The lump in my throat is back, but with it comes a feeling of excitement, of unknown and new. And it’s a good feeling. The first real good feeling I’ve had in so long that I suddenly don’t care about careful. Or about being on my own for a bit. Or even, for right now at least, about that last night in the hospital.

Perhaps Will takes my silence for indecision because he backs off a little, dropping his hands to his sides. ‘We can go slow. As slow as you like.’

I look at the sheets, and then the length of his naked body. ‘This doesn’t feel slow.’

He grins. ‘We can go slower.’

Because I have to touch him, I reach out to press my palm against his chest, the pale muscles of his abdomen.

‘Come out in the sunshine with me, Maggie,’ he says. ‘And have lunch with Mum and Euan. Please.’

I watch the goosebumps rising along his skin. ‘That doesn’t feel slow either.’

‘No.’ For the first time his smile is uncertain. ‘Probably not.’

‘I’m pretty sure Donnie thinks I’m going to break your heart,’ I say, too quiet.

‘We’re talking about Donnie now?’

‘I don’t want to break your heart.’

He looks at me. ‘Then don’t.’

I finally give in to my own smile, to that feeling of unknown and new. ‘I’ll go to the Lodge with you.’

Will laughs and pulls me down on top of him, squeezes me hard enough that for a moment I can’t breathe. He loosens his grip and buries his head in the crook of my neck, and holds me like that for so long that I have to feel it: the relief. Both his and mine. And when something like happiness bursts inside my chest, just like that day on the beach, I let myself feel that too. I let myself want it.

And I almost believe it.

*

The Big Hoose is just as impressive inside as out. The entrance hall is cavernous. Dark oak panelling on every high wall, a grand and wide staircase with carved balustrades and green velvet carpet. Large archways branch off into long, gloomy corridors. Painted portraits cover the walls; most look impressively old: men in full highland dress, women in corseted gowns and complicated wigs. An intimidating array of swords and shields are mounted on the largest wall above two cherrywood cabinets displaying a number of shotguns behind thick glass.

Inside an alcove lit by electric candle sconces is a huge framed painting of Cora and Euan standing on a grand alabaster staircase: Cora in ivory silk; Euan in the Morrison tartan: dark shades of green inside square red borders. In the foreground, standing next to a granite pillar topped with marble is a tall, sullen boy in the same kilt and jacket and a much smaller boy in a silver suit and pink dicky bow, grinning widely.

‘Oh my God, is that you?’

Will laughs. ‘And Iain. Mum and Euan got married in Glasgow City Chambers. My sister, Heather, got to stay here, jammy bastard. Chickenpox.’ He grins. ‘You want to have seen the monstrosity they’d had lined up for her.’