I explained. It sounded decidedly odd to my own ears, the story of how I had looked at Slains castle and known that I needed to be here, and flown back to Paris to clear out my things and come over again, in the space of a couple of days. But if Graham thought anything of it, he didn’t say. When I had finished, he tore a long strip from one end of the towel and wrapped it with care around Angus’s paw.
‘So, you’re finished with France, then,’ he said, summing up.
‘Yes, it seems so. The book’s coming along well, now I’m here.’
‘Well, that’s good. There,’ he said, to the dog, ‘how is that, now? Feel better?’
Angus stretched his neck to lick at Graham’s face, who laughed and gave the floppy ears a tousle. ‘There now, we’ll clear off and let the lady get to work.’
I didn’t want them to clear off. I wanted them to stay. I wanted to tell him I did my writing mostly in the evenings, that my afternoons were free, that I could make some tea, and maybe we could talk…But I couldn’t think of a way I could say that without sounding forward, and he hadn’t given me any real reason to think he’d say yes, or to think that he found me one tenth as attractive as I found him.
So I just stood to the side as he thanked me again for my help, and he picked Angus up and I opened the door for them. That’s when he stopped and looked down at me, thinking.
He asked, ‘Have ye been to the Bullers o’ Buchan?’
‘The what?’
He repeated the name, taking care to speak slowly. ‘A sort of a sea cave, not far to the north.’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘Because I was thinking, if you’re feeling up to a bit of a walk, I could take you tomorrow.’
Surprised, I said, ‘That would be nice.’
I was kicking myself for my bland choice of words, but he didn’t appear to have noticed.
‘Right, then. How does ten o’clock suit you? You’ve no problem walking the coast path?’
‘No problem at all,’ I assured him.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Again I was hit with that flash of a smile, and as I looked at it I realized why I’d had that niggling feeling I’d seen Stuart’s face before. The brothers weren’t that much alike, but there was still a slight resemblance, although Graham’s features, to my mind, revealed a force of character, a strength, that had no echo in the face of his more handsome brother.
Stuart might be nice to look at. Graham was the kind of man I couldn’t look away from.
Maybe that was why, when he had gone, the first thing that I did was make a beeline for my workbook. In the section bookmarked ‘Characters’， I wrote three pages, longhand—the descriptive details of a man with eyes the color of the winter sea.
I didn’t know exactly how I’d use him yet, but I had a suspicion that when I began to write tonight he’d turn up somewhere, entering the story with that easy, rolling stride that said he had a right to be there.
It was nearly time for supper when the knock came at my door.
I knew it was unlikely to be Graham, but my face must still have shown at least a trace of disappointment when I saw that it was Dr Weir, because he said, apologetically, ‘I didn’t interrupt your work, I hope?’
Recovering, I said, ‘Oh, no, of course not. Please, come in.’
‘I’ll not stay long.’ He wiped his feet, and stepped inside. ‘I promised Elsie I’d be home by dark. I’ve found those plans that I was telling you about, the plans that show Slains as it was in the old days, before the Victorian earls made it over. And I found a few old photographs I thought might be of interest to you. Where did I put them, now?’ Feeling inside his coat pocket, he found the small envelope holding the photos. The plans he’d brought rolled in a brown cardboard tube that he’d put, in its turn, in a clear plastic bag so it wouldn’t get wet. A wise precaution, I decided, since the strong wind off the sea had spattered water on his eyeglasses.
He took them off and wiped them while I put the plans and photos on my work table. ‘I don’t have any Scotch,’ I said, ‘but I could make you tea or coffee.’
‘No, my dear, I’m fine.’ He looked around with open interest and approval. ‘Jimmy’s made this very cozy.’
‘He’s been wonderful.’
‘Aye, all the Keiths are fairly that,’ he told me. ‘Even Stuart, for his faults. He got you back home in the one piece, I see.’