and fishin’, thank you verra much.” His accent, at first more clipped than his brother’s, had begun to slur as the level in his glass dropped.
“Oh,” said Gemma, confused. “I had the impression John was from this area, but I must have been mistaken—”
“No, you had it right,” confirmed Martin. “We’re half brothers. Our mother remarried, and I was the child of her dotage.”
Not quite sure how to respond to the latter part of his comment, Gemma concentrated on the former. “But you’re close, you and John?”
“First time I’ve seen him since I left school.” Martin glanced round the room, as if assuring himself of his brother’s absence, and leaned nearer Gemma’s ear. “To tell the truth, I thought I’d never wangle an invitation to this place. Couldn’t believe my luck when he rang up and said I could come along this weekend for the cookery class.”
Gemma edged away from his warm breath. “You’re interested in cooking?”
Martin’s reply was forestalled by Louise’s entrance with an empty tray. “The ice queen herself,” he muttered, then busied himself finishing his venison.
“Did everyone enjoy their meals?” Louise asked, smiling brightly at them.
A hearty chorus of assents rang round the table. Louise spoke quietly to each guest as she removed his or her
plate, giving Gemma an opportunity to study her table-mates.
Across from her sat Heather Urquhart, who had also greeted Hazel as if they were well acquainted. The woman was in her thirties, tall and thin, her face lightly pockmarked with the scars of old acne, but her most striking feature was the rippling curtain of black hair that fell below her waist. She had kept up an animated conversation all through dinner with the man on her right, a Frenchman named Pascal Benoit.
Benoit seemed to have some connection with the whisky business, but Gemma had yet to work out exactly what he did. He was short, balding, and slightly tubby, but his dark eyes were flat and cold as stones.
That left Hazel, seated next to Heather, and at the table’s far end, the man in the red kilt, who had been introduced to Gemma as Donald Brodie. The awkwardness of his entrance into the sitting room had been quickly smoothed over by the arrival of the other guests, but before Gemma could draw Hazel aside with a question, Louise had called them in to dinner.
Now, as she watched Brodie lean over and speak softly in Hazel’s ear, Gemma was more curious than ever. Hazel seemed flushed, animated, and riveted on her companion.
Clearly, she knew Donald Brodie. And just as clearly, she had not been surprised to find him at Innesfree. What was Hazel playing at?
Was Brodie an old flame, and Hazel trying to make the best of an embarrassing reunion for the sake of the cookery weekend? Or—Gemma frowned at the thought—was there more to it than that?
Surely not, thought Gemma. Hazel and Tim were happily married, a wonderful couple. Then, uncomfortably, Gemma began to recall how little she’d seen of Tim the
past few months—in fact, even before Gemma had moved out of the garage flat, Tim had been absent in the evenings more often than not. And Hazel’s distress over Gemma’s move had seemed odd in one usually so serene, as had the plea in her voice when she’d invited Gemma to accompany her for the weekend.
Gemma gave herself a mental shake. Rubbish. It was all rubbish. The very idea of Hazel having an affair was absurd. That’s what police work did for you—gave you a suspicious nature. She found herself suddenly missing Kincaid’s presence and his unruffled outlook. He would, she was sure, tell her she was making a mountain out of a molehill.
Determined to put Hazel’s behavior from her mind, as well as the small ache of homesickness brought on by the thought of Duncan, Gemma handed Louise her plate.
“That was absolutely super,” she told her. “A few more days of this and I won’t be able to do up my buttons.”
“Wait until you see the pudding,” Louise answered.
“It’s a chocolate mousse with raspberry coulis—John’s specialty. Would you like coffee with it?”
Gemma murmured her assent, but her mind had gone back to Hazel. Why, if she were carrying on with Donald Brodie, had she wanted Gemma to come with her?
As if sensing her interest, Brodie broke off his conversation with Hazel and turned to her. “Gemma, I understand you’re not much of a whisky drinker. We’ll have to remedy that while you’re here.” His voice was Scots, but well educated, and pleasantly deep.
“Is that a necessary part of the Highland experience, Mr.
Brodie?”
“It’s Donald, please,” he corrected her. “And from my point of view, it’s a necessary part of everyone’s experience. I own a distillery.”
Gemma thought back to the predinner drinks, and John Innes’s rather sly comment about the whisky he’d served.
“Benvulin, is it?”
Brodie looked pleased. “Hazel will have told you, then. It’s a family enterprise, started by one of my Brodie forebears. You might say it’s in Hazel’s family, too,” he added, with a quick glance at Hazel, “in more ways than one. Heather’s now my manager.”
“Heather?” Gemma asked, lost.
“Heather and I are cousins,” Hazel put in, with an embarrassed duck of her head towards the other woman.
“Our fathers are brothers. I’m sure I must have told you . . .”
Gemma couldn’t recall Hazel ever mentioning her maiden name. She glanced at Heather Urquhart, saw no wedding ring on her long, thin hand. Urquhart, she was sure, she would have remembered. Thinking of Hazel’s daughter, she said, “Hazel, Heather, Holly—”
“A family penchant for female botanical names.”
Heather Urquhart’s voice matched her looks, sharp and thin, and her tone was challenging. “I’m surprised Hazel hasn’t regaled you with tales of her eccentric Scottish relations.”
“Give it a break, Heather,” Hazel said sharply, and Heather gave a cat-in-the-cream smile at having drawn a retort.
Gemma gaped at her friend in astonishment. She had seen Hazel occasionally get a bit cross with the children when they tried her patience too far, but never had she heard her snap at another adult.
“You have been a number of years in the south, I think,” Pascal Benoit said diplomatically to Hazel in his faintly accented English. A twinkle of malice livened his black eyes.
Hazel turned to him with obvious relief. “Yes, London.
My husband and I live in London, with our four-year-old daughter.”
Turning his attention to Gemma, Benoit asked, “And you, Miss James? You are also from London?”
“It’s not miss, actually,” Gemma answered, feeling suddenly contrary. “James is my ex-husband’s name.”
Benoit smiled, appearing not at all discomfited. “Ah, one of the more difficult questions of manners in modern society. How does one refer to the divorced woman, without using the abominable Ms. ? In French it is easier.
Madame implies a woman mature, past her girlhood, but not necessarily married.”
“And I take it that in France, to refer to a woman as
‘mature’ is not an insult?” Gemma was beginning to enjoy herself. Benoit was proving a much more challenging verbal partner than Martin Gilmore, who sat silently beside her, hunched over his drink.
“Mais oui.” Benoit smiled, showing small, even, white teeth. “We French appreciate women at all stages in life, not just the boyish ingénue. Unlike the British, who have no more refined taste in women than in food.”
Gilmore flushed and straightened up, as if to protest, but was forestalled by a chuckle from Donald Brodie.