Page 16 of The Scottish Island Inn

‘In what way?’ Heather asked.

‘Um. It was subtle at first. He always told me everything I did would fail. He developed this sudden, unpredictable temper. I started to tiptoe around him. There was this low level of constant irritation, like he was a volcano, always waiting to erupt. He stopped giving me compliments. Stopped noticing me. In the last couple of years, it felt like we were just business partners.’

‘Wow. That… does not sound good,’ Bluebell said.

‘No. It wasn’t,’ Sorrel agreed.

Heather stiffened for a moment, looking over Sorrel’s shoulder. ‘Oh.’

‘What? The man?’ Sorrel turned around, following her sister’s gaze.

At a table at the back of the café sat a man with sandy hair, wearing a black fleece with some kind of logo on the pocket. He had a worn face and a scrub of beard, streaked heavily with grey. Their gazes met.

He didn’t smile, but stared at her intensely, just like Heather had said. She thought a dark aura was overstating it a bit, but he was staring. She didn’t recognise him, but at the same time, there was something about his face which seemed familiar.

Sorrel turned away to look back at her sisters.

‘See?’ Heather whispered, leaning forward. ‘He’s really staring at you. I don’t like it.’

‘He probably just recognises us. People know us because of the Inn and Uncle James.’ Bluebell rolled her eyes. ‘Stop being so dramatic.’

‘I don’t think I’m dramatic,’ Heather said, offended.

The queue of people lining up for lunch snaked behind Sorrel again, masking the table from view. She shrugged.

‘Bluebell’s right. I think you’re making too much of it,’ she said to Heather. She wasn’t bothered about the man; they were in a public place, and he looked all right. Not a serial killer – although they were supposed to seem perfectly normal.

However, even Heather’s slight paranoia was something Sorrel had missed. Heather getting freaked out by ‘bad vibes’ in random places or getting ‘funny feelings’ about people was commonplace. It had been a part of their childhood. Sorrel smiled fondly at her sister.

There was so much good in their past; maybe it was possible to move on and fix things, now she was back. Feeling suddenly positive, Sorrel got out her phone and sent another text to Catriona.

I’m happy to chat when you are. Xx

NINE

‘It’s all very well living at a castle,’ Aunt Joan opined loudly. ‘But there are mice, you know. And the heating clanks.’ She squinted at Sorrel over her knitting. ‘Well, come here, girl. Give your great-aunt a kiss.’

Sorrel put down her duffel bag and walked over to Aunt Joan stiffly, planting a polite kiss on her papery cheek.

‘Hello, auntie,’ she said, and turned to greet her other aunt, Aunt Chrissie, who sat next to her sister, poised like an empress. They both occupied matching leather wing-backed chairs, side by side in front of the fire: an empty sofa sat opposite.

She’d arrived, dutifully, in time for elevenses. Heather had insisted on coming with her, and had talked Sorrel’s ear off about her upcoming wedding in the car on the way over. Bluebell had accompanied them, but she’d still hardly said anything to her sister.

Sorrel had had precisely no sleep since she’d arrived on Skye. After her walk and lunch with her sisters the day before, she’d then had to share Bluebell’s bed in the caravan, and even though she was exhausted, there hadn’t been any room to relax because she was poised on the edge of the bed all night.

In truth, Sorrel was looking forward to settling into one of the bedrooms at the castle and getting a decent night’s sleep.

‘Well, I don’t think you’d enjoy staying at the caravan, Aunt Joan,’ Sorrel said, politely, taking a bone china cup filled with fragrant amber tea from her aunt and placing it carefully on the saucer in front of her.

‘I would not,’ Aunt Joan agreed. ‘Though I can hardly sleep with the noise of the plumbing here. And the draughts.’ She shivered theatrically and pulled her shawl around her shoulders.

‘You poor thing,’ Aunt Chrissie ignored her sister, and turned to Sorrel instead. ‘Just as well that James is letting you stay here. Aren’t you, dear?’ She turned to James Balhennie, the Laird, and gave him an indulgent smile. ‘So kind of him, isn’t it? Of course, it’s nothing that she doesn’t deserve. Being blood, and all.’ Chrissie raised her eyebrow imperceptibly at the Laird, who nodded.

‘Indeed. We have a room ready for you, Sorrel,’ – he stood to the side of the aunts – ‘and I am having someone come to look at the plumbing, Joan. But it’s old. Like the castle. You have to allow the old girl some latitude.’

‘Thank you so much, Uncle James. I really appreciate it.’ She smiled up at him, noticing that the lines around his eyes were a little deeper; his beard was more salt-and-pepper than auburn now, and his hair was a little longer than she remembered it. But he still had the same warm smile and the same quiet but authoritative manner. Today he was dressed very casually, in blue jeans and a cream cable knit jumper over a tartan shirt with work boots. It was rare to see the Laird of Balhennie Castle in anything other than practical clothes, but Sorrel knew that James could still turn out smartly, just like her father could when he chose, in their clan tartans and formal dress.

Sorrel knew that there were four large main downstairs rooms that were sometimes open to the public: the large drawing room, the library, the lounge and the formal dining room. Today they had gathered in the small drawing room, which was always closed to tourists.