Tartan and Tuxedos at Highland Hall (Highland Hall #4)

Chapter 1

Bex stood stock-still. Trying not to breathe. All her focus was on listening. There was a definite dripping sound coming from somewhere. She was sure of it. The question was where.

Drip.

The sound caused her to swivel on the spot. It had come from behind. But where? There were no wet patches on the solid wood floor. Not that she could see. No trails of damp running down the wall. And yet—

Drip.

There it was again. Somehow still behind her.

Since moving permanently into Highland Hall Castle with Duncan, her now fiancé and new laird of LochDarroch, every day had come with the discovery of more and more things that needed seeing to, and fewer and fewer hours to deal with them all.

There were the whistling windows, where the gaps between the frames were big enough for snow to come through in the winter; the creaks on the staircase that were getting louder with every step.

She was sure it was going to result in her plummeting several floors one of these days, but somehow the stairs still hadn’t made it to the top of their to-do list. There were the light fittings that hadn’t worked for years, the balconies that needed cleaning and repairs, the chimneys that hadn’t been swept for days, and the blatantly missing tiles from the gargantuan roof, which was undoubtedly the culprit of this new infuriating drip.

Then there was the plumbing. Oh yes, there was absolutely plumbing that needed to be addressed.

But it would all come with time. After all, she and Duncan had only been living in the castle for five months.

That was how much time had passed since it had been unequivocally proven that Duncan was Fergus’s heir and therefore rightful laird.

He’d inherited everything that came with the title: the castle, the land, the loch, the village and countless other things too.

It also meant it was five months since he had got down on one knee and proposed, and she had accepted without a moment’s hesitation.

Five months. It was crazy how much could happen in that time.

It wasn’t just that she’d packed up her flat to move up here; she’d also quit her job to start her own accountancy firm complete with taking on an apprentice.

And despite not having a proper location, and working out of the castle library, they had hit the ground running.

There had been no slow start while waiting for clients, no waiting for word to spread about what a good job she did.

No, right from the off, she’d been inundated with requests and had actually had to turn away work from further afield because, at some point, she had to have a life, right?

Although it felt like any spare moment she had was either spent extending her list of things that needed repairing around the castle or chasing Rosie and Ruby about the place.

When Ruby, Fergus’s red Labrador, surprised them all with an unexpected litter of puppies, Bex knew there was no way she could let them all go, so while most were now re-homed in the village, they had decided to keep one – the little fox-red ball of cuteness who had looked most like her mother.

With such physical similarities, Bex had assumed she would have a similar temperament too: relaxed, easy-going, content to spend her hours curled up next to Bex, whether that was in the office, or by the fireplace.

An extra source of calm within the castle.

That was what she’d assumed. And she couldn’t have been more wrong.

Living with Rosie was like living with a miniature red tornado, with an ability to sneak through tiny gaps and climb higher than physics should have allowed.

Rather than adding their own touches to the castle, she and Duncan were constantly saving valuable vases and ornaments from anywhere accessible and hiding them in cupboards or locking them out of harm’s way in one of the many spare rooms that littered the three floors.

The hallway and most of the communal spaces looked even barer than when Fergus had lived there on his own.

Some days, it felt like they were already baby-proofing the place.

Not that babies were on the cards yet. No, they hadn’t even got a wedding date confirmed.

It was all on the never-ending to-do list.

‘You coming down?’ Duncan’s voice called up from the hall downstairs.

Even now, after all this time together – if you excused the little break-up blip – his voice never failed to make Bex smile.

The soft Scottish lilt. The depth and warmth to it.

There was no doubt that she loved him with every bit of her heart.

Loved him in a way that she hadn’t known it was possible to love someone.

And what was even better was that she knew he felt the same about her.

‘Sorry. Coming!’ she called, turning to the staircase, the location of the drip having evaded her.

When she reached the first floor, she manoeuvred herself carefully around the large, pale ball of fluff that was stretched out to her full, exceptionally impressive length taking up the entire shaft of light that streamed in through the window.

‘Don’t mind me, girl,’ Bex mumbled as she bent over to stroke beneath the cat’s chin.

Having Kenna in the main house was what really made it sink in that this was their home, for Bex anyway.

It wasn’t all the documents Duncan had to sign, or all the official paperwork in which his title was no longer Mr Duncan Duffy, but Lord Duncan Duffy.

It wasn’t the people they had known for years now referring to him as ‘Laird’, or the fact none of the pubs would let them pay for a single drink.

It was the moment they had brought Kenna up from the groundskeeper’s lodge.

That was what made it official, moving here. The castle was where they lived now.

Kenna was Duncan’s Maine coon that he had had long before they’d got together.

They’d been worried that she would make a bolt from the groundskeeper’s lodge and get lost on the way.

It wasn’t far, but she was an indoor cat, after all.

Though, as it happened, she had taken to the space like a duck to water.

Or more like a fluffy cat to a house with a dozen fireplaces.

Not that they’d ever lit more than a couple.

Unlike Rosie, who would disappear endlessly, Kenna was easy to find.

Always basking in the sun, in the most awkward place possible, like in the middle of the staircase, or blocking a doorway, or lying spread out in front of the fridge door when they wanted to make a snack.

Still, Bex wouldn’t have changed a thing about it.

‘I think we need to get someone to look at the roof,’ she said to Duncan when she reached the ground floor. ‘Best to do it now, while it’s summer. We don’t want it to get worse before winter.’

‘Aye, I’ll see to it,’ Duncan replied. ‘I’m sure there’s someone in the village we can use.’

‘Maybe have a look in Fergus’s notebook,’ Bex said hopefully, only for Duncan to shoot her a withering look.

‘Last three folk I tried in there haven’t worked since the nineties. Most of them are in their eighties – if they’re still alive.’

‘Maybe try the village then,’ Bex replied.

Putting an octogenarian up on the roof of the castle didn’t feel like a sensible thing to do, but finding people who could work on a place like Highland Hall was a task.

It needed specialists. People who had the skill and sympathy – not to mention patience – to work on a place with such a rich history and catalogue of complaints.

Some days, like when the heating packed up for no reason, or a strange smell filled the kitchen, Bex would find herself cursing Fergus for letting it get into such a state.

But she couldn’t feel cross at him for long.

Yes, there had been a time when the old laird had had a plethora of people on hand who’d made sure everything, from the gardens to the chandeliers, had been kept in top-notch condition, but he’d let the place go before his death, or rather – as they now knew was more likely – after his daughter’s death.

When Bex arrived in his life, solely in a professional manner as his accountant, he had been content to live in only two rooms of a building that had nearly forty.

Content with his dogs and his walks to the village, and the knowledge that Duncan was close on hand.

Duncan hadn’t known that Fergus was his biological grandfather, even though he had loved the old man in that way.

It wasn’t until after his death that Bex had uncovered the truth: the person Duncan believed was his grandfather had actually been his uncle, who had raised him after his sister – and the love of Fergus’s life – passed away in childbirth.

Fergus had never built up the courage to tell Duncan who he really was, only finally finding the strength on his deathbed, but Duncan hadn’t got there in time to hear.

There were a lot of wounds that needed to heal.

A lot of questions she knew they would never get the answers to.

But at least he was living in the castle, the way that Fergus had wanted him to.

That had to count for something. A rather large part of her also suspected he would be rather happy to know that Bex was there with him too, a sparkling engagement ring on her left hand.

‘What have you been working on?’ Bex asked. There was no way Duncan had simply been relaxing on the sofa while she’d been upstairs, searching for the drip. That just wasn’t who he was.

‘Gotta few names for groundsman,’ he told her.

‘Really?’ She tilted her head with interest. Before Fergus had died, Duncan had lived in the lodge a short walk away, following in his grandfather’s footsteps and taking on the role of groundskeeper.

A role he was still doing, despite all the added responsibilities of his new position. ‘Anyone any good?’

‘Not sure,’ he admitted, before looking past Bex and up the stairs. ‘Where’s Rosie?’

‘Rosie?’

‘Aye?’ He continued to stare at the staircase, as if he expected to see the pup clambering down the steps.

Bex frowned. ‘What do you mean? I thought she was down here with you.’

‘No, Ruby and the others have been down here, but not Rosie. I thought she was with you.’

A nervous tension prickled the back of her neck and a split second of silence filled the wide-open space of the hall before their voices rang out in unison.

‘Rosie!’

‘Rosie!’