There was a tentative knock on the door, and Cousin Isobel sidled into the morning-room which Fiona had appropriated for her own use. Repressing an impatient sigh, she glanced up from the sheaves of papers she’d been poring over.

“Yes, Cousin?”

“Good morning! How are you, Fiona dear?” Isobel came up to the desk at which Fiona sat, on her plump face an expression of concerned anxiety which Fiona found almost unbearably irritating. “I mean—that is—how are you really? You do look troubled! Are you—oh dear, are you in pain? That is—”

“I’m fine! I look troubled because I’ve been studying these household receipts. Someone has apparently been spending a shocking amount of money on French champagne.”

Cousin Isobel bridled. “I’m sure we can guess who that is! I don’t even need to say the name—just the initials! D.M.! Do you know what he had the temerity to say to me yesterday? Why, he—mercy me, look at all those china figurines! Why are they all pushed to one side? And who has pulled all the curtains down?”

“I have. They’re too heavy for this room. Besides, I like the view, and sunlight.”

“Oh! And the figurines? How delightful they are! I’m very fond of those pastoral scenes. So picturesque.”

Fiona shrugged. “If I want to be surrounded by shepherdesses and goose girls, I’ll go outside and find some to talk to. Besides, I can’t stand their vacant painted-on eyes—they look so stupid I want to break them in two. Ugh. After I’m done here, servants will take them away, to a different saloon, and move my desk closer to the window.”

“How busy you are, and so terribly brave,” said Isobel, with a sympathetic titter that had Fiona clenching her teeth, “and despite the dreadful circumstances! How I wish we could leave! Of course, we’d have to somehow go back in time, before your marriage! How complicated life is! What was I saying before? Oh! The figurines! If I may be so bold, Fiona dear—since you don’t want them here— they do remind me of—perhaps I might be permitted to dust them, when they’ve found their new home? They are so very, very delicate! I wouldn’t trust even the best housemaid to be careful with them!”

“There’s no need for that, Cousin. Now that the wedding is over, I no longer require a chaperone. It’s time for you to go home.”

Although Fiona had, for many days, been looking forward to Isobel’s departure with enormous pleasure, she took care just now to keep her tone mild. Yet she was unprepared for the way her cousin’s soft round visage seemed to crumple like that of a child who’d just been harshly scolded.

“Home? Oh, Fiona dear! I—I haven’t any home! I had to sell my house in Edinburgh, you know, for though that delightful Mr. Watson —so handsome, so charming!—assured me his investments would yield an enormous return, he took my cheque and I never saw him again. I was never so deceived in all my life! I—I am afraid I am quite penniless now.” Isobel sat abruptly, and wept into the lacy scrap of handkerchief she tugged from her little reticule.

“Yes, Mother had mentioned something about your house.” Fiona fiddled with a dry quill, running her fingers along the feathers. “I meant you would go home to Wick Bay, and bear Mother company. I know she’d be glad to have you.”

Isobel lifted a red, wet face. “Oh! Your mother is the dearest, kindest person in the world, and I love her most sincerely, but—oh, my dear Fiona, I am—well, I’m ashamed to confess that I’m rather afraid of your father! I—I do try my best to conceal it, but when he is in a bad mood, which he so often is, my very bones seem to melt with terror. Not that he would hurt me—at least I do not think so—but he is so tall! And so fierce! The knife he always carries at his belt, positively murderous! And the way he frowns at one! Please allow me to stay here with you! I’ll do anything you like, and endeavor diligently to not be an added expense! In fact, you may move me to a smaller room at once. Anything will do! I’m sure I don’t need a fireplace, or a window!”

Now here, Fiona realized, was a difficulty. If she did what she wanted, and sent Isobel back to Wick Bay, she would feel like a monster. Her heart already felt like a lifeless stone within her. She didn’t need more weight hanging upon it. Oh well, she told herself, the castle was enormous. Isobel could potter around from dawn till dusk, dusting figurines, and (with luck) keeping out of Fiona’s way.

“Very well,” she said, trying to keep the grudging reluctance out of her voice, and hoping she wouldn’t regret her change of mind. “You may stay, Cousin.” The sudden radiance on Isobel’s face brought no answering smile from her; she added, as pleasantly as she could, “If you’ll excuse me? I have so much to do this morning.”

Isobel jumped to her feet, cramming her sopping little handkerchief back into her reticule. “Of course! Oh, thank you, Fiona dear! I will make myself very useful to you—I promise!”

As Fiona once again turned her attention to the household accounts, she had no idea, no prescient little prickle, that one day, Cousin Isobel’s words would come back to haunt her.

It was late in the afternoon when Alasdair and Duff returned from the village, where they had enjoyed a hearty repast at the Gilded Osprey. They strolled into the Great Hall, and came upon a veritable army of servants busily rearranging the long tables within it. His steward Lister, whom he had left not three hours ago happily totting up columns of numbers in his small office off the Hall, now stood supervising.

“What’s going on here?” he asked.

Lister turned to him at once. “Mistress’s orders, laird,” he explained in his quiet, calm way.

“Orders for what? To throw my household into chaos?”

“The mistress felt the tables had been poorly placed, laird, causing great inconvenience to the serving folk as well as slowing the delivery of hot dishes to the high table.”

Alasdair scanned the Hall. It was immediately apparent that the tables had not, in fact, previously been arranged in the best configuration, but even as he tried to stop himself the fatal words came out:

“This is how it’s always been done.”

“Women!” commented Uncle Duff, and that single word was like spark to tinder. Alasdair felt his temper rising sharply and he demanded of Lister:

“Where is the mistress?”

“In her morning-room, laird. The room that was—” Lister hesitated, as if wondering if there were a better way to say it. But, of course, there wasn’t. “It was your mother’s, laird. The Green Saloon.”

“I see.” Scowling, Alasdair at once proceeded there, walking with long strides along the spacious corridor that led toward the back of the castle. It was exactly as he’d feared. His officious new wife was already changing things, and without so much as a by-your-leave. He stalked into the Green Saloon, and stopped abruptly three or four paces past the threshold.

His mother’s precious figurines—gone. The heavy damask drapes—gone. Half the furniture—gone. The desk moved from its usual spot and now set perpendicular to the tall windows overlooking the gardens. And sitting at the desk, several neat stacks of papers arrayed upon it as well as a large vase filled with pink and white dahlias, was his wife, herself neat as wax in a simple day-dress of palest blue and a delicate cashmere shawl draped over her shoulders.

He said:

“Just what do you think you’re doing, madam?”

Her eyes were also blue today, blue and pensive as she looked up at him.

“Your head gardener—Monty—says the beehives aren’t doing well. He showed me a loose brood pattern, which is a problem, and also some sunken cappings. I was wondering what could be done about that.”

Caught off-guard, Alasdair replied without thinking, “He never said a word to me.”

“Well, I had to winkle it out of him. He’s not very talkative, is he? But I’ve never seen someone with such a way with flowers.”

“That’s for certain. Did you have to fight him for those dahlias? He’s notorious for that—as if the flowers belong only to him.”

“Oh no,” Fiona answered. “He just gave them to me. Perhaps because it was a relief to talk about the bees. But I’m not sure he’ll ever let me have some roses.”

Alasdair laughed, but then he remembered why he’d come in here. She was a presumptuous, high-handed, managing female who—to very appropriately employ a botanical analogy—needed to be nipped in the bud. He scowled again. “You’ve completely altered this room.” Warming to his task, he added (completely forgetting that he had always despised those prissy china figures), “And had items removed.”

“Yes, there was too much furniture in here,” she replied, with what struck him as unseemly breeziness. “And I had the figurines placed in that chamber upstairs—what is it called? All pink and frills? The Little Drawing-room? There’s the perfect cabinet to display them to best advantage. In fact, my cousin Isobel is probably there right now, fussing over them—if you’d care to see their disposition?”

“No,” he said, scowling even more fiercely. And before he was in danger of admitting that he could easily go the rest of his life without setting eyes on the damned things, he said, unpleasantly, “What gives you the right to come in this room and muck it up?”

Those cool blue eyes were flashing now. “As you have endowed me with all your worldly goods, the domestic matters are mine to manage as I see fit. It is my right as your wife.”

“When you behave in the night as my wife, madam, then during the day you can move every cursed piece of furniture in the entire castle if it pleases you!” Even as he spoke these acrid words, some part of him wondered if she would cry, or perhaps angrily fling the vase of flowers at him. Wouldn’t it be nice if she would simply yield, like a proper woman would?

Instead, to his fury, she settled her shawl so that it draped more evenly about her shoulders, doing it with a deliberateness that seemed almost to insult him.

“Feel free to inform me, laird, as to when you decide to behave in the night as a husband should.”

He stared at her, tempted, very tempted, to smash the vase himself, and while he was at it, rip all her tidy stacks of paper in two. If he were to be dragged to the rack and stretched out twice his natural length he would not have told her that he’d today been to see Dr. Colquhoun to discreetly find out just when he might discard the sling. It was for her sake he had endured Colquhoun’s raised eyebrow and instantly repressed half-smile. And now she had the brazen gall to instruct him as to his own business?

“I am master here!” he roared, and, turning on his boot-heel, left her morning-room—no, damn it to hell, the Green Saloon! —without another word. He gathered up Uncle Duff, whom he found in the library, glancing through a racing journal and placidly puffing on his pipe, and practically dragged him to the stables. It wasn’t until they were on their horses, and riding away, that Alasdair realized he hadn’t even mentioned to Fiona the aggravating rearrangement of the tables in the Great Hall.

Not only did he blame her for that, he blamed her for his own forgetting.

Damn it, damn it all. He realized he was grinding his teeth, and consciously relaxed his jaw.

He couldn’t wait to get to his cousin Hewie’s house, off past the heather meadow, where he could eat and drink and make merry and, for a little while, forget that he’d been forced into marriage with the most exasperating woman in Scotland.

Alasdair did not return for the evening meal, nor was his uncle Duff anywhere to be found, so it was only Fiona and Cousin Isobel at the high table. Fiona ate with her usual robust appetite, listening with only half an ear as Isobel rattled on.

“Oh my dear, I feel so conspicuous! The day after your wedding, and here we are, all alone! I’m sure that everyone is staring at us! That is, I mean, at you! I heard that the laird positively thundered at you this afternoon! How terrible it must have been! Why, oh why, did we ever come to this dreadful place? Oh yes, thank you,” she said to the servant proffering an aromatic dish of juicy roasted beef, “just a very small serving. No, no sauce —I couldn’t possibly—oh, wait! On second thought, just a dab. Thank you. Might you bring me another roll? Upon my word, how different the Hall looks, my dear Fiona! Better, in fact, although I had not thought any improvements were needed. Did you have fresh tablecloths put down?”

Fiona, accepting some of the beef, contemplated telling the truth, but didn’t think she could stand any further conversation about the rearranging of furniture. She merely nodded, and continued to eat her excellent dinner. She knew that she was, in fact, being speculatively eyed by everyone in the Hall—and honestly, who could fault them?—but without disrespect, so there wasn’t anything to be done about it. On the one hand, she could go on, pleasantly and indefinitely, without having to be in the same room with Alasdair; on the other hand, however, there was no question that his absence was rude. Insulting. What happened to all those good manners he’d previously been displaying during the delightful Let’s Get Married Or Die competition? Wasn’t she good enough to warrant a modicum of civility, now that she was—more or less—his wife?

Wasn’t she good enough . . .

Yes, it was a question that had been haunting her for some years now.

Fiona kept herself busy for the rest of the evening by sewing, reading, and taking a long hot bath, but by the time she had made herself ready for bed, and was under the covers once more, his defection rankled to the point that she felt like a plucked harp spring, vibrating angrily.

Naturally sleep did not come, and the hour was well advanced by the time Alasdair finally came into the room. He stopped, as he had the night before, at the foot of the bed.

“Are you awake?”

“Yes,” she replied coldly.

“Now there’s wifely devotion for you! Did you miss me, madam?”

Coldly, coldly, she said: “Oh, yes, laird, I missed you greatly, especially at dinner, and most especially your scintillating conversation.”

He only laughed, and went away for a while. When he returned, Fiona had forgotten to close her eyes this time, and was taken aback to see that he was completely naked. Goodness, but he had a lot of muscles, and quite a bit of hair on his chest, and also lower down—

And on his long legs—

Which were also very muscular, and—

This is what he would have looked like riding that horse around the castle.

Imagination, Fiona realized, wasn’t always better than seeing the real thing. Especially when the real thing—the real person —was magnificent.

Oh, by the hammer of mighty Camulos, she was staring.

Quickly, then, she looked up at the canopy over her head, knowing that she was blushing a fiery crimson and deeply grateful that the room was dim. But, of course, he said as he climbed into bed:

“Had your fill? Or I could pull down the covers if you like.”

Fiona wanted to do different things.

Part of her wanted to explode with anger, like fireworks in a dark sky, and fizzle away into humiliated nothingness.

Another part of her wanted to hurl herself across the space between them so that she could clap a hand across his lips and make him stop talking.

Yet another part of her wanted something else . . .

It was all very confusing. As if suddenly she had splintered into different Fionas. One was the Fiona who was cool and imperturbable, steady and reliable. One was a furious Fiona, roiling, boiling, with hostility. And another was a Fiona who—oh my, oh my —wanted to be soft and yielding and vulnerable, whose body suddenly seemed to have a mind of its own here in this large sumptuous bed where more could happen than sleeping.

It was this third Fiona which made her very, very nervous.

So she said to him, bitingly, “You smell of alcohol.”

“Yes, I’m probably a little drunk.”

“Why? Did you need to be drunk in order to bring yourself to do the deed with me?”

Oh, her unguarded tongue! Another painfully revelatory remark she wished she could take back. She hadn’t thought herself a particularly prideful person before becoming ensnared by the great Penhallow, but she was fast coming to learn that, apparently, she was.

How lowering.

Nor did it help when he laughed again.

“You’re safe, madam, as I’ve been forbidden from, uh, using my arm for another week. Unless you’ve changed your opinion as to positions? Has the sight of my unclothed self incited in you a new resolve?”

“Hardly.”

“A shame.”

She only sniffed. And recoiled when he asked, casually:

“Do you always wear nightgowns with necks up to your chin?”

Involuntarily she drew the covers higher. “Yes.”

“It’s not surprising, really. You’ve no fat on you, so I expect you get cold easily.”

“I can’t help being thin. It’s how God made me.”

“There’s no need to sound so wrathy.”

“I detest personal remarks,” Fiona said, feeling that she had gained the safety of the high road, then promptly lost her footing when she added, “I would never criticize you, laird, for—as an example—that red hair of yours.”

To her chagrin he only said, pensively, “Some people seem to find it attractive.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

“What color hair do you prefer?”

This was dangerous, dangerous. She couldn’t help but think of someone else, another man, another time, a caressing voice and enveloping arms; and fire, sweet fire overtaking her. With a kind of desperation she blurted out, “Where did you go tonight?”

“Why, madam, you did miss me. I’m touched.”

“Never mind! It’s of no interest to me, I’m sure.”

Alasdair turned onto his side (his good side) and looked over at her. He could see the ruffles of her absurd nightgown framing her chin like the white petals of a flower. A Fiona flower, he thought suddenly, ridiculously enjoying the consonance of the two Fs. A frilly Fiona flower. A frilly fine fearless Fiona flower. A frilly fine fearless familiar fetching forthright formidable fragrant Fiona flower . . .

But then there came to him—penetrating the cheerful fog produced by the aged whisky Hewie had poured with such liberality —that earlier, that uneasy sense of his own behavior.

He had, in fact, left his bride of less than forty-eight hours to preside over the Great Hall, alone. He’d spent several delightful hours with Hewie and his company, which included Hewie’s recently widowed sister-in-law, Nora, who seemed to rise above her affliction with remarkable resilience, giggling, flirting, pulling him to his feet to dance Strip the Willow when someone began sawing on a fiddle, even, at one point, plumping herself square onto his lap. How sorry she was, she’d confided with lips pressed close to his ear, that she had been ineligible to compete for the privilege of winning his hand in matrimony, for she would have tried so hard—and here her hand had boldly groped down past his waist—so very hard, but then again, people lost their spouses every day, didn’t they, and who knew what the future might hold?

At the time, he’d been too distracted by the whisky, by that sweetly pandering hand, to take in the full meaning of Nora’s words. But now they returned, almost like a blow to his brain, and mild uneasiness jolted toward something else. No matter what he felt about his recalcitrant wife, such things ought not to be said, ought not to be listened to, and he should have dumped bonny, winsome Nora off his lap onto the cold stone floor.

But he hadn’t.

He had sat there, awash in the golden paralytic haze of whisky and mindless lust, held fast by a wet little tongue that had toyed with the rim of his ear and a sweet little voice saying evil words.

But now shame—like a bucket of icy water dumped upon him—had broken the spell, and he lay in his own bed, warm and snug, and abruptly, utterly sober.

He tried to tell himself that he could have wed little Mairi MacIntyre, she of the golden hair, the tiny waist, the tinkling laugh, the delicate fairy maiden who seemed to float rather than walk and who looked up worshipfully into one’s eyes as though one deserved it.

He tried to tell himself that Fiona had brashly put herself forward. Had practically made him marry her.

But he was having a difficult time convincing himself of that.

Shame, and uneasiness, and a new feeling of uncertainty all got in the way.

Yet—

He summoned the memory of Uncle Duff saying blithely, What is a wife but a brood mare? You’ll pick one of the lasses, get her with child as many times as it takes to produce a son or two, and that’s the sum of it.

Now that was the smartest tack to take.

And luckily, tomorrow was another day.

And he had somewhere to go.

And if his wife had to eat alone for a while, no one would think twice of it again.

“Well,” he now said out loud, as pleasantly as humanly possible, “good night, madam,” he said to her, and firmly shut his eyes.

“Good night, laird,” answered Fiona, with heavy irony in her tone, and turned away from him. Memories, she thought to herself, were dangerously alluring, not unlike the apple in the old German fairy tale—that poisoned apple offered by the evil queen to her credulous stepdaughter: red, delicious-looking, tempting, and fatal.

It was still dark when Alasdair shook his uncle out of a sound sleep.

“What?” gasped Duff. “God’s toenails, what’s happening? Who died?”

“Nobody,” Alasdair said. “Come on. We’re going to Crieff.”

“What? Now? Bloody hell, lad, do you know what I was dreaming about when you rudely rousted me? I was rescuing an endangered maiden from a dragon—”

“Wonderful.” Rapidly Alasdair picked up Duff’s clothes, which still lay in an untidy heap on the floor, and flung them onto his bed. “Let’s go.”

Grumbling, Duff sat up. “Light a candle for me. Why are we going to Crieff?”

“Cattle meet.”

“So?”

“So I want to go look at some cattle.”

“Three days after you’re married?”

“Aye. You’re putting your shirt on backward.”

“Ach, so I am.” Duff laughed. “And you’re running away.”

Alasdair frowned. “Nonsense.”

“I’m not judging you, lad. A man must do what a man must do. Besides, we’ve had some good times in Crieff before, haven’t we?”

“Aye. Hurry up.”

“Not just running away, but sneaking away, eh?”

“Shut up. Here are your boots.”

Ten minutes later, they came down the last steps of the staircase into the still-dim Great Hall, heading for the side hallway which would take them outdoors and to the stables. Alasdair turned sharply left around the carved newel post, just as someone was quietly coming around it, and they collided.

“Sorry—” they both began, stepping back, and then stared at each other.

“Oh!” exclaimed Fiona, just as Alasdair said, as pain from his arm winged through him, “What the hell—” He gathered himself. There was absolutely no reason for him to feel guilty. He went on, “What are you doing, madam?”

She glared up at him. “I might ask the same of you.”

“I,” he said loftily, “live here.”

“As do I, thanks to you.”

“And isn’t it splendid. Were you following me?”

“Of course not! I was hungry, so I went down to the kitchen for something to eat. Where are you going?”

Duff chuckled. “So much for sneaking away.”

“Sneaking away?” she echoed. She crossed her arms over her chest. Over her non-prodigious breasts. And added, in a rather snappish way, “Had enough of me already, laird?”

“Not that it’s any of your business,” he answered, “but my uncle and I are going to Crieff.”

“Why? Are there going to be some Roman-style bacchanals?”

“Let’s hope,” said Duff, and Alasdair overrode him.

“There’s a cattle meet, if you must know.”

“I see. And were you planning to inform me of your departure, or was I just going to find out on my own?”

“You’re not my keeper, madam.” No, there was no reason in the world for him to feel guilty. None at all. None, none, none. “I was going to have one of the grooms tell Lister, and Lister would, of course, tell you.”

“Thereby, of course, keeping my dignity intact. How thoughtful of you, laird.”

“Oh, by the body of Christ, madam, go back to bed,” he said, also in a rather snappish way.

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Fine! Do whatever you like. I couldn’t care less.”

“Thank you for that! Go have fun in Crieff. Since fun is what you’re all about, isn’t it?”

“I’m going to look at cattle, damn it!” he shouted.

“And now you’re shouting at me. Excellent. I think I’ve had just about enough. Go, then! Stay as long as you want. The longer the better, as far as I’m concerned.” And Fiona stalked past him and then Duff, and went rapidly up the stairs, at a pace clearly intended to convey a strong desire to absent herself from him as soon as possible.

When she was gone from sight, Duff chuckled again. “Well,” he said, “that went well.”

“Shut up, Uncle,” growled Alasdair, and continued on his way to the stables.

Fiona did, after all, go back to bed where, to her surprise, she managed to doze off for an hour or so. When she woke, it took her a few moments to realize where she was. And who she was; her right hand as if of its own accord went to her left hand, to feel the solidity of the gold ring upon it.

Fiona looked over at the empty space next to her.

It just so happened that she enjoyed going to cattle meets.

But did anyone ask her if she wanted to go, too?

No, nobody had.

Not that she’d want to spend more time with him. And his awful uncle. Off, the two of them, to roister about Crieff.

She’d do just fine without him. She’d do better without him.

And what, exactly, would she be doing?

Fiona remembered Duff’s remark about the laird’s late mother, that evening in the Great Drawing-room:

She did so much here in the castle, during her day, there’ll be little for the laird’s new wife to do, beyond producing offspring, of course.

Of course, there wasn’t much she could do about offspring. And wouldn’t it be delightful to lie around all day, eating chocolates and reading novels? Or buying new dishes, when there were already several very attractive sets lying around, not even used?

God in heaven.

Fiona got up, dressed, and went to the sunny breakfast-room. There she had a very nice bowl of porridge with cream and sugar and two cups of tea while she went over her list for the day. Then, briskly, she began addressing the items before her.

It was wash day, and she spent a couple of hours overseeing the laundresses at their work. She walked through the kitchen garden with Monty, and after that they moved on to look, worriedly, at some of the beehives. She went for a ride on Gealag. She began the inventory of household linens, a daunting enterprise given the sheer quantity of them. She wrote letters to her mother and to her sisters. She went up to the attics, vast and cavernous, curious as to what they contained, and was stunned by how crowded they were with furniture (bedsteads, bureaus, sofas, tables and chairs of all description, tall mirrors, desks, and so on), piles of clothing and bedding seemingly beyond numbering, along with a staggering array of wooden boxes, crates, and trunks. As she went downstairs she bypassed the nursery (too soon, too soon), and found herself in the long gallery whose walls were filled with portraits.

She paced slowly along, studying them. Before her was plainly evidence of a long and noble heritage dating back hundreds of years. Here was a little girl from James the Fourth’s time, dressed like a small adult in her quaint gable hood and heavy, mulberry-colored brocade gown with its wide fur-trimmed sleeves. Here was a medieval prince (with dark red hair!), very arrogant in his fine silk-trimmed tunic and cross-gartered leggings that displayed sturdy, muscular calves and thighs. Here was a beautiful middle-aged woman of the previous century in her lavishly pleated robe à la française; her face was white with powder, her lips deep red, and on her right cheek had been placed a tiny fashionable patch.

Fiona came to a large painting with a more modern look, and paused. Two boys, one about five, the other a few years older. The smaller one with red hair and brilliant amber eyes, the taller one blond, with eyes of dark brown, and very handsome. They were in a sunlit glen, with thickly clustered woods in the background, and a shimmering blue loch in the far distance —surely, Fiona thought, the same one which lay beyond the castle. The two boys stood side by side, not touching, and each with a dog at his feet. The little red-haired one was looking at his wolfhound puppy, and on his countenance the painter had captured a charming expression suggestive of fun and mischief. The taller blond boy stared directly at the viewer, giving a distinct impression of proud authority, and paying no attention to the handsome sable and white Collie which sat gazing adoringly up at him.

The red-haired boy had to be a young Alasdair. But who was the older boy? They shared some physical similarities in the shape of their heads, the lines of their jaws, even to the curve of dark eyebrows.

It had to be his brother. Or perhaps a cousin?

As she stood there, puzzled, Fiona realized just how little she knew about her new husband.

Oh well, what did it matter.

He didn’t like her, and she didn’t like him.

Still, it could have been worse. She could’ve married Niall Birk. Ugh. And spent her life making sure he wasn’t creeping up behind her to shove her down the stairs. Or she might have been wed to the extremely stupid Walraig Tevis, or the spindly knife-wielding Ross Stratton who, now that she thought of it, reminded her in a very nasty way of a rat.

Instead, she had married Alasdair Penhallow, who wasn’t stupid, who didn’t remind her of a rat, and who, she was sure, wasn’t going to shove her down the stairs.

They just didn’t like each other, that’s all.

She wished these prudent reflections would make her feel more cheerful, but there was no use in wringing one’s hands and bemoaning the state of things. She hated when people did that. Besides, to complain about her lot would be like feeling sorry for yourself when you’d been given a perfectly practical and serviceable pair of stockings for your birthday—and pining in a very immature way for, say, the moon. Luckily, there was always so much to do. Right now, for example, there was still time before dinner to ask Lister about the leak in a big copper tub one of the laundresses had mentioned, and to send a message to Dr. Colquhoun, asking him to check on a footman with a sprained ankle. If she hurried, she could go to the library and find a new book to read for later.

Fiona turned away, and as she did she noticed that on the walls in this section of the gallery, there were very faint discolorations, nearly invisible to the casual eye of a passerby. She paused again.

It seemed that the portraits had been rearranged.

Yes, for now that she noticed it, the paintings here weren’t as densely set together as in other areas of the gallery.

How curious.

Then she went on and elsewhere, her mind filling up with other, more pressing things.

After dinner, she and Isobel went to the Great Drawing-room. There, Isobel produced an intimidatingly large puzzle and Fiona, shrugging, helped her sort through the pieces and make a start on the perimeter. Having found the four corner pieces, Isobel announced both her satisfaction and her fatigue, and proceeded to doze in a chair next to the fire. Fiona sewed up a jagged rent in one of the chapel’s altar cloths—knowing that now that she was wed, working on baby garments for her sisters would evoke an irritating array of inquisitive reactions—and then turned to her new book, a collection of Walter Scott’s poetry. She was reading “Marmion,” and had just gotten to the lines Oh! What a tangled web we weave / When first we practise to deceive, when she gradually became aware of that odd creeping feeling of being stared at.

She looked up from her book. Sure enough, little Sheila stood next to her chair—within three feet of it, in fact—and Fiona had to suppress a gasp. How on earth had the child gotten so close without her noticing it?

One of those peculiar pale blue eyes was fixed on herself, the other seemed to be resting thoughtfully on Isobel.

“She dreams of the past and what could have been.”

Fiona reached for the girl’s hand. “You’re a shrewd little lass. What brings you here, hinny?”

“I came here, lady, because . . .” Sheila trailed off, looking down at their clasped hands. “Fences,” she murmured, sounding troubled, “high fences.” Then she pulled her hand free and glanced around the elegant room. “How can you breathe in here, lady?”

Before Fiona could reply, someone said sharply, “Sheila! You ought not to be there!” A very old woman, bent over her stick, came stumping toward them, on her deeply wrinkled face disapproval written large.

Sheila suddenly became simply a little girl who had been apprehended in an act of naughtiness, and stuck a rather dirty finger in her mouth, around which she spoke cajolingly. “Oh, but Granny, the lady doesn’t know that tomorrow is my birthday.”

“So it is, but you’d no right to come disturb the mistress,” scolded the old woman. “I do apologize, lady, I was at my devotions and the lass slipped away from me like a kelpie.”

There certainly was something unusual about the little girl, but hopefully she didn’t number shape-shifting among her talents. Fiona responded civilly: “There’s no need to apologize, I assure you. And you are . . . ?”

The old woman dipped a creaky little curtsy. “I am Margery, lady.”

Ancient might she be, but there was nothing vague or doddering about Dame Margery. A flash of inspiration came to Fiona and she asked, “Have you lived here all your life, madam?”

“Aye, lady, that I have.”

“Can you tell me aught of the laird’s family? There’s his uncle here, of course, and he once mentioned that the laird’s parents had passed away, but other than that I know nothing.”

Dame Margery looked consideringly at Fiona. “That’s so, lady, both of the laird’s parents have gone on, and his older brother as well.”

“How sad! Were these recent losses?”

“Nay, madam, there was a single event, and that some fifteen years ago.”

Fiona stared. “A single event?”

“The loch,” Sheila remarked, in the tone of one passing along some mildly interesting information, “is deep, and a monster lives in it. It ate them all up.”

“Hush, child!” said the old lady severely.

“But it’s true, Granny. The monster warned them not to come, but they did, and it swallowed them.”

Cousin Isobel had woken, and now interposed in a quavery voice: “A monster? Oh, surely not! But still, one can’t be too cautious, can one? Fiona, my dear, pray don’t ever ride your horse anywhere near there! Your mother would never forgive me if you were to be swallowed up by a loch monster!”

“I’ve seen it,” boasted Sheila.

“That you have not,” the old lady said, “and it’s long past time for your bed, child! Forgive us, lady, for our intrusion! Come!”

With dragging steps the little girl went to her grandmother, pausing only once to twist about and say, “Please, lady, can Cook make me something nice for my birthday? The laird’s mother never did anything for the children of Tadgh. It was only and ever her things she cared about.”

“To be sure I’ll speak to Cook,” promised Fiona, and watched, bemused, as Dame Margery pulled her wayward little charge from the drawing-room. Her book was still open in her lap, but her mind was occupied in sorting through Sheila’s words, as if trying to separate wheat from chaff.

Of course there was no loch monster, but it did sound all too true that a disaster had befallen Alasdair’s family there. And what was that all about—the laird’s mother not doing anything for the castle’s children? How would Sheila even know that, or make the claim, given that Alasdair’s mother, Gormelia, had been dead some fifteen years? And . . . was Sheila referring to Gormelia’s own children as well?

Into Fiona’s head came an uncannily clear image of the portrait she’d viewed earlier that day, that of the two little boys, one with dark-red hair, the other with bright yellow-blond hair. Surely he was Alasdair’s older brother, lost to the loch along with their mother and father?

She remembered, then, that excursion to the Keep o’ the Mòr, and Alasdair recalling cheerfully, I spent many a night as a lad camping up here with friends. She had seen how, unexpectedly, the laughter had gone from his face, to be taken over by a look of haunting sadness—and just as quickly been replaced by a smile.

Now she wondered if Alasdair’s brother had been part of those enjoyable long-ago nights at the Keep, and if the memory had caused him pain—

Her musings were interrupted by Isobel saying, “Such an odd little creature! And those eyes! So unsettling! Still, her birthday—I could sew her a wee stuffed doll, do you think she would like that? I have just the right scrap of fabric for a little gown, and some narrow lace for the hem.”

“Yes, I think Sheila would love a doll, Cousin, how kind of you,” answered Fiona, a little absently, but touched by Isobel’s thoughtfulness.

“I’m so glad you agree! Oh, my dear, speaking of gowns, I had the strangest dream just now. I was sixteen, and I was wearing the white silk gown Papa allowed me to have for my debut, with the skirt draped à la polonaise, and the prettiest striped caraco in the world, with long sleeves and three rows of ruffles! It was the very one I wore when I met Captain Murdoch, you know.”

“Captain Murdoch? Do I know him?”

“Oh! No, you wouldn’t. I do try not to talk about him. It was just that silly dream of mine that reminded me.”

The quavery note had returned to Isobel’s voice, and Fiona looked at her curiously. Her cousin had long seemed to be an open book: someone whose rampant garrulousness could never conceal anything. And yet here was—as it were—a new paragraph revealed.

Not a happy one, clearly.

Fiona hesitated. She didn’t wish to pry. But then Isobel said suddenly:

“Dreams are so odd, aren’t they? In my dream I had the merest glimpse of Captain Murdoch, and then he was gone. Just like in real life. It was only for a while—for such a little while—that we were betrothed.”

“Betrothed? But only temporarily?”

“Yes. On the very eve of the wedding, Father discovered that Captain Murdoch had—well, he had a great many debts, which none of us knew about.” Isobel smoothed out her skirts with punctilious care, and Fiona watched as a single tear rolled slowly down her cousin’s soft white cheek. “I told Father it didn’t bother me, that thanks to a legacy from an aunt I had more than enough money for the both of us! But he told Jimmie—that is, Captain Murdoch—that although he would permit the marriage, he refused to settle the debts. He held all my money in trust, for I was not yet of age. And—the next morning Jimmie was gone. I never saw him again, nor heard from him.”

Fiona drew a deep breath, and said with a new softness: “I didn’t know, Cousin. I’m very sorry. Surely you—you had other offers?”

Isobel smiled faintly. “Oh yes, but somehow—I don’t know how it was, but somehow I could never like anyone quite as well as I liked my Jimmie. And so time passed, and my parents died, and I stayed on in our house. Of course I kept myself busy, but—well, how happy I was when you came to visit me, my dear! And you only eighteen! How much fun we had, didn’t we? And then there was Logan! So charming! That is—until he—oh dear—”

“Goodness!” Fiona interrupted with a brisk, bright, inauthentic affability. Softness fled, leaving in its wake a sudden raw feeling of desolation; into her heart had crept again that secret stony feeling. “Only look at the time! How late it is!” Quickly she stood. “I’m to bed, Cousin. If you’ll excuse me? I hope you sleep well. Good night.”

Without waiting for a reply, Fiona left the Great Drawing-room. Her steps were graceful and dignified, she told herself, not ignominious scuttling. No, she wasn’t running away. Not like some people did . . .

It wasn’t long before she was in bed, hopelessly wide awake.

Her thoughts turned to Isobel. Poor Isobel. How strange: never had she thought she’d feel for her the slightest pang of sympathy. Maybe she wouldn’t have, if Isobel had cried without abandon, as she had yesterday, but there was something about that one tear, slowly making its lonely way down that white, lightly powdered cheek.

She’d been so used to viewing Isobel as a nuisance. Almost an enemy.

This small, soft, vulnerable person—without a home, without money, without prospects—her enemy?

Was it possible she had been carrying her old grudge beyond what was reasonable, what was fair?

Was it possible that she had, over the years, become so hard, so cynical?

These were troubling ideas.

She had long prided herself on her good judgment.

A different perception of Isobel somehow altered her perception of herself. She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that.

Fiona’s thoughts, inevitably it seemed, now turned to her husband.

There was still so much she didn’t know about Alasdair, but she had learned that his parents, his brother had died. How dreadful for him and how sad. She could only imagine what that might feel like, especially the loss of a sibling—but she didn’t want to, for dearly did she love her sisters, had adored and protected them all her life. Nonetheless, it was an unexpected glimpse of Alasdair. He would have been twenty years old at the time. Would he have looked very different then? Fiona wondered. At thirty-five, there wasn’t a trace of gray in his hair, and he moved with effortless vigor.

Really, the only thing she could think of were those lightly grooved lines that bracketed his mouth, but they didn’t suggest diminishment, but rather authority . . . laughter . . . sensuality.

In fact, they were the sort of lines over which one might want to run one’s finger, tracing them, teasingly.

If one were an idiot, Fiona told herself caustically.

If one were that soft, yielding, vulnerable, foolish Fiona.

She snatched at the covers and bundled herself tightly within them. Stubbornly she closed her eyes, made her breathing regular, relaxed her tense limbs.

A log collapsed within the fireplace.

A gust of wind rattled the panes of the windows.

Somewhere, a dog barked.

It occurred to her, then, just how big the bed was. It was ridiculous, it was bizarre, but after only two nights of being married, after two nights of coldness and bristling hostility between them, she—well—she actually missed having him there with her.

Not if one were an idiot, she told herself.

She was an idiot.