Page 16

‘I know, right?’

‘When did all this happen?’ Bex asked. The Duncan she’d met this morning, and again in the study and outside the café, hadn’t shown any signs of the heartbreak she would have expected. Then again, she’d had her own heart broken enough times in the past year that no one could tell any more – no one except Claire and Daisy, of course.

‘It was about three months ago now,’ Lorna told her as she shot another glare in Katty’s direction. ‘He’s always spent most of his time up at the castle as Fergus has always liked having him there, but after it happened, he basically never left. For the first month I had to bring food parcels to the lodge because I was terrified he’d just stop eating.’

‘That’s terrible,’ Bex said, surprised by the level of sympathy she felt for a man she barely knew. While she remained slipped away in her thoughts, Lorna ordered a bottle of wine for the table. Though this was only their second conversation, Bex could feel her fondness for Lorna growing. She could already tell Lorna would be one of those no-bull-type friends that would say things like it was, even if that wasn’t what you wanted to hear. No doubt she had told Duncan countless times that he’d be better off without Katty. Probably when she was delivering the food parcels.

Another unexpected twinge of homesickness struck her. She had a big brother too, and while they were close enough, they weren’t that close. They’d ring each other every few months, and he’d stayed at her flat with his girlfriend when they went to a show in London, mostly to save on a hotel. She couldn’t imagine bringing him care packages after a breakup. She couldn’t even imagine telling him about one of her breakups.

‘I should apologise to you,’ Lorna said, suddenly breaking Bex’s stream of thoughts.

‘You should?’ Bex asked, surprised.

‘Why?’

‘For how I reacted this morning.’ The barman held out a card machine and Bex reached for her pocket, but Lorna shook her head and immediately tapped hers and paid for the bill before she carried on. ‘This morning, seeing him outside with you was one of the first times I’ve seen him look like himself since it all happened. That’s probably why I was a bit harsh, warning you off him and everything. It’s just I still have the image of him seared in my mind, you know. After she broke his heart. He was just so down, all the time. No spark at all. None of his trademark grins. He just didn’t seem to care about life. It felt like I lost my brother. I’m not sure I could cope with that again.’

‘I get it,’ Bex said. ‘And don’t worry, there was nothing going on between me and Duncan at all. We were just talking. The last thing I want to do is add complications to my job. Besides, I doubt I’ll have time to even come out that often, with the amount of work there is for me at the castle.’

‘You didn’t say what it is you’re doing exactly,’ Lorna said, picking up the bottle of wine and two glasses from the bar, leaving Bex to get the others. ‘You can tell us while we get through this. And we can both try to pretend that Eilidh and Niall aren’t totally into each other.’

19

Any reservations Bex had about telling Lorna and the others what her role at the castle was had faded; it was clear that everyone in the village knew everyone else’s business anyway. She’d rather they heard it from her than have them think she was being all coy and secretive.

‘Apparently his wife, Winny, used to do most of the accounts, but I’m guessing she’s not around any more?’

‘Winny?’ Eilidh raised her eyebrows. ‘She hasn’t been around for almost twenty-five years.’

‘What?’ Bex nearly spat out the wine she was drinking. The person who had been in charge of the accounts that she now had to sort out had died nearly twenty-five years ago? Who had been doing it since then? Certainly not Fergus. No wonder she had so much of a mess to clear up. It was a miracle he hadn’t gone bankrupt. Then again, it was just him in that place and from what she had seen, he didn’t have much in the way of expensive taste. Unless you considered dog food, because she doubted the raw meat and tins she had seen in the kitchen came cheap.

‘Yup. She passed away when I was in primary school. I remember it,’ Eilidh continued. ‘We all went to the funeral.’

‘I remember,’ Niall said. ‘We stood next to each other, and you had to share my coat because you insisted you weren’t cold.’

‘I don’t remember that,’ Eilidh replied, smiling.

‘Oh, I do,’ he said, grinning back.

As the old friends continued their trip down memory lane, Bex thought about the implications of what they were telling her. At a guess, she would say that Fergus was around eighty. Meaning he would have been around fifty-five when his wife had died. Fifty-five wasn’t that old. Not by today’s standards, in any way.

‘Has Fergus been on his own this whole time?’ she asked. ‘Over twenty years?’

‘Yup,’ Lorna said, taking a sip of her drink. ‘I mean, Duncan is the one who knows all the dates. He grew up at the lodge and everything, before our parents married. He would remember Winny’s passing better than anyone else. I think he and his dad went in the car with Fergus to the funeral.’

So Bex had been right in thinking that the two of them were very close, but it was the questions about Fergus that were continuing to occupy her thoughts.

‘There must have been other women in Fergus’s life since then though?’ she asked, still not able to drop the subject. ‘Has he not had other girlfriends? Did he not think about marrying again?’

‘Trust me,’ Lorna said, ‘he would have no problem. Anyone over the age of fifty still believes he’s the most dashing man around, if you can believe that. All because he was super-hot when he was our age, apparently.’

Bex could hardly picture it, but she kept that thought to herself.

‘I guess he must have really loved Winny,’ she said, trying to imagine what it would be like to choose a lifetime of loneliness than let anyone else into your heart. Would Duncan feel that way, she wondered? If he’d thought Katty was the love of his life – which he obviously had, given that he’d proposed – would he give up on finding anyone else now? No, that didn’t seem right – not when he was still so young.

Her eyes involuntarily drifted to Katty, who was still sipping her wine. It hadn’t been the first time Bex had found herself inadvertently seeking out the ex-fiancée. For a while, Katty had taken a seat near Moira, but she was now back on her own. From what Bex had seen, not one person had walked over to her and attempted to make conversation, and she couldn’t help but think it said a lot about Duncan that the others were giving Katty such a wide berth.

‘Oh shit,’ Niall said. Bex swivelled around, wondering what had caused his reaction, only to notice the way Lorna’s cheeks had paled too.