‘He couldn’t.’

‘I don’t see why not.’

‘This castle was built with entailed money,’ Susie explained. ‘After the original Scottish castle burned down, the family trust made money available for rebuilding. Angus managed to arrange it so he rebuilt the castle here in Australia, but he still couldn’t leave it away from the true line of the peerage. If I’d had a son it’d be different, but now it goes to a nephew no one knows. It belongs to a Hamish Douglas. An American.’

She said ‘an American’ in a tone of such disgust that Kirsty burst out laughing. ‘You sound as if Americans are some sort of experimental bug,’ she said. ‘Just remember you are one, Susie Douglas.’

‘I hardly feel American any more,’ Susie said, sighing. Rose rolled sleepily off Boris, and Susie scooped her baby daughter up to hug her. ‘I have my own little Australian.’

‘Half American, half Scottish, born in Australia. But she belongs here.’

‘You see, I’m not sure any more,’ Susie said, sighing again. ‘Angus has left me enough to buy a little house and live happily ever after here. But I need to work and there’s not a lot of landscape gardening to be had in Dolphin Bay.’

‘There’s me,’ Kirsty said defensively, and Susie smiled.

‘You know that counts for a lot. But not everything. I need a job, Kirsty. Rory’s been dead for almost two years. My injuries from the crash are almost completely resolved. I loved caring for Angus, but without him the castle seems empty. The only thing keeping me occupied is the upkeep on the castle and the garden, and once the new earl arrives…’

‘When is he arriving?’

‘I don’t know,’ Susie told her. ‘But the lawyers say they’ve found him and told him he’s inherited. If you were told you’d inherited a title and a fortune, wouldn’t you hotfoot it over here?’

Kirsty gave a bleak little smile at that. So much sorrow had gone into this fortune, this title…