‘The beams came from St Mary’s Cathedral just south of Sydney,’ Susie told him. ‘St Mary’s burned down just after the war when Angus was building this place. He couldn’t resist. He had all the usable timbers trucked here. For the last few years he didn’t have enough energy to keep it up, but since I’ve been here I’ve been restoring it. I love it.’

He knew she did. He could hear it in her voice.

She didn’t look like any relic he’d met before.

Susie was wearing men’s overalls, liberally dirt-stained. She was shortish, slim, with an open, friendly face. She had clear, brown enquiring eyes, and her auburn curls were caught back in a ponytail that threatened to unravel at any minute. A long white scar ran across her forehead-hardly noticeable except that it accentuated the lines of strain around her eyes. She was still young but her face had seen…life?

Her husband had been murdered, he remembered. That’s what the lawyers had told him. Back in New York it had seemed a fantastic tale but suddenly it was real. Bleakly real.

‘Do you know about the family?’ she asked, as if she’d guessed his thoughts and knew he needed an explanation.

‘Very little,’ he told her. ‘I’d like to hear more. Angus was the last earl. He died childless. Your husband, Rory, was his eldest nephew, and he and the second nephew, Kenneth, are both dead. I’m the youngest nephew. I never knew Angus, I certainly didn’t know about the title, and I’m still trying to figure things out. Am I right so far?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Angus and my father and another brother-Rory and Kenneth’s father-left Scotland just after the war?’

‘Apparently the family castle was a dark and gloomy pile on the west coast of Scotland,’ she told him.