. I’ll go back to bed, then.’
‘Holly...’ And all of a sudden he was right there, right at the foot of the stairs and a girl should turn and run but there was no way in the world this girl was turning and running. Not now. Not on this magic night. Not when this man was standing before her, looking like...
Like he loved her?
Every sense was screaming be sensible at her, but there was something below, something so deep, so primeval that sense didn’t stand a chance. Angus was right here, right now, and yes, a sensible woman should back away because she’d made a lot of very sensible resolutions and so had he, but suddenly there didn’t seem to be an ounce of sensible left in either of them.
‘Angus,’ she said stupidly and he smiled and took her hands and drew her to him.
‘Holly,’ he said and it was as if wedding vows were spoken with that word. Love, honour, commitment—somehow she heard them all. Maybe it was wishful thinking, maybe it was pure fancy, but her head was no longer responding to instructions. This was pure heart. This was pure, instinctive need.
For this was her man and he was holding her, needing her and she wanted him as she’d wanted nothing else in her life.
‘Come to my bed,’ he said as he kissed her hair and drew her closer, closer and her body melted, just like that. She had nothing left to fight with and who wanted to fight anyway? This was her lord, her love, her gorgeous, gorgeous Angus, and he wanted her and she ached for him and nothing else mattered.
‘You’re already wearing my ring,’ he told her. ‘I love that you’re wearing it, but it involves a promise. You’re not my paid fiancée, Holly McIntosh, you’re the woman I want more than anything else in the world. I’d give you my castle, my kingdom, my heart. I do give them to you. Holly, I love you and I want you in my bed. I want you for the rest of my life. I’ll take a no if I must but if you could possibly see that scrap around your finger for the gold it should be...’
‘I think I do,’ she managed, somehow getting her voice to work. ‘I’m sure I do.’ And she wound her hands around his body, tilting her face to meet his, feeling his arms enfold her, lift her and finally carry her in triumph up the sweeping staircase to the vast lordly bedroom beyond.
‘I do,’ she whispered as he pushed the door open with his foot, as he carried her across the bedroom, as he laid her with all reverence on the huge four-poster bed and then sank down beside her to gather her in to him. ‘Oh, Angus, I do, I do, I do.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE TIME BETWEEN Christmas and Hogmanay was magic. Time out of this world. A fairy tale. For those within the castle walls, the rest of the world might not have existed.
And the way Holly looked at Angus, the way Angus looked at Holly, was just perfect.
‘They’re such a wonderful couple,’ Delia said, over and over again to anyone who’d listen. ‘I never thought I’d see a Lord of Castle Craigie who knew what it was to love.’
‘He’s my son,’ Helen said fondly, seemingly finally reassured. ‘He’s nothing like his father.’
But, strangely, Maggie wasn’t so certain. She watched her granddaughter with eyes that held reservations, but by the end of the week even she was being drawn into the fairy tale. Or Angus and Holly were trying to draw her in.
‘You’ll come to Manhattan with us,’ Holly said and she’d managed to laugh.
‘I won’t, but we’ll worry about that in the New Year. This is like the Cinderella story, with midnight being the day after Hogmanay. For now, let’s soak up the ball.’
‘It won’t end,’ Holly said stoutly. ‘Gran, he’s wonderful. He’s not the least like his father. You must be able to see it.’
But, I don’t see him giving much, Maggie thought. Yes, he’s being generous but Helen says he can afford to be. In the end he’s talking about taking my girl back to his castle, to his Manhattan. You show me a Lord that gives and I might believe it.
She didn’t say it, though. Holly was in a bubble of love and laughter, and for this time, for this magic season, she wouldn’t burst that bubble. She could only hope that the bubble was an old woman’s worried fancy, and Holly’s happy ever after was solid, loving fact.
‘Angus is so much fun,’ ten-year-old Polly exclaimed as she swooped past, freshly baked muffin in her hand, on her way from one Very Exciting Adventure to another. Angus had organised ice skates and they were off to try their skills on the shallow pond behind the chapel. ‘But Holly’s awesome, too, and Angus has wrapped Mum up in blankets and she’s there waiting to watch me skate. This place is like magic. Even Mum says it’s magic.’
And she was gone, enthralled with her fairy tale, leaving Maggie with her faint doubts and her desperate hope that she was wrong.
‘I hope it’s me being paranoid,’ she muttered, but then she knew...what Holly didn’t know. She hadn’t explained it to her before the job came up, and afterwards... Would Holly have taken the job if she’d known? Probably not.
‘But it shouldn’t make a difference,’ she told herself. ‘He has every right to do what he’s doing.’
But maybe it did make a difference. The more she saw of Angus’s wealth, the more she thought it.
When she’d pushed Holly to go to London with him she hadn’t thought through the ramifications. Almost as soon as they’d left, those worries had surfaced and they were on the surface still.
So tell Holly?
She’d figure it out. In time.
Would she mind?
Oh, Holly... Maggie thought, deciding that Holly might mind very much.
‘I’ll tell her after Hogmanay,’ she told herself. ‘After her Cinderella midnight.’
* * *
Hogmanay. Holly and Maggie had put more effort into this than they had Christmas, and they had the entire Castle population behind them. Even the children had worked. This was the party to end parties, the farewell of the Castle to the v
illage. Everyone was seeing it as the landmark it was.
‘It’s the end of a long line of appalling landowners,’ Angus said in grim satisfaction. ‘I’ve had an offer from an Arabian oil tycoon. I’m heading to Glasgow on Wednesday to sign. He’ll turn the place into a magnificent hunting and golf resort and the old Lords of Castle Craigie will be nothing but a dim memory.’
On the surface it seemed perfect.
But...
Maggie watched the preparations and knew she wasn’t the only one feeling desolate, but it wasn’t her way to show self-pity, not on such a day. They had the old place gleaming. They’d been cooking for days. The kids had built a bonfire to end all bonfires. They’d organised games for all ages. Holly had even attempted to make enough haggis to feed all.
Maggie watched the villagers come, she watched their awe at the transformation, and she thought: what if...? What if...?
What if nothing. Angus was selling and moving on, as was his right. He’d take Holly with him as was his wish.
The Lord of Castle Craigie had the last word.
* * *
It wasn’t until the bonfire was lit, until the first leaping flames had died down a little and Holly stood among a group of weary, food-and-fun sated villagers that she realised there was sadness.
She’d been watching the flames. She turned and the two women closest to her were hugging each other, and one was weeping.
Who knew why? Maggie knew these people but she didn’t. It wasn’t her business to enquire.
But she’d spent the past couple of weeks making people happy. These tears seemed wrong.
‘Can I help?’ she enquired gently of the two women. ‘Would you like me to take you into the Castle, show you to somewhere private?’
‘I...no, thanks, miss.’ The dry-eyed one was suddenly moist as well. ‘It’s just...it’s going to be so hard. We got the final notices yesterday.’
‘Notices?’
‘Vacating requirements,’ the woman said. ‘Two months. Mr Stanley says that’s more than generous but it’s still heart-breaking. We’ve been here all our lives. It’s fine for them who can afford to buy, but so few of us can. With the latest financial crisis, even those of us with good paying jobs can’t get credit to buy. Craigenstone’s finished. Your Gran... Us... This day marks the end. It’s the first time in living memory the Lord has celebrated Hogmanay, that he’s acted like a Laird instead of a Lord, but isn’t it fitting that he’s celebrating being shot of the lot of us?’
And Holly’s mind turned to stone, just like that.
The sale of the Castle. Craigenstone’s finished.
Oh, my...
Her head was whirling, trying to grasp facts, and the facts she saw looming up out of the abyss were appalling. And it was as if the abyss had been there all along, but she hadn’t looked. She hadn’t seen it. She hadn’t even glimpsed it.
How could she have been so blind?
Gran hadn’t told her.
But she had. Her head was sending her back three weeks ago, to the day she’d arrived.
‘The landlord’s selling after all these years. I should have saved, but Holly, somehow I never dreamed... What a stupid old woman.’
She’d heard Maggie say it and she’d felt ill, but she’d imagined one landlord, one cottage. Not an entire village.
‘What...what do you mean, acting like a Laird and not a Lord?’ she managed and one of the women gave a short, humourless laugh.
‘A Laird is Himself,’ she said. ‘He’s the keeper of the estate, the one who cares. We’ve never had one here and now we never will. We’ve always had a Lord, but what good is that to us? Nothing at all, and now less than ever.’
They turned away, distressed, and Holly was left on her own. She found her feet wandering aimlessly to the back of the bonfire, away from the crowds. She needed space.
She needed sense.
She was Australian. She hadn’t seen the picture, but now...she’d read enough historical novels to get what was happening.
The estate wasn’t just the castle; it was the whole of Craigenstone, and an oil tycoon buying an estate to form a hunting/golf resort would want as many of the picturesque stone cottages as he could get. It sounded as if Angus had offered to let the villagers buy theirs if they wanted—if they could afford it—but the remainder would go in the sale.
She saw Stanley standing a little apart, with the same grim stance as he’d always had. She didn’t like the man. She knew Angus was only putting up with him because there was no one else who knew the place, but still, he gave her the creeps.
Now she forced herself to go forward and talk to him.
‘How many cottages are being sold to their tenants?’ she asked him directly and he didn’t even bother turning towards her to answer.
‘Ten.’
‘Out of?’
‘Sixty. The buyer would have taken them as a job lot but His Lordship insisted tenants be given the option.’
‘Nice of him,’ she snapped and something inside her snapped too.
When she thought of what this Christmas had cost there hadn’t been a quibble. She’d looked Angus up on the Internet; he’d even shown her. He was part-owner of one of the biggest financial institutions in the world.
Christmas here would be a drop in the ocean of his wealth. What he’d get for this village would be nothing in his vast financial ocean.
But he wanted to be shot of it. While he owned the Castle he was compared to his father; he was Lord of Castle Craigie and he didn’t like it.
So why not sell it?
He was selfish, just like Geoff, she thought, feeling sick to the heart. How could she have been so blind twice?
Her feet were still acting of their own accord, finding their way seemingly all on their own to the back of the crowd, where he stood, a tall, solitary lord surveying the scene he’d created.
She’d thought she loved this man. She’d given him her body. And her heart?
No! Head, not heart. Had she learned nothing?
‘Angus...’
He turned and saw her and he knew at once that something was wrong. His brows snapped down in a frown. ‘Love?’
‘I’m not,’ she said carefully, ‘your love.’
‘That’s not what you said this morning.’
‘This morning,’ she said carefully, ‘I didn’t know you were evicting an entire village.’
‘I’m not,’ he said, startled.
‘You’re selling the estate. The entire district of Craigenstone.’
‘I am, but...’
‘But what?’
‘But it’s time it stopped being feudal,’ he said gently. ‘This Hogmanay might well be in keeping with centuries of tradition, but a Lord has no place in these people’s lives. You know that. All I’m doing is moving into the twenty-first century.’
‘All you’re doing is going home to Manhattan.’
‘That’s unfair.’ His dark brows had snapped down. ‘Holly, these people don’t want me. They didn’t want my father or my grandfather before him.’
‘Maybe they did, but they didn’t get them.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I mean this village is gorgeous,’ Holly said. ‘It’s ringed by mountains, it’s freezing in winter, it’s probably invaded by midges in summer, yes there are downsides, but even I can see that this is a community, not a collection of individual cottages. And a community needs a leader. Yet you’re going to make a fortune and walk away, leaving these people with what? Golf?’
‘With their own homes.’
‘Not with their own homes. Ten out of sixty are buying. The rest are leaving.’
‘That’s their choice.’
‘How can it be their choice? How dare you s
ay that?’ She was practically yelling. ‘With the global financial crisis in full swing, how do you expect someone like Gran to get a loan? Her parents, her parents’ parents and parents’ parents’ parents lived in this village, right next door to the cottage she lives in now, and as a bride she moved next door, to where her husband’s people had done the same. They’ve never been offered the choice to buy, so they’ve never thought of it. And now, pow, eviction, and off they’ll go to some welfare housing in the city. If they’re lucky.’
‘Would you keep your voice down?’ he said and, to her fury, he sounded amused. The bonfire was still crackling. The bagpipes, which someone had been playing in the background, had died while everyone watched the flames so Holly’s fury could be heard. ‘Holly, it’s not that bad. If anyone really wants to stay, they can.’
‘How?’
‘I’ve organised finance. I have it available. If your Gran or anyone like her wishes to stay in their cottage then they can. The rent they’re paying now will cover the interest. It’s an interest-only loan, not repayable until they move out, or in the case of direct descendants, until the next generation moves out. Then the cottage will be sold and the loan called in at point of sale. Villagers can elect to sell any time they want—no pressure.’
‘That’s not what Gran told me.’
‘It’s what I’m telling you.’
‘Even if it’s true, it’s still splitting the village; you’re still killing a community.’
‘That’s nothing to do with me,’ he said, but as she looked at him she saw a faint trace of unease. This night—or, more, this gathering in the Castle over Christmas—must surely have shown him how important community could be. ‘Holly, the feudal system is dead. I can’t be expected to stay here as Liege Lord, the same as my father.’
‘So you’re acting as ruthlessly as your father would have: abandoning them, heading off to Manhattan to make more money...’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘Why does Gran have to sell her house?’
‘She doesn’t.’
‘She does. She doesn’t have a choice. And why is Edna Black crying? Why is Essie McLeod sobbing along with her? Why is this whole community disintegrating while you make money?’
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