Read A Bewitching Bride Online
Authors: Elizabeth Thornton
A Bewitching Bride (20 page)
There was a short conference between the brothers, then they all squeezed into the buggy.
As the buggy moved off, Gavin scanned the streets and lanes they passed, but there was no sign of anything untoward, no one watching their movements. The streets were practically deserted, so he would have noticed if someone was following them. All the same, he kept up his vigilance until they reached their destination, the Regent Hotel on Constitution Street.
“This is the man I’m going to marry,” said Kate.
They were in a small private parlor with Kate’s family on one side of the room and Gavin on the other. Kate’s eyes were on Gavin, but his gaze was riveted on Magda. Kate had seen that look on men’s faces before, but she’d never felt this hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. He was bowled over by Magda’s beauty. Wasn’t everyone?
Magda took after their father and the rest of their Cameron kin. She was tall and willowy with an abundance of delicate blond hair and cat’s eyes the color of emeralds. Not one freckle marred her perfect skin. Her generous mouth was turned up in a smile, assessing, inviting, and reveling in the admiration she no doubt saw reflected in Gavin’s eyes.
“Well, sit down, sit down!” said Kate’s father, and everyone found a chair. “Have you had breakfast, Mr. Hepburn?”
“Ah, no sir.”
Kate’s mother interjected, “Iain, that can wait until Kate gives us an explanation of her bizarre behavior.”
Gavin crossed one ankle over the other and relaxed against the back of the chair. He wanted to see how this family worked. Kate had piqued his interest. She’d called them larger-than-life characters who enjoyed drama. She’d said that she was an audience of one. Well, she was center stage now. He wondered how she would handle it.
“Well,” said Kate carefully, “it was like this—”
Magda cut her off. “Why do we have to listen to this? We know what happened. She slipped away from her maid and spent the night with Mr. Hepburn in his cottage. They were caught in flagrante delicto.”
“Flagrante what?” asked Hamish.
Magda threw him a quelling glare. “They were caught in the act.” Her cat’s eyes flashed to Kate. “Don’t try to deny it. It’s common knowledge all over Deeside. You’re a scarlet woman, Kate.”
Gavin was sorely tempted to intervene, but he crushed the impulse. He wanted to hear what Kate had to say. Magda, he reflected, was a sad disappointment. At first sight, her beauty was staggering, but he saw it now as a cultivated gloss that concealed a mean-spirited mind. What puzzled him was Magda’s spleen. He smelled jealousy. Magda jealous of Kate?
His gaze shifted to Kate, and everything inside him softened. Her borrowed brown dress was crumpled and mired along the hem. The jacket had lost a button. Her hair was a mass of tangles.
“Katie,” said Mrs. Cameron gently, “no one who knows your character would dream of calling you a scarlet woman. Now tell us what happened.”
Kate’s chin lifted in a gesture that Gavin knew only too well. He uncrossed his ankles.
“It’s just as Magda said. I spent the night in Gavin’s cottage. Make what you will of it.”
Gavin silenced her with a scorching look. “It was all very innocent,” he interjected, cutting across the cousins’ hoots of derision and Magda’s gasp, and he went on to give them the story they had concocted for the police.
“A likely story,” was Hamish’s provoking comment. “We found them in bed together in Rankin’s clinic!”
“Hush, Hamish!” commanded Mr. Cameron. “This bickering is useless. I want to hear what my daughter has to say.”
Mrs. Cameron gave a sad, gentle smile. “Kate, you must see that you owe us an explanation. Mr. Dalziel told us only that Mr. Hepburn needed your assistance at the clinic but that you would be returning home almost directly. We thought nothing of it when we heard that Juliet’s mother would be chaperoning you at all times. So where is she? And why did you stay away so long?”
Rory snorted. “There was no chaperone in that bedroom, only Kate and her lover.”
Gavin spoke through his teeth. “Both of us fully dressed. And we are not lovers.”
Mr. Cameron stood up, and everyone fell silent. “None of this is to the point,” he said. “Kate, no one is going to force you into a marriage you do not want. Tell me one thing. Do you love this man?”
Gavin’s spine straightened. Kate turned her head to look at him. “It was love at first sight,” she said. “Wasn’t it, Gavin?”
“That it was, Kate,” he replied quietly.
Mr. Cameron said, “Then the sooner this wedding takes place, the better.”
“A wedding,” said Mrs. Cameron, her eyes gazing at some distant vision. “We’ll have the ceremony in the church in Braemar. The hotel there is large enough to accommodate all our guests. All the Frasers and Camerons will be invited, of course, and no doubt Mr. Hepburn—”
Magda’s grating voice cut across her mother’s words. “It’s always the same with ‘our Katie.’ She can do no wrong.” She jumped to her feet and crossed to her father. “Father, is she to be forgiven so easily? Have you any idea how her folly will affect me? My reputation will be tarnished just by association. People will laugh at me behind my back.”
“Magda,” her mother reproved gently.
Magda turned to meet her mother’s gaze. “She has always been your favorite, and I have never understood why. She’s . . . odd, peculiar, you know she is. She has the strangest ideas.” She turned her flashing eyes on Kate. “You steal my beaux, you borrow my clothes, you—” She broke off. “What?” she demanded.
Kate was chewing on her bottom lip, another habit that Gavin recognized. She cleared her throat. “The frock you loaned me for Juliet’s wedding?”
“What about it?”
“My fault entirely,” Gavin quickly interrupted. He gave a sardonic shrug. “I lost it in transit. I’m sure it will turn up sooner or later, but you must allow me to replace it. House of Worth, was it not?”
Magda’s jaw literally dropped. Coming to herself, she gave a choked laugh. “I should have known how it would be. I can never win, can I?” No one answered. No one was expected to. She dismissed them with a flick of her lashes and made a regal exit.
“I should go to her,” said Kate.
She made to get up but sank back again when her father spoke to her forcefully. “You’ll do no such thing. The world does not revolve around Magda. The sooner she comes to realize it, the more comfortable it will be for us all. What we are going to do is go down to the dining room for breakfast, and when we have eaten, Mr. Hepburn and I will have a few quiet words in private.”
Gavin stood by the window in his bedchamber looking out at nothing in particular. He was wondering what was keeping Kate. He’d been sure that she would want to discuss how they could forestall this trumped-up marriage before he talked to her father. He knew that she was with her cousins, because he’d told them that she was distraught, and they should keep an eye on her. As watchdogs, they were almost as good as Macduff. Even so, he’d expected Kate to come to him before the interview with her father.
He shook his head, wondering why he had allowed himself to become engaged to a slip of a girl he’d only known for a short time. Oddly enough, it didn’t feel like playacting.
“It was love at first sight
.
Wasn’t it, Gavin?”
.
Wasn’t it, Gavin?”
He smiled at the memory of their first encounter. No words were spoken. Their eyes had met, and from that moment on, he’d become her shield. His smile faded as his thoughts shifted to her family. He understood now what she meant by dramas and larger-than-life characters, but there wouldn’t be a drama if it were not for Magda. It was hard to believe that Magda and Kate were sisters. They’d been raised by the same parents. How had one girl, the elder, turned out to be such a sour plum, while the younger was . . .
He had to think about that. Kate was too complex a character to be summed up in a word. Magda said that Kate was odd and that she had the strangest ideas. Is that why someone wanted to kill her?
“In Scotland, we burn witches.”
He knew that she was intuitive, but a witch?
He knew that she was intuitive, but a witch?
There was something he was missing. What was it?
His thoughts moved on to her parents. They were not exactly larger-than-life, but they were a tad eccentric. Kate’s father had read a book all through breakfast without a word to anyone, and her mother had refused the tea and imbibed her customary morning diet, a generous tot of whiskey to, as she said, clear her mind and set her up for the day ahead. Nothing, it seemed, could shake her equilibrium, not even the prospect of her younger daughter’s hastily contrived marriage.
As for Kate, she was a peacemaker. She had wanted to go to her sister. She wouldn’t let him hurt her cousins, and she wouldn’t let her cousins hurt him. No wonder Macduff was smitten with her. They were kindred spirits. Macduff did not like hurting people, either.
He turned from the window when he heard the door open. “Kate,” he said.
It wasn’t Kate who entered, however, but Magda, her beautiful eyes moist with tears. Her voice was husky. “Kate and Hamish are playing chess in the lounge, so I thought this would be an ideal moment to offer an apology for my behavior earlier. Do say you forgive me.”
“It’s not to me you should make your apology, but to Kate.”
She angled him a teary smile. “I’ve done that already. Kate has a very forgiving nature, I’m glad to say.”
She approached him slowly. “I should never have loaned her my gown. That was what set me off. You were right. It bears Worth’s label. Not that that would matter to Kate.” She gave an elegant shrug. “Even as a child she was clumsy.”
Gavin was more curious than angry. This beautiful woman had deliberately sought him out. Not for one moment did he believe that it was merely to offer him an apology. Then what was she up to?
He managed a half smile. “Siblings never do get along, do they, not when they’re children. My brother and I came to like each other as we got older, and now we’re the best of friends.”
She gave a brittle laugh. “Kate and I are not children. We are not going to grow to like each other. It’s too late for that.” She gave a little sigh. “It’s not her fault. From the day my mother brought her into the house, she has been feted and fussed over like a little princess. Of course, I was jealous.” Her shoulders lifted in a helpless shrug. “I was afraid of her then, and I’m still afraid of her.”
Now, thought Gavin, they were getting to the crux of the matter. “Afraid of Kate? I think you’ve got that backwards. There is no spite in Kate.”
There was a moment of silence, then Magda’s eyes flared. “Are you saying that I’m spiteful?”
“Aren’t you?”
A moment passed, and she gave a creditable laugh. “Oh dear, Mr. Hepburn, you have a lot to learn about our little Katie.” The laughter went out of her voice. “Why
are
you marrying her? You must know that she is not an heiress. She isn’t a beauty. She has no style, no accomplishments.”
are
you marrying her? You must know that she is not an heiress. She isn’t a beauty. She has no style, no accomplishments.”
He put his hands in his pockets as a precautionary measure, and gave a suggestive smile. “Kate’s appeal lies in the kind of person she is. She is warm. That’s what a man wants in his woman. She appeals to his . . . shall we say . . . softer, better nature? Haven’t you noticed that plain women marry handsome men and that the reverse is true? You’d be a much happier person if you had a heart.”
When she raised her hand to strike him, his fingers manacled her wrist.
Panting, furious, she spat the words at him. “You don’t know my sister at all. Ask her about the clinic. Ask her about Dr. Rankin and how she met him. Ask her where she spent her summers when she was a child.” And, turning on her heel, she stalked from the room.
Thoughtful now, Gavin stared absently at the door. Magda’s words revolved in his mind. The clinic. Dr. Rankin. Kate’s summers. Other things occurred to him.
“From the day my mother brought her into the house.”
What did Magda mean by that?
“From the day my mother brought her into the house.”
What did Magda mean by that?
Kate was keeping secrets from him, and it was the worst thing she could do. Hadn’t he tried to impress on her that a killer was after her? He’d be damned if he’d allow her to fob him off now with evasions and half-truths. There had to be a reason for someone to want her dead. Every little piece of information mattered. Without her cooperation, they were merely playing a game of blindman’s buff.
Slow down,
he told himself. There was a right way to go about this. One Magda in Kate’s life was enough. All the same, time was of the essence. He couldn’t keep her in protective custody forever. Could he?
he told himself. There was a right way to go about this. One Magda in Kate’s life was enough. All the same, time was of the essence. He couldn’t keep her in protective custody forever. Could he?
On that thought, he left the parlor and went downstairs to keep his appointment with Kate’s father.
Fourteen
To say that Kate’s father was a take-charge kind of person didn’t do the man justice, in Gavin’s opinion. Only six hours had passed since that fateful interview in the private parlor, and they were there again, a small gathering of family and friends, to witness his marriage to Kate Cameron.
He wasn’t sure that the thing was legal.
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