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  ‘She’s quite a looker, from what I’ve seen of her,’ Robert McCourt told her. ‘Though she’s a wee bit brassy for my taste and I’d say he has his hands full with her if I’m any judge, she looks a hard case.’

  ‘Then they should make a good pair,’ Tarin said, smiling ruefully. ‘And I must say you’re not painting a very rosy picture for me, Robert. You really don’t want me to work for him, do you?’

  She was smiling as she asked the question, and possibly her uncle didn’t realise just how serious she was behind that smile. Had she really made a big mistake in coming back to Deepwater? Could it all be so different that she wouldn’t even like it here any more? From what she could see, the place was as lovely as ever it had been, but she now had some doubts about the old house and its residents.

  Whether Barrel Bruce had changed the old place into something she would neither recognise nor like. Whether its mellow stone face had been lifted and prettied up to suit overseas visitors, and its lovely grounds scarred with swimming pools and tennis courts to amuse the wealthy tourists. It was a sobering thought and she didn’t think she could face seeing it again, if it had changed so much.

  ‘I’m not trying to put you off working for him, Tarin,’ her uncle told her earnestly. ‘I’d like nothing better than you staying on here with me—I’d love your company.’

  ‘Then just keep your fingers crossed that I get the job,’ Tarin told him with a smile. ‘I don’t ever remember when I was so nervous about going for an interview, and I can’t think why I should be.’

  Her uncle’s brown eyes looked across at her speculatively for a moment as he studied her in silence, then he nodded and smiled. ‘You’ll be woman enough to stand up to yon Bruce now,’ he said with evident satisfaction. ‘You’ll not let him browbeat you, I know, and you’ll have that job!’

  ‘I hope so,’ Tarin said quietly, and looked again at that screening cluster of trees that hid Deepwater from her view. ‘I really do hope so.’

  The sky had a curiously luminous look where it sat on top of the distant hills as if some great light shone just out of sight and was reflected in the blue morning sky. There were clouds, but only the little white streaks like puffs of smoke blown slowly along on the light breeze. It was a beautiful morning and Tarin chose to see it as an omen.

  She was walking through the village, relieved to find it unchanged since her last visit ten years before, and she would almost have sworn that even the packets and tins in the grocery shop window were the same ones. The little houses were just as neat and sturdy, set in their small patches of gardens and the twisty road still looked bumpily cobbled in the morning sun as she clicked her way over them towards the clustering trees that surrounded the entrance to Deepwater’s carriageway.

  One or two people recognised her, and probably knew of her coming from her uncle, for he was not averse to an occasional gossip. They looked no older and she forgot for a moment that she herself looked vastly different from the fourteen-year-old that most of them remembered.

  Ten years ago she had been thin to the point of scragginess and her face had had a small, soulful look that was appealing if not actually pretty. Now she was a young woman, still small in stature, but no longer thin, nicely rounded and exquisitely shaped, flattered by the thin, best silk dress she wore that fluttered round her slim legs as she walked. Her face was still small, too, but more than merely pretty, and the big dark blue eyes only faintly apprehensive as she faced the prospect of meeting Barrel Bruce again after so long.

  She remembered him so clearly it was quite amazing. The times she had seen him, usually mounted on that big grey mare of his, and looking even taller than he was in fact, his reddish-brown hair thick and wind-tossed above that broad brow, his brown eyes alert and eyeing her curiously. Probably wondering how she came to be always around whenever he was out near Stonebeck or Torin’s Pool, probably seeing through her ruse and quietly amused by it.

  As she left the village behind and approached the carriageway, she felt her heart doing a rapid and quite distinct flutter against her ribs and she put a hand to her side and frowned. It was really quite idiotic of her to behave like a lovesick schoolgirl after all this time.

  The gravel crunched under her feet and she found herself hurrying, walking right in the middle of the wide drive, as if she felt safer there than near the overhanging trees. It was because her heart was beating so hard and she was so preoccupied with thinking about her youthful memory of Darrel Bruce that she heard nothing of anyone approaching until a voice yelled from behind her and a loud whinnying sound sent her spinning round, her eyes wide with surprise.

  A bend in the drive had hidden her from the view of the approaching horseman and he had had to take swift and violent avoiding action to prevent his mount knocking her down. The horse, a dark brown stallion that looked as vast as a house from Tarin’s viewpoint, took an extremely poor view of being pulled up and made to swerve so sharply and he was giving his rider a hard time handling him for the moment.

  ‘What the hell are you walking in the middle of the road for?’ the man demanded, his hands busy with the indignant animal, and an edge of violence on his strong voice. ‘You almost threw me!’

  ‘I’m sorry!’ Her heart was hammering hard at her ribs, and it was not simply with the startling effects of the horseman’s sudden appearance either. She had no doubt at all that she was apologising to what she had hoped was her future employer, and if his present mood was anything to judge by, she had just banished any hope she ever had of getting the job.

  The horse steadied at last and the rider gave his attention to her, his strong hands still holding a tight rein on his mount, brown eyes looking down at her curiously. He said nothing for a moment but studied her with an intensity that brought the colour to her cheeks in resentment of it. It was not the reaction she had expected from her first sight of Barrel Bruce after ten years of seeing him as her ideal man, and she realised that she had been right to think she would think differently about him now she was grown up.

  There was no doubt at all that he was attractive, as her uncle had implied, but he had an arrogance about him that she did not remember noticing before. His thick reddish-brown hair still looked as if he had been riding fast and disturbed any sort of grooming it might have had initially, but there was a rugged, angular look about his features that made no pretence of being good-looking.

  Light fawn trousers fitted his long muscular legs closely and were tucked into short shiny brown boots, a fawn shirt had its sleeves rolled up to above the elbow and exposed strong, suntanned arms that looked both sinewy and powerful and an open neck showed a column of brown throat and neck as strong and dark as mahogany. He was, she realised with a slight dizzying sensation in her brain, even more potent than she recalled, despite her resentment of his manner.

  ‘You’re Tarin McCourt?’ he said, and made it a statement rather than a question.

  She nodded and put a hasty hand to smooth her hair, somewhat disconcerted at having him arrive so unexpectedly and so alarmingly. ‘Yes,’ she said, and he half smiled.

  It was little more than a faint glitter in those brown eyes, but it was warmer than the darkly angry look she had first encountered there, and she took hope from it. ‘You’ve changed,’ he said frankly, and Tarin flushed.

  ‘So have you,’ she retorted swiftly.

  His laughter was unexpected, and she felt a small shiver slip along her spine at the sound of it. Sitting up there on that great stallion he might have been the same ancestor who snatched Jeanie McCourt from the bosom of her family over two hundred years ago and started that never-ending feud between the two families.

  ‘One of the battling McCourts!’ he said with a hint of a jeer, and Tarin looked up at him indignantly.

  ‘I haven’t come to do battle, Mr. Bruce,’ she said in as steady a voice as she could manage. ‘I came to see you about a job, if you remember.’

  ‘So you did.’ He sat looking down at her for a second or two
while the stallion stirred restlessly and tried to toss his head, prevented by the firm hold on the reins. ‘Are you on your way up to the house?’ he asked, and Tarin nodded.

  ‘I was, yes.’

  ‘Changed your mind?’ he asked swiftly, detecting the tone of voice she used as being doubtful.

  Tarin stared at him for a moment, then shook her head. ‘No, Mr. Bruce, I haven’t,’ she told him. ‘I came all the way up from the south of England for this interview, I shan’t change my mind now.’

  ‘You really want to work for me?’ he asked, and she hesitated, wondering if this wasn’t a rather too unconventional place for an interview.

  ‘I like the sound of the work,’ she said cautiously, putting it on a less personal basis than his question made it sound.

  ‘What about me?’ She could have sworn there was a hint of faintly malicious laughter in his eyes again as he looked down at her, and she hesitated, but briefly.

  ‘Oh, I think I could cope,’ she said with a far more offhand air than she felt, and he smiled openly this time.

  ‘Oh, you do?’ he said softly, and pulled his restless mount round firmly, the powerful muscles rippling in those long legs as he kept control. ‘Well, report to me in the morning at nine sharp,’ he said, and Tarin stared for a moment, only finding her voice when he put his heels to his mount and clucked him into action.

  ‘Mr. Bruce!’

  He pulled the animal up sharply again and turned to face her, a small impatient frown between his dark brows. ‘What is it?’ he asked, and Tarin sought wildly for words for a moment as she stood there on the wide carriageway, her head spinning with the speed of it all.

  ‘How—I mean—just like that?’ she finished lamely, and he frowned again.

  ‘Is there anything else?’ he asked shortly. ‘You don’t need references about my character, do you?’

  ‘No, of course not, but you might—’

  ‘I know you!’ he told her impatiently. ‘I don’t need to ask a whole string of questions about you. You’re a McCourt, and they’re honest enough even if they are as prickly as hedgehogs about everything under the sun.’ The brown eyes swept down the slim, rounded length of her and back again to her flushed cheeks. ‘You’re pretty enough not to make the place look like a morgue and you say you’re a good secretary, what more do I need? If you want the job be here in the morning, if not—’ Broad shoulders shrugged carelessly, then he laughed shortly. ‘You’ll be there!’ he guessed confidently, and Tarin had no time to retort before he turned his mount yet again and was riding hard and fast along the curving drive to the house, leaving her staring after him in something of a daze.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was difficult trying to explain to her uncle about the unconventional nature of her interview with Darrel Bruce, and Tarin thought he was highly suspicious about the whole thing, despite her reassurances. He had said surprisingly little, however, and she wondered if Darrel Bruce’s remark about the McCourts being honest, if nothing else complimentary, had pleased him in some odd way. For herself she was still horribly uncertain and not nearly as confident as she assured her uncle she was. In fact she viewed her return to Deepwater this morning with as much trepidation as she had yesterday.

  It was a lovely, mellow day and the hills had a misty look as if the sun was already drawing a veil over them from the water in the network of rivers and lochs that enclosed this beautiful, wild country. It had never failed to enchant her when she was a rather romantically inclined schoolgirl, and she felt no differently now.

  The village cuddled close to the protective sweep of Torin Brae, small and sleepy in the morning sun and backed by the tree-girt mass of Deepwater. She had always wanted to see the inside of the old house, but now that the opportunity was there she was having doubts. Although, if she was honest, all the doubts concerned the unexpectedly arrogant master of Deepwater, not the house itself.

  She let her mind dwell again briefly on Darrel Bruce, but found the thought too disturbing for early morning peace of mind and hastily dismissed it in favour of choosing what to have for breakfast. Her uncle admitted to being a very inexpert cook, despite several years as a widower, and he had readily accepted her suggestion that she should do the cooking, something she quite enjoyed.

  Bacon, eggs and sausages, perfectly grilled and fried, were received enthusiastically by her uncle, and she hoped the rest of her day would go as well as the start. She was somehow not very confident that it would, but set off after breakfast in high hopes and much more nervous than she admitted to.

  The short half-mile or so walk between her uncle’s house and the village gave her the opportunity not only to admire the scenery but to think as well, and she almost laughed aloud in disbelief when she recalled how offhandedly she had been given the job she had travelled .so far for.

  She had expected the usual confrontation across a businesslike office desk, with a more mature version of the quiet and rather serious young man she remembered as Darrel Bruce. Instead she had been almost run down by a fiercely short-tempered and arrogant creature riding an animal that looked as spirited and volatile as its rider. No request for references, which she was willing and able to produce, no formal interview or discussion of pay and conditions—nothing but a swift and disconcerting exchange with a man who was even more disturbing than she remembered him.

  The mellow golden-blue sky did a lot to lift her spirits as she neared the village, and she looked across to where Stonebeck lay like a hollow green bowl with a stream running like a silver ribbon through it. It was a beautiful country and she certainly looked forward to living there, no matter what disturbances occurred from time to time.

  She could imagine that working for Darrel Bruce, as he was now, would be a far from tranquil experience, but there would always be the compensation of living and working in beautiful surroundings. Blue skies, misty green and purple hills and valleys and silver-brown water—it was all so lovely and also slightly unreal somehow, but she loved it.

  She passed the first of the cottages that marked the beginning of the village and walked the narrow road with an easy stride, one thumb hooked in the shoulder strap of her handbag, and marvelled at the stillness. Then, almost as if to prove how wrong she could be, the strident blast of a car-horn blared suddenly at her around a bend in the twisting little street. Remembering the incident of yesterday when she had nearly been run down by Darrel Bruce and his mount, she stepped hastily to one side and pulled a wry face. It was more dangerous walking in this quiet Scottish village than in the busy town she was more used to.

  The car that sped past her was huge and shiny and a bright flame colour that looked garish in the early sun, and she just caught a glimpse of the driver as blonde and female before the whole noisy ensemble disappeared around the next bend, its horn still blaring. It was no doubt one of Darrel Bruce’s rich overseas visitors, and she found herself wondering just how much contact she would have with the people who stayed at Deepwater.

  She exchanged greetings with a couple of people who recognised her and made her way through the village and on to that long curving carriageway that led to Deepwater. Her heart, she was dismayed to find, was already beating with excessive force against her ribs as she faced the prospect of meeting Darrel Bruce again, and she despaired of her own foolishness.

  There was nothing outwardly different about the old house, she was relieved to see, although she thought it looked rather less run down than it had in Irwin Bruce’s time. But there were no tennis courts or swimming pool that she could see, just the same wide, stone-flagged terrace with its worn steps and a stretch of green lawn between the house and the gardens.

  The heavy dark wooden doors had the same forbidding look she remembered from the old days, but one of them was ajar and she sighed with relief at not having to use the enormous iron bell ring that was set in the wall. It was a kind of hotel now, she reminded herself, so it was hardly likely that the doors would be closed against callers, but s
he was thankful just the same. In the old days the sight of that huge iron ring always made her shiver when she imagined it producing a great clanging of bells somewhere in the depths of the old house.

  Having climbed the stone steps she opened the door a little further and stepped inside, gazing round, quite startled at what she saw. With the idea of a hotel firmly fixed in mind she had expected the usual foyer atmosphere, with a reception desk and the customary furnishings and staff on hand.

  Instead there seemed to be no one but herself around and the huge, stone-flagged hall might never have changed for a hundred years or more. Faded banners hung from the walls and iron torch brackets waited for flaming torches to be put in them to flicker brightly and illuminate the high cloister-arched ceiling and the off-white walls.

  There were dark, sombre paintings too, of past Braces, with their strong, rugged features and hair much more red than the present descendant’s was. Fierce, ruthless men who hadn’t been restrained by modern manners and laws; men like Duncan Bruce who had stormed the McCourt household and carried off the fair Jeanie.

  In her own mind she had often wondered if Jeanie McCourt, all those years ago, had been as unwilling a bride as the McCourts always claimed. There had been rumours that she had been having a secret love affair with her abductor, and Tarin had always preferred to think that was the case; seeing Darrel Bruce yesterday had made her even more certain. Mounted up there on that great horse, he had looked perfectly capable of carrying off any woman he took a fancy to.

  Jeanie Bruce, as she became, had borne four lusty sons, who in turn had laid the foundation for the next generations, but unfortunately their descendants had been less productive, and Darrel was now the only survivor, apart from some distant cousins in Australia or somewhere, so she’d heard. It would be sad, she thought, if a proud old family like the Bruces were to die out, and she once again began speculating about Darrel and the American woman he was supposed to be interested in.