Page 9 of Heirs and Graces at Highland Hall
She’d been about to leave the lodge when she’d noticed a large box in the corner of the living room, with a wedge of fabric peeking out of the top. Intrigue had got the better of her, and as she’d moved a little closer, she realised it was full of clothes. Her clothes. Everything of hers that she’d left was shoved there in the corner of his room.
They had broken up in London, and after tears and hugs, Bex had told him it wouldn’t be necessary to send her things down. After all, they were going to stay friends. That’s what she’d said. And she’d believed that. She’d believed she’d be able to grab all her belongings when she next visited. But that visit had not happened.
She could hardly blame Duncan for packing her stuff up and closing the lid, the way he’d felt she’d done to the relationship, but seeing it there caused a whole new rawness to tear at her. They had been broken up for almost three months. How was it possible to be so unrecovered from a breakup after so long?She’d never experienced it before. But then again, she’d never been with someone for nearly a year and a half before.
On the plus side, at least it meant she had some warm clothes. Had it not been for the exertion of carrying half of Duncan’s weight and borrowing Lorna’s gloves on the way down, she probably would have frozen. So, after selecting a jumper, her biggest coat, gloves, scarf and hat, she had put the lid back down on the box and followed Lorna outside.
‘I know, he’s not in a great way. But you don’t have to shoulder all the blame yourself,’ Lorna replied.
Bex wasn’t quite sure she agreed with that, but Lorna glanced across at her.
‘He was away when Fergus passed,’ she explained. ‘He’d taken himself off somewhere, needed a bit of space. There was no phone reception. By the time he got back, he discovered he had twelve missed calls from Fergus, asking him to come back so they could talk. To say goodbye, I guess. Duncan never got that conversation. That closure.’
Bex covered her mouth as a searing pain throbbed in her chest and fresh tears trickled down her cheek. It was all very well Lorna saying she shouldn’t shoulder the blame, but why had Duncan needed to take himself off for some space? She would bet her impressive promotion it was because of their breakup.
‘I can’t imagine what that must have been like,’ she said truthfully.
Lorna nodded. ‘I know everyone thought an awful lot of Fergus, but for Duncan, it was different. Fergus was as close as family. He was his best friend, grandfather figure, employer. And the fact Duncan never got to say goodbye… well, he feels guilty, you know. That he should have been there for the old man.’
That ache in Bex’s chest was showing no signs of fading. Now it made sense why Duncan hadn’t rung to tell her about Fergus’spassing himself. It hadn’t been about her, or how he felt. He’d had enough to deal with.
‘God, poor guy,’ she said softly.
‘Right,’ Lorna said with a sigh, before turning to Bex and offering a watery smile. ‘But that doesn’t excuse him for acting like a complete dick tonight. Those things he said, he knows they’re not true. We all know how much you loved him. And why you ended things.’
It was a mutual decision to end things, Bex wanted to say, but she couldn’t get the words out. There was too big a lump stuck in her throat, blocking them coming up.
‘No. No, it doesn’t.’
Bex’s thoughts shifted back to her time in the castle. Back to Fergus. The three of them – her, Duncan and the laird – had developed a winter habit of drinking hot chocolate together in the drawing room of an evening. It was Fergus’s favourite room in the house, and he had to have spent over half his time sat in the armchair next to the fire, the blanket over his lap. More than once, Bex wondered if, after she and Duncan had split up, it was a tradition the two men had continued. Part of her had even wondered if Duncan might consider moving out of the lodge and into her room just so neither of them was quite so on their own. But Duncan had never felt comfortable with the thought of living in the castle, even though she knew Fergus would have loved it.
With every step she took back towards the village, Bex considered how all these same thoughts would be eating away at Duncan. She just wished there was something she could do to help him, but she was there for a job, and he had made it perfectly clear that of all the people in the world, the one he would probably hate help from most was her.
8
Bex had arranged to meet Fergus’s lawyer at the castle. Though she had never met the man before, she already had a strong vision of him in her mind. He would be Scottish, naturally, and old, probably not far from Fergus’s age. It was likely that he’d known the old laird since childhood. That was the way it seemed with almost everyone there. Their lives were webs, the strands of which had been entwined since before the births and would continue that way for generations after their passing. It wouldn’t have surprised her if she’d even met the old man more than once and not known what his role was, but still, she couldn’t help but feel a bubble of nerves as she walked down the lane towards the castle, hoping that it was open and that she wasn’t going to have to stand out in the cold and wait for too long. It was better, now that she’d got her gloves and coat, but that didn’t stop the icy sting at the end of her nose or the way her breath fogged in the air in front of her.
Bex really wasn’t sure how likely it was that the castle was unlocked. Lorna had said that Kieron, Fergus’s nephew and the new laird, was expected to arrive from London any day, but there’d been no news yet, and the village grapevine would’venormally been on top of such things, especially given the circumstances.
When she reached the castle, Bex stood out in the driveway. Ignoring the biting cold that stung the tops of her ears, she allowed her mind to be flooded with memories of when she had first arrived. She had assumed Fergus was the groundskeeper – with his tatty clothes, dishevelled hair, and the half-dozen dogs always around him. Then she had thought he was a grumpy old man with zero people skills. But it hadn’t taken long before he had just become Fergus to her. Fergus, laird and lord to many, but to her, an old man whom she knew had suffered heartbreak, when he’d lost the love of his life in his youth. The ins and outs of that relationship – including whether it was the reason for his fallout with Duncan’s grandfather – Bex couldn’t be sure, but while Fergus had married, the conversations they had shared told her that his heart had always remained in the past.
As for other family, Duncan would regularly speak to Fergus’s sister, though she didn’t live nearby, and if what Duncan had said was true, the only times Kieron ever even came to Highland Hall was when he’d wanted to have some big party or host a fancy shoot for his London friends. She doubted he even knew the real Fergus – the man Fergus was to her. The one she’d share a hot chocolate with in the evenings. Who’d comforted her at the start of her and Duncan’s relationship when her own heart had suffered a hefty blow. He hadn’t even put up much of a fuss when his dog, Ruby, decided she liked Bex more than she liked him. He had only wanted what was best for other people. That was what it came down to.
With a heavy weight in her heart, she moved towards the castle, only to stop again.
There, just a little way off the drive, was a small herd of deer, basking in the pale rays of the morning light, a large stag standing in the middle of them all.
There was so much Bex loved about LochDarroch and the land around Highland Hall, but the wildlife had to be one of the main things. Deer, hares, foxes. She could have spent hours watching them. Although surprisingly, it was the birds she loved the most. From the dainty dotterel to the majestic birds of prey. She’d never seen a golden eagle before visiting here and even now she remembered the first time she had.
It had been her first summer, when she was still working on the accounts, and Duncan had surprised her with a picnic lunch. Given how wholeheartedly Fergus had approved of the burgeoning relationship, he’d given them the entire afternoon off, and the pair had headed down to the loch with a large blanket and after eating their food had lain down together and stared up at the sky. That was until Bex saw the giant bird and had leapt up from the ground.
‘Is that… Is that… What is that? It’s enormous.’
‘That? That is a golden eagle,’ Duncan had replied, wrapping his arm around her and pulling her back down next to him, so that her head rested on his chest.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she’d whispered.
‘Aye, it is. Special creatures, they are. Mate for life. Once they find the one, that’s it. There’s no one else for them.’
