No, she didn’t want to remember that either. One day she had had everything she’d wished for, the next it had gone. Charlie was all she had left.

Betrayed, bankrupt, Mallory had retreated into a state where Torr’s brusque and businesslike approach had been easier to bear than the kindness of friends. He had offered marriage in exchange for the settlement of the crushing debts Steve had left her with, and by then Mallory hadn’t cared enough about anything to even hesitate. She had said yes straight away, ignoring the horrified protests of her closest friends.

They had made a deal, and she couldn’t go back on it now.

But now, very gradually, Mallory was taking her life back. After months of hiding away, she was starting to see friends again. The effort of talking and laughing and pretending that she was OK sometimes felt like trudging waist-deep through mud, but at least she was trying.

The next step, Mallory had decided, was a job.

Torr was unimpressed. ‘You don’t need a job,’ he said, frowning. ‘You’re my wife.’

She wasn’t much of one. They both knew that. Sticking to their agreement, Mallory turned up to corporate events and was charming to his business associates. She was a perfect hostess when Torr wanted to entertain. She kept the kitchen stocked and the house cleaned. But that was all she did for him.

‘I can’t sit around all day,’ she said. ‘I need to do something.’

‘There’ll be plenty for you to do where we’re going,’ said Torr, and she looked at him blankly.

‘Going? Where are we going?’

‘Scotland.’

‘What?’ said Mallory, taken aback.

‘The Highlands,’ Torr amended helpfully. ‘The west coast, to be exact. It’s a beautiful area. You’ll like it.’

Mallory doubted it very much. She was a city girl through and through. She liked colour and texture, shops and restaurants, art galleries and cinemas. The pictures she had seen of the Highlands showed a wild, inhospitable place that held absolutely no appeal for her.

She was fairly sure Torr knew that too, and when she looked into the navy blue eyes they held a derisive expression that made her certain that he was amusing himself at her expense.

She forced a smile. ‘I hadn’t realised you were planning a holiday,’ she said.

‘Oh, this isn’t a holiday,’ said Torr. ‘We’re moving. That’s what I came in to tell you.’

The polite smile froze on Mallory’s lips, and she regarded him uncertainly. ‘Moving?’

‘I’ve inherited a property in the Highlands,’ he told her, pulling a photograph out of the inside pocket of his jacket and tossing it down onto the glass-topped table next to Mallory. ‘That’s Kincaillie.’

She picked it up almost gingerly. It showed a crumbling castle squatting on a promontory, almost surrounded by grey, uninviting sea, while in the background a mountain scarred by scree and corries loomed intimidatingly.

Mallory raised her eyes to Torr’s. ‘Is this a joke?’

‘Do I look like I’m joking?’

No, Mallory couldn’t say that he did. There was not so much as a suspicion of a smile in his eyes.

Now she came to think of it, she couldn’t remember ever seeing Torr smile. He must have smiled sometimes, when he had commissioned her to design this house, or when they had met socially, but if he had she couldn’t remember it. Surely he had smiled at their wedding?

But that day was a blank. Only five months ago, but all she remembered about it was the terrible scene on their wedding night.

She looked back at photograph. ‘But…this looks like a castle,’ she said, still puzzled.

‘It is.’ To her relief, Torr moved away from the fireplace and sat down on the sofa at right angles to her chair. He lounged easily in one corner, as far away from her as he could get. ‘You can only see the medieval part in that view, but there’s a later wing behind, so it’s more comfortable than it looks.’

‘You’ve inherited a castle?’ said Mallory in disbelief. She was more than half convinced now that the whole thing was some kind of hoax that Torr was pursuing for his own reasons.

A bit like their marriage, in fact.

‘The whole estate,’ he said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world to acquire a ruined castle. ‘And the title that goes with it, if that interests you. It turns out that I’m the new Laird of Kincaillie,’ he went on, an ironic inflexion in his voice, ‘and as you’re my wife, all evidence to the contrary, that makes you the Lady.’

All evidence to the contrary. Mallory flushed and her eyes slid away from his.

‘I didn’t realise that you were in line to inherit a castle,’ she said uncomfortably.

‘Nor did I,’ said Torr. ‘Oh, I knew that my family had associations with Kincaillie, but I certainly never expected it to be mine. I remember my father took me there when I was sixteen, and my great-uncle was Laird, but he had two sons so it didn’t seem likely I would ever inherit. One of them was killed in an accident years ago, and the younger brother had already emigrated to New Zealand by then and didn’t want to come back. There’s a complicated entail in place which means that Kincaillie can’t be sold, so it’s been abandoned for the last few years. Apparently he had a heart attack a few months ago, and it took some time for the lawyers to track me down.’

‘And you just heard today?’

Torr shook his head. ‘I’ve known for a couple of months. I went up there for a few days as soon as I’d got the letter. I met the solicitors and had a look at Kincaillie again.’

‘A couple of months?’ Charlie lifted his head from his paws as Mallory’s voice rose. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Frankly, I didn’t think you’d be interested.’ Torr’s expression hardened. ‘You haven’t shown much interest in my life up to now, have you?’

Mallory coloured. It was true. She had barely known him when they got married, and she had learnt virtually nothing about him in the five months since their wedding.

‘If you’d been interested enough to ask where I was going when I went up to Scotland, I’d have told you.’

‘I assumed it was a business trip,’ she said uncomfortably.

‘And I assumed you didn’t care one way or the other.’

The truth was that she hadn’t. She hadn’t cared about anything since Steve had betrayed her and abandoned her and skipped the country, leaving her to deal with the mess he had left behind.

‘Why tell me now, then?’ she asked.

‘Because you’ll need to start packing.’

‘What for?’

‘I told you, we’re moving to Kincaillie.’

Mallory drew a breath. ‘You’re not serious about that, are you?’

‘Of course I’m serious.’

‘But it’s a ruin,’ she said, looking down at the photograph again.

‘It needs a bit of work, agreed,’ Torr replied, ‘but you were the one who wanted something to do.’

‘A bit of work? You only need to look at this picture to see that it’s a major restoration project! It’ll take for ever.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Torr, ‘but staying in Ellsborough isn’t an option. I’ve sold all my businesses, and I got a good deal on the house, which was confirmed today.’

Mallory was still trying to assimilate the news that he had sold his companies when his last words registered belatedly. ‘Which house?’ she asked with a sense of foreboding.

‘This one, of course.’

‘You’ve sold the house?’ she repeated very slowly, an unfamiliar feeling stirring inside her.

Anger.

How strange to feel angry again, she thought with a detached part of her brain. Strange to feel anything after all these months of feeling nothing at all. But that was definitely rage flickering along her veins, warming the iciness inside her.

Torr was watching her face with sardonic amusement. ‘I didn’t even have to advertise,’ he said. ‘There were so many buyers who’d expressed an interest if the house ever went on the market that it went straight to auction. Of course, the fact that the interior had been designed by Mallory Hunter just upped the price, as I’m sure you’ll be glad to know!’

Mallory surged to her feet, startling Charlie, who sat up and studied her worriedly. He had never seen her like this before, her face bright with fury, her hands clenching and unclenching.

Mallory had never felt like this before. The anger was crackling through her. She had once seen a film of a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, and she had marvelled at the way it slowly spread its crumpled wings. That was how it was for her. The unfamiliar anger was filling her up, warming her, pushing into cracks and crevices until everything that had been weak and crumpled and collapsed about her was smooth and whole again, until she was Mallory Hunter, grown woman of thirty-two and successful interior designer, instead of the broken, beaten shell Steve had left behind.

‘Without even discussing it with me?’ she demanded of Torr, who regarded her with a kind of speculative interest, noting how the dark brown eyes, dull for so long, were suddenly flashing.

‘Why should I?’

‘I’m your wife!’

‘Only when it suits you,’ he said brutally. ‘Like when you needed me to pay off all your debts, for instance.’

Mallory flushed, but stood her ground. ‘We had an agreement,’ she reminded him. ‘You said you needed a hostess, someone to help you with entertaining who wouldn’t make any emotional demands on you. I needed somewhere to live where I could have Charlie with me, and, yes, you would settle my debts. But that was the deal,’ she said fiercely. ‘The house was part of that, and now you’re telling me that you’ve sold it out from under me without even mentioning the possibility!’

‘I’m providing another home,’ said Torr indifferently. ‘And one Charlie will like a lot more than this one.’

Hugging her arms together against the sick, panicky feeling, Mallory turned away. The anger was already fading, leaving her feeling trapped and suffocated. There had to be some way out of this. All she had to do was keep calm.