Highland Mist Read online

  “Very well,” he said. “If that’s the way you’d rather have it, I won’t say anything further on the subject of payment. But I’d be grateful if you’d drive us to Inverechy tomorrow. And perhaps you know of an hotel that would be likely to take us.”

  “The Inverechy Arms is quite comfortable,” MacLeod replied. He was still staring out of the window—apparently at nothingness, for his eyes had a strange unseeing look in them, in spite of their vivid blueness and brightness between his stubborn black eyelashes—but he turned suddenly, and looked with a kind of open disdain at Charles. “But take my advice and don’t keep Miss Drew in Inverechy for long. The weather may still have a few nasty surprises up its sleeve, and you’ve seen what it can do at its worst. Forget Inverada House until the spring or summer, and in the meantime take her home.”

  “What! And turn this into an entirely fruitless journey?” Charles enquired arrogantly.

  “You can take my word that it’s not as fruitless as it may seem to you now.”

  Charles said nothing further on the subject of returning to London without seeing Inverada, but later that evening, when Euan was concocting some supper for them in the lean-to, he went across to Toni and ran a lean finger down the side of her cheek, which was very wan in the fireglow. He knew that she should be in bed, really, but she had insisted on sitting up because it was uncomfortable for the two men to have to sit on hard chairs all the time, and at least the couch could be shared when she wasn’t occupying it. And she felt less of a responsibility to them huddled in her dressing-gown and trying to pretend that she was feeling almost completely fit again.

  She was feeling better, but she also felt absurdly weak and in need of a certain amount of pure unadulterated creature comfort. The cottage was the barest thing she had ever known in her life, and she failed to understand why Euan MacLeod was living in it in preference to carrying on his life as a doctor in some civilised community where he might be badly needed.

  He had looked after her most attentively for forty-eight hours, and she would never forget it. She would never forget the comfort of his hands, the gentleness of his voice—particularly when it normally had a harsh edge like a rasp—and she knew from her own experience that he was a good doctor.

  What, therefore, was he doing in such a benighted spot as Inverada? Such a lonely spot?

  “I think we’ll go straight home to London as soon as you’ve had a chance to have a good night’s rest, a good hot bath and one or two decent meals at the hotel in Inverechy,” Charles said, rather thoughtfully, as he went on testing the softness and the smoothness of Toni’s cheek. “I feel horribly responsible for you, infant, and I want to get you home.”

  She looked up at him rather wistfully.

  “And our adventure is to end like that? Just going home!”

  “It hasn’t been a very pleasant adventure, has it? For you!”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” She withdrew a little from his hand and stared into the fire. “But I feel it wouldn’t be fair to you to keep you up here any longer, and if the weather isn’t likely to improve for some time there’s not much point in courting further trouble by going on to Inverada. If there’s no one there we couldn’t stay—not even for a night—and according to Dr. MacLeod it’s hardly the place to visit at this time of the year.”

  She almost felt the relief that surged up in him.

  “And you won’t feel terribly disappointed if we go back without seeing the house?”

  She shook her head without looking at him. She didn’t know whether she would be disappointed or not, but she was extraordinarily loath to return to London and the usual daily round there. This had been an adventure, something she would remember always.

  But naturally Charles didn’t feel the same way. Charles was used to comfort—luxury ... it had been grim for him!

  Later still that evening, when Charles had gone outside to look at the stars—extraordinarily bright, these northern stars, as he reported when he came in later—Euan came in from the lean-to with some steaming mugs of coffee on a tray in his hands.

  He set them down rather grimly on the deal table.

  “At least you won’t have to drink out of cups like these when you get to Inverechy,” he observed.

  She looked up at him. There was something sardonic about his well-cut features, something definitely cynical, although his voice was without expression.

  “Dr. MacLeod—” she said, and found herself putting out a hand as if to touch him.

  He stood very still and looked down at her, particularly at the small and very white hand, with untinted but delicately buffered nails, that had extended itself in his direction, and then withdrawn.

  “Well?”

  “You mustn’t take any notice of Charles,” she said quickly, and more than a little awkwardly. “He’s a very nice and kind man, and he doesn’t mean to be rude.”

  “An important friend of yours?” he asked, with a sort of emphasis on the “important”.

  “I seem to have known him all my life. He’s a friend of my mother’s, really.”

  “Oh, yes?” he said, and she thought his blue eyes glimmered with rather harsh amusement as he gazed at her.

  She felt herself flushing.

  “If you think—”

  “I don’t think anything,” he told her, lightly, brightly. “Except that you’re very attractive, and he seems to have quite a lot of things—looks, money, an assured position. He may be a friend of your mother, but I think you’ll marry him one day, and then you can come up here for your honeymoon and discuss the dreadful time you had when you stayed in this cottage before. Of course, I’m not suggesting that you spend your honeymoon here ... Inverada House would be much more comfortable, if you spend a pile of money on it, but the Inverechy Arms is quite good in the summer. Make it a summer wedding,” as if the thought of it afforded him cynical amusement.

  She felt suddenly quite the reverse of amused.

  “I am not in the least likely to marry Mr. Henderson,” she told him quietly.

  “No?” His glance at her was like the penetrating glance of a vivid blue searchlight. “Well, they say that lookers-on see most of the game, and I think you will.”

  “Dr. MacLeod,” she said, in an even quieter voice, “I’d like you to believe that I’m awfully grateful for everything you’ve done for Charles and myself. My mother will be grateful, too, when she hears.”

  “What kind of a woman is your mother?” he asked, as if he was genuinely curious.

  “She’s very beautiful and very successful,” she told him.

  “I had an idea she might be,” he said. “Beautiful, anyway.”

  “Perhaps you’ll see her one day... if you come to London.”

  “I don’t like London, so I shan’t be visiting it,” he answered curtly.

  “Then when she comes up here to have a look at her house...”

  “I hope I won’t be here then,” he answered, without any actual rudeness, but somehow it sounded rude. Deliberately rude.

  She looked down at her hands in her lap.

  “Then at least I hope you’ll believe I’m grateful, and accept my thanks.”

  “Oh, I do,” he answered casually. He indicated her mug of coffee. “Drink this. It will enable you to face the thought of another night on that hard couch.”

  “Dr. MacLeod,” she burst out, because she had to, “why do you stay here? Why?”

  He shook his head at her, and in the fireglow his thick dark curls had some coppery gleams in them like her own.

  “It’s nothing to do with you,” he answered, a little curtly. “Now drink up your coffee!”

  “Will we ever meet again?”

  “Entirely unlikely,” he answered crisply.

  She sighed, although she didn’t quite know why she sighed.

  “Ships that pass in the night?”

  “Yes, ships that pass in the night. Or, if you prefer it, wayfarers whose roads will never touch again!”

&nb
sp; CHAPTER SEVEN

  Yet a fortnight later they did touch again.

  Toni returned to London, with Charles escorting her as far as her mother’s flat. In fact, he accompanied her right inside and explained to Celia the reason why they had still not seen Inverada House.

  But the famous head of Marceline Drew Beauty Products didn’t seem to be able to understand why they had travelled so far, and been almost within shouting distance of the house her Uncle Angus had left to her, and not felt that they must inspect the place before returning. Toni’s wan cheeks, and the fact that she had a nasty cough which would require treatment before it was better, didn’t touch her maternal instincts as quickly or as naturally as one might have supposed. As Charles—who had never really thought very much about the relationship between Toni and her mother before this—certainly supposed.

  “My good girl,” he said, with a certain amount of astonishment, when she pressed to know why they hadn’t gone on. “The conditions were impossible, and Toni was ill. She was very ill indeed for one whole night which I shall never forget, and there wasn’t even a proper bed for her to sleep on. The conditions were primitive, and the whole episode was fantastic.”

  “But when you got to the hotel in Inverechy you were quite comfortable, weren’t you? Couldn’t you have stayed there for a bit?”

  “For how long?” Charles enquired, his eyebrows ascending. “Until the spring—which I believe is a little late in these parts—set in? Or until we had a detailed road report concerning the roads around Inverada, your henchwoman and her husband had returned to take up residence, and everyone was talking because Toni and I seemed to have no particular reason for taking up our residence in the local hotel?”

  “Don’t be silly,” Celia returned, as if surprised. “As if anyone would talk about you and Toni! Why, you’re old enough to be her father ... or almost!”

  “Thank you!” Charles exclaimed coldly. “I don’t feel in the least like Toni’s father, and as I’m only just thirty-seven and she tells me she’s nearly twenty I can’t honestly see why I should be suspected of being her parent. Any more than you could be suspected of being my mother!”

  Celia looked amused.

  “I’m sorry, darling, but I didn’t mean you to look old. And to me Toni’s just a child...”

  “She’s a grown-up young woman, and you’d better start thinking of her as such,” Charles returned, still coldly. “And you’d better get your doctor along to give her a check-up after the attack she had up north. That fellow MacLeod didn’t strike me as being a fool, and he was quite worried about her for a few hours—it seems she’s a tendency to be chesty.”

  “Oh, indeed?” Celia said, her own voice suddenly rather chilly. “Then that’s the first I’ve heard of it, and I’m her mother. But then you can hardly expect anyone—even an exceptionally strong young woman—to survive rolling about in the snow in the middle of a blizzard without something to show for it, if that isn’t too flippant a way of putting it!”

  “No, I know.” Charles sounded very penitent all at once. He smiled at Toni as he had formed a habit of smiling at her lately, with something very kindly and soft in his eyes, and rather a whimsical quirk to one side of his mouth. “It was my fault, and I’m fully aware of it, for not keeping a tighter hold of her, and letting that torch drop out of my hand. However, Toni’s forgiven me, and I’ve promised not to do it again, and I still think you ought to let her see a doctor.”

  Toni stifled a fit of coughing, and insisted that there was nothing wrong with her, but her mother agreed that they would call in Dr. Beresford to do something about the cough before it got any worse. Then, with sudden curiosity, she demanded:

  “Tell me some more about this Dr. ... MacLeod, did you say his name was? What was he doing pigging it in such a tiny cottage, and why hasn’t he got a practice like most other doctors? The name MacLeod seems to ring a bell, somehow. What is his other name? His Christian name, do you know?” Charles confessed that he did not know, but Toni said quietly:

  “Euan. Euan MacLeod.”

  “Good heavens!” her mother exclaimed. “It was a Euan MacLeod who was mentioned in Uncle Angus’s will ... in fact,” with a hint of petulance and the first sign of criticism of Uncle Angus, “he left him all his money, or any money he had to leave. I don’t know how much it was, but we can find out. Uncle Angus was terribly rich at one time, but he seems to have lived like a miser for years. I’ll ring my solicitor some time today and find out just how much he did leave.”

  “If Euan MacLeod is anything to go by it was precious little,” Charles remarked. “And that ties up with the tales we heard about the house ... Inverada House. It’s in a very bad state of repair, and MacLeod didn’t seem to think we’d be very comfortable if we attempted to stay there.”

  “Nevertheless, I intend to go up there and stay there myself as soon as the weather is better,” Celia announced, as if she had only just taken the decision. “And you two can either come with me or stay here where you’re not likely to be snowed up,” with a faint but unmistakable sneer in her voice.

  Later that day she got in touch by telephone with her solicitor, and when she came from the instrument and joined Toni in the kitchen, where Toni was making a batch of scones for tea, she was looking slightly bemused.

  “Do you know how much Uncle Angus left that young man, Euan MacLeod?”

  Toni shook her head automatically.

  “One hundred and twenty thousand pounds! One hundred and twenty thousand pounds! And that’s after death duties have been deducted! It seems Uncle Angus had interests abroad ... very rich interests!”

  “I don’t believe it.” Toni set down the flour dredger and pushed back her hair from her forehead. She could see Euan MacLeod’s worn and shabby duffle coat so clearly that he might have been standing in the kitchen with her and wearing it ... particularly as she could see every other detail of him without the slightest effort. “He looked so poor, and he didn’t behave in the least as if he had just inherited a large sum of money.”

  “A vast sum of money!” Celia corrected her. “My dear, that young man is obviously an eccentric, but I’ve a feeling he could be worth cultivating. Very well worth cultivating!”

  “But he doesn’t want to be cultivated.” Toni spoke impulsively, remembering how Euan had talked of ships that pass in the night. “And we don’t know where he lives.”

  “We know he owns that cottage, and you could get in touch with him there. Write him a little ‘thank you’ letter, and ask him to look us up when he comes to London. After all, he and I are joint beneficiaries under the terms of Uncle Angus’s will, and I am Uncle Angus’s niece. It’s only natural I should wish to get in touch with the other main beneficiary, and in addition I’m grateful to him for what he did for you. I must let him know that.”

  “Then you write to him,” Toni said quickly, rolling out her scone mixture. “But please don’t even ask me to do so!”

  Her mother smiled at her.

  “You’re a foolish girl. You’ve had a unique experience, and the man who saved your life for you—a doctor, too, and doctors are always so fascinating!—is young and personable and rich. You did say he is quite good-looking, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t think I mentioned his looks,” Toni stammered.

  “No, but Charles took such a dislike to him that I’m quite sure he had something in addition to a tumble-down cottage. Charles is such a fascinating man himself he doesn’t like other fascinating men.”

  She went away to write her letter, and Toni tried to decide in her own mind whether Euan MacLeod was personable. He was certainly very much a man ... tall and strong and rather more than a trifle arrogant. Even his hair, dark as a blackbird’s plumage in places, and with a hint of auburn in others, had an arrogant curl, and his lips occasionally had a matching curl to them.

  But he wasn’t always arrogant. When the occasion demanded he could be as considerate as a woman ... much more considerate than a good ma
ny women. She had a few vague memories, that she tried to get clear sometimes, of that night when her temperature had got out of hand, and he had done so many things for her. Looked after her with the patience and skill of a highly trained nurse.

  But he was not a nurse, he was a doctor, with strong hands and long, slim, sensitive fingers, and a bedside manner which he donned like a mantle, although at other times he could be curt and almost rude. She was quite sure he would be rude to her mother and not answer her letter, but in that she was wrong. His reply came almost immediately, and Celia showed it to her in triumph.

  “Read that! she said, tossing the letter across the breakfast table, and Toni read it.

  “Dear Mrs. Drew”, it began.

  “There was not the smallest need for you to thank me for anything I did for your daughter. I was happy to be of assistance.

  “I think we must be very distantly connected. Angus Drummond adopted me when I was a very small boy, but my mother was a kind of cousin of his, although many times removed. I shall be in London on the twenty-fourth and, if I may, I will get in touch with you. Perhaps you and your daughter will dine with me one evening.

  Euan MacLeod.’

  “Well, what do you think of that?” Celia demanded.

  Toni handed back the letter. It was on quite good notepaper, and the handwriting was small and fine, with a good deal of determination in the final strokes and capitals, and no flourishes whatsoever. An intensely masculine handwriting, in fact.

  “What should I think?” she counter-questioned, and her mother looked almost astonished.

  “What an extraordinary child you are,” she declared. “This man is a sort of relative of ours, and he has just inherited a fortune. He has already met you, and he wants to see you again. That much is obvious!”

  Toni regarded her in faint concern.

  “In what way is it obvious?” she asked.

  Celia made an impatient movement with her trim shoulders. She was all ready to set off for her office, wearing something very smart, and in the bright sunshine of a blustery March morning which streamed through the window of the gay breakfast alcove which was a part of their kitchen there was not a line in her face, or even a suspicion of sagging skin under the delicate outline of her jaw.