Page 41 of A Scottish Country Escape

He took a measured gulp of his coffee and then placed his mug on top of a hessian coaster. His expression was weighted with regret.

‘How did Marina take it when she found out you were Robert Masters?’ I asked.

‘She ricocheted between annoyance and embarrassment, I think. But she knew how I felt about her.’

Patchy sun strobed across Robert’s desk.

‘When I told her who I was, she refused to have anything to do with me… to begin with.’ Robert’s lips hinted at a smile. ‘I did have rather a reputation in my younger years.’

‘How did you manage to win her over?’ I asked, intrigued.

‘Marina made it bloody difficult for me, I can tell you. But I loved her. I refused to give up on her; on us.’ His passionate tone surrendered to resignation. ‘She was a proud young woman, who came from a proud family.’ Robert recalled it with clarity. ‘It was the 31st March 1963, and I can still see the pain in Marina’s dark eyes, even now.’ He swallowed. ‘She begged me not to go ahead with it; asked if there was anything I could do, but there wasn’t.’

‘About what?’ I asked gently.

Robert’s sigh was pained. ‘About making them leave their home so my father could use the land to build a five-star hotel.’

Robert laced and unlaced his fingers on his desk. ‘Amore Cottage was their home, she was the woman I loved, and yet I was too weak to stand up to my father.’ Robert shook his head in disbelief. ‘I tried to reason with her that the hotel would be such a huge success and that it could set us up for married life.’

‘And what did she say?’ asked Dexter.

Robert’s shoulders slumped as he sat there. ‘She said that I could think again if I thought she would marry me after this.’ He looked at me. ‘I begged her not to go, but she took off across the lawn and that was it. I never saw her again.’

Robert Masters shifted in his leather chair, his attention still lost in the gardens spread out like a scene from a pop-up book through his study window. Myriad memories were clearly pulling at him.

‘So what happened then?’ I asked him.

Dexter flashed Robert a charged glance. ‘Do you mean things began to take a bad turn?’

Robert’s lips carried a faint, ironic tilt. ‘Oh, the curse was reversed in the end. I threw myself into doing charity work for the local community. I found that it gave me purpose and satisfaction.’

‘But…?’ I asked, sensing hesitation.

‘But since the day I lost Marina, I’ve never really felt lucky in love again – let alone anything else.’ Robert Masters performed a watery smile. ‘So, in a way, I think I’m still cursed for losing her – and always will be.’

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Dexter and I sat enthralled as Robert explained that his business decisions, and those of his father, took a disastrous turn from that moment onwards.

‘Linda Carlucci arrived at Lakeland to see me the next day. She was furious about how I had treated her sister and said that I was an arrogant and overprivileged bastard who deserved to know what it felt like to be treated so badly.’

Robert drummed his fingers on his heavy cherry-wood desk as he talked. ‘I went from having a strong and solid intuition for business opportunities to losing all confidence, and my father discovered that many of his friends and business associates no longer wished to be associated with the family name. When Linda said to me that I needed to learn I wasn’t this immortal man but someone who couldn’t even stand up to his own beast of a father, I chose to ignore it.’

Robert picked up his coffee mug.

‘It was like someone had flicked on a light switch. I know it must sound preposterous, but it was a shock to go from being such a success one minute to a laughing stock in the local community the next.’

‘So, you never saw Marina or her family again?’ I asked him.

‘No. That was it.’

Robert pressed fingers to his lined forehead for a few moments. ‘Maybe there never was a curse. Perhaps it was me simply making awful life choices…’

He let his shoulders rise and fall. ‘Curse or not – I’ve never been all that sure – but what I am certain of is that I realised over time what an arrogant arse I’d been and decided to do something about it.’

I raised my brows at Robert’s response, as I sat in the velvet armchair.

Robert’s cheeks blanched at the memory. ‘I’d lost Marina, but the five-star hotel my father wanted didn’t go ahead. I made sure of that.’