Highland Fling (41 page)

Jenny’s head was swimming. ‘Look, I’m not trying to be difficult, really I’m not. I’m just saying that you don’t need to feel obliged to marry me if I turn out to be pregnant. You should be pleased.’

‘But I want to marry you, you idiotic woman! God knows why, but I do! And I don’t take kindly to being rejected when I haven’t even had an opportunity to ask you properly.’

‘I’m sorry, Ross. I’ve only just got up after having quite a high temperature. I think I’m confused. Could you run that by me again, slowly?’

He scowled down at her, and then lowered himself onto the sofa beside her. He took her hand in his. ‘
You
do feel awfully hot. I think I should get you back to bed.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Exactly what you want it to mean, my darling.’

He didn’t move. He just sat and held her hand, looking at her.

‘Ross, are you saying, did you say, or have I got it completely wrong, something about not wanting to be turned down before you’ve asked me properly?’

‘Something like that.’

‘But what were you going to ask me?’

He bit his lip, he sighed, he tipped back his head and laughed. ‘Sweet Genevieve, sweet, sweet Genevieve, you are such a plonker. I want to ask you to marry me. I want you to marry me, whether you’re pregnant or not. My only conditions are that you love me. Now can you take that in?’

She looked up at him. The single bulb that hung from the ceiling was dim and high; it did nothing but cast his face into shadow, concealing his expression. She had thought that he was going to let her down gently, tell her she was a really nice person, a lovely girl, but what had happened between them had been a one-off. Now he seemed to be asking her to marry him. She rubbed her forehead, trying to clear it. She usually considered herself to be quite intelligent. Flu seemed to have killed off most of her brain cells.

‘Dear God, Jenny,’ he breathed, and took her into his arms. ‘Will you please put me out of my misery? Will you marry me?’

‘Mm. Yes, I think so. If you’re really asking.’

‘I am! I really am!’ He fumbled about in his pocket and produced a little box. ‘I’ve been so worried about this. I’m sure it’s a really old-fashioned thing to do, but I’ve got you a ring. If you hate it, you must tell me.’

She began to smile, just a little at first, but then it
spread so every part of her seemed to be smiling. ‘Are you telling me that you were looking so shifty on the dance floor because you’d bought me a ring you thought I might not like?’

‘You still might not like it. Here, let me show you.’

A boiled sweet on a curtain ring would have been perfectly acceptable to her, in the circumstances. So a gold band set with five perfect diamonds was more than satisfactory.

‘It’s fabulous,’ she said, waggling her finger to see the diamonds sparkle. ‘You’re fabulous. Are you sure you want to marry me? I’m such a moody cow.’

‘I’m strange that way. ‘It’s the moody kind I like best.’

‘Just as well.’ She gazed at her ring, thinking. ‘Ross?’

‘What?’ He took hold of her hand and started caressing her wrist, but she held his fingers.

‘I know I’m all through-other –’

‘What?’

Her brain struggled to find another word to sum up how she felt, but this family expression was all she could think of. ‘You know – in a state?’

‘Yes.’

‘But I do have to know a few things, the answers to a few questions. The answers don’t matter. I love you just as you are. Your faults are just as much a part of you as your virtues.’

‘Well, thank you.’

‘Why did you send me up here? Was it to close down Dalmain Mills?’

He took hold of her hands and examined them for a few seconds before answering. ‘In a way, yes.’ He looked up at her. ‘You see, I didn’t see a way out for
them. I haven’t the imagination to think of llama wool and nuno felt and all those cockamamie schemes you and Kirsty cooked up …’

‘So?’

‘So, I sent you up here to come to the same conclusions as I did, then, when you told me there was no hope for the mill, I was planning to ask you to begin closing things down.’

She frowned. ‘But why? I’m only a glorified secretary, for goodness sake. Why get me to do something like that?’

‘You’d already proved to me that you were far more than a glorified secretary, but I did feel it would be less painful to have your factory wound up by a pretty, sympathetic woman, than by a team of men in suits.’

‘You couldn’t possibly know what I looked like. That’s ridiculous!’

‘And then, when I came up to live here, and set up some small business, I’d be seen as a creator of jobs, not the destroyer of an industry.’ He paused. ‘I’m not remotely proud of how I acted, which is why I’m prepared to go on throwing money at Dalmain Mills for as long as it takes …’ He hesitated again.

She helped him out. ‘For our cockamamie schemes to work, you mean?’

‘Uh huh. Now, is there anything else you need to know? I’m getting anxious about you, and think it’s high time I got you back to Dalmain House.’

‘About Dalmain House. Did you send Henry to get Lady Dalmain to sell it to you?’

He shook his head. ‘I got Henry – or rather his firm – I would never have brought Henry into it if I’d known he had anything to do with you. That was the
most hideous coincidence. When I saw him kiss you, it was like being stabbed in the gut. I have never felt like that before.’

Gratified, but not distracted, she squeezed his fingers. ‘Never mind about Henry, what about Dalmain House?’

‘I wanted to know how attached Lady Dalmain was to the place. If she was open to offers, I could then present myself as the buyer, and the saviour of her fortunes.’ He cleared his throat. ‘It was before I knew what the house looked like, of course. I just knew it was part of the Dalmain Estate.’ He became a little sheepish. ‘It could have been lovely – stop laughing, it’s not funny.’

She was hardly able to breathe, she was laughing so much. ‘Yes, it is. Imagine, the hot shot Angel Investor, forced to live in that dreadful building, with its draughts and its blood-coloured spiky bits.’

‘Spiky bits or not, it’s where you’re going now, where I’ll either give you a hot toddy and a couple of aspirin – or …’

‘Or what?’ She was still giggling faintly and knew it was partly excitement about what was to come.

‘You know what, you wanton woman. Now come on.’

Expecting him to take her hand, she was rather surprised when instead he picked her up in his arms and carried her out of the room and through the house. Hugely embarrassed, she buried her head in his shoulder and kept it there, ignoring the cheers and catcalls that followed them until they reached his car. ‘It’s just like that film,’ she heard Meggie say.

‘Now don’t lay a finger on me until I get you home,’
Ross said sternly. ‘It’s too cold for that sort of thing in the car.’

‘It’s no warmer at Dalmain House.’

Ross grinned at her. ‘Warmer than a mountaintop, surely?’

She laughed back at him. ‘But what about Henry? He’ll be back eventually.’

‘Bother Henry! Let’s go.’