Gentle Tyrant

by Lucy Gillen

  CHAPTER SIX

  IT was a little later than usual when Laurie went up to the house the following morning, and she was hurrying along the driveway, rather out of breath, when she saw Quin coming down the front steps, obviously on his way to the stables. It would be polite., she supposed, if she asked him how Mrs. McAdam was this morning. He stopped when he saw her, as if he guessed her intention, and waited for her to join him. She thought there seemed an unfamiliar hardness in his expression and it made her heart jolt erratically when she remembered Colin McAdam's wild accusations against her when he saw her with his mother. Quin did not smile either, even when she ventured a small, tentative one of her own, but merely looked at her speculatively, as if something was puzzling him. 'Good morning,' she said, already feeling uneasy, although she told herself she had absolutely no reason ,to. 'Good morning.' No more than that, she noticed, just the bare bones of politeness. 'I'm I'm afraid I'm a bit later than usual; she offered, wondering why she should bother to apologise to him, when it was Russ she worked for. 'Are you? I'm sure no one will notice.' 100 She hesitated briefly, then took the plunge. 'How's Mrs. McAdam this morning?' she asked. The ice-grey eyes studied her for a moment longer, 'How do you think she is?' he asked quietly, and Laurie swallowed hard. He seemed bent on being difficult this morning and she looked at him curiously. A cold feeling, of panic niggled at the back of her mind when she remembered Rose McAdam's still figure on the bed of bracken under the trees, and the black bruise on her forehead. 'Well I don't know,' she said. 'I I expect she's not feelling very good this morning after that nasty fall she had.' 'Did you actually see her fall?' It was just too much, Laurie thought wildly. He sounded almost as if he was interrogating her, and what was more, as if he had every right to do so. 'No; she said sharply. 'I didn't actually see her fall. She was lying on the ground when I found her and a fall seemed the only feasible explanation. Unless she became I don't know, dizzy, perhaps.' 'She didn't become dizzy,' he told her quietly. 'And she says she didn't fall either.' " Laurie stared at him. He was behaving exactly as if it was a firmly established fact that she had been responsible for Rose McAdam's injuries, and .surely that was ridiculous, for by now the woman herself would have given them a true picture. 'I don't understand,' she told him, warily on her dignity. His mouth, she thought, tightened a fraction and it was the first time she ever remembered seeing him 101 look doubtful about anything. 'There appears to be some doubt as to whether she really did fall from her horse,' he said, and Laurie eyed him warily. She flushed a moment later when she realised what he was implying and her eyes sparkled with anger. 'Of course she did,' she said. 'I've already told you, she must have done.' 'Colin says you were holding a stick of some sort.' 'I was,' she agreed. 'I picked it up while I was walking, but as for 'doing anything else with it ' She looked at him for a moment, her eyes unhappy and uncertain. 'I know Colin was shocked at first,' she said. 'And he made some silly, childish accusations, but surely Mrs. McAdam herself has put that straight by now.' Quin held her gaze steadily. 'I don't know whether she has or not,' he told her quietly. 'That's where the problem lies, you see.' Laurie stared at him, her heart beating a wild and terrifying tattoo at her side. That small niggling doubt was showing definite signs of becoming a reality. 'But surely ' she began. 'She claims that what Colin says is true,' he went on quietly relentless. 'She says you lost your temper and attacked her with that heavy stick you were holding when Colin found you.' 'Oh no!' 'She says you hit her on the head with it and knocked her out,' he went on, 'and when she came round, Colin was with her and you were nowhere to be seen.' 'Well, of course I wasn't,' Laurie cried despairingly. 102 'I came to tell you to get a doctor for her. You know that, Quin.' 'You didn't hit her?' 'No, of course not!' She stared at him, her heart racing in panic. 'Do do you really believe I'm capable of it?' she asked, and her voice was husky not a bit Like hers at all. He put a hand under her chin and LIfted her face to him, the ice-grey eyes scanning her features narrowly. 'I find it hard to believe,' he told her. 'And yet you are a little firebrand, as I know to my cost, and you have taken the rough edge of Rose's tongue once or twice lately.' 'Oh 1 Oh, you you ' It was infuriating not to be able to find the words she sought so urgently, and the way the tears were gathering in her eyes too was bound to give quite the wrong impression. 'Remorse or injured innocence?' he asked softly, tracing one fat rolling tear down her cheek with a gentle finger. She knocked away his hand from her chin, rubbing vigorously at the marks it had left. 'Anyone who could turn Clach Aros into a peepshow; she told him bitterly, 'is capable of bellieving anything.' She thought he looked surprised at that, but it was difficult to see anything through her tears. 'And since I'm apparently a suspicious character as far as your family's con-. cemed; she added, 'I'd better go back home and keep out of their way.' 'Laurie!' She ignored him, refusing to stay and listen to him any more. If he believed her responsible for Rose 103 McAdam's accident, then it was possible that his brothers were of the same mind, and she was not prepared to stay and find out. She turned and walked back down the drive, her back stiff and resentful while the tears rolled unchecked down her face. She had never felt so utterly miserable and ill-used in her life, and she felt rather self-righteous about it too. 'Laurie, come back here!' Let him shout, Laurie thought, and walked on. But when she heard him on the gravel driveway, coming after her, she increased her pace and ran. It was inevitable, of course, that he would soon gain on her with his much longer legs, and she instinctively veered off into the trees that bordered the drive, with the idea of eluding him. It was a vain attempt, as she might have known it would be, and after only a few seconds he caught up with her. He dodged round another tree and thrust out an arm to encircle her waist. His hold was steel hard and inescapable and it brought her to a standstill, breathing shortly and struggling to escape while he hung on to her detenninedly. 'Keep still!' he ordered sharply. 'Stop it, Laurie!' 'Let me go!' He merely put a firm hand on each of her arms and turned her round to face him, still keeping his hold on her. 'Now keep still, and stop behaving Like a wild thing,' he told her. 'You have no right ' she began, and he shook her. Not hard, but hard enough to make her gasp. 'Stop arguing and listen to me for a minute, will you?' 104 'I I don't have to listen to you,' she told him breathlessly, and he shook his head, a trace of the old famuiar smile on his face. 'Nevertheless you're going to,' he informed her. She glared at him resentfully, her eyes dark with anger and frustration. 'You're hurting my arms,' she told him. 'And my bruises might be as hard to explain as Mrs. McAdam's.' He chuckled, not altogether surprisingly, and eased his grip slightly. 'Touche,' he said. Laurie lifted her chin and looked down her nose at him. 'If I'm supposed to be the the wild woman of the glen,' she said, 'aren't you afraid of being out here alone with me? I might hit you on the head with something.' He laughed and shook his head. 'I don't think so,' he told her. 'Although you'll probably slap my face given half a chance, that's why I'm hanging on to you.' 'I'd Like nothing better; she agreed tartly, and he laughed again. There was, she thought, both amusement and speculation in his eyes when he looked down at her and she wondered what was going on in his mind now. 'Do I gather from that crack you made just now that you know about the stately home business?' he asked, apparently discarding the matter of his ex-sister-in-law for the moment. Laurie nodded warily. 'Grandpa told me about it last night,' she said. 'And I didn't have to be told whose idea it was either. Although Grandpa tried to defend you.' He regarded her quizzically. 'Grandpa would; he 105 Said. 'But you, of course, would have absolutely no doubt it was my idea, right?' 'Of course it is,' she insisted with absolute confidence. 'I see; 'Well, it couldn't be Rod; she told him, and he cocked a brow at her curiously. 'Why not?' She blinked at him for a second time, then frowned. 'Of course it couldn't,' she told him. 'You said yourself that Rod's a romantic he wouldn't dream of turning that beautiful old house into a a public exhibition.' She disLiked the sarcastic-looking smile that tilted one corner of his mouth and made him look a little cruel. 'No, of course not.' Lauri
e ignored the sarcasm and set about driving home her last point in favour of it being him and no one else. 'And I don't believe Russ would be so so insensitive as to think up a scheme Like that,' she told him. 'I see; 'So that leaves you,' Laurie informed him triumphantly, and he laughed. 'And of me you can believe anything, is that the idea?' 'More or less,' she agreed, her chin in the air, daring him to deny it. For a moment he said nothing, but his eyes held hers and there was a strange, unfathomable look in them that made her uneasy. More exasperation than temper, she thought, but there was something else too, some106 thing she could not recognise. 'All right, damn you,' he said at last, with quiet vehemence. 'If that's how you feel, you're entitled to your opinion but then so am I.' She looked startled for a moment, then bit her lip anxiously when she recalled the original subject of their encounter, and the reason she had walked off and left him. 'You you can't really believe that I I attacked Mrs. McAdam,' she said, her heart thudding anxiously again when she thought of the possible consequences. 'You know I couldn't, Quin.' , He flicked a doubting eyebrow. 'No ?' She held his gaze uneasily. Suppose they were all of the same mind, and chose to believe Rose McAdam instead of her? After all, they had known Rose for much longer than they had known her, and Rose was still, in a way, family. 'Quin, you can't!' 'I don't see why I can't,' he said quietly. 'But it isn't me who matters, is it, Laurie?' There was a hint of unholy glee in his eyes for her discomfiture. 'It's Rose who could call in the law and have you locked up for assault and battery.' 'Oh no!' She put her hands to her mouth and looked at him over the tops of her fingers, her eyes huge. 'Is that what ' She swallowed hard, and blinked reproachfully when he laughed. 'Oh, don't worry,' he told her. 'I talked her out of it. They won't be leading you away in handcuffs yet awhile.' 'You talked her out of?' Laurie asked curiously, and realised even as she spoke that he was probably the 107 only one of them who could have done it. He nodded, smiling wryly. 'Yes, fortunately I'm a better advocate on your behalf than I am on my own.' She did not question his meaning but looked down at a place somewhere in the region of the breast pocket of his shirt. 'Thank you,' she said meekly. It was difficult to know just what to say in the circumstances, especially when she was still uncertain whether he believed in her innocence or not. 'Don't mention it.' Laurie hesitated, anxious that at least one of the family should be fully convinced. Then she looked at him steadily, wishing her voice sounded less husky and uncertain. 'Quin, I didn't do it, really, please believe me. I found her there unconscious and with that bump on her head, just as I said. Either Suli must have thrown her or or a low branch caught her and knocked her off, but I didn't hit her, truly.' He too hesitated briefly, then put out a hand and gently touched her cheek, so gently that a shiver slid along her spine and she felt Like crying again. 'I believe you,' he told her. 'If I hadn't been pretty sure, I wouldn't have bothered talking Rose out of having you locked up.' They stood there for a moment, still and silent and Laurie could almost hear the rapid thudding of the pulse in her forehead. Then he glanced at his wristwatch, and cocked a brow at her enquiringly. 'Hadn't you better go and get some work done soon?' he asked. 'Or Russ will think you're not coming in this morning.' She hesitated, unwilling to face anyone else until 108 she knew for certain whether or not they suspected her of attacking Rose McAdam. In fact she panicked at the very idea of Russ believing that she had been responsible for his ex-wife's condition, and her feelling showed in her face. 'I'm I'm not sure I can face Russ,' she said at last, and he lifted her chin with one hand, smiling slowly at her lowered gaze and the wary, half-scared took on her face. 'Scared?' he challenged softly, and she nodded. 'I don't know what .what he might think; she explained, fervently wishing she was not such a coward. 'He doesn't think any worse than I do,' he assured her. 'And you'd be playing right into Rose's hands, you know if you stay away today.' She looked up then, her eyes huge, vulnerable and appealing. 'Quin ' 'Would you feel better if I came and held your hand?' he suggested, and she hesitated again. 'Come on, Laurie. Where's the fighting spirit of the Blairs?' 'It must be missing in me,' she told him, and he shook his head firmly. -'Not on your life,' he argued. 'Not when you're ready to take me on the way you do. If you can tackle me, you can face Russ, he's not nearly such a so-and-so as lam; She laughed-at that, and already felt better, nodding her head. 'I have to agree with you there; she told him. 'Sweet child!' he retorted. 'You don't need anyone to hold your hand, you little wretch, least of all me.' Laurie shook her head, looking appealing again. 'I 109 I wish you would, Quin, please,' she said. 'I'm not very happy about seeing Russ, in case he ' She shook her head. 'I'd be very grateful if you would hold my hand.' He smiled down ai her. 'Literally?' he challenged, and she nodded, feeling a lot- better when his strong fingers curled over hers and held them tighdy as they walked back through the trees to the drive. The moment was less, embarrassing than Laurie had expected, but it had helped having Quin there too, although she could see that his presence puzzled Russ. It was largely due, she insisted later, to Russ's kindness and understanding, which had smoothed the way for her. He said nothing about the incident, nor even about her being late, but it was evident from his manner that he had formed his own opinion and decided on her innocence, as Quin had done. She did not see Rod until midday when she was returning after lunch and he looked uncommonly solemn when he saw her, taking her two hands in his in a gesture that looked as if it was designed to defy anyone who dared to criticise her. A rather dramatised gesture, as so many of Rod's were. 'You poor darling,' he sympathised, kissing her gently on her cheek. 'What you must have been through!' Laurie looked a little taken aback at such extravagance. 'I haven't really been through anything at all; she told him with a smile. 'But to have young Colin make that hoo-ha about you and Rose,' he insisted. 'It must be discomfiting for you, love.' 110 'Not really; Laurie insisted. 'Russ hasn't said a word, and Quin was soon straightened, once I'd told him what happened.' He looked at her curiously. 'Do you mean to say he actually had the nerve to tackle you with it?' he asked, and she shrugged uneasily, remembering the ensuing argument. 'Not exactly,' she demurred. 'He just dropped a few hints and I'm afraid I lost my temper with him. But I don't think he really believed I attacked Rose. In fact he said he didn't.' 'It would serve her right if you had,' Rod declared. 'She's been asking for it, the way she talks to you.' Laurie looked at him uncertainly. 'Rod, you don't think I did it, do you?' she asked. He kissed her long and lingeringly. 'Darling Laurie,' he declared earnestly. 'Don't worry about it any more. Whether you clobbered Rose or not is a matter of complete indifference to me.' 'Well, it isn't to me,' Laurie retorted, not at all sure that blind support, whether she was guilty or not, was quite what she wanted. It would have been much more satisfactory if he had stated firmly that he thought she had not done it. Tm sorry.' She stood at the foot of the front steps with him, vowing not to be too long, so that she could make up some of the time she had lost in the morning. But Rod's attitude puzzled her and she studied his good-looking face for a moment from under her lashes. 'Rod, you don't really think I did it, do you?' she asked, and he put his arms round her and hugged her. Ill 'Darling, I've told you, I don't care whether you did or did not.' Laurie frowned. 'That's not what I asked you,' she said, and he kissed her lightly on her brow. 'Well, don't look so worried, sweetheart. It'll be all right, you'll see.' He smiled then, and raised a brow, looking at her with that look that always reminded her of Quin. 'Just as a matter of interest,' he said, 'did you hit her?' 'Rod!' She glared at him indignantly. 'I did not!' She pushed away the arms that held her. 'I knew you were blaming me,' she told him, bitterly disappointed. 'You of all people!' He looked so very contrite that she knew she would not stay angry with him for very long. 'Oh, Laurie,' he said penitently, 'I really am sorry if I've upset you.' She looked up at him from under her lashes, reproachful still. 'Please forgive me?' The plea was irresistible, and she suspected he knew it. 'All right,' she told him with a rueful smile. 'I'll forgive you, though I don't know that I should.' He kissed her again, much more in earnest th
is time, and for much longer so that she was not only breathless but on tenterhooks in case anyone, Quin in particular, came out and caught them. 'You're very beautiful and very forgiving,' he told her when at last he released her. 'I'm not always forgiving; she told him, remembering what else she had discussed with Quin. 'I shall never forgive Quin for having that ghastly idea about opening Clach Aros to the public, and I've told him so. 'You've heard about that?' he asked, and she nodded. 112 'Grandpa told me last night I expect he got it from Quin; ,, She thought he looked at her a little uncertainly for a moment, then he dropped another kiss on her nose and pulled her close to him so that his chin rested on the top of her head. 'Is making Clach Aros a stately home the unforgivable sin?' he asked, and she nodded, as best she could. 'It is to me, I'm afraid,' she said. 'I hate to think of hordes of strangers tramping round the old house, and I think Quin is unfeeling and insensitive to suggest it.' 'Did he tell you it was his idea?' Rod asked, and she shrugged. 'Not in so many words,' she admitted. 'But he didn't deny it either, and anyway I'd have known it was him. He's the only one who'd think of such a thing for Clach Aros.' t He laughed, a little uneasily, she thought. 'Condemned out of hand,' he said lightly. 'Poor old Quin!' 'Don't you think he deserves to be condemned?' she demanded, and he nodded hastily. 'Oh yes, every time,' he agreed. 'I knew it couldn't be you or Russ,' she told him. 'So it had to be Quin.' 'The Philistine of the trio?' he suggested lightly, and she smiled. 'Something Like that, I suppose,' she agreed, though not quite sure she would have gone that far. Then she raised her head just far enough to plant a kiss on his chin. 'Anyway, I'm very glad it isn't you,' she told him. 'I couldn't imagine myself misjudging anyone as completely as that.' '. 113 He said nothing, but hugged her close again and rested his chin on the softness of her hair. So it was that Quin found them when he came down the steps a few minutes later, and Laurie pushed Rod away with both hands. That knowing smile was on Quin's face again, and she hated it. 'Sorry to break up love's young dream,' he teased, and tapped Rod on the shoulder with one hand. 'Come on, kid brother, duty calls; Rod's good-looking face flushed bright pink at the jibe, and he glared at Quin resentfully. 'Don't talk down to me, Quin,' he told his brother. 'I don't Like it.' 'Sorry, old son.' Quin's expression showed neither regret nor resentment, but he looked at Laurie with a speculative eye. 'How's it been this morning, Laurie?' he asked. 'No backlash yet ?' 'None at all,' she told him, haughty on Rod's behalf. 'But then I didn't expect anything unpleasant from Russ.' He cocked a doubtful brow at her. 'No?' he said softly. 'That wasn't the impression you gave this moming. You wanted me to hold your hand, remember?' Laurie glanced hastily at Rod and met a curious and not altogether approving look, wondering if Quin had been deliberately provocative, and if so, why. 'That was only figuratively,' she said, and was treated to that rising brow again and the sight of a gleam of unholy glee in his eyes as he looked at her and dared her to deny it. 'It felt Like a real hand I held when we came back here,' he told her solemnly, and Laurie hastily lowered her eyes against the challenge. 114 I 'I I was nervous about facing Russ this morning,' she said, for Rod's benefit entirely, and he looked at her las if he expected a full explanation, and nothing less. fl saw Quin and and ' i 'And I gave her a third degree to find out if she really had gone for Rose with that stick, as Colin said,' JQuin intervened. 'She convinced me she hadn't and we talked back here together end of episode.' & He made it sound much more simple than in fact it l&d-been, Laurie thought, but she had no intention of flenying any of it, and Rod was already looking better pleased ,about things. 'Oh, I see,' he said. 'In other words she put you firmly in your place, is that it?' Quin smiled wryly. 'You could say that,' he agreed, and only his eyes, relentlessly fixed on Laurie, betrayed his amusement at the idea. f-" 115