One Summer At The Castle: Stay Through the Night / A Stormy Spanish Summer / Behind Palace Doors

Rosa acknowledged that she was letting the isolation spook her. A curlew called, it wild cry sending a shiver down her spine. A covey of grouse, startled by the sound of the car, rose abruptly into the air, startling her. She made an incoherent sound and her companion turned to give her another curious look.

‘Something wrong?’

Rosa shrugged. ‘I was just thinking about what you said,’ she replied, not altogether truthfully. ‘I think I agree with you. Jameson wouldn’t have brought Sophie here.’

‘No?’ Liam spoke guardedly.

‘No. I mean—’ She gestured towards the moor. ‘I can’t imagine any man who lives here going to somewhere frantic like a pop festival.’ She paused. ‘Can you?’

Liam’s mouth compressed. ‘I seem to remember saying much the same thing about half an hour ago,’ he retorted.

‘Oh. Oh, yes, you did.’ Rosa pulled a face. ‘I’m sorry. I think I should have listened to you.’

Liam shook his head. He didn’t know what she expected him to say, what she expected him to do. But if she hoped that he’d turn the car around and drive her back to the village she was mistaken. He was tired, dammit. He’d just driven over five hundred miles, and there was no way she was going to add another twenty miles to his journey. If she wanted to go back, Sam would have to take her. Right now, he needed breakfast, a shower and his bed, not necessarily in that order.

Or that was what he told himself. In fact, he was curiously loath to abandon her. He felt sorry for her, he thought. She’d been sent up here on a wild goose chase and she was going to feel pretty aggrieved when she found out he’d been deceiving her, too.

The awareness of what he was thinking astounded him, however. This had always been his retreat, his sanctuary. The one place where he could escape the rat race of his life in London. What the hell was he doing, bringing a stranger into his home? For God’s sake, she wasn’t a teenager. She was plenty old enough to look out for herself.

‘Anyway,’ she said suddenly, ‘I’m still going to ask him if he knows where she might be. I mean, if they are making a film up here, he will know about it. Where it’s being made, I mean. Don’t you think?’

Liam’s fingers tightened on the wheel. Why didn’t he just tell her who he was? he wondered impatiently. Why didn’t he admit that he’d kept his identity a secret to begin with because he’d been half afraid she had some ulterior motive for coming here? She might not believe him, but it would be better than feeling a complete fraud every time she mentioned his name.

‘Look, Miss—er—’

‘Chantry,’ she supplied equably. ‘Rosa Chantry.’

‘Yes. Miss Chantry.’ Liam hesitated now. ‘Look, I think there’s something I—’

But before he could finish, she interrupted him. ‘Oh, God!’ she exclaimed in dismay, and for a moment he thought she’d realised who he was for herself. But then she reached into the back of the car, hauled her pack forward and extracted a mobile phone. ‘I promised I’d ring my mother as soon as I reached the island,’ she explained ruefully. ‘Excuse me a minute. I’ve just got to tell her I’m all right before she begins to think she’s lost two daughters instead of just one.’

‘Yeah, but—’ he began, about to tell her that there were no transmitters for cellphones on the island when she gave a frustrated cry.

‘Dammit, the battery must be dead,’ she exclaimed, looking at the instrument as if it was to blame for its inactivity. Then she frowned. ‘That’s funny. There’s no signal at all.’

‘That’s because we don’t have any mobile phone masts on Kilfoil,’ said Liam mildly. ‘The place was deserted for years—apart from a few hardy sheep—and although things have changed a bit since then, we prefer not to litter the island with all the detritus of the twenty-first century.’

‘You mean I can’t ring my mother?’

‘No. There are landlines.’

‘So do you think Liam Jameson will let me make a call from the castle?’

‘I’m sure he will,’ muttered Liam, aware he was retreating back into the character he’d created. ‘Don’t run away with the idea that the island’s backwards. Since—since its modernisation, it’s become quite a desirable place to live.’

Rosa arched brows that were several shades darker than her hair. ‘Is that why you came here?’ she asked. ‘To escape the rat race?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘And you like living here? You don’t get—bored?’

‘I’m never bored,’ said Liam drily. ‘Are you?’

‘I don’t get time to be bored,’ she replied ruefully. ‘I’m a schoolteacher. My work keeps me busy.’

‘Ah.’ Liam absorbed this. He thought it explained a lot. Like how she was able to come up here in the middle of August. Like why she seemed so prim and proper sometimes.

The moor was receding behind them now, and they’d started down a twisting road into the glen. He pointed ahead. ‘There’s the castle. What do you think?’

Rosa caught her breath. ‘It’s—beautiful,’ she said, and it was. Standing square and solid on a headland overlooking the sea, its grey walls warmed by the strengthening sun, it was magnificent. ‘It’s very impressive,’ she breathed. And not what she had expected at all. ‘But how can anyone live in such a place? It must have over a hundred rooms.’

‘Fifty-three, actually,’ said Liam unthinkingly. And then, with a grimace, ‘Or so I’ve heard.’

‘Fifty-three!’ Rosa shook her head. ‘He must be very rich.’

‘Some of them are just anterooms,’ said Liam, resenting the urge he had to defend himself, but doing it just the same. ‘I’m fairly sure he doesn’t use them all.’

‘I should think not.’ Rosa snorted. ‘Is he married?’

‘No.’ Liam had no hesitation about telling her that. It was in the potted biography that appeared on the back of all his books, after all.

‘Well, does he live alone?’ Rosa was persistent. ‘Does he have a girlfriend? Or a boyfriend?’ she added, pulling a face. ‘These days you never know.’

‘He’s not gay,’ said Liam grimly. ‘And he has household staff who run the place for him, so he’s hardly alone.’

‘All the same…’ She was annoyingly resistant to his opinion. ‘I bet he has to pay his employees well to get them to stay here.’

Liam clamped his jaws together and didn’t answer her. He could have said that several of the people he employed were refugees from London, like himself. He did employ locals, where he could, but the islanders only wanted part-time work so they could pursue their own interests. The Highlanders were an independent lot and preferred fishing and farming to working indoors.

They approached the castle through open land dotted with sheep and cattle. Rosa saw shepherds’ crofts nestling on the hillside, and more substantial farm buildings with whitewashed walls and smoking chimneys. A stream, which evidently had its source in the mountains, tumbled over rocks on its way to the sea. And in the background the shoreline beckoned, the sand clean and unblemished and totally deserted.

Rosa knew that anyone who’d never seen this aspect of Scotland wouldn’t believe how incredibly beautiful it was. The sea was calm here, and in places as green as—as Luther Killian’s eyes. And just as intriguing. Though probably as cold as ice.

The castle itself looked just as splendid as they drew closer. Although obviously renovations had been made, they’d been accomplished in a way that didn’t detract from the building’s charm and history. Only the square windows, that had replaced the narrow lattices once used for firing on the enemy in ancient times, were out of character. But the heavy oak front doors looked just as solid a defence.

There were outbuildings set back from the main house, with a cobbled forecourt edging the stone steps in front. They approached over a wooden bridge spanning a dry ditch, which might once have been a moat, and parked on the forecourt to one side of the studded doors.

One of the doors opened immediately and a man and several dogs stepped out into the sunlight. The dogs—two golden retrievers and a spaniel—bounded down the steps to greet them, their tails wagging excitedly.

To the accompaniment of their barks of welcome, Liam swung open his door and hauled himself to his feet. Once again, his leg had stiffened up and he cursed its weakness for spoiling one of the true pleasures of his life. He had always enjoyed driving and had a handful of expensive cars in his possession. He preferred them to the helicopter that his agent had insisted was essential, and leased the aircraft to the local air ambulance service more often than he used it himself.

Steeling himself against the pain, he left the car and strode towards Sam Devlin, the man who ran Kilfoil for him with such consummate skill and efficiency. ‘Liam—’ began Sam, only to break off when his employer raised a warning finger to his lips. ‘It’s good to see you again,’ he amended, his grey brows drawing together in confusion. ‘Is something wrong?’

Liam glanced back significantly, and now Sam saw Rosa getting out of the car. ‘Do we have a visitor?’ he asked in surprise. He knew, better than anyone, that Liam never brought strangers to Kilfoil.

‘We do,’ said Liam in a low voice, after shaking hands with the older man. ‘She’s here because she wants to ask Liam Jameson where her sister is.’

‘What?’ Sam stared at him. ‘But you’re—’