Page 100 of The Secret Castle in the Highlands

Mason’s thick brows twitched. ‘Oh, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘I think we should stop talking,’ he suggested, moving even closer on his sofa.

‘And do what?’ I asked innocently.

‘Well, I was thinking I could take you to the quarterly meeting of The Historians Society … or we could stay here and I could seduce you?’

I pretended to consider his question until Mason pulled me tighter into his arms.

I kissed him back, our bodies moulding against one another.

I’d done it. I’d thrown off the shackles of Nick and embraced a new chapter in my life with Mason. I was still a little scared of making myself vulnerable again, but at least Mason and I were taking those first steps together. ‘I wonder if you’ll still feel as enthusiastic when I ask you this?’ I whispered against his neck.

He smiled against my lips. ‘Ask me what?’

‘How do you feel about doing some gardening right now?’

Mason waggled his eyebrows. ‘Is that a euphemism, Ms Summers?’

‘No, it bloody well isn’t! When I say gardening, I mean gardening.’

Chapter Forty-Three

‘We’re just heading out to the cottage gardens.’

Katie stared from me to Mason and back again. Mason was holding my hand in his, while in the other he clutched two trowels I’d located in the gardener’s storeroom.

Katie couldn’t seem to decide whether she was more fascinated by Mason’s and my handholding or by the trowels. ‘Are you two…?’ she asked in a stage whisper.

I hoped my love-struck glow answered her question.

‘And what’s with those?’ she asked, pointing a confused finger at the trowels. ‘Are you about to take part in some pagan garden ritual?’

Mason smiled at Katie. ‘I can’t explain right now, but I will.’

I produced Georgina’s diary from my shoulder bag.

‘If we’re right,’ I said to Katie, ‘the answer to saving Bluebird Cottages could lie out there.’

Katie followed my pointing finger to the office window, where the small, neat lawn and banks of hedgerows could be glimpsed running at the back of each cottage. ‘I don’t mind admitting I’ve got no idea what’s going on here.’

‘Trust us,’ assured Mason. He stood beside me and took Georgina’s diary. He’d flagged several pages with thin strips of coloured card. ‘Here. Read this section.’

As the office door swung open and patches of lemon sun alighted on Georgina’s sweeping black handwriting, it was as though I was stepping into her world, between these vanilla-scented pages, etched with the passage of time. She was giving Mason and me permission to see into her life.

I snapped my head up from reading Georgina’s diary, my mind reeling. ‘So, the jewellery box could be anywhere out here.’ My excitement gave way to pessimism at the sight of the blanket of green grass in front of us, with its rustling hedgerows. ‘I know the gardens are a modest size, but where do we start?’

I turned to Mason for a reaction, expecting an equally perplexed expression. But he was smiling. ‘Read on a little. There’s more information further down from that entry.’

My eyes slid away from Georgina’s writing to a few additional sentences she’d added like a P.S.

Like wild water running free,

Forever in my heart he’ll be.

And there beside this silver stream of fountain water, where we would hold each other and kiss below the stars, I would bury my precious pendant whenever I could not wear it.