Bitter experience had taught Mallory to be clear-sighted about the risk of falling in love, especially with a man who had been very honest about his enduring love for someone else, a man who was deeply committed to a place where Mallory could see no future for herself. It would be very unwise to let her feelings for Torr deepen any more, she knew. She had been badly hurt already by a man who didn’t love her the way she loved him, and she couldn’t face that kind of pain again.

No, best to leave things as they were. Their physical relationship was more than satisfying, and that would be enough. There was no point in thinking about the future in any case-especially not now, when she would have to face it without Charlie. Mallory’s heart twisted at the memory. She had survived Steve’s betrayal, but only with Charlie’s help. This time she would have to grieve alone.

Beside her, Torr stirred and turned for her instinctively, resting his head on her breast and settling back into sleep with a sigh. Mallory kissed his hair and wrapped her arms round him. Perhaps she wouldn’t be quite alone.

She couldn’t afford to fall too deeply in love, she warned herself. It would be dangerous to get too dependent on Torr. Their marriage had only ever been a practical arrangement, after all, and starting to think about it as something else would just lead to more heartache. Torr had been open about his feelings for someone else, and even if he were the kind of man to change his mind, which Mallory knew that he wasn’t, she thought he would be better off without her in the long run.

She didn’t belong at Kincaillie. That was why she had been so ratty about Sheena Irvine, so jealous of the fact that the other woman would make Torr a much more suitable wife. If anyone could make Torr forget his lost love it would be Sheena, who was so much more suitable for him in every way, Mallory thought dully. She might be married to him, but she was never going to be the right wife for him.

When she went back to Ellsborough, Torr was going to need someone for support and comfort and company. For love. He deserved that, at least. How much better for him to have someone like Sheena, who shared his interests and his enthusiasms. If Mallory cared for Torr at all she should be promoting a relationship that would make life easier for him when she had gone, not being childish and petulant whenever Sheena was around.

Mallory was ashamed of the way she had behaved with Sheena. It was time to start acting like the grown-up she was. She would make it clear to Torr that from now on she would stick to the terms they had agreed. It wasn’t fair to keep trying to change things. If she wanted to leave at the end of the year-and how could she not?-she would have to make it as easy as possible on him as well as on herself.

Torr himself had never given any indication that love might have entered the equation. Quite the opposite, in fact. Their marriage wasn’t about love, he had reminded her the night of the ceilidh. The heart he kept so closely guarded was given to someone else.

There was no point in fooling herself with the hope that he might change his mind and fall in love with her, Mallory thought, even as she smoothed Torr’s tousled hair with a loving hand. That wasn’t the kind of man Torr was, and even if he were, even if he did come to love her, what would that mean? Did she really want to spend the next few years living in discomfort, far from her friends and her family and any chance of restarting her career?

No, things were better as they were. Mallory felt the weight of Torr’s head on her breast and remembered the shattering pleasure of their lovemaking. For now, she told herself, that was enough.

Mallory missed Charlie terribly. He had been part of her life for so long now that she felt somehow unbalanced, and desperately lonely without him. She couldn’t stop looking for him, and the slightest glimpse of greyish brown out of the corner of her eye would make her heart leap, only to plummet with the realisation that it was just a rug or a rock.

She threw herself into gardening, in an attempt to wear herself out with sheer hard work, but it wasn’t the same without Charlie snuffling happily around beside her. Once or twice she tried going for a walk on her own, but that was unbearable, and eventually she asked Torr if she could help him. He was working his way methodically from room to room, clearing out any furniture, stripping off peeling wallpaper and crumbling plaster and readying the room as far as possible for the electricians, who would come in when the roofers had finished.

‘Of course,’ said Torr when she suggested it. ‘I’d be glad of the help,’ he confessed. ‘It’s not very exciting at this stage, though.’

‘I don’t mind,’ said Mallory.

It wasn’t so lonely when he was there, and it was easier to keep the conversation to practicalities. At nights they could lose themselves in each other, but with mornings a hint of constraint would creep back into atmosphere.

It was her fault, Mallory knew. That was what happened when you had to guard yourself against revealing too much, against falling any deeper in love. The only way she could think of protecting her poor damaged heart was to wrap it up and withdraw as far as possible behind a show of carefully detached composure, but it was a fragile defence in truth.

Again and again, she had to remind herself of all the reasons why it made sense to stick to the deal they had made. The work was hard and dirty, which helped. It was impossible to imagine that they would ever get through it. The longer they laboured just to clear Kincaillie of rubbish and start the restoration with a clean site, the more unrealistic a project it seemed.

And yet once stripped bare it was possible to see each room’s potential, and in spite of her strictures about not getting too involved, Mallory couldn’t help planning design schemes in her mind. Whenever she caught herself doing that she would remind herself that she would be gone long before the electricians had finished, let alone before they were in any position to start decorating.

‘I’m going to Inverness on Friday,’ Torr said very casually-too casually?-one evening as they cooked supper together. ‘I’m planning a day trip, so I won’t have a lot of time, but if you need anything I can get it on my way home.’

Well, that was one way of telling her that he didn’t want her to go with him. Mallory inhaled slowly and reminded herself of how cool and adult she had resolved to be. Still, she was allowed to show some interest, surely?

‘Are you seeing Sheena?’

‘Among other things.’ Torr looked wary, and Mallory wasn’t surprised after the way she had carried on the last time Sheena’s name had come up. Here was her opportunity to show him that she wasn’t going to be silly any more.

‘Has she revised the plans?’ she asked, in what she hoped was a neutral tone-the kind of tone you would use when you were making polite conversation, perhaps, and didn’t care at all about what was being discussed-but if anything the suspicion only deepened in Torr’s expression.

‘I hope so,’ he said cautiously.

‘I’ll be interested to hear what she suggests about the great hall,’ Mallory persevered as she chopped tomatoes. ‘I thought her idea for a glass atrium was quite innovative,’ she went on doggedly. ‘A contrast between the very old and very new can be very effective.’

Now she was worried that she sounded too interested. Torr might think that she was lobbying for an invitation to go with him.

‘You’ll have a lot to discuss, anyway,’ she rushed on, before he had a chance to speak. ‘Why don’t you stay the night?’

‘That would mean leaving you here on your own,’ he said, sounding surprised.

‘I don’t mind,’ she lied, and Torr raised an eyebrow in the way he had that always left Mallory feeling slightly ruffled.

‘That’s not what you said before,’ he pointed out dryly. ‘When we first arrived, you flatly refused to consider being here alone.’

Mallory scraped the tomatoes from the board into the pot and avoided his eyes. ‘I’ve changed since then,’ she said.

Torr regarded her thoughtfully for a moment. ‘Still,’ he said, ‘I think a day trip will be enough.’

Determinedly cool, Mallory drew up a shopping list and did her best not to let Torr get so much as an inkling of how much she hated the idea of him going off to see Sheena and effectively excluding her from his plans for Kincaillie.

But why should she care? she asked herself. She wouldn’t be here. She would be back in Ellsborough, living in a warm, convenient house, with friends and shops and bars on her doorstep, getting on with a new life.

Torr left early that Friday. ‘Are you sure you’ll be OK?’ he asked, frowning slightly as he drank a quick coffee in lieu of breakfast.

‘Of course,’ said Mallory brightly. Too brightly.

‘You could come with me if you’d rather,’ he said, but to Mallory’s sensitive ears his offer sounded reluctant, and she put up her chin.

‘No, thanks. I’ve got things I’d like to do here,’ she said. ‘I’d be glad of some time on my own, to be honest. And it’s not as if I’ll be on my own for long. Dougal and the other roofers will be here all day.’

‘That’s true,’ said Torr, clearly relieved at the thought. He finished his coffee and put the mug in the sink. ‘I’d better get on my way, then.’

But he hesitated at the door and looked back at Mallory. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’

‘Look, I’m perfectly capable of managing by myself,’ snapped Mallory, afraid that if he carried on like that she would end up admitting that she did mind and begging him to take her with him. ‘I ran a successful business all alone for several years. I don’t need you to get me through the day!’