The Heir’s Chosen Bride

CHAPTER TEN

KIRSTY and Jake and assorted kids left soon after. The arrangement was that they were taking Susie to the airport the next day-Jake had organised medical cover for the town from a locum service so both doctors could leave. They took all the kids home with them to give Susie a clear run with her packing.

‘We’ll be here at eight tomorrow to pick you up,’ Kirsty told her twin.

‘I’ll be ready,’ Susie promised.

And Hamish thought once again, Why didn’t she cry? She should be crying.

She cried at pumpkins. Why didn’t she cry now? Suddenly he thought he wanted her to cry. It’d be OK if she cried, he decided. It was the set, wooden expression on her face that he hated.

He stood in the hall and waited while she waved them off from the front step, and he was waiting for her as she returned.

‘What would you like me to do?’ he asked softly, and she glanced at him with suspicion.

‘Nothing.’

‘I’ll go down to the beach, then,’ he said. ‘Just for a last check.’

‘Taffy’s dead.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘Yes, I do. I’m not stupid. Ten-week-old puppy in this terrain… I see things how they are, Hamish. Not how I want them to be.’

‘You should be able to hope…’

‘I gave up on that when I buried Rory,’ she said flatly. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I have things to do.’

‘Can I help you pack?’ He should butt out, he thought. He was adding to her distress just by being here. He felt so damned helpless…

‘I would appreciate help in Angus’s room,’ she said, and then looked as if she regretted saying it.

‘What needs doing in Angus’s room?’

‘It’s just…’ She hesitated. ‘I’ve never cleared it out. I mean, it all belongs to you but I thought…his personal stuff…most of it needs to be thrown away but I don’t want Marcia doing it.’ The last few words were said in a rush, fiercely, and he thought she’d burst into tears but she didn’t. She was pale and almost defiant, tilting her chin as though expecting to meet a fight.

‘Marcia’s the least sentimental of all of us,’ he said mildly and her chin came forward another inch.

‘All the more reason why she shouldn’t be the one who takes care of it.’

So on a night when she should be doing her own personal packing, when the last vestiges of the search party made vain sweeps of the beach and the hillside looking for Taffy, when Kirsty and Jake cared for the kids so Susie could spend one night alone with her memories, she and Hamish sat on Angus’s bedroom floor and sorted…stuff.

Stuff.

Deirdre’s stuff and Angus’s stuff. The old man hadn’t cleared his wife’s things, and everything was still there.

The clothes were easy. They’d go to the welfare shops. Hamish could be trusted with that so, with the exception of Angus’s kilt and sporran and beret, they were bundled into boxes to be carted away.

But the kilt and beret and sporran… ‘I don’t know what to do with these,’ Susie whispered, holding up a kilt that was far too small for Hamish.

Hamish fingered the fabric, watching the graceful fall of the pleats, thinking of the times Angus must have worn this, the number of fêtes he’d opened in this town, the affection in which he’d been held.

‘Is there a local museum?’

‘No.’

‘A library maybe?’

‘Yes…’

‘Then why don’t we donate it as a display?’ he suggested. ‘I could donate the cost of a display cabinet. We could put Angus’s and Deirdre’s photos in it, photos that show them as they were, vibrant and having fun, and set this costume up beside it. Do you think the locals would like it?’

There was a moment’s hesitation. Had he said the wrong thing?

Would she cry?

She didn’t cry. ‘That’d be wonderful,’ she said in a small voice. ‘Can I leave it with you to see that it’s done?’

‘Of course.’

She nodded, a brisk, businesslike little nod that had him wishing, wishing she’d falter a little, give him room…

Room to what?

‘I’m not marrying Marcia,’ he said into the stillness, and her head jerked up from the papers she was sorting.

‘You’re what?’

He hadn’t even known he was going to say it. He hadn’t even really thought about it.

Or maybe he had.

He’d approached marriage to Marcia as he approached business propositions, he thought. The marriage would be advantageous to both of them. But these last few days had been like the switching on of a lightbulb in a dimly lit room. Suddenly he could see colour where before he’d only seen grey.

Suddenly he’d not only stopped fearing emotion, he was thinking a bit more emotion wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

Like Susie crying so he could hug her better?

‘Does Marcia know you’re not marrying her?’ Susie asked. Her head lowered again, and her voice dulled. She was in a grey world of her own right now, he thought, methodically packing stuff into boxes, lifting Angus’s papers, checking them, putting unwanted ones in a pile to be burned. Shifting the detritus of a past life. Absorbed in her own misery.

‘I’ll tell her tonight.’

‘I’d appreciate it if you left it until I was gone. She’s going to blame me.’

‘Why should she blame you?’

There was a twisted smile at that. ‘I’m a corrupting influence,’ she said dryly. ‘I make you leave your Blackberry at home when we go to the beach.’

‘That’s a good thing, too,’ he said stoutly and then watched her for a bit more as she went back to sorting papers. ‘Susie, do you have to do this? I can do it after you leave.’

‘Angus would want me to. I should have done it before this. I just…I couldn’t bear to.’ She hesitated. ‘Will Marcia be upset, do you think?’

He thought about it. Would Marcia be heartbroken? No. But maybe her pride would be hurt. ‘I think maybe I should have told her before I told you,’ he said ruefully.

‘Yeah, she’d hate that. Well, forget you told me. I’ll forget I know.’

‘I need you to know,’ he said softly, and it was true.

Silence. She bent her head over her sheath of documents. A pile of notepaper, pastel blue.

More silence. Where was he going here? He didn’t know.

Five minutes ago he’d been engaged to Marcia. He still could be, he thought, confused. What he’d said didn’t have to go out of this room. It wasn’t irrevocable.

But it was irrevocable, and the more he thought about it the more irrevocable it seemed. Engaged? He wasn’t engaged to Marcia. Engaged meant entwined, linked, connected. He surely wasn’t entwined, linked, connected to Marcia.

Tonight he’d watched Kirsty and Jake over the dinner table. He’d seen their eyes meet as they’d shared their distress. And that glance… It had been nothing, but it had meant everything.

He wanted that sort of communication with the woman he married. He didn’t want to share a beach-towel with a laptop.

‘Go to bed,’ he told Susie, softly because he wasn’t sure what his head was doing-where his thoughts were taking him. He needed time to think this through.

‘These are personal. I need to sort them.’

‘I’ll pack them up and send them to you.’

‘No. You pack the clothes.’

‘Susie, you need to pack your own gear. The way you’re going you won’t get to bed tonight. It’s not as if you can sleep on the plane. Rose will be a full-time job.’

‘That’s not your business,’ she snapped.

It wasn’t. But, hell, he couldn’t bear to see this.

‘There’s nothing so personal-’

‘These are letters,’ she cut across his protest, fiercely angry. ‘These are personal letters.’

‘Then maybe we shouldn’t read them at all.’

‘No.’ Her anger faded a little at that, but the pain seemed to remain. She was kneeling on the floor by Angus’s bedside cabinet, papers spread around her. Still in her shorts and T-shirt, with her hair tangled and wisping round her face-the last thing she’d thought of today had been brushing her hair-she looked absurdly young. How could this slip of a girl be a mother? Hamish wondered. How could she be a landscape gardener by herself? Susie against the world?

‘Listen to this,’ she said softly, and he paused in his folding of sweaters and let himself watch her face again. She was holding herself rigidly under control, he thought, so rigidly that at any minute it seemed she might crack.

‘Listen to what?’

‘I know…well, maybe I know that we ought to burn these without reading them,’ she whispered. ‘But Angus knew he was dying, and he left them. So maybe…maybe…’

‘What?’

‘Maybe he didn’t mind us reading them. Maybe he was even proud of them. This is from Deirdre. Way back when she was shopping for the contents of this castle. We’re talking forty years back.’

‘It’s not too personal?’

‘You need to know a bit of back-story,’ she told him, ignoring his query. ‘Angus put a huge amount into this castle, because building it provided an industry for the men of the town in a time of recession. But the locals say he scared himself with how much it cost, and when it came to furnishings he turned into a real scrooge.’

‘I can’t imagine the Angus I’ve heard about being tight with his money,’ he said, and Susie’s face softened in agreement.

‘Neither can I. But listen to this. Deirdre’s obviously in the city on a buying spree, writing to Angus back home.’

My love, we have children!

Angus, darling, it’s one of the great sadnesses of our marriage that we haven’t been blessed with babies and we can’t adopt. Well, I’ve found a replacement. No, sweetheart, I haven’t picked up a couple of strays, much as I’m always hopeful a couple will come our way. But today I’ve found Eric and Ernst.

Who are Eric and Ernst? I can hear you say it in increasing trepidation. Irish wolfhounds, maybe? Diggers up of vegetable gardens?

No.

They’re warriors. They stand eight feet tall in their gauntleted-is that what you call it?-feet. They’re a sort of made-in-Japan imitation suit of armour, real and ready to fight, lifelike right up to the eyes in their visors-white glass eyes with a little black pupil that bobs up and down when you lift the visor up and peer in. I found them in the back of a theatre-prop-cum-junk-shop and they’re so neglected. Angus, Ernst is missing a leg! Can you believe that? We’ll need to build him a new one. Do you know a leg builder? They’re shop soiled and tattered and unloved, and I just looked at them and knew they were destined to stay with us for as long as we live.

Anyway, dearest, kindest Angus, this is to say that we’re coming home on Friday and if you were planning on meeting the train in your car can you think again? I talked to the nice man at the railways today and he says he can’t guarantee they’ll be safe in the goods car so I’ve bought two extra tickets. Ernst and Eric can sit in the carriage with me. Isn’t that the best thing? Can you imagine it? Oh, my dear, I’m so excited. I so want you to meet them. You and me and Eric and Ernst, ready to live happily ever after from this moment forth.

There was a long silence.

It was a ridiculous letter.

Hamish thought of Marcia writing such a letter, and couldn’t.

He tried to imagine Susie writing such a letter-and could, very, very easily.

Susie and Deirdre. Twin souls?

There were too many twins. His head was spinning.

‘Why couldn’t she have children?’ he asked at last, trying to sound neutral. ‘Surely forty years ago adoption was an option?’ He was changing the subject here, and he wasn’t quite sure what he was changing it from, but he was starting to feel desperate.

‘Deirdre was profoundly deaf,’ Susie said softly, rereading the letter with a smile. ‘I imagine adoption agencies wouldn’t see deafness as a desirable attribute in adoptive couples. From what I know of Deirdre, she might have excluded herself on those grounds.’

That floored him. He sat back on his heels and thought of what he knew of Deirdre.

‘I thought she was a nurse during the war.’

‘She was.’

‘How could she be a nurse if she was deaf?’

‘She worked in a rehabilitation hospital. I imagine she would have fought tooth and nail to be useful. Lack of hearing wouldn’t have stopped her. From what I’ve heard of Deirdre, she refused ever to stand still. Half the older generation of this town knows some sort of sign language as everyone wanted to talk to her. They tell me she was irresistible. Angus loved her so much.’

The twin thing slammed back again. Deirdre and Susie, taking on life no matter what life threw at them.

‘How could they ever have communicated?’

‘Without e-mail?’ Susie said dryly. ‘It’s beyond comprehension, isn’t it? But Angus said he woke up one morning in his army hospital; she was standing by his bed and she smiled at him-and he just knew.’

‘Love across a crowded room,’ he said disparagingly. ‘Right.’

‘One of the other soldiers had lent him a magazine like Playboy,’ she continued, ignoring his attempt at sarcasm. ‘He’d gone to sleep with Bunny of the Month splayed across his chest. He woke and Deirdre was giggling and he thought, Sod bunnies, this is the one I want.’

Sod bunnies.

Susie was smiling again. When she smiled it was as if the sun came out, Hamish thought, and Angus’s words slammed into his consciousness with the force of a high-voltage charge.

This is the one I want.

‘I don’t suppose…’ he said into the stillness, and then paused.

‘You don’t suppose what?’ She was back to sorting, her head down, her curls falling forward, intent on the task at hand.

‘I don’t suppose you’d like to marry me?’

There was complete and utter silence in the room, and the silence lasted for ever.

What had he said? The words rang round and round in the silence, echoing over and over. He hadn’t meant to say them, he thought wildly. They were just suddenly-there.

‘Marry,’ Susie said at last, and she sounded like she’d been winded. ‘You’re asking me to marry you.’

‘Yes.’ He thought about it, wondering what on earth he was saying, but somehow the words still sounded right. His proposal might have been made on the spur of the moment, but that was definitely the gist of what he’d been asking.

‘And you’re asking me to marry you because?’ Susie demanded. She had her breath back now, and was sounding politely bemused. Which was wrong. He didn’t want her to sound politely bemused.

‘I suspect I’m in love with you,’ he managed, and listened to what he’d said and thought, Yep, that sounds OK, too. He sounded confused-but then he was feeling confused. About some things.

Not marriage. He was sure about this.

‘You’re engaged to Marcia.’

‘I’m not marrying Marcia.’

‘Marcia thinks you’re marrying Marcia.’

‘I’ve made a mistake,’ he said. ‘Jodie told me I was making a mistake and I didn’t see it. It’s only now-’

‘Who’s Jodie? Another fiancée?’

‘Jodie’s with Nick. He’s a woodcarver.’ He thought about the way Jodie had said goodbye to him, the way she’d dared him to take this holiday and move on.

Jodie would be proud of him.

‘So you moved on to Marcia?’

‘Jodie’s my secretary.’

‘She’s still in your life?’

‘Susie, can we get back to the issue at hand?’

‘Which is that you’d like to marry me.’

‘Yes.’ This was dumb, he thought. He was sitting on one side of the room in a tangle of sweaters and socks. She was sitting on the far side of Angus’s bed, surrounded by papers. He should be down on one knee on her side of the room. At the very least they should just have had a candlelit dinner-not the Country Women’s Association Tuna Surprise.

He thought of the finesse of his proposal to Marcia and the dinner that had preceded it and he almost grinned. But not quite. A survival instinct was kicking in here, telling him that chuckling over cliché engagement settings wasn’t quite the thing to do right now.

‘Why do you think you love me?’ She still had the conversational tone. He’d like to move closer but her words…they were like a defence, he thought. A bit brittle. A bit too casual.

‘Susie, I don’t want you going back to the States by yourself.’

‘I’m not going by myself. I’m going with Rosie.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘I’m not sure what you’re suggesting here.’ She still hadn’t moved and neither had he. It was like some crazy, stilted conversation about something that concerned neither of them. ‘Are you saying you want me to stay here and you’ll stay, too-or are you saying you want me to come back with you?’

He hadn’t thought that far ahead. He tried to make his mind work, but there was something akin to fog blanketing everything. Making it impossible to apply logic.

He was terrified, he thought suddenly. He was just plain terrified. Stepping off into some abyss…

‘Hey, Hamish, I’m not going to accept,’ she said gently. There’s no reason to look like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like I’m a cliff edge,’ she said gently. ‘I won’t do that to you.’

‘You’re no cliff edge.’ But he’d been thinking that. How had she known?

‘You don’t really want to marry me.’

‘I do.’ This seemed important. If he kept saying it then it’d start to make sense, he decided. It must make sense.

‘What would you do with me?’ She almost sounded amused. ‘Back in Manhattan?’

‘You could work. There’s all sorts of landscaping jobs.’

‘Window-boxes to be planted out. That sort of thing.’

‘We’d get a place further out,’ he said, starting to sound as dopy as he felt. ‘I can commute-or stay in Manhattan during the week and come home at weekends.’

‘In the tiny gaps you have from work.’

‘At least you wouldn’t be alone.’

She let her breath out in a long exhalation. She looked at him then, really looked at him-and then she pushed herself to her feet.

‘Hamish, this is crazy. You haven’t thought it out. Forget you said it. It’s time I went to bed. I’ll get up early and see how much of this I can cope with then.’

She was letting him off the hook, he thought, but he didn’t want to be off the hook. Sure, he hadn’t thought this through, but the essentials were there. He rose with speed, crossing to stand before her, reaching out to grasp her wrists and hold her at arm’s length.

‘Susie, it could work,’ he said urgently.

‘Don’t be daft.’

‘I’m not daft.’

‘If you didn’t feel sorry for me,’ she said softly, ‘would you be even thinking of marriage?’

‘No, I-’

‘That’s what I thought,’ she said flatly and hauled her arms back.

‘No!’ His word exploded across the room, frightening in its intensity. He took her hands in his, urgent. ‘Susie, it’s not like that.’

‘It’s not?’ She swallowed, seemingly as confused as he was. Struggling to figure things out. ‘If I wasn’t limping, would you be thinking you could possibly let Marcia down?’

‘I can’t marry Marcia. Not feeling as I do about you.’

‘But you’re talking about commuting. In the gaps from work. In the same breath as a proposal. To stop me being lonely.’ She took a deep breath and carefully, carefully disengaged her hands. ‘Hamish, when I was single I loved having my own space. I had lots of friends and loneliness didn’t come into it.’

‘But you’re lonely now.’

‘Because I met Rory,’ she said softly. ‘When he and I were together there wasn’t loneliness. How could there be? Sure, there were nights when we were forced to be apart, but our phone bills were enormous and we’d go to sleep talking to each other. Thinking of each other.’

‘As you and I-’

‘Shut up and let me finish,’ she told him, and her voice was almost kindly. ‘Because it’s important. Rory died and I learned what loneliness is. It’s the awful, awful emptiness when people leave.’

‘Susie…’

‘It gets filled,’ she said, almost conversationally. ‘Now I’m alone I’ve gone back a little to how I was. I depend on me for my company. It’s taken two years but I’ve learned to cope. But, you know, Kirsty comes to dinner, and then she leaves and the loneliness closes over me again. I fell for Angus and it was good, but when he died, it was bleakness all over again. Emptiness. You know, there are lots of single people who don’t like people staying overnight because the house seems so empty when they’re gone. Loneliness happens again and again and what you’re offering… Hamish, every time you walked out the door I’d be alone.’

‘I’d have to work,’ he said, startled, but she shook her head, as if she was sad about his incomprehension.

‘Yes, but when you went to work I wouldn’t come with you.’

‘What the-?’

‘In your heart,’ Susie whispered. As he stared at her in confusion, she smiled. ‘Hamish, you don’t understand and maybe if I hadn’t had it with Rory then I wouldn’t understand either. But Hamish, I’ve fallen in love with you.’

She’d fallen in love… He reached for her but she took a step back, holding up her hands to ward him off.

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No,’ she said softly. ‘If you think that makes a difference…’

‘Of course it makes a difference. I’ve fallen for you, too, Susie.’

‘Have you?’ she said. ‘You’ve spent your whole life defending yourself, learning not to let anyone close, and you’re not about to stop now. You’re going to spend our entire married life waiting for me to manipulate you. If I was fool enough to marry you. Which I’m not.’

‘I know you won’t manipulate me.’

‘No, you don’t. You don’t know anything about me.’

‘I know you’re the most courageous person I’ve ever met.’

‘That’s pity,’ she said flatly. ‘Not love. If I died tomorrow, would you cry?’

‘I don’t cry,’ he said before he could stop himself, and she stilled.

There was a long, long pause.

‘No, she said at last. ‘You don’t cry.’

‘Susie, I’m not emotional.’

‘Well, there you go, then,’ she said softly. ‘Maybe we’re a match after all, because neither am I.’

‘Are you kidding?’

‘You see, that’s the problem,’ she whispered. ‘What you see is on the outside. You’re thinking you might marry the outside. But inside…you don’t have a clue. You just don’t have a clue. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to bed.’ She made to push past him but he stepped across the doorway.

‘Susie, please, think about it. It’d be sensible.’

‘It’d be committing me to loneliness for the rest of my life,’ she whispered. ‘Even I think I deserve better than that.’