“What about your kids?” asked Martin, turning back to Gemma. “You said you had boys?”
She nodded, her lips curving up in an involuntary smile. “Kit’s twelve, and Toby’s four.”
Martin’s eyes widened. “You can’t possibly have a twelve-year-old. You’re—” He stopped, a blush creeping up to the roots of his hair. “That sounded dreadfully rude.
I only meant—”
“I’ll take it as a compliment,” Gemma told him. “And although I could have a twelve-year-old, Kit’s my . . .
partner’s . . . son.” She was never sure what to call Kin-
caid. Partner seemed rather stiff and formal, significant other as if he were an object in a shop, boyfriend made her feel like a giggly teenager, lover somehow didn’t seem appropriate for polite company. But whatever she called him, she wished he would ring her or answer his bloody mobile phone. She was beginning to wonder if he was deliberately avoiding her, but she couldn’t imagine why.
“A blended family?” said Pascal. “How very modern of you.”
Gemma shrugged. “Hectic might be a better description. I never realized how much more complicated life was with two children rather than—” Too late, she caught a glimpse of Hazel’s face and wondered if she was thinking of the woman and child who had come to see Donald.
But before she could rectify her mistake, Martin com-pounded it.
“You have a child, too, don’t you, Hazel? A daughter, I think you said. Have you a photo?”
“I— She—” With a wild look at Donald, Hazel stood, rocking the table so that the wineglasses sloshed precariously. “I— I’m sorry. Not feeling well,” she blurted out, and ran from the room.
Hazel was out of the house and into the garden, gulping cold air as if she were drowning. The light had almost gone, but the sky still glowed palely in the west.
Fool, she told herself furiously. She’d been a fool to come here, and now she was making it worse by the minute. And Gemma, what must Gemma think of her?
Why had she ever listened to Donald?
At least he’d made leaving easy for her, the bastard. She would go now; Gemma would understand. And Donald—
a door slammed and she heard footsteps behind her.
“Hazel, will ye let me explain?”
“You’ve no need to explain anything to me.” She tried to say it calmly, reasonably. “I came to Scotland for a weekend, and I’m going home in the morning. End of story.”
“Hazel, we need to talk. If you’ll just let me—”
Whirling around to face him, she found she was shaking with fury. “All right, then. Who is she, that woman?”
“Her name’s Alison. But she’s not important—”
“Not important! And was that your child? Some other little unimportant thing you forgot to mention?”
“God, no.” He sounded genuinely shocked. “You think I would keep something like that from ye? Alison—she’s just someone I went out with a few times, and she took it a wee bit too seriously—”
“Women have a habit of taking you a bit too seriously—I should know.”
“Can ye no forget what happened thirteen years ago?”
He was angry now as well, his tone no longer beseeching.
“You never gave me a chance, Hazel. I told my father I didna want the bloody distillery. I walked out. Did ye know that? But you were gone, without a word, without an address. When I rang your parents, they wouldna speak to me—”
“That was only fitting in the circumstances, don’t you think?” She knew she sounded like a shrew, but anger kept her safe, kept her from taking in his words. “So if you walked away from Benvulin, why are you still there?”
“My father died and left his shares to me. What did you expect me to do? Go live in a bloody monastery?
You’d married—”
“How did you know?”
“Heather. But you didna say two words to your own cousin at your mother’s funeral, and you didna ask about me.”
“I—” The sound of voices drifted out to them from the house—the rest of their party had moved into the sitting room for coffee.
“We can’t talk here,” Donald said urgently, as if he sensed her weakening. “Come back with me, to Benvulin.”
“No! How can you ask that, of all things—”
“Then walk with me.” With a feather touch on her arm, he guided her towards the path that led into the wood.”
“Donald, no—”
“Don’t be afraid. I know the way, even in the dark.”
The trees swallowed them, and at the first turn of the path, the lights of the house vanished from view.
When he stopped, she whispered the question that had consumed her. “When you learned where I was, why didn’t you come to me then?”
“And you newly wed? I thought you’d made your choice.”
“Then why did you change your mind, these last few months?”
He looked away, his profile clear in the faint light that filtered through the trees. “Did you dream about me, Hazel?” he said softly. “Over and over again? Did you have to stop yourself calling out my name when you were in your husband’s arms?” When she nodded, reluctantly, he went on. “It was that way with me. And I began to see it wasna going to change, no matter how hard I tried—
and I did try. We were meant to be together, whether we like it or no.”
“It was no accident, that day in London, was it?”
“Well, I couldna verra well ring your doorbell, could I?” He took her hand in both of his, raised her palm to his lips. “You canna deny this, Hazel. And it’s more than the flesh, whatever this is that draws us together.”
She made a last desperate stand. “But my daughter—I can’t do this to her—”
“What kind of life are you giving your daughter, lying to your husband and yourself? What kind of wife will you be, knowing what you felt when I kissed you this morning? And do you think I wouldna love your daughter as my own?”
She was lost. She knew it before he pulled her to him, knew it before her body responded of its own will. She knew it as they slid to the ground, the smell of crushed ferns rising around them in the darkness.
Carnmore, November
It was well past midnight when Will’s mother sent him for the priest. He’d seen the look that passed between his mother and the nurse, seen his mother nod and turn her face away.
In spite of Nurse Baird’s care, his father’s condition had gradually worsened. Charles labored for every breath, and it seemed to Will that in the last few hours the flesh had sunk away from his bones.
It had not snowed since the storm two nights earlier, and the night was still and clear. The diamond-hard air seared his lungs as he slipped and slid his way down the track towards the village. In the sky above, the stars blazed, looking near enough to touch. God’s eyes, his mother had told him when he was small, watching over them all. The idea had frightened him, and on nights when the starlight fell upon his bed he’d hidden his head beneath his blankets.
Now he tried to find some comfort in the idea of God looking down on his father, but it only made him wonder if God knew his father had not been a very good Catholic.