LITMIR.BIZ

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She’d have to breathe soon.

      ‘Maybe it’s reasonable,’ Alasdair continued while she wondered if her breathing intended starting again. ‘Maybe it’s the only sensible course of action.’ He’d taken his jacket off and rolled his sleeves. His arms were folded. They were great, brawny arms, arms that gave the lie to the fact that he was a city financier. His kilt made him seem even more a warrior.

      He was watching her—as a panther watched its prey?

      ‘It’d get us both what we want,’ he said, still watchful. ‘Alone, we walk away from everything we’ve worked for. Eileen’s will is a nightmare but it doesn’t have to be a total disaster. We need to work around it.’

      ‘By...marrying?’ Her voice came out a squeak but she was absurdly grateful it came out at all.

      ‘It’s the only way you can keep the castle.’

      ‘I don’t want the castle.’

      That stopped him. His face stilled, as if he wasn’t sure where to take it from there.

      ‘No matter what Eileen’s will says, the castle should never be my inheritance,’ she managed. She was fighting to keep her voice as reasonable as his. ‘The castle’s my job, but that’s all it is. You’re the Earl of Duncairn. The castle’s your ancestral home. Your grandmother’s suggestion might be well-meant, but it’s so crazy I don’t believe we should even talk about it.’

      ‘We need to talk about it.’

      ‘We don’t. I’m sorry your grandmother has left you in such a situation but that’s for you to sort. Thank you, Lord Duncairn, for considering such a mad option, but I have scones to cook. I’m moving on. I’ll work until the lawyer asks me to leave and then I’ll be out of your life forever.’

      * * *

      Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t this. A straight-out refusal to even talk about it.

      Okay, it was how he’d reacted, he decided, but he’d had an hour’s walk to clear his head. This woman clearly hadn’t had time to think it through.

      To walk away from a castle... This castle.

      What else was she angling for?

      He watched her work for a bit while she ignored him, but if she thought he’d calmly leave, she was mistaken. This was serious.

      Keep it as a business proposition, he told himself. After all, business was what he was good at. Business was what he was all about. Make it about money.

      ‘I realise the upkeep would be far too much for you to keep the castle long-term,’ he told her, keeping his voice low and measured. Reasoning as he talked. Maybe she was still shocked at not receiving a monetary inheritance. Maybe there was anger behind that calm façade of hers.

      ‘The company has been funding long-term maintenance and restoration,’ he continued, refusing to see the look of revulsion on her face. Revulsion? Surely he must be misreading. ‘We can continue doing that,’ he told her. ‘If at the end of the year this inheritance goes through and you don’t wish to stay, the company can buy the castle from you.’

      ‘You could afford that?’ she demanded, incredulous?

      ‘The company’s huge. It can and it seems the most sensible option. You’ll find I can be more than generous. Eileen obviously wanted you looked after. Alan was my cousin. I’ll do that for him.’

      But at that she flashed him a look that could have split stone.

      ‘I don’t need looking after,’ she snapped. ‘I especially don’t need looking after by the McBride men.’

      He got it then. Her anger wasn’t just encompassing Eileen and her will. Her anger was directed at the McBride family as a whole.

      She was holding residual anger towards Alan?

      Why?

      He and Alan had never got on and their mutual dislike had meant they never socialised. He’d met Jeanie a couple of times before she and Alan had married. Jeanie had worked as his grandmother’s part-time assistant while she was on the island. On the odd times he’d met her she’d been quiet, he remembered, a shadow who’d seemed to know her place. He’d hardly talked to her, but she’d seemed...suitable. A suitable assistant for his grandmother.

      And then Alan had married her. What a shock and what a disaster—and Jeanie had been into it up to her neck.

      Until today he’d seen her as a money-grubbing mouse. The fire in her eyes now suggested the mouse image might possibly be wrong.

      ‘Jeanie, this isn’t about looking after—’

      ‘Don’t Jeanie me.’ She glowered and went back to rubbing butter. ‘I’m Mrs McBride. I’m Duncairn’s housekeeper for the next few weeks and then I’m nothing to do with you.’

      ‘Then we’ve both lost.’

      ‘I told you, I’ve lost nothing. The castle’s my place of employment, nothing more.’

      ‘So you wouldn’t mind moving to Edinburgh?’

      Her hands didn’t even pause. She just kept rubbing in the already rubbed-in butter, and her glower moved up a notch.

      ‘Don’t talk nonsense. I’m moving nowhere.’

      ‘But you are moving out of the castle.’

      ‘Which is none of your business.’

      ‘I’m offering you a job.’

      ‘I don’t want a job.’

      ‘If you don’t have the castle, you need a job.’

      ‘Don’t mess with me, Alasdair McBride. By the way, the kitchen’s out of bounds to guests. That’s what you are now. A guest. The estate’s in the hands of the executors, and I’m employed here. You have a bed booked for the night. The library, the dining room and your bedroom and sitting room are where you’re welcome. Meanwhile I have work to do.’

      ‘Jeanie...’

      ‘What?’ She pushed the bowl away from her with a vicious shove. ‘Don’t play games with me, Alasdair. Your cousin messed with my life and I should have moved away then. Right away.’

      ‘I want to help.’

      ‘No, you don’t. You want your inheritance.’

      ‘Yes,’ he said and he lost it then, the cool exterior he carefully presented to the world. ‘Yes, I do. The Duncairn financial empire is colossal and far-reaching. It’s also my life. To break it up and use it to fund dogs’ homes...’

      ‘There are some very deserving dogs,’ she snapped and then looked under the table to where Eileen’s two dopey spaniels lay patiently waiting for crumbs. ‘These two need a home. You can provide for them first.’

      ‘Look!’ He swore and hauled his phone from his sporran—these things were a sight more useful than pockets—and clicked the phone open. He flicked through a few screens and then turned it to face her. ‘Look!’

      ‘I have flour on my hands.’ She glowered some more and she looked...sulky. Sulky but cute, he thought, and suddenly he found himself thinking...

      Um...no. Not appropriate. All this situation needed was a bit of sensual tension and the thing was shot. He needed to stay calm, remember who she was and talk sense.

      ‘Just look,’ he said patiently and she sighed and rubbed her hands on her apron and peered at the screen.

      ‘What am I looking at?’

      ‘At a graph of Duncairn’s listed charitable donations made in the last financial year,’ he told her. ‘The figure to the left represents millions. It scrolls off the screen but you can see the biggest beneficiaries. My grandfather and my grandmother after

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