Sealed With a Kiss (15 page)

‘Not exactly, no,’ said Morag opaquely.

Kate frowned at her.

‘But once in a while he chooses to exercise his
droit
de seigneur
?’

‘The Lord of the Manor’s right to sleep with whom he chooses?’ Morag chuckled, a sudden shout of laughter, which startled the sleeping Willow. ‘Lord, no –
that’s not Roddy at all.’ She reached over, slicing a scone and buttering it thoughtfully. ‘He
was
in a relationship. They broke up about six months ago.’

Kate waited as Morag chewed and swallowed.

‘There was never any chance of it going anywhere. Everyone – well, almost everyone – who knew them could see they were ill-matched.’

‘Huh!’ snorted Kate. ‘Was her blood not blue enough?’

Morag smiled. ‘Nothing like that. Fiona and Roddy had known each other all their lives, like most of the young people on this island. After his father died he was a lost soul. I
don’t think it took much for him to be railroaded into a relationship.’

‘And then he dumped her, once he’d had enough?’ Putting two and two together, Kate was seeing another side to Roderick, one she didn’t much like.

‘Now, Kate, that’s unfair,’ Morag chided. ‘Fiona is more than capable of fighting her own corner. She worked her way in no time from writing a schoolgirl’s column
in the
Auchenmor Argus
to editor of the paper. She was spotted as a rising star and offered a job on one of the big papers in Glasgow. She worked her way up pretty fast, but Fiona
doesn’t take any prisoners.’

‘And Roderick wouldn’t go with her?’

‘So I believe. But I think he saw it as a lucky escape. Our Fiona was always a bit of a madam, but working as a journalist has brought out the worst in her.’ Morag looked
disapproving.

‘In what way?’

‘Och, nothing I can put a finger on. But she’d step on her own granny to get to a story.’

Kate managed a laugh at the image. ‘Well, as nobody knows about my little incident with Roderick, and he seems to be determined to pretend it didn’t happen, I’m just going to
forget it. I’m supposed to be having a year off men.’ Her words sounded a lot more convincing than they felt. Remembering his words in her ear, it was difficult to believe it had meant
nothing to him. But he was so mercurial in temperament.

‘Mmm. I don’t know about you, but as soon as I mention the word “diet”,’ Morag looked down at her slim horsewoman’s hips and completely flat stomach, ‘I
find myself with my nose in the biscuit tin.’

‘Point taken,’ laughed Kate. ‘Maybe I’ll just swear off accidental kisses with people at parties.’

‘Ooh, no.’ Morag shook a finger, jokingly. ‘I want to hear of lots of accidental kisses in secret corners. You’re young, and you need to be having fun.’

‘I promise.’ Watching her expression, Kate sensed that Morag could see straight through her false conviction.

‘You need to go have some fun, Kate. Don’t worry yourself pining after Roderick, if he’s not here. There’s been enough pining over Maxwell men, if you ask me.’

Suddenly feeling the effects of a late night, Kate yawned. Morag stood up, gathering dogs, and saw her home.

Oh God, my idea of hell is a dinner party.
Kate put down her mobile and let out a wail. Willow, who was gnawing companionably on a seaside spade, jumped up into her
lap.

She was trying desperately to pin up her hair, but it was slipping, too clean, out of the clips. She rammed in another five, wincing as she jabbed herself in the scalp. That would have to do.
Picking up a bottle of dark nail varnish, she painted her nails, hiding the crescents of paint from her DIY efforts.

Sitting on the bed waiting for the varnish to dry, her thoughts turned to Roderick. In the three weeks since he left the island, Kate had spoken to him only a handful of times. He was
preoccupied, dealing with the effects of the flood, and their conversations had been brief. Between them, Kate and Jean had organized Billy and his companions, until the cottages were ahead of
schedule.

‘It’s a right mess down there,’ Jean had explained. ‘I spoke to him yesterday evening – they can’t do anything without permission from the relevant
authorities, because Oak House is a listed building.’

‘Will he be gone much longer?’ Kate had tried to sound casual.

‘A good while, I think,’ Jean had glanced up sharply, hearing the tone of Kate’s voice.

Plenty of time to forget about a slightly tipsy kiss. That’s if he even remembered it in the first place, Kate suddenly realized with relief.

Unsure of what to wear tonight, she’d received a flurry of texts from Emma, full of helpful links to websites selling farmers’ overalls and green wellies. In the end Kate had taken
her first trip off the island, venturing into Glasgow. The noise of the traffic, the lights, the people everywhere – she’d only been gone a couple of months and already life on the
mainland seemed chaotic, noisy and over-rated. Sitting in a packed cafe, drinking a disgusting latte that bore no relation to Bruno’s coffee, Kate had realized she was desperate to get
back.

Back at the cottage, nails now dry, she pulled on the dress. It was beautiful: dark-grey lace, with a deep V-neckline. Kate tugged at the hem, convinced it had been longer in the shop. She
wiggled her toes, admiring the sheen of her legs, encased for once not in jeans or leggings, but sheer black tights. She picked up her very high, very expensive and completely impractical black
suede shoes, giving herself one last look in the mirror.

‘Not bad. Shame there’s nobody to notice it,’ she remarked to Willow. The puppy paused from her chewing and thumped her tail appreciatively.

‘Right, let’s get you downstairs.’

Stopping to grab a bottle of wine from the fridge, Kate didn’t notice that she’d left her shoes lying on the kitchen floor. Settling Willow in her basket with a rawhide chew bone,
she grabbed her handbag, stuffing in the box of chocolates and bottle of wine she’d chosen, and slipped her feet into wellington boots to walk up to Morag’s house.

Thor was hanging out of his stable longingly. Kate blew him a kiss.

‘Good look!’ laughed Tom, opening the door to Stable Cottage. Just inside the hall, taking off his Barbour jacket, was a tall, burly, strangely familiar man. Kate wondered if there
was something in the water on the island that made them all so bloody good-looking.

‘I’m not keeping the wellies on. Give me a second to change my – oh God, my shoes!’ Kate started to laugh. ‘I’ve left them at the cottage. I can’t spend
the evening in stockinged feet.’

‘Did someone mention stockings?’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Finn, we can’t take you anywhere.’ Tom turned to the man behind him, punching him on the arm. ‘Kate, this is Finn. Finn –
Kate.’

The burly stranger stepped forward, leaning down and kissing her, his fair stubbled cheek smelling of bonfires and cold winter air. He was wearing a faded blue shirt, which, Kate noticed,
matched his eyes.

‘He’s jealous because I’ve got all the lines, and now that he’s an old married man he’s lost his touch.’

‘Bugger off,’ laughed Tom. ‘Make yourself useful, Finn. Nip down to Kate’s house – she’s in Bruar Cottage – and get her shoes while I pour her a
drink.’

Finn turned to Kate, holding out his hand. ‘Of course I will. Do you have the keys?’

Kate pulled them out of her bag and then paused for a second, her hand in mid-air.

‘Earth to Kate?’ Finn looked at her, quizzically.

‘I’ll go.’ In the split second it had taken to retrieve the keys, a vision of her bedroom had flashed in front of Kate’s eyes. The chair was covered in a mountain of
clothes, the bed was unmade, hairdryer and straightenter wires snarled in a tangle, and the contents of her make-up bag were strewn across the floor.

‘You’re not walking down there in the dark on your own.’

‘I just walked up on my own,’ she pointed out reasonably, but Finn had already shrugged on his coat. He held out her waterproof jacket. Fastening it, she caught him looking down. It
hung as low as the hem of her dress. She looked like a deranged bucolic flasher. In tights.

‘Tom was right. It
is
a good look.’ Holding open the door, Finn flashed her a grin, eyes crinkling at the corners. ‘Hold my arm, I’ll keep you safe.’

There was no moon, but Finn clearly knew the road well. Kate had stumbled several times on the way up, even with the aid of her torch.

‘You’re settling in then?’ She definitely recognized him from somewhere, but couldn’t place him. His accent was beautiful, and it seemed to resonate somewhere just below
her navel.

‘I am. It’s beautiful here – oops!’ Kate lurched sideways, almost falling into another pothole, but Finn had caught her. His arms were solid with muscle. Not, thought
Kate, that she was noticing. And she was definitely ignoring the fact that he’d now slipped a casual arm around her waist. He seemed remarkably comfortable in his own skin.

‘I didn’t get a chance to say hello at the bonfire. I had my hands full.’

Ah, that was why he was familiar. He was the piper who had played at the fireworks, and then afterwards spent the evening behind the decks of the disco, with a crowd of girls gathered around
him. Not surprisingly, she thought, because not only was he ridiculously handsome, but his turn at the disco had shown him to have a nice line in self-deprecating humour.

‘Here we are,’ he broke into her musings. He took her hand, gently untangling the keys from her icy fingers. ‘Your hands are freezing.’

‘Stay here in the hall,’ said Kate, kicking a pile of non-specific stuff under the chair with a practised foot. She opened the kitchen door. ‘Shit!’

‘What’s happened?’ Finn was at her side in a second. He looked down and roared with laughter.

Willow was lying upside down, fast asleep, one expensive suede shoe in her bed and the gnawed remains of the other strewn across the floor.

‘Stockings it is then,’ said Finn innocently, turning to her with a wink.

God, he was gorgeous. If she’d been Susan, she would probably have reached up, snogged him and dragged him into the sitting room, but that wasn’t exactly Kate’s style. Oh no,
she thought, much better to be picked up by her employer, snogged in a moment of passion, then discarded and forgotten about. She narrowed her eyes, thinking of Roderick. He was clearly determined
to pretend that nothing had happened. Perhaps she should take a leaf out of his book. She retrieved what was left of the shoes, put them into the bin and rescued her flat silver pumps from the
cupboard in the hall.

Finn was remarkably easy company. They walked back up to the cottage together, chatting about his part-time job at the Duntarvie estate wood-yard and how it funded his true love, which was
sculpture.

‘So the wooden carvings in the big house – they’re yours?’

‘They are. When I finished art school I came back here. Roddy’s dad bought my first few works, and did a lot off the island to publicize my work. He was a good man, James.’

They opened the door into the hall.

‘We don’t know if anything went on between her and Roddy.’ Tom’s voice carried through from the open door of the kitchen. Kate felt herself blushing in horror. ‘And
even if it did, he’s not here, and Kate looks to me like she could do with a—’

‘Lovely walk in the fresh air with her local artist?’ Finn called through from the hall, giving her a wink. Kate shuffled off her wellington boots and slipped on her silver pumps.
Finn took her coat and hung it with his own on a peg in the hall, before guiding her, a warm hand on her hip, into the room.

‘That,’ said Ted, pouring them both a glass of wine, ‘is precisely what we were about to say.’

Leaving Morag, large glass of white in hand, chatting to Susan and stirring some risotto in the kitchen, Ted rounded up the dinner guests and sent them into the dining room. Four people were
already sitting down, chatting comfortably.

‘Kate, you know Helen and George from the end cottage.’

Kate had bumped into the gentle, quiet Helen a few times, when out walking Willow. She was a florist with her own little shop in town, and had a beautiful cottage garden, which somehow managed
to look immaculate, even in depressingly brown November. She stood up, kissing Kate warmly on the cheek.

‘Lovely to have a chance to talk without your mad puppy dashing off.’

‘I know – she’s worse than wee Jamie. She’s like an unguided missile.’

George, Helen’s husband, ran the fishery, and was Bruno’s football-loving partner in crime. Kate had met him several times in the cafe; he jumped up, kissing her on the cheek. He
gave Finn a knowing nod.

‘You’ve got yourself a date for tonight then, Finn?’

‘I can but hope, George.’ His tone was self-deprecating but humorous. He gave her a wink. ‘You’re blushing, Kate.’

‘I’m not,’ she lied.

Finn moved in, his mouth close to her ear. ‘I’ll have to try a bit harder then.’

That voice. In a split second she could hear Emma saying, ‘Go on then, do it.’ She hid her smirk behind her hand. Finn’s straightforward flirting seemed to be contagious.

‘And this is Michael,’ continued Ted, bringing her back to earth. ‘He lives in Kilmannan and owns the IT company up on the hill. This is his wife Georgia: she’s English
as well.’

‘We can compare notes,’ said Georgia, ‘on island time, and the weird sense of humour, and learning to love whisky, and living in a place where the supermarket runs out of bags
because the boat can’t get over because of the storms.’

A smile of complicity passed between them. Georgia reminded her of friends back home, and it put Kate at her ease.

‘And not having a cinema, and the pub opening whenever it wants, and everyone knowing what you’re up to,
all
the time,’ added Kate. ‘And people assuming
you’ll have loads in common with someone, just because they’re English, too.’ The words tumbled out with a sense of relief. She hadn’t realized until now that she’d
been holding her breath, watching her step, especially since the night of the fireworks. Much as she was growing to love the island, it was lovely to feel that someone understood just where she was
coming from. Coffee and cake with Georgia once in a while might help keep her feet on the ground.