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one evening? Andrew will vouch that I do not drink, and I have no other vices which would blacken me in your eyes.’
    Marianne held her breath, but she need not have worried. Both sisters were bowled over by his boyish charm, and Miss Edith, the decision-maker, was beaming as she said, ‘We have no objection to you taking Marianne out for a short walk occasionally, Mr Grant, as long as you do not keep her out late. You may call for her at half-past seven tomorrow night.’
    Taking this correctly as a dismissal, Stephen gave a small bow, cast a delighted glance at Marianne and walked away. Before she had time to make up her mind whether to be pleased at his dexterity in dealing with the elderly ladies or offended that he hadn’t asked her first, Miss Edith said, ‘He seems a very agreeable young man. I take it you like him, Marianne?’
    â€˜I don’t know him very well, but I’ve nothing against him.’
    â€˜I don’t know what Andrew’s going to say about this,’ Miss Emily put in. ‘I thought he and Marianne –’
    Miss Edith tutted impatiently. ‘She is too young to be serious about any one boy – it will do her good to get to know others. She can come to no harm as long as we vet her escorts.’
    Too young – as Miss Edith had said – to appreciate what could happen to her, or to have any deep romantic thoughts about either Stephen or Andrew, Marianne slept soundly that night, and did not feel at all nervous about the assignation until about five minutes before Stephen was due.
    When the expected knock came, Miss Edith motioned her to stay where she was and went to the door herself. ‘Ah, good evening, Mr Grant. You must come in and meet my youngest sister, and then we will hinder you no longer.’
    â€˜They all like you,’ Marianne told him a few minutes later, as they walked away from Strawberry Bank. ‘You made a good impression on them.’
    â€˜Your aunts are dear old souls,’ he smiled.
    She didn’t correct him. What difference did it make if he’d made a wrong assumption? ‘Have you seen Andrew today?’ she asked.
    Blushing, Stephen looked squarely at her. ‘I made a point of seeing him. I didn’t want him to think I was keeping our meeting a secret.’
    â€˜What did he say?’ she asked conversationally, although she wasn’t really interested in what Andrew had said. It had nothing to do with him who she went out with.
    â€˜He said he was glad someone else was taking an interest in you.’
    This put a different slant on things. How dare Andrew palm her off like that? Had he another girl in mind for himself? She couldn’t let Stephen see that she was angry, however. It wasn’t his fault.
    They kept on walking and talking, her anger faded, and the more she was in his company, the more she came to like him. When he told her that his father was one of the top surgeons at the Infirmary and his mother had been a Drummond of Drumtocher, she could tell that he wasn’t just trying to impress her.
    â€˜Are your parents still alive?’ he asked her then.
    The abrupt question took her by surprise. If she told the truth, he would want to know where her father lived and what he worked at, and she couldn’t tell him about the ramshackle house where she had been born and brought up, the sawdust from the mill lying thick over the bits of furniture her mother had dusted lovingly several times a day until her lungs had been contaminated. ‘They both … died,’ she said presently. ‘That’s why I had to come to Aberdeen.’
    â€˜Where did you live before that?’
    â€˜We’d a lovely big house in its own grounds.’ For a moment, she felt sick at the lies she was concocting, but she had started now and it was quite good fun really. Carried away by her imagination, she went on, forgetting to be careful with her speech, ‘It had oak