“Thank you.” I smiled, feeling for a moment safe and cared for. Lachan carried me up the stairs and placed me on my bed. “Well, you’ll be all right now, I expect,” he said. Fig appeared at that moment in a frightful fluster. “They say you nearly died, Georgiana. I thought no good could come of climbing.”

“The climb was no problem,” I said. “The rope snapped on the way down.”

“Who is in charge of ropes here? I’ll see he’s fired immediately.”

“Fig, the rope came from Balmoral with Prince George,” I said. “And Siegfried said it looked just fine when they laid it out.”

“Then I suppose a sharp rock must have cut through it.” She pushed Maggie aside and placed the hot water bottle beside me. This was a good idea as I was now feeling decidedly shivery. The tea tray arrived and Fig poured a generous helping of brandy into my cup. I drank, gasping at the combination of alcohol and heat, then I lay back.

“Have a good rest now, and then we’ll send up some lunch,” she said. “And by the way, have you heard? The Americans came back in a frightful temper. It seems your dreadful cousin had spun them a yarn about hunting for haggis. Really those men are too much.”

“That’s rich, coming from someone who made the piper play at dawn,” I said with a grin. “You’re just as bad as they are.”

“Well, I suppose if it helps to drive them away, I can’t complain.”

“I think it was jolly funny,” I said. “You should have heard Lachan describing how ferocious the haggis were and how they went for your ankles.”

“I suppose that is rather amusing.” Fig’s face actually cracked into a smile. “I wonder what they’ll say when we have haggis for dinner tonight. Cook has it all prepared, you know.”

“Excellent.” I closed my eyes. Fig shushed Maggie out of the room and I lay there alone. All in all it had been a surreal morning, with Siegfried asking me to marry him and then the fall. It did cross my mind that the two could be related. Had he cut the rope in a fit of pique because I had turned him down? Foreigners were known to be so emotional and he did come from a part of the world where vengeance was a daily occurrence.

I must have drifted off to sleep because I awoke to hear the sound of a door creaking open. All Castle Rannoch doors creak, as do the floorboards. It’s positively a requirement in a castle to have creaking doors. My eyes opened in time to see Hugo Beasley-Bottome creeping into the room.

“Hugo!” I exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

He started, as if he had expected me to be asleep. “Sorry. I just thought—well, I thought that you and I might have a little chat.”