The Dog House (Harding's World of Romance) (21 page)

The driveway was long and Livingstone was moving much faster than Fiona
. She arrived breathless at the outbuildings to find no sign of her dog, tilting her head to listen instead for his careless movement through the woods. Instead she heard the unmistakeable, regular splashing sound of a dog swimming.

She wheeled and dashed down to the lake, barely able to make out his head as it cut a V-shaped wake through the dark water, heading toward a small island off-shore. She shook her head in disbelief, with no idea of what had gotten into Livingstone’s head this evening. She found herself thinking about dog psychology, wondering how much of this behaviour could be explained simply by the stress of seeing her packing up her bags, as she stood helplessly by the shore.

Then she remembered the rowboat she had seen on her first surreptitious visit to the castle grounds during the wedding. She ran along the shore and soon found it, a small duck-hunting boat loosely tied to a wooden jetty. With a feeling of disbelief for the way her final evening in Glen Murray was unfolding, she climbed awkwardly into the boat and cast off, pulling on the heavy wooden oars with cold fingers and trying not to splash herself.

At least now she made better progress than the dog, who
was a strong but slow swimmer. She caught up with him just as they neared the island, just as she became aware of a canine whimpering sound and caught sight of white fur gleaming in the moonlight as a dog ran up and down the length of a large pen.

Even as a novice dog-owner, it didn’t take Fiona long to recognise a bitch in heat. Judging by the look of her, she was an expensive pure-bred, probably put out on the island just to keep her away
from the likes of Livingstone. She swore to herself and tried to position the boat between Livingstone and his irresistible goal.

Livingstone tried to swim around the boat, but his low position in the water put him at a disadvantage and she managed to clip a lead onto his collar.

“We don’t need to give the Parkers a lasting memory of you,” she muttered softly as she tried to pull the dog aboard without capsizing the boat. But he was too heavy and her position, too precarious, to manage an in-water rescue. There was nothing for it but to land on the island.

A small dock had been built on the island as well, close to the dog-run, and she steered for it as best she could without smacking the dog with her oar. She kept the lead tightly tied around the oarlock, so that even when they managed to dock and Livingstone scrambled onto the low jetty, he couldn’t run to
his impatient love interest that had started to whine.

Unfortunately this victory for Fiona was a disaster for their secrecy. The female switched from a plaintive whining to outright barking, certainly loud enough to wake the castle residents.

“In the boat now!” Fiona snapped at the distracted Livingstone, managing somehow to shove his heavy form off the edge of the dock and into the rowboat. Without wasting a second, Fiona clambered back in and started to row away from the clamorous vocalisations, talking in a low voice to keep Livingstone from moving around too much and upsetting the boat.

The small craft was harder to handle with the weight of the dog in the bow, but Fiona did remarkably well until they were nearly back on the mainland, when Livingstone seemed to realise what was happening and made a sudden lunge to one side of the boat. Fortunately he chose the opposite side to the one where his leash was attached, so that the short length of lead prevented him from leaping all the way overboard. However, his weight on the edge was enough to tip the boat in the water, allowing freezing lake water to pour gently over the side.

Fiona threw back her head in exasperation, frantically untying the lead so that he could swim away before he tipped the boat. But the damage was done and the water was now flowing freely into the boat, which was gently sinking into the dark water.

They were so close to shore that Fiona gave up the struggle and kicked away from the sinking boat, gasping in shock as her body was immersed in the cold water. She could feel her Wellingtons filling up and kicked them off, swimming as best she could to the shore with the dog in tow.

She had been so wrapped up in the peril to vessel and crew that she had barely had time to register the activity going on by the castle. Lights had come on suddenly and she could hear voices hurrying toward her in the darkness as the erratic beam of a flashlight scanned the shore.

By now she and the dog were wading up through the muddy verge to reach solid ground. She immediately recognised Colin’s voice and guessed by the accent that the second man must be his assistant,
McTavish.

“Before my old man gets out here,” Colin was saying in hushed tones as he and the manager approached. Fiona tugged desperately on Livingstone’s lead but the dog was busily shaking himsel
f dry while she tried desperately to keep moving before the cold made her dysfunctional.

The flashlight beam caught them just as Fiona started to run, pulling at Livingstone and trying not to let her teeth chatter too loudly.

“Fiona!” Colin exclaimed in complete surprise. “Whatever are you doing here?”

“Retrieving her dog, it looks like,”
came the dry voice of McTavish, staring at her curiously.

Now that she was trapped, all of her cold and adrenaline and fury came rushing to the front and she spun to face Colin with her eyes flashing dangerously.
“We were just leaving,” she said, trying for haughty tones but sounding closer to hysterical. “Leaving your precious grounds, your isolated dog, your whole bloody world of splendid isolation. Don’t worry, we haven’t robbed the silverware or keyed your car, so no need to call the police. We can find our own way out.”

Colin simply stood staring, flabbergasted.
McTavish was the one to respond.

“You’re lucky we aren’t pressing charges,” he admonished her with disapproval. “Multiple cases of trespassing and property damage and we’ve never asked you to pay a cent. So I trust you’ll comply with the letter we sent.”

“I said we were leaving,” Fiona repeated through clenched teeth, her whole body now starting to shake in her soaking wet clothes as she hovered barefoot on the grass, ready to run home to the fire. “So if you’ll just let us go and save us the long speech, my dog and I are in need of a hot bath.”

“I didn’t know it was you,” Colin protested feebly, finally reacting
as she turned and started to run away. His now-familiar grasp on her wrist only made her wrench it away violently.

“Just let me go,” she hissed
, giving her head an aggressive toss to flick away the wet hair that was plastered to her cheek. “This is no time for explanations or discussions. If there ever is a time with you.”

“You need to come inside and put on dry clothing,” he said sensibly. “I can’t let you run off barefoot, wet and freezing into the night. Be reasonable, Fiona.”

At this she began to laugh bitterly. “You’re telling me to be reasonable?” she blurted. “Now you’re going to be the sensible and serious one? It’s a bit late for that, Colin. You like to let things happen and just enjoy the ride, so sit back and enjoy the consequences of treating your tenants like dirt. Now I really have to go.”

McTavish
and Livingstone watched the proceedings with interest. Fiona resisted the urge to give Colin a good slap in the face and contented herself with just an icy final stare before deliberately turning her back on the two men and stalking away, hoping that she didn’t stumble on her rapidly-numbing feet.

Colin still didn’t seem to grasp what was going on. He started after her again, just as another couple approached from the castle, distracting him. “At least take my jacket,” he called after her. “We can discuss things when you bring it back.”

“I don’t need your bloody jacket or anything from you,” Fiona called back over her shoulder, breaking into a jog and feeling more sure of her feet. It wasn’t actually that cold and she was now confident that she could make it back to the cottage without freezing to death on the way. It wasn’t exactly a dignified retreat, her pajamas clinging to her legs as her hoodie dripped down her back, but neither was she forced to break her remaining pride by accepting his help. For whatever that proved.

Chapter Thirteen

“And that pretty much wraps it up, folks,” Fiona said to the assembled group in their well-cut walking garb as they gathered for goodbyes in the car park of Glen Gordon. Fiona was feeling even more self-conscious and underdressed than usual because she had been forced to borrow her brother’s baggy tracksuit trousers after her favourite hiking clothes had been misplaced by her mother. “Are there any questions, or have I convinced you all of why this lovely glen needs your protection?”

She looked at all the faces turned toward her and bolstered her confidence with the knowledge that in this particular situation, she was their leader. Despit
e the fact that they were all upper class English and her recent experiences had left her more sensitive than before to differences in station, she was the expert when it came to the natural and cultural history of this valley.

Glen
Gordon was resplendent in the pale autumn light. The heather and bracken had all turned colour in her absence, painting the valley in burnt, rusty tones with shocks of yellow marsh grasses along the becks. The weather had cooperated for once and a subdued sun added a touch of softness to the rugged landscape.

Several hands were raised and Fiona nodded at the nearest one, belonging to an angular woman with surprisingly blue eyes which made her think of Colin. She pushed the unwelcome thought away.

“Do you live in the area?” the woman asked with a clipped British accent.

Fiona sighed. She preferred questions about flora and fauna or history after she gave one of these talks, but
, to her annoyance, her audience always seemed more curious about her personal life. This was really not something that she felt like thinking about right now, let alone discussing with strangers.

“I used to live nearby,” she said cautiously. “I’m in Edinburgh for the moment.”

The truth was that she remained in a miserable state of limbo in terms of where she was living. Although Edinburgh was proving to be convenient for some aspects of her research, it was quickly becoming apparent that Thomas Wolfe was correct and she couldn’t go home again, at least not to stay. Her family had accepted her return but she found herself at odds with the old dynamics, unable to fit back in.

At some level she blamed her current emotional state, which was fragile and irritable since her unplanned departure from Glen Murray. But she also recognised a heightened awareness of her family’s tendency to blame all of their ills on past English wrongs without ever acknowledging their own responsibility for their actions.

Her father, in particular, was flagrant in his refusal to see that it was entirely his own fault that he failed to hold a job for more than two weeks. In one of his infrequent appearances at the house he had ranted for over an hour about being exploited by the imperialists from the south, while reeking of alcohol and missing a
nother day of work. It seemed more than outdated, and Fiona had had enough.

So it was high time to take things in hand for herself.
Everything might seem a bit grim right now, but she had been happy before meeting Colin and she could certainly find that old satisfaction again in a job well done. She had hesitated at the Andrews’ proposition of the day of work, for fear of meeting Colin, but she still firmly believed in the need to protect these high places and couldn’t give up on a cause simply because of one careless man. The Andrews had carefully selected their guests to include those most likely to want to donate to a worthwhile local cause.

Fiona’s
feelings had been mixed when Colin hadn’t shown up among the guests who had come because of their interest in preserving the glen. She had no idea how she would have reacted had he been present, but his absence somehow seemed to drive home their differences and the fact that he had never been serious about his work at all. Of course, she couldn’t quite dismiss the possibility that he was avoiding her, given her fury at their last meeting, but even that seemed the final nail in the coffin of their relationship, a proof that he wasn’t willing to make the effort to try to repair things.

And now she was
grateful for Rhona and Dougal’s offer of a day of well-paid work as local expert for one of the event days they were hosting out of Mackenzie House. Not only did she need the money as she continued to hunt for a new place to rent, but it had given her an excuse to return to the Highlands for a few days and to see Livingstone again. She had missed their daily walks and the warm, shaggy company of her canine companion who had seemed as overjoyed to see her again as she had been to see him.

Livingstone’s was not the only company she had been missing. To her enormous annoyance, she found herself missing Colin far more than she should after what had happened. Her anger at him remained intact, but
after watching the way her father turned the blame away from himself, she was forced to look at her own behaviour more closely and to admit that her actions had been far from exemplary. Like her father, her current problems were of her own making.

This still didn’t excuse Colin’s
heartless eviction notice, she thought grumpily as she surveyed the well-heeled members of the Andrews’ guests. It wasn’t as if she was going back generations to find an example of the upper crust treading on the lower. She was only looking back two weeks.