“I’m sorry,” said Daisy, and she had been. But it had been difficult to care after the day she’d already had.

Meanwhile, the very next morning, with no money to be had, Daisy convinced her household to depart Castle Vandemere before they were thrown out by Lord Lumley. Gathering up every coin they possessed—and three pairs of candlesticks—they paid six months’ rent to a tenant farmer in the glen and moved into Rose Cottage.

Space was limited, so Daisy and Cassandra shared a straw tick in the loft while Hester had her own small palette right next to theirs. Joe slept on a blanket by the fire. Mona had the only private room, which contained a comfortable bed she shared with Perdita.

It was as if Lord Lumley had never appeared in their lives. They were back to the old days but even worse: the worse being not their cramped new living arrangements, which were bad enough, and the precarious state of their future, which was quite slippery, but what was happening with Cassandra.

For the first time since Daisy had known her, Cassandra appeared genuinely sad.

She was done making fun of Hester and Joe. Completely finished with insulting Daisy. Every day, she made a feeble attempt to be rude, but she couldn’t quite manage it.

“I’m perfectly fine,” she kept saying when Daisy asked.

But it was so clear from her troubled, forlorn gaze that she wasn’t.

Daisy didn’t know what to do.

The worst was when Cassandra came to her one evening, with tears trickling down her cheeks, to apologize about the trick she’d played on her with Cousin Roman.

“We never talk about it, but we both know we’re sisters,” Cassandra said. “And when Mr. King frightened me so much, it made me think how afraid you must have been that night when you woke up in Roman’s bed.”

Daisy acknowledged this was so, but she felt compelled to apologize to Cassandra about her role in the debacle with Mr. King, as well.

“You already said you were sorry,” Cassandra said, wiping her eyes. “You told me that day. But the truth was, I was willing to marry and bed him because he was rich and powerful. I simply had no idea he was also a very bad man, and that—”

“And that what?” Daisy had asked her.

“Nothing.” Cassandra refused to confide in her further. “And it’s best we not talk much. Mother will be angry if we’re … getting along.”

“I agree,” said Daisy. “Are you all right, though, Cassandra? I mean, I know you know the facts of your birth.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes. “I’m thrilled that she’s not my mother. It’s been the only thing that’s kept me sane all these years.”

And so they went out of their way to ignore each other.

Mona, meanwhile, lounged about the cottage as if she were still ensconced at Castle Vandemere. She was waiting, she said quite frequently, for a turn of events.

“A turn of events,” she proclaimed, “that will land us in clover. Daisy”—she never neglected to look at her with narrowed eyes—“don’t forget your purpose: you’re my companion for life unless you produce more rich gentlemen for me to meet.”

Her attempt to lure Mr. Woo to the marriage altar had failed miserably.

Daisy immersed herself in work around Rose Cottage and spent all her free time with Joe and the sheep. Occasionally, she’d steal glimpses up the mountain to the Keep and Castle Vandemere when she pretended she wasn’t really looking. But she couldn’t resist—something was happening up there. All kinds of work was going on at both places. She even tried to figure out if any of the tiny people she saw moving about up there was Charlie.

“I see you looking up there, Miss Daisy,” Joe said one afternoon while fixing his pipe.

She couldn’t deny it. When she went to the village, she heard the gossip. Charlie hadn’t left for London, as everyone had expected he would. Old Mrs. MacLeod said that try as the villagers might to ignore him, they’d given up because he was employing every man in the village and glen who wanted work.

The biggest gossip in Glen Dewey, Mrs. MacAdoo, said he was cheerful, as if “nothing in the world were botherin’ him.”

And Mrs. Gordon confessed to Daisy one day that every woman in the village found him entirely charming.

All observations that both infuriated Daisy and broke her heart into even tinier pieces.

“He’s fixing up the Keep and the castle,” Mrs. Gordon told her with some satisfaction. “And then he’s bringing some Londoners up to see it.”

“Possible buyers?”

Mrs. Gordon shrugged. “That’s what they’re saying.”

“And then he’ll be gone forever,” Daisy said with feeling.

Mrs. Gordon cast a glance at her. “Aye. He just might.”

She saved sharing the news with Hester until Mona had gone out with Cassandra and Perdita to the village to sell eggs, a chore which Mona had at first been reluctant to perform but which she’d eventually agreed to—because it meant she could visit with old Mrs. Dingle, a former London lady’s maid who was nearly as judgmental as she was.

Hester’s face was lined with concern. “And how will you feel about the viscount’s leaving, lass?”

“Hmm,” Daisy said. “Let me think on this.” She tried to roll out some dough for pasties, but she quit and burst into tears. “I’ll be miserable. That’s what.”

Hester put aside her own work, which was making the delicious filling to go with the dough. “Och, it’s difficult to be in a houseful of brokenhearted women.”

She hugged Daisy close and let her cry for a minute.

“I know Perdita’s pining after the Spanish marquis,” Daisy said. “But he’s long gone. I feel terrible for getting her hopes up about him.”

Hester patted her shoulder. “Ye were only trying to help. No, lass, I’m not talking only about Miss Perdita. I’m speaking of Miss Cassandra.”

A heavy weight fell on Daisy’s heart at the thought of Cassandra unhappy. “I’ve been concerned about her, too,” she said. “I think she’s having trouble getting past that night with Mr. King at the ceilidh. It must have been traumatic for her.”

“Oh, she’s weathered that crisis just fine.” Hester sprinkled some flour into a bowl. “She’s broken up about Mr. Beebs. She gave her heart to him long ago.”

Daisy gave a little laugh. Poor Hester!

“Cassandra doesn’t fancy him,” she told her dear friend kindly.

Hester shot her a sideways glance. “Don’t get all superior. She does. Every time he rode by and waved at her, she pretended she scorned him. But she didn’t. I could tell by the way she’d come into the kitchen, all breezy and free and pleasant. It was the only time she’d ever be that way, and although it lasted only a few minutes, I knew Mr. Beebs had caused it.”

Highlanders were awfully forthright. And damned perceptive.

Daisy sighed. “I—I did see her paying attention to him after he saved her from Mr. King, but I thought it was because she was grateful.”

Hester nodded knowingly. “It was more than that, and it’s cruel to pretend it’s not happening. Ye’ve got to say something to her. Let her air her grief.”

“Oh, dear.” Daisy bit her lip. “I feel terrible that all this while, Cassandra’s been suffering in silence.”

Daisy knew how it felt to love someone and then realize it was over. It was a living hell, was what it was.

“Mr. Beebs may be older, but he’s not a bad man,” Hester reminded her. “You have to let Cassandra fall in love her way, not yours. Or anyone else’s. If you care about her happiness.”

“Of course I do, but it doesn’t matter anymore. He’s gone.”

Hester made a scoffing noise. “He’s not gone. He’s away, not thirty miles from here. He’s managing a property in Glen Muldoon.”

Daisy stared at her. “How would you know?”

Hester shrugged. “I’m an old woman with my ear to the ground.”

Daisy paused at the small window near the fireplace and looked up at the Keep. She could swear she saw Charlie on the sweeping grassy lawn, looking out over the glen, and he was looking at her little cottage.

“What are you going to do about him?” Hester asked her.

“I don’t know,” she said with a shake of her head. “I really don’t.”

“You’ll think of something.” Hester squeezed her shoulder. “And while you do, I’ll ask a man in the village to set off first thing tomorrow morning for Mr. Beebs.”

“Will you?” Daisy felt so grateful.

“We’ve got to get Miss Cassandra happy.”

Daisy glanced once more at that little stick figure on the hill in front of the Keep.

If it were Charlie, was he thinking of her?

Or had she already become a distant memory?

She didn’t have time to think any more on the matter, however, because Cassandra came running to the door of the cottage, a bright smile on her face and a piece of paper fluttering in her hand.

“Come outside,” she said. “Look what Mrs. Skene’s son brought by.”

“A message from Mr. Beebs,” said Joe, hobbling as fast as his legs would carry him. His broad face beamed.

“He arrived back in Glen Dewey today.” Cassandra’s voice trembled a wee bit.

“He did?” Daisy exchanged glances with Hester.

“Yes,” said Cassandra. “He’s working up at the Keep again, and he’s to come see me in the morning. He says Lord Lumley is perfectly amenable to the idea—in fact, he insists upon it.”

“That’s marvelous news!” Daisy hugged her.

Hester chuckled. “Oh, I like when a man doesn’t need any coaxing to come see his lady love.”

Cassandra hugged her, too.

“It’s a braw, bricht day,” said Joe, doing a little jig, which he somehow managed even with his lame foot. “It’s a braw, bricht day!”