Moreton's Kingdom (22 page)

‘Just round the corner.’ She watched as he sorted out the canvases. ‘Did you come by air?’

He nodded.

‘I flew down with the Cessna.’ His mouth lifted in a one-sided smile. ‘I was short of time.’

‘Then I can drive you to the airport?’

‘That was the idea,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll go ahead with this lot and you can follow with the others. I’d offer you lunch,’ he added as she opened the door, ‘but private aircraft, no matter how small, cost money while they’re standing on a municipal airstrip.’

She thought of his swift transition to the glen, longing to go with him, but he had said so little about the future. Just that he loved her and her thoughts had stopped there. It was almost as if the whole world had stopped revolving while he had kissed her without restraint and she had responded as eagerly to his ardent caress.

He passed her on the stairs coming back up.

‘Is that the lot?’ he asked.

‘Everything except my personal belongings,’ she agreed. ‘My case was already packed when Coralie appeared.’

Charles made no reply to that, but when he came down to join her in the foyer he was carrying her suitcase and her coat. Apparently he didn’t want her to go back to the flat.

Some of the radiance faded from her eyes.

‘I’ll get my handbag,’ she said, ‘and the keys.’

She had already given him the key of her car and when she went back to the flat she allowed herself a few minutes to say goodbye. She had been happy here working so closely with such dedicated spirits as Emma and Fergus and feeling that she was gradually coming to understand Charles in spite of their initial misunderstanding.

The bedroom door was slightly ajar and she noticed that one of the drawers in the dressing-chest had been opened. Crossing to it automatically, she realised that it was the drawer in which she had buried Deirdre’s photograph among all the tissue paper, but now the drawer was empty. All the other drawers were as she had left them, so she could only conclude that Charles had taken the photograph of his former love to dispose of it in some other way.

Her car was drawn up at the kerb when she closed the outer door behind her, feeling that she had shut it on a dark track of Charles’s life.

‘I’m not going to need a taxi, after all,’ he said. ‘I’ve got everything into the boot and we can put the rest on the back seat.’

‘I see you’re going to drive,’ she smiled as he remained behind the steering-wheel. ‘Surely you can trust me!’

‘Implicitly! But I have my reservations about being driven by a woman. Besides,’ he added, smiling broadly, ‘this is a first-class kidnapping. I can’t afford to let you slip through my fingers a second time.’

‘Charles!’ Her heart was beating very fast as she got in beside him. ‘Does it mean you want me to come to Glassary?’

‘It means I’m
taking
you to Glassary,’ he said, letting in the clutch. ‘Where else? I told you it was a first-class kidnapping!’

‘You can’t call it that when the victim is so eager to go!’ Katherine put a hand on his arm. ‘Oh, Charles, it’s so difficult for me to believe! I should have had a little more time.’

‘Time doesn’t exist,’ he said. ‘Not when you’re thinking of a timeless future. Have you ever flown in a small plane before?’

‘Never.’ She felt quite breathless. ‘I’ve a notion I might be terrified!’

‘You can hold on to my arm!’

They left her car in the airport parking lot when they had packed everything in the Cessna and Charles had completed the necessary formalities before take-off. Dwarfed by the giant jet-propelled aircraft waiting to travel to the farthest corners of the earth, the little blue-and-white plane looked like a hovering bird as they taxied down the runway, but soon they were airborne and flying into the sun. Katherine felt the lift as the wheels left the tarmac and the magic of the first moment of flight as the earth dwindled beneath them and the Pentland Hills became no more than a ruffle on its surface, and then they were leaving the blue expanse of the Firth behind them and travelling west along the line of the river with the smoke of industry far beneath them and the mountains of the north and west directly ahead.

‘Coming home must always be like this for you, Charles,’ she said, aware of the keenness in him as he looked down on a wide strath between the soaring peaks.

‘I wanted you to see it like this,’ he said, turning towards her. ‘You’re not nervous?’

She shook her head.

‘It’s going to be over all too soon,’ she declared. ‘It’s lovely to look down on the world like this.’

‘Our world,’ he corrected as he pointed out the narrow ribbon of Loch Earn glittering in the sun, with the white sails of little yachts dotting its surface like resting birds. ‘We’ll soon be home.’

‘It’s like being on a magic carpet,’ she said fancifully as they glided close to the mountainsides, finding their way from glen to glen, and then there was another stretch of water and another glen before she realised that they were gliding slowly down to land.

‘It’s over so soon,’ she regretted. ‘Look! I can see Glassary and the loch! I can even see the Stable House and the road over the bridge!’

Charles circled to bring it all in close.

‘Do you think you could stay here for the rest of your life?’ he asked quietly. ‘It wouldn’t be a prison, Kate, or even a fortress, as you once imagined. It would be a life apart, dedicated to Glassary, but the outside world wouldn’t be so far away. You can see for yourself how quickly we’ve come from Edinburgh. You would never need to feel—restricted or left out in any way. Even by car it’s a short enough journey and there’s always plenty to do.’

She leaned forward to put her hand over his.

‘Don’t make excuses for Glassary,’ she said gently. ‘I’ll always love it, and besides, there’ll be Emma and Sandy and Fergus—and so many people I have yet to meet.’ Before he set the controls for the short approach down the glen he said:

‘I’ve got some news for you, come to think of it! Emma and Fergus will be married just as soon as Mrs. Falkland can get extra help in the hotel. It will be a very quiet affair,’ he added, ‘but you and I will have to be prepared for something quite different, Kate. We owe the glen a pukka wedding with all the trimmings, I’m afraid.’ He held her hand to his lips. ‘Will you mind very much?’

‘I’d even do that for Glassary!’ she smiled, kissing his cheek as his eyes narrowed in concentration for the final approach to the narrow grass runway beside the loch. ‘I’d do anything for you both.’

The little plane touched down, bumping to a standstill at the very edge of the loch and Sandy came running from the Stable House with Emma and Fergus in his wake.

‘Welcome home!’ said Fergus, though a breathless Sandy had reached them first. ‘Welcome home to Glassary!’