Highland Mist by Rose Burghley Page B

preserve his house? It was good enough for an old man to live in, alone save for a couple of servants ... or that was the way he looked at it.”
    Celia changed colour very slightly, and her expression was faintly guilty as she said:
    “But I wrote to him ... sometimes! Well, every Christmas, anyway. I didn’t think he’d want to receive visitors. I gathered he’d become something of a recluse.”
    “He had ... he was. But that was the result of old age and loneliness. Shall we go in? I hope you had a good journey from London?”
    “Oh, yes,” Celia gushed. “A wonderful journey. Couldn’t have been less eventful,” with a side glance at her daughter as if she was the one with the unhappy knack of turning journeys into awkward episodes. “And thank you so much for booking rooms for us at the Inverechy Arms for last night. We had a beautifully comfortable night!”
    “Good,” MacLeod said, and moved aside for them to precede him into the house. His eyes were on Toni with a faint, flickering smile in them, and she was not surprised when he said: “Did you have a good night, Miss Drew? If so, I’m a little surprised. Your first nights in this part of the world don’t tend to be comfortable.”
    She refused to smile back, and in fact her expression was almost grave as she replied.
    “My first night in Inverada wasn’t really so terribly uncomfortable, but I’m afraid yours was ... as a result of my visit, I mean. I expect you’ll always remember it, because it was such an extremely uncomfortable night.”
    “I shall remember it,” he answered. “But not because of the amount of discomfort!”
    His vivid blue eyes—and they were uncannily blue in such a sparkling atmosphere—held hers, and she felt a certain amount of astonishment rise up in her. He was not the sort of man who ever dissembled, and his eyes were telling her something ... but she couldn’t be in the least certain what it was. She only knew that, for one moment, she felt an odd, strange quickening of her pulses.
    Inside the house they could hear Celia exclaiming. “Oh, dear! Poor Uncle Angus must have lost interest! And I always thought this such a charming hall!”
    It was, with its gracious staircase and fine proportions, but time had attacked the paintwork and the beautiful moulded ceiling, and the gilded cornices were tarnished, and even blackened with neglect. Although high above the loch the house was old and exposed, and when the mists swept down from the summit of Ben Inver they fairly wrapped it about, and, minus central heating, there was little that Inverada House could do about it. The panelled walls looked as if the damp had fairly eaten into them, and the velvet curtains that hung before the various doors were stained and mildewed. But when Dr. MacLeod opened the door to the drawing-room—a magnificent room that overlooked the loch—Celia could see at once that already the slow process of decay has been arrested. Or was being arrested.
    The dark rose wallpaper was in poor condition, but the temporary tenant had had the room so thoroughly spring-cleaned that there was no longer any smell of mildew, and only a very faint fustiness when the door was opened. The windows to the terrace were standing wide, and the brilliant shimmer from off the loch came right into the room and dispelled the gloom that crouched in the corners. The elegant Regency furniture was shabby, but that, too, had been subjected to a recent overhaul, and the woodwork at least was highly polished. The faded damasks and brocades had much in common with the tarnished cornices in the hall, but even so they were lovely ... in the way that a faded woman is often lovely, especially if she has once had everything to commend her.
    “At least you’ve done something here!” Celia exclaimed. “Uncle Angus would thank you!” Her lips curved curiously. “But then he did leave you the bulk of his fortune, didn’t he?”
    “He left you this house,” Euan replied