Every day she and Charlie explored a little bit further outside, although they stuck to the shore as much as possible. Mallory told herself it was because she didn’t want to get lost, and because Charlie was so happy by the sea, but the truth was that the looming mountains still frightened her. They were so big and so bare, and they made her feel very small. She was always glad to get back to the familiar kitchen.

So, while it would be too much to say that she was feeling at home, she was definitely feeling more positive. Perhaps she wouldn’t have chosen to spend a year at Kincaillie under normal circumstances, but the prospect was certainly less bleak than it had been when she’d arrived.

Things were much easier with Torr, too. Just as she had hoped, the hard physical work gave her less time to think about Steve, and sometimes it was possible to think that her shattered heart might even be slowly healing. Torr had showed her how to use the range, and they took it in turns to cook in the evening, with Charlie getting under their feet and music in the background. Afterwards they sat by the fire like a staid married couple, and talked easily about everything except the state of their marriage or life before they came to Kincaillie.

It all felt very normal.

The only thing Mallory couldn’t get used to was sleeping with Torr. Tired as she was at the end of every day, she was always reluctant to leave the fire for the bedroom. It was more than the cold, though. In spite of their agreement, the more times they shared the bed, the more awkward it felt-or that was how it seemed to Mallory, anyway. Somehow it had been easier when they were hostile to each other.

Torr always offered to take Charlie out for a last run while she got ready for bed, so she was huddled up under the duvet and piles of blankets before he came in. And then the conversation which had been easy by the fire in the kitchen suddenly dried up, and there wasn’t quite enough oxygen in the little room.

Mallory tried to get over it by being as matter-of-fact as Torr himself, but she was excruciatingly aware of him every time they settled themselves close together, and it made her so tense that she found it difficult to get to sleep.

At least in Inverness they were likely to get a mattress without a great dip in the middle, she told herself. She was looking forward to the trip with the same excitement with which she had once planned a visit to Paris. It was hard to believe that she’d only been at Kincaillie two weeks. She might be making the best of things here, but she still craved some city air, some noise and some crowds, and some paving stones beneath her feet.

When Torr had studied the list she had drawn up, his brows had crawled up to his hairline as he’d turned the page. ‘There’s no way we’ll get all this in a day-even if we didn’t have the architect to see. We’ll need to do a big supermarket shop too. We’d better spend the night,’ he’d decided.

‘What about Charlie?’ Mallory had asked.

‘We’ll take him with us. I’m sure we can find a hotel that accepts dogs.’

Better and better.

Mallory’s spirits were high as they set off early that morning. It was the first time she had left Kincaillie since they had arrived in the middle of that awful storm, and excitement tingled along her veins as they hit the tarmac road at the end of the Kincaillie track at last.

She looked about her with interest. The darkness had been so complete when they’d arrived that she had seen none of this before. For a while it was just more hills, but after fifteen miles or so they came to a sizeable village, with a post office-cum-general store and a square whitewashed hotel.

‘Civilisation at last!’

Amusement bracketed Torr’s mouth. ‘This is Carraig,’ he said. ‘You may mock, but there’s more here than you think. This will be the hub of your social life for the next year!’

Mallory eyed the single empty street. It was hard to imagine she would find any kindred spirits here. ‘I think I may be popping up to Inverness for a fix of city life instead,’ she said, and Torr glanced at her.

‘You might change your mind when you find out how long it takes us to get there.’

CHAPTER SIX

AFTER two weeks of isolation, Inverness seemed incredibly busy. Mallory blinked at the traffic. Here were the people, the cars, the shops and all the signs of a thriving city that she had missed so much at Kincaillie, but instead of feeling at home she felt like a stranger arriving in a different country.

Perhaps it was just because she was English?

They checked in at the hotel first. Torr had booked separate rooms without asking her, and Mallory told herself that she was relieved.

‘Didn’t they think it was a bit odd?’ she whispered as they waited for their key. ‘A married couple asking for separate rooms?’

Torr only shrugged. ‘Who cares what they think?’ he said, sounding disconcertingly like the ruthless businessman he had been before Kincaillie. ‘We’re paying good money for two rooms. That’s all that matters.’

‘I’m sure they must be wondering about us,’ said Mallory uncomfortably.

‘Tell them I refuse to sleep in the same room as the dog or something, if it makes you feel better.’

‘I could tell them that you snore,’ she retorted, rather nettled by his dismissive attitude.

‘Tell them what you like.’ Torr bent to pick up both overnight bags as Mallory had Charlie on the lead. ‘Tell them the truth if you want.’

‘The truth?’

‘That you don’t like sleeping with your husband.’

A tinge of colour crept into her cheeks. ‘I’m not the one who booked separate rooms,’ she pointed out. ‘Perhaps they’ll think you don’t like sleeping with me!’

Torr looked at her. Her hair was dark and soft and shining, and her deep brown eyes were bright, animating the lovely face that had for so long been blank with misery. In her sea-green jacket and turquoise scarf, she was a slim, vibrant figure in the old-fashioned lobby.

‘I don’t think that’s very likely,’ he said softly, and as Mallory’s gaze met his navy blue ones the air seemed to thicken around them, muffling the sounds of breakfast being served in the restaurant, blurring the receptionist and the tourists checking out, until there was just the two of them, standing there, looking at each other.

Mallory’s throat was dry, her heart thudding. She wanted to tear her eyes away and step back, but she was trapped by that deep, dark blue gaze. All she could do was stare back at him and wonder with some strange, detached part of her mind why she had never noticed how thick and dark his lashes were before. Had Torr always had that dark rim around the iris, those creases at the edge of his eyes?

The blue gaze seemed to be reaching deep inside her, as if he could see behind her own eyes to where she was torn and confused about how she felt, to the secret part of her that wondered, wondered, wondered every night what would happen if she turned and touched him.

The mere possibility that he might be able to guess was enough to make Mallory panic, and gave her the strength to jerk her eyes away. She swallowed. ‘I’d better take Charlie for a quick walk,’ she said unsteadily.

‘OK.’ Torr checked his watch. ‘Let’s have breakfast in half an hour. I’ll meet you down here then.’

He sounded so normal that Mallory wanted to hit him, and had to turn on her heel and stalk out with Charlie instead. She was outraged that he could have been so unmoved by that meeting of their eyes when she was so shaken, and furious at how wobbly her voice had been. Even her knees felt weak!

She was completely thrown by her reaction to him-to Torr. To her husband. It didn’t make sense.

Poor Charlie had to trot to keep up with her as she strode along, too wound up to give him time for any really satisfactory sniffs. She wished Torr wasn’t so hard to read. When he said that it was unlikely that the hotel staff would imagine that he didn’t want her, did that imply that he did? But if he did want her, why not say so? More importantly, did she want him to want her?

Mallory just didn’t know. She was so used to longing for Steve that she wasn’t sure what she wanted any more. Until she did, she resolved, she wasn’t going to risk making a fool of herself by gazing into Torr’s eyes like that any more.

By the time she returned to the hotel and settled Charlie in her room, she had armoured herself with such an air of cool sophistication that no one watching her walk into the restaurant to meet Torr would have guessed that she was ridiculously nervous. Mallory just hoped that Torr wouldn’t guess either.

She stood in the doorway and looked around the room for him, and was horrified to discover that the sight of him at a table by the window was enough to tangle her entrails into knots. His dark head was bent over a menu, but, as if sensing her, he looked up and saw her hesitating.

Their eyes met across the room and Mallory’s heart promptly lurched into overdrive. Why had it suddenly started doing that? After all she had had to say to herself too!

Still, she managed to walk over to him with a creditable show of unconcern, and even summoned a cool smile as she sat down.

‘I was just about to order,’ said Torr. ‘What do you want?’

I want to stop feeling like this, Mallory nearly said. I want you to go back to being a stranger. At least when she had been miserable she had known where she was.

‘I’ll just have some coffee,’ she said.

‘Have something to eat, too.’ Torr handed her the menu. ‘We’ve got a long day ahead, and we might not get a chance for lunch. It depends how long we’re with Sheena.’

‘Sheena?’ Instantly and inexplicably alert at the sound of another woman’s name, Mallory looked up sharply from the menu.

‘Sheena Irvine, the architect.’ Torr signalled for the waitress, and Mallory found herself hoping that she wouldn’t respond immediately. She did, of course.

Mallory ordered scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, and let Torr pour her a cup of coffee.

‘What’s she like, this Sheena?’ she asked him, feeling peevish for some reason.

‘She’s got an excellent reputation,’ said Torr. ‘Her designs have won a number of awards.’

‘Yes, but what’s she like?’ said Mallory with a touch of impatience, and Torr shot her a curious look, as if wondering why it mattered.

It didn’t, of course, she told herself, but why didn’t he just answer the question?

‘She’s a very nice woman,’ he said eventually, and Mallory promptly wished she hadn’t asked. ‘Intelligent, talented, stylish. It turns out that she’s a climber, too, and we’ve done a lot of the same climbs. What else do you want to know?’

‘Attractive?’

‘Very,’ said Torr. ‘You’ll like her.’

Mallory shook out her napkin with a decided flick. Somehow she doubted that.

She was right. She didn’t like Sheena at all, and she was fairly sure the feeling was mutual.

Sheena was unmistakably a Scot. She had beautiful pale skin, and hair that Mallory would have loved to describe as carroty, but was instead a rich, glorious red-gold. She was stylishly dressed, Mallory acknowledged a little grudgingly-Torr had been right about that at least-but she managed to keep a wholesome air about her too. Next to her, Mallory felt like a hothouse flower, and about as out of place.

There were the inevitable few minutes of small talk while they settled themselves and waited for Sheena’s secretary to bring coffee. Torr and Sheena were talking about climbing, and, as Mallory rarely climbed more than stairs unless she had to, she had the opportunity to observe them both.

Sheena hadn’t been expecting Torr to produce a wife, that much was obvious, and it was equally obvious that she was disappointed. Torr must have kept very quiet about her before, Mallory thought, and she couldn’t help feeling miffed. OK, so their relationship wasn’t a conventional one, but he could at least have mentioned that he was married.

She could tell that Sheena found Torr attractive. The other woman wasn’t exactly batting her eyelashes at him, but she was mirroring his body language, and there was an awful lot of looking into his eyes and touching her mouth.

Of course it might be unconscious, Mallory admitted somewhat grudgingly, but she didn’t think so.

For the first time she looked at her husband through another woman’s eyes. Torr’s features were too stern and craggy to be classically handsome, but he was tall and broad and solid. His expression was forbidding, but there was something intriguing about his mouth now she came to think of it. In repose, it was stern, but in the kind of way that had you wondering what he would look like when he smiled, whether it would transform him.