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Malcolm’s placatory words made Fraser even more angry. How could he act as if nothing was wrong? As if he hadn’t destroyed their family and kept Fraser away from his home for fifteen years? As if Fraser hadn’t spent the whole of his adult life hating him?
Before he realised what he was doing he had pushed to his feet and balled his hands into fists to stop them doing something that he would regret. The rage that he had bottled up for fifteen years was making a break for it, and he couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t lose control of his emotions like that. He knew better. Knew better than his father ever had.
He took one more look at Malcolm and felt such anger that he knew he had to walk away. He strode from the room, his feet marching ahead under their own volition, carrying him towards his childhood bedroom.
As he pushed open the door he realised that nothing had been changed in here since the day he had left. The few books he’d forgotten to pack had been tidied from the floor. The bed had been stripped. But there were still posters on the wall, a few old toys on the shelves. He dropped down onto the bed, feeling like the angry teenager he had been the last time he was in this room.
* * *
Elspeth took a deep breath before knocking on the door. Malcolm had directed her to Fraser’s old bedroom—his best guess as to where he might have gone when he had stormed off. She had known from the start that this visit was going to be difficult for them all—Fraser most of all. But she hadn’t expected it to be quite so dramatic quite so early on.
Fraser hadn’t been kidding when he’d said that things were bad between him and his dad.
For a minute she’d wondered whether they’d made a big mistake, coming all the way up here just to reignite a family feud. But then the baby had given her a sharp kick—a timely reminder that she didn’t want any bad feeling in this family, her family now. She wanted her baby born into love and peace and harmony, however hippy that might sound. And, while it might be a bit optimistic hoping that Fraser and his father would be all warm hugs and bonhomie by the end of the weekend, it didn’t seem unreasonable to think that they might at least be civil to one another.
She knocked and turned the handle, and found Fraser sitting on an antique panelled bed hung with heavy navy and gold drapes, looking not a little lost.
He stood as she walked in and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘How did you find me?’
‘Your dad thought you might be up here.’
Elspeth’s instinct was to reach out to him, offer comfort. Pull him into her arms. But she knew that if she did that there would be much more than comfort between them. They had proved that in the car on the way up here. Any physical contact between them was a bad idea. They couldn’t be trusted to keep things innocent.
‘Your dad gave me directions,’ she carried on, trying to shake the memories of what had happened earlier. ‘Should have drawn me a map. I’ll never find my way back.’
Fraser gave a smile, more in recognition of her attempt to lighten the mood than at her humour.
‘I shouldn’t have walked out,’ Fraser said.
Not quite an apology, she noticed. In the circumstances, she could understand, but that didn’t mean she was going to let him get away with it.
‘And you shouldn’t have left me sitting there. I said I’d be your wingman, not your cleanup crew.’
Another smile, less forced this time.
‘I know. You’re a hero. I shouldn’t have walked out like that.’
Elspeth smiled. Knowing that he’d been an idiot didn’t get him off the hook either. She dropped to sit on his bed, stretching out her back and taking in her surroundings. The posters on the wall, the figures on the shelves.
‘Is this just how you left it?’ she asked, to break the silence.
‘Aye.’ Fraser nodded. ‘It’s a little tidier now. But this was me at fifteen.’
‘Does it feel strange?’ Elspeth asked, realising what an intimate thing it was, to walk into a room and see someone’s childhood. ‘To come back and find it like this?’
Fraser shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I assume you still have your childhood room, if you’re living with your mum. Is that weird?’
‘Yes, honestly, it is sometimes.’
She might as well tell the truth. Living with her mum when she was in her thirties was never going to be ideal. But she didn’t have the luxury of another choice. Her mum and Sarah needed her to be there.
‘But my room isn’t a time capsule,’ she went on, after sitting quietly for a few moments. ‘Your dad could have changed things in here. Taken down the posters. Even if you were going to come back he had to know that you wouldn’t need a teenager’s bedroom any more.’
Fraser’s face hardened into an expression that came out whenever they talked about his father. ‘Probably he just didn’t care. I doubt he’s been in here since I left.’
‘Looks pretty clean and tidy in here for a room that’s not been touched for fifteen years.’
Fraser didn’t have an answer for that. All right, she knew that generally a castle came with an army of staff to look after it, but there was no denying that this room was well-kept. Better kept, in fact, than the room they had been in earlier.
