No, she wouldn’t let her mind go there. If there was anything, she’d learned through all her trials it was that everything in her life had an expiration date. She may not know when or how, but good or bad, nothing lasted forever. Not even a dynasty. One might think a person whose family had lived in the same place for hundreds of years might take some certainties for granted, but she’d never had the luxury of indulging fantasies of permanence. Her parents would return to Scotland, the filming would wrap up, Sophia would fly back to America. Someday even her title and all the responsibilities inherent in it would disappear, one way or another, eventually. Wasn’t that all the more reason to steal her moments when she could get them?

She skirted the edge of the courtyard and around a low wall as the relative warmth of the day began to fade. She’d left Sophia in the stables an eternity ago, and the rest of the day had been a long string of one obligation after another, including one rather unpleasant meeting with Talia and several legal representatives from the film studio followed by an equally tense cocktail hour with her parents. Neither event had fully resolved anything, and she was eager to put both of them in herrear-view mirror, literally.

As she reached the other side of a small courtyard, she strolled as casually as possible through her mother’s elaborate gardens. In her olive-green cargo pants and lightweight black sweater, she hoped she looked more the part of tourist than heiress. The gardens stayed open later than the castle grounds, which gave her a cover she didn’t technically need. Still, she paused to sniff a few roses, not wanting to seem in a hurry, or even on too direct a path to the high hedgerow maze.

She took one cautionary glance over her shoulder to make sure none of the groundskeepers were still about that part of the gardens as she entered the maze between two thick, tall rows of yew hedges marking the entrance. Then, as if guided by some sort of autopilot system installed in her unruly youth, she turned right then left and left again, right into a dead end. Then she stepped right through the yew branches.

She grabbed a door handle before she even saw the fence in front of her and slipped a key from her pocket, using the tips of her fingers to feel for the lock. Thankfully it hadn’t rusted in the years of neglect. Then again, her younger sister, Lizzie, also had a key, so maybe she’d used it a time or two before she settled down. She smiled as she stepped through the gate into a deserted car park.