‘No. No, once was enough.’
‘So he was the only one for you?’
Her eyes filled and she looked away quickly. ‘Well, you know him. He’s that kind of person, really. Hard to follow.’
‘Yes, I can imagine. He was a brilliant student—I always wondered what happened to him. So has he inherited the estate now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Which must make him the Laird, of course.’
Maisie nodded. ‘Yes. And, of course, that rather dictates the wedding. It’s not very convenient for me, with all the long-distance planning, but it’s better for everybody else, and even if we could find a better setting, it wouldn’t be right for Jenni to get married in any other place.’
‘No—and I imagine it’s beautiful. He talked about it once or twice—it sounded as if he really loved it, as if it filled his soul.’
She nodded again, amazed that Annette remembered him so well. ‘I think it does, and it is beautiful, especially the countryside around there. I felt that more this time than I have before—I’ve always found it a bit daunting in the past. It’s gorgeous in the summer, but it can be a bit bleak in the winter, and the castle was a bit austere then. He’s made lots of changes, though, and it’s much more welcoming.’
‘There was a dungeon, wasn’t there?’
‘Oh, yes. I’d forgotten that. It’s got a slit in the wall, high up, so the smells from the kitchen could drift down and torment the prisoners. I used to lie awake and wonder how many of the kitchen staff threw food to them, and what it was like down there.’
‘Horrible, I expect. The warring Highland clans could be pretty uncompromising. Not that Robert was ever like that.’
‘Oh, he can be,’ she said softly, wondering if that was why he hadn’t followed her. ‘Compromise isn’t exactly his middle name—but he’s learning! The wedding’s forcing him to, and he’s a good father. He’s taking all the wedding stuff very well.’
Annette chuckled. ‘It can be a bit full on, can’t it?’ Her smile faded. ‘I’d love to see him again. I was always very fond of him.’
‘I’m amazed you remember him.’
‘Oh, Robert was unforgettable. As you said yourself.’
So true. Maisie took a slow breath and tried not to dwell on that. ‘He’s down here at the moment, actually. He had some things to do in London, and he’s on the way here now to drop some things off and sort out a few details. Would you like me to ask him to pop in while he’s in Cambridge?’
Her eyes lit up, but then she shook her head. ‘Oh, he won’t remember me.’
‘I’m sure he will. I’ll ask him—if you like.’
‘Would you? I would love to see him, but only if he’s got time.’
‘I’ll ask him.’ She could see Annette was flagging, so she gathered her things and stood up. ‘I’ll leave you in peace now. I ought to be getting back. I’ll get him to ring and arrange a time to visit you, if you like?’
‘Would you? Thank you so much—and thank you again for the photographs. I know I’ve said it before, but it was a real pleasure to have you there, and you couldn’t possibly have done a better job. We were all thrilled.’
‘Oh, Annette, bless you. It was a real privilege to share it with you.’ She stooped to kiss her cheek, and then let herself out and drove home.
That word again.
Odd, how it could be home and yet still feel like his house, as if the bricks and mortar held the memory of his presence. No wonder she’d never moved on.
His car was outside when she pulled up, and he was sitting there with the roof down, his head tipped back and his eyes shut, listening to the radio.
‘You made good time,’ she said, pausing by the car, and he opened one eye and sat up.
‘Yeah, the road was good. Am I in your space?’
She laughed. ‘There’s no such thing as my space. I park wherever I can. Here, take my permit and put it in your windscreen or you’ll get a ticket. I’ll be back in a minute.’
That was one of the disadvantages of being in a university town as steeped in history as Cambridge was. She was right in the thick of the colleges, close to the river and handy for the town. Any spaces going were either metered or occupied by residents, but her neighbours allowed her to park in their drive, and she turned in there now and headed back to him.
The hood was up now, and he was propped against the car, his long legs crossed at the ankle, a soft leather case at his feet and a heavy-duty carrier bag in his hand.
‘Invitations?’
‘Amongst other things.’ He picked up his case and followed her up the little path to the front door, then into the little terraced house that she didn’t feel was hers.
Crazy, he thought. Why hadn’t she told him? He’d had no idea that she felt like that—no idea about so many things, he admitted. His mother, for instance, and the way she’d been to Maisie while he’d been at sea.
‘Jenni sends her love,’ he said as she closed the door behind them.
‘How is she? I spoke to her the other day, she sounded a bit hassled.’
‘She is. She’s been working hard. The dress is lovely, by the way. It looks shockingly expensive.’
She laughed, a little rueful smile playing around her mouth. ‘It was,’ she admitted. ‘But I wanted to do it for her, and it’s absolutely gorgeous on.’
‘I know. I saw it. I went with them. Mum was very pleased to be included, by the way, and she was delighted with the veil.’
‘Which one did she go for?’ Maisie asked, unpacking a bag and piling stuff into the fridge.
‘Long—very simple. She said she wants some photos up in the ruined tower. She thought the long one, blowing in the wind, could make some spectacular photos.’
‘She’s right. I’ll brief Jeff before the day.’
He laughed and propped himself against the worktop so he could see her face. ‘I’m sure you will,’ he said drily.
She arched a brow and walked away, putting the kettle on. ‘Talking of photos, I’ve got a message for you from Annette Grainger.’
He did a mild double-take. ‘Really? Dr Grainger? How do you know her?’ he asked.
‘She’s the mother of the bride I told you about—the one starting chemo.’
He felt a wave of denial. ‘Oh, no. Not her.’
‘It’s OK, it’s not looking too bad. Her scan’s come back clear, and she’s sounding hopeful. She said she’d love to see you again. I told her I’d get you to ring her.’
‘Sure. I’d love to see her. Should I call her now?’
‘No, better leave it for a while. She was looking tired— that’s where I was just now. She’s probably resting. Call her later, before we go out.’
She pulled two mugs out and set them on the worktop. ‘I didn’t know what you wanted for lunch, so I grabbed a few things—pre-prepared salads, that sort of thing. I thought I’d keep it simple if we’re going out tonight.’
He nodded, then shrugged away from the side and rammed his hands in his pockets to keep them out of mischief. He didn’t want to think about tonight. ‘How do you fancy a picnic?’
‘A picnic?’
‘Mmm. I thought we could go punting.’
‘Punting?’ she said, as if he’d suggested eating underwater, and then she smiled slowly, her eyes soft. ‘I haven’t been punting for years. I went a few years ago, with Jenni and Alec, but I was so busy watching them together and trying to deal with their blindingly obvious devotion to each other that I didn’t really take it in. Before then—well, that was really years ago.’
Twenty-something? He didn’t want to go there, so he stuck to Jenni and Alec. ‘So—how do you feel about them now? Are you more accepting of their relationship?’ he asked, and she nodded.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said calmly. ‘I’ve always been happy about their relationship, it was just getting married so young, but having seen them together in Scotland—well, you’re right, they fit together as if they were made for each other. I
still think they’re very young but, as you say, they know each other inside out, and better this way than the way we did it.’
Her words hung in the air, the tension suddenly ratcheting up a notch, and he let out a short sigh and nodded.
‘Yes. I agree. So—picnic on a punt?’
She pulled herself together. ‘Yes—sure. Let’s see what I’ve got.’
She hauled everything out of the fridge again, and they made ham salad rolls with a dollop of coleslaw, and packed them up with some cold barbecued chicken legs and juicy cherry tomatoes and a packet of hand-cooked crisps. Then she added a pack of fresh cream chocolate éclairs, and he started to chuckle.
‘Well, I suppose the tomatoes are healthy,’ he teased, and she blushed and pulled out a bottle of mineral water.
‘I wasn’t really thinking. I just grabbed stuff quickly. If you’re going to complain…’
‘I’m not complaining!’ he said, throwing his hands up and trying not to laugh. ‘Really, I’m not complaining. I’m starving, I missed breakfast because I was working late and over-slept. It looks great.’
‘Well, we’d better go, then,’ she said, zipping up the cool bag, and he took it from her and ushered her out of the door.
They walked the short distance to the river, arriving just as a punt was being returned. ‘Two hours?’ he asked her, and she nodded.
‘One’s not enough, not if we’re going to take time to enjoy it,’ she said, and then wondered if two hours alone on a boat with him would be such a good idea after all.
Except, of course, they were hardly alone. They were surrounded by rank amateurs, and college students taking guided punts to earn a bit of extra money, and on a lovely early May Saturday, the river was heaving.
They set off, him balancing easily on the stern, her sitting in the bows facing him. She had the best view from there. She could watch the river go by, and as an added bonus she could watch Rob, his muscles moving smoothly under the soft jersey shirt he was wearing, his thighs braced as he pushed away from the wall to avoid a group of girls who were wildly out of control.
They looked like girls on a hen weekend, Maisie thought, looking at their silly printed T-shirts and the glasses of champagne, and she wondered what Jenni was doing for hers, if anything.
The punt jolted, and the girls giggled, the girl standing on the back wobbling wildly and letting out a little shriek.
‘Steady,’ Rob said, grabbing her arm as she flailed, and she straightened up and flashed him a smile that made Maisie want to scratch her eyes out.
‘Sorry!’ She giggled, and hit the wall again.
He shook his head and smiled at Maisie. ‘Kids.’
Kids? There was nothing of the child in that young woman’s look, she thought, and wondered if he’d even noticed. Possibly not. She was about Jenni’s age, maybe a little older, and it was quite gratifying that he wasn’t eyeing her up, because she was very pretty.
‘Just because you’re so darned good at it,’ she said drily, and he grinned and ducked to go under another bridge.
‘All that practice. It’s great for impressing the girls.’
She knew that. As a girl she’d been very impressed by his skill with the punt. Very impressed with his skill with everything, come to that.
She looked away hastily, studying the backs of the colleges, seeing them as you only did from the river.
‘Shall we tie up here?’ he suggested when they reached an area of open grass, and they secured the punt to the rings on the side and climbed out, settling down on the grass with the cool bag.
He handed her a roll, and she ate it staring out across the river Cam, studying the glorious architecture of the ancient colleges and wishing things had been different, wishing that they’d settled here, that he’d never joined the navy, that they’d had more children and Ardnashiel had never been part of their lives.
She ripped open the crisps and dropped a handful in her lap, then picked up a chicken leg.
‘Penny for them.’
‘Not a chance,’ she said, and sank her teeth into the chicken.
CHAPTER SEVEN
HE didn’t know what to make of her.
No surprises there, he never did know what to make of her. Never had. But today—one minute she was sitting there watching him in the boat and laughing with him at the antics of some of the punters, the next she looked as if her best friend had kicked her puppy.
And she clearly didn’t want to talk about it, so he ignored her, lay down on his back on the fresh spring grass and listened to the sound of laughter, the odd shriek or splash, hasty apologies as punts collided with dull thuds. He could hear children playing, people strolling past, a dog barking in the distance. And Maisie rustling in the bag.
‘Want an éclair?’
He opened one eye and peered up at her. She was dangling one above his face, just out of reach, and so just for the hell of it he opened his mouth and waited.
And waited.
And then she lowered it, putting the end in his mouth so he could bite it off, the soft, squashy pastry giving way so the cream oozed out and smeared on his lips. He licked them, and her eyes widened slightly. And as he watched her, she took a bite herself, and the sensual imagery slammed through him.
‘Hey, that’s mine,’ he said, sitting up abruptly to take the rest of it from her before she could blow his mind, but she just laughed and took another bite and handed him the box.
‘Have your own,’ she said through a mouthful of cream, and then licked her fingers.
She was trying to kill him.
He took one and ate it sitting up, one leg drawn up and his arm curled round his knee, avoiding looking at her and eating it systematically and—almost impossibly—without licking his lips. Or his fingers.
He wiped them instead on a tissue, and still didn’t look at her. He wasn’t playing that game any more. Too dangerous. He’d end up making a fool of himself over her, and he’d done that once before and had never got over it. He wasn’t doing it again.
‘So, where does Annette live now?’ he asked, and the conversation moved to safer topics.
He went alone to see Annette. He took her flowers—green and white, on Maisie’s advice—and rang the bell.
She opened the door almost instantly, as if she’d been waiting for him, and her face lit up.
‘Rob! Oh, how lovely to see you. Oh, I would have known you anywhere. You’ve hardly changed at all—well, except your hair.’
He grinned at her. ‘Well, you can talk,’ he said gently, touching the colourful fabric wrapped around her head, and she laughed and reached her arms up and hugged him.
‘Bad boy. And you’ve brought me flowers. How lovely, thank you. They’re beautiful. Come on in and tell me all about yourself while I put them in water. I gather you and Maisie have a daughter? You are a dark horse. The last thing I heard you were off to the navy.’
‘Yes. I did six years in the submarines.’
And in hindsight, although it had been a valuable and humbling experience and had taught him a great deal about himself, it had probably been the most foolish mistake of his life. Hindsight was a wonderful thing.
He talked to Annette about his business in London, still ticking over nicely in the background, about the castle and the estate, about Jenni and the wedding—and then she asked about Maisie.
‘What went wrong?’ she said.
He nearly didn’t answer, nearly told her to mind her own business, but she’d always had time for him, always listened to him, always been there for him.
‘I don’t know,’ he said at last. ‘It was after she had Jenni. I was away, I missed the birth, but things were never the same after that. She— I don’t know, she didn’t seem to want me, although maybe it started earlier than that. Our marriage didn’t get the best of starts.’
‘No, she implied it was a bit hasty.’
‘Yes. We’d found out she was pregnant. Getting married seemed like a good idea at the time, but we didn
’t know each other nearly well enough then, of course.’
‘And later, when you knew each other better?’
He looked away. ‘I’m not sure we ever did. I was away a lot, she was unhappy, and she left, came back to Cambridge.’
‘And you let her go.’
‘I had nothing to offer her that she wanted.’
‘Are you sure? Because that’s not the impression I got,’ Annette suggested softly, but he shook his head.
‘She shut me out. She didn’t want me.’
‘But, like you, she’s never married anyone else, never found another man to make her happy. And when I asked her why, she told me you were hard to follow. Doesn’t that tell you something?’
He searched her eyes—kind, sage eyes that had seen so much—and he sighed.
‘We’re different, Annette. We want different things. She hates Ardnashiel.’
‘I don’t think she hates it, Rob. I think she was unhappy there, but she spoke quite fondly of it today. Said you’d done a lot to it, and it was much less austere.’
‘Well, I’ve done a bit. It’ll never be finished, places like that never are, but I love it. It’s home, but Maisie never felt like that. It has bad associations for her. I know it was difficult for her being up there with a small baby while I was away, and I’ve discovered that my parents didn’t make it easy for her. I didn’t realise that before. But it’s too late for us, Annette. She’s built a life for herself here now.’
She leant forward and touched his arm, her fingers gentle. ‘Maybe you should try again. Maybe she was waiting for you to ask her, and you didn’t. Maybe that was what went wrong.’
Could she be right? Had Maisie simply been waiting for him to follow her, to ask her what had gone wrong so they could put it right?
Maybe. He’d begun to wonder—but that had been a long time ago, and now they had the wedding to get through. Not the time to start dragging skeletons out of cupboards.
Nevertheless, the thought played on his mind as he made his farewells and drove back to Maisie’s house. He’d lost his parking place, of course, but it was after six and he found a slot around the corner and went back to find her in her dressing gown in the kitchen, making tea.
Mother of the Bride Page 11
