Mother of the Bride

He went out, whistling the dogs, and headed down to the water. He needed a walk, a good, long stretch along the beach and then up over the headland, the point that gave Ardnashiel its prefix. There had been a hut there once, evidently, a shiel, which long ago had given way to the original castle, and he climbed the hill towards the ruins, needing the peace, the solitude that he would find there.

It was his retreat, the place he went to soothe his soul, the harsh wind and savage sea the only things wild enough to match the turmoil in his heart, but today they could do nothing to wipe out the memories of his love, here in this place, where he’d brought her so many times. And now, for the first time, she was coming back, not to him, but to the castle.

It was a step he hadn’t been sure she’d ever take, but now she was, and in two days she’d be here.

His beloved, beautiful Maisie was coming home …

The train was on the platform as she collected her ticket, and she only just made it before the doors closed.

The wedding had gone on longer than she’d expected, and it had been harder than she’d imagined. She didn’t know why—maybe because now she had become the mother of a bride, and could put herself in Annette’s shoes, with the agony of her uncertain future. She’d had a health scare, and was facing a gruelling treatment regime over the next months and maybe years, but today had not been a day for dwelling on that. Today was her daughter’s day, and Annette had been radiant.

‘I’m so proud of her. Doesn’t she look beautiful?’ she’d said to Maisie in a quiet, private moment, a little oasis in the midst of the revelry, and Maisie’s eyes had filled.

‘Yes—yes, she does, she looks absolutely gorgeous, and so do you.’

Annette had met her eyes, her own distressed. ‘Take plenty of photos,’ she begged, and then added softly, ‘Just in case.’

Maisie had swallowed. ‘I will. I have. I’ve got some wonderful ones of you together, and I’ll get them to you very soon.’

‘Thank you,’ Annette had said almost silently, and Maisie had held her gently and shared that quiet moment of knowledge that there might not be very much time left to her, and every second mattered.

So now, on the train to London, she was downloading the photos from her camera onto her laptop, then burning them onto several disks and labelling them. Thank God for mobile technology, she thought as she put the disks in the post on her way from King’s Cross to Euston.

She was pleased with the photos. She’d go through them, of course, editing out the dross and cropping and tidying up the images so they could look at them on her website, and she’d produce an album with the family once they’d chosen the ones they wanted, but for now, at least, they’d get them in the raw form almost immediately to look through with Annette.

And hopefully, in the years to come, she’d be showing them to her grandchildren, but if not, at least they’d have a wonderful record of that beautiful day.

She blinked away the tears and stared out of the window of the sleeper at the passing lights. The cabin was claustrophobic—first class, the best it could be, but she was too full of emotion, from the wedding and from the task facing her, to sit still.

She locked up her cabin securely and went to the lounge to order food. She hadn’t eaten at the wedding, and she’d had her hands full on the platform at Euston, and her blood sugar was through the floor.

Even so, she didn’t touch her supper. Her stomach felt as if someone had tied a knot in it and she gave up and went back to her cabin, lying down on the narrow berth and staring at the window, watching the lights flash past as they moved through stations, but mostly it was dark, the velvety blackness of the countryside all- engulfing as the train carried her north towards Rob.

And Jenni. It was about Jenni, she reminded herself—Jenni and Alec. She had to keep focus, remind herself what she was doing this for, or she’d go crazy.

Actually, what she needed was sleep, not the constant rumble of the rails, the clatter of the points, the slowing and shunting and pausing while goods trains went past, until she thought she’d scream. It wasn’t the train’s fault. It was comfortable, private—as good as it could be. It was just that she didn’t want to be on it, didn’t want to be doing this, and the memories were crashing over her like a tidal wave.

She’d done it for the first time when she was pregnant, when she’d just finished her first year’s exams at Cambridge and was heading up to Scotland to wait for the birth. She’d wanted to stay in Cambridge, in their little house, but Rob had insisted she should move up to the castle. ‘You can be looked after there, and my parents will want to spend time with the baby,’ he’d said and so, because he wasn’t there to drive her this time, as he had every other time they’d been, because he was already away at sea, she’d got on the train, exhausted, aching, and by the time she’d reached Glasgow, she’d realised she was in labour.

She’d been taken straight to the hospital in Fort William, and the next few hours were still a blur in her mind, but as the train rolled on, she kept reliving it, snatches of the pain and fear, knowing Rob was at sea and wanting him, needing him with her. And when he’d come at last, weeks later, he’d been different—distant, almost as if he couldn’t bring himself to touch her. She’d known then that there was something wrong, but they hadn’t talked about it, just tiptoed carefully around the cracks in their relationship as if they weren’t there. And then he’d gone away again, back to sea, and left her behind to face the cold, dark winter there without him.

She hadn’t been able to do it. Leaving the castle, going back south to Cambridge—it had seemed such a sensible move, the only thing she could do to stay sane. It had never occurred to her that Rob wouldn’t follow.

She turned over, thumped the pillow, squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the quilt over her head, but the images were still there, crowding into her head, keeping her awake.

She gave up in the end, sitting perched on the lid of the washbasin in the corner and staring out of the window as the dawn broke. The countryside was getting wilder, the hills higher, the gentle ripples in the landscape giving way to crumples and then sharp, jagged pleats as they went further north. It was stark, bleak, with a wild majesty that made something in her ache at the beauty of it, but it terrified her, too, because of all the memories it held for her.

She was washed and dressed before the attendant knocked on the door with her breakfast—a hot bacon roll, tea and some fruit salad—and she sat on the bunk staring out over the wild, untamed landscape as the train slowly wended its way around the hills to Fort William, stopping at every station on the way, tiny outposts of civilisation in the midst of barren wilderness.

Not long now, she thought, and her stomach rejected all thought of the bacon roll after the first bite. She was fraught with nerves, too tense to eat, so she sipped her tea as they climbed up onto the flat and desolate plateau of Rannoch Moor, picked at the fruit because it was ridiculous to have nothing, and then gathered her things together as they pulled into the station in Fort William.

And then, when it was too late to do anything about it, she glanced at the mirror and winced. She looked awful. Dark circles under her tired, strained eyes, her hair in wild red corkscrews, needing attention—she hated travelling, hated the rush and pressure and hanging about. And Ardnashiel was waiting.

I’m not ready for it! she wanted to wail, but she didn’t, she just picked up her camera bag, slung it over her shoulder, picked up her laptop and her suitcase and got off the train.

It should be like Brief Encounter, she thought, all swirling steam and whistles, but it wasn’t, it was loud and noisy, unintelligible and horribly familiar. She took a deep breath and looked up, and he was there, walking slowly towards her in jeans and a sweater, with his rangy, muscular limbs and broad, solid shoulders. His hair was touched with grey now, she noticed in surprise, crow’s feet at the corners of his wary, slate-blue eyes, and when he smiled, the crow’s feet crinkled and turned her legs to mush.

‘Maisie,’ he said, and his voice curled round her again, seeping into her heart and unravelling all her resolve.

‘Hello, Rob. Here, you can make yourself useful,’ she said, and handed over her luggage before he could do anything stupid like kiss her cheek and pretend they were friends.

‘Is this all?’

‘Three bags? Isn’t that enough? I can tell what sort of women you’ve been mixing with, Mackenzie.’

His smile was wry. ‘Yeah, your daughter. I’ve conveyed her and her clutter back and forth to uni for the last three years, remember. I know how you women travel.’

‘I’m only here for a week—two weeks, max.’

‘We’ll see. Come on, then, let’s head back.’

To Ardnashiel. Her heart thumped, and she bit her lip as he led her into the car park and plipped the remote control in his hand. Lights flashed on a car—low, sleek and expensive. She might have known. He’d always liked expensive cars. He stashed her belongings in the boot, then opened the door for her. ‘Can I put the lid down, or do you want it up?’ he asked as he slid in behind the wheel and turned to her.

She shrugged, unsurprised that the car was a convertible, a folding hard-top. He’d never been able to get enough fresh air. ‘Whatever you like. My hair’s a mess anyway. I need a shower.’

‘You look fine, Maisie,’ he said softly. More than fine. She looked—lovely. Wary, hesitant, out of her comfort zone, but lovely. And he wanted her to himself, just for a little bit longer.

He pressed the button to fold the roof and held her eyes. ‘Do you fancy a coffee on the way?’

She frowned then gave a slight smile, the first one since she’d got off the train. ‘Actually, that would be really nice. I didn’t eat much yesterday—too busy. And I didn’t really fancy breakfast. I’m starving.’

‘OK. We’ll do coffee. There’s a lovely place opened since you were here last.’

‘Rob, there’s been time for dozens of places to open and shut since I was here last,’ she pointed out, and he gave a quiet laugh.

‘I know. It’s been a long time.’ Too long.

He started the engine then they purred softly out of the car park and headed out on the road to Mallaig. The air was cool, but it was a beautiful day and the sun was shining, and she put her head back against the butter-soft leather of the seat and closed her eyes, but even so, she couldn’t cut him out of her thoughts.

She was aware of every movement he made, every breath he took, every flex of his muscles. Not because she could hear, or see, but because she just knew. After all this time, she still knew, her body so aware of him that her nerves were screaming.

How on earth had she imagined she could do this?

CHAPTER TWO

SHE looked wonderful. Tired, with deep smudges under her eyes, but wonderful.

She wasn’t asleep, just resting her eyes, but it meant he could look at her out of the corner of his eye without being seen. And he wanted to look at her. Ridiculously badly.

She looked just the same, he thought with a twist to his heart. Well, no, not just the same, because she was thirty-nine now and she’d been eighteen when they’d first met, but the years had been kind to her and if anything she was more beautiful than she’d been twenty years ago.

Her skin was like rich cream, smooth and silky, dusted with freckles, and he wondered if it would still smell the way it had, warm and fragrant and uncomplicated. Her hair, wild and untamed, was still that wonderful rich red, a dark copper that she’d passed on to Jenni but which in their daughter was mellowed by his dark- haired gene to a glorious auburn.

She had the temper to go with it, too, the feistiness Jenni had reminded him of. It was something that fortunately neither of them had handed on to their daughter, but although at first they’d had stand-up fights that had ended inevitably in bed with tearful and passionate reconciliation, by the end there’d been no sign of it. And he’d missed it. Missed the fights, missed the making up. Missed his Maisie.

He sighed and turned into the car park of the café overlooking the top of Loch Linnhe, and by the time he’d cut the engine she had her seat-belt undone and was reaching for the door handle.

She straightened up and looked around, giving him a perfect back view, her jeans gently hugging that curved, shapely bottom that had fitted so well in his hands …

‘This looks nice.’

He swallowed hard and hauled in a breath. ‘It is nice. It’s owned by the people who run the hotel in the village. They’ve got a local produce shop here as well, selling salmon and venison and cheese and the like.’

‘And insect repellent?’

He chuckled, remembering her constant battle with the midges. ‘Probably.’ He held the door, and she went in and sniffed the air, making him smile.

‘Oh, the coffee smells good.’

‘It is good. What are you having?’

‘Cappuccino, and—they look tasty.’

‘They are. Do me a favour and don’t even ask about the calories.’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t,’ she vowed, making him laugh. ‘I’m starving.’

He ordered the coffees and two of the trademark gooey pastries, and they headed for a table by the window. He set the tray down and eased into the seat opposite her, handing her her cup.

‘So, how did the wedding go yesterday?’

A flicker of distress appeared in her moss- green eyes before she looked down at her coffee. She poked the froth for a moment. ‘OK. Lovely. Very beautiful. Very moving. The bride’s mother’s not well—that’s why I couldn’t hand it over.’

He frowned. ‘Why didn’t they postpone it?’

‘Because she’s about to start chemo,’ Maisie said softly. ‘They had to rush the wedding forward, and the last thing I could do to them was upset them at this stage. They wanted me, they trusted me, and I’d promised.’

‘Of course. I’m sorry, I didn’t appreciate that at the time. I can quite see that you had to stay, and I’m sorry if I implied that anyone else could take over from you. Of course that isn’t true, especially under those circumstances. You had no choice.’

She blinked. He’d really taken her comments on board, if that was anything to go by, but she wasn’t surprised. He’d always been one for doing the right thing—even when it was wrong.

‘You’ll be wanting to send them the images.’

‘I’ve done it. I downloaded them on the train and posted them at Euston. Just in case.’ She sighed softly as she broke off, biting her lip and thinking of Annette.

‘Poor woman,’ he murmured. ‘It must have been hard for the family, dealing with all those emotions.’

She nodded, but then she went quiet, sipping her coffee, absently tearing up the pastry and nibbling at it. ‘Rob, this wedding—are you sure it’s right for them? They’re so young.’

‘Not that young.’

‘They are! Just like we were. We were far too young.’

‘You can’t compare them to us. They’re three years older than we were—’

‘No. I was eighteen, she’s twenty. That’s only two years.’

‘She’s almost twenty-one. She’ll be twenty-one by the wedding, and Alec will be twenty-four. And those years make a lot of difference. You were only just eighteen and pregnant, and I was twenty- one and committed to the navy for six years, and we didn’t know each other nearly well enough.’

‘We still don’t.’

‘No. Jenni said that on Tuesday, and I think she was right. But they’re different, Maisie. They know each other through and through. They’ve been friends ever since they were children, and this has been growing for years. They’re genuinely deeply in love, and it’s great to see them together. We didn’t stand a chance, but they do. I think they’ll be very happy together.’

‘You don’t think they should wait?’

‘What for?’

Good question. She stared out of the window over the gently rippling waters of the loch and sighed. ‘I don’t know,’ she murmured. ‘To be more settled?’

‘They are settled. Alec’s got a good job—’

‘One you’ve given him. Rob, you are sure about him, aren’t you?’ she asked, her anxiety surfacing. ‘You don’t think he’s using her?’

Rob frowned. ‘Using her? Of course he’s not. They’ve known each other for years!’

‘That wouldn’t stop some people.’

‘Maisie, Alec’s not like that.’

‘So what is he like? Tell me—I’m worried, Rob.’

‘You don’t need to be. They’ve known each other since they were children—he taught her to ride a bike, for heaven’s sake. They used to play together when she came up in the holidays, and they’ve always got on. He was born in the cottage his parents still live in, and his father was my estate manager until he retired five years ago. He worked for my father, and my uncle before him, and his father before him, so he’s the third generation to look after Ardnashiel. It’s in his blood, even more than it is in mine, and I can’t think of a safer pair of hands either for the estate or for Jenni. He’s kind and decent, honest as the day is long, and he really loves her. You honestly don’t need to worry.’

She nodded slowly, reassured by his measured assessment of his future son-in-law. ‘And your mother? How does she feel about him?’

‘She likes him. She’s very fond of him, actually.’

‘Really? Even though he’s one of the estate employees? I’m surprised she thinks he’s good enough for her.’

His brows scrunched together in a frown. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘Well, they made it clear I wasn’t good enough for you—or was that just my lack of morals?’

He gave a harsh sigh. ‘You don’t change, do you?’ he said. ‘You always were a little too quick to judge.’

‘I wasn’t judging her, she was judging me! That’s unfair!’

‘Is it?’ he said softly, his eyes searching hers. ‘You didn’t give my father the benefit of the doubt, you rebuffed all my mother’s offers of friendship and you walked off and left me. That was unfair.’

She opened her mouth to argue, thought better of it, here in this public place, and shut it again. She’d tell him another time—maybe—just what his mother’s offers of friendship had consisted of. And as for his father, there was no doubt to give him the benefit of. He’d hated her, despised her, and he’d made sure she and everybody else had known it. And she hadn’t left him, she’d left the castle, and he’d let her go, made no attempt to follow her, to find out what was wrong.

‘This is neither the time nor place to go over all of this,’ she said, equally quietly. ‘And anyway, it’s time we got on. I’d like to see Jenni now, she’ll be wondering where we are.’

And without waiting to see what he did, she got to her feet and walked out of the café, leaving her coffee half-drunk and her pastry in shreds all over the table.

Stifling a sigh, Rob threw down a few coins for the tip and followed her out, wondering how on earth they were going to get through all the inevitable meetings and discussions and tantrums that would eventually culminate in the wedding.

Ten and a half weeks, he told himself as he unlocked the car and held the door for her, and it would all be over and she’d be gone, and everything would get back to normal.

For some reason, that didn’t feel comforting.

The road to Ardnashiel was painfully familiar to Maisie, and they travelled it in a tense and brittle silence.

The first time she’d driven it with Rob all those years ago, it had felt very different. They’d been laughing and holding hands as he drove, their fingers linked on his thigh, and he’d been telling her all about it, about the huge, sprawling estate his father had inherited ten years before from an uncle.

He loved it, he’d told her. He’d loved it as a child, coming up with his parents to visit his widowed uncle, not realising at first that one day it would be his, and he was looking forward to showing it to her. ‘Since it’s going to be mine. Not for years and years, though,’ he’d added, laughing. ‘I’m not ready to bury myself up here in the wilderness yet, by a long way, but one day, I suppose, the time will come.’

That day had come sooner than he’d imagined, when his father had died in a shooting accident eight years ago and he’d left London and moved up here for good. She’d never been back, though, not since the day she’d left and vowed never to return.

The road hadn’t changed at all since then, she thought, taking it in as her heart knotted ever tighter in her chest. A quiet, winding road that ran between lush green fields with fat cattle grazing contentedly. It was calm, bucolic, and it should have been beautiful, but it was coloured by association. The last time she’d travelled it, she’d been in a taxi, leaving it behind, and part of her was still the lonely, desperate young woman that she had been then.

He reached a junction and turned onto a narrow switchback of a road that clung in the gap between the edge of a loch and the wall of rock where the land met the water. It was an appalling road, and yet the fact that it existed at all in such a tight space was a miracle of engineering in itself.

The loch turned into a river, then the road widened as the land levelled out into a flat bowl around the harbour mouth, houses clustered along its walls, fringing the sea and running up towards the hills, and then beyond the small community, set up on its own on a rocky outcrop above the beach, was Ardnashiel Castle.

Built of stone, grey and forbidding, even with the sun shining on it there was a look of menace about it that chilled Maisie to the bone.

Just as it was meant to, really, since it had been built as a fort, but an ancestor had extended it two hundred years ago, creating a more civilised living area and carving gardens out of the woodland that had encroached on it. He’d added little turrets with tops like witches’ hats, and made the windows bigger, and the first time she’d seen it she’d thought it was straight out of a fairy-tale, but then things had changed. It had ceased to be a safe haven and begun to feel like a prison, and looking at it now brought the feelings of suffocation crashing back.

And maybe Rob realised it because, as they crossed the stone bridge and drew up in the stable- yard by the coach-house, he glanced across at her for the first time since they’d left the café and sighed.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I realise it’s not your fault you don’t know Alec, but give him a chance. Please. And my mother. I know you didn’t always see eye to eye, but she’s worried about seeing you again, worried you’ll still dislike her.’

‘I didn’t dislike her, Rob,’ she corrected him quietly. ‘She disliked me. And I’m sorry if you felt I was being unfair to Alec. I will give him a chance, of course I will. I’ve always liked what I’ve seen of him, but—I’m just worried for Jenni, Rob. She’s my little girl, and I’d hate to see her make a mistake.’

‘It’s not a mistake—and she’s my little girl too, remember,’ he said with a twisted smile that cut her to the heart. ‘Just because she lived with you doesn’t mean I didn’t love her every bit as much as you did. And I know you feel I’ve stolen her from you, but she feels at home here.’

She opened her mouth to argue, to say of course she didn’t feel that, she knew he hadn’t stolen her, but then shut it again, because she did feel like that, did feel that he’d stolen not only her daughter but also her wedding, all the planning and girly excitement she’d seen so often in other young brides and their mothers, the tears and the tantrums and the laughter.

Which was ridiculous, because she was here now, for exactly that, and she would be here for as long as her daughter needed her.

‘Rob, it’s fine. Let’s just move on, can we?’ she said, and then the car door was snatched from her hand and Jenni was hurling herself into the car and hugging her, sitting on the sill and cupping her face, staring at her searchingly.