she told him. ‘You’ve been in this job for nearly ten years, and no one can remember you taking a holiday. Oh, sure, you’ve been away but it’s always been on some financial wheeler dealer arrangement. Dealing with Swiss bankers with a little skiing on the side. A week on a corporate yacht with financiers and oilmen. Not a sniff of time spent lying on the beach doing nothing. Isn’t it about time you had a look at life before you marry Marcia and…?’ She paused and bit back what she’d been about to say. ‘And settle down?’
‘I can’t,’ he said again, but suddenly he wasn’t so sure.
‘I’ve cleared it with all the partners. Everyone knows you’re going and they know why. You’ve inherited a castle. Everyone’s asking for postcards. So you’re going to look pretty dumb sitting round this office for the next three weeks doing nothing. Or telling everyone that I’ve lied about you needing a holiday and you’re not taking one, yah, boo, sucks.’
‘Pardon?’ he said again, and her grin widened.
‘That’s not stockbroker talk,’ she told him. ‘It’s street talk. Real talk. Which I’ve figured you need. If you’re going to go from share-broking to aristocracy maybe you need a small wedge of real life in between.’
‘Look, you dumb worm, if you don’t get out of there you’ll be concrete.’
Susie’s hair was escaping from her elastic band and drifting into her eyes. She flipped it back with the back of her hand, and a trickle of muddy water slid down her face. Excellent.
This was her very favourite occupation. Digging in mud. Susie was making a path from the kitchen door to the conservatory. The gravel path had sunk and she needed to pour concrete before she laid pavers, but first she had to dig. She’d soaked the soil to make it soft, and it was now oozing satisfactorily between her fingers as she rescued worms. Rose was sleeping soundly just through the window. The sun was shining on her face and she was feeling great.
She needed to get these worms out of the mud or they’d be cactus.
‘I’m just taking you to the compost,’ she told them, in her best worm-reassuring tone. ‘The compost is worm heaven. Ooh, you’re a nice fat one…’
A hand landed on her shoulder.
She was wearing headphones and had heard nothing. She yelped, hauled her headphones off, staggered to her feet and backed away. Fast.
A stranger was watching her with an expression of bemusement.
He might be bemused but so was she. The stranger looked like he’d just strolled off the deck of a cruising yacht. An expensive yacht. He was elegantly casual, wearing cream chinos and a white polo top with a discreet logo on the breast. He was too far away now to tell what the logo was, but she bet it was some expensive country club. A fawn loafer jacket slung elegantly over one shoulder.
He was wearing cream suede shoes.
Cream shoes. Here.
She looked past the clothes with an effort—and there was surely something to see beside the clothes. The stranger was tall, lean and athletic. Deep black hair. Good skin, good smile…
Great smile.
She’d left the outer gate open. There was a small black sedan parked in the forecourt, with a hire-car company insignia on the side. She’d been so intent on her worms that he’d crept up on her unawares.
He could have been an axe murderer, she thought, a little bit breathless. She should have locked the gate.
But…maybe she was expecting him? This had to be who she thought he was. The new earl.
Maybe she should have organised some sort of guard of honour. A twelve-gun salute.
‘You’re the gardener?’ he asked, and she tried to wipe mud away with more mud as she smiled back. She was all the welcome committee there was, so she ought to try her best.
A spade salute?
‘I am the gardener,’ she agreed. ‘Plus the rest. General dogsbody and bottle-washer for Loganaich Castle. What can I do for you?’
But his gaze had been caught. Solidly distracted. He was staring at a huge golden ball to the side of the garden. A vast ball of bright orange, about two yards wide.
‘What is that?’ he said faintly.
She beamed. ‘A pumpkin. Her name’s Priscilla. Isn’t she the best?’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘You’d better. She’s a Dills Atlantic Giant. We decided on replacing Queensland Blues this year—we spent ages on the Internet finding the really huge suckers—and went for Dills instead. Of course, they’re not quite as good to eat. Actually, they’re cattle feed, but who’s worrying?’
‘Not me,’ he said faintly.
‘The only problem is we need a team of bodybuilders to move her. Our main competitor has moved to Dills as well, but he doesn’t have the expertise. We’ll walk away with the award for Dolphin Bay’s biggest pumpkin this year, no worries.’
‘No worries,’ he repeated, dazed.
‘That’s Australian for “no problem”,’ she explained kindly. ‘Or you could say, “She’ll be right, mate.”’
This conversation was going nowhere. He tried to get a grip. ‘Is anyone home? In there?’ He waved vaguely in the direction of the castle.
‘I’m home. Me and Rose.’
‘Rose?’
‘My daughter. Are you—’
‘I’m Hamish Douglas. I’m looking for a Susie Douglas.’
‘Oh.’
He really was the new earl.
There was a moment’s charged silence. She wasn’t what he’d expected, she thought, but, then, he wasn’t what she’d expected either.
She’d thought he’d look like Rory.
He didn’t look like any of the Douglases she’d met, she decided. He was leaner, finer boned, finer…tuned? He was a Porsche compared to Rory’s Land Rover, she decided, limping across to greet him properly. She still had residual stiffness from the accident in which Rory had been killed, and it was worse when she’d been kneeling.
But the pain was nothing to what it had been, and she smiled as she held out her hand in greeting. Then, as she looked at his face and realised there was a problem, her smile broadened. She wiped her hands on the seat of her overalls and tried again.
‘Susie Douglas would be me,’ she told him, gripping his reluctant hand and shaking. ‘Hi.’
‘Hi,’ he said, and looked at his hand.
‘It’s almost clean,’ she told him, letting a trace of indignation enter her voice as she realised what he was looking at. ‘And it’s good, clean dirt. Only a trace wormy.’
‘Wormy?’
‘Earthworms,’ she said, exasperated. This wasn’t looking good in terms of long-term relationship. In terms of long-term caring for this garden. ‘Worms that make pumpkins grow as big as Priscilla here. Not the kind that go straight to your liver and grow till they come out your eyeballs.’
‘Um…fine.’ He was starting to sound confounded.
‘I’m transferring them to the compost,’ she told him, deciding she’d best be patient. ‘I’m laying concrete pavers to the conservatory, and how awful would it be to be an earthworm encased in concrete? Do you want to see the conservatory?’
‘Um…sure.’
‘I might as well show you while we’re out here,’ she told him. ‘You’ve inherited all this pile, and the conservatory’s brilliant.