‘And waste my fifteen-year-old Dalmore?’
Her flesh stung as he did his work, as did her pride, and she found she was glad she’d made the effort to shave her legs and that Atholl was so absorbed in fixing plasters he didn’t see her wincing and shuddering as the alcohol burned her throat.
‘There, you’ll live,’ he said with a note of finality and a backwards step that made her dimly aware of how much she’d liked him so close to her, working in his quiet, capable, economical manner, his fingertips skimming over her skin every now and then. Close up, she’d noticed the dark freckles over his cheekbones and the deep red brown of his lashes, and she’d become aware for the first time of how well the dark green jumper and brown checks he wore complemented the ruddy chestnut of his hair.
‘I’d better be going now then,’ she said, collecting herself, trying to remember that she was angry with him.
‘If ye wish. Start again tomorrow morning?’
Exasperated, she let her mouth gape and her eyes widen. ‘Tomorrow? I’ll be on my way back to Warwick tomorrow. In fact, that’s what I came down to talkto the teacherabout,’ she said, pointedly. ‘I wanted to ask about getting my money back. I don’t want to fiddle about with sticks and twigs in this place, especially if I have to risk life and limb just to get to the classroom!’
She reached for the table top to steady herself under his unreadable gaze. Was he really angry with her after what had just happened? He looked paler than he did before and seemed to be biting hard upon the inside of his cheek, making his jaw work and flex and his lips bloom into an unconscious pout.
She reached her fingertips to her temples and rubbed away the headache that was coming. Was it the whisky bringing on the drowsiness, or was she going into shock, or was it the scent of warm lavender drifting in through the opened window, strong and dry?
‘That “fiddling about with sticks and twigs” is my attempt at starting a willow-weaving business of my own.’ He crumpled the wrappers from her sticking plasters into a soft fist before stuffing his hands into his trouser pockets and turning away from her, seemingly surveying the whitewashed wall.
Beatrice blinked at him in the dim light and he kept talking, low and slow.
‘You’ve come all this way just to insult my inn rooms, fluster my brother and ask for your money back? You’ve barely seen the place.’
‘What’s there to see? Rain, midges, mad cattle charges. I just want to go…’ She almost said ‘home’, but the word didn’t come.
‘Well, there’s no refunds to be had. Go if you wish, but I’ve a bedroom and a classroom empty for more than a week now.’
Beatrice stood, feeling the big square dressings on both her kneecaps crinkle and pinch as her legs straightened.Againwith the feeling ridiculous. Leaving her barely touched whisky on the table, she made for the door. ‘I thought I needed a change of scene. I was wrong, OK?’ It’s something else I need, she thought, but what, she had no idea.
‘Well you’ll never find out what it is you’re after if you keep running from pillar to post.’ There was consternation written across his face.
Her neck stiffened. Could this guy read her mind, and what was it to him, anyway?
‘You don’t know the first thing about me,’ she snapped, riled that he’d pinned her so accurately.
‘I know you wanted to come here atsomepoint. And maybe it’s no’ what ye expected, but if you let yourself enjoy it, ye might find you’d like to stay out your holiday wi’ us, and ye might learn a few things too.’
‘The last thing I need is another smart-mouthed man telling me what I need.’ She fumbled with the latch on the low door and made sure not to bump her head on the frame as she flounced out.
Pulling the door closed behind her, she faced the wide circle of blue in the bay and inhaled the fresh, warm, salty air. But the buoying feelings of decisiveness, authority and self-righteousness she’d expected to come, didn’t arrive. Instead, she felt a shrinking smallness, and then shame.
Why was she behaving like this? Whowasshe?
Inside the cottage, Atholl watched the door slam, shaking his head and instinctively raising Beatrice’s glass to his lips, draining it dry and holding back the urge to throw the glass into the fire grate and watch it shatter.
As Beatrice slunk down the cottage garden path, defeated and embarrassed, she spotted a painted wooden sign to her left pointing along a wide, dry path between two grassy meadows alive with butterflies. ‘To Port Willow’ it read. She cursed Atholl Fergusson and the wicked sense of revenge that had made him urge his docile brother to send her down the rocky road, and she found herself cursing his handsome face and his haughty, straight-talking manner too.
How dare he antagonise her like this? When she’d been through so much recently? When she was so fragile and so alone? But, of course, he couldn’t know. She had never told anyone about her lovely mother, her lost job and her precious baby boy. Sorrow had piled upon sorrow for months now and it all weighed invisibly on her shoulders, but she had no intention – or indeed any means – of starting to talk about it all now.
Walking at a pace along the path her heart thumped as she remembered what a fool she’d made of herself on the beach. ‘Stick to the rocks,’ Gene had told her. He must have known about the cows and even though his brother wanted him to send her on a fool’s rock climb, Gene didn’t want her flattened under-hoof. These Fergusson brothers would be the death of her. How she hated them and their ridiculous inn.
A sleek brown hare shot across the path a few paces ahead of her. Breaking her stride she tried to follow it with her eyes but found it was already hidden in the long meadow grass dotted here and there with bobbing blue cornflowers.
The moment allowed her a chance to stop and breathe.
Glancing back to the But and Ben behind her, she considered walking back in there and letting Atholl know how reckless he’d been, how dangerous his stupid ploy was, but instead of picturing herself spitting fire at a repentant Atholl Fergusson, she saw him kneeling at her feet cleaning up her grazed legs and was struck by the memory of his gentle touch. Her cheeks burned as she turned back for Port Willow, shouting into the still, warm air. ‘Everything about this stupid Scottish trip was a mistake!’
The church spire of St Magnus’ came into view in the distance, an easy walk now along the gently sloping meadow path. She set off once more planning to hide away all day and take the first train home tomorrow. Nobody need ever know about how she booked a spontaneous getaway to the Scottish Highlands at a moment’s notice, just so she could escape the resounding emptiness of her life. One more day here and she’d be home to watch the men load the van with Rich’s gym equipment, and to pack her own belongings into boxes, readying herself to hand over keys to her house’s new occupants, and then – what? She had no idea.
Chapter Eight
