“Donald’s staying at a B&B so near his house?”
“And not alone.”
Alison blanched beneath her makeup, her face looking suddenly pinched. “But—”
“She’s verra pretty. Dark hair—”
“How do you know it’s not a business meeting?” Alison protested. “He could—”
“There’s no mistaking what I saw between them.”
Alison glared at him. “I don’t believe you. How did you—Where did—”
“I fish with John Innes. He told me what Donald was about. So I kept an eye out.”
Alison looked away from him, crossing her arms beneath her small breasts as if she were cold. For the first time, Callum realized how tiny she was, her bones fragile as a sparrow’s. And he saw what her makeup and bottle-blond hair usually disguised—her resemblance to Chrissy.
The pleasure he’d felt in his momentary victory evaporated. “I’m sorry, hen. I didna mean to hurt ye.”
“Then why did you tell me?”
“Because it’s not right the man should lie to you. You deserve better—you and Chrissy.”
“And you’re going to give us that?” challenged Alison, her belligerence returning.
“I—”
“If you ever have more to offer than stable muck, Callum MacGillivray,” she scoffed at him, “you’re very welcome to let me know. But in the meantime, you can bloody well keep out of my business.”
Louise had thought that a quiet spell with the house empty would settle her nerves, but when the guests had left for Benvulin, she found herself pacing from hall to dining room to lounge, needlessly tweaking the flower arrangements and running the hem of her apron over already dusted furniture.
She’d seen Hazel turn away at the last minute and go back to her room in the barn, and she couldn’t help but speculate as to the cause. It looked as if things between Donald and Hazel were not going well, but the satisfaction this occasioned Louise was overshadowed by her worry over John.
He had disappeared, as soon as the others had gone, on another of his manufactured errands. This time it was to pick up some necessary dinner ingredient from the grocer in Grantown—an ingredient Louise suspected he had deliberately forgotten when doing yesterday’s marketing.
And not only did John make excuses to be away from the house, he also vanished without explanation at odd hours of the night and early morning. He must be seeing someone. There was no other explanation. But who?
The stem of a recalcitrant rose snapped in her fingers. Swearing, Louise felt the jab of pain behind her eyes that signaled the onset of a stress headache. Her lungs felt compressed, as if she were trying to breathe underwater. She must get out of the house or she would suffocate.
Crushing the broken rose into her apron pocket, she ran out the scullery door and across the lawn, sinking to her knees in front of the perennial border. She took great gulps of air and focused her gaze on the pink bells of the foxgloves before her until she felt calmer. Plants were something you could depend on, she’d found, unlike people. If anyone had taught her that, it had been Hazel.
Louise glanced at the barn into which Hazel had run with the urgency of one desperate for solitude. What did she know of this woman who had once been her friend?
She thought back to their first year at boarding school, both new girls, both suffering from personal upheavals. Hazel had been a dark, bright bloom among a field of bland anemic blondness, her soft Scots voice an exotic contrast to the other girls’ flat English vowels.
While Louise suffered from the trauma of her parents’ divorce, Hazel had been entirely displaced, her history and connections severed as cleanly as an amputation. Hazel had survived by taking on camouflage, becoming more English than the English, her accent fading year by year.
But as Hazel became more popular, she had not abandoned Louise. And as Louise’s mother drifted into farflung affairs, alighting less and less often on English soil, Hazel had taken her friend home with her on holidays. Home to Newcastle, to the dark and formal suburban house that seemed less a home than boarding school, to parents as gray as Newcastle skies. Shadow people, Louise had thought them, transplants that had not taken root in alien soil.
The girls had remained friends past school-leaving, Hazel studying psychology at university, Louise working at an insurance company. Then one day Hazel had rung, inviting Louise to come with her to Scotland, just as she must have rung this new friend, Gemma. But Louise had had to wait until her August holiday, and by then, Hazel had met Donald Brodie.
In spite of the fact that the two of them were so obviously a couple, Donald had extended the umbrella of his charm over Louise as well, and the three of them had become inseparable.
When Louise’s holiday finished, she had resigned her job in London by post. She and Hazel worked together catering for shooting parties, and when business dwindled with the end of the season, the girls had found jobs in an estate tea shop. It had seemed as if they might go on forever, the three of them.
And then Donald had asked Hazel to marry him, and within a day, Hazel had vanished from their lives.
Heather Urquhart had made an excuse of needing a change of clothing, forcing Donald to take Pascal and Martin back to the Inneses’ in his Land Rover, along with Gemma James. Gemma had had quite enough têteà-tête with Donald already, in Heather’s opinion, back at Benvulin.
Not that she was protecting Donald’s pursuit of her cousin, Hazel, by any means—it was his courting Gemma round the distillery that got up Heather’s nose.
Crossing the wide expanse of the Spey at Boat of Garten, she soon reached her bungalow. She pushed the automatic opener that caused the heavy wooden gates to swing open, then closed them again as she stopped the car in the drive. Thick hedges of arborvitae surrounded the front of the house, and in back the garden ran down to a small, reedy loch. The house, a snug structure of white stucco with natural wood trim and a deep, overhanging tile roof, was her refuge.
Her job was demanding, requiring constant interaction with both the distillery staff and the public. When she entertained professionally she used the distillery premises, or local restaurants; in her private dalliances, she saw only men who were willing to share their beds. She seldom invited anyone to her home, male or female.
Turning her key in the lock, she felt the usual rush of pleasure as she stepped into the house. A tiled entrance led to an open-plan kitchen and a sitting room, fitted and upholstered in white. The contemporary furnishings were unmarred by paintings or knickknacks. A few large potted plants drew the eye to the glass wall at the back of the sitting room that framed the view of garden and loch.
Heather went straight to the kitchen and put the kettle on. After the rich lunch and the whisky at Benvulin, a cup of tea would clear her head. She needed to think.
How odd it had felt to see Hazel again. It had been what—ten years? Since her aunt’s funeral in Newcastle, that had been the last time. Hazel had come with her newly acquired husband, Tim Cavendish, and he’d served as an effective buffer between the cousins.
The kettle clicked off at the boil, and after brewing a cup of green tea, Heather took it into the sitting room. She sank into her favorite chair and curled her legs beneath her, gazing out at the loch as she tried to recall Tim Cavendish’s face. He’d been a bit quiet and studious-looking, a far cry from Donald Brodie’s large exuberance, as if Hazel had been deliberately going against type. But if Hazel had been so determined to erase Donald Brodie from her life, why had she come back after all these years?
Of course, Heather could understand Donald’s allure—she’d not been entirely immune—but she’d been too fiercely ambitious to allow herself to fall in love with him.
The real question Heather had to consider, however, was what Hazel’s return meant to Benvulin. If Hazel decided to stay, could she be won over to Heather’s view of the distillery’s future? Benvulin was still a limited company, with Donald holding the majority of shares, but if Heather coul
d convince him to sell to Pascal’s French group, it would give her more control. Should she try to win Hazel over, make an ally of her?
No. She set her cup down with a thump. She’d worked too hard for this to depend on anyone else, and the last thing she wanted was to be beholden to her cousin. It would be much better for everyone concerned if Hazel could be convinced to go back to London, and Heather was prepared to make that happen—whatever it took.
Donald decanted his passengers in Innesfree’s graveled drive with less ceremony than he’d have accorded a halfway decent bottle of wine, Gemma felt sure.
“I’ve some things to attend to at the distillery,” he called through his open window. “There’s only a skeleton crew on the weekend. But I will be back for drinks, and to taste the fruit of our efforts,” he added with a salute as he pulled away.
And did he consider Hazel one of the fruits of his efforts? wondered Gemma. A just dessert?
Martin and Pascal set off immediately for the house, Martin a little groggily, as if he hadn’t quite recovered from his whisky-induced nap, Pascal with the firm step of a man with a purpose.
Gemma, however, stood a moment longer, surveying the house and garden in the flat light of midafternoon. It was the merciless time of day, when blemishes stood out from the hazy camouflage of morning and evening—a pile of timber against one side of the barn, proof of unfinished construction; a half dozen clumps of dandelion rising above the smooth surface of the lawn; a patch of crumbling harl above the scullery door. She found it comforting somehow, this evidence of ordinariness amid the B&B’s manufactured perfection.
Real life was waiting at home, for her and for Hazel. She took a deep breath and headed for the barn, determined to pin Hazel down this time, to make her see reason.
But when she entered their room, it was empty. Both beds were neatly made, the duvets puffy. Hazel’s overnight case was closed, her few toiletries on the dressing table neatly arranged. Only a used and rinsed teacup betrayed the room’s recent habitation.
At least Hazel wasn’t with Donald; Gemma could be assured of that much. She would look for her in the house. But first, she took her phone from her handbag and punched in her home number. Suddenly too anxious to sit, she paced as it rang, sounding tinnily distant.
Where were they? Thinking of Duncan and the boys in the park, or perhaps at Otto’s for afternoon tea, she felt a stab of longing, and beneath that, a nebulous worry.
Why had Duncan been on the phone so late last night? And why had he not answered his mobile? Had there been an emergency at the Yard, and all their plans for him to spend the weekend with the boys gone for naught?
Or had something else happened? But, in that case, surely Duncan would have rung her, she reassured herself. Still, a nagging instinct told her that something was wrong. She should have kept trying last night; she should have rung again first thing this morning.
She should never have left them.
Gemma let herself into the house by the front door, closing it gently behind her. The hall smelled of flowers and furniture polish, but the house was quiet, as if still deep in afternoon slumber.
Peeking into the sitting room, she found it empty as well. The fire was laid but cold, the cushions restored to plumpness after last night’s lounging. The room might have been a stage set, waiting for the action to begin.
Gemma had headed towards the kitchen, thinking the class might have begun to congregate, when she heard the murmur of voices from the dining room. One she recognized instantly—Hazel. The other was female, English, and clipped with anger. Louise.
“I know you didn’t approve of my coming,” Hazel was replying, “but surely you can understand—”
“Understand?” Louise shot back. “Oh, I understand that you think you can waltz back into our lives as if you’d never been away. And that we’re all supposed to welcome the prodigal with open arms, no matter how much damage you left in your wake the last time.”
“But I—Louise, you don’t understand. I had no choice—”
“Didn’t you?” Louise’s voice was sharp as an ice pick. “Or did you just take the easiest course? Run away, and don’t think about the consequences.”
“But—Donald—Donald had the distillery—”
“Donald was devastated. And you left me to try to explain to him why the woman he loved had left him without a word of explanation—”
“Donald knew—He didn’t need me—”
“Didn’t he? You’re always so sure of yourself, Hazel, but this time you were wrong. I don’t think he’s ever recovered. Did you not wonder why he never married?”
“Donald? But Donald—I just assumed—Donald always had women queued up—”
“When did that ever matter?” Louise laughed. “Did you think love was a commodity? And now you’re going to inflict the same sort of damage on your new family, and you want my approval?”
There was a moment’s silence. Gemma stood rooted in the dining room, afraid to breathe, unable to move forward or back without betraying her presence.
Then Hazel’s voice came again, softly. “Louise, whatever else happened, I never meant to hurt you.” Footsteps echoed, faded away, and then came the slam of the scullery door.
Hurriedly, Gemma slipped out the front door, making as little noise as possible. She didn’t want to confront Louise, didn’t want to appear as if she’d been eavesdropping. And she must talk to Hazel.
She found her friend standing at the edge of the back garden, looking out towards the river, twisting her hands together.
“You heard, didn’t you?” said Hazel, without looking at her.
“Yes.” Gemma waited, watching a few horses grazing leisurely in the far pasture. “Are you all right?”
“I’ve been so stupid. So stupid about everything, and so dishonest,” Hazel said, as if she hadn’t heard the question. “I managed to convince myself that I could come back here and dabble my toes in the water, just testing it to see if it was still as nice as I remembered, and no one would get hurt.” Her lips twisted in a grimace of disgust. “I told myself I could always back out—choose not to act, and my life would just muddle on. But the truth is—Oh, Gemma. I’m not sure I can give it up. Can I go back to living a shadow life, when I know what I’m missing? Nothing’s changed between us, not in thirteen years. I’ve never felt this for anyone else…”
She turned to Gemma, her face tear-streaked. “I’m a fraud, Gemma, a bloody charlatan. I make my living telling people how to sort out their lives. When they make a balls-up of it I’m gently patronizing, as if I had all the answers.” She shook her head. “But this…this I don’t know how to fix.”
They dressed for dinner in silence, Gemma shivering a little as she pulled a moss green sweater over her head. The evening chill had come in early, and the central heating in their room had not yet come on.
Earlier, when John had called them into the kitchen to finish preparing dinner, Hazel had begged Gemma to make her excuses, saying, “I can’t face either of them just yet.”
“Donald and Louise?” When Hazel nodded, Gemma said, “Right, then. Migraine it is. And I’ll come and fetch you when it’s time for drinks.”
No one questioned Hazel’s headache, but to Gemma’s discomfort, Donald immediately snagged her as his cooking partner. Together, they had stuffed fistfuls of basil into the food processor, along with peeled cloves of garlic, deep green olive oil, roasted red peppers, and toasted pine nuts. This mixture they spread over the salmon fillets, leaving John to grill them at the last minute. They stirred the cheese into their celery and Brie soup, strung and sautéed the mange-tout. She and Donald worked well together, quickly establishing a rhythm, and by the end of the session she found herself smiling in spite of herself.
When they’d finished, John had dismissed them with a reminder that the evening would be festive, and to dress accordingly.
Donald, walking out with Gemma into the dusky garden, had stopped her with a touch on her arm.
Feeling an unexpected sense of regret, she said, “You know I can’t. She’s my friend, Donald. I won’t encourage her to ruin her life. I’m sorry.”
He had shrugged ruefully and patted her shoulder. “Didna fash yerself, lass. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask. I’m glad she has such a good friend.”
Now, taking her turn in the bathroom, Gemma scrubbed her hands in a futile effort to remove the odor of fish and garlic. Defeated, she rubbed lotion on instead, pulled her hair up into a loose topknot, brushed a little shadow on her eyelids, and swiped a bronzy pink lipstick across her mouth.
Then she gaped at herself in the glass, lipstick suspended in midair. Whom did she mean to impress with all this primping? Donald?
Flushing with shame, she blotted her lips and brushed her hair back into its usual single plait.
When she came out of the bathroom, she found Hazel sitting at the dressing table, her mobile phone clutched in her hands.
“There’s no one at home,” Hazel said, looking up at her. “I thought…if only I could hear Holly’s voice…”
Gemma frowned. “I’ve been trying to ring Duncan, too. No one’s home, and he seems to have turned off his mobile phone. Do you suppose they’ve all met up and joined a cult?”
Seeing Hazel’s stricken look, she hastened to reassure her. “I’m only teasing. I’m sure they’re all fine.” She’d been whistling in the dark to combat her own worry; she hadn’t meant to aggravate Hazel’s.
Gemma sat down on the edge of the bed, facing her friend. “Have you decided what you’re going to do, love?”
“I’m going home on Monday, and I’m not coming back,” Hazel said reluctantly. “But I’ll have to tell Tim the truth—”
“The truth? That you love someone else and you’re only staying with him out of duty? Hazel, you can’t do that—you can’t expect him to live with that sort of knowledge.”
“No. I suppose you’re right.” Hazel looked up at Gemma, despair in her dark eyes. “But how do I go on, pretending nothing’s happened to me?”
Now May You Weep Page 9
