A WIFE FOR ANDREW Lucy Gillen Mills & Boons Publishers, 1969 *** Cara Houston found Andrew

Campbell exactly as described a dour Scot. For the sake of his sister Moira, her best friend, now living abroad, Cara decided to give the job of governess a try. Andrew's two small nephews were appealing, the countryside was lovely only one thing marred Cara's enjoyment of her work. Rhoda McKenzie-Brown, an attractive, clinging-vine type of widow, made it perfectly clear that she intended to become Mrs. Andrew Campbell and that her plans did not include Cara or the boys. Why was Andrew so blind to her schemes? When Andrew proposed a marriage of convenience to Cara, she accepted, because of the boys. Though she finally had to admit that her feelings for Andrew were involved as well! CHAPTER ONE CARA opened drowsy eyes as the train pulled into Lochcrae station and hastily lifted her one suitcase down from the rack as she realized with a start where she was. She just managed to open the door and deposit herself and her suitcase on the platform as the guard raised his whistle to his lips to signal the train's departure, and under his disapproving eye she slammed the door behind her and looked around. Lochrae was a small station and rather bleak in appearance, since it reaped the benefit of the winds that blew in winter off the moor. There was only one other person, apart from the 'ticket collector, that Cara could see, and he strode across the short platform toward her, a smile of what she hoped was welcome on his weather-worn face. "Yell be Miss Houston?" he said cheerfully, and picked up her suitcase from beside her. "I'm to bring ye to Dowell, miss. Ma name's Tam Murdoch and I work for Mr. Campbell." "I hoped there would be someone to meet me," Cara said gratefully. "Are there no taxis here at all?" she asked, looking round the deserted yard. "No on the Sabbath," the man told her, the twinkling eyes belying the sobriety of his reply. "But it's nae trouble for me to fetch ye," he said, and added with a chuckle, "even on the Sabbath." "Thank you, Mr. Murdoch." Cara responded to his friendly amusement with a smile. The curly gray head turned to look at her, a twinkle in his eyes. "Ye'd best decide if ye prefer Tam or Murdoch," he told her. "I'm aye used to one or the other, but no Mr. Murdoch." His friendly cheerfulness restored her spirits after the long hot journey and she smiled at him gratefully. "What does Mr. Campbell call you?" she asked. A deep chuckle rumbled through him before he answered. "Aye, well, I'd best not tell ye all he calls me, miss, but it's Tam most times." He led her to an ancient car that looked comfortable despite its disreputable appearance, and put her suitcase into the back. "Will

ye ride in front wi' me?" he asked as he opened the door for her. "I'd like the folk round here to see I'm no past ridin' wi' a pretty girl beside me." Cara laughed and settled herself into the high, deep seat while he came round and took the wheel. "I love riding in the front, Tam, it's less bumpy, for one thing." She turned wide dark eyes to him, sparkling with laughter. "And I'm sure I shall enjoy the company!" Another deep chuckle was drowned in the starting of the engine. Tam Murdoch cast more than one glance at her as they went along and liked what he saw. She was dark-eyed and her hair was as near jet black as human hair ever can be, but her skin was as pale as cream and faintly pink over the smooth, high cheeks; not strictly beautiful, but with a loveliness that spoke of spirit or gentleness, a character as full of change as a child's, he thought. From the brief glimpses of the country they bounced though in the ancient car it was more beautiful than anything Cara had ever seen, and her dark eyes roamed ceaselessly over the vast purple-green sweep of the moor to the distant hills and the gleaming serenity of the loch itself reaching almost to the very edge of the road and stretching, seemingly for miles, out of sight behind the village of Lochrae, stone-built and warmly friendly in the summer sun. She was grateful all over again to Moira Campbell for giving her the opportunity to live in such surroundings; indeed she was most grateful to her for finding her another post since things were becoming increasingly difficult. Moira had been her room-mate at school and they had never lost touch since; exchanging letters to and from which-ever part of the world Moira happened to be in at the time. She was not Moira Campbell now, of course, but Mrs. Peter Wilson; married to a man whose work required him to travel extensively and whose income permitted him to take his wife with him wherever he went. An unfortunate business venture, which had broken her father, had deprived Cara of both her father and the comfort-able income to which she had been accustomed all her life. Four years ago she had been faced with the death of the one parent she had learned to rely on and the necessity of earning her own living. Her Italian mother had returned to her own country several years before, despairing of ever settling into a new way of life, even after twelve years. She smiled to herself as she remembered Moira's admonishment at the end of her last letter: "Don't forget," she had written, "that Andrew is not the same scatty nature as me. You may find him rather dour, but being half Scots yourself you should be able to cope." Cara hoped she would and wondered, not for the first time, how different Andrew Campbell would be from his sister. Moira had mentioned him quite often over the years, usually in the half-amused, tolerant way of sisters, but Cara knew that she was very fond of her brother. She had never de-scribed him, or made comment on his looks, but had made rueful references from time to time about his quietness, or his dourness as she described it. Dour, Cara had learnt once from her own Scottish father, meant rather more than quiet; more stern or uncompromising and, used as she was to Moira's inclination to exaggerate, she felt more than a little apprehensive at meeting her new employer. It was difficult, too, to think of Moira's brother as her employer, and this too added to her worry; the problem of how she should approach him. "Ye can see Dowell from here." Tam's voice jolted her out of her reverie, and he extended one stubby finger straight at the windscreen. "Or at least that's the driveway,

yon row of trees. Ye cannae see the house from here. Anyway"he turned the merry blue eyes on her"it'll no be long now, miss. Yell be glad of a rest from the traveling, I dare say?" "I will," Cara admitted, "although it could have been a much longer journey had I not broken the distance part way." "Did ye now?" Tam asked, obviously interested. "Would it take two days to come up from London?" "Not really," Cara laughed. "But some people I know were traveling up to the Lake District and I came with them as far as that by car. I'm glad I did. It's very beautiful country." "It'll no be as guid as this?" he asked, a note of native envy in his question. "It's smaller, of course," Cara said diplomatically, "and I saw very little of it." She looked again at the vast, seemingly endless moor glimpsed at between the end cottage and the belt of trees which Tam had said was the driveway to Dowell. "This looks like a country to grow in, it looks as if it goes on for ever." He smiled at her enthusiasm, well pleased, and turned the car off the rather rough road and into the tree-enclosed grounds that looked as big as a park. The neatly laid driveway ran between an avenue of tall trees that looked slightly distorted by the winter winds, and led to the house of Dowell, stone-built and sturdy, but looking mellow and inviting in the sun. Cara swallowed hard on her nervousness as Tam stopped the car and came round to help her down from the high seat. "Ah, here's Agnes," he said, as the doors opened and a woman came down the steps toward them, a broad smile of welcome on a face uncannily like Tam's. "This is ma sister Agnes Finlay, miss," Tam introduced them. "AgnesMiss Houston. Agnes is cook-housekeeper to Mr. Campbell," he explained. "Come away in," the woman told her, her round face beaming as the shrewd blue eyes approved Cara's looks. "Yell be tired after ye're journey." She turned to her brother. "Take Miss Houston's luggage up to her room, Tam." "I'm a little tired," Cara admitted, delighted with her welcome. "But I'm glad to be here, everyone's very kind." She smiled gratefully. "Ye're nicely in time for tea," Agnes Finlay informed her, leading the way up the wide steps to the door. "Just a we bit wash to freshen ye an' then a guid tea an' yell feel lots better; ye can see ye're room an' bother about ye're unpacking later. I told Mr. Campbell ye'd be seeing him when ye'd a chance to freshen up an' had a bite of tea." Cara laughed at the adamant gray head nodding its insistence and made a rapid readjustment to her mental picture of Andrew Campbell. He could not be the dour, uncompromising man she had visualized if he allowed his housekeeper to dictate terms to him. The house was cozier inside than it gave promise of being from outside. Cream-washed walls contrasted with a beautifully polished dark wood floor scattered with rugs, and paintings were hung almost at eye level so that one was immediately attracted to their warm, friendly colors on entry. It was a house that Cara could imagine being the home of Moira Campbell and it had the warm, safe feeling of children living in it. Cara was given her very welcome tea in a vast but comfortable kitchen, in company with Tam and his sister. It was a good, substantial meal, and when she had finished Cara felt as (ready to face her new employer as she had ever done: "That was a wonderful tea," she said, sighing her repletion. "I feel as if I could face the world and his wife now."

"'Tis only one man ye've to face," Agnes said with a nod of understanding at her nervousness. "An' he's no got a wife, more's the pity." Cara nodded, though she failed to understand the reason for the woman's worry about her employer being single, for she knew that Andrew Campbell could be no more than twenty-eight or nine. She was aware suddenly of the door from the hall opening slowly, as if someone was trying to enter unseen, and she frowned her curiosity. Neither of her companions seemed to have noticed anything untoward, for they made no comment. A moment later Cara saw a pair of eyes appear round the edge of the door a little over three feet above the floor. They were blue eyes, wide and curious and topped by a fringe of blond hair that (looked as if it was stranger to a comb. She smiled involuntarily and the rest of the face appeared, as if encouraged by her amusement, followed by a short, sturdy body clad in gray shorts and a rather shabby blue shirt. Tam turned as the movement caught his eye, and shook his head. "Could ye not wait?" he asked, then called the child over with a beckoning hand. "Come away in then, since ye're here; and where's Robbie?" As if on cue a second, and even smaller, child followed, with the same wide, blue-eyed curiosity and blond thatch and with a large plaster decorating his left knee. The smaller one went straight to Agnes Finlay's embrace and peeped shyly at Cara from the folds of her apron, but the other stood before her, a little shy too but he was determined not to show it. "Miss Houston is here to look after ye," Tam told the child solemnly, then smiled at Cara over his head. "This one's Dougal," he said, "an' yon bashful laddie is Robbie." "Hello, Dougal." Cara smiled at the serious little face and offered a hand which he took solemnly. "Hello," he said, and tilted his blond head to one side, eyeing her critically. "You're prettier than she was," he announced. "Dougal!" It was Agnes who spoke, shaking her head despairingly. "Ye know well it's rude to make personal remarks." "It was a com-comit was good," he finished. "It's not rude if it's good, Agnes, is it?" He half-addressed his appeal to Cara and she retained his hand in both hers as she spoke. "I'm flattered by the compliment, Dougal, thank you." He turned and looked full at her as she lent her support. "But Mrs. Finlay means that it was rude to make personal remarks about the other lady." She had no notion of who the not so pretty woman might have been, but she felt the gentle reprimand was in order. "Oh." He frowned for a moment, giving the matter thought, then, with the diverse mind of a child, added, "I'm four and a half." "Are you? " Cara said, warming to the rather pugnacious little face before her. "You're big for your age, aren't you?" He nodded, glancing at his brother. "Robbie's only two and he's a bit silly." "Not!" protested Robbie from the depths of Agnes's apron. "Of course he's no silly," Agnes said consolingly, lifting the rather grubby little face from her lap. "He's just a wee bit shy, aren't ye, Robbie?" She looked at the faint smear of jam in one corner of his mouth and the larger smudge of earth round one side of his chubby jaw. "Have ye been in to tea wi' ye're uncle wi' that grubby wee face?" she asked. "It 's my fault if he's not properly clean, Agnes." The deep -masculine voice from the

doorway made Cara start nervously. " I thought I'd washed it all off him. He was filthy." Andrew Campbell was not at all as Cara had pictured him; imagining that he would be, in appearance anyway, very like '''Moira, who was red-haired and slight, with dancing blue eyes. Her brother was fair, as fair as the two little boys, and enormously tall and broad, with the darkest gray eyes she had ever seen. They were fixed on her now as she rose from her chair, still retaining her hold on Dougal's hand. "I presume you're Miss Houston," he said, without smiling. "I'm sorry the boys disturbed you too soon. If you will excuse me, I'll see you in the big room as soon as you've finished your tea." He was gone again before she could do more than open her mouth to answer, and Tam smiled at her expression of dismay. "He's no as bad as ye're thinkin'," he told her. "He's a dour man, but kindly enough, as these laddies will tell ye." Scarcely assured by Tam's optimism, Cara sat down again and was conscious of Dougal's solemn gaze fixed on her. "That was Uncle Andrew," he told her. "Yes, I know." She smiled at the serious little face. "I think I'd better go and see your uncle, don't you? Or he may get cross if I keep him waiting." The blond head shook emphatically. "Uncle Andrew isn't cross," he said. "He's nice." He glanced briefly at his brother. "He gave Robbie a pony for his birthday; but he lets me ride it too," he added, leaving Cara to decide whether permission came from Robbie or his uncle. " That was very kind of him," she said. "But I think I'd better go and see him in case he gets cross." "You goin' to stay with us?" The anxious question touched Cara's soft heart and she put a hand on the un-combed mop of his hair. " I hope I will, Dougal, I'd like to very much," she said. "But it's up to your uncle whether I do or not. It depends whether he thinks I'll be good at looking after you and Robbie or not." She explained as honestly as she could. "I like you," Dougal said disarmingly. "You stay." She ruffled the untidy hair even more with her hand, then went to the door, turning to smile at Tam as she followed Agnes, her heart thumping against her ribs in her nervousness. "He'll no eat ye, lass," Tam assured her, and smiled broadly. "I hope not," Cara said fervently as she went out of the door, following Agnes across the hall. "I do hope not." Agnes knocked lightly on the door of what Andrew Camp-bell had described as the big room, and went in without waiting for a summons. "Here's Miss Houston, Mr. Campbell," she said, preceding Cara into the room. "An' will ye be wantin' me to keep the boys out of the way for a wee while?" He stood up from a seat by the screened fireplace, tall and overwhelmingly big even in this large room. "Please, Agnes." He knocked out the pipe he had been smoking against the screen. He said no more until Agnes had left the room, closing the door quietly behind her, then he turned to Cara. "Sit down, Miss Houston." He indicated an armchair opposite the one he had been sitting in and Cara complied thankfully, her knees suddenly and unaccountably weak. He tamped tobacco into the pipe, glancing at her every now and then as he did so, as if he was weighing her up and deciding on the best way to start what must be a rather unusual interview. "Now," he said at last and sat down again, "I'm sorry the boys intruded

as they did before you'd time to draw your breath, but they're naturally anxious about you." "Of course they are, and I didn't mind at all," she smiled more confidently than she felt. The gray eyes flicked to her face for a moment as he paused in drawing the tobacco into life. "You know my sister pretty well, I believe," he said unexpectedly. "Yes," Cara nodded, "I've known her ever since-school and we've kept in touch all the time." "Hmm." He puffed meditatively for a second or two. "I don't normally like the idea of taking on staff without first seeing them for myself, but since Moira was so insistent that you were suitable I agreed to take you on." Cara flushed at the condescension in his tone, but bit back her anger, reminding herself that she needed this job, and since Moira had been kind enough to recommend her for it and since she had spent quite a lot of her remaining small fortune on the fare she must, for a time at least, put up with whatever her new employer said and did. "I'm grateful to Moira for coming to my rescue," she said quietly. "You have dealt with children before?" he asked. "Moira wasn't simply paving the way for you?" "Oh no!" she said hastily. "I've been working with children for the past three and a half years. I was with the last family for a little under a year. "And that was with whom?" he asked. "The Comtesse de Ville Damon," she answered, and wished there was some way of avoiding the inevitable question. He raised his brows, seemingly impressed, and Cara condemned him for a snob. "And you left when the children grew up?" he inquired. "No," Cara said shortly. "When the Count came home." "Oh, I see." She thought she detected a glint of disapproval in the deep gray eyes and flashed her indignation at him. "It won't be possible to get a reference from them," she said coldly. "The Comtesse preferred to believe her husband." "It's a situation unlikely to occur here," he told her. "And I think you'll find the boys will keep you fully occupied. I shan't interfere at all in their routine except to insist that they are not punished unduly severely for minor misdemeanors." She glanced at him, frowning her curiosity. "It would scarcely be necessary, surely," she said. "They don't seem to be unusually naughty children from the little I've seen of them." "They're not," he answered shortly. "My cousin and her husband allowed them a certain amount of freedom of expression, but neither of them is rude or badly behaved!" " They seemed rather shy," Cara said, remembering the bashful Robbie, "although Dougal did talk to me." "I want them to forget the last woman as soon as possible," he said, a frown between his brows. "She was something of a martinet and Robbie was terrified of her." "Poor little soul," Cara said softly, and cast him a meaningful glance from under dark lashes. "Did you choose the woman yourself, Mr. Campbell?" He contented himself with a cold and quelling glance from the dark gray eyes. "Suffice it to say that she was unsuitable," he said, and Cara thought she knew to whom Dougal had referred when he had said that Cara was prettier than she was. "Both the parents died, I believe Moira told me," Cara said.

"Yes," he said, frowning. "In a car crashalmost a year ago now. It doesn't seem a long time to us, but children seem to have remarkable powers of recovery and they've settled down far better than I hoped. Dougal, particularly, has taken it very well, and being the elder he must have felt it more than Robbie." She sensed his sympathy, though unspoken, and liked him for it. "Do they have their meals down here, or have they a nursery? she asked. "There is a nursery," he said. "And the last woman insisted on them eating up there, but since she went I have had them down here with me. If you have no objections I'd like it to continue. They have breakfast, lunch and tea, but they don't stay up for dinner yet, of course. You will join them, naturally," he added. "Thank you." She was uncertain whether or not she would look forward to the arrangement, but it seemed reasonable enough, and since he was the only member of the family still occupying the house she could understand his desire for company, though he was scarcely over-sociable. Without preliminary warning the door opened and Robbie walked in, his chubby face still showing traces of grubbiness, a trait, Cara was to discover, ever-present in the younger boy. He went across to his uncle and leaned against his knee as he had done with Agnes, only this time the wide blue eyes fixed themselves on Cara less shyly. "I thought you and Dougal were to stay with Agnes for a while," Andrew Campbell said, putting a large but gentle and on the blond head. "What are you doing in here?" The solemn gaze left Cara and turned to his uncle. "Lady," he said. Cara could not suppress a smile at the evasive answer and she saw a flicker of amusement cross the set mouth of her employer. "This is Miss Houston," he said, pushing the boy gently across toward Cara. "Miss Houston is going to look after you fora while." The serious eyes regarded her shyly from a couple of feet away, ready to turn should his shyness prove too much for him. Cara extended a tentative hand to him. "Hello, Robbie," she said, smiling. "We've met before, haven't we?" The blond head nodded cautiously as he took her hand in imitation of his brother. "Missoustie," he said. "Miss Houston," his uncle corrected him, and Robbie turned to him, a frown between his brows that made him look 'remarkably like the man he faced. He tried again. "Missoustie," he said once more, and Cara was hard put to restrain a laugh at the solemn face. "I think," she ventured, "it might be simpler, for Robbie at least, to call me Cara; it's rather a tongue-twister for a baby. "Very well, if you've no objection." The deep gray eyes thanked her for her understanding and she found herself feeling almost as shy as Robbie. "But you will probably find that Dougal will follow suit," he added, and she smiled. "I don't mind," she said. "It's easier for them and no less polite." " Cara," said Robbie clearly and obligingly. That's easier, isn't it?" Cara asked him, and he came her nearer to her, the last remnants of his shyness vanishing in her smile. Andrew Campbell sighed his relief and leaned back in his chair. "You need not bother with them until tomorrow, Miss Houston. Give yourself time to settle in." He puffed the pipe into life again, the smoke concealing his face like a screen. Agnes will show you

where your room is and she'll also see that the boys get to bed tonight at a reasonable hour. They usually go about half-past seven," he added. "I don't mind starting right away" she said, but he waved a hand in disagreement. "No, no," he said. "Tomorrow is time enough," and Cara took that as her dismissal and rose from her chair. "I'll ask Mrs. Finlay to show me my room," she said, and to her surprise he got to his feet and walked with her to the door, Robbie trailing along behind. Agnes Finlay appeared at the kitchen door as they came into the hall and her employer called to her. "Ah, Agnes, will you show Miss Houston her room, please?" he asked. "Certainly, Mr. Campbell." The woman's round cheerful face smiled at Cara, then spotted Robbie behind her. "Robbie!" she said. "Where did ye get to? I told ye to stay wi ' Dougal in the yard for a wee while." " It doesn't matter, Agnes." He put a guiding hand on Robbie's head and turned him round again. "He can stay with me if he wants to while you show Miss Houston round. You don't want him under your feet." "Cara" Robbie said distinctly, turning against the guiding hand, but his uncle was adamant and steered him inexorably toward the big room. Agnes shook her head, watching the door close behind them. "He's a wee smasher, that one," she opined with broad smile, and Cara nodded agreement. The room allotted to her was bigger than she had expected, and positively luxurious in comparison to the small ones she had become accustomed to in the last four years. "It's a lovely room," she said, smiling her delight. She crossed to the high, wide window and looked down over the driveway she had driven along earlier with Tam. "And a lovely outlook, too." "Aye, it's a guid view," Agnes agreed, standing beside her She turned her shrewd but kindly eyes on Cara. "Ye're a friend of Miss Moira's, I heard," she said. "That's right," Cara said. "We've been friends since we were at school together. Did you know her?" "Oh, aye!" The blue eyes twinkled. "Ye'd no forget Miss Moir a i n a hurry. A real lively wee creature she was and kept us all on the hop whenever she was here." Cara laughed at the memory of her friend's liveliness and could imagine that her gay and irrepressible nature would peal to Agnes Finlay. "Not at all like her brother," she said impulsively. "Och, no." Agnes shook her head. "They never were alike, though they're very fond o' one another, mind. Mr. Campbell, that's Mr. Andrew's father, used to call them chalk an' cheese, they were so different." "They had different mothers, of course," Cara said. "That made the difference I expect." "Aye, I doubt it must've, though I never saw Mr. Andrew's mother, of course; the second Mrs. Campbell was here when I came and Miss Moira was a wee bit of a thing not much more than Dougal's age." She looked down at Cara's open suitcase at the foot of the bed. "Ah, well, I'll leave ye to freshen up and mebbe have a wee look round," she said. There 's a bathroom next to this room and the nursery rooms i r e next to that; there's connecting doors right through if ye want to use them. The keys are in the locks." "Thank you." Cara stretched luxuriously. "Will it be possible for me to have a bath, do you think?" she asked. "Of course." Agnes smiled. "I made sure there was hot water for ye; traveling's aye a

dirty business on British trains." "It certainly is," Cara agreed fervently. "I only hope I don't get drowsy in the bath after that huge tea. "That was nae such a big meal," Agnes said. "Ye'll be ready for ye're dinner at eight o'clock, I don't doubt. Ye'll be having it wi' Mr. Campbell," she added, watching Cara's face shrewdly. "Oh, no, surely not," said Cara, aghast at the thought, "I now I have my other meals with him and the boys, but f " "Aye," Agnes said inexorably, a broad smile on her homely face, "that's what Mr. Campbell told me. He'll no eat ye ." She echoed her brother's remark earlier. Dinner, Cara felt, was not destined to be her favorite meal. CHAPTER TWO D E S P I T E Andrew Campbell's insistence that she should not start her duties until the following morning, Cara lent a hand that evening, bathing and putting the two boys to bed. Robbie was little enough trouble, for he was tired and ready for bed, but Dougal had reached the age when he took the business of going to bed as a challenge to his ingenuity and sought various means of delaying the evil moment as long as possible. By half-past seven, though, both of them were tucked in and Robbie half asleep already. Before Cara left her room to go down to dinner, she had glanced, irresistibly, out of the window; she felt she would never tire of the magnificent view. A man was walking down the tree-lined drive toward the road and as she watched he paused as if he had forgotten something, patting his pockets and half turning back toward the house. Seemingly what he sought was on his person after all, for she saw him nod, as if in satisfaction, and turn back, glancing up as he did so at her window. She had a fleeting impression of a smile on a fresh boyish-looking face and blue eyes, before he turned away and continued his walk down the drive, a jaunty swing in his step as if he should be wearing a kilt, Cara thought with a smile. She thought briefly that there was a vague air of familiarity about him, yet she had never seen him before, she was sure. She shrugged, perhaps the brilliant red hair reminded her of Moira. Uncertain what was expected of her in the way of dressing for dinner she had consulted Agnes. "Mr. Campbell's no a dressy man," Agnes informed her. "If ye go down too dressed up, the puir man'll no eat any dinner for lookin' at ye." A plain but flattering pale-pink cotton dress had met with instant approval and Cara went downstairs, with fluttering heart and a hundred doubts, to join her employer. He looked up as she came into the room, leaving his stand by the window her at the table; polite but seemingly unresponsive to her friendly smile apart from a murmured greeting. "I didn't expect to have dinner with you, Mr. Campbell, as the boys aren't here. It's very kind of you." She looked at the sombre face with its straight, uncompromising mouth and wondered if he ever smiled. "It is hardly fitting for a personal friend of my sister's to eat her meals in the kitchen with the staff," he said, seating self at the other side of the table. "Your position here is rather unusual, as you must realize, Miss Houston." She flushed at the almost accusing tone of his words, her eyes glinting with a flash of

anger. "I hope the arrangement won't prove too embarrassing for you," she said. "I would have been quite happy with Tam and Agnes in the kitchen." "Perhaps," he said dryly, as Agnes came in with their first course. "But Moira wouldn't have approved, I'm sure." It was not the most pleasant meal that Cara ever remembered, for the conversation was almost non-existent and she was glad of the occasional presence of Agnes to relieve the silence. Only once did her host show signs of animation and that was when she mentioned the man she had seen walking flown the driveway just before dinner. The deep gray eyes darkened even more and a frown drew the fair brows together. "That would be Angus Finlay," he said, an edge of anger on his voice. "He's no right here at all, and I'll not have him on the premises." "Finlay?" Cara queried. "No relation of Agnes?" "Yes," he answered, reluctantly, she thought. "Her son." "But you can't forbid him to come a n d " She stopped the fair head jerked up abruptly, the gray eyes darkly angry as they looked at her. "Allow me to be the best judge of that," he told her. "You are scarcely qualified to comment on such short acquaintance." She swallowed hard on her pride and anger as she gave her attention again to her meal. It was all the more humiliating, she told herself, because he was right. Angus Finlay had looked boyish and pleasant enough in the brief glimpse she had caught of him, but there surely must be a good reason for forbidding him to visit his mother at Dowell. She forgot the subject until later that evening when she had been for a short walk down the drive before going to bed. Agnes was waiting for her and she spoke hesitantly without her usual smile. "Could I have a word, Miss Houston?" she asked quietly. "Of course." Cara opened her door and signified her to come into the room. "What's wrong?" she asked. "You look worried." "II'm no sure how to start," Agnes confessed, her eyes downcast. "Mr. Campbell says ye sawsaw ma son, Angus, in the driveway before dinner." "I believe I did," Cara said, as puzzled by Agnes's manner as she had been by Andrew Campbell's. She laughed shortly, trying to relieve the woman's obvious tension. "I couldn't think at the time who it was he reminded me of. He's like you, " she added, hoping to please. The gray head shook despairingly. "He's no as much like me as he is like his father," Agnes said ruefully. "He's as big a scallywag as he ever was, and worse, more's the pity." "I see." Cara felt a surge of pity for the friendly little woman. "Mr. Campbell doesn't like him visiting you here, does he?" "No," she smiled at Cara, a conspiratorial smile. "But he does from time to time. He's no really bad," she said earnestly. "He's just a scamp, but he's no a one for violence at all." "But why does Mr. Campbell object to him coming to see you? " Cara asked. "It's not unreasonable, surely?" "Ah, well." The blue eyes clouded and she did not meet Cara's. "Angus has been in trouble with the authorities," she explained. "Mr. Campbell is no a hard man, but he's never had time for Angus. They never liked each other at all, even as bairns. Mr. Andrew was eleven when I came here wi' Angus an' him the same age, an' they disliked each other on sight, though Miss Moira liked him well enough, an' he her." "I'm sorry." Cara realized what her mention of the man had done. Perhaps Agnes had

been reprimanded for having her son there. She imagined that had been what Andrew Campbell had in mind to do when she had spoken of it. "If I'd realized, I wouldn't have said anything to Mr. Campbell, but I thought perhaps he was one of the staff." "Ye'll no say if he comes again?" urged Agnes. "He's careful not to be seen, usually, but he's an impudent rogue and mebbe wanted to see a glimpse of ye." She smiled apologetically. "I told him ye were a friend o' Miss Moira's, ye see." Cara smiled at her reassuringly, but not without a qualm of uneasiness, for it seemed a harmless enough thing to visit his mother, though of course she would inevitably be prejudiced in his favor. "Don't worry about it any more, Agnes. I'm sure he'll be more careful next time." "Aye, I hope so," Agnes said doubtfully. "It's no often he comes an' I'm sure he'll be more careful." She smiled warmly at Cara, a trace of her former lightness in her manner. "I'm grateful to ye for understanding, Miss Houston. I can see that ye'sel an' Miss Moira would be guid friends. Ye're very alike." Cara smiled as she saw her to the door. "Don't worry about it any more," she advised. "I'm sure it will be all right." "Aye, well, goodnight, Miss Houston." Agnes closed the door quietly behind her and Cara yawned her tiredness as she started to undress. Slipping on a short nylon housecoat over her nightdress, she went through to the adjoining bathroom and a few moments later, turning to switch off the bathroom light, she saw a soft glow of light under the door into the nursery. Impulsively she opened the door a few inches and peeped in. A nightlight burned on top of a chest of drawers and cast a soft glow over the light painted, gaily bright room. There was nothing to be seen of Dougal but the top of his head; but Robbie, in the other bed, was lying on top of the covers and making soft whimpering sounds in his rather restless sleep. Cara moved silently across the room to him, wondering, as she always did, how incredibly vulnerable children looked in their sleep. She pulled the covers down under him and lifted him gently, turning him to a more comfortable position and drawing the covers up over him as he settled down with a deep sigh to more peaceful sleep. She straightened up to see Andrew Campbell watching her from the doorway onto the landing and she instinctively nodded her head reassuringly. To her surprise he joined her by Robbie's bed, softness in his stern face that she would not have thought possible. "He always sleeps restlessly," he whispered, looking down at the peaceful Robbie. "And that wretched woman didn't help matters at all." He turned dark' eyes on her. "I see you decided to take up your duties tonight, after all," he said. She nodded. "I thought I would look in on them," she whispered. "It's instinctive, I suppose." "Yes." He swept her dshabill appearance with a glance that made her flush. "For you, perhaps." Cara moved away from the little bed, uneasy suddenly, and went toward the door into the bathroom. "Goodnight, Mr. Campbell." She turned in the doorway, unconsciously lovely in the soft light, and looked at him, a giant among the child size furniture of the nursery. "Goodnight," he whispered in reply, and turned back to look at the tiny figure of Robbie again before moving silently to the door and out of the room. When Cara woke next morning it was to the distant sound of shrill voices raised in disagreement, and she glanced at the small traveling clock beside her bed and blinked. It was barely quarter past seven. Reaching for her housecoat, she hastily donned it and crossed

the room into the bathroom; as she opened the communicating door the noise became louder and more insistent, Robbie's shrill falsetto taking precedence. "Good morning!" She opened the door into the nursery and stood watching them as Dougal hastily scrambled for his own bed, leaving Robbie, pink-faced and not quite tearful, sitting on his pillow with his pyjama jacket open and only half' on. She walked over to him, his eyes becoming warily shy as she approached, and pulled his jacket back into place. "What is all the noise about?" she asked quietly, fastening buttons. "He wants to get up," Dougal supplied promptly, "An' I him he couldn't 'cos it's too early." "It is early," she said, addressing Robbie. "It's too early to be making so much noise. What time do you usually have breakfast?" "After Uncle Andrew," said Dougal helpfully, and Cara not restrain a smile. She should, she told herself, have asked Agnes what was their usual breakfast time. "You'd better stay here quietly until I come for you," she told them. "And no more noise or fighting, all right?" Two heads nodded solemnly in agreement. "Have you some um books you can look at?" she asked. "In there. " Dougal pointed obligingly to a vast cupboard inst one wall and Cara opened it. Whatever else they lacked she thought, gazing at the huge assortment of toys books, it wasn't means of amusing themselves. One shelf neatly stacked with books and Cara thought she saw Agnes's tidy hand there; it would certainly not have been two boys. "You'd better come and choose one," she told them, "and back to bed with you for a while." Dougal chose two favorites, mainly she suspected because had been told to choose one, and he had reached that stage development when contrariness was a sign of independence. Robbie, too small to count but aware that one in each hand amounted to the same as his brother's share, trotted mite happily back to bed and settled himself down with his two choices. "Can I stay here?" Dougal asked, sitting on the rug in front the cupboard, and Cara shook her head, recognizing the s. 'I'd rather you didn't," she said quietly, lifting him to his feet. "Hop into bed again, please, Dougal." She thought for a moment that he was going to be defiant, but he evidently decided against it and climbed into his untidy bed. "Thank you," said Cara. "You have to set an example to Robbie, you know. I shall have to rely on you to do that." She doubted if he understood all her meaning, but at least, thought, the gist of it went home to him and he set his pugnacious face into a rather superior look of self-importance that cost Cara dear in restrained laughter. She completed her toilet and had almost finished dressing when she heard a soft knock on her door. Hastily donning dress, she crossed the room and opened the door to see Agnes standing there with a cup of tea. "Oh, Agnes, good morning!" She stood back to admit her. "Had I known it was you I would have called for you to come in." Agnes stood the cup on the dressing table. "Ye're about early, Miss Houston, it's only just eight o'clock. I was bringing Mr. Campbell his tea and I thought ye might like one too." "Thank you." Cara finished fastening her dress. "It's v good of you. Actually I wasn't sure just what time the boys were used to having their breakfast, I should have asked last night. All the information Dougal could give me wasafter Uncle Andrew." Agnes laughed, shaking her head. "It's true," she said "though not very helpful. Mr. Campbell usually has his about half-past eight and the bairns come down for theirs about

quarter to nine. It gives the puir man a chance to have most his meal in peace." "I see, thank you." Cara glanced at her watch and picked up her tea. "That gives me time to have my tea and then get them up," she said. "They're busy reading at the moment. "Did they rouse ye?" Agnes asked. "Yes and no," Cara laughed. "I don't usually stay in very late, but a quarter-past seven did strike me as a little early. Robbie wanted to get up," she added. "Aye, he would." The round homely face smiled indugently. "He's a worryin' wee lad, that one, he'd be wantin' come an' see if ye were still here or no." "He's sweet," said Cara, "and rather pathetic in a way. He doesn't have Dougal's selfconfidence and pugnacity."' "He'd have had less if that woman had stayed on," Agnes said grimly. "It's a guid thing Mr. Campbell had the sense send her packin' when he did." "It's a pity he took her on in the first place," Cara said shortly. "Surely he could tell what sort of a woman she was?' "Aye, mebbe he would have if he'd seen her himself," Agnes said. "But that Mrs. McKenzie-Brown had her say an' she doesnae like the bairns, d'ye see." Mrs. McKenzie-Brown?" Cara inquired setting down her cup. "Who is Mrs. McKenzieBrown?" "Huh'!" Agnes bridled indignantly. "We know who she'd ta be, well enoughMrs. Andrew Campbell." The boys looked a little less than angelic as they went stairs with their thick blond hair brushed tidily and their faces clean and shining. Robbie was inordinately proud of the outsize plaster decorating his left knee. Cara had removed the one to reveal a nasty graze which, Dougal informed her, had been acquired while trying to join John McGregor's pigs in their sty, at least that was the gist of it as far as she could tell, though who John McGregor was she had yet to discover. Andrew Campbell looked up from his paper as they came into the room and the boys immediately left Cara to greet him, hugging up to him affectionately as he put an arm round of them. "Good morning, Miss Houston," he acknowledged her at last, flicking a brief glance at her before shooing the boys to their places at the table. Cara took the brevity of his greeting as the most she could expect from such a dour man, and settled her charges at the table, tucking the huge white table napkins provided for them firmly under their shin. "Is it eggs?" asked Dougal, already tucking into a bowl of cornflakes and milk and looking over at his uncle's empty plate. "Eggs?" echoed Robbie hopefully, managing his cereal remarkably well, Cara was relieved to notice. "I don't know yet," she said quietly. "And don't eat that cereal so quickly, Dougal, you're making quite a mess!" surprisingly obedient, Dougal managed to take at least one breath between each spoonful, watching his slower brother patiently. "Are you taking them out this morning?" The question k Cara by surprise and she halted her spoon halfway to her nth. "I - I hadn't thought," she said, trying to discover whether or not he wanted her to go out with them. "I could do. It would give me a chance to look around a little, and there must be plenty to see."

"I'd rather you did," he said, ignoring the invitation to comment. "I am expecting a visitor this morning and it would be more convenient if the children weren't here." "Then certainly we'll go out," Cara agreed obligingly, visualizing the visitor as the ambitious Mrs. McKenzie-Brown and wishing she could have found some excuse not to do as he wished. It was purely assumption, she knew, and the desire to see the woman was nothing short of curiosity, but she would have liked to know what she looked like. Boiled eggs, she discovered moments later, were an unexpected hazard; since Robbie attacked his with more zeal than was wise considering the thin stem of his eggcup which threatened to topple with each attack. Glancing up briefly, she thought she caught a glint of amusement in Andrew Campbell's gray eyes and felt a flash of unreasoning anger. "Gone," Robbie said resignedly, clattering his spoon down onto the plate. "Get down." "Not yet," Cara said firmly. "You wait until Dougal has finished his second egg, then you can get down." "I usually let him go when he's finished his own," her employer said, while Robbie looked at him hopefully. Cara flushed as she met the dark eyes across the table. "I thought, " she challenged quietly, "that you didn't intend to interfere with my routine, Mr. Campbell." She saw the darkness of anger draw a frown between his brows. "It is scarcely interference to tell you the child's usual habits," he said coldly, both of them conscious of Dougal's interested blue eyes watching curiously. "If that's what you want, Mr. Campbell, I can only comply," she said with as much dignity as she could muster. "But I would be obliged if, before I go any further, you would make a list of your requirements so that I shall know exactly what I may or may not do." "That won't be necessary." He rose from the table and towered over all three of them. "Please do as you wish. I bow to your longer experience." He cast her a cold look which quelled any defensive retort she might have wished to make. "Get down?" asked Robbie hopefully, as Dougal finished the last of his second egg, and Cara nodded, her mind only half on his query as she watched the tall figure stride to the door and disappear. At last the three of them set off down the driveway, the two boys dashing energetically among the trees. She was curious about Mrs. McKenzie-Brown and decided that she could imagine nothing less likely than her employer being duped by any woman, no matter how irresistible she might prove to be. She had assumed the woman would be a type of femme fatale only because of Agnes's description of her as ambitious to marry Andrew Campbell. Oh well, she shrugged the woman out of her mind, time enough to worry about Mrs. McKenzie-Brown if she started to intrude on her own life; what Andrew Campbell did was his own affair. The two boys were her guides and the route they took her was interesting if slightly erratic. The village of Lochcrae was a sprawling, friendly looking collection of cottages and some larger houses, with a kirk and a tiny shop-cum-post office as the centers of the community. First beyond the boundaries of Dowell was John McGregor's square stone cottage with its collection of pigsties, for which the two boys headed unerringly. Following a little apprehensively, Cara was met by a cheerful, ruddy-faced man of about sixty who watched her enthusiastic charges indulgently. "They cannae resist the pigs," he told her, as she smiled at him apologetically. "Dinnae ye worry, lass, they'll come ta nae harm. Except," he twinkled at her, "ta mebbe pong a

wee bit!" "If you're sure you don't mind," she said, watching Robbie trying to attain another graze. " Robbie," she called, "you'll hurt yourself again!" " They're a bonnie coupla lads," the old man said softly. "'Twas a terrible shame they'd ta lose their folk like they did." " Yes," Cara agreed. "But they seem to have settled down well with their uncle." " Aye." The old man shook his head dubiously, "'Tis a pity they couldnae a' stayed there, they seem to like it fine." "I don't understand." Cara frowned her puzzlement. "Aren't they going to stay at Dowell?" The narrow, weather-faded eyes looked at her cautiously. "Mebbe I spoke outa turn, " he said slowly. "Ye'll be the new lady to mind them, are ye not? " Cara nodded. "Aye well," he shook his head, "it's no for me to poke in ma nose." "I'd like to know what you meant, though, " Cara said. "You're Mr. McGregor aren 't you?" He nodded. "Well, if you do know anything, Mr. McGregor, I'd be obliged if you'd tell me. I've been employed by Mr. Campbell to take care of the boys and he said nothing about it being only a short-term employment. I've come rather a long way, if it is." "Ooh, aye," he nodded his sympathy and understanding. "It's no anything certain, ye understand, but I heard that the bairns are to go inta a home whenever it can be arranged." "Oh, no!" Cara gazed at him horrified. "I can't believe he'd do a thing like that." "I don't know." Thick fingers rubbed through his gray hair. "Yon Mrs. McKenzieBrown kens most things that go on at Dowell, an' it was her that said it first, so I hear." "I see." Cara felt a cold dislike for the unknown Mrs. McKenzie-Brown as she looked at the two little boys, and only a little less for her employer. He had wanted her to take out the boys this morning because he was expecting a visitor, probably someone to discuss disposing of his two charges. "Dougal, Robbie! " she called them over to her, and they came though reluctantly. "I think we'll go back now." "Not yet!" they chorused, Robbie as usual half a note behind. "Ye'll need to walk some more energy out o' them yet," John McGregor told her with a smile. "They're guid for anither five miles yet, lass." Smiling more brightly than she felt, Cara succumbed to their united pleas and agreed to continue the walk, and they guided her past the next few cottages and one or two larger houses. Passing the railings that surrounded the small garden of one particularly impressive house next to the kirk, Dougal turned his head and pulled a wry face. "Miz KenzieBrown," he informed her, somewhat inaccurately, and Cara looked at the house with renewed interest. "She's silly," declared Dougal, and Robbie echoed obediently, "Silly!" "I don't think you should talk about people like that," Cara told them uncertainly. "Mrs. McKenzie-Brown is a friend of your uncle's, isn't she?" "She's silly," Dougal said adamantly. "Dougal!" She felt bound to scold him though she had no way of knowing that he was not rightshe thought that he probably was. She did not care to stare intently at the house, for it was very near the road, and as they neared the gateway, the white-painted front door opened and two people came out. "Come on," Dougal urged. "Quick!" He increased his speed to a run, followed by an ever-ready Robbie who shrieked his curiosity after his brother as he ran. "Come here!" Cara saw the female of the two people, who were now almost to the gate,

glance up at her cry. "Dougal, Robbie!" A pair of the palest blue eyes Cara had ever seen was turned in her direction and the woman paused in the gateway, her curled blond head tilted curiously. "Are those the McKinnon children?" she asked Cara. Cara turned and smiled politely, taking in the pinkly colored face and fragile appearance of the woman. "Yes," she said, "they are." A faint frown creased the china doll face as the woman followed the boys' progress as far as the kirk gate, where they turned and surveyed herrather dubiously, Cara thought. "I thought they must be." She spoke fretfully, in a rather world-weary voice. "Though most children look alike, heaven knows." Cara laughed briefly, catching the amused eye of the uniformed chauffeur who accompanied the woman. "I don't think I can agree with that," she protested. "They are all so different, as adults are; they're only miniature copies, after all, aren't they?" The pale eyes admitted Cara's dark loveliness without ad-miring it and white-gloved hands fingered nervously at the clasp of a white handbag. "I assume you are the new nurse-maid that Mr. Campbell has taken on?" she said, the pettish voice chill with malice. "I'm a very close friend of your employer. What is your name?" "Cara Houston," Cara said, feeling a prickle of anger at the woman's tone of voice. "Ah, yes, Houston." The doll-like face expressed condescension, and she added, "I don't think Mr. Campbell would approve of the children shouting in the street as they were when I left the house." She signaled the chauffeur and he opened the door of the waiting Bentley for her, helping her in as if she was an invalid. Before he could close the door again the woman leaned forward. "You will possibly see me quite often," she informed Cara. "I'm Mrs. McKenzie-Brown" "And I am Miss Houston," said Cara, and had the pleasure of seeing the pink, doll-like cheeks flush, before the grinning chauffeur closed the door. So that, she thought, was Mrs. McKenzie-Brown. Not a bit as she had visualized her, but a formidable enemy, she was prepared to allow, for all her seeming fragility. In view of the woman's youthshe could be no more than twenty-five or sixshe wondered at the fate of Mr. McKenzieBrown; whether he had been disposed of by way of law or death, since she was apparently free to marry Andrew Campbell. The Bentley purred away toward Dowell and, seeing it depart, the boys ran back to join Cara, their wide eyes following the car's progress along the narrow street. " S h e 's goin' to see Uncle Andrew," Dougal guessed resignedly. "I expect so," Cara agreed, and sought to relieve the gloom that seemed to have possessed all of them since the advent of Mrs. McKenzie-Brown. "Where are you taking me next? " she asked. "You must have a favorite place." "Miswatsweesop," said Robbie confoundingly. "Uncle Andrew takes us there," said Dougal hopefully, apparently finding his brother's suggestion quite lucid. "You'll have to translate for me," Cara told him. "What did he say?" "Mrs. Watson's," said Dougal, taking her hand and urging her along. Cara followed obediently, Robbie claiming her other hand with a shy smile that touched her heart. "I see," she said untruthfully. "Well, you lead the way, please." There were not many people about, and Cara wondered if there ever were, for it seemed an incredibly quiet and peaceful little place, tucked away between the hills and the moor, its road of gray stone sets giving

it an old-fashioned air of quaintness and tranquility. A few yards farther along past the kirk one of the little older stone cottages had been turned into a shop, its tiny window crammed with an assortment of goods almost unbelievable in its variety. Sewing cotton and wax candles rubbed shoulders with boxes of scouring pads and yellow soap, with tins of corned beef sitting side by side with tins of fruit, the whole presided over by the largest tabby cat that Cara had ever seen. It eyed her incuriously as they approached the door and she felt herself smile at its tranquil peace that so exactly fitted into the mood of the village. Over the low doorway a black and white notice certified that Marion Watson was licensed to sell tobacco, and a larger board declared in faded letters, "Watson's post office, groceries, hardware, sweets and tobacco." Cara smiled; Robbie's confounding statement was at last explained as "Mrs. Watson's sweet shop," and her guess was confirmed when the boys pulled her in through the narrow doorway to the dim interior of the shop. There was little room inside and she almost collided with someone just leaving, unable to take evasive action because of the children's possession of her hands. "I'm sorry," a man's voice said, and Cara, peering blindly in the dim light after the bright sun, recognized Angus Fin-lay's boyish face. The blue eyes glistened with laughter as he put a hand on her arm to steady her against the impact. "Yell be Miss Houston?" he said, flicking a glance at the two little boys as they left Cara and made straight for the crowded counter. "I am," Cara admitted, seeing his mother's friendly nature in the fresh, open face and responding to his broad smile. "I think I saw you last night, Mr. Finlay; at least your mother said it was you." "Aye, it was." He winked an impudent eye at her. "I was takin' liberties wi' the grand entrance, but I was curious, ye ken." "Really?" Cara feigned surprise. "What about?" "Ye'sel," he admitted, his blue eyes complimenting her. "Ye're aye a bonnie yin," he said, and she flushed at his leer. She felt the conversation had gone as far as it politely could. She liked the man's friendliness, but not the note of intimacy that had crept in. "I'm afraid I inadvertently caused trouble for your mother last night," she said, "by mentioning to Mr. Campbell that I'd seen you. I didn't know that you were forbidden to visit Dowell. I'm sorry." "Och, don't worry about it." He shrugged unconcernedly. "It's a wee fad o'his, he disnae worry at me at a'." The blue eyes roamed over her face and figure and she felt the color rise in her cheeks again. She looked across at her charges, busy exploring the possibilities of a crammed corner of the counter, filled with sweets. "If you'll excuse me, Mr. Finlay," she said, "I'd better see what the boys are up to." He turned and looked at the two children. "They 're grand wee lads. Here," he called to them, "buy ye'sels a sweetie on me." He handed them a sixpence each and two little hands received them eagerly. "Thank you," said Dougal, echoed as usual by Robbie. Angus Finlay laughed lightly, opening the packet of cigarets he had bought. "So long," he said to Cara, and winked an eye. "I'll mebbe see ye again." "I like him," Dougal announced solemnly. "He's nice." "Nice," echoed Robbie, engrossed again in the sweet counter, and Cara agreed with a modicum of doubt.

Mrs. Watson proved to be a pleasant, homely little woman, obviously well known to the boys. "It takes time, choosin'," she said to Cara, smiling broadly, and added, "So ye're the new lady up at Dowell? Do ye think yell be likin' it there?" "Oh, I think so," answered Cara, and lowered her voice. "The boys are nice, wellmannered little chaps and I like them already." "Oh, aye," the round face beamed at her busy customers. "An' Mr. Campbell's a fine man. A wee bit dour, mebbe," she qualified, "but a fine man for a' that." "Yes," Cara said noncommittally. "Ye're a friend o' Miss Moira's, I heard Angus Finlay sayin'," Mrs. Watson went on. "Now there's a nice girl, a real nice, friendly girl." "We were at school together," Cara said, only too eager to agree. "But I haven't seen her for a couple of years, though we keep in touch by letter often." The woman's dark head shook regretfully. "'Tis a pity she 'd to be away so often," she said slowly. "If Miss Moira'd been here there'd be nae talk o'but now," she pulled herself up short, "I'm gossiping, an' there's enough o' that about without me adding to it." Cara laughed a little uncomfortably and turned to see how her charges were progressing. "Haven't you chosen your sweets yet?" she asked, and two heads shook in unison. "Nearly," Dougal promised, then turned a thoughtful face to Cara, his brow furrowed. "Are we goin' home?" he asked. "Don't you want to?" she asked, and he shook his head. "She's still there," he said, and Cara flicked a glance at Mrs. Watson hoping that she would not think the remark too disparaging, nor guess at whom it was directed. "We'll walk farther then," she said hastily. "You show me where you'd like to go and I'll come with you. All right?" "Yes!" they chorused, and Mrs. Watson shook her head, smiling at Cara as she paid for their sweets. "Puir wee bairns," she said softly, and Cara felt her heart jolt uncomfortably, for she suspected that it was more than their being orphaned that had prompted the remark. They were soon at the limit of the village and onto the moor, springy and green underfoot and showing promise of the heather to come. The loch was even nearer than she had realized and the sight of it, cool and sparkling, so that it was much later than she had intended when they returned to Dowell for lunch, bright-eyed and chattering. Cara had cleaned and tidied the boys and was trying to restore order to her thick black curls when Agnes knocked. "I just thought I'd warn ye," she whispered hastily, when Cara opened the door. "There's company for lunchyon McKenzie-Brown." "Oh dear," sighed Cara, remembering her departing shot at the woman and the angry flush on the doll-like face. "I suppose there's nothing for it, is there?" Agnes's blue eyes expressed sympathy, but she shook her head. "No, " she said, "Mr.Campbell said ye'd all be lunching downstairs together. I thought I'd warn ye an' mebbe ye could be prepared for her. She's no a very friendly woman at a'." "We've met," Cara said flatly, and briefly related the meeting between them. "Ah, well," Agnes said resignedly, "yell no be more unpopular than the lads, she's no time for them." "Awful woman," Cara said shortly. Andrew Campbell rose as they came into the room and the boys started toward him,

coming to an abrupt halt as they saw the visitor seated near the fireplace. Dougal turned reproachful eyes on Cara as if he realized that she had deliberately refrained from telling them that the woman was there for fear of their reaction. "Hello," Andrew Campbell greeted them, a slight frown showing that he regretted the absence of their usual exuberant greeting. "Where have you been this morning?" He put a hand on Robbie's blond head. "You've a good color, so I expect you've been walking." "They have," Cara said. "I don't know how I managed to keep pace with them." "They've plenty of energy," he said, his deep gaze sweeping over Cara's own flushed cheeks and shining eyes. "They're real country boys for their walks." "They're extremely noisy ones too." The high, rather weak voice spoke from beside the fireplace. "You really should order them to be controlled, Andrew, particularly in Lochcrae and so near the kirk. I dread to think what the minister thought of them this morning." There was none of the sharp fretfulness that she had shown earlier, Cara noticed, only a gentle reproach as if she mentioned the matter merely for their own good. A small apologetic smile hovered round the brightly pink mouth, and her eyes were anxious. Cara flushed, her eyes sparkling anger in the boys' defense. "They were not misbehaving," she addressed her employer. "They were merely being normal, highspirited little boys, Mr. Campbell." He frowned as if he found the obvious hostility that Cara felt toward the woman more than he could understand. "I hear that Mrs. McKenzie-Brown spoke to you about their behavior at the time," he said, "and you were extremely insolent to her." Conscious of Dougal and Robbie watching her and the cold malicious eyes of the other woman on her, Cara refused to be drawn into any further mention of the matter. "I think," she said far more calmly than she felt, "that it would be better to await a more opportune moment than this to discuss my misdemeanors, if you don't mind, Mr. Campbell. In the meantime I would prefer to have my meal in the kitchen with the rest of the staff, if you have no objections." She saw the gray eyes darken ominously as he looked at her. "If you insist," he told her, his voice taut with anger. "But I would like to point out that supervising the boys' meals is one of your duties and you can hardly expect them to eat in the kitchen." "Cara." Robbie reached for her hand, sensing if not understanding the anger and indecision in her mind. As if in support, Dougal took her other hand and two pairs of wondering and unhappy eyes looked at their uncle. "Very well," she said, biting her lip and she thought she detected a faint sigh of relief as he turned to his visitor. He handed her into a chair as the chauffeur had helped her into her car, as if she was too fragile to accomplish the feat alone. The boys took their seats quietly and with many long looks of disapproval at the interloper. Agnes cast sympathetic looks at Cara as she moved around the table, placing dishes of food. The visitor, Cara noticed, ate very little, taking only a very small portion of anything and turning it about her plate as if she suspected that Agnes might have been trying to poison her. Dougal, on the other hand, tucked into his food heartily, his appetite sharpened by his walk. Both boys had excellent table manners for their ages and needed very little supervision, so that, apart from giving Robbie occasional assistance, Cara was able to concentrate on her own meal, and conversation was spasmodic, even the children's chatter silenced by the company.

"I see that wretched Finlay man is back in Lochcrae," Rhoda McKenzie-Brown said, as Agnes left the room. "I do hope he isn't going to stay around here. I really get quite nervous when he's about." She glanced at her host appealingly, a self-deprecating smile on her china doll face. "I am silly, aren't I, Andrew, to be afraid of him?" She shuddered daintily. "I suppose it's being alone and not very strong. I get nervous of everything and everybody." Andrew Campbell smiled at her understandingly and Cara swallowed her amazement at the gullibility of men. "I don't think you need fear Angus Finlay, Rhoda, " he said. "Though he is an undesirable character, I admit, and I've forbidden him to come to the house." "He's nice," Dougal stated, pausing between mouthfuls. "He gave us sixpence." Dougal was loyal to his friends. Cara saw Andrew Campbell's eyes narrow as he looked first at Dougal and then at her. "What does he mean, Miss Houston?" he asked. "Perhaps you'd explain. Did you let the boys talk to Finlay?" "They didn't actually talk to him," Cara explained, "except to say thank you when he gave them a sixpence each. He was in Mrs. Watson's shop when we went in." "He spoke to you?" He sounded surprised, and Cara saw the other woman's finely penciled eyebrows rise at her answer. "Yes," she said. "He recognized the boys and he knew about me, so we exchanged a few words. He seemed pleasant enough," she added. "You know I don't approve of him calling here," he said, frowning his displeasure. "The man's no good." "But he wasn't here, Mr. Campbell," Cara pointed out quietly. "He was in Mrs. Watson 's sweet shop. Neutral ground, you could say." "You were in charge of my nephews," he said coldly. "However, since it's happened, I'll say no more about it for now." "Thank you." He did not miss her sarcasm, and she felt her own face flush as he bit back his anger. Lunch over, Cara took the boys to play in the yard at the back of the house and proposed writing a letter to Moira telling her of her arrival and her first impressions of Dowell and its master. Moira, she knew, had no illusions about her half-brother, although she was very fond of him. Cara was on her way to her room when she saw her employer and his visitor leave the big room, the tiny baby doll of a woman leaning dependently on him as they walked to the door. They glanced across at her as she took the first step up the stairs and Andrew Campbell called out to her, "Oh, Miss Houston, if you'll wait for me in the big room, please, I'd like to speak to you." Cara nodded, changing direction and felt the icy malice of Rhoda McKenzie-Brown chill her as she flicked her with the pale eyes. Cara sat on the arm of a chair waiting for Andrew Campbell to join her, her eyes dark and wary at the prospect of the dressing-down she felt was inevitable. She stood up as he came into the room, unconsciously lovely as she tossed her black head and raised her chin, her cheeks softly flushed with ready anger. "Please sit down." Her standing seemed to make him uncomfortable, but she shook her head. "If I'm to be put in my place," she said quietly, "I prefer to stand."

She saw the deep gray eyes darken as he moved across the room to her. "You think you should be put in your place, do you?" he asked, tall and overwhelmingly big as he stood in front of her. "You appeared to think so earlier," she retorted. "Presumably Mrs. McKenzie-Brown had complained about me." She thought she detected a flicker of impatience across the rugged face as she spoke. "It was unfortunate that you should meet as you did," he said. "Mrs. McKenzie-Brown is a fairly frequent visitor to Dowell. I'm sorry you started off wrongly, since you'll probably be seeing each other quite often. " "I take exception to being called Houston, " Cara said shortly. "I merely reminded Mrs. McKenzie-Brown that I had a title to my name, too. " "That's all?" He had obviously expected worse. "Perhaps she misunderstood you, " he said. "She doesn't enjoy good health and sometimes it makes her a little irritable. Were the boys behaving badly? " he added, and Cara shook her head emphatically. "Definitely not, " she asserted. "They were merely running" She paused remembering the reason for their running. He tilted his eyebrows inquiringly. "Why? " he prompted, trying to read her expression as she hesitated. "It was Mrs. McKenzie-Brown, " she said at last. "She was just leaving her house when we passed and they ran away when they saw her. " "I see," he said, running a hand through his thick hair. "It's a pity, but children take unreasonable dislikes to people and there's nothing one can do except hope that they'll come round in time. " "With a little encouragement they may, " Cara defended them. "But I gather Mrs. McKenzie-Brown is not fond of children. " "That is possibly true, " he admitted, surprisingly. "She has never had any contact with children at all and she just doesn 't understand them. " "I would go so far as to say that she actively dislikes them," Cara averred. "At least she does Dougal and Robbie, and that's not easy, they're such likable little boys, everyone likes them." A vestige of a smile touched his lips. "So you're' quite happy looking after them, are you?" he asked. "Of course." She remembered John McGregor 's implication that the boys might be put into a home, and frowned. "I'd like to have some idea, " she said quietly, "how long I shall be looking after them. Can you give me any idea, Mr.Campbell?" He looked at her, obviously puzzled by the question, and she regretted having mentioned it at all, since, had it been more than rumor, he would have known the reason for her asking. "Dougal will start school in about six months' time," he said, "but Robbie has nearly another three years yet. I don't quite understand your question. If you're happy looking after them you surely aren 't thinking of leaving yet? " "Oh, it's nothing." She half-turned from him, facing to the window so as not to meet his questioning gaze. "Nonsense!" he asserted. "You must have had some reason for asking me that. What was it?" Cara turned, spreading her hands and making a moue of apology. "I shouldn't have mentioned it," she said. "It's nothing but a rumor, I expect." She saw his forehead crease as he moved round, the better to see her face.

"What is rumor?" he insisted, his eyes dark as he looked at her intently. "John McGregor mentioned it and something Mrs. Watson hinted at seemed to confirm it," Cara went on. She swallowed hard before continuing. "He said that you were going to have Dougal and Robbie put into a home," she said, "but I told him you wouldn't do a thing like that." "Thank you for your support," he said dryly. "I can't imagine where such an idiotic rumor can have started." He looked keenly at her as she averted her eyes. "Can you?" he asked. "No," she lied. "I told you I dismissed it for a rumor when John McGregor told me about it." "And where did John McGregor purport to get his information from?" he asked, and Cara did not reply. "Miss Houston?" "I would rather not say," she said evasively, "and since there's no truth in it, it doesn't matter, surely?" "I wouldoh, never mind." He dismissed the subject with a wave of his hand. "Since as you say I have no intention of doing anything of the sort, it doesn't matter." He sensed her relief, she thought, and almost smiled, the broad rugged face looking as friendly as she had seen it yet. "I'm going to Castlecrae on Thursday," he said. "I thought it would make an outing for the boys if they came with me. Perhaps you'd care to come along too, unless, of course, you could better utilize the time free of them. " "I'd love to come, " she said, pleasantly surprised at the outcome of what she had anticipated would be an unpleasant interview. "When would you like them ready? Morning or afternoon? " "Oh, some time after ten," he said casually. "It isn't a very long way. Do you know Castlecrae at all?" "No." She shook her head. "I don 't know Scotland at all, I'm ashamed to say, although I'm half Scots." "Your father was Scots? " he asked. "Yes," she admitted. "He came from Fort William, although he spent most of his life in England." "A pity." He shook his head. "It's a grand country. But your mother wasn't a Scotswoman, if I remember, Moira told me." He saw her lower her long lashes over her eyes and a crease form between her brows. "No," she answered. "My mother is Italian. She went back to Italy some years ago and as far as I know she's still there." "Ah, yes," he said, skating over an obviously delicate subject. "That accounts for your coloring, the fair Scottish complexion and the black hair and magnificent dark eyes of the Italians." She must have shown her surprise at his words, for he set his mouth again and moved across to the fireplace, searching for tobacco as he did so to hide his embarrassment. "I'd better go and see if Dougal and Robbie are still all right," she said quietly. "I left them playing in the yard." "Agnes will give an eye to them out there," he said, drawing the pipe into life. "There's no need to worry about them. You don't have to stand guard every minute of the day!" "It isn't the boys so much I'm thinking of this time, " she said with a smile. "It's two very large and overfed rabbits. Dougal seems to think that they have an endless capacity for food and I'm afraid he takes every available opportunity to pop in a bit more."

"Judging the rabbits ' capacity by his own, no doubt, " he said dryly, and warmed his gray eyes with a smile that Cara thought made him very attractive. She left him to seek the boys and found them as she had anticipated by the long wire run of the rabbit hutch, each of them with a piece of lettuce pushed through the wire to the unenthusiastic occupants. "They're not hungry," Dougal informed her as she came up to them. "They must be poorly." "Poorly," echoed Robbie, prodding the nearer one with an exploratory finger. "I should think they've had quite enough for now," said Cara, pulling back the finger through the wire. "It isn't good for them to eat too much, you know, any more than it is for you to eat too much." "Tea?" inquired Robbie hopefully, and Cara smiled, shaking her head at his cherubically grubby face. "No," she said, "and you can't possibly be hungry again. You've only just had your lunch." She used her handkerchief to rub some of the dirt from his face. "Oh, Robbie, how do you get so dirty?" she asked. "Is she still here?" Dougal asked, the mention of lunch reminding him of their lunchtime visitor. "Dougal"she pondered the use of scolding him"you must not refer to people in that way. They have names, and it's polite to use them and very rude not to." "Miz Kenzie-Brown," Dougal obliged. "Is she still here?" Cara restrained a smile with difficulty and shook her head. "No," she said, "Mrs. McKenzie-Brown has gone now." "I'm glad," Dougal said flatly. "She's silly." "Silly," echoed Robbie, adding on his own account, "Bad!" Cara turned startled eyes to him, but was relieved to find that the last adjective was directed at a brown lettuce leaf and not their erstwhile visitor. "On Thursday," Cara told them, "you're going to Castlecrae with your uncle. You'll like that, won't you?" "Ooh, yes!" Dougal agreed, his eyes shining. "Uncle An-drew buys us things." "Fings," echoed Robbie, taking his cue from his brother as usual. "Goin' out." Cara nodded, a little dismayed at Dougal's obviously mercenary delight. "On Thursday," she said, crouched still be-side them by the run, and Robbie's arms crept round her neck, his huge blue eyes rather shy and solemn as he spoke. "You come? " he asked. "Yes, Robbie." She hugged him to her for a second. "I'm coming too; I've never been to Castlecrae before, so you and Dougal will have to show me round, won 't you?" Dougal eyed her suspiciously for a moment, as if he suspected that she was keeping something from them. "Is sheMiz Kenzie-Browncomin '?" he asked, and Cara shook her head, suddenly realizing that she did not really know whether the other woman would be accompanying them or not. "Is she?" demanded Dougal, sounding unnervingly like his uncle. "I don't think so," said Cara. "Your uncle didn't say that she was; I think perhaps it's just us and no one else that he's taking." "That's good." Dougal nodded his satisfaction and sought another interest other than the rabbits. "Come and see the pony," he said, and added, "It's Robbie's. " "Robbie's," echoed the proud owner, and pulled her hand. "See, Cara, see!" Cara remembered that Dougal had told her yesterday that their uncle had given Robbie

a pony for his birthday and she wondered if such a little fellow could ride yet. Answering her query, Dougal nodded. "It's little," he said, rather disparag ingly. "His name's Loosfa." He led the way into the stables that were built across one end of the cobbled yard. "Here he is," he said, and patted the rump of the tiniest pony Cara had ever seen. He turned wide, almost childlike eyes as they came in and greeted them, his black coat shining like silk even in the dimness of the stall. "What's his name?" Cara asked curiously, patting the tiny creature. "Loosfa," Dougal said. "'Cause he's black." "Oh, Lucifer!" she smiled, understanding at last. "That's a good name for him. " There were, she noticed, several other animals in the stables and restless feet rustled among the straw as they heard the voices and no doubt hoped for tidbits. "How many are there?" she asked, approaching the next stall cautiously, and realized that numbers meant nothing much to Dougal yet. "There are six of them." She turned, startled, as Andrew Campbell spoke just behind her, "though most of them are boarders." He approached the magnificent gray she was ad-miring and put out a hand to rub the velvety nose that greeted him. "I hope it's all right for us to be in here," she said. `I was brought in to see Lucifer. He's lovely, the tiniest one I've ever seen." "Yes." He turned and glanced at the pony. "Robbie had him for his second birthday three months ago." "This is Smokey," Dougal supplied, not to be outdone, and Cara smiled. "'Cause he's gray," he added. Andrew Campbell moved along and the three of them followed him. "This one is Moira's, when she's here," he said. "I keep him exercised most of the time. Do you ride?" he asked, eyeing her trim figure as if he thought she should. "No, I'm afraid not." She did not admit to being rather afraid of horses, but she thought he probably guessed it from the expression in her eyes. "You should learn," he told her. "They won't hurt you, you know. Moira loves to ride." He patted the lightly built roan, not looking at her. "I could teach you," he said. CHAPTER THREE BY ten o'clock on Thursday morning Dougal and Robbie were ready and waiting for Cara, who was paying last-minute attention to her hair. The brief green tricel dress she wore was both flattering and comfortable, and turning before the dressing table mirror for a final check, she heard a demanding knock on the far door of the bathroom. "Come in!" she called, and saw Dougal's anxious face reflected in the mirror as he came through the bathroom and into her bedroom. "It's late," he said, his blond mop already in disarray. "Should we go, Cara?" "I'm coming now," she said, picking up gloves and hand-bag from the bed. "And there's no hurry, because it isn't quite time yet and your uncle may not be ready." "We're ready," said Dougal, as if that was sufficient reason for going immediately. "Come along, then." Cara ushered them out onto the landing. "Let's go and see whether we're too early or not." Andrew Campbell was waiting for them when they went into the big room and he rose

from a chair by the window. "Just in time," he said. "Are you all ready, all of you?" Cara was unsure whether she liked being included with the children in the question, but she smiled her assent and he took a hand of each of the boys and went out to the carnot the ancient one that had met Cara at Lochcrae, but a sleek black Jaguar that looked as if it would laugh at the miles. The boys scrambled eagerly into the back seat and Andrew Camp-bell held the front passenger door open for her. Castlecrae was not a big town by some standards, but big enough to have stores and cinemas and other signs of modern civilization. To the two boys it was apparently the last word in adventure, for they cried out excitedly at familiar landmarks as their uncle drove through the fairly easy traffic to a parking space just off the main street. "Do you think you can find this spot again?" he asked Cara as, having left the car and walked into the main street, they stopped beside a large toy shop. "I have to attend to some business first which shouldn't take me more than about thirty minutes at most." "I think so," she smiled. "I'm used to finding my way around London, Mr. Campbell. I don't think Castlecrae will defeat me. We'll be here." "Good." He hesitated, glancing at the boys with their noses pressed to the toy shop window, then brought out a wallet and handed her some notes. "See if there's anything they'd like in there." he said. "I usually get them something; they don't come out very often." "Of course," said Cara, and estimated, incredibly, that the bundle of notes she held must be, at a minimum, ten pounds. "Cara, look!" Dougal's excited cry made her turn in his direction. "I'll see you in about half an hour," Andrew Campbell said as she gave her attention to Dougal, and she turned back in time to see him striding across the road, dodging the spasmodic traffic. Pushing the money into her handbag, she joined the boys at the shop window. "It's a real engine," Dougal told her as she came up, "with real smoke, Cara." "Weal moke," Robbie echoed, his button nose flattened against the glass. "It is a lovely engine, isn't it?" she agreed, making a mental note of the price. Actually it was a model traction engine, and to work it and produce the smoke that they found so exciting required small amounts of household coal; but apart from the fact that they would get very dirty, which was inevitable anyway, she saw no reason why they should not have it. As they were about to go into the shop Cara became aware of someone watching her reflection in the plate-glass window and she turned as she recognized the boyish face and bright red hair of Angus Finlay. "I said I'd mebbe see ye again," he said with his impudent grin, "an' I was right." The blue eyes complimented her cool loveliness, and she flushed, wishing he had not seen them. "Hello," said Dougal, not to be overlooked. Angus Finlay grinned down at him. "Hello, ye'sel," he said. "What have ye got ye're eye on in there, eh?" Dougal pointed eagerly to the traction engine, puffing its way round the display area. "Real smoke," he said. "Isn't it, Cara?" "Yes," she agreed, a little uneasy, remembering her employer's anger the last time they had met Angus Finlay, yet wondering how one could stop a normal and harmless conversation without being offensive.

"Aye." He peered in at the price ticket. "It's a nice wee price, too," he said. "I shouldnae think you'll get that, lad-die." "We were just going in to get it," Cara told him. "Mr. Campbell said they could have something they wanted." " Ooh, aye," he said with a rueful smile, "an ' it's no such a big price when ye've plenty. Yon price," he indicated the ticket with a nod of his red head, "is nearly a week's dole money to me." Cara flushed. "That's scarcely my fault or my affair," she said, "if you'll excuse me." "Have ye been warned off speakin' to me?" he asked suddenly, and Cara stared at him for a second. "Whom I speak to is no one's business but my own, Mr. Finlay," she said. "But I have to observe my employer's wishes with regard to his nephews. Now if you will excuse u s " "Ye're real scared o' Campbell, are ye no?" he said. "D'ye think I'll lead the wee boys astray by havin' a friendly word wi' them?" She shook her head. "Of course not," she said. "But Mr. Campbell is my employer. I'm responsible to him for anything to do with Dougal and Robbie." She felt very conspicuous and uncomfortable, then Robbie unwittingly came to her rescue with a tug at her hand. "Go, " he said, with an anxious glance at the puffing engine in the window. "Go, Cara." A Wife for Andrew They went then without more ado and Angus Finlay went off down the street with his swinging gait, still smiling. The traction engine proved to be even more fascinating at close quarters than when it was in the window, but trouble came when the package was paid for and handed over. Dougal put out eager hands to take it and Robbie immediately shrilled his protest. "Mine," he objected. "Mine!" "I'll carry it," Cara decided diplomatically. "Now let's see what else there is, shall we?" Trouble averted for the time being, they spent a further twenty minutes or so walking around the hundred and one tempting things on display, and Robbie finally attached himself to a brightly colored wooden truck with pedals and a carved horse's head for steering it. He sat astride the seat of it and whooped his joy, refusing to be parted from it when Cara said that they must leave. "We must go and meet your uncle," Cara told him. "You can come back later, but for now you must leave it." She couldn't back down. "No," protested Robbie, gripping the steering handles adamantly. "No!" "Don't argue, Robbie." Cara lifted him, still holding onto the handles. "Come along now, or I shall get cross." At last he released his holdand gazed reluctantly at the bright wagon, his lip drooped in a pout. "That's a good boy," Cara said. "You can come back later." "Later," he said, turning to look wistfully at the wagon as Cara led him away. Andrew Campbell was not waiting for them when they went out, but he joined them only a few minutes later and Cara thought that from his gloomy expression his business could not have gone as well as he had hoped. His brows were drawn into a frown and his gray eyes were dark with what could have been either temper or worry. "We haven't been any farther than the inside of the shop," she informed him when he

joined them. "We got an engine." Dougal could scarcely wait to tell him. "An' it makes real smoke, Uncle Andrew." " Does it?" Cara thought his answer was less than interested and she noticed that the gray eyes were watching her curiously. What exactly was he thinking behind them? "I got it for them," she explained, indicating the package she was carrying. "I hope that was all right. It was rather expensive, I'm afraid." "You had enough to cover it?" he asked, and added, "Did you see anyone you knew?" She looked searchingly at the rugged, dour face, seeking a reason for the question. "Yes," she said, "to both questions." "Ah!" he said, as if some suspicion had been confirmed. "There was more than enough to pay for the engine, " she went on. "And there's plenty here if you allow them both to have something. Actually Robbie wants a horse and wagon." "Of course," he said, still watching her, but she refused to be drawn on the subject of whom she had met. Deciding that if he wanted to know who it was he must ask her outright, and if he knew and simply wanted her to admit talking to Angus Finlay then he must, again, ask her. "Horse," said Robbie hopefully. "Cara, Uncandoo." He looked wide-eyed from one to the other of them. "Horse." Cara looked down at him and smiled, then glanced inquiringly at her employer. "Robbie has his heart set on that horse and wagon," she said quietly. "I said he could go back and see it again." "We'd better go and find it, then." He sighed resignedly, it seemed, and she doubted that the matter of Angus Finlay had been more than postponed. They left the shop again, minutes later, with Andrew Campbell carrying the horse-head wagon and Robbie clinging anxiously to the edge of the brown paper. "Hungry, " he informed them suddenly, and Cara glanced at her watch. "Lunch," said his uncle. "We usually go to Murdo's in Glenhall Street. It's good food and they know the boys there." Cara nodded, not caring where they had a meal but realizing that she was hungry as well. She was a little surprised at his knowledge of the boys' favorite meals and at his inexhaustible patience in the face of their various changes of mind. For a bachelor, she thought, he seemed unusually adept at handling children. The meal was enjoyable and even uneventful until almost the end, and Robbie was in the process of demolishing a piece of extremely gooey chocolate cake, which Cara had doubted the wisdom of allowing him to have, when Rhoda McKenzie-Brown appeared. Cara saw her on the other side of the restaurant and hoped fervently that she would not see them, but to no avail. The tiny, fragile-looking figure wove its way between the tables and she stopped beside Andrew Campbell, looking more doll-like than ever in a dainty pale blue dress made in a little-girl style. "Andrew," she began in her high, light voice, "you didn't tell me that you were lunching here; we could have had lunch together. No, no," she added as he started to rise, "please don't get up. I'm just going." She glanced at Cara, the pale blue eyes wide and ingenuous, yet cold as ice. "This is the second time I've seen you this morning, too, Miss?ah, yes, Houston." Cara flashed a look of understanding at her employer, realizing at last the reason for his

question about meeting anyone she knew. "Really?" she said cooly. "I suppose you saw us outside the toy shop earlier when Angus Finlay spoke to me." Her reply, she thought, took them both by surprise, but whereas Andrew Campbell was discomfited, the woman was angry at her lack of deceit in openly admitting the meeting and pink, china-doll cheeks flushed even pinker. "I was rather surprised to see you talking to the man," she said gently, "in view of Andrew's feelings on the matter." She laughed, a faint thin sound bereft of humor. "But there, I never interfere in matters of the heart." She smiled, wide-eyed and malicious as a cat. "You certainly are a very striking couple," she added, as if it was a compliment. "Rhoda, I scarcely think Miss Houston and Finlay can be referred to as a couple," Andrew Campbell pointed out. "They've only met twice." "Oh, really?" The pale eyes turned to him, puzzled. "I am a silly, aren't I?" She had neither looked nor spoken to either of the boys and they in turn had silently continued eating, as determined to ignore her as she was them. Unfortunately the pale blue, minutely patterned material of her dress was at eye level to Robbie as she stood between him and his uncle and the softness of it against his bare arm was irresistible. One small hand hovered momentarily, before Cara had time to notice, then stroked the soft texture gently. "Pity," he said softly. "Pity." "Robbie!" Cara leaned across and grabbed his hand, but too late. The chocolate cake had left its mark on Robbie and Robbie had left his mark on Mrs. McKenzie-Brown. "Oh!" The pale blue eyes widened in horror, and she looked down at Robbie as if he was some sort of monster. "Oh, you awful little wretch!" she cried, holding the brownstreaked dress away from her. "Just look at my dress!" "Rhoda!" Andrew Campbell got to his feet, gazing helplessly at the smears. "I'm terribly sorry. What on earth can I do?" "Oh." She seemed to have remarkable powers of recovery, especially, Cara thought, when it came to betraying her real nature to Andrew. "It doesn't matter really, Andrew." The light voice now made nothing of the damage. "I shouldn't have stood so close to him. I just never seem to realize that children can do such things." She looked fragile and helpless. "I don't want to fuss, reallydon't be cross with him." "You're not fussing," he told her. "I am, and I shall take you to Smalley's and buy you a new dress. It's the least I can do. Miss Houston," he turned to Cara, "perhaps you could manage to clean up Robbie a little and then meet me in the car park in about half an hour. Can you manage the parcels?" "Yes, of course, Mr. Campbell." She flushed as she saw the flash of triumph in the other woman's eyes. "I'll be there." "Uncandoo," Robbie-said plaintively as they disappeared out of the restaurant. He turned worried blue eyes to Cara. "Cwoss?" he asked. "Not too cross," she said as she wiped the soft chocolate from his sticky fingers with a paper table napkin. She took them both to the washroom and managed to wash the rest of it off his hands and face. "I'm clean," Dougal informed her, lifting an only slightly sticky face for inspection. "Cara, is Uncle Andrew cross?" "Not very cross," Cara assured him, convinced she was right, for he had not turned round and scolded Robbie at all. "But it was a very silly thing to do, and naughty, too. Mrs.

McKenzie-Brown was very cross." "She don't like us," Dougal said flatly. "Doesn't," Cara corrected him automatically. "And I think perhaps Mrs. McKenzieBrown was right to be cross this time. That was a very pretty dress to spoil." It was quite a lot longer than half an hour before Andrew Campbell joined them and the boys, grown restless waiting in the car park, were amusing themselves with a game of tag among the parked cars. Seeing their uncle, they gave squeals of delight and ran to him, both chattering at once. "I'm sorry I was so long," he apologized to Cara. "I had no idea that it took so long to buy one dress." He looked down at the beaming Robbie. "I'm glad to see that you're clean again, Robbie." He noted the inevitable dust smear on one cheek. "Or as clean as you ever are." He shook his head. "I should have known better than to let you have chocolate cake, shouldn't I?" "Robbie has a gift for getting dirty in the shortest possible time," Cara said resignedly. "Dirty," said Robbie happily, and Cara scarcely restrained a smile. Going back along the winding moor-surrounded road to Lochcrae the chatter from the back seat became less and less frequent and finally ceased altogether when Robbie fell asleep. Cara sat back comfortably and gave her attention to the countryside, enjoying the quiet, sunny peace of the journey and feeling incredibly sleepy herself. Agnes came out of the house as they arrived at Dowell and shook her head smiling. "Och, he always goes to sleep on the way home," she said. "It's the rocking on that bumpy road; it sends him off." "It's the energy he uses," said Cara, leaving her seat and shaking Robbie gently. "Come along, Robbie, wake up." "Horse," said Robbie happily as he opened sleep-heavy eyes and was lifted gently from the car by his uncle. "There's a letter for ye, Miss Houston," Agnes said as they came into the hall. "I left it here on the wee table for ye." "Oh, thank you." Cara picked up the familiar pale green envelope with its address in scrawly black writing. "It's from Moira." Robbie, now almost fully awake, was dumped unceremoniously onto a chair as his uncle turned and looked at Cara. "Moira?" he asked. "Yes." Cara showed him the envelope, expressing her surprise at his sharp question. "Is something wrong, Mr. Campbell? I hear from Moira quite frequently." "Yes. Yes, of course." One hand ran nervously through his thick hair as he turned away. "It's just t h a t " For a brief moment the deep gray eyes were fixed on her curiously, she thought, then he strode off into the big room and closed the door behind him. Agnes raised her brows in query as she looked at Cara, who shrugged. "I'd better collect the boys' things from the car," she said. "Will you give me a hand, please, Agnes? One of them is rather clumsy." She cast a wry glance at the closed door of the big room. "I expect Mr. Campbell forgot we'd been shopping." "Aye, he seems a wee bit put about by something," Agnes agreed. "It's not like him to go off like that." "There was rather an unfortunate incident during lunch," said Cara, keeping her voice low for the sake of discretion. "Robbie rather disgraced us by wiping chocolatey fingers on Mrs. McKenzie-Brown's dress. It was pale blue," she added as Agnes smiled broadly. "Och, I wished I'd been there to see it," Agnes whispered fervently. "What did she say?"

"Very little," Cara said dryly. "Her self-control was admirable, but I tremble to think what would have happened if Mr. Campbell hadn't been there." "Ooh, aye," Agnes nodded knowingly, "that yin 'd no give hersel' away while Mr. Campbell was there. Was he cross wi' Robbie?" she asked. Cara shook her head. "Oddly enough," she said, "Mr. Campbell didn't seem to be angry in the least." "A h h a h ! " Agnes shook her gray head in satisfaction. "I'm no sae sure that Mr. Campbell is as much her man as she'd like him to be," she said. "He'd no turn on the wee boy for her, an' that's a guid sign." "He went right away and bought h Sr another dress," said Cara, lifting the wooden wagon from the back of the cr and handing Agnes the packaged engine. "Did he now?" Agnes pursed her lips doubtfully. "Horse!" demanded Robbie as they came back into the house carrying the parcels, and so put an end to verbal speculation for the time being. There was a little more trouble than usual getting the boys to bed that evening, due mainly to reluctance on their part to relinquish their new toys, but eventually firmness prevailed and they bounded into the two little beds with a zest that boded ill for the springs. With a few moments to spare Cara sat down to read again her letter from Moira. She was at present in Italy and sang the praises of the country which she described as "gorgeously lazy and bright." The men, she thought, were fantastic, though a little overwhelming at times and even her phlegmatic Australian husband had become a little jealous at the attention she received. How, she inquired, was Cara getting along with Andrew? Did she find him too unbearably dour? She hoped not, for she was most anxious for them to get on and she thought that Cara's more lighthearted disposition would be good for hima statement at which Cara made a moue of doubt. It was time, Moira added, that someone took him firmly in hand, and she hoped he was not above taking a little sisterly advice. Cara smiled at the thought of the stub-born jaw being set against advice of any sort even from Moira, and wondered what the advice was that was hinted at so mysteriously. At dinner that evening she was conscious of a different air about her companion; never the most garrulous of men, he said nothing at all until they had almost finished their meal and Agnes had brought in coffee. " Have you read your letter from Moira yet?" he asked suddenly, and Cara looked at him curiously, her dark eyes puzzled by his interest in the letter. "Yes," she said slowly. "I've read it through a couple of times, actually." "I had one from her yesterday," he said, not looking at her but speaking slowly as if he sought the right words. "Though I pushed it into a pocket and I didn't read it untiluntil I was waiting in Smalley's for Mrs. McKenzie-Brown. I'd forgotten I had it." Cara smiled, though still puzzled. "I don't receive letters often enough to overlook them," she said. The gray eyes looked at her, frankly curious. "No letters from a boyfriend?" he asked and she shook her head. "No," she said quietly, wondering at the reason for the unusual familiarity. "Much to Moira's disappointment." "Ah!" the gaze dropped suddenly and he looked a little uneasy, she thought. "Moira says too much. Does she have much to say for herself in thethat letter?" he added. "Quite a lot," Cara answered. "Mostly bits of this and that, where she's been, etcetera." She

frowned her increasing curiosity. "Doesn't she tell you all that?" He raised his head momentarily. "Usually," he said. "This time it's mostly questions about you and how you are getting on here." He twirled the coffee spoon in his broad fingers. "She thinks a lot of you, doesn't she?" he asked. Cara smiled fondly as she thought of her friend. "We were almost like sisters," she said. "Moira always said she wished we were." "Yes," he said slowly, a faint crease between his brows as he concentrated on the twirling spoon in his fingers. "And Moira likes getting her own way, somehow or other" "Mmm," Cara admitted. "But I think Peter knows how to manage her. She's very happy with him, isn't she? She enjoys traveling round the world with him." "She seems to be enjoying Italy, " he said. "It would suit Moira's nature, I don't doubt." The gray eyes looked at her directly again. "Have you ever been to Italy?" he asked. "Oh, yes, often." Cara tried to sound lighter than she felt as memories came flooding in on her. "We used to spend several weeks there every year untiluntil I was twelve." "Is that how old you were when your mother left?" he asked quietly, and she flicked her dark glance at the rugged face sober with understanding. "It's so long ago now." She attempted a light laugh that failed miserably. "Not so long, surely," he said. "You're the same age as Moira, I know." "I'm twenty-four," Cara said flatly. "And I can only just remember what she looked like isn't that awful? But honestly, she's nothing more than a rather dim memory, after only twelve years. Sometimes I think" She stopped, aware of his watching eyes and suddenly feeling very self-conscious. "It is possible to forget someone deliberately, I think," he said quietly, "but children forget very easily. I can remember being very fond of my own mother, even now, but I can't remember her as a person, and when my father remarried, I was only a baby, more or less, of course, but I can remember quite easily replacing her with Anna, that's Moira's mother." "It's more natural with a young child," she said, "because they are quickly responsive to those who supply their needs." "As you supply Dougal and Robbie's?" he asked. "I suppose so, yes," she replied. "Though it must be simpler for a child to take to a stranger who merely administers to them than to see everything taken over completely, including the other parent." "That makes sense," he admitted. "But no doubt the younger the child, the easier change becomes." "You're thinking of Dougal and Robbie again?" She sensed something behind the conversation that made her uneasy and wished she knew what it was, but his face gave nothing away as he took pipe and tobacco from his pocket and began filling one with the other. "Yes," he said in answer to her last question, concentrating on the task in hand with unusual care. "So far there has been little or no trouble with either of them, although Dougal cried a lot at first and keptasking" His eyes darkened as he remembered the times when he had sought to answer .questions that seemed to have no answers that made sense to a baby. "I'd have been lost without Agnes, " he said. "She was a tower of strength." "Agnes is a pretty wonderful sort of person, " said Cara, wondering at his garrulity. "I

don't imagine she has had a very easy life always." "No, I think not, " he said non-committally. "I was wondering " He stopped, drawing on the pipe and sending a screen of smoke between them. Cara looked at him questioningly and he continued, "I wondered how they would take another change of circumstances. " Cara looked startled, her dark eyes wide as she gazed at him, suspecting the worst. "Another change of circumstances?" she asked, her voice edged with anxiety. "Suppose, for instance," he said, "that I was to marry." Cara did not answer immediately, finding the prospect of Rhoda McKenzie-Brown as mistress of Dowell the worst thing that she could imagine both for her and for Dougal and Robbie. He obviously had expected her to pass some comment, for he looked at her expectantly, his deep gray eyes almost wary, she thought, and wondered what he expected. "It would make a lot of difference to them, of course," she said at last, "and even more difference who you married. You s e e " She hesitated, wondering how much she could safely say without giving offence. "It would probably remind them, Dougal anyway, of his parents. Belonging to two people who cared for him, and if only one of them cared then it could be upsetting for him, much worse than staying as he is." "But if both did and they became part of a complete family again," he said slowly, "it would give them a new sense of security, surely, wouldn't it?" Cara nodded, as much puzzled by his consulting her about the matter as by the fact that he imagined that Rhoda McKenzie-Brown could ever take to the two little boys. She raised her dark eyes to him anxiously as he made more smoke between them. "There's no doubt that you care about them, " she said quietly. "And so do you," he stated, adding anxiously, "don't you? " "Of course." She blinked her surprise. "I've grown very fond of them in the five days I've been here. They're adorable little scamps, both of them." He nodded. "Their father has only one or two rather elderly relatives living," he said. "He was quite a lot older than Sheena; and Moira and I are Sheena's nearest kin. Moira was scarcely in a position to take on two little boys, and I was used to seeing them fairly often. They knew we, s o " He spread his broad hands resignedly; "I took them on." "They're very fond of you," said Cara, her eyes watching the rugged but gentle face, "and children have an uncanny instinct for people." "Aye," he agreed, a frown between his brows. "I wanted to adopt them legally, that's what I went into Castlecrae about. You see, I think it might stabilize things for them, especially for Dougal." He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. "But my solicitor seems to think that it would simplify things in that direction if I were married. Single men are not looked upon favorably as adopting parents, it appears. " "So that's why you mentioned getting married?" she said, her heart sinking again as she thought of the icy silliness of Rhoda McKenzie-Brown. "For the boys' sakes? You're thinking of Dougal starting school next year?" "Yes," he nodded, and raised the deep gray eyes to look at her directly. "Don't you agree it's a good thing?" "Oh, yes, of course," she said hastily. "It's a very good thing. A stable home life is very important to a young child." "Hmm," he mused, and she wondered again at his being so forthcoming.

No more was mentioned on the subject until a week later, again as they sat over afterdinner coffee. He had been even more than usually quiet and Cara had been uncomfortably aware of frequent glances in her direction, though the gray eyes were never on her when she raised her own curiously. "You remember the other day I spoke of adopting the boys," he said suddenly, "and you agreed that it would be a good thing for them?" "Yes," she agreed cautiously. " Providing that bothadopters cared for the children and put their welfare first." "Yes," she said again. "That is very important." "I agree," he said slowly. "And that's why I have decided to ask you to marry me." "Me?" Cara gazed at him wide-eyed, trying to absorb the fact calmly. "But why me?" she asked lamely. "Surely that's obvious," he said, a little surprised, "you're very fond of them and you'd be more acceptable to them than anyone else." "I don't know what to say." She shook her head. "I'm very fond of the boys, of course, and I know that two parents are better than one. I should know," she added, "from personal experience." "Then for Dougal and Robbie's sakes, will you?" he asked, seemingly anxious that she should. "II shall have to think first." She brushed a hand across her forehead and found it hot and the pulse in her temple throbbed heavily. "I should like to know soon," he said. "I'm sorry to rush you like this, but it was only last week that I realized it would be necessary and I had to give it a great deal of thought first." "And so must I," she said reasonably. "It is rather an important step to take, and an irrevocable one." "Of course," he said, "if at any time the arrangement became inconvenient to you, we could do something about it; there shouldn't be any difficulty about that in the circumstances." "No, of course not," she said, her heart still racing at the unexpectedness of the proposal. "I assume that things go on as usual, with the difference that Dougal and Robbie are legally your sons." He nodded. "And yours," he said, and opened up another train of thought for her. He looked at her, narrow-eyed, for a second or two. "That is only if you are completely free to marry," he said, "and if you agree of course." "I'm free," she said, a little dazedly. "There's no problem about that." "And are you prepared to go through with it?" he asked. "It is a firm promise that if at any time you want to be free of the marriage, I shall raise no objections whatever." "I see." She sat facing him self-consciously, knowing that her face reflected her uncertain mind. Her brain whirled chaotically from one point to another and she thought fleetingly of the effect the news of such a marriage would have on Rhoda McKenzieBrown. "I rather thoughtI understood " she found it difficult to put into words. "I thought that as you and Mrs. McKenzie-Brown arefriends " His eyes narrowed as he looked across at her. "You said yourself that Rhoda disliked the boys," he said. "She would never consent to adopting them." "But don't y o u " Cara started to protest. "My feelings don't enter into this," he said shortly. "It's only what is best for Dougal and

Robbie that concerns me." His face was mask-like. "Of course." She took a deep breath. "All right," she said. "I will do it, on the terms you mentioned." "Thank you," he said, and was silent again for a few moments while Cara toyed nervously with her coffee cup and did not look at him. "It will have to be fairly soon, you realize that," he said at last. "Yes, of course," she nodded, still uncertain and not a little uneasy about whether she was doing the right thing or not. "Will you leave the arrangements to me?" he asked. "Or have you any preference as to date or time? For the ceremony, I mean." "Oh!" Cara looked startled. She had not thought so far ahead yet. "Where had you in mind? Register office or in the kirk?" A faint smile touched the straight uncompromising mouth. "I leave that to you," he said. "The minister of the kirk here is a friend of long standing, so a kirk ceremony can be arranged if you prefer it." "II think perhaps I do prefer it," she said almost apologetically. "Even if it isn't the usual type of wedding, I think I would like it to be in a church, if you don't mind." He nodded agreement as she flushed at her own sentimentality. She had so often thought of what her wedding day would be like, both she and Moira; with her father to give her away and Moira as her attendant. They had always agreed to attend upon each other at their weddings, right from schooldays, and Cara had been there, at a London register office, when Moira had married her Peter two years ago. Moira had not worn white nor had any of what she called the "trimmings," but Cara had always dreamed of a long white gown and a veil and of walking down the aisle with a heart bursting with happiness. She would never, she had vowed, ever marry for anything but love. She bit her lip and almost shouted aloud that she could not give up a dream so easily, and that even though she knew her father could not give her away, at least she could have had her white dress and veil, and Moira walking behind her as she left the church. She put a hand to her mouth and felt the stinging realization of stark disappointment as the thought clouded her dark eyes. "If you want to change your mind" he began, watching her intently, to judge how she really felt. "Nono!" She half smiled, her hands clasped together. "I won't change my mind, Mr. Campbell, it's just that I have to adjust my ideastotoget used to things." "Like not calling me Mr. Campbell," he said dryly. "It would fall oddly on the ears of the adoption people." "Yes, yes, of course." She tried to sound more cheerful as she spoke. "There'll be quite a lot to do, won't there? I don't know just when you had in mind" "In about a month," he said. "It will take that long to have the banns read, etcetera, if that's not too soon for you?" "No, no, I don't think so," she said, and added, "What do we tell Moira?" He raised his head and looked at her through a haze of tobacco smoke. "The truth, " he said flatly, and went on a mite sheepishly, "I leave that to you. You tell her how you think best." "I was wondering," she said, "if it will be possible for Moira to be here. You see," she explained, "we always promised to attend each other's weddings and I kept my word when

Moira married Peter. I think she would be rather hurt if she wasn't given the opportunity to do the same for me." "I'm sure she will be here," he said wryly. "And she'll probably lose her temper with both of us and let fly. Also," he added more soberly, "somebody has to tell Dougal and Robbie, without causing too much of an upheaval." "Perhaps I'd better do that, too," she said, seeing the relief spread over his face. "I have more chances of slipping it into the conversation than you have. I don't think they'll bother too much, if they know they're just to go on as usual." Agnes took the news of the marriage almost silently, making no verbal show of her surprise, but she spoke of it at more length to Cara later on. "I'd no idea," sloe said, eyeing Cara shrewdly, "that there was a romance in the air. I near let ma jaw drop wi' surprise o' it when Mr. Campbell told me." "Well," Cara told her cautiously, "it's not really a romance, Agnes, more of a marriage of convenience, you might say. You see Mr. Campbell wants to adopt Dougal and Robbie and he needs to be married." "Oh, aye." The blue eyes searched her face curiously. "Do ye tell me that, now? It's for Dougal an' Robbie ye're gettin' married, then?" She shook her head doubtfully. "I hope ye ken what ye're doin'," she went on. "It's no much o' a marriage for a lovely girl like ye'sel, an' it's an awfu' lot to take on for the sake o' two wee boys that ye've known only two weeks." "Oh, I think they'll take to the idea quite well," said Cara, deliberately misunderstanding. "They adore Mr. Campbell and they've grown quite fond of me, I think, in the time I've been here. It will be better for them both and especially for Dougal when he starts school. I think they'll be quite happy about it." " Ooh, aye," Agnes allowed. "An' will you be happy?" Cara flushed, not meeting the woman's shrewd eyes. "I think I will," she said. "I'm very fond of Dougal and Robbie." Agnes looked at her straight. "Mebbe it's no such a bad idea," she conceded. "Ye're a bonnie enough couple, that's for sure, an' mebbe in time yell come to ye're senses." The Reverend Mr. McKie would be delighted, he said, to Perform the. marriage ceremony, but he was less than pleased when Andrew Campbell told him the reason for it. "You're daft, man," he said flatly. "Why d'you not wait until you know each other better? There's no rush surely?" "But there is," his friend said. "With the time it takes to fix up a wedding and the time the adoption people take, there'll only just be enough breathing space as it is before Dougal starts school." "Ah, I see." The minister nodded his understanding. "You want Dougal to have time to adjust before he starts school." He tilted his dark head on one side, looking at his friend shrewdly. "D'you not think," he said, "that it would mebbe be a good idea if I met this lady of yours before I see her in the kirk for the wedding?" "If you must," Andrew said grudgingly. "But don't try to change her mind for her, will you, James?" "If she's a willing party and doesn't want her mind changed, she'll not change it," James McKie said. "And if she isn't certain, then it's better to change now than after the ceremony." Cara found James McKie a charming and unexpectedly gay visitor at dinner the

following night. He was as completely unlike his friend as it was possible to besmall and slight, with dark hair and twinkling dark eyes; nothing at all like the accepted picture of a minister of the kirk. He greeted Cara with a friendly smile. "I'm delighted to meet you, Miss Houston," he said, clasping her hand firmly. "It's not often we have a new face in Lochcrae, and never one as pretty as your own." Cara accepted the compliment with a smile, relieved of having to face the scrutiny of a possibly disapproving and dour churchman as she had feared. "Thank you," she said. "James is half Irish-," Andrew warned as they sat down to dinner, "and that accounts for the smoothness ' of his tongue." "Away with you!" James McKie protested. "Is it not the truth, man? Miss Houston is very lovely, and lovely women, like lovely flowers; flourish with a little attention." "Blarney," Andrew said briefly, but he flicked a half-amused glance at Cara as he sat down opposite her at the table and she felt her cheeks color softly. "The twenty-fourth of next month is the date James has suggested," he added. "Is that all right with you?" "Oh, yes. Yes, of course." She looked startled at the sudden turn to important matters. "That will give me time to do all I have to do; I'll write to Moira tonight." The minister looked from one to the other of them, his eyes mischievous. "D'ye tell me that Moira is coming?" he asked gleefully. "Oh, my stars! She'll not be pleased, I'll be bound. Mebbe I should take out an insurance, knowing Moira's red-headed temper." "Oh, no!" Cara protested. 'She can't blame you, Mr. McKie, surely." "Can she not?" James McKie asked, grinning broadly. "You remember the time we went rock climbing without her, Andrew? I didn't even know she wanted to come, Andrew wouldn't bring her, but we both got a clumping from her, an' me being such a wee bit of a lad, Igot the worst of it!" "I don't believe it," Cara laughed. "Moira wouldn't." "Oh, aye, Moira would," he assured her solemnly, but with twinkling eyes. "I've the scars to prove it." As she had hoped she could, Cara managed to break the news to the boys during the morning dressing session. Dougal eyed her solemnly for several minutes in silence, perched on his bed, his blue eyes vaguely suspicious. "Aren't you goin' to take care of us any more now?" he asked at last. "Yes, of course I am," Cara assured him. "Only it will be a little different, that's all, you'll understand it better as you get older." "You'll stay with us?" he insisted. "Yes," Cara nodded. "For a long, long time." "An' Uncle Andrew as well?" "Yes," she said. "And Uncle Andrew as well. You'll be like our little boys, that's all." "Can I still say Cara?" "Of course," she nodded. "It will be as it is now, really." She sought a change of tack. "Have you ever been to a wedding?" she asked. "No," he said, then, not to be outdone, "but I saw pictures. A lady in a long dress and flowers an' a man in a funny hat, an' a big cake." "A funny hat?" Cara asked curiously and he raised one hand above his head. "Up here," he said. "Oh, a top hat, you mean," Cara laughed. "Well, it won't be quite like that, Dougal. Uncle Andrew won't wear a top hat and I shan't wear a long dress."

"Is it a pwoper weddin'?" he asked doubtfully. "Certainly it is," Cara said with more conviction than she felt. "With a big cake?" he insisted. "Perhaps," Cara said cautiously. "I'm not sure about that yet, but the minister, Mr. McKie, is taking the ceremony; you know him don't you?" Dougal nodded. "Uncle James," he said. "He's nice." "Nice," echoed Robbie, taking an interest since the mention of cake. "Yes, he is," Cara agreed wholeheartedly this time. "Can we come too?" Dougal asked. "Of course. Agnes and Tam will bring you." She hugged them to her, sitting on Dougal's bed between them. "It wouldn't be right without you and Robbie would it?" "Can't we come with you an' Uncle Andrew?" he asked. "Well no," she hesitated. "You see, we have to stand by ourselves in front of thein front of Uncle James and he performs the ceremony. You'll see when you get there." "Is there singin' an' talkin' like on Sundays?" he asked, as if suddenly understanding and sighed his relief when Cara nodded. "Are you coming to the kirk on Sunday with us?", she asked. "Oh, yes," he assured her. "We like Uncle James, he's nice." "Nice," echoed Robbie inevitably. It was only the third full Sunday that Cara had spent at Dowell and it seemed considerably more than three weeks ago since she had arrived, in time for tea, as Agnes had said. She had mixed feelings about accompanying Andrew Camp-bell and the two little boys to the kirk, for on one hand she felt that their presence there together would cause comment and turning heads. On the other hand such action would be inevitable sooner or later and she wondered if it would be easier to bear if she was with Andrew who she knew commanded a certain amount of respect in the village. As they went in John McGregor, almost unrecognizable in his Sunday serge, gave her a friendly smile and a nod and she caught the smiling eye of Mrs. Watson, the village shopkeeper. Cara was thankful that the Campbell pew was in the front row, below the pulpit and they were therefore visible only from the back to the rest of the congregation. "S he ' s here," Dougal whispered hoarsely as they sat back on the hard pews, looking across at the other front row of seats, and after shushing him to silence, Cara cast a surreptitious glance across at Rhoda McKenzie-Brown. Surprisingly, Cara thought, she appeared not at all put out by Andrew's approaching wedding. She wore a white dress of demure design, her arms and throat covered, and a wide straw hat covering her yellow curls and casting shadows on the china doll face. She flicked a brief, rather coy, glance at Andrew, ignoring Cara 's presence, a demure half smile round her pink mouth. Cara kept her eyes downcast as the banns were read out and so failed to see the collapse of Rhoda McKenzie-Brown, she only heard the faint bump followed by a faint rustle of movement as people realized what had happened and left their seats. Andrew Campbell was among the first to arrive at her side and there were several curious glances in his direction as he lifted her into his arms. "Best bring her through here," James McKie told him, opening the door that lead into

his private living accommodation. "I'll join you in a few minutes. You'll find brandy in the cabinet," he added in a whisper. Within a few minutes the congregation were filing out of the tiny kirk into the street, chattering in muted voices and casting curious glances at Cara and the two boys watching them go. Cara felt a coldness in her heart that had nothing to do with the cool interior of the old stone building and, as if sensing her dilemma, James McKie came to her. "Come with me," he suggested. "You won't want to face all these curious stares waiting for you outside. I'll see what, if anything, is wrong with that wretched woman and get the doctor, if she needs him." He did not, Cara thought, sound very sympathetic toward her. "Thank you." They followed him to the tiny room which looked as if it might be his study; from it led another door behind which Cara could hear the high, plaintive voice of Rhoda McKenzie-Brown and, briefly, the deeper one of An-drew. "I won't be long," the minister assured her cheerfully. "And I'll send Andrew out as soon as I can." "Oh, please don't," Cara begged him hastily, "I don't want him to think" "Never mind what he thinks," James McKie said briskly. "His place is with you. He has to learn that he can't have his cake and eat it too." "Oh, please" She turned her dark eyes on him appealingly and saw him smile at her fears. "Don't worry," he said. "I'm very discreet, really." Cara discovered that she could hear the voices from the next room quite easily, though not the words. She could hear the high, almost whining note of the woman and James McKie's cheerful, impatient interruptions. "They're fightin'," Dougal declared gleefully and she shushed him hastily but absently. Without warning the door between the two rooms opened and Andrew came out, his deep gray eyes stormy, his brows drawn together in a ,fierce scowl. He glanced briefly at Cara and opened the door into the kirk. "Let's go home," he said shortly, and they followed him silently until Dougal raised a protest at the speed at which he walked and he slowed down reluctantly. The boys, sensing that something was wrong, sat still and quiet on the back seat during the short ride back to Dowell, their blue eyes wide with curiosity. Cara heaved a sigh of relief as they arrived and Andrew helped Robbie from the Car. "When you've changed," he told the boys, "you can go and play in the yard. Perhaps Tam will help you with your engine, Dougal." "Aren't you comin'?" Dougal asked him and he shook his head, following Cara up the steps to the house. "Not yet," he said. "There's a lot to talk about, so you'll have to play on your own for a while." Cara was pulling a shirt over Dougal's blond thatch a few moments later when he asked, "Why was they fightin', Cara?" "I don't think they were fighting," she said hastily. "I think they were just talking." "Uncle Andrew's cross," Dougal said adamantly, and Cara sighed, fearing he was right and wondering why. She saw them safely into the cobbled yard at the back of the house, then joined Andrew in the birroom, her heart beating uncomfortably fast, though she could not have said why exactly. He was not sitting down when she came in, but standing by the high window, his

hands behind his back, the fingers curled tight as if his anger was still in him. "I hope I didn't keep you too long," she said as he turned to face her and indicated a chair. "There were rather a lot of questions I'm afraid." "Mmm." He knocked out a dead pipe against the chimney side. "I hope you could supply suitable answers." "I think so." Her dark eyes searched his face for a reason for his anger. "I said that Mrs. McKenzie-Brown was ill and that you were worried about her." "It seems she had a heart attack," he said. "James sent for the doctor. He also," he added sharply, his eyes fixed on her face, "said that I should have stayed with you and not gone to her like I did." So that was it! She flushed at his tone and the glint of anger shone in her eyes as she spoke. "That opinion is Mr. McKie's idea, not mine," she told him. "It was no more than I expected of you in the circumstances." She wished he would sit down and not stand so toweringly tall over her like that, it made her feel so incredibly small. "Why?" The question made her blink in surprise. "Why " she hesitated, uncertain of her ground. "Why, because you and sheyou are such good friends. It must have been quite a shock to her," she added. "I thought you would have told her before aboutabout the wedding." "You think I should have?" he asked sharply. "Yes." She raised challenging eyes to him and fella quiver of fear as she saw the stormy look he gave her but went on. "In view of your relationship, I think you should have." "You seem to know a great deal about what you're pleased to call our relationship," he said coldly. "Well, since, until recently, I was under the impression that you were intending to marry her," she said, her eyes flashing angrily, "I am surprised you didn't see fit to warn her, especially since she has a heart complaint." He stared at her and his surprise, she thought, was genuine. "Do you seriously suggest that Rhoda thought that I intendedOh, no!" He sat down heavily in the chair facing her and had it not been so serious, she would have found his expression of dismay almost comical. "I never imagined that she thought of me in that way at all." "Well you should have," Cara retorted. "Everyone else knew." She relented a moment later as she saw consternation added to his dismay. "I really thought you knew," she said. He looked at her directly, his eyes searching her face. "You seem to have learned more in the short time you've been here," he said, "than I have in years." "Women are more astute at recognizing the truth about their own sex," Cara said, smiling. "Men only see what is on the surface." To her surprise he smiled, though briefly. "You seem to be right," he said, and began filling the empty pipe again. "Will you go through with the marriage, Cara? You won't change you mind?" She shook her head, not looking at him, "I won't change my mind," she said. "But if you feelwelldifferently now that you know a b o u t " "I don't," he said with certainty. "Besides, Rhoda doesn't like the boys. It wouldn't work out."

CHAPTER FOUR THE long walk through Lochcrae and back round via the moor to Dowell was the boys' favorite and they never seemed to tire of it. John McGregor's pigsties always caused squeals of de-light, and today was no exception. Cara watched as they ran toward their goal and she saw the old man emerge from his cottage. "Fine day again," he greeted her, and she thought she detected a glint of curiosity in the weather-faded eyes. "Yes, it is," she smiled, watching the boys anxiously. The rubicund face split into a grin of happy memory. "A fine surprise ye gave us all in the kirk," he said, chuckling deeply. "An' a fire wee shock ye gave yon Mrs. McKenzieBrown, too." "Mrs. McKenzie-Brown had a heart attack," she said, feeling she should make some form of protest at his manner. "Oh, aye?" The shrewd old eyes watched her, still half amused. "Ye're no a friend o' hers that I heard," he said. "I got it from Davey Scott how ye scored off her a couple o' weeks ago." He lowered one eyelid in friendly conspiracy. "Davey's her chauffeur," he explained, "an' he's courtin' ma granddaughter, Bessie." Cara flushed as she remembered the encounter and wished that the young chauffeur had not been witness to it since he had apparently passed it on as interesting news. "I remember him," she said. "There's nae fear o' the wee boys goin' intae a home now, I'm thinkin'," he said, watching her closely until she felt her face flush this time with a flash of anger. "There was never any danger of that," she said shortly. "Mr. Campbell is far too fond of them to send them away." "Aye, I was sure he was," he told her, nodding his gray head wisely. "I'd like to wish ye'sel an' Mr. Campbell ma best wishes," he added. "Thank you." She was touched by the kindness and obvious genuine goodwill of the old man. "It's all rather sudden and unexpected," she said, "but everyone is very kind." "Aye," he agreed, eyeing her shrewdly. "It wasnae what some expected, I daresay, but 'tis good news for most o' us, I can say that." Cara thought of John McGregor's words as they came up to the tall stone house, a little later, the house belonging to Rhoda McKenzie-Brown. She was sure that whoever else wished them well it would not be the woman with the china doll face and blond hair. Dougal gave the gate of the house a wide berth, but little Robbie found the green-painted iron railings fronting the garden irresistible and gripped them with both hands, standing on the four inches or so of brick wall into which they were fixed. He stared curiously into the immaculate yard. "Come along, Robbie," she called. "Come away from there!" "Cimin' up," he said, retaining his hold. "Cimin' up." "Well, you musn't climb up," she told him, walking back to prise his fingers loose from the railings. "Come along, it's rude to climb on walls like that." "Wude?" he queried, looking at the high, lace-draped windows of the house. For a fleeting second Cara saw the pink, petulant features of Rhoda McKenzie-Brown at one of the windows, then a dark blind rolled down and cut off the icy malicious glare of pale blue eyes. Cara lifted Robbie down from the wall, taking his hand and conscious as they moved away of the young chauffeur coming from the now open front door.

"Excuse me, Miss Houston." He was hatless and looked even younger as he turned pink with embarrassment, and Cara smiled at him encouragingly. "Mrs. McKenzie-Brown," he said. "She asked me to give ye a message for Mr. Campbell, if ye would nae mind." "Or if I do?" said Cara, still smiling. "What is it, Mr. Scott?" "I'm sorry, miss, I wouldnae have brought it, onlywell " he creased his forehead worriedly as if he feared her wrath as much as his employer's, "jobs are nae so easy to come by round here, an' I'm near Bessie, d'ye see?" "It's all right," Cara reassured him, "I understand." "Mrs. McKenzie-Brown says to ask Mr. Campbell if he'll call on her tomorrow after the doctor's been, that'a about eleven o'clock." "I'll tell him," Cara promised. "And don't worry, Mr. Scott, there's nothing like the personal touch." "Aye," he said, relieved, and turned hastily as a sharp rap on the window recalled him. "Thank ye, Miss Houston." Cara felt surprisingly little annoyed by the terse message; almost amused by the woman's retaliation. I was right, she thought; women have a much sharper insight into the motives of their own sex than any man could ever hope to have. She had scarcely time to move away from the gate of the house with R o b b i e in wideeyed company beside her, when she became aware of another man standing in her path and raised her eyes to meet the blue impudence of Angus Fin-lay's. "Hello," he said. "Does Bessie McGregor know ye're friendly wi' her Davey?" "Hello, Mr. Finlay." She could have wished to meet almost anyone but Angus Finlay at this moment and in this spot, within sight of the windows of the house. "Mr. Scott was delivering a message." "From Rhoda McKenzie?" he asked, his brows high in query. "I'll bet it wasnae very friendly after Sunday. I heard about the kerfuffle," he added. "The message was for Mr. Campbell," Cara said, feeling the blue eyes on her curiously. "An' ye're to take it to him?" he asked, and smiled rue-fully, shaking his head. "She'll no let go sae easy, I can tell ye that. Yell need to use those dark eyes o' yours to hold him." "I don't quite see," Cara said crossly, "that it's any concern of yours, Mr. Finlay." " Mebbe no," he admitted, "but I knew Rhoda McKenzie in Glasgow before she managed to get puir old Davey Brown to marry her, an' she never rested till she'd seen him to his grave an' his money safely in her name. It's just a friendly wee warning," he added, "an' I hope yell take it." The blue eyes fixed on her disconcertingly. "Ye could, o' course," he said softly, "play him at his own game. Ye'd no find it hard to find ye'sel another man." "Iplease excuse me," she said hastily as Dougal called her from the kirk gate. "I must go." She looked at the boyish face and wondered how true Andrew's estimation of his character was. He meant the warning seriously enough, she thought. "Goodbye, " she added. "And I'll remember what you told me." "Aye, ye do that," he said, and with a wave of his hand he walked off down the road, with Cara staring puzzledly after him. A visit to Mrs. Watson's sweet shop was inevitable, of course, and here she received further good wishes from the kindly little woman. "I'm glad yell be at Dowell for good," the woman told her, smiling broadly. "ye're just the kind o' mistress yon house needs." "I hope so," Cara said feelingly, as she remembered the message she was to give to

Andrew when she returned. Mistress of the house was not the title she would have given to her future position. The three of them had skirted the loch and were on their way back across the moor when the boys, with great shouts of glee, spotted their uncle and raced across the dividing space to meet him. Seeing them, Andrew Campbell turned the big gray and galloped toward them, and Cara could not help but admire the way he rode; though she knew very little about such things she did recognize that he sat the great animal very well and looked somehow very capable and confident. He dismounted and trailed the reins, then walked toward Cara at the water's edge, the boys following noisily. "I hope they haven't tired you," he said, the gray eyes watching her as he approached. "Not at all," she said, and smiled. "I have a message for you." "A message?" He looked steadily at her. "Who from?" "Mrs. McKenzie-Brown," she said, and saw him frown. "Go and look after Smokey for me, will you please?" he asked the boys. "Only don't do anything silly and get hurt." The boys, only too anxious to comply, raced off to stand by the big gray. "Will they be safe so near him?" Cara asked worriedly as eager little hands patted and rubbed the gray's velvety nose. "Of course, he won't hurt them." He eyed her thought-fully. "You must let me teach you to ride," he said. "It will cure you of your fear of horses. " "I'm not afraid of them," she protested untruthfully, and saw his brows rise in disbelief. "Well, not really afraid, but I don't think I could ever ride." "Of course you could," he said. "There's no earthly reason why you shouldn't." The gray eyes questioned her as they searched her face. "You'd trust me not to let you come to any harm, wouldn't you?" "Yes," she said, wishing her face would not betray the uneasy bet of her heart as she looked at him. "That message" "Oh, yes," He seemed almost to have forgotten it, she thought, but there was anxiety in his voice as he added, "She isn't worse, is she?" "I only had a brief glimpse of her at one of the windows," she said. "She sent Davey Scott out with the message. I was to ask you to call," she quoted faithfully. "Tomorrow after the doctor has been, about eleven o'clock." "Why did she not telephone?" he asked, and Cara shook her head, not meeting his eyes. "I'm sorry you were made an errand girl. I expect Rhoda didn't thinkshe's not well and she can be rather thoughtless at times." "Probably," said Cara, feeling her color rise at his excuse." Although of course I am still an employee; there's no reason why I shouldn't carry messages." She knew the dig was unfair and wished, too late, that she had not indulged her dislike of the other woman. She saw the tanned skin flush angrily as he looked at her, the gray eyes dark with temper. "You still resent Rhoda, don't you?" he asked, his voice low so as not to attract the boys. "Because of that silly idea you have about her expecting me to marry her." "It is not a silly idea," she said shortly, her dark eyes glinting. "The only reason you have for not marrying her, as far as I can see, is that she doesn't like Dougal and Robbie." She was conscious of him watching her intently. Her creamy skin was flushed with anger, her dark eyes wide and bright with temper and her black hair almost as dishevelled as the boys' blond mops. She wished that he would not look at her so steadily and that her heart

would not thump quite so heavily against her ribs. "It's a pretty important reason," he said. "And the only one for marrying me!" she flared. "You had a free choice," he pointed out reasonably, "and you can't change your mind now." "Suppose I do?" she challenged, and waited, breathless, for his reaction. He narrowed his eyes, looking down at her from his superior height, overawingly big at such close quarters, and she felt a momentary flicker of fear. "Will you?" he asked quietly. "No. No, of course not." She shook her black head. "I couldn't desert Dougal and Robbie. They deserve something a little better than Rhoda McKenzie-Brown for a mother." "Oh, damn Rhoda McKenzie-Brown!" he said vehemently, and pulled Cara to him roughly, his mouth hard with temper as he kissed her, his arms crushing in their strength. She made no move to break away from him, but Dougal's disapproving voice beside her brought her to her senses. "Kissin'," sniffed Dougal, and Roble's plaintive echo made her pull away, her cheeks flushed as her heart beat rapidly and breathtakingly. She turned away from them, seeking to restore her calm before she spoke again, while behind her she heard him speaking to the boys quietly. "You'd best be getting back home," he told them, "and get yourselves cleaned up ready for lunch." "Ypu comin'?" Dougal asked him. "Yes," he nodded. "I'll just take a wee ride along the lochside, then I'll be joining you for lunch." "I come?" Robbie asked hopefully, and Cara turned as Andrew cast a querying glance in her direction. "We'd better ask Cara," he said quietly, and they both watched her hopefully. "Of course," she said. "I don't mind." "Me too?" Dougal asked, looking at his uncle, who shook his head decidedly. " No, not this time, Dougal," he said. "You can come another time, but you must take Cara home. You don't want her lost on the moor, do you?" " No," Dougal agreed wholeheartedly. "Then there'd be no weddin', woUld there?" Cara smiled at his answer and flashed a brief glance at Andrew. "That's right," she said. "And you're looking for-ward to the wedding, aren't you?" " Oh, yes," Dougal assured her solemnly. "No weddin', no cake." Cara knew that with the boys safely in bed that evening she faced dinner alone with Andrew, and she did not look forward to it after the episode by the loch that morning. She had been conscious during lunch of nervousness in his company and felt no less uneasy because he behaved as if nothing had happened, a fact that irritated her to some extent. Surely, she thought, even he could not have described the way he had kissed her as coldblooded or lacking emotion, though what the emotion was that had prompted him she was uncertain. Dougal had not forgotten it either, as Cara, rather vainly, hoped he would have. "Why was you an' Uncle Andrew kissin'?" he asked as Cara vigorously brushed his blond mop prior to seeing him into bed. "Why were," Cara corrected him automatically.

"It's soppy," he declared, undeterred. "Oh, surely you've seen people kiss each other before," she protested. "Lots of people do it." "Why?" he demanded, and Cara sighed inwardly, suspecting a new form of delaying tactic. " When they like each other," she said. "I kiss you and Robbie goodnight, don't I?" "An' Uncle Andrew?" he asked, and Cara hovered on the brink of a lie. " Not every night," she compromised. "Now into bed with you, young man. Come on!" She held the covers high as he jumped in, then bent and kissed the clean rosy face he presented. "Goodnight, Dougal." Robbie was already half asleep as she brushed her lips against his abnormally dirt-free cheeks. "Cara!" Dougal called her in a stage whisper as she reached the door, and she turned to face the wide, curious blue eyes over the top of the bedclothes. "What is it?" she asked. "Is it 'cause you're gettin' weddined that you was kissin'?" he inquired, and she nodded, wishing the reason was as simple as that. Andrew turned from the window as she came into the room and she thought she detected an air of uneasiness about him, though he looked self-confident enough. "No trouble? " It was the question he usually asked when she came down from putting the boys to bed and usually she merely shook her head and smiled. "Just a round of twenty questions from Dougal," she said, not meeting his eyes, and his head jerked up in query. "About this morning?" he asked, and she nodded. "Odd how Dougal always stores up a host of questions for bedtime," he mused. "It's part of the tactics," Cara told him, thankful to change the subject. "When they get to that age they'll try anything and everything to delay bedtime." "Oh, really? " He blinked his surprise. "It isn't only Dougal, then?" "Good heavens, no!" she said, laughing at his surprise. "They're all alike, boys and girlsanything to delay the evil moment. One has to be on the alert for any unexpected move." She looked at him from under her black lashes. "Unfortunately only the girls grow out of it." He took the jibe in silence for a moment. "I suppose I asked for that," he said at last, and a faint smile touched his firm mouth. "You're more like Moira than you may realize no wonder you're such good friends." She took the words to mean something more than the compliment she could have taken them for. "In what way?" she asked cautiously. "In the way you use your tongue as a weapon of war!" he retorted. "Moira is an expert at that kind of thing, too." She flushed angrily and bit her lip. "I don't think that's very complimentary to either of us," she said. "I'm sure Moira isn 't a shrew, and I hope I'm not!" "Shrews have been tamed before," he said unexpectedly, "if I remember my Shakespeare." It was Agnes coming in with dinner that curbed her tongue, but she cast him an angry glance as he seated himself opposite her at the table, disliking the half-smile on his usually straight mouth. They said little during dinner and Cara nursed her injured pride until they sat over coffee. "Are you going to see Mrs. McKenzie-Brown tomorrow?" she asked, stirring

cream into her cup. "Of course," he said. "Rhoda is ill, it's the least I can do, especially since she asked me to." He flicked her a curious glance that did nothing to.reassure her. "Unless," he added, "you have any objections. " "Of course not." She raised wide eyes to meet his. "Why on earth would I mind?" "Well, you're not exactly close friends," he said, his brows drawn together. "You could object if you chose to; I'm sure James McKie would think that you had a right to do so." "Not at all," she assured him, shaking her head. "I wouldn't dream of objecting to you visiting a sick friend. You must think me a termagant if you believe that!" "I think nothing of the sort," he protested, and she half smiled at his expression. "Shall we call a truce?" he suggested, putting down his cup and looking across at her. "For the sake of peace and quiet?" She offered a small hand which he engulfed in one of his, retaining it rather longer than was necessary to seal the bar-gain. "I don't much enjoy quarrelling," she said, "especially w i t h " She stopped, her face coloring, and he raised curious eyebrows, releasing her hand reluctantly. "With?" he prompted. "Anyone," she answered lamely, and folded her table napkin carefully to avoid meeting his eyes. It was a little before eleven the following morning when Cara saw him glance at his wristwatch. She had sat the boys down for their morning break and Agnes had brought in a tray of milk and biscuits and coffee. "You goin' out?" Dougal asked, horrified at the idea of leaving food to go out. "Can we come? After 'levenses," he added hastily. "No, I'm afraid you can't," Andrew told him. "I'm going to see Mrs. McKenzie-Brown and I don't think it would be a good idea if I took you and Robbie." "No," agreed Dougal wholeheartedly, "it wouldn't." "I'll be back for lunch," Andrew told Cara as he left them with their milk and biscuits, but Cara thought differently, though she made no comment but nodded her head absently. He was not, in fact, back for lunch, and he was only just in time for tea with the boys. They greeted him with rather more enthusiasm than did Cara, who suspected the worst from his deep frown and the darkness of worry in his gray eyes. "How is she?" she asked out of politeness. He shook his head, flicking a look of surprise at her interest. "She's not very well at all," he said. "She's very low. I don't understand it." "P'raps she's hungry," Dougal said blandly, as he maneuvered a piece of bread and butter heavily laden with jam into his mouth. "Don't be ridiculous!" The answer was sharp and angry and Dougal missed his mouth completely as he blinked his surprise. "And it's not a subject for levity either, you heartless little wretch." "He didn't mean it as such," Cara said quietly, risking further wrath on her own head, and she saw his head jerk upward as if he would be as sharp with her as he had been with Dougal, but a moment later he shook his head. "Yes, of course," he said, and turned an apologetic smile on Dougal. "She's very ill, Dougal, and she will be for some time, I'm afraid." "Oh." Dougal accepted the fact calmly, attempting to re-move the jam from his face with

a flicking tongue. "She's poorly." "That's right." Andrew looked across at Cara with, she thought, a glimmer of uncertainty in his eyes. She raised her own eyes and looked at him expectantly. "Cara, would y o u " he paused, glancing uneasily at the two boys. "Would you go down and see her?" he said quietly. "She wants to see you." Cara blinked her amazement, her eyes wide as she stared at him. "Me?" she asked. "Why on earth me?" "I think she may be worse than we realize, " he said solemnly. "Oh, she tried to hide it, she's very brave, but little things came out when she spoke." He looked at her steadily and almost appealingly. "I think she would like to make her peace with you." "Are you asking me to go?" she asked, watching him closely, and she saw a crease draw his brows together, the worried look still in his eyes. "I wish you would go," he said slowly. "But I won't ask you to, I know how you feel about Rhoda. I promised I would pass' on the message and I have, but I told her that whether you came or not was up to you entirely." "I see." She spread more bread and butter with strawberry jam for Robbie as if the task required all her efforts. "All right," she agreed at last, "I'll go and see her. When?" "Tomorrow?" he suggested, and looked almost embarrassingly grateful. "I'm glad you're going, Cara. I thought you would, but I didn't want to urge you if you didn't want to go. I can take you down in the car, Agnes will keep an eye on the boys for a while." "If you don't mind," she said quietly, "I'd rather walk down on my own." "If you want to." She felt his eyes on her and knew that she was being thought difficult and stubborn, but she had made up her mind. "It's quite a walk," he added persuasively. "I know," she told him. "I've done it several times with the boys. It will give me time to collect my thoughts and prepare myself." He narrowed his eyes and she knew that he was watching her curiously, but he said nothing more until after dinner that evening. She intended reading in her own room, but as she reached the door he called after her, "Cara, why do you want to walk down to Lochcrae tomorrow, rather than ride?" She turned and faced him, trying to read what lay behind the question. "I told you why," she said. "I want time to think before I have to face Mrs. McKenzie-Brown." "I'd like to know why," he repeated with the imperiousness she resented so much. "Rhoda is ready and willing to heal the breach between you; the least you can do is to meet her halfway, I should have thought." "That's what I intend to do," Cara retorted, and saw him move toward her, his deep gray eyes dark with something other than anger. Standing in front of her he seemed tall and overwhelmingly big as he always did close to, and she felt a tremor skip through her heart at the firm set of his mouth. "Don't upset Rhoda," he said quietly. "If she becomes worse again after you've seen her, I ' l l " "You'll what?" she challenged, and before he could answer, "Do you take me for some sort of inhuman monster? If she's ill I wouldn't dream of upsetting her, but she looked perfectly all right yesterday morning, what I saw of her through the window." "And she saw you," he said coldly, "talking to Finlay." "So that's it!" She almost smiled her relief. "She saw me talking to Angus Finlay." "I wouldn't have mentioned it," he said shortly, "but since you're being so unreasonable, I'm letting you know that I have grounds for complaint, too."

She felt a mixture of anger and amusement tingle along her spine as she looked at his angry face. "I thought she'd tell you," she said softly, and added with a touch of malice, "I must remember to tell Angus to choose his time and place more carefully; Rhoda McKenzie-Brown always seems to see us together." She saw the tanned face flush with anger as she turned and walked from the room, closing the door quietly behind her. Her hands, she discovered, were trembling and her heart pounded unmercifully hard against her ribs as she walked across the hall toward the stairs. The kitchen door opened and she turned to see Agnes looking after her. "They're fast asleep, both of them," Agnes said. "I was just up there and I peeped in at them." "Thank you," Cara smiled. "I'm going to my room for a while to read." "Och, that's a shame," said Agnes, shaking her head. "A lovely evening like this a girl should be out wi' her man, walkin ' on the moor, no sittin' on her own wi' nothin' but a book for company." Cara laughed and looked through the open kitchen door where the sun slanted through the window, golden red and very inviting, she had to admit. "You're right, Agnes," she said, following the woman back into the kitchen. "I'll go for a walk instead. It's too nice to stay in." "Ye could enjoy the sun on the loch," Agnes encouraged her. "It's a bonny sight to see the sun on the water at this time o' day, it was aye a popular walk for lovers in my day. But remember," she added a warning, "it'll no be dark for a wee while yet, but don't stay too long." The view on the walk down from the house was breathtaking as Agnes had promised; the sun had the red-gold light that follows a fine, warm day and even the short, dark turf seemed to glow as if it absorbed the color and rediffused it in a light of its own. The loch itself shimmered like cloth of gold, reflecting the brilliance of the sun and adding its own, moving like a living thing with the light wind that cooled the air. Cara forgot, momentarily, about Rhoda McKenzie-Brown and the forthcoming visit and let her mind fill instead with the sheer beauty of the ever-changing loveliness of the scene before her. She had a sudden impulse to take off her shoes and walk barefoot through the turf and budding heather to the loch, a light, free feeling that made her unaware of anyone else in the world until a voice spoke close to her ear. "It's a bonny evening for a walk," Angus Finlay told her, "but it's better if ye've company." Cara was unsure whether she was glad to see him or not after her so recent mention of him to Andrew, but she smiled her agreement at his words. "It is lovely," she agreed. "I felt I could have walked for ever." They had come to a halt at the edge of the loch and stood at the water's edge watching the movement as the wind stirred it into life. "It's one o' the things I miss when I'maway." He turned quizzical blue eyes to her. "Ma mother will have told ye about maholidays?" he asked. "Yes." Cara avoided the gaze. "You must miss it very much." She wished she could think of some other subject other than this rather embarrassing one that he had raised, though he seemed not at all troubled by it. "I wonder you put yourself in the position where you have to go away." "Och, me!" His eyes were as impudent as ever as he looked at her. "I'm just a no-good you ask Andrew Campbell, he'll tell ye." He moved nearer to her so that his arm

brushed hers as they talked. "If I'd a woman like you, I'd no let her go wanderin ' over the moors on her own," he said. "It was your mother's idea that I come for this walk," she told him, smiling, despite her apprehension at his familiarity. "Guid for her!" He chuckled deeply and she felt a twinge of uneasiness as he moved closer to her, his eyes teasing and impudent. "When's the weddin'!" he asked unexpectedly. "On the twenty-fourth," she told him, surprised into answering by the unexpected question. He was standing un-comfortably close and she wished that she had not started a conversation with him. "Why?" he asked, and Cara blinked her surprise. "Because it's a date that suits us both," she said. "Ye know well what I meant," he said, turning to follow her as she moved away from the loch and started to walk back toward Dowell. "Why are ye marryin' him at all?" "I think that's our affair," she snapped, her face flushed at his impudence. "It can scarcely concern you, Mr. Finlay." "Can it not?" he asked softly, and taking her arm turned her round to face him. The blue eyes were bright with something that disturbed her. "Och," he said at last disgustedly. "Only Campbell would marry a girl like ye'sel for anythin' but love." " P l e a s e " She felt horribly uncertain of him and of herself as he watched her in the fast dying light"Oh, I'd no hurt ye," he told her with a wry smile, "but I'd like fine to kiss ye, just once." "No, please, let me go!" He was stronger than she had realized as he pulled her to him and kissed her, not savagely as she had expected but with a gentleness almost amounting to reverence. Neither of them saw or heard anyone approach until Andrew's riding crop slashed down between them, cutting across Angus Finlay's arm and making him shout in pain and surprise. Cara stepped back, her eyes wide, and saw Andrew standing there, tall and ominous, with the outline of Smokey, the big gray, behind him. "Get back where you belong." Cara scarcely recognized the cold, flat voice that ordered Angus Finlay to go. Andrew did not wear riding clothes, so he must, she thought, have come out in a hurry and he looked more angry than she had ever seen him. His blond hair, made untidy by the ride, caught the sun and gleamed like gold and he towered over the other man like a giant. He looked, Cara silently admitted, rather magnificent and disturbingly attractive as he stood there, the riding crop gripped hard, tapping against one leg impatiently. The blue eyes of the other man turned to Cara almost as if he would appeal to her, then with an almost casual shrug he walked away, leaving Cara looking after him a little apprehensively. She watched Andrew mount, wondering if he considered his mission complete now that he had sent Angus Finlay packing, but instead he looked down at her, the dark gray eyes unfathomable. "I'll take you back," he said. "Give me your hand." He leaned down from the saddle, waiting for her to take the offered hand, but she shook her head, fear of the big gray now uppermost in her mind. "No," she said, "I'll walk

back." "Do as you're told," he said shortly, and she flushed at his tone, her eyes flashing anger at him as she turned her back and began to walk toward the house. A moment later she felt herself lifted bodily, the hard strength of his arm scooping her up as if she was no more than a child and depositing her sideways and in front of him. "No!" she protested, but vainly; he put his heels to the animal's flanks and the gray moved off thankfully, taking little notice of the additional weight. The ground looked an incredibly long way down and she could feel her heart bump fearfully against her ribs as she sat wide-eyed and scarcely daring to breathe. Movement was impossible because he kept one arm tightly round her and her position prevented her keeping a dignified distance from him. "Don't fuss," he told her. "I'm not fussing," she objected. "But I would rather have walked. I don't like horses." "You mean you're afraid of them," he said, determined to differ, it seemed. "Tomorrow I'll start teaching you to ride, then you'll soon lose your fear. "I" She tried to find words to express her feelings, but she could not even see him properly unless she tilted her head right back and lifted her face, and this, she discovered after a brief experiment, brought his stubborn chin and uncompromising mouth uncomfortably close. "I didn't go out to meet Angus Finlay," she said at last. "No?" He sounded sarcastic. "You said you would have to meet him somewhere where Rhoda wouldn't see you, and you certainly couldn't have chosen a better place than the moorit's certainly private." "I'd scarcely had time," she pointed out, "to arrange a meeting in the time." "You mean you didn't go out there to meet him?" His surprise annoyed her as much as his anger had. "Of course I didn't!" she said, and wished it was possible to see his face. "But you were with him," he said, and Cara chanced the intimate closeness it brought and tilted back her head to look at him, her eyes wide and curious. "I met him," she said, "by accident. Did you really think I'd gone out there to meet him?" she asked, unable to re-strain the curiousity that filled her. "Yes." His mouth tightened over the admission. "Then why did you come to look for me?" she asked artlessly, and he bent his head to look at her, his eyes deep and seemingly fathomless in the dying light. "You are engaged to marry me in less than a month," he said coldly. "I had the right to come and look for you, whether I thought you would be with Finlay or not," he added. Cara smiled suddenly, and allowed herself to relax against him, one hand against his chest to still her fear of falling, and felt the rapid beat of his heart under her fingers. Agnes saw them coming and her round face broke into a smile as she saw them. "Oh, thank goodness ye found her, Mr. Campbell," she said. "I was afraid she might be lost out there." Cara stared at her curiously, as Andrew first dis-mounted, then lifted her down, to stand facing him beside Smokey, her face flushed as he held her for a moment before moving away. "You surely didn't think I was lost, did you?" she whispered hastily to Agnes before Andrew rejoined them. "You knew where I was." "Oh, aye," Agnes returned blandly, "but Mr. Campbell didn't an' it'll do him nae harm to worry about ye now an' then." "You mean you told him you thought I was lost?" She stared at the woman

unbelievingly, then smiled as she remembered how she had guessed that he had come out in a hurry for the way he was dressed. "Oh, Agnes," she shook her head, "you are a conniving woman!" "He was aye worried," Agnes said with satisfaction. "An' he came out to look for ye before I'd the words out of ma mouth, hardly." Andrew joined them, having handed Smokey over to Tam's care, and Cara was unable to make reply to the house-keeper's remark. He followed them into the kitchen and turned to look at Agnes with a frown between his brows. "That son of yours is still around, Agnes, I see," he said. "Is he staying a long time this time?" "I don't know," Agnes looked curiously at Cara. "Was he around just now, Mr. Campbell? I havenae seen him for a day or two masel." "He was," Andrew told her shortly. "And he nearly had the thrashing of his life. If he goes near Miss Houston again, he will." "Oh, I'd no idea!" Her eyes turned wide and worried to Cara, who attempted to smile reassurance. She said in stricken tones, "I hope he didnae bother ye, Miss Houston." "We talked for a while," Cara said matter-of-factly, ignoring Andrew's look of black anger directed at her, "that's all." "Oh, I see," the gray head nodded. "I'd no notion he 'd be out there, though, Miss Houston, or I'd never have suggested that walk, ye know that." "Of course I know it, Agnes, and no one's blaming you for anything," said Cara, and saw Andrew turn on his heel and stride out of the kitchen, the riding crop gripped in his hand as if he contained his temper with difficulty. "What happened?" Agnes asked as he went out of earshot. "He looks awful mad about something. What did Angus do to annoy him?" "He kissed me," Cara said, and smiled at the woman's expression. "It was a perfectly innocent kiss, Agnes, but unfortunately Andrew chose to arrive at just that moment." "Oh, aye. Agnes seemed unperturbed. "He wouldnae like that at all, I'm thinkin'." She turned curious blue eyes to Cara. "I'm sorry about Angus, Miss Houston, but he 's aye taken wi' ye, an' he's given to takin' what he fancies." "Well, he was very gentle and polite about it," Cara said, "though I don't think Andrew would appreciate that." "No, he wouldn't," Agnes agreed. "Ah, well, I'll away to ma bed, if you're no wantin' anythin' else tanight, Miss Houston." Cara shook her head and went to the door into the hall. "Nothing, thank you, Agnes, goodnight." There was no sign of Andrew when she went through the hall, so she went straight to her bed and slept as well as she ever did, though her dreams were curiously disturbed. Cara woke next morning with the uncomfortable feeling in her heart that she had some unpleasant chore to:perform, then she remembered that she was to visit Rhoda MpKenzieBrown and she pulled a face as she slid out of bed. While she was dressing she pondered on the question of whether the woman was as much a helpless invalid as she appeared to be or whether it was an act for the benefit of Andrew Campbell. Only time, she decided, would tell. The boys were unusually cooperative that morning and she breathed a sigh of relief as she supervised the morning ritual of washing and tooth-brushing. Apart from a lax moment, when she failed to notice Robbie with the toothpaste in his generous grasp until it was too late to save about four

inches of it from slithering down the waste pipe, getting up was uneventful. "Walk downstairs," Cara warned them automatically as she opened the bedroom door. "Quietly, don't run." They greeted their uncle with their usual exuberance and he hugged them to him for a brief moment as he always did. Cara surprised herself by thinking, as she watched them, that Andrew Campbell had a great capacity for love and affection when he shed his imperious manner and came down to earth as he did with the boys. He raised his gray eyes as she joined them at the table, and smiled. "Good morning, Cara." "Good morning." She answered his smile and felt her face color as she did so, then hastily gave her attention to Robbie who greeted Agnes's arrival with cries of "Podge! Podge!" which she had discovered was his version of porridge. She sugared it for him, to the disgust of his uncle and Agnes, who looked upon this as a heathen practice, but bore with him as he would eat it no other way. She challenged the look of distaste that Andrew gave her, too, as she spooned sugar over her own bowlful. " Bakeregg next?" Dougal asked a few minutes later, sniffing the aroma from the kitchen hopefully. "Don't you ever think of anything but food?" his uncle asked, gazing resignedly at him as the last spoonful of porridge disappeared. "I like breakfast," Dougal said happily. "You like lunch and tea as well," Cara told him. "I honestly don't know where you put it all, Dougal!" "It goes down," Dougal said philosophically as he peered at his uncle's empty plate. "Is it bakeregg, Uncle Andrew?" " Yes," Andrew agreed. "And I suppose you'll want toast as well." " Yes, please," Dougal said happily. "Baker," demanded Robbie, lifting a porridge-decorated face from his bowl. Cara shook her head at him firmly. "I think not," she said, removing most of the porridge. "An egg will be enough for you after all that porridge. " The soulful blue eyes watched her appealingly and she was conscious also of Andrew's eyes fixed on her as she adamantly shook her head, not looking at either of them. Robbie bent his head to try and look up into her face, his cherubic smile wide and anxious, but she still shook her head and she heard him sigh resignedly. "Egg," he said agreeably at last. "Egg." To her surprise, Andrew laughed, a deep, warm sound that made her look up with flushed cheeks, her eyes wide with query. "I don't know how you do it," he said frankly. "Not a tear shed!" "Oh," she smiled at him, "it's that soulful look I have to avoid. If I looked at him I couldn't do it." "I see," he said, still smiling his amusement. "All you need is a strong will and a hard heart." "Not a hard heart," she protested, her dark eyes on him, feeling closer to him at that moment than she had ever done. "All right," he agreed. "Not a hard heart." He was silent for a few moments watching her attend to Robbie's wants. "What time are you going down to Lochcrae?" he asked suddenly, and saw her frown as if she resented the reminder that she was to go and see

Rhoda McKenzie-Brown. "As early as it's convenient," she said. " I don't know when that would be." She raised dark eyes in query. "You know more about that than I do. When do you suggest? " He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "About eleven, I should think," he said, watching her face as he spoke. "You will take it easy with her, won't you?" he asked. "Are you sure I can't take you down in the car?" "Quite sure," she said, shaking her head at .him as adamantly as she had at Robbie. "I prefer to walk." At the favorite word Dougal pounced, his eyes eager. "Are We goin' to Lochcrae?" he asked. "When, Cara?" "Not you, Dougal," Andrew told him quietly, his eyes on Cara. "Cara is going alone to visitsomeone. You can't go this time, you stay here with me." "That's right," Cara agreed, her heart thumping uncomfortably against her ribs as she refused to meet his eyes. "I'm going alone. " "Who you visitin'?" Dougal asked, his eyes on his plate as Cara served him his bacon and eggs. "You're too inquisitive, ma lad." It was Andrew who answered him and Cara made no move to support his explanation. "Cara is going out, that's all you need to know. Now get on with your breakfast." "Is it her?" Dougal asked shrewdly, not to be defeated, and Cara saw Andrew shake his head. "If you mean Mrs. McKenzie-Brown," he was told, "say so, and since you're determined to find out, it is Mrs. McKenzie-Brown." "Why?" Dougal asked, savoring the luxury of breaking the yolk of his egg and letting it run all over his plate. Before Andrew could say anything in reply Cara answered him. "Because your Uncle Andrew wants me to, Dougal. Now please don't ask any more questions." She was aware of the gray eyes watching her as she began to eat and wondered why she had worded it just like that. CHAPTER FIVE As she passed the first tiny cottage in the village, Cara waved a hand at John McGregor in answer to his cheery greeting. The farther she got to the impressive stone house of Rhoda McKenzie-Brown the more she wished that she had let An-drew bring her down in the car. There was no sign of life as she opened the green gate and began to walk up the path to the front door and the blinds, she noticed, were lowered to keep out the already hot sun. She felt the sickening thud of her heart as she approached the white-painted door and put a hand to the bell. She knew she looked her best; she had made quite sure of that, her hair shone like black silk and her make-up was light enough not to conceal the creaminess of her skin and the pale pink dress she wore gave her an ethereal beauty that was heightened by the glow of apprehensive determination in her dark, black-lashed eyes. Still she quaked at the idea of meeting Rhoda McKenzie-Brown face to face, for she could not imagine that the shock of having heard of the forthcoming wedding had endeared her any

more to the other woman or that she was prepared to suddenly change her attitude toward herrather the reverse, she expected. An elderly maid answered the door to her and smiled encouragingly as she stepped back to let her into the dim, shaded hallway. "This way, miss," she said softly. "Mrs. McKenzieBrown's expectin' ye." Cara followed her the length of the hallway to a door at the far end which the woman opened to reveal a small, dainty room furnished and painted in white. There was no sign of her hostess, but the maid asked her, with an apologetic smile to be seated. "Madam will be with ye in a moment," she said. "I expect she'll not keep ye long." For all the world, Cara thought as she smiled her thanks at the woman, as if I had come for an interview and arrived early! She seated herself on an upright but comfortable chair with a view of the gardennot a large garden, but restful, with shady trees protecting a lawn and some roses, heavily fullblown in the hot sun. She sat rather stiffly on her chair trying not to notice the ticking of an ornate gold clock on the mantel over the fireplace as it told her how long she was being kept waiting. More than five minutes passed and she was about to give way to her inclination and leave when she heard a faint swish of footsteps in the hall outside and a second later the door opened and Rhoda McKenzie-Brown came in. The china doll face looked no different than usual, its matt pinkness undisturbed by any sign of illness, the round pouting mouth still the same lush pink. There was no more warmth either, Cara thought, in the pale iciness of her eyes as Mrs. McKenzie-Brown looked at her. She was dressed in a neglige of some filmy material that added to her seeming fragility and she seemed to float rather than walk as she crossed the room, A pale-blue ribbon of the exact shade of the neglige held back the yellow-blond curls. She managed a wan smile as she looked at her guest, and Cara, uncertain whether she needed the assistance she invariably seemed to get when moving about, half rose from her chair to offer it. "No, no, please." She raised a tiny hand in protest. "I can manage, thank you, Miss Houston." She eyed Cara's healthy loveliness coolly. "I envy you robust people," she said. "You don't realize how lucky you are." "I suppose not," Cara agreed. "I hope you're feeling better, Mrs. McKenzie-Brown." Try as she would she could not overcome the prickle of hostility that the woman inspired in her. A delicate sigh answered her, and the fragile-looking body was lowered gracefully into a reclining chair with the pale blue gown whispering about her. "I am a little better today," she admitted in her high voice. "But one does become so tired of being a burden to everyone." " Oh, I'm sure your staff don't look at it in that light," Cara said. "The maid who let me in seemed a very nice, pleasant sort of woman. Not the grumbly, resentful sort at all." The chill, icy eyes narrowed as if she suspected Cara of making fun of her. "I am not concerned with the staff," she said coldly. "They are paid for what they do. I was thinking more of my friends, particularly of dear Andrew; he has always been so good to me since David died." She sighed again deeply. "I was so alone," she said, "and Andrew was wonderful, a tower of strength." The pale eyes flicked a glance at Cara and the pouting mouth became a moue of self-reproach. "But I mustn't talk like that about him or you'll think that there was something more between us than there was, won't you?" Cara shook her head, seeing in the clear insinuation an intent to dismay or at least annoy

her. "Oh, no," she said, far more confidently than she felt, "I know there was nothing more than a friendly concern for your health. Not on Andrew's part anyway," she added, and detected a flush beneath the heavy pink make-up. "Who told you that?" she asked. "Why Andrew," Cara said, truthfully enough. The blond head, perfectly coiffured even in illness, shook regretfully, the blond curls bobbing like a child's. "Oh!" She looked for a moment as if she would cry. "Oh, did he say that?" "It's only the truth, after all," Cara pointed out. "You said so yourself." "Of course." White teeth bit delicately into her bottom lip. "Of course," she said, and turned away her head, a handkerchief pressed to her mouth. Cara in her turn felt more irritated than dismayed by her hostess's display of emotion, though she remembered, with some trepidation, Andrew's warning about not upsetting the other woman. "I'm sorry," Mrs. McKenzie-Brown recovered herself at last, dabbing daintily at the cold blue eyes. "I'm so sorry, but I'm not very strong, you see, and sometimes " She drew a deep sobbing breath. "Things become hard to bear. Shocks likethings one doesn't expect can seem very cruel when one is notrobust; one's illusions are more easily shattered by a thoughtless word." "I apologize if I said the thoughtless word." Cara drew a deep breath, her patience stretched to breaking point. "I came to see you this morning because Andrew said that you wanted to make your peace with me, whatever implication that may have, but I don't think any useful purpose can be served by continuing this conversation, do you?" She saw the blue eyes narrow maliciously. "Don't you, Miss Houston?" The voice was so malignant that Cara shuddered. "If you refuse to accept the hand of friendship I offer, how do you think Andrew will like that?" "It was most definitely not the hand of friendship," Cara denied. "It was a series of not very well disguised hints that my fianc and you were having an affair." "Your fianc!" The harsh whisper poured scorn on her. "Andrew is marrying you only to give those wretched children a background, and you know it!" The plain truth of the statement made Cara flinch and she felt a prick of tears behind her eyes as she faced her tormentor. "Don't imagine for one minute," the sharp whisper went on, "that he has any other reason in mind. It can't be easy for him, marrying a servant for the sake of those children." Cara stood up, the handbag she carried clutched tightly in one hand, her eyes sparkling with anger and near tears. "I knew this visit was a mistake," she said as quietly as she could, though she knew she was raising her voice more than normal. "I'd better go before we both say something we'll be sorry for." "You're the one who'll be sorry," the other woman hissed at her as she moved to the door. "You with your sickly sentimentalizing over those wretched children! If you think I shall let you marry Andrew just like that you can think again!" The blue eyes glared at her viciously and her breath, Cara noticed, was deep and shuddering as if her anger was almost too much for her to contain. "I let no cheap little Italian peasant" "How dare you!" Cara felt tears of anger and humiliation course down her cheeks as she stood over the woman, only vaguely conscious of one of the fluttering hands reaching out for the bell push beside her chair. She became aware of several things happening at onceof Rhoda McKenzie-Brown

collapsing picturesquely back into her chair, of the door of the room opening and of the front door bell ringing almost simultaneously. She turned, her eyes still blazing, to meet the reproachful ones of the maid who went to her employer, raising the blond head gently and placing it more comfortably on the cushions. "I think ye 'd best go, Miss Houston," the woman said firmly. "I'll need to get the doctor. It's the shouting at the puir lady, she's had another attack." Cara stared wide-eyed as she realized what it must appear like to the maid. She had browbeaten a sick and defenseless woman until she collapsed, and she knew what Andrew would say to that. "What's happened?" She turned startled eyes to the door and saw Andrew standing there, an angry frown on his face, his eyes anxiously on the woman in the chair. He spared only a brief hard glance for Cara before he strode back along the hallway to the telephone and they heard him speaking low and earnestly. The maid stood by her mistress, her eyes flicking now and then to Cara, who waited silent and miserable for the storm she knew must come. She caught sight of Davey Scott, lingering curiously in the hall, having admitted Andrew, and thought she saw a glint of sympathy in his eyes before he turned away, though it gave her little encouragement. The "ting" of the telephone bell heralded Andrew's return and he strode straight across to the chair and bent solicitously over the occupant. "Andrew!" Cara heard the faint, plaintive voice. "Oh, Andrew!" "It's all right, Rhoda." He might have been comforting one of the boys. "Don't worry any more, I've sent for Doctor Smail. He'll be here very soon." "Oh, but I don't have Doctor Smail, " she protested weakly. "I have Doctor Clane; please, Andrew, he knows all about me, about mytrouble." She raised pale blue eyes to him, now anxious and ingenuous as a child's. "Don't worry," he assured her. "We'll get Doctor Clane later, but it was quicker to get Doctor Smail here." "Oh, dear!" She lay back pathetically helpless. "I don't like him, Andrew, he's rough and unkind." Her eyelids fluttered. " Nonsense." He patted her hand gently. "You'll be all right when he gets here. Just keep quiet and don't upset yourself." "All right, Andrew." One hand, Cara noticed, retained a hold on his and he smiled down at her encouragingly. As the front door bell rang Cara jumped nervously and the maid hurried away to answer it, admitting a small elderly man whose cheerful round face did something to restore Cara's drooping spirits. "Hello," he said, coming into the room and looking round with a broad smile. "Quite a gathering; Mrs. Clegg thought it was your voice on the phone, Andrew. How are ye?" "I'm fine," Andrew told him dryly. "I called you for Mrs. McKenzie-Brown, she's had an attack." "Oh, aye?" the doctor said cheerfully, crossing to his pa-tient who eyed his approach nervously. "Well, I think we can do without the assembled company," he added, "while I look at the lady." "I'll wait outside and see you when you've finished in here," Andrew said, moving to the door and still not looking at Cara. "No need," Doctor Smail turned his small bright eyes to Cara. "There's Mary here," he

indicated the maid, "can help me all I need and look after her lady. You might as well take your young lady home. There's nothing more you can do here and the young lady looks as if she could do with a drink, eh, my dear?" Cara smiled at him gratefully, seeing Andrew frown. "I could wait," he said, "and see that Rhoda's all right." The shrewd old eyes glanced from Cara to Andrew and finally to Rhoda McKenzieBrown, lying pink and fragile-looking on her long chair. "Nonsense," he said briskly. "You look after your patient and I'll look after mine, eh?" "Very well," Andrew agreed reluctantly, and went out of the room, followed by Cara, who looked back at the other woman as she reached the door. There was the tiniest furrow between the penciled brows and a not quite so confident light in the pale eyes as the doctor bent over her. Andrew waited for her at the front door, letting her precede him, and held open the car door for her, all in complete silence. It was at the beginning of the avenue up to the house that he drove the car onto the grass under the trees and stopped the engine. "Now," he said, turning to face her, "perhaps you'll tell me what happened. " She knew that the tears were not far from her eyes and refused to look at him until he put a hand under her chin and turned her face to him. "I asked you what happened," he said, the deep gray eyes searching her face, his mouth tight-lipped. "You're hurting me!" she protested, trying to move her face away from him. "Then tell me," he said, still holding her chin, "and I'll let you go. " "Oh, it was sosilly, " she said desperately, "and so un-necessary." He released her and rubbed a hand under her chin. "I shouldn't have gone. I knew it was a mistake from the beginning." "I gather you quarreled? " he said, frowning his impatience. "Well, you saw the effect it had on Rhoda and I hope you're satisfied. " "Oh, you would blame me!" She was more utterly miserable than she ever had been and she felt the sting of tears again as she fumbled with the door handle and flinging it open at last, got out shaking with anger and humiliation. She began to walk toward the house, her footsteps clumsy on the uneven ground, not caring where she went as long as she no longer had to face his accusing looks. "Cara!" She heard the other door of the car slam and a moment later he touched her arm and pulled her round to face him. "It's no use being stubborn. I want to know what happened." "What's the use? " she sighed, her dark eyes luminous with unshed tears. "You didn't even trust me down there with her. You were so afraid of what I might do that you came down to see for yourself how I behaved. " "Oh, for heaven 's sake!" he shook her. "Stop behaving like a spoiled child!" "You too!" she said bitterly. "It's my morning for collecting adjectives. I've been called a sickening sentimentalist, a servant and an Italian peasant already, so a spoiled child is quite mild in comparison!" He stared at her in disbelief, his eyes dark. "I don't believe you," he said, only half certain. "Of course you don't!" she retorted bitterly, and would have walked away from him, but he still held her arm. "I'll walk back to the house," she said flatly, "and pack my things.

He stared at her. "Pack your things?" he said. "You mean you admit you were wrong?" "No, I don't!" she said shakily. "I'm just tired of being abused. It seems that to suit your wishes I have to submit to any indignity that Mrs. McKenzie-Brown sees fit to subject me to." "That's not true," he denied, "and you know it." "I don't know it," Cara said hotly. "I only know that I've had enough ofyour friend." He did not, as she expected, make indignant protest, but looked at her steadily, a light of challenge in his gray eyes. "So you give up," he said. "You'll let R h o d a " He stopped, shaking his head at her. "Very well," he said. "Leave, but you can tell the boys yourself," and he turned on his heel and walked back to the car. "No!" She looked after him for a moment but he did not turn round so she followed him, her eyes wet with tears, her heart as heavy as a stone as she looked at the unrelenting face he wore. She climbed into the car beside him. "You can't do that," she said, appealing to the dour, rugged profile presented to her. "Andrew" "If you leave, you tell them yourself," he said adamantly. "I've had my share of breaking bad news to them." She felt a strange surge of relief at his choice of phrase and bit her lip, wishing now that he would turn and look at her. "Andrew, I can't," she pleaded. "Not after telling them aboutthe wedding a n d " "Then don't tell them," he said shortly, and leaned across to pull her door closed. "There's no need to, after all. I haven't told you to go or even suggested that you should." "Do you believe me? " she asked tentatively, as they neared the house. "Yes," he said, without turning his head. "Women say a lot of things they don 't mean when they're emotional. I expect that 's what happened today. Rhoda became emotionally overstrung and said things she didn't mean, and probably you did the same, so the best thing is to leave it to blow over in its own good time. " "Just like that?" she asked, wondering if he knew just how optimistic he was being. "Yes," he said firmly, "just like that." He was silent then until they stopped at the door and he helped her from the car. "You will still marry me, won 't you?" he asked, and she thought she saw anxiety in his eyes as they looked down at her. "Of course," she said, trying not to let the skip she felt in her heart at his question be heard in her answer. CHAPTER SIX "THESE two are my most attentive members," James McKie told her after service the following Sunday, as he spoke to the four of them on the steps of the kirk. "Though I doubt the words go home to them yet." He patted Robbie's blond head. "Robbie never takes his eyes off me," he said. "It would be very flattering if I thought he understood what I was talking about." "He understands a lot more than people give him credit for," Cara defended him stoutly. "He doesn't say much, but he knows what's going on, don't you, Robbie?"

The minister smiled as the blond mop under his hand nodded vigorously. "An' what do ye think of the wedding, then, Robbie?" he asked. "Weddin'," said Robbie obligingly. "Cara, Uncandoo." "There, you see," Cara said triumphantly. "Uncle Andrew's not having a funny hat," Dougal in-formed James McKie, with obvious disappointment. "Nor a long dress. Is it a pwoper weddin', Uncle James? " "Oh, yes!" The dark eyes twinkled down at the earnest little face. "It's a proper wedding, Dougie. It's not what people wear that counts, it's how they feel." "Feel?" The word in this context seemed to worry him. "Yes," the kindly voice sought to explain. "About each other. If they like each other." "Oh!" Obviously relieved, Dougal nodded. "They do, they was kissin'." Cara felt her color rise and sensed Andrew's discomfiture as the minister flicked interested eyes from one to the other of them. "Were they?" he said gleefully. "Were they now?" "She kisses us too," Dougal went on to explain. "'Cause she likes us too, don't you, Cara?" "Yes, yes, of course I do," said Cara, feeling the eyes of both men on her pink cheeks. "Ah, it's not quite the same, though, is it?" James McKie said, a most unchurchmanlike devil of mischief in his dark eyes as he looked at his friend's disconcerted face. "People kisses all the time when they like each other," Dougal went on, warming to his subject and ignoring his uncle's frown. "Don't they, Cara?" "I think we've pretty well exhausted the subject, don't you?" Cara said desperately, taking his hand firmly and see ing Andrew nod in agreement and, she felt sure, in relief. "It's time we went," he said. "But perhaps youd like to come to dinner with us again soon, James." "I'd love to," James McKie said, and flicked a glance at Cara. "I enjoy the company as well as the food." "Shall we say Wednesday?" Andrew cast an inquiring look at Cara and she nodded, surprised at his consulting her. "It suits me fine," the minister said. "I shal l look forward to it enormously." Again he flicked that half-se rious, half-amused look at her. "We'll see you on Wednesday, then." Andrew turned to leave and James spoke again, this time more seriously, though his half-smile was still in evidence. "I see we're a member short in the congrega tion," he said. "Oh, yesRhoda. " Andrew frowned, glancing at Cara. "She's not well, she had another attack on Thursday." "Oh?" James McKie's expressive eyebrows rose queryingly. "What of?" "I don't always find your levity amusing, James," Andrew told him sternly. "Rhoda is a sick woman, her heart is weak." The dark eyes of his friend looked at him steadily as he spoke. "I've a fiver says that Rhoda McKenZie-Brown is as strong as a horse," he said quietly, and Cara drew in a sharp breath, wondering at Andrew's reaction. "You speak from prejudice and lack of knowledge, " An-drew said coldly, and Cara saw the dark warning in the gray eyes. "I'll see you on Wednesday, James. goodbye." He strode off down the path to the street, his bro ws still drawn severely together, and did not speak until theY were passing the end cottage before Dowell. "You seem to have an admirer in James, " he said suddenly, and Cara started almost guiltily, knowing she had. "He's very nice," she agreed, uncertain whether or not to treat the remark lightly. "I

gather you've known him a long time." He nodded, his expression relaxing a little. "Most of my life," he said. "Andrew McKie and my father were great friends for years." "From the name I gather it is his mother who is Irish," she said, and added, "You said he was half-Irish and that accounted for his blarney." " Oh, yes." He had seemingly forgotten the mention he had made of it. "She was a very lovely woman, very much like you except that her eyes were blue." "Thank you." He flicked a look of surprise at her when she acknowledged the compliment. "You don't need me to tell you you're a beautiful woman," he said. "I've not James's gift for blarney." She enjoyed the warmth that filled her heart at the rather grudging compliment. "No woman minds how she's told or how often," she said softly, and added, "I wonder why James McKie has never married. He's very attractive and very nice too, and the two don't always go together." "I suppose he is attractive to women," he said, a little surprised, she thought. "As to marryingwell"he laughed shortly"perhaps he's been too busy with other people's weddings to arrange one of his own." "How long to the weddin'?" Dougal asked from the back seat, his head appearing between them. "Two more weeks," Andrew answered him, without looking back. "It's a long time," Dougal declared. "Can't you get wed-dined now?" "It's not very long," Andrew assured him. "And it's married, Dougal, not weddined." "Uncle James said it was a weddin',"Dougal argued, and added thoughtfully, "Do all minsters make weddin's?" "Yes," his uncle said patiently, "all ministers take weddings. They marry people when they come to them and ask." "An' you asked Uncle James to weddin' you an' Cara?" "Marry," Andrew insisted. "To marry me and Carayes, that's right, I did." "An' you're not goin' to wear a funny hat?" he asked, obviously disappointed. Dougal wasn't sold on that. Andrew glanced at Cara, seeking enlightenment. "A top hat," she explained. "He's only seen a picture of a wedding." "Oh, I see." He smiled at Dougal's reflection in the driving mirror. "No, Dougal, I'm not going to wear a funny hat." "An' Cara's not wearin' a long dress," Dougal said gloomily. "Are you, Cara?" "No," she said, perhaps more regretfully than she in-tended, for she saw Andrew flick her a brief glance of query. "I'm afraid not." There was silence for several minutes, while Cara was busy with her thoughts and conscious of Andrew's thoughtful quietness, then the anxious face peered over the back of the seat again. "Do they have big cakes at marryin's, same as at weddin's? " he asked, and stared, a little dismayed, at their burst of laughter. "I don't know," Cara told him, as he looked at her with solemnly reproachful eyes. "We'll have to think about that." Andrew glanced at her, the query again in his eyes. "Do you want to havewhat Dougal calls a proper wedding?" She looked at the rugged profile, now turned away from her again, and smiled her gratitude. "No," she said softly. "But

we'd better do something about a cake or Dougal will never forgive us." "All right," he agreed readily. "Agnes will organize one, if that's okay with you." "Fine," Cara said, and added sotto voce, "should we ask Dougal how many tiers he'd like?" "Better not," he advised with unfamiliar levity. "He may ask for a dozen." As they pulled up outside the house, Robbie was puffing loudly. "Hot," he announced. "Never mind," Cara consoled him. "We're home now. You can put on something cooler and go outside for a while before lunch." "Can we have a picnic?" Dougal asked. "On the moor?" Cara glanced at Andrew who was opening the rear door of the car for them and he smiled, nodding agreement. "A good idea," he said. "We'll all go, if you'd like to," he added, looking at her. "I'd love to," she said. "It's a perfect day for it." Dougal crowed delightedly as he danced on the gravel drive. "We're goin' on a picnic, we're goin' on a picnic!" Robbie joined him. "Nicnic!" he echoed joyfully, almost falling over himself to get out of the car and join him. Lunch was more than usually noisy, for while Robbie might have been short on vocabulary, he had plenty to say for himself in his own way, and his voice grew progressively more shrill as his excitement mounted, a point that Andrew noted with a wry face. "Robbie, quieten down," Cara told him as she rescued his spoon from the gravy for the third time. "Eat properly and quietly or you won't go on a picnic." "Nicnic," he said anxiously. "I goin'." "Not if you don't behave," she warned, and catching the gray eyes watching her across the table she almost disgraced herself by laughing. "Shut up," Dougal ordered his brother, "silly!" "Not silly!" Robbie answered him. Agnes, under Andrew's instructions, had packed up what looked to Cara like enough food to last them for a month, but on second thoughts, knowing Dougal's appetite and Robbie's rapidly growing one, she said nothing. "By the loch," Dougal insisted as they set off on foot across the warm, scented turf like a miniature safari. Cara looked at Andrew, walking ahead with Dougal, his tanned face younger looking than she had ever seen it, his head as blond as Dougal's, so that they could have been father and son as they walked through the heathery turf, side by side. The sight of them gave her an unfamiliar glow that lent a dark shine to her eyes and made her heart lighter than she had ever known it. They seemed to have walked miles, though in reality it was barely one, and the cooling breeze off the loch was refreshingly welcome after the hot walk. The water was more shallow at this end of the loch and less stony at the edge. "It's a good spot for a dip," Andrew told her, sinking down gratefully onto the warm ground. "I expect Agnes put in their swimsuits. I asked her to." "Here they are," Dougal informed Cara, tugging them from the bag she had carried. "Les' go." Cara had never before been this far round the loch. They had left the house by the back way and come to the moor via the cobbled yard, but instead of turning right on the way she and the boys always came, they had turned left and arrived at the extreme tip of the

loch. The hills seemed much nearer and there was not a sign of human habitation as far as the eye could see, only the wide, heat-hazy stretch of the moor with the soft green hills shimmering mistily against the bright blue of the sky and the loch curving back on itself at its narrow tip, going back to the village and beyond. The boys looked incredibly minute, playing at the edge of the water. "It's beautiful," Cara breathed ecstatically. "Almost too beautiful to be true!" Andrew followed her gaze, his eyes warm with delight at his surroundings. "It's the most beautiful country in the world," he said softly. "Whatever Moira says." "Doesn't Moira agree with you?" Cara asked, surprised, and saw him smile wryly. "To Moira the most beautiful country is the one she hap-pens to be in at the time," he told her. "At the moment it's Italy." Cara laughed softly. "Moira is changeable as the wind," she said affectionately. "She wouldn't be Moira any other way, would she?" "No," he agreed, his eyes still on the distant hills, and added, "Is she coming home for the twenty-fourth?" "I don't know yet," she said, glancing at him from under her lashes. "I haven't heard, I thought perhaps you may have done." "I haven't, but I think she'll come." He turned a half-smile on her, the gray eyes a little wary, she thought. "I think she won't be able to resist coming." "I hope she comes," Cara said almost to herself, as he stretched himself out on the warm turf. "It wouldn't be right without her." She thought he had closed his eyes against the bright sun, and she became preoccupied with her own thoughts of what Moira's reaction would have been to her letter and what she would say when she came, as Cara never doubted she would. A marriage such as she and Andrew were contemplating would bring Moira's red-headed wrath down on both their heads, she thought. It couldn't be helped. She looked down at Andrew, taking advantage of his closed eyes to study the strong, brown face that today looked so much younger and the long, sturdily built body unfamiliarly relaxed in the embracing heather. She wished, hopelessly, that this day could go on for ever. Preoccupied as she was, she became aware suddenly of a movement on the other side of the loch and glanced briefly again at Andrew to make sure he still had his eyes closed. She watched the distant figure as it went away from them toward a thick belt of trees at the foot of the hills and prayed silently that no one else would see it, for there was no mistaking the bright yellow curls and the almost child-like fragility of the body. It was Rhoda McKenzie-Brown without a doubt, but far from floating about delicately like the invalid she usually professed to be, she was seated astride a horse and riding like fury toward the belt of trees. Cara was so busy with her thoughts that she started almost guiltily when Andrew spoke. "I'll get Scotty ready for you tomorrow morning," he said without opening his eyes. She made a moue of dislike. "Must you?" She sat curled up with her feet under her, keeping a watchful eye on the boys. He opened his eyes and turned his head to look at her. "You are afraid, aren't you?" he said, as if it surprised him. His eyes searched her face. "You don't want to come?" "No. Please, Andrew, I'd rather not." She did not meet his eyes, but looked down at her

fingers, putting a quite unnecessary pleat in her skirt. "I know I'm a coward, but I just don't like horses." " You weren't frightened on Smokey the other night," he said. "Were you?" He watched her as she shook her head. "I didn't let you fall then and I won't again," he assured her. "You were holding me," she said. "That was different. I'd be really terrified on my own. Please try to understand." "All right." He raised himself on one elbow, his eyes still on her face. "I'll let you off for now." She smiled her relief. "Even though I'm a coward?" "You're not a coward," he said, his eyes earnest, "or you wouldn't be doing what you are for Dougal and Robbie." He took the hand that plucked at her skirt, gently in his own. "You won't regret it, Cara, I promise you that," he said. Surprised at his words and by her own dizzily beating heart, she smiled. "I'm sure I won't," she said, making no move to free her hand. "But it isn't the twenty-fourth yet." She did not know what made her say thatunless it was the recent sight of Rhoda McKenzie-Brown. She saw him frown and her fingers were released suddenly to fall back onto her lap. "I don't think I understand," he said shortly. "Neither do I," she confessed, an edge of anxiety on her voice. "It's just that I have a feeling that everything isn't as straightforward as it appears to be." "What on earth can happen in two weeks?" he asked, his eyes on her dark with suspicion. "Is there anything I should know about?" He leaned across to her when she did not answer and gripped one arm hard, skaking her. "Cara, is there?" "No! No, of course not." She glanced involuntarily toward the belt of trees where the other woman had disappeared and used her free hand to try and ease his grip on her arm. "Andrew, you're hurting me!" "There'll be more than your arm hurt if you're thinking of Angus Finlay," he said darkly, releasing her. "I wasn't thinking of him," she protested indignantly. "He never entered my head." She turned wide, incredulous eyes on him. "You can't believeoh, no! I've only seen the man three times." "Four," he corrected her, and she blinked. "All right, four," she conceded. "You're obviously keeping closer count of the occasions than I am." He did not answer but turned aside, facing the loch, his arms hugging his knees to him, his face stony and unfriendly. "How do I know how often you see him? " he said. "I don't follow you around everywhere." "Oh, of all t h e " She stared at him furiously. "You had no right to say that and no reason. I've only seen Angus Finlay on the four occasions you know about. It isn't me who wants to have my cake and eat it too! " He turned the deep gray eyes to her, his brows drawn into a black scowl. "You're back to Rhoda again," he accused. "I knew you wouldn't be able to resist bringing her into it!" "I don't want her in it," Cara said, "but the difficulty is keeping her out." She felt so angry that tears threatened and her hands trembled as she wrenched at the heather around her. "You're being childish and illogical," he told her. "Rhoda has never interfered in the

matter of you and me at all." "You only know your side of it," she said crossly. "You forget the meeting I had with her." "When you both spoke out of turn," he said loftily. "I refuse to believe that that conversation had any basis of common sense at all. I should have come with you and made sure you didn't quarrel." "We didn't quarrel," she protested, the tears now waiting shinily in her eyes. "It's you I always quarrel with, and I wish" "Cara!" A plaintive cry brought them both back to earth as Robbie came running up to Cara, one hand held to his fore-head, tears rolling down his face. "Fell," he complained as she pulled him, wet as he was, on to her lap. "Fell, Cara, hurted." "Let me s&." She moved the grubby hand and looked at the faint mark on his temple. "Oh, it's not too bad, " she decided. "Just a little bump, it'll soon be better." He touched the sore spot experimentally with his fingers, then held up his face to her. "Kiss better," he said. Obviously, Cara thought, this was a reminder of his days with his mother, and she felt her own tears roll down her cheeks as she complied with the age-old request and gently kissed the bump on his forehead. " There," she said, hugging him despite his dampness. "Soon be better now." He smiled serenely at her, then noticed the tears on her face. "Cyin'," he said sympathetically, tracing a rolling tear with one grubby finger. "Oh, don't worry, Robbie," she said hastily as she felt Andrew watching her. "It's nothing." "Hurted," he sniffed, and turned to his uncle who had watched the magic cure with interest. "Kiss better," he instructed. Cara shook her head, but before she could speak, Andrew leaned across, encircling Robbie's damp form with one arm to pull him out of the way and planted his lips firmly and obediently on her wet cheek. "Better? " he inquired quietly, his eyes disturbingly close. "All better," Robbie assured him, and wriggled free of the encircling arm and went back to join Dougal, who had watched the proceedings with a doubting and scornful eye, from the water's edge. "I'm sorry," said Cara, dabbing away the remains of the tears with a handkerchief. He arched one eyebrow quizzically. "Because I kissed you better?" he asked. "Because I lost my temper," she said, and he tipped his stern mouth into a smile. "I'm sorry too," he said. "And we both owe Robbie a vote of thanks for taking us in hand when he did." "Robbie is a born peacemaker," she said. "He'll be a real heartbreaker too, when he grows up with that soulful look of his." "And Dougal?" he asked, smiling at her forecast. "Is he destined to be a heartbreaker too? They seem v e r y much alike to me." She shook her head, her eyes laughing. "Dougal is different," she said. "He's charming in his own way, but he has a much stronger will and a stubborn streak. He's like you, " she added, looking at his rather tousled fair head and square jaw, "except that his eyes are blue." "Is he?" The gray eyes quizzed her. "Stubborn streak as well?" She laughed softly. "That too," she told him, sending him an impish look from beneath her curling black lashes.

Cara," he placed a hand over hers. "I w i s h " She was never to hear the rest of the sentence for both boys called out together from the edge of the loch. "Cara, look!" and she followed Dougal's pointing finger to see Rhoda McKenzie-Brown riding back across the moor on the far side of the loch. "Rhoda!" Andrew sat bolt upright, staring across at the rapidly approaching figures of horse and rider. "I can't believe it," he said. "What is she doing out here?" "She went across that way earlier," Cara told him, her heart sinking dismally as the rider spotted them and turned her mount to ride round the narrow tip of the loch toward them. Andrew turned and glanced at her briefly. "You didn't mention it," he said. "No," Cara admitted. "And I wouldn't have mentioned it now if the boys hadn't seen her and told you." He made no reply, but turned back to watch the approaching rider getting to his feet as she came nearer. Cara noticed that she held the reins low, clinging to the saddle with both hands, slightly bent at the waist, yet Cara would have sworn that she was riding straight enough before she saw them. "Andrew!" The high thin voice came to them plaintively and they saw the heavy eyelids droop almost shut as she keeled over in the saddle. Andrew caught her as she fell and laid her down on the warm turf. "Get some water!" he called to Cara, and she picked up a cup and went down to the loch with it, where the boys stood watching the proceedings with interested eyes. Cara filled the cup with the cold, clear water and carried it back to where Andrew bent solicitously over the other woman. He tried to tip a little water between the lightly parted lips, but his hand was a little unsteady and some of it spilled on to the front of her shirt, open well down to where the vee of her bosom showed above the thin cotton. The cold water showed Cara the tell-tale flinch of the pink flesh and she bit her lip angrily. "She doesn't respond." He raised anxious eyes to Cara and saw the glitter of anger in hers. "Try pouring it over her, " she said unfeelingly and, as if she suspected he might follow her advice, Rhoda McKenzie-Brown fluttered open her eyelids. "Andrew," she sighed, turning her doll-like face to look at him. "I'm so sorry." Small white teeth bit bravely into the full lower lip as she sought to restrain tears. "You shouldn't be riding, " he said quietly. "In your state, you should have more sense, Rhoda." "Oh, Andrew," she pleaded, her pale eyes wide and ap pealing, "don't scold me. You know how I used to love riding and I thought it wouldn 't hurt, just once more." He shook his head, apparently completely beguiled by the pathetic bravery of her performance; and performance Cara convinced herself it was. "Well, you can't ride the rest of the way," he told her firmly. "But I have to get home," she said, blinking back tears and struggling to rise, and Cara in that moment hated her more than she had ever hated anyone in her life, for she knew with a sinking heart what Andrew would do. "I'll have to take you," he said, glancing at the strong-looking bay she had ridden. "If you had to ride," he said, "you could have chosen an easier mount, that creature is as hard as a rock." He rose from beside her and faced Cara who stood angry-eyed and miserable nearby. "I'll have to leave you, Cara," he said. "I'm sorry, but there's nothing else I can do." And she consoled herself that his regret was genuine. "It's all right," she said quietly. "I'll look after things here. I don't intend depriving the

"

boys of their picnic," she added as he went to speak. "We can manage on our own." His fingers held her arm for a moment, the gray eyes dark with anxiety. "You'll wait here for me?" he asked and she nodded, then inclined her head to where a familiar figure strode along the other side of the loch. The dark 'head held well back as if he relished the warm sun on his face. "We'll have company, I think," she said. "Here 's James McKie. He'll stay with us, I expect, until you come back. " He followed the direction of her gaze and frowned. "This seems to be a popular spot today," he said dourly. "Usually it's almost completely deserted. " They saw the minister change direction as he saw them and come round the tip of the loch as the rider had done. "I won't let James eat all your tea," Cara said more lightly than she felt and saw him frown. "It's rather funny really," she added. "Like a game of change partners." She knew he disliked her facetiousness, but she was uncaring if he did or not. He frowned and turned back to the other woman. "I'll mount," he said, and Cara will help you up in front of me." The thought of that supposedly fragile body in the close contact that the ride enforced made Cara unreasonably angry again, especially when she saw her lean, pathetically limp, against him. He looked down at Cara and at the two boys, now running up from the loch as they saw him about to leave. "I'll be back for you," he said before he put his heels to the bay. "I may be some time, but I will be back, Cara," and she nodded silently. She turned her back on the departing bay and its riders and looked down at the disappointed faces of the boys as they joined her. "I think it's time we had tea," she said, determinedly cheerful, "don't you?" "Hello," James greeted her as he joined then and sent a curious look after his departing friend. He sat down on the ground by Dougal and looked at Cara inquiringly. "Trouble?" he asked. Cara shook her head, wishing she did not feel so utterly miserable. "Not really," she said, attempting a smile. "Just disappointment. For the boys," she added hastily, and saw his eyebrows rise. "Would it help to talk about it?" he asked, and Cara shook her head, albeit uncertainly. "Mebbe it would be best," he said, "to feed these wee lads first and then you can talk, hmm?" "It sounds fine," she smiled at him gratefully. "But there's nothing wrong, Mr. McKie." "It'd sound finer," he retorted, "if you called me James and I'd be more inclined to believe you if Andrew was riding across there on his own or here with you as he should be." " Mrs. McKenzie-Brown had another attack," Cara explained briefly, trying to keep the misery she felt out of her voice. "Oh, I see." He said no more, but she sensed and was grateful for his understanding. "You will join us, won't you? " she asked. "There's more than enough here, as you can see." "Aye, I will then, thank you. " He looked at the mountain of food. "I suppose, " he said, winking an eye at her, "that Agnes allowed enough for Dougie too? " "I think so," said Cara, catching his mood. "Though I wouldn 't be sure." Dougal was watching and listening anxiously and finally he came and knelt beside her. "There is enough, isn't there, Cara?" he asked, and she could not resist hugging him as

she smiled reassurance. " Of course there is," she said gently. "We're only teasing you, Dougal, and if we haven't enoughshe glanced at their guest under her black lashes"we'll make Uncle James go without and sit and watch us." Their squeals of delight at the prospect and his lugubrious face set the seal on the rest of the meal, and Cara breathed a sigh of relief that did not go unnoticed. "You've had a long walk from Lochcrae, " she said. "Are you often as energetic as that?" "Quite often," he told her, tucking into a sandwich with as much enjoyment as the boys did. "It's only about two or three miles and it gives me breath for my evening sermon. " "I enjoy your sermons," she told him truthfully. "And you certainly don't sound as if you've walked about four miles beforehand.' ' "I have a good congregation, " he said, his eyes, on her serious face, "and a very attentive one, as I said earlier. Even the boys listen, though I suspect that's more because I'm Uncle James than because they find what I'm saying of any interest." Cara smiled at the two little boys engrossed in their tea, chattering between themselves as they sat cross-legged in the heather. "Children are good judges of character, I find," she told him, and smiled at his mock bow. "They seem to adore Andrew," she added thoughtfully, almost to herself. "Aye," he said solemnly, "he's a way with children, all right." "So have you," Cara assured him. "Though you tease more than Andrew does." "Och!" James declared, "he's as dour as a church elder!" and he tried to look indignant when she laughed. "You must know him just about as well as anyone," she said. "Except Moira, of course." "I think I do," he agreed. "Moira knows him best, of course. They're very close, those two. They always were, despite the difference in their characters." "Chalk and cheese," Cara smiled, remembering Agnes's words. "That's what their father used to say, isn't it?" "He did," James agreed. "But in l o o k s " He shook his head. "They're even more different, aren't they? Moira is like her mother, she's still a lovely woman and so was Andrew's mother, I believe, though he takes after his father." His dark eyes smiled warmly at her. "The Campbells are rugged men, but they have excellent taste in women." Cara felt her cheeks color, despite the lightheartedness of the compliment. "Thank you, kind sir," she said demurely, and added, "Andrew said I was very like your motheram I?" "Aye," he said, his head tilted to one side as he surveyed her. "You are, and she was very beautiful, too." "So Andrew said," Cara smiled, and he stared at her in mock astonishment. "D'ye tell me that, now?" he asked, in the broader accent he sometimes affected. "Don't tell me he's been payin' ye a compliment?" " James!" she protested, aware of Dougal taking an interest in the conversation. " They was kissin' again," Dougal told him gloomily. " Aye, well," he said softly, watching Cara's pink cheeks. "It's always a good idea to kiss pretty girls, Dougie, when you've the chance." " Wouldn't you and Robbie like to go and play quietly for a while?" Cara said hastily to

forestall any further conversation on the same lines, and she saw the dark mischief in the man's eyes as he watched the boys scamper away to stand and throw stones into the still water of the loch. "And would you tell me how you got those marks on your arm?" James asked when the boys were no longer in earshot. "It looks as if someone has gripped you hard." Cara instinctively put a hand to the faint red patches on the top of her arm. "Oh, that 's nothing," she told him. "It's where Andrew held my arm for a second or two, that's all," she laughed shortly. "I mark very easily, you know. " "Hmm." He gazed at her doubtfully, then with a sigh leaned back in the heather, much as Andrew had done, and looked up at her. "What really happened with that woman, Cara?" She brushed a hand over the bristly warmth of the heather and did not meet his eyes. "Nothing happened, " she said. "Except as I told you. She had an attack of whatever it is she suffers from and Andrew had to take her home." "She was all right when I saw her earlier," he said, pulling a sprig of heather and pushing it between his teeth like a chewing straw. "She was talking to Angus Finlay across there in the trees." Cara stared at him. "Angus Finlay?" she echoed. "But she dislikes him. She says she's afraid of him becausewell, because he's been in trouble. Everyone knows about it." "Oh, I think the meeting was purely accidental, " he said. "And please don't think I was spying on them, will you?" he smiled wryly at her as she shook her head. "But they were talking, so I can only assume that the fear of him she pro-fesses must be for Andrew's benefit." "But what on earth can they have in common?" she asked, a frown between her brows. His eyebrows rose. "An interest in you, perhaps? " "I don't understand," she said, watching him. "Why should they-- " "Och, Cara ma dear," he shook his head. "Angus is known to fancy a pretty face, and yours is something more than pretty, and as for Rhodawell, she'll be taking a pretty close interest in you at the moment, you know, and Angus knows most all of what goes on over at Dowell, I dare say." "Oh, no!" she protested. "Agnes wouldn't" "Maybe not intentionally," he said. "But he does see his mother far more often than Andrew realizes. She'd talk about what goes on in the house, naturally," he said, and narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "You know Finlay to talk to, don't you?" "Yes, I do," Cara admitted. "I've spoken to him four times to date." She remembered Andrew's precise memory on the matter. "And each time except once Rhoda McKenzieBrown has seen us. The fourth time," she added ruefully, "Andrew saw us himself." "And?'' he prompted, a sharp glow of interest in his eyes as he looked at her. She plucked at the heather with nervous fingers, her brow creased. "He was very angry," she said. "In fact, he was furious." She surprised herself by seeking an excuse for his actions. "You see Angus waswas trying to kiss me, and Andrew thought I had come out here to meet him." He raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "He must be out of his mind," he said flatly. "Where on earth did he get that idea from?" "Well" she did not look at him"I suppose I was to blame as much as anyone. I was angry because he reprimanded me for speaking to Angus earlier and I told him I

would have to tell Angus to choose a less public place next time." He laughed then, his eyes warm with admiration. "Good for you," he said. "And it was one of those coincidences that sometimes make things awkward, was it?" Cara nodded, smiling despite herself. "Andrew did say he was sorry afterward," she said. "So I should think," he snorted indignantly. "He should have had more sense than to think it in the first place. He's no more sense than a bairn!" He was silent for a moment, then he looked at her again. "There is one thing," he said. "How did Andrew know where you were?" " Oh, Agnes knew," Cara said, smiling. "And she told Andrew she thought I was lost or something like that and he came out looking for me. Because of what she said." "Oh, she's a crafty one." His eyes twinkled at the deception. "So Agnes took a hand and Andrew came looking for you full of fear for your safety and maybe a little jealousy." "Not in the least bit jealous," she said firmly. "I'm sure of it." "Had it been me I'd have been green-eyed with it," he assured her. She laughed softly, shaking her head at his expression, but feeling nevertheless a glow in her heart at his assurance. "You're different, " she told him. "It 's the Irish in you, James, you're more emotional. Andrew is strictly practical." She told herself it was true, trying to forget the times he had shown another side of his character. "I wouldn't bank on that," said James, closing one eye and nodding his head knowingly, " he's a deep one, is Andrew, and he may not show his feelings always, but he's not blind either." He warmed her with his smile again. "You're a very lovely girl, Cara, and if I wasn't a minister of the church I'd give Andrew Campbell something to worry about other than Rhoda McKenzie-Brown! " She laughed, wondering how much of his flattery was truth and how much of it was reassurance for her uncertain spirits. "He does worry about her," she said, "and there's nothing anyone can do about that." "Aye," he shook his head, sitting up to brush the dry grass and heather from his clothes, "she's not the most popular resident we have in Lochcrae, and Andrew is about the only friend she has." "That's why I can't expect him to drop her just because I don't like her, " she said. "Especially in the circumstances. " "Yes." He shook his head. "It's not a good start to a marriage, especially one such as you and Andrew are contemplatingoh, I know your motives are excellent, but there should be something more to build on than the care of two wee boys. But there," he added, regaining some of his former lightness, "I've hopes for the both of ye yet. " "I wouldn't be too optimistic," Cara told him. "There 's rather a lot of opposition." "From Rhoda?" She nodded. "Aye, there would be, but I don't think I'd worry about it too much. Only one thing, Cara." He looked at her earnestly. "You'd best make up your mind to keep Rhoda firmly in her place, and not worry too much about what Andrew thinks of it, before it's too late. Oh, man, man!" He shook his head despairingly over his friend's stubbornness. "He's a heid on him as stubborn as a mule, you'll need to be as stubborn as he is." Cara sighed, her eyes wistful. "I don 't think that would work with Andrew," she said, then smiled as a memory crossed her mind. "I think I know a better way."

"

Aye, well," he glanced at her curiously, "you know best, I don't doubt. He's your man." CHAPTER SEVEN

TIRED after their energetic game of football, Dougal and Robbie were stretched out in the sun, quiet for a while, so that even they did not see Andrew approaching and he was almost upon them before Cara turned her head. He smiled at her before he was close enough to speak and she felt her heart beating ridiculously fast as she leaned over and touched Dougal's arm. "Dougal," she said softly. "Uncle Andrew!" Two flushed and grubby faces beamed him a welcome as he sat down, thankfully, between them. Dougal watched enviously as the picnic basket was opened again. "Uncle James had tea with us," he said. "Yes, I know." A sandwich was held out to him. "I also know from experience that you are still hungry. Have this sandwich then I won't feel guilty when I eat mine." "Dougal!" Cara scolded as the sandwich changed hands, "You had plenty to eat!" "I had some," Dougal admitted. "But Uncle James had some too." "I passed James on the way back," Andrew said to Cara. "He said how much he'd enjoyed the picnic; especially the company," he added. "Uncle James likes Cara, too," Dougal informed him, munching happily, and Cara was conscious of the deep gray eyes turned on her. "I'm sure he does," Andrew said quietly. "He's said so many times." "Cara likes Uncle James, too," Dougal added, blissfully unaware of Cara's flushed cheeks as Andrew looked at her. "Dougal," Cara controlled her voice with difficulty, "why don't you and Robbie stretch out somewhere quietly for a while and let Uncle Andrew have his tea in peace? We shall have to go home very soon, so I should rest before we start back if I were you. It's a long walk, remember." "But I'm not tired," Dougal protested. "Shall we play ball again, Robbie?" Of course Robbie was willing, as usual. "All right." She sighed her resignation. "But don't forget, nobody gets carried on the way home." "James is very fond of you," Andrew said as the two boys ran off out of earshot. "You needn't have worried that Dougal would say too much to me." "I did no such thing," she protested, her cheeks flushing as he looked at her steadily. "I don't think Dougal should make such personal observations, that's all." She drew her brows into a frown. "I like talking to James," she said defensively, and flashed him a look of defiance. "He's easy to talk to and very understanding." "I'm glad to hear it," he said noncommittally. "Just as long as you remember which of us you're marrying in two weeks' time." Cara's dark eyes were stormy as she looked across at him, all her misery and uneasiness churning up in her until she could have screamed at him. "At least," she said angrily, "I wouldn't have to keep wondering with James when he was going off to rescue Rhoda McKenzie-Brown next!" She watched uneasily as he drank the last of his tea, without the outburst she had expected, and returned the empty cup to the basket. His silence worried her more than his

temper would have done and she felt that he knew it. "You're simply jealous of Rhoda," he said at last, complacently enough to infuriate her further. "I would have said," she told him sweetly, controlling her voice with difficulty, "that the boot was on the other foot. You've been making a lot more fuss about James than I do about Rhoda." She felt her heart would pound its way from her body as she saw his eyes darken ominously. "Be quiet," he said. "Rhoda has nothing to do with this at all." He leaned forward toward her and she moved back, seeing his look of dismay as she did so. "Cara, if you t h i n k " "I don't think," she said, shaking her head, "I know. This may be nothing but a marriage of convenience, Andrew, but I've no intention of letting Rhoda McKenzie-Brown stop it. For Dougal and Robbie 's sakes," she added rather lamely. "Of course for their sakes," he said quietly, fixing her with a steady gaze. "And I don't quite see why we're quarrelling, since we're both of the same mind on the matter. " "You've known her so much longer than you have me, " she shook her dark head doubtfully. "Naturally you feel more for her." "I feel sorry for Rhoda, " he said, and Cara 's uneasy heart recalled the old saying that "pity is akin to love. " "Yes, of course, " she said, and looked at him with dark, uncertain eyes. "It's just that I feel sovulnerable. I have only two weeks before I shall be your wife " she shivered suddenly despite the warm sun. "I wish I was sure that I'm doing the right thing." "You are," he assured her. "There can be no doubt about that; Moira's right, there's no one better with children. You'll be absolutely right for them. " Cara nodded, but wished he had worded it rather differently. She still pondered on his words as she put the boys to bed, and later, over dinner, she was even more than usually quiet. "I think I shall sleep for twenty-four hours, " she said as she rose from the table. "You didn't get overtired? " he asked, and she shook her head. "Oh, no! And the boys enjoyed every minute of it, so it was worth it." He stood by the fireplace, filling the old briar he smoked. "Did you enjoy it?" he asked. "Even though we were interrupted?" "Yes, of course." She laughed softly as she looked at him. "Our outings seem destined to interruptions, don't they? One way or another. " "I'm sorry." The light over the dinner table was soft and diffused, flattering to any woman and particularly so to Cara's dark loveliness, lighting her eyes into shining softness and lending an added glow to the creaminess of her skin. The pipe remained unlit as he crossed the room toward her and touched the tip of her nose with one finger. "The sun's caught your nose," he said with one of his rare smiles. "It'll be sore tomorrow if you don't put something on it tonight." She too put a tentative finger to her nose and wrinkled it as she laughed. "I hope it doesn't go as bright red as Robbie's was," she said. "He looks like a baby Rudolph." She thought again how overwhelmingly big he seemed close to, and how gentle the deep gray eyes could be, as now. She had a strange breathless feeling as she faced him, aware of a new intensity in his gaze as he looked down at her. "I must see if the boys have settled down," she said. "They were rather excited. Goodnight, Andrew." "Goodnight." He let her get as far as the door and then called after her, "Cara!" She turned without speaking and he came across to her, the more familiar frown between

his brows. "You know James is very fond of you, don't you?" "You've told me so," she said slowly, "but I haven't heard it first hand, though I suppose he did tell me indirectly this afternoon." He was watching her steadily as she spoke and she told herself that she should put his mind at rest about James, but something eternally feminine made her, instead, smile enigmatically. "Dougal s a i d " he began. "Dougal chatters," she interrupted gently. "He's a baby and he puts his own interpretation on things." She smiled up at him. "James certainly didn't kiss me, which is Dougal's infallible method of knowing whether you are liked or not." She watched the uncertainty flicker in his eyes. "Goodnight," she said. She would have turned away, but she had barely time to draw breath before strong arms swept her against him and held her tight while his mouth found hers and held it until she was breathless. "Goodnight," he said, deep-voiced, and walked back across the room to the fireplace, leaving her standing there trembling and uncertain until she fled, closing the door behind her with unsteady fingers. Cara fell asleep quickly, despite misgivings that she would not be able to sleep at all, but she dreamed erratically through the night, and always when Andrew was near her, Rhoda McKenzie-Brown's china-doll face intruded, her eyelids fluttering helplessly until he turned to help her, leaving Cara alone. She woke unrested and feeling rather sorry for herself until she remembered the way he had kissed her the night before. It promised to be another lovely day, judging by the great shafts of sunlight that splashed across her room from the high windows, and already the air was warm and only slightly cooled by a morning breeze. She glanced at the bedside clock and realized with a start that it was only a very short time until she must get the boys up and dressed ready for breakfast. She was almost ready herself when she heard the telephone ringing in the hall downstairs, and a few moments later Agnes's voice called softly at Andrew 's bedroom door, her fingers tapping lightly. "Mr. Campbell!" An indistinguishable rumble answered her. "It's Mrs. McKenzieBrown's maid, sir." Cara made no pretence of not listening as she heard Andrew 's door open. "She says could ye go down there as soon as ye can. Her lady's askin' for ye." "Is she worse?" His tone was all anxiety, Cara noted, and felt an unreasoning hatred for the woman who could command Andrew's presence at any hour of the day. "I imagine so, sir." Agnes sounded far less worried about the fact than her employer did. "The woman didnae say exactly, just that Mrs. McKenzie-Brown was askin' for ye." "Then I'd better go down right away," he said, a little reluctantly, Cara was pleased to note. "Yell surely have ye're breakfast first, Mr. Campbell? It'll take me but a minute or two to have it ready for ye?" "No," he said, "I'll have something when I get back. I'd best go down there right away in case it's very serious." Cara heard his bedroom door close and his footsteps going down the landing after a disgruntled Agnes, and she picked up her hairbrush and began to brush her black hair with more than usual vigor. She had been tempted to open her own door and speak to him, but she resisted the idea, deciding to show complex indifference to the matter, if indeed she was given the opportunity to show any feelings in the matter at all. She heard the front door slam a few

moments later while she was supervising the boys' toilet. "Whosat?" Dougal asked, sharp-eared, as he heard the door close. "It's Uncle Andrew," Cara told him. "He's had to go out early this morning." She hoped the questioning would stop there. "Gone out?" He blinked at the appalling thought that had entered his head. "No bekfast?" "I'm afraid not," said Cara. "I expect he'll have some when he comes back." "Where's he gone?" came next, and inevitably, Cara thought. "To see Mrs. McKenzie-Brown," she told him. "She's apparently been taken ill again and she wants to see Uncle Andrew. Now let's have no more questions, Dougal, please." "She's silly," said Dougal, incorrigible as ever, but Cara had doubts whether he was right this time. There was a letter waiting for her in the hall on the table and she picked it up with a smile of pleasure, tucking it into her pocket until she had more time to read it. "That's from Auntie Moira," Dougal announced, having peered with interest at the familiar pale green envelope poking out of her pocket. "How do you know?" she asked, and Dougal grinned knowingly. "Writin'," he said complacently, and added, "Uncle An-drew always gives us the stamps, 'cause they're funny." " Foreign, you mean," Cara said, laying the letter beside her place at the table while she tucked in his table napkin under his chin. "Thas what I said," he informed her loftily. "Funnen." "This one is from Italy." She sat down between the two of them. "You have one of these already, haven't you?" He frowned, leaning across to peer more closely at the mp. " Mmm," he decided at last. `But Robbie hasn't" " Then I'll see he has this one," she promised. "Now eat our cereal properly and quietly while I read my letterall right?" She unfolded it carefully, and smoothed the paper. "Dear Idiot" was how Moira began her letter, and there followed more in the same vein, describing at length just what she thought of Cara's mentality and, more scathingly, of her brother's. "He might at least"she wrote, "have given himself the chance to fall in love with you after the trouble I went to in getting you two together. " Cara gave a shrug of embarrassment, for knowing Moira she thought it possible that Andrew had received a letter couched in very similar terms. Perhaps, she thought in horror, he even thought she knew of Moira's plan to bring them together. If he did it would account for his initial resentment. She remembered, suddenly, his curious behavior after reading the letter he had found in his pocket during their visit to Castlecrae, and groaned inwardly. " I shall be home for the wedding (?) "Moira continued, "and I shall give Jamie McKie a piece of my mind, too, for encouraging that brother of mine in this foolishness." Cara consoled herself that it was no more than James expected judging by his remarks at dinner the first time. "It's a long letter, " Dougal commented, and she nodded. "Auntie Moira always writes long letters, " she said. "And this time she had a lot to say about the wedding. " "Is she comin' for you gettin' weddined to Uncle Andrew? " he asked. "Yes." She folded the letter and put it back into her pocket. "And it's married, Dougal, not weddined. "

"It's silly," decided Dougal irrevocably and Cara wondered if he was not, in this case, quite right. It was almost one o'clock in the afternoon when Andrew returned and Cara was supervising pre-lunch hand washing when the front door banged. "Thas Uncle Andrew," Dougal informed her. "He's back, Cara, " and Cara nodded silently, wishing she felt more pleased and less apprehensive about it. Several moments later she followed the boys into the dining room and Robbie hurled himself at the tall figure of his uncle, followed closely by Dougal. "Where you been?" Dougal demanded. "You had no bekfast, none a' tall." Andrew half-smiled. "I did, Dougal, don't worry. I had some with Mrs. McKenzieBrown." "I'm so glad she was well enough to eat," Cara said quietly, helping Robbie onto his chair. "I must have misunderstood Agnes." "There seems to have been some misunderstanding all round." He flicked a brief glance at her inscrutable face. "Rhoda had a very restless night, and another minor attack this morning frightened her. The maid got the message muddled on the telephone." "I see." She seated herself opposite him. "She hadn't asked for you, then?" "Wellyes." She told herself she should not enjoy his discomfiture, but the temptation was irresistible. "She was most apologetic about getting me out so early." "So she gave you breakfast to make up for it," she said coolly. "That was thoughtful of her." He glanced up as Agnes came in, his gray eyes dark, but he said nothing, keeping his eyes concentrated on his meal. "I had a letter from Moira this morning," she told him. "She's coming home for the twenty-fourth." He raised his head and looked at her. "No additional comments?" he asked wryly. "Quite a few." She piled potatoes onto Dougal's plate, not looking at him. "But I don't think you'd find them very complimentary. I didn't." "Oh." He pulled a face. "I thought she'd let fly when she knew. When is she arriving, does she say?" Cara nodded. "In about a week," she said. "And when James comes to dinner on Wednesday night we'd better warn him that Moira is going to give him a piece of her mind, too." "Mmm, I was afraid it would be like that." He looked at her in mock fear, half smiling as if the wrath of Moira on their combined heads gave them a bond. "If Moira's on the war-path, heads will roll." " Whose head?" Dougal spared a moment of interest from his lunch. "Where's it rollin', Uncle Andrew?" "It's just a figure of speech," Andrew told him hastily. "No one's head is really going to roll." "What's it mean?" Andrew raised appealing eyes to Cara as he came under fire, but she feigned not to notice and continued with her meal, leaving him to face the barrage. "Strictly speaking," he said desperately, "it means chop-ping people's heads off to punish them, but not in this case, of course." Dougal turned his wide blue gaze on him with added interest. "Is Auntie Moira goin' to

chop people's heads off?" he asked hopefully. "Whose heads?" "No one's head," Andrew said a little less patiently. "It simply means that Auntie Moira is going to be cross with us. With Cara and me." "Oh." The blue eyes turned from one to the other, a fork poised half way to his mouth. "Doesn't she want you to get weddined?" "Whyyes, she does," he floundered, but Cara kept her eyes averted and continued eating. "Then why is she cross with you?" Dougal insisted. "It's because we aren'tbecause we don'tfeel the way she thinks we should. He looked at Cara desperately. "You see, people usually marry each other because theylove each other." She could feel the intensity of his eyes as they fixed on her, even without looking up. "Love's sort of likin', isn't it?" Dougal resumed his eating but still kept a curious eye on his uncle. "An ' you like Cara, so why i s " "Oh, I give up!" Andrew picked up his knife and fork and resumed his lunch, casting a black look at her across the table. "If you can make it sound like sense, " he told her, "you try. " "I have no intention of trying to explain something I don't understand myself, " she said smilingly, and saw him frown thoughtfully. "I suppose it doesn't make much sense to a child;" he admitted, and said no more, but watched her every so often as the meal progressed as if he was wondering about her own lack of understanding. Jame McKie laughed when Cara told him, on the Wednesday night, about his prospective scolding from Moira. Dinner over, they had all three adjourned to the big room and the atmosphere was heavy with tobacco smoke as the two men drew on wellworn briars, the pungent smoke tickling Cara's nose pleasantly. "I agree with Moira entirely," said James, his dark eyes on Cara as he spoke. "And if I'd a sensible bone in ma body I'd-och, what's the use," he said disgustedly. "If I thought it would do any good at all, I'd refuse to marry the pair of ye on the twenty-fourth, but yell no listen to reason, either of ye, so ye may as well benefit of the kirk as go to some heathen register office." Cara laughed at his unfamiliar strait-laced expression. "If the minister had been other than a friend of Andrew's, I've no doubt it would have been a register office; and," she warned, "you better not let Moira hear you make that desparaging reference to register offices. Remember, she was married in one." "Oh, aye," he said, "so she was. When is she arriving?" He looked so apprehensive that Cara's laugh bubbled over again. "Next week," she said, her dark eyes dancing at his discomfiture. "I never saw such a thing! Two grown men quaking at the thought of one small girl!" "Smail she may be," James retorted, "but she's a sharp tongue on her if ye displease her." Cara cast a look at Andrew from under her lashes. "A weapon of war, Andrew called it," she said. "And he said that mine was as bad." "Och, no!" James looked at her cautiously. "Not that I know about you, really," he added, "but Moira has skinned me verbally more than once." "Cara can hold her own," Andrew told him dryly. "And I did say that she and Moira had

a lot in common in that respect." Cara thought that he disliked the easy familiarity between her and James, for he drew a faint frown between his brows as they laughed together. "You also said that shrews have been tamed before," she reminded him, her eyes bright with laughter. "D'ye tell me that, now?" James looked scandalized. "Oh, man, man, ye've no more sense than a bairn! That's no way to talk to a lovely girl! " Cara sensed Andrew's resentment, though she doubted if James did, for his mischievous smile remained undaunted. "You've no doubt more experience in that direction than I have," Andrew said stiffly, `but I've never considered myself a ladies' man." "Then it's time ye learned," James retorted, undeterred by his friend's warning frown. "There's many a man would give his good right arm to be marrying a girl like Cara, and for a better reason than you are, my friend. "James, please, " Cara pleaded, recognizing the signs of a storm from Andrew's darkening brow. "I'm not making any complaints; I know what I'm doing and so does Andrew." "As long as one of you does," James said, incorrigible. "You're taking a deal of interest in the matter," Andrew told him. "I hope it's no more than a friendly one. " "I'll not hear that, " James said quietly, "since it cannot be your sense that's talking. " "You said yourself that many a man would give his good right arm to be marrying Cara," Andrew said shortly. "I thought that maybe you included yourself." James tilted his expressive eyebrows upward and flicked a curious glance at him. "How is Rhoda lately?" The question was so patently loaded that Cara bit her lip as she saw Andrew's frown. "I heard you were making an early call there on Monday morning." "I hardly imagined it would go unnoticed." He gave Caraa sharp glance as if he suspected her of having told James about it. "Rhoda's maid rang to say that Rhoda was asking for me, so I went straight round to see her. It sounded serious," he added defensively. "And was it?" Cara pitied Andrew under James's ruthless gaze. His discomfort was obvious and she wished James would not pursue the matter, though she realized he was doing it in her defense; hers and his own. "As it happened, no," Andrew Admitted. "They'd sent for Doctor Clane and he came, later on, during the morning." "Oh, he didn't treat it as an emergency, then?" James's manner was deceptively casual. "Perhaps he was busy, or did he realize she just wanted a shoulder to cry on?" Andrew's tanned face flushed darkly. "You should compare notes with Cara. She has little sympathy with Rhoda, perhaps understandably, but at least I would have thought that a minister of religion would have cared more when one of his parishioners was sick." "Oh I care," James assured him. "And it seems to me you could have told the woman that you intended to marry Cara before she heard the news in the kirk and disrupted the service like she did." "I hadn't thought it necessary." Cara felt his eyes on her as he spoke. "I'd no notion she felt any other way than friendly toward me, as I do to her." "Then you're the only one who thought it," James retorted. "I've little sympathy with the woman, but I can see it would come as a shock to her coming unexpectedly like that."

"So Cara said." The deep voice held unaccustomed hardness. "You two seem to have a lot in common. I'd no idea how much until now." "We have a lot in common." James turned a smile in Cara's direction, attempting to lighten what had become a rather sombre atmosphere. "I was telling her on Sunday, Andrew, that if I wasn't a minister I'd give ye something to worry about other than Rhoda." "Were you?" Cara flushed as his gray eyes looked at her darkly. "I had no idea that you were that friendly. Or perhaps I had," he added. "I like Cara," James said quietly, "and I care about her getting hurt by all this, as I think she inevitably will." "Please, James!" Cara begged again. "Please don't." "Are you being hurt by all this?" Andrew asked her. "You have only to say if you are." She shook her head, the laughter completely gone from her eyes, leaving then clouded and unhappy. "And you don't want to change your mind?" he insisted, and she shook her head again in silence. "Then there's nothing more to say, is there? I know you mean well, James, but we know what we're doing. The usual rules scarcely apply in this case. This is purely a marriage of convenience, as you well know. It is an arrangement that can be ended quite easily at the request of either party." The chill practicality of the words had a bitter taste to her as she listened to them and she wished he need not have said them so coldly. "Like a legal contract with nothing to hold it together but sound common sense," James said quietly, al-most voicing her own thought, "and no human emotions to clutter things up and get in the way of other friendships?" "Exactly," Andrew agreed, though a mite uncertainly, "It's all perfectly straightforward." "I see." She felt James's eyes on her, gently inquiring and colored under the scrutiny. "Then why Cara?" He was silent for what seemed like an age before he answered in the same cold, passionless tone he had used before. "Because she is suitable. The boys like her and she can manage them well, That's all that's required." She closed her eyes as much to shut out the words as the stern, uncompromising profile and she heard James's quiet reproachful voice. "Man, man, you're an even bigger fool than I took you for." In the chill silence that followed she felt herself shrinking from the cold humiliation of the situation. There were tears in her eyes when she opened them again and she could not see the faces turned to her, nor read the expressions in the two pairs of eyes. Her only wish was to escape from the big room into the open air. "If you'll excuse m e " she sounded breathless as she got to her feet. "I'd like toI need some fresh air." She walked to the door as steadily as she could and was conscious of the silence that followed her; a silence stark with sudden realization, and she heard Andrew's voice as she closed the door behind her. "Cara!" as if he wanted desperately for her to go back, but she did not even pause. CHAPTER EIGHT JUST being out of the room, she felt, restored something of her calm, and she turned her

head to see Agnes coming from the kitchen. "Are ye all right, Miss Houston?" The blue eyes looked at her curiously and she remembered the tears blur-ring her vision. "I'm going out for a while, Agnes," she said. "A walk will do me good; I've rather a headache," she added lamely. "But it's near dark," Agnes protested. "Ye're no thinkin' of goin' on the moor, are ye?" "I'll be all right, Agnes, don't worry." She crossed the hall to the kitchen door, not meeting the woman's anxious gaze as she approached her. "I'll go out of the back way and walk down to the loch." "Ye shouldnae go," Agnes followed her into the kitchen. "Yell likely get lost out there in the dark. Mr. Campbell will be worried about ye." "I doubt it very much." She sounded bitter as she opened the door and felt the cool breath of the evening breeze blow fresh on her hot cheeks. "There are plenty of suitable young women about who love children and would be prepared to marry for convenience." She ignored the worried frown on Agnes's round, homely face and crossed the cobbled yard. It was almost dark, but the dying sun still lent fire to the sky and the trees round the house stirred like rustling silk over her head. At the edge of them she stood for a second or two drinking in the beauty of the scene before her, thinking how the sombre darkness of it suited her own mood. Below her the loch was dyed crimson as a pool of blood and glowed with an almost unearthly light as it shifted and shimmered in the soft breeze that rippled its surface. There was no color left in anything now, but the deep red of the sun and the water, with the trees and the distant hills silhouetted blackly against the glowing skyline. The turf and heather were soft and warm underfoot and she breathed the summerscented air gratefully as she walked, brushing away the remaining tears with a hand. She could not pick out any familiar landmark, nor did she seek one, but walked slowly and inexorably toward the glowing loch, as if it drew her irresistibly. She followed its edge for a while round to the very tip, to where it turned back toward Lochcrae, and before she realized it, it was almost completely dark and the last splashes of red had died away. A half moon came to life suddenly and changed everything from crimson and black to silver, making the loch as silver as a mirror. It lay behind her now, and Cara halted suddenly, realizing that she had never before been this far and she stood, heart beating rapidly, bewilderingly surrounded by the sighing, soft sounds of the moor at night. Her eyes darted from shadowed trees to open moor and to the loch unfamiliarly behind her. She felt the trembling uncertainty of her legs as she started to move again, not knowing exactly which way to go except that the loch was the only familiar thing in sight and would inevitably lead her back to the village. As she moved toward it, a cloud drifted darkly across the moon, cutting off its light and leaving her in complete darkness. She stopped short, dismay making her breathe faster than normally, her blind eyes seeking something solid in the enveloping blackness that surrounded her. She listened for a moment to some soft rustling sound that did nothing to reassure her and she felt sure there was some deliberation about the movement, a sense of direction. She found herself holding her breath until she felt her head would burst from the blood pounding in her temples, listening to the approaching sounds. Suddenly a soft whistle reached her, a flat, almost tuneless rendering of an old song,

barely audible even on the quiet moor, and she let the breath out again in a slow sighing sound that caused both song and movement to cease abruptly. In two minds whether to make her presence known and chance the good intentions of her companion in darkness, she was abruptly relieved of the decision as the moon reappeared and revealed her standing there without cover, her eyes wide and dark. "Well, well!" The voice was only too familiar, though the moon deprived the flaming red hair of its color, as she turned to face Angus Finlay. He was closer than she had realized and he lessened the distance between them yet more, peering at her in the dimness of the moonlight. "If it's no Miss Houston," he exclaimed, identifying her with some surprise. "What the de'il are ye doin' out here?" "II'm afraid I might be lost," she said, uncertain whether the statement was true or not, or whether she was relieved or not now that she knew who he was. "I came farther than I intended and when the cloud blacked out the moon just now, I realized I was lost. I've never been this far round before." "And ye're frightened too," he said matter-of-factly. "Did ye wonder who I was, mebbe? Or if I was some spooky beast come to carry ye off?" She knew he was teasing her, but coming so soon after her fear of the unknown it did not amuse her and she spoke more sharply than she would normally have done. "Spooky beasties don't whistle Scotland For Ever," she retorted. "And I could tell it wasn't anything very heavy for the little noise it was making." She heard him chuckle in the darkness. Standing with one hand on his hip and the other hanging loosely at his side, he looked so perfectly at home in the situation that she wondered if he was used to being out here on the moor at night. "Ye've plenty of spunk, I'll say that for ye," he said, "though ye've nae need to fear me at all. I'll no try to kiss ye again," he added, "in case Campbell's right behind ye looking after his own." "He's not." She shook her head, feeling the misery settle on her again as she remembered the humiliating scene she had left. "I should very much doubt if he is this time." "Have ye had words?" He chuckled again, and the idea of him finding her misery amusing irritated her. "Is that why he's let ye come out here on ye're own? Och, he's nae sense at all that man." 138 "He doesn't know I'm out here!" She wondered at her own quick defense and sensed him watching her, though it was difficult to see his face since his back was to the faint moon-light. "I'd better start walking back, " she said hesitantly. "Can ye find ye're way back?" he asked, and Cara nodded uncertainly. "I think so," she said, sending her eyes darting over the silvery, but unfamiliar-looking moor that surrounded them. "If I follow the loch I shall eventually come to Lochcrae. I know that much. " "It's aye a long walk, " he told her, his eyes taking in the flimsy shoes she wore, the same pretty, light ones she had put on for dinner and not changed. "It's much quicker the other way, the way ye came. " "I know it is, but I can't be sure that I know how to get back that way." She sounded cross and more than a little frightened. "It all looks so strange in the moonlight, the trees all look alike and I can't see the house from here. I might not go in the right direction." She looked at him from under her lashes, though she doubted he could see it.

If he would show her the way, or even take her, she thought, she would rather not face that long walk right round the loch and then all the way from Lochcrae to the house. "I could take ye," he offered, but made no move to start, "if ye 'd like me to." "Oh, I would, thank you!" She sounded so relieved that he chuckled again in the way that had annoyed her before, but that somehow sounded reassuring this time. "If you don't mind." She searched his face as best she could in the poor light. "Were you going somewhere when I came along?" "Aye," he said, "inta the wood. Have ye no been in a wood at night-time? " "No." She shook her head, wondering at his delaying tactics. "Is it something special? " "I think so." He sounded unusually serious. "Why not find out for ye'sel? " He must have sensed her hesitation, for he pressed home the idea before she could reply. "Come on," he urged. "It'll no do Campbell any harm to worry about ye for a wee while longer." He moved closer and put a hand on her arm, turning her to face the belt of trees only a matter of yards away. "An' ye've nae need to worry about me, I'll behave." "Oh, I never suggested that you wouldn't." She moved with him, guided by his hand on her arm. "I should get back in c a s e " She thought of Andrew, cold and unfriendly as she had seen him last, and shrugged off the twinge of conscience that reproached her; perhaps Angus Finlay was right, it would do him no harm to worry about her for a while. As if he read her thoughts her companion chuckled again and led her into the trees. "I'll no lose ye," he promised. "I'm used to the woods at night and the moor. There's a lot to be gained out here after dark, ye ken." "Oh?" She felt a twinge of uneasiness and tried to see his face, but they were into the trees and the high, rustling branches obscured the moonlight. "Birds an' bunnies," he said briefly with another chuckle, "an' no one the wiser." "Poaching?" She felt an absurd tingle of excitement as she realized his reason for being out there. "You're not poaching now, are you?" "Would it worry ye if I was?" He drew her farther into the trees and there was even less light for the thick- leaved branches that blocked out the moon and the sky. "I think so." She sounded uncertain as she followed him, his hand on her arm still guiding her. "I don't like to see things killed, though I know they have to be sometimes." "They do that," he told her, "or there'd be a few empty bellies around. But I'll no take anything until I've seen ye safely back," he promised. There were innumerable rustlings and squeakings as they walked among the thick trees, and more than once Cara jumped nervously, wondering how much of a fool she was to trust Angus Finlay as far as she was. It was so quiet and yet so alive, she thought, with the smell of fallen leaves and velvety moss tingling in her nostrils and the sound of animal movements all around them. Several times her companion identified the sounds, and she was amazed at his knowledge and began to listen for sounds of movement with interest rather than fear. "It's rather exciting," she said, speaking softly from instinct. "I never realized howalive it was at night." "Ye're no sorry ye came?" he asked softly, the deep voice so at variance with his appearance. "No, I'm not," she admitted, and added rather reluctantly, "but I think I must get back now."

" Will Campbell worry about ye?" he asked as they turned about and took another path through the trees. She felt her brief enjoyment slipping away as she thought of facing Andrew again. "I don't know," she said. "If he knows where I am he will, I expect. " "Does no one know ye came out here alone? "'The question gave her a second's uneasiness, but she shrugged it off as she realized that his chances of taking advantage of her were diminishing with every step and he had made no move to step out of line yet. "Agnes knows," she told him, and heard him chuckle. "She saw me come out and she may tell Andrew if I'm gone too long." "Ma conniving mother," he said. "She'll tell him right enough, like she did before. She likes to think that Campbell will come looking for ye. She's a romantic turn o' mind, ye ken." "Has she?" She was thankful he could not see the way her color rose. "Well, Andrew Campbell hasn't, so I 'm afraid she'll be wasting her time trying to turn him into a knight errant." Surprisingly he did not reply with his usual chuckle but sounded quite serious as he answered her. "I think ye could be wrong about him, ma lass, he's no blind an' he's no fool. Agnes Finlay is a shrewd judge o' character, an' if she says she thinks he's likely fallin' in love wi' ye, then she's like as not right." Cara held her breath for a second or two, her heart thumping uneasily hard against her ribs. "Did Agnes tell you that?" "Aye, she did," he said. "An' I believe her." She saw the roughened mop of his head turn in her direction. "He'd need to be blind an' daft not to fall in love wi' ye." " Someone said you'd an eye for a pretty girl." She at-tempted to lighten the serious turn their conversation had taken. "Aye, an' I have too," he admitted. "An' ye're more than just pretty, Cara Houston, ye 're beautiful." "I'm not," she denied as they came to the edge of the loch again and the moon played hide and seek behind the clouds. The sudden darkness caused her to trip over a rise in the ground and she fell full length, despite his hand that shot out to stop her. She felt a sharp searing down one arm as she fell and realized it was his fingernails as they scored her flesh as he tried to prevent her fall. "I'm sorry," he said, bending to help her to her feet, and gently brushing scraps of dried heather from her cheek. "I tried to catch ye. Are ye hurt?" "No," she reassured him, ignoring the stinging scratches on her arm and the soreness of her cheek where the heather had scratched her face. "It was dark so suddenly I missed my footing." "I'd best keep a hold on ye're arm," he said. "It's a wee bit rough around here." "II think I saw a light across there," she said, and felt her heart thump uneasily in her as she thought what Andrew would say if he saw her with Angus Finlay. "It looks like a torch or something. It could be Andrew." The chuckle greeted this news and he let go her arm. "Yell be wantin' me to make masel scarce then," he said, "in case it's Campbell lookin' for ye." "IIoh, it sounds so ungrateful," she protested, "after you've been so kind; but I think I could find my way now, on my own." " Ye're sure ye can?"

"Oh, yes, of course." She sounded far more confident than she felt. "I know this part of the moor, and I'll soon find whoever it is with the torch." "If ye're sure." He brushed aside her thanks. "Ma pleasure, ma'am," he chuckled. "We must do this more often." Her laugh was lighthearted as she realized how much better she felt now than when she had left the house, miserable and upset. "You're as good as a tonic," she told him, and tiptoed to kiss him lightly on his cheek. "Thank you, Angus." His deep chuckle was the last she heard of him as he went back through the dark heather toward the trees and left her not quite sure of her direction, but waiting for the torchlight to reappear. The torch, wherever it had been, seemed to have been put out for good, for it made no further appearance, and Cara began to feel helpless and rather frightened again as she walked, uncertainly across the open moor. She discovered small unevennesses under foot that made her progress even more hazardous for she frequently stumbled and almost fell. She moved as quickly as she could, but wished she was more certain of her direction, for she realized that it was not as easy as she had anticipated to find her way. The moon was not yet mature enough to shed enough light on the whole area and she could not see far enough ahead to use the familiar trees round the house as a guide. She stopped, momentary panic rising in her, as she realized that this time she really was lost, and Angus Finlay would by now be too far away to hear her call. She bit her lips in indecision, wishing desperately that someone would use that torch again, whether it was Andrew of not. The rustling sounds that had been interesting when in Angus's company now took on an ominous meaning and she could feel her own breathing, rapid and uneven. She listened for a breathless moment above the thud of her heart and thought she heard the sound of a voice, far off away to her left, and turning her head she caught the yellowwhite beam of a torch, and another as they moved like the eyes of some great animal searching among the heather. She turned her weary feet in the direction of the lights, her relief starting in tears down her cheeks as she ran, her mind fixed firmly on the belief that it must be Andrew who was out there looking for her. She used the nearest light to guide her and sobbed desperately as she saw them start to move farther away from her. There was little breath left in her body, but what there was she used to call as she ran. "Andrew! Andrew!" and she saw one of the beams turn in the direction of her call though it was still a terrible long way off. A second one swung crazily as if it could not fix her position, but leapt about searching for her. A third light appeared as she sought for breath to call again and it was much nearer than the other two. "Andrew!" She managed another cry, though it was short and breathless and she wondered it if would reach them. The third beam swung round for a moment as she drew nearer and a moment later went out. She sobbed her frustration, stumbling over the uneven ground as she tried to increase her speed. " Cara!" The white beam shone out again and a second later she was held tightly in a pair of strong arms. " James!" She raised tear-blurred eyes to the minister's anxious face before burying her face against his shoulder, sobbing like a frightened child with relief. "You're all right now," he consoled her. "You're all right." He held her for a moment longer, then looked down at her scratched and tear-stained face. "Och," he said almost

cheerfully, "ye're in a sorry state, ma girl, an' ye're man's in a sorrier one, worryin' about ye." The second light was nearing rapidly and above it Cara saw Andrew's rugged face, set dour and stern as he joined them. "Are you all right?" were his first words, though the look that accompanied them was scarcely encouraging. James put her from him gently and turned her to face Andrew. "Yes," she said, brushing a grimy hand across her face. "I'm all right, Andrew." For an interminable second he looked down at her from his vastly superior height, then as James's torch was doused, he pulled her into his arms and held her more tightly than James had done and Cara could feel the heavy pounding of his heart as he buried his face in the soft dishevelment of her hair. "Of all the stupid things to do!" he said indistinctly. "To go out on the moor after dark you've no more sense than Robbie!" A soft chuckle in the darkness surprised her, then James's voice said, "I doubt ye'd get wee Robbie onto the moor after dark!" "Aye," Andrew agreed, "he's more sense even." "I'm sorry." She leaned away from him, looking up at the deep, gray eyes, still dark in the light of the torch he held, its beam tipped upward with his arm about her shoulders. "Is the young lady all right? " It was Tam Murdoch's anxious voice as he came nearer, carrying the third torch. "Yes, Tam, she's fine." It was Andrew who answered. Cara heard the older man sigh in relief. "Thank God for that!" he said fervently. "The sooner we get back the better, " Andrew agreed. "Agnes will be worrying herself frantic by now." Cara bit her lip in self-reproach. "I'm sorry to have caused everybody so much trouble," she said. "I shouldn't have gone, b u t " "Oh, don't blame yourself entirely," Andrew interrupted her as they started to walk back to the house. "I was as much to blame as anybody and James can take some of the blame as well, for he started it." "I can that," James admitted, walking a little in front of them. "But I'd no idea you'd go out there at this time of night or I'd have been worried at the start." "Agnes came and told us,." Andrew said. "I thought you would be in your room, and she didn't like to tell us too soon in case you weren't gone long." "I was longer than I intended and I went farther than I meant to." She thought this was as near to the truth as she need go. "Then I got myself lost andI was terrified. I thought you'd never come." She bit her lip and felt her color rise as she realized the impression her words would give. "You knew I would," he corrected her quietly. "Is that why you went?" "No! Of course not!" Her indignation was genuine, but even as she spoke she wondered if the idea had not been at the back of her mind when she went out. She felt his arm tighten around her shoulders almost as if he read her thoughts and she sighed contentedly as she walked, making a mental note that the ground seemed much less uneven now. Andrew 's fingers on her arm reminded her that she would have to account for the nail scores on her arm and she wondered, ruefully, what he would say to her when he saw them. "I'd best go straight home," James turned to speak to them as they entered the cobbled yard and laughed briefly. "It's well past the time a decent minister

should be in his bed." Light from the kitchen flooded over them as Tam opened the door and stood back to let them pass. "Och, ye 're safe, then?" Agnes exclaimed as they went in, and Cara saw tears in her eyes. "But look at the state o' ye!" "A hot bath and bed is what's needed," Andrew decreed, urging Cara through into the hall. "And you'd better get some sleep, Agnes." "Aye," she smiled gratefully. "I will now, but I couldnae think o' it 'til I knew she was safely back." "I'm sorry, Agnes. Cara took her hands in her own grubby ones. "I was silly enough to get myself lost." "Aye, well." The kindly blue eyes smiled. "Ye'll no be in such a hurry to go off again, I'm thinkin'; it's a rare frightenin' thing to be lost out there alone." "It is," Cara agreed fervently, and glanced at Andrew, who waited patiently while she talked to Agnes, his gray eyes not so dark now as he almost smiled. "I'll be on my way," James told them as Agnes closed the kitchen door. "I'll mebbe see you tomorrow." "Thank you, James." Cara moved from the circle of Andrew's arm for the first time since they came in, and kissed James briefly on his cheek. "I'm so sorry about the fuss. Goodnight." "Och, it was worth it," he said, irrepressibly cheerful. "I like fine the reward I get for findin' ye." "Goodnight, James." Andrew shook his head over his friend's levity. "And thank you." Andrew closed the door after their visitor and turned back to Cara, his eyes searching her face as if he saw her for the first time. "You'd best away to your bed," he said. "You look all in." She nodded, looking down at the turf-stained grubbiness of her dress and hands and really feeling, for the first time, the soreness of the scratches on her face and arm. "I feel terrible," she said, and added softly, "but very glad to be home." "Are you?" he asked, and she raised her dark eyes, soft and shining despite her tiredness, and looked fully at him. "Of course," she said. "Goodnight, Andrew, and thank you for coming to find me." "Goodnight." He watched her walk to the front of the stairs. "Do I not get a reward for finding you, too?" he called after her, and walked over as she turned, bright-eyed, to him. His arms went tight about her as she put her lips to his cheek as she had done with James and he turned his face until his mouth found hers. "Goodnight," he said softly as he released her at last. "Sleep safe." She smiled at him, her heart beating excitedly fast as she started to climb the stairs. "I'll sleep much more safely than I thought I would," she said. It was much later than usual when she woke next morning and found Agnes standing beside her bed with a cup of tea for her. "Och, ye're awake then, are ye?" Agnes said cheerfully. "Mr. Campbell said I wasnae to wake ye, but knowin' the state the puir man was in about ye last night I thought I'd better leave ye no longer." Cara glanced at the clock beside the bed and gasped, "Good heavens, it's nearly half past eight! I'd no intention of staying so late." "There's no need to worry," Agnes assured her. "The boys have been kept quiet so as not to disturb ye. Mind ye, they were a wee bit curious, but they were quiet enough when I told them ye were sleeping." She looked down at her queryingly, and Cara, glancing up

at her, caught a half smile on the round homely face. "Ye had them all running around like mad things last night, " she told her with evident enjoyment, at variance with her tears of last night. "Och, the state puir Mr. Campbell was in when I told him! He w a s " She got no further, for after a brief tentative knock on the door, Dougal's blond head appeared, his blue eyes wide with curiosity. "Cara " he said softly, and she heard the faint inevitable echo on the landing behind him. "Cara " "Come in," she said, smiling at the unnaturally solemn faces of them, and they came in slowly, one behind the other, and stood by the bed, looking at her with such soberly tragic faces that she almost laughed. "Is this a deputation?" she asked. They were dressed and tidy, but she noticed that Robbie had a faint smear of egg in one corner of his mouth, so presumably they had been fed too, probably by Andrew. "You poorly?" Dougal asked, eyeing her with rather less sympathy now that he saw her smile. "No, I'm not poorly," she assured him. "I was just very tired, that's all. I was silly and got myself lost on the moor last night, but it was nothing to worry about really." "You got scratches," Dougal informed her, running a finger over the long dark nail scores. "Long ones, right down your arm." "Oh, they'll soon be better," Cara assured him. "I'm all right now." She glanced up at Agnes. "I'm sorry for the interruption, Agnes, I wasn 't expecting a deputation. " Agnes nodded smilingly. "Ye cannae say that no one cares about ye, anyway," she said, and turned away from the bed toward the door. "I'll have ye're breakfast ready for ye when ye come down. Unless," she added, turning, "ye'd like it up here in ye're bed?" "Oh, no!" Cara said hastily. "I'll just have a word with the boys and then I'll get up." "Did you fall over?" Dougal queried not waiting for the door to close behind the departing housekeeper. "No," Cara said. "II got scratched in the wood, it's very prickly in there in the dark, you know." "Was you frightened?" he wanted to know next, and she felt rather guilty as she nodded her head. " Yes, I was rather," she told him, smiling at his serious and inquisitive face that reminded her suddenly of Andrew in his more demanding moods. "An' did Uncle Andrew an' Uncle James come an' look for you?" he continued his inquisition. Cara sighed deeply. "Since you seem to know all about it," she said, "there's really no point in asking me, is there? I suppose Uncle Andrew told you all about it, did he?" "Mm," Dougal agreed. "But he said you was very brave an' cried a little bit." "I tried to be brave," she said, feeling the color rise in her cheeks as she heard the praise that had been heaped on her, and feeling more guilty than ever that she had not mentioned Angus Finlay. She smiled at them. "Now you and Robbie run along and I'll get dressed then I'll see you downstairs, all right? " "All right," Dougal agreed. "We'll go an' tell Uncle Andrew you wasn't poorly, on'Y tired. He said we could come," he told her, "if we wasn 't a noonce. We haven't been a noonce, have we, Cara?" "Not at all," she assured him with equal solemnity. "You've been very thoughtful and it was kind of you to come and see how I was. You weren 't a nuisance at all, Dougal."

She was far more stiff than she anticipated when she moved, but her rough passage over the moor had had far less effect than it could have had if she had not been found. She felt sure that sheer fright would have left her a nervous wreck if she had been obliged to stay out there all night. Only faint graze-like marks down one cheek showed pink against the creamy skin, but she pulled a rueful face over the dark marks of dried blood on the top of her arm where Angus Finlay's nails had scratched her. They were far too obviously fingernail scratches to be mis-taken for anything else and she hoped that they would heal before Andrew saw them, even if she was obliged to wear something to cover her arms until they did. He had evidently not noticed them last night, thank goodness. Perhaps, she thought with a faint smile at herself in the mirror, he had had other things on his mind last night. Andrew stood up as she came into the room, the boys on either side of him, and the gray eyes were anxious as he spoke. "Good morning," he said. He did not, she noticed, not with-out disappointment, make the greeting any more personal, but there was a warmth in his gaze that brought the color to her cheeks as she acknowledged his greeting. "You all better? " Dougal demanded, and Andrew half smiled, putting a hand on the blond mop of the boy 's hair. "Are you feeling all right? " he asked her. "I would have asked if Dougal had given me the time. " "I'm fine," she smiled. "But I'm rather ashamed of myself for sleeping so long, and leaving you to manage breakfast." "Don't be," he said, one hand absently ruffling Dougal's mop as he looked at her. "I wouldn't let the boys wake you, I thought the rest would do you good; you looked so tired last night." He searched her face anxiously, then looked closely at the faint marks on her cheek. "Those scratches on your face barely show, thank goodness." "She's got big ones on her arm," Dougal informed him, and Cara's heart sank as she heard him. Andrew looked at her. "Have you?" he asked. "I didn't realize you were hurtare they very bad?" "Oh, no!" she laughed, wishing Dougal would say no more, but knowing that it was a vain hope, knowing Dougal. "They're only scratches." "They're big ones," Dougal insisted, unwittingly making things worse. "All black an' funny." Andrew frowned. "Scratches can be dangerous," he said, "if they get infected. Have you put something on them?" He looked worried. She shook her head, realizing that she should have taken the precaution of covering her arms before Dougal had cast his all too observant eyes on her. "It's not worth bothering about," she said. "Dougal's exaggerating it." " Not zadderatin'," Dougal denied indignantly. "Let me see," Andrew said quietly, coming closer to her and flanked still by the two blond heads taking a deep interest in it all. "There's some pretty thorny scrub out there and the scratches could get infected if you don't treat them." He fixed her with a steady eye. "Take off your jacket and let me see those exaggerated scratches for myself." " No--" she began, but seeing the adamant set of his jaw, sighed resignedly and unfastened her cardigan, pushing it part way down her arms. "There," she said. "Just scratches, you see." She would have shrugged back into it, but he pushed it farther down

her left arm and looked closely at the dark marks, while she waited, head averted. " They look like nail marks, " he said at last slowly, "as if someone had clawed your arm with their fingernails." She did not reply, but was conscious of three pairs of eyes watching her curiously and of Andrew still retaining his hold on her arm. "Dougal, " he said quietly at last, "you and Robbie go and play outside for a while, will you? I want to talk to Cara." The words filled her with foreboding as they went to the door after only a minor protest. "Sit down," Andrew told her as the door closed behind them, but she shook her head, walking toward the window, her jacket still open and partly pushed down her arm. "I'd rather stand," she said, pulling it up and doing up the buttons to keep her hands from trembling. "Back to the wall?" he asked with unexpected levity, and followed her across the room. "What are you hiding, Cara? What don't you want me to know about last night? Those are nail scratches, aren't they? " "There's nothing sinister about a few scratches, surely, Andrew." She did not meet his curious gaze. "You're making a mountain out of a molehill. " "Am I?" He touched her arm with a finger tip. "Those are fingernail scratches, Cara. No scrub made those and they weren't there at dinner last night, or I'd have noticed them." "Would you? You didn't notice them when we came in last night," she retorted, and added, determined to retaliate, "The bruises on my other arm are finger marks, you made those on Sunday. " "I know I did," he said, undeterred. "But those marks on your left arm are new, and I didn't make those." He turned her to face him. "So who did?" "It was very dark when the moon went in and I couldn't see where I was going half the time, I kept stumbling over." She turned dark eyes pleadingly to him. "Please, Andrew, don't bully me." "I'm sorry, I didn't know I was." He looked down' at her, his eyes darkly suspicious. "You can be so stubborn. If some-one did make those marks on you last night, and I'm certain they did, and you won't tell me who it was, then I can only conclude that you're shielding whoever it was. " She stared at him, realizing where her protestations had led her. "I'm not shielding anyone," she said, so obviously untruthfully that she scarcely expected him to believe her. " Perhaps I could guess," he said, suddenly cold. His eyes raked her icily from head to toe and she shrank from the anger she saw there. "What a fool you must have thought me," he said bitterly. " Andrew, no!" She moved to him, not daring to put out a hand and touch him for fear of his reaction. "Please don't believe that." "What do you suggest I believe?" he asked, turning his cold, gaze on her. "That you accidentally met Finlay? It was him, wasn't it?" " Yes." She bit her lip, the desire to regain his trust now uppermost in her mind. "If I tell you the truth, will you promise to believe me?" "I promise nothing," he said coldly. "And if ever I see Finlay again, I'll--" "Oh!" She screwed up her fists in her exasperation at his obstinacy. "You won't listen, will you?"

She saw him stiffen at her accusation, "I'm listening," he said, and looked down at her long and hard. "Tell me." He looked, she thought, as if he had already made up his mind not to believe her. "Tell me what happened, and tell me the truth." "I will," she promised. "Only please don't blame Angus Finlay. He was very kind and helpful to me." "I'm very glad to hear it." She flushed at his sarcasm, but made no retort, simply telling him how she had met Angus and how she had gone into the wood with him and then got lost when her guide had left her at her own instigation. "I didn't think you would find out," she admitted. "And you wouldn't have if Dougal wasn't so observant." " And you would have kept quiet about it?" She nodded. "Why?" She gazed at him, her dark eyes wide. "Because I knew you would make a fuss if you knew, and you did." He fixed her with his steady gaze before indicating an - armchair. "Sit down," he said shortly, and added, "Please." She obeyed, though she wished he had not become so quiet, and he took the chair opposite her. "Do you mean to tell me," he said when she was seated, "that all Finlay did was to walk with you?" She flushed at the doubt in his eyes and his voice. "Yes," she said. "And he only left me to find my own way home because I asked him to. He realized why," she added, flicking him a defiant look from under her lashes. He puffed smoke in great clouds round his head and looked at her thoughtfully through the resultant screen. "It just could be the truth, " he decided at last. "It is the truth!" Cara said indignantly. "Why should it not be? What sort of aa person do you take me for, Andrew?" She looked at him anxiously, "You do believe me, don't you?" "You say it's true and I believe you," he said, and added, "because I know what sort of person you are." "Do you?" She raised her head, her gaze far away as she thought of all the trouble she would have gone to to prevent him finding out about that walk in the woods. "I felt very guilty when I knew there was someone out looking for me and after I got lost I was so afraid I cried for fear. I really was glad to see youand James," she added. "Of course, and James." She did not like the way he said that, but decided that she may have imagined the edge of sarcasm on his voice. "He was very upset at the way you had taken the remarks I made." He put up more smoke between them and she could barely see the rugged outline of his face behind it as she watched him. "Wasn't I supposed to be?" she asked quietly. "I rather thought you were putting me in my place as well as James." "Oh, James is used to me." He shrugged as if it was too much to expect her to ever accept his varying moods in the way that the minister did. "Well, I'm not," she said and wished her heart did not beat so hard against her ribs. "Though I suppose I shall have to become used to you if I'm to marry you." She felt his eyes on her again. "Not if, when," he said, and added, "I'm not an easy man to live with, Cara, I know that, but I'll try not to make life too difficult for you." For some inexplicable reason she wanted to cry suddenly, if A Wile for Andrew

he had nothing else in common with Moira he had the capacity to invoke forgiveness from the people he had angered. It was a trait that had got Moira out of many a scrape at school and now she saw it in him. "You won't," she said softly. "I have no complaints. I said so last night." She laughed suddenly, a short, soft laugh that made her eyes shine as she looked at him. "You're uncannily like Moira at times," she told him, and saw him blink his surprise. "Like Moira? I don't understand that. We're nothing alike at all, surely?" He leaned forward, a smile tilting his usually stern mouth. "How are we alike?" " Ohnothing." She fought shy of telling him where the resemblance lay. "It was just somethingfor a moment you reminded me of her, that's all." A brief knock on the door heralded Agnes's appearance and Cara saw Andrew frown as if he resented the intrusion. "Ye're breakfast is ready, Miss Houston, if ye'd like to have it now before it spoils." She looked from one to the other of 'them and Cara was reminded of Angus Finlay's words of last night, that his mother was of a romantic turn of mind. "I hope I wasnae out o' turn?" she said. "Comin' in, I did knock, ye ken." "It's quite all right, Agnes," Cara spoke up hastily. "I'll come and have my breakfast now, thank you." She looked across at him. "Will you join me and help me drink the vast amounts of coffee I'll guarantee Agnes has made me?" she asked him. "I'll put on another cup for ye," Agnes told him before he could reply, and he smiled. "It seems I have no option but to drink coffee, " he said, knocking out the ashes from his pipe as he rose from the chair to join her. They both turned their heads some time later when the telephone in the hall rang and they heard Agnes go out to answer it. "It's for ye'sel, Mr. Campbell," she said a few seconds later as she put her head round the door. "It's Mrs. McKenzie-Brown for ye." Cara's heart sank dismally as he got up from the table and went out to the telephone, closing the door carefully behind him. "Oh!" She stifled her anger as she heard his deep voice a moment later. "Yon woman is a menace, " Agnes said as she came in to clear the things from the table, and Cara nodded her agreement dismally. Andrew was gone a surprisingly short time and when he came back into the room Cara thought he looked a little less than pleased. "Is something wrong?" she asked, fearing the worst when she saw his frown. He did not reply at once but instead turned to Agnes who was about to disappear into the kitchen again. "Agnes, could you do something for me?" he asked, and the woman came back into the room, her blue eyes curious as she put the tray she carried down onto the table. "I will if I can, Mr. Campbell," she said. "What is it ye'd be wanting me to do for ye?" "I wondered if you would mind having the boys for a while today while Miss Houston and I go out." Cara blinked her surprise at the news and saw Agnes nod her agreement. "Of course I'll mind the boys, Mr. Campbell, " she said willingly. "They're no trouble at all, ye can leave them to me all right." "Thank you." He did not look at Cara until Agnes had gone into the kitchen again and the door had closed behind her. "May I ask where we're going?" she ventured. "You won't lose your temper?" She stared at him unbelievingly and shook her head. "Am I likely to?" she asked. "You may. Rhoda has asked us to lunch with her."

CHAPTER NINE ANDREW looked at her almost appealingly. "I presume you have no reasonable objection?" he said. She debated the wisdom of being honest, then shook her head. "I don't think so." She could not, in truth, think of a reason for objecting to the visit except her dislike of the woman and that, to Andrew, scarcely constituted a reason-- able objection she thought. He looked down at her, running a hand through the blond thickness of his hair. "I'm sorry it's such short notice, but I couldn't reasonably refuse on the spur of the moment like that." "No, of course you couldn't," she smiled her understanding. "It was rather a predicament for you, wasn't it? Caught between two stools, so to speak." She was not sure that he liked the adage, but he made no protest. "You will come?" he asked, and she nodded. "I'll come, but I would like to know why she asked us." He drew a frown with his brows. "I don't know," he admitted. "I suppose it's just one of those social things that Rhoda's so fond of." "Perhaps." The easier atmosphere between them seemed to have vanished with the telephone call and Cara wondered how often it would happen again in the future; somehow the thought did nothing to cheer her. She took great care with her dress and her make-up when she got ready for lunch, though there was little enthusiasm in her for it. The dress she chose had long sleeves that covered the unsightly marks on her arms and also gave her an air of simple loveliness and demureness that she thought would contrast favorably with her hostess's penchant for childish ills. The faint scratches on her face had been easily disguised with a little make-up, and altogether she felt she looked as ell as she had ever looked. The look in the gray eyes when she came downstairs confirmed it. "I presume you have no objection to going down in the car this time? " he asked. "None at all," she assured him. "In fact I doubt if these shoes would stand up to the walk." "They're very impractical, " he said flatly, looking at the dainty blue shoes she wore to match her dress. "But pretty?" she asked persuasively, and he smiled. "Very pretty," he agreed, and added, "In fact, you look very beautiful. " Cara laughed softly and dipped him a mock curtsy, but could not control the rapid beating of her heart. The same elderly maid answered the door to them who had admitted Cara on her last disastrous visit to the house and she showed them into the same white-painted room, but this time their hostess was waiting for them, already installed in the long chair she had used before. She made no effort to rise, excusing herself with a wry smile and a shrug of regret as she extended one small white hand. "Do please excuse me," she pleaded, her doll-like eyes for Andrew alone, "but Doctor Clane is so insistent that I do not exert myself." Andrew took the proffered hand in both his and bent over the reclining figure. "Don't worry, Rhoda, we understand. " He turned back to Cara and drew her forward, a hand

under her elbow. "You see," he told his hostess, "I've brought Cara, as you asked me to." "Miss Houston." The cool fingers brushed hers briefly and she felt again the chill malice of the pale eyes. "I'm so glad you could come. " "I hope you're better," said Cara. "No more unfortunate attacks. " "Oh"the china-doll face took on a look of appealing resignation "one learns to live with such things." White teeth bit daintily at the bottom lip. "It can't be much longer, of course, one realizes that." A light brittle laugh banished the self-pity and she fixed Andrew with a bright smile, determinedly brave. "I've had some wonderful times in the past," she said, "as you know, Andrew. " Cara saw him flush, embarrassed, at the personal note that had crept into the woman's voice and she wondered if Rhoda McKenzie-Brown had overstepped the mark at last. She reached for his hand again and laid it against one pink cheek. "Dear Andrew, I shall be eternally grateful to you for everything." She flicked a brief meaningful glance at Cara. "Oh, please do sit down," she added apologetically. "Did you enjoy your ride on Sunday?" Cara asked. She felt suddenly more sure of herself as she saw Andrew's obvious discomfort at their hostess's implications. "Andrew says you're very fond of riding." She laughed, a deep soft sound in contrast to the brittle shrillness of the other. "I'm afraid I'm a coward about horses, aren't I, Andrew?" She sensed his surprise at her unfamiliar intimacy, but he turned a smile on her that encouraged rather than deterred. "You are," he agreed. "Though I'll cure you of that yet, I promise you I will." At the teasing intimacy of his tone she saw the pink face crease into a temporary frown and the ice-cold malice turn again in her direction. "I never realized," Rhoda said sweetly, "that you couldn't ride, Miss Houston. It just doesn't occur to one; with people like Andrew and me, of course, it's second nature." "It's not a pastime that ever appealed to me at all," Cara admitted blithely. "Moira used to ride when we were at school, but I always cried off." "Mmm. No doubt riding lessons were extra-curricular," Rhoda said, her eyes wide and ingenuous. "They can be very expensive, I imagine. " "Possibly," said Cara, smiling. "But I've never thought it very feminine, personally." She flicked warm dark eyes at Andrew. "Though I love to see a man ride, really well, as Andrew does." "I'm an able teacher too," he told her, "and I assure you it wouldn't detract ane iota from your femininity." There was a challenging warmth in his eyes as he looked at her that quickened her pulse and brought color to her cheeks. "Very well," she promised rashly. "After we're married I'll let you teach me." She was surprised at herself. "I'll hold you to that," he warned, and turned a smile on their hostess. "Remember that, Rhoda, you're a witness." "After you're married." The pale eyes held an almost desperate look, Cara thought, and felt a momentary pang of pity for the silly woman as she gazed at Andrew with her wide, pale eyes. "It doesn't seem possible it's only a little over a week until youyou marry." A discreet knock preceded the maid into the room. "Excuse me, madam," she said. "Lunch is ready." She moved toward her mistress, prepared to help her from the chair,

but Andrew moved faster and lent his arm, almost lifting the fragile-looking body from the chair. "Oh," she smiled delightedly, "you're much stronger than Betty!" "So I should hope," he said dryly, and turned back to Cara, taking her arm as well, a smile in his eyes as he looked at her. The dining room was in the front of the house and blinds had been lowered to keep out the strong morning sun, so that the room was rather eerily dim when they entered. Glowing silver and stark white napery lent the table a cool, formal look in the dim light and Cara felt a momentary chill as she accustomed her eyes to the lack of light. "Shall I raise the blinds a little, Rhoda? " Andrew asked after seating his hostess at the head of the table, and she nodded, making a little moue of regret as the sun poured in like welcome warmth. "I know what an outdoor man you are," she said chidingly. "I find too much sun is not good for my eyes." She turned the pale gaze on Cara. "I suppose," she said sweetly, "you're used to a hot sun, Miss Houston, being Italian?" "Only half Italian," Cara corrected her quietly. "And I haven't been to Italy for over twelve years, Mrs. McKenzie-Brown. Not since I was a child." "Oh, I see." She obviously had no further interest in the matter, for she turned to Andrew. "I think you've tanned even more than usual this year, Andrew, you look wonderfully brown." She lowered her black lashes coyly. "It always looks so marvellous with your fair hair." He flushed under the enviable tan and his eyes sought Cara 's, smiling as if to reassure her. "Cara has wonderful coloring," he said softly and with more feeling than she had ever heard him use. She felt her color rise as his eyes searched her face. "That creamy skin is beautiful with dark eyes and black hair, don't you think so, Rhoda?" "I thought you liked fair hair," Rhoda pouted reproach-fully, an edge of testiness on the thin voice, and Cara noticed his look of relief when the maid came in to serve lunch. "Forgive me if I don't indulge too much." The small hands fluttered vaguely. "I do have to watch my diet. Oh, I do envy you being able to eat as well as you do!" "It's a pity you can't eat better than you do," Andrew told her. "Mrs. Cummins is an excellent cook." "She is indeed," Cara agreed. "This is delicious." "Thank you." She might almost have been accepting a compliment on her own behalf. "Do you cook, Miss Houston?" "Oh, yes," said Cara, "I like cooking. Do you?" Her hostess looked as if she half suspected an insult in the question. "Gracious, no!" she said. "I've never had to and I'm afraid I've never had the inclination to learn." " Perhaps you could exchange lessons," Andrew suggested, not as innocently as he sounded, Cara suspected. "Riding lessons for cookery lessons," and Cara laughed. Not so Rhoda McKenzie-Brown, who looked as if this luncheon was not going at all as she had planned. They were leaving the big stone house later that afternoon when Cara spotted James McKie just leaving kirk. "There's James," she said, waving a greeting to the minister, and Andrew stopped the car again and waited for him to approach. " Hello," he said cheerfully, ducking his head to speak to Cara on the far side of the car. "Hello, Cara, how are you? Fully recovered?" He glanced over his shoulder at the house

they had just left. "Visiting?" " Yes, to all three questions," Cara laughed. "I'm fine, James, thank you. Completely recovered as you can see." " You been calling on the sick?" James wanted to know, and Andrew nodded, a frown forming. " She asked Cara and me to have lunch with her," he said. "And I'm glad in a way that she did, though it was pretty embarrassing at times." "For you," James queried, "or Cara?" Andrew turned a smile on her, the gray eyes warm again as he looked at her. "I came off worst," he said. "Cara held her own very well, in fact I think you could say she won the day." Both his listeners stared at him in surprise, James recovering first. "Would ye like to come in for a wee while and talk?" he asked hopefully. "I'd like to hear about this momentous visit." "I don't know that it was that," Andrew objected, seemingly having second thoughts about what he had said. "It was just an ordinary lunch, James, nothing outrageous happened if that's what you're thinking." "Och, that's a pity." The minister smiled incorrigibly. "We could do with a little life round here, it's been awful dull lately." He smiled at Cara through the car window and bowed as well as his position would allow. "With the notable exception of your own arrival, of course, madam." "If you insist on talking we may as well come in," Andrew told him, "but there 's really nothing to tell you about the lunch or anything else." "Ah, but I may be able to tell you something." James looked mysterious and walked round to open the door for Cara before Andrew could do so. He took them into the tidy little room where he had put Cara and the boys when they waited for Andrew that fateful Sunday, and signed them both to seats before setting himself into an old and very battered chair. "What do you have to tell us? " Andrew asked cautiously. The dark eyes darted from one to the other of them before he made a pyramid of his fingers under his chin and spoke without preliminaries. "Rhoda McKenzie-Brown is no more a sick woman than I am." He paused, looking embarrassed. Cara gasped and glanced hastily at Andrew, to see his face set into the dark forbidding frown she hated to see. "I was not aware," he said coldly, "that you were an authority on heart complaints, James." "Neither I am," James averred, "but I can assure you that in this case I do know what I'm saying." "On what authority?" The gray eyes sought an explanation and there was a trace of doubt in the voice, Cara thought. The minister shrugged his shoulders. "You must know I can't tell you that, Andrew, but if you're prepared to take my word for it I can assure you that your worry about Rhoda 's health is entirely unnecessary." The dark eyes watched shrewdly as Andrew struggled with the doubt that filled him. "I think I've known you long enough to know when you are telling the truth," he said at last, and clasped his hands together between his knees, the frown deepening. "I was the

only one not to realize that Rhoda wasthat Rhoda thought I would marry her, so perhaps again I've been taken in, or should I say failed to be perceptive enough." The gray eyes turned to Cara and he half smiled. "You'll not be surprised by this?" he said. She shook her head, wishing he need not have heard it quite like this, wishing she could leave the comfort of the chair and go to him, but she knew that his precious pride would have been badly hurt by what he had just learned and he would not want her sympathy. James, having done his best to rid Cara of the worry of having Rhoda on her conscience when she married Andrew, now sought to lighten the sombre atmosphere he had created. "When does Moira arrive?" he asked. "It's not long now, is it?" "Very soon now," Cara answered, her eyes on Andrew. "Then you two will have to mind your p's and q's, won't you?" Andrew was quiet all the way back to Dowell and Cara felt helpless to do anything about it. When he was so unapproachable she felt hopeless as if she would never be able to under-stand him. He stopped the car under the trees in the driveway as he had done before and half turned in his seat to look at her. "If," he said slowly, "you would like a long dress and flowers as prescribed by Dougal for a proper wedding, it's not impossible in the time." Cara shook her head, looking through the windscreen at the trees around them. "I think I agree with James," she said softly. "It isn't very important what you wear at a wedding, but how you feel." "James does sometimes talk sense," he said. "And so, for that matter, does Dougal, though I doubt he realizes it." "Oh, I think he does," said Cara as he restarted the car. "Dougal always knows he talks sense, and he's convinced that we don't share his intelligence and insight. And that," she added, glancing at him from under her lashes, "is probably quite true." CHAPTER TEN ANDREW made no more mention of Rhoda McKenzie-Brown and Cara certainly had no desire to bring up the matter again; she was only too pleased that there would be very little more worry in that direction. The china-doll blonde had become a thing of the past she fervently hoped, part of the unsettled past to be forgotten, like Angus Finlay, though she doubted Angus's ghost would be as easy to lay as Rhoda's had been. As the wedding day grew nearer and Cara's own excitement grew mingled with a hundred and one doubts, the boys grew progressively interested and already the promise of a wedding cake had filled them with joyous anticipation. "Will you chop it up with a sword?" Dougal inquired, and Cara shook a mystified head, laughing. "No," she said. "It's only when a soldier gets married that the cake is cut with a sword." "Agnes said her sister's boy cut his with a sword," Dougal said obviously disappointed. "We shall have a big knife to cut it with, I expect," she consoled him. "Agnes will find us one when the time comes." "There's three cakes," Dougal told her with satisfaction, "an' Agnes said she's goin' to stick them all together in a pile. She said Robbie could have a bit," he added. "Can we, Cara? Can we have a big bit?" "I expect so." She finished brushing Robbie's hair and saw him into bed. "Big bit," he said gleefully, his round cheeks rosy with washing. "Cake."

"Auntie Moira will be here tomorrow," she told them. "And I expect she will want a bit, too, don't you?" She looked forward with delight to Moira's impending visit and felt that she would no longer be quite so disapproving now that she and Andrew were on better terms. She smiled as she recalled James's rueful face when she had reminded himof how near Moira's arrival was. He made a long face. "She'll no be much less mad about it," he told her. "Nothing short of a full-blooded romance will satisfy Moira, I know. Could ye not," he added hopefully, "manage to fall in love in the time before she comes?" "In less than twenty-four hours?" Cara laughed despite her misgivings. "It takes a long time to change Andrew Campbell's mind, James, as you should know." "Och, I'm no so sure," he said, eyeing her shrewdly. "He's more than half way there alreadyhe just needs a wee bit push maybe. Could ye not manage that?" "James!" she protested. "You're a disgrace to your cloth! Where I ever got my ideas from about ministers of the kirk, I'll never know!" "Oh," he assured her with a twinkle, "we're men, same as any other." "Not quite, surely," she smiled. "There is some difference." "Mebbe," he conceded. "But I still wish ye could do something about you and Andrew before she gets here tomorrow." Moira arrived early and, as was to be expected-with Moira, in a flurry of bustle and confusion. Her normally fair skin was browned to a delicious golden tan by the Italian sun and the bright red hair gleamed as brightly as ever. She hurled herself uninhibitedly into Andrew's arms, then held off and frowned up at him, her blue eyes curious. "I forgot," she told him solemnly, "I'm not friends with you, am I?" "I hope so." Andrew kissed her warmly. "Welcome home, Moira." "Very well," Moira conceded, her eyes dancing, "I'll forgive you pro tem, but I shall have it out with you later, don't you worry!" "I have been worrying." He pulled a rueful face. "I can't think why I should." He grinned innocently at her. "Cara!" Moira saw her friend for the first time hidden by the tall figure of her brother. "You look gorgeous, my dear, and soradiant." She tilted her head on one side and eyed Cara's flushed cheeks quizzically. "You don't look like a girl that needs to marry for convenience." She ignored Cara's protests and turned to her brother again. "Don't you think she's beautiful?" she demanded, looking him in the eye. Feeling Andrew's eyes on her, Cara had never felt so uneasy in her life. "She is," he agreed quietly. "I've already told her so." Before Moira could reply her quiet, good-looking husband came up behind her and put a hand on her arm. "Moira, quiet down," he said, a smile of indulgence on his tanned face. "Whoever said the Scots were a dour race never met you, my love." "This, in case you've forgotten," Moira announced, sticking out her tongue at her husband impudently, "is my better half, at least he says he is." Everything was noise and chatter for a while as greetings were exchanged and news imparted and it was quite a bit later when the two girls sat on the bed in the big room that Moira was to share with her husband. "I want to hear all about it," she said firmly to Cara. "All about this idiotic idea of marrying Andrew, everything." "It's not idiotic!" Cara protested. "Don't you want me for a sister-in-law?" "Of course I do, you goose!" Moira retorted as she curled herself up on the end of the bed. "I went to a lot of trouble to get you started in that direction, but I had hopes of you

falling for each other, not forming a business partnership! Whose idea was it?" "Why, Andrew's, of course!" Cara blinked her surprise. "Good heavens, Moira, you don't imagine I proposed to him, do you? It hadn't even entered my head." "Do you like my big brother?" Moira tilted her red head to one side as she surveyed her and Cara felt herself flush under the scrutiny. "Yes, yes, of course I do." Long black lashes hid her dark eyes and her fingers plucked at the brief skirt of her dress. "Ah-hah!" Moira leaned across and put a finger beneath Cara's chin, lifting her face to look at her. "Tell me all, child," she said with mock severity. "Tell me all about it, mia cara." "Moira, there's absolutely nothing to tell," she protested. "And if you're trying to show off your Italian, that phrase is not suitable woman to woman. " "Then I'll teach it to Andrew!" Moira retorted, and added, "It is a delicious language. So lyrical-and the men! Did I tell you that Peter was quite jealous at times? " "Yes, you did, " Cara smiled, thankful for the moment to have the interest shifted from herself and Andrew. "And knowing you, he probably had reason to be. " "Oh, never, my dear," Moira protested, then giggled. "But it was nice to know that he could be. Maybe," she added thoughtfully, "that 's what Andrew needs. " "Oh, no, he doesn't!" Cara shook her head, her dark eyes wary. "Don 't start anything like that where Andrew is concerned, please, Moira: we've been through that before and I don't think I could take any more of it." The blue eyes widened and surveyed her, curiously and not a little surprised. "Do you mean to say that you and Andrew have been quarrelling? " she asked, and Cara's heart sank as she remembered Moira was as adept as her brother at getting the information she wanted. "Or shouldn't I ask?" she added "You shouldn't," Cara retorted, "but you will, so I may as well tell you." She got up from her chair and walked to the window, standing with her back to the room. "It was quite often about Angus Finlay," she said, and heard Moira laugh in disbelief. "What! Wee Angus? You can 't be serious, Cara, and neither can Andrew. Although," she amended after thought, "he has a bit of a way with him." She left her perch on the bed and joined Cara by the window. "What on earth put the idea into his head? " "Rhoda McKenzie-Brown, but, " she added hastily as Moira would have spoken, "it's all over now and I for one a very glad it is." "I'm very glad to hear it," Moira told her. "I remember her, I think. Isn't she a dollylooking blonde with baby curls wouldn't have thought she was Andrew 's type at all." "She wasn't," Cara said shortly and not without relish though she felt guilty about it, "but it took James to make Andrew see it. " "I think," said Moira slowly, "you'd better tell me everything." Cara found that telling Moira all about what had happened since she came to Dowell, all the arguments, the accusations and the final outcome thanks to James McKie made her feel a sense of relief. Moira shook her head when she finished. "I wish I'd been here to deal with that woman," she said, "but thank heaven James had enough sense to find out about her and tell Andrew. I suppose all the heart attack business was to convince him that she needed looking after by a big strong man?" she said. "I presume he got the information from Doctor Smail." "I don't know," Cara admitted. "James couldn't very well tell us. Would it be, do you

think?" Moira shrugged and smiled knowingly. "Almost sure to be," she said. "Jamie and he are as thick as thieves and near as conniving." "Oh, no," Cara protested, and added, "I felt quite sorry for her in a way. She really did want to marry Andrew and I can appreciate how much she must have hated me." "James to the rescue, eh?" Moira smiled, a curious look in her eye. "He would, wouldn't he?" "He's been wonderful," said Cara, her eyes shining reflectively. "I don't know what I'd have done without him, sometimes." Moira nodded. "Good old James," she said quietly, watch-mg Cara's face closely as she put a hand on her shoulder. "Poor old thing, you've had quite a time of it, haven't you?" "Oh, it's not as bad as it sounds." Cara raised dark eyes to meet her friend's gaze and flushed as she saw the curiosity ere. "It isn't quite the wedding I had always planned, with in white and you as my attendant. I didn't think, when I agrred to marry Andrew, how different it would be, but I wouldn't go back on my word now." Moira lifted her chin with a finger. "You haven't fallen for James, have you?" she asked quietly. "You mentioned him e a lot in your letters and he's very attractive, I know, and obviously get on well." She watched Cara's face closely, a ed frown between her fair brows that reminded Cara of Andrew. "You haven't, have you, Cara?" "Oh, of course not! You're as bad as Andrew. Just because James and I get along well together it doesn't make it a romance, although Andrew tried to make out it was. I like James very much, he's very sweet and a good friend, but I'm not in love with him." "You mean Andrew was jealous of James as well as Anugus?" Moira stared at her unbelievingly. "Oh, I don't think he was jealous," Cara said hastily. "I think it was just that he didn't like the idea ofwell, he said I was ideal as a wife because I was good with the boys and I don't think he wanted there to be any hitch in the wedding plans; that's why he made so much fuss." "For a man who is marrying for convenience," Moira said shortly, "he's certainly reacting in a very conventional way. It's time I took him in hand." "Moira, no!" She hated to think of him being subjected to Moira's red-headed pressure after his so recent disillusionment over Rhoda. "Don't do anything to hurt him, please." "Ah!" Moira nodded wisely. She turned suddenly to the pile of boxes and cases that littered the floor. "This one." She lifted a big cardboard box onto the bed and turned dancing blue eyes on Cara. "This is yoursopen it," she ordered. "But w h a t ? " Cara felt a skip of excitement as she smiled uncertainly. "I brought you a surprise present from Italy," Moira said. "Open it, you goose, it won't bite you." Cara bent trembling fingers to the task of removing the fastenings and paper from the box and lifted the lid revealing layers of white tissue. She lifted curious eyes to her friend, a faint glint of hope in her gaze, then turned back the paper slowly. "Oh, Moira!" Tears trembled on her eyes as she looked at the heavy white silk and exquisite embroidery. "It's beautiful!" The silk sighed from its wrappings as she lifted it out of the box, almost afraid to touch it. "Of course it is," Moira said briskly. "That's why I brought it for you, only I had to make sure that you were going to marry Andrew first and not change your mind in favor of

James." "What would you have done if I had?" Cara asked curiously, her smile still tipped with tears of happiness. "Burnt it," Moira told her darkly. "In protest." "Oh, no!" Cara held it up to gaze at it rapturously. "You couldn't." "A long white dress you wanted and a long white dress you shall have," Moira said. "I've even bought myself a lovely blue one to follow you down the aisle in. I presume," she added a little anxiously, "that you are still the same size as you were?" "Yes, I am." Cara gazed at the dress misty-eyed as she replaced it in the box. "It's wonderful. I don't know how I'll ever thank you enough, Moira." "Just make Andrew happy, that's all the thanks I need," Moira said softly. "If anyone can, you can." "I'll try." Cara touched gentle fingers over the cloud softness of the veil under another layer of tissue. "It's going to be so much moreso different to what I expected." CHAPTER ELEVEN WHEN Dougal heard about the wedding dress he was unexpectedly delighted. "Now it will be a proper weddin'," he told Cara as, assisted by Moira, she put the boys to bed. "You won't chop their heads off now, will you, Auntie Moira?" Moira blinked her surprise and looked to Cara for enlightenment. "It's a long story," Cara told her. "I'll tell you later." "I hope so," said Moira as she tucked Robbie in. "But not yet, I want to talk to your tardy bridegroom before we have dinner." "What's tardy bigoom?" Dougal inquired inevitably, and Cara bundled him into bed hastily. Moira laughed. "It's what your uncle Andrew won't be when I've talked to him, " she promised. "Now sleep tight, infants, and no chattering." "The voice of authority," Cara teased her as she closed the door of the nursery and saw Moira's mouth tip into a smile. "I'm practising," she said, glancing at Cara out of the corners of her eyes. "I wasn't going to say anything until after the wedding, but I can't keep it to myself any longer." "Moira!" Cara gazed at her delightedly. "When?" "Oh, not for ages yet," Moira told her blithely. "But I thought I'd tell you and Andrew. Peter's absolutely delighted about it." "Andrew will be too," Cara said. "He likes being uncle." "He'd better like being a father," Moira retorted, "since he's taking on a ready-made family." She cast an eye at th closed door of the big room as they came down the stairs, smiled. The voices of Andrew and Peter came faintly to the as they crossed the hall. "Could you lure my handsome husband away for a few minutes," she asked, "and keep him occupied somewhere while I corner Andrew?" " Moira, please." Cara looked at her friend pleadingly, remembering her blithe disregard for tact. There was never any guarantee of how far Moira would go to achieve her own ends and she knew Andrew well enough to fear the outcome of a heart to heart between the two of them.

"Don't worry," Moira waved a careless hand as she put a hand on the door handle, " I just want a sisterly chat with him. After all, I haven't seen him for ages, have I?" "No," Cara admitted, still haunted by misgivings. "All right, I'll keep your Peter busy while you talk to Andrew, only please don't say anything" "Anything what?" Moira turned wide blue eyes to her as innocent as Robbie's. "Don't worry, dear child, I shall only talk to him, I'm not going to hurt him." She smiled at Cara's solemn face. "Cheer up, Cara, then after dinner I'd like you to try that dress on. I shan't be happy until I'm sure it fits." "I'm happy just having it," Cara smiled. "But I'm glad of an excuse to try it on." She stood before the mirror in Moira's room some time later, gazing at her reflection, bemused by the sheer artistry of the long silk dress that fitted her unbelievably well. The full, soft folds of the material swept about her, heavy with embroidery, the only relief from the simplicity of its cut and style. "You look wonderful," Moira told her, watching from her perch on the end of the bed, "and the fit is perfect. Mind you," she added, "if you'd eaten as much dinner as the rest of us you'd never have got into it." "I couldn't eat." She shook back her black hair, the throbbing excitement in her still as she looked at her reflection. "I was much too excited about the dress." "It will sweep him off his feet," Moira promised. "He won't be able to resist you in that." Cara darted a wary look at the bland face watching her ugh the mirror. "What did you say to Andrew?" she asked, knowing full well she would get no more than an ive answer. Nothing much," Moira said cheerfully. "He was in a talking mood himself, so I let him talk and just let drop the odd word in the appropriate place." She smiled at Cara. "I see." Cara sounded as uncertain as she felt, smoothing the soft silk with an idle hand, deciding that the subject was perhaps better left. "I feel as if I could float in this," she said, smiling. "It's like a cloud of silk." "Oh, very poetic," said Moira, and left her perch to go to the door. "Just a moment, I've thought of something else. I won't be a minute, just stay there and admire yourself. You won't have time on your wedding day, you'll be too busy." She closed the door quietly behind her and Cara heard her footsteps swish along the landing to the stairs. She turned back to the mirror and tilted her head admiringly at the reflection she saw. The richness of the dress above which the soft creaminess of her throat and neck rose to meet the deep black of her hair. Her eyes shone darkly in the light over her head as she swung the heavy skirt experimentally about her. "Cara." She had not heard the door open but Andrew stood in the room watching her and she saw her color rise as their reflections appeared together in the mirror. His gray eyes were darker than she had ever seen them and their expression was one that was new to her but which sent her heart beating dizzily against her ribs. "Moira said there was something I should see," he told her. "She didn't say what, of course." She kept her eyes lowered as he looked at her and looked down at her dress. "Isn't it beautiful?" she said softly. "Moira brought it back from Italy for me." "You.look like a Renaissance painting." He moved across the room, closing the door quietly. "Warm and beautiful and very Italian." "I feel a little like Cinderella," she said, "with all my dreams coming true like this." She raised her eyes at last and looked at him. "Do you mind? My looking Italian, I mean."

"Why on earth should I?" The question obviously surprised him. "I've nothing against Italians, I'm only grateful that Italy can produce such a lovely girl for me." She wished he would not watch her with such intensity. "Andrew, I want you to know that I didn'tI knew nothing about what Moira had in mind when she suggested I come here and work for you." "I know," he said quietly. "But Moira has an uncanny knack of getting her own way, somehow or other, hasn't she?" He smiled at her. "She wanted me to see you in that dress and she got her way, you see." "It's supposed to be bad luck for thebridegroom to see the wedding dress before the day." She still spoke to his reflection rather than turn and face him and her heart still throbbed relentlessly as she looked at him in the mirror. "I don't think anything can spoil our luck now, do you?" She saw him move closer to her and felt the warm strength of his hands on her arms as he turned her round to face him. "I owe you so many apologies," he said. "I've been stubborn and unfeeling, I " "No!" She placed a finger over his lips, realizing yet again how overwhelmingly big he seemed at close quarters. "Don't apologize, you have nothing to be sorry for." "It was James." He looked down at her, his eyes still a little questioning. "I thought you loved him and that I should let you go if you did, but I couldn't bear the thought of losing you, so I behaved badly." "You didn't." She smiled at him, a twinkle of mischief in her dark eyes. "Moira says you were reacting convention-ally." "I was jealous," he admitted ruefully. "I loved you and I hated the thought of you caring for James more than you did for me." "I like James," she said softly, "but I'm not in love with him." "And do you like me?" The gray eyes warmed her as they searched her face and she nodded, a glint of mischief in her eyes again as she flicked him a glance from under her lashes. "Dougal has an infallible way of proving it," she told him, and felt his arms go round her tightly as he pulled her close to him. "Dougal is very bright," he whispered against her soft cheek before he sought her mouth and put an end to further conversation.