Page 55 of Duke It Out
She gives a tight smile. “Probably nothing. Muffin’s gone AWOL. He went out with Rory and the spaniels when he went for a run. Normally he’s straight back here to sit with me in the office, but?—”
I’m already heading for the door. “I’ll help you look.”
She opens her mouth to protest, but then Rory walks in from the back door that heads out into the kitchen garden. He tosses a black hoody down on the table and wipes away sweat from his forehead. His face is set in a grim line, and the grey sweatpants he’s wearing are splattered with mud. Bramble and Tilly, the two brown and white spaniels, are panting at his feet, their ears festooned with grass and mud as if they too have been searching.
“No sign,” he says. “I’m going to head down the loch path and see if he’s got stuck in a rabbit hole or something.”
“I’ll come with you,” I say, before I can stop myself. I’ve grown fond of little wire-haired Muffin, who likes to mooch around under my desk in the hope of snacks, then curl up ina little fuzzy ball on the library sofa beside me when I’m reading.
His eyes flick to mine. “You don’t have to.”
“No,” I say, holding his gaze. “But I want to.”
“I’ll stay here in case he comes back,” Janey says, holding the door open for us. “I bet he’ll turn up five minutes after you’ve gone, with mud all over his face and begging for one of Gregor’s doggy biscuits.”
She glances between us. “I’ll give Jamie a shout, see if he can head out with the dogs from the other side of the loch. He might have headed down to the lodge.”
Rory grabs the hoody again and pulls it over his head. I follow him out into the spring sunshine, it’s bright but there’s a chill in the air and the faint smell of woodsmoke blowing from the fires in the castle. We walk for a while in silence, the only noise the sound of our boots on the gravel as the spaniels dart back and forth, their noses to the ground, chasing scents but not finding poor Muffin.
“He was your father’s dog?” I say, more to fill the quiet than anything else.
Rory nods, not looking at me. “Used to belong to Craig, the old gamekeeper. When Craig retired due to ill health, Muffin couldn’t go with him to the sheltered housing place and my father took him in.”
“That’s sweet,” I say, surprised.
Rory gives a wry smile, and this time he turns for a moment to look at me. “You sound surprised. You’ve spent too many hours reading his diaries.”
He holds open a narrow wooden gate and I slip through, waiting while he secures it.
“Not surprised?—”
“He was a contrary bugger, but he loved his animals.” Heshrugs. “I’ll give him that. And I’ll forgive pretty much anything if you’re nice to dogs.”
“Even the way he behaved?” I press my lips together the moment the words come out, realising I’ve gone a bit too far.
Rory surprises me with a gruff laugh. “Almost. What’s the alternative? Carrying a grudge for the rest of your life about someone that isn’t even here?”
We pass the stone buildings where the gardeners keep their tools, then follow a narrow path lined with the first wildflowers of the season, winding down toward the loch. The silence stretches longer this time, heavier. Every so often, Rory gives three sharp blasts on the dog whistle he’s carrying, and the spaniels come bounding back to check in—always two, never three.
I glance sideways. His jaw is tight, shoulders stiff, and his long stride forces me into the occasional trot just to keep pace. I can’t tell if he’s worried about Muffin or still fuming over the diaries, left spread across the library table like evidence in a crime scene.
I risk another sideways glance. “Has he done this before?”
“Plenty of times,” Rory says. “But he’s always come back after ten minutes or so. He’s getting old now, and he’s slower than he thinks he is. If he’s gone down a badger sett or got trapped in a rabbit hole…”
The idea of bright-eyed little Muffin curled up somewhere, hurt or alone kicks something in my chest. Without thinking, I pick up the pace, scanning the tree line as we turn up towards the forest trail and away from the edge of the loch.
“Maybe we should split up,” I say. “We could cover more ground that way.”
He gives me a look. “If something happens to you, we’ll be searching for two, not one.”
“Fine,” I say, gesturing to the path ahead. “But we can take it at your speed. I can jog to keep up.”
He looks at my legs for a moment and gives the ghost of a smirk. “That I’d like to see.”
“I’ve been going to the gym or swimming every day after working,” I protest. “I’m basically an athlete now.”
“Nobody’s asking you to be an athlete,” Rory says, and there’s something in the look he gives me that sends a strange feeling down my spine. And then it’s gone, and his face reverts to its habitual patrician mask.
