Her voice was still shaking, but maybe with anger now, and that was good. Anger was easier to fight. It made it easier for him not to care about the way she was bracing her shoulders.
‘Oh, I know that—thanks to you. How about “I love you, Farlan. I want to be with you.” Or maybe, “Wait for me at the station.” Yeah, you’re good at saying things that aren’t true.’
‘I was nineteen.’
Her cheeks were flushed, but the rest of her face was paler than the marble statues in the garden outside.
His breath caught.
It had been close to freezing that night at the station. He had sat there for three hours. He had called her maybe thirty times.
When, finally, she had called back, he had known even before she’d started talking that it was over.
The Scottish were supposed to have over a hundred words for different kinds of rain. He knew from experience that there were almost as many kinds of silence.
There was the silence of wonder.
The silence of fear.
And the silence just before that moment when the woman you love tells you she doesn’t want to be with you any more.
He could still hear it now, inside his head, whenever he was with a beautiful woman—that flutter of hesitation. It would start small, but it always ended up swallowing him whole, and he was sick and tired of it.
Life was good—most of his life anyway. He had friends, more money than he could spend, a career he loved. And Tom and Diane.
Even now their generosity and faith both astonished and scared him. He had been so angry, so wary when they’d first met, but they had persisted.
And that, in part, was why he was here. To try and repay them for giving him what his own flesh and blood had failed to.
A home.
Not grudgingly, or reluctantly, or as some kind of temporary fix, but a real home.
They had done so much for him, and he had told them what he could bear to share. But nothing about Nia. Not even her name. It hurt too much—and, besides, they couldn’t fix everything.
He couldn’t either, apparently, judging by his complete lack of any love life.
Sex, yes. But love…
Tom and Diane were right.
He was ready. He wanted what they had. Only the memory of that last conversation with Nia still haunted him.
It was certainly the reason he avoided Burns Night. But then Tom had told him on the phone that Lady Antonia Elgin was joining them for supper and he’d felt that fate was giving him a chance to put the past to rest.
It was why he’d flown five thousand miles.
Only he wasn’t going to share that fact with Nia.
He shrugged. ‘And now you’re twenty-six.’ His eyes locked with hers. ‘How are you finding living in the gardener’s cottage?’
She opened her mouth to reply, but
as she started to speak, the door opened.
‘I am so sorry.’ Diane hurried in. ‘I didn’t mean for that to take so long but they were so excited to see everything. Anyway—’ She broke off, her eyes shining with excitement, as from somewhere in the house a distant melancholy wailing swelled up. ‘I think we’re ready to eat.’
CHAPTER TWO