‘That,’ he told me, smiling, ‘is a trick that Stuie taught me, and I swore I’d never tell. It wouldn’t do to let Dad’s tenants learn the way of it.’ The kettle had boiled, and he took it off, asking again, ‘D’ye take tea, or coffee?’
‘Oh. Coffee, please.’
He took a pan and cooked me eggs, as well, and made me toast, and served it all up with a slab of cheese. ‘To weigh you down,’ he said, ‘so that the wind won’t knock you off the path.’
I took the plate, and looked towards the windows. ‘It’s not windy.’
‘Eat your breakfast.’ Having made a cup of coffee for himself, he poured the rest of the hot water in the frying pan and washed it, while I watched and tried to think of the last time a man had cooked for me and washed my dishes afterwards. I drew a total blank.
I asked, ‘Where’s Angus? How’s his paw?’
‘It’s not so sore, but if he tried to walk the way up to the Bullers, it would be. I left him with my father for the day. He’ll be all right. Dad always stuffs him full of sausages.’ He rinsed the pan and set it on the draining board to dry.
His mention of the Bullers made me stop dead in the middle of my toast. Oh, damn, I thought. I hadn’t written down my dream. I’d had that marvelous, long dream last night, with all that perfect action, and I’d gone and let it go to waste, because I hadn’t thought to write it down. It would be lost, now. If I concentrated, maybe I could reconstruct some bits of it, but dialogue just disappeared unless I got it down on paper moments after it had formed.
I sighed, and told myself to never mind, that these things happened. There was nothing to be done for it. I’d just been too distracted, when I’d woken, by the cold, and the more pressing need to see I didn’t freeze to death in my front room.
The room had grown much warmer now, but whether that was wholly from the stove or from the fact that Graham Keith was standing a few feet away from me, I didn’t know. He had crossed to examine the plans of Slains castle, spread out on my work table. ‘Where did you get these?’
‘From Dr Weir. He loaned them to me.’
‘Douglas Weir? How did you meet with him?’
‘Your father set it up.’
‘Oh, aye.’ His brief smile held a son’s indulgence. ‘Dad does have connections. Give him time, he’ll have you meeting half the village. What did you think of Dr Weir?’
‘I liked him. And his wife. They gave me whisky.’ Which, I realized, made it sound as though the two facts were related, so I stumbled on, ‘The doctor told me quite a lot about the history of the castle, and the Earls of Erroll.’
‘Aye, there isn’t much he doesn’t ken about the castle.’
‘He said the same thing about you,’ I told him, ‘and the Jacobites.’
‘Did he, now?’ His eyebrows lifted, interested. ‘What else did he say about me?’
‘Only that he thinks that you’re a Jacobite yourself.’
He didn’t exactly smile at that, but the corners of his eyes did crinkle. ‘Aye, there’s truth in that. Had I been born into another time,’ he said, ‘I might have been.’ He traced a corner of the Slains plan with his fingers, lightly, then he asked, ‘Who else has my dad got you meeting?’
I told him, as best I could remember, ending with the plumber’s driving tour. ‘Your brother said he’d drive me round instead.’
‘You’ve seen him drive?’
‘I said I’d take my chances with the plumber.’
Graham did smile, then. ‘I’ll take you for a driving tour some weekend, if you like.’
‘And you’re a safer driver, are you?’
‘Aye,’ he told me. ‘Naturally. I’m all the time driving old ladies to Kirk on a Sunday. You’ve nothing to fear.’
I’d have gone with him anywhere, actually. My mother, had she known that I was walking on the coast path with a man I barely knew, would have been close to apoplectic. But instinctively, I knew that Graham told the truth—I didn’t have to fear when I was with him. He would keep me safe.
It was a newfound feeling, and it settled on me strangely, but I liked the way it felt. I liked the way he walked beside me, close but not too crowding, and the way he let me go ahead of him along the path, so I could set the pace.
We went the back way down Ward Hill and found ourselves in the same gully with its quiet tangled trees and running stream that I’d gone through with Jane, two days ago, when she and I had headed from the village up to Slains. It was a drier day today. My boots were not so slippery as we crossed the little bridge and made our way up and around until we’d climbed again up to the level of the clifftop.