Unsure how to start, she murmured, ‘Yes, well, mostly,’ which seemed completely wrong when all she wanted was to bellow,Of course not!
It felt strange to be talking in platitudes like strangers. The people they had been had gone, and she didn’t know him any more than he could know her. She struggled to find something to say, anything to fill that silent void that was stretching longer and longer between them. ‘Is life good for you, in Balmoral?’
‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ he replied half-heartedly. ‘I like to work on the land, and there’s a good team of men.’ He looked to the door where they’d left to go into the gardens. ‘And I get to ride the horses.’
‘I remember how much you loved horses,’ she said, thinking of the photographs of mares, the foals he’d reared, and the young stallion he’d broken. ‘Do you live there, at Balmoral?’
‘I have a cottage on the estate, close to the town. It’s not too large, but it suits me fine.’
Before she could stop herself, she asked, ‘Do you live on your own?’ She’d always imagined him married, one of those dark-haired Highland beauties, a crop of auburn-haired children – the unknown siblings of Annabel.
But he looked away, avoiding her gaze. ‘Yes. There were a few girls, but I never married. And you? I heard you were married.’
His eyes went to her hand, and she quickly buried it under the clothes. ‘Yes, it was during the war.’ Caroline could feel her heart pounding as blood rushed to her cheeks.
‘Oh.’ His tone was even, flat. ‘Any children?’
It was asked casually. Didn’t he know about Annabel?
Taking a long breath, she said steadily, ‘I have a daughter,’ and waited for the inevitable penny to drop.
And yet it didn’t. He simply asked, ‘How old is she?’ Nothing about his face or his voice indicated anything at all.
Her hands flustered with nerves, and the queen’s coat slipped out of the pile onto the floor – all thoughts of rushing to the waiting car had gone.
Simultaneously, they both stooped to pick up the coat, their heads almost touching, making her move aside, a breath of laughter as he balanced it back onto the pile she was holding. And in that moment, she realized that he, too, was unsure.
She swallowed. ‘It must be strange, being back here in the palace after all these years?’
‘It’s like stepping back in time. If only we’d seen what the war would bring. I don’t think any of us were prepared.’
She suddenly remembered that was how he had been – questioning, challenging, never taking anything at face value.
‘At least we both made it out alive.’
He glanced away. ‘It wasn’t easy.’ His mouth was set in a firm line, his forehead frowning – what had he been through that he’d never been in touch with her since his return?
Without thinking, she took a step towards him, but then quickly pulled back. The gesture had been meant to comfort him, an automatic reaction, the magnetism drawing her in. But she remembered Betty’s warning, to keep it polite, and she took the conversation onto safer ground. ‘Are you bringing up any new racers?’
He told her about a mare who was doing well, and a young filly with potential. ‘The queen likes to visit them when she’s in Balmoral, ride when she has time, too.’
‘She talks about her horses when dressing,’ Caroline said. ‘There’san old stallion in Balmoral that she adores. What’s his name again, Brodie?’
‘Yes, he’s the one. He’s getting on a bit now, but what a sprint on him!’ He laughed, suddenly relaxed. ‘Once I rode Brodie as fast as he could go, right through the heather across the glen and up to the peak. He went like the devil across the moors.’
And there it was, that flash of the man he used to be, the passion, the humanity. She murmured, half to herself, ‘It must be heavenly living in the mountains.’
‘The Highlands are dramatic, stark, but it’s a good life, too, with the queen’s visits, the royal hunts and the Scottish reels.’ He smiled, and she remembered how he’d taught her the dances, Strip the Willow and the Gay Gordons, spinning around the palace corridors. He’d brought out a set of bagpipes that New Year’s Eve and played ‘Auld Lang Syne’. How much she’d adored him – how she still felt that giddiness with him, that inspiring presence that lifted life out of the normal and into something bigger and more magical than the everyday.
‘And what about you?’ he asked. ‘Do you have a garden, a dog or a pet?’
‘No pets, but there’s a robin that sits on the wall opposite the kitchen window every morning. He greets me with a song.’ She smiled at this one small connection with nature. ‘And then off he goes, soaring over the rooftops.’ She looked at the floor. ‘Sometimes I wish I could go with him, open my wings and fly away.’
She felt him move a little closer. ‘I sometimes think about that, too.’
And suddenly it was all too much for her. Would she ever be able to let him go if she spent more time with him? And what about those burning questions in her heart:Why hadn’t he replied to her letters? Why had he abandoned her?
‘I have to get these things to the car.’ She stepped back, almost tripping over her feet as she turned to leave.
