And the Bride Wore Prada (22 page)

‘It’s Dominic,’ she said bitterly, ‘same as it always is. I need to find him, but he’s disappeared.’

‘Are you sure he hasn’t left the castle? Gone into the village, perhaps?’

‘No, I’m certain he’s here. He hasn’t a car, after all, so he can’t have gone anywhere.’

‘He might have called a taxi,’ Tarquin pointed out reasonably. ‘Was there somewhere in particular he needed to go?’

‘Not that I know of. His morning suit’s just arrived and I need him to try it on, and there’s no top hat with it, but there should have been, and now I c-can’t even find D-Dominic to ask him about it!’ she wailed, and burst into tears. ‘What if he’s scarpered? I’ll be one of those s-saddo brides left standing at the altar! I’ll be an object of p-pity and s-scorn, just like Miss H-havisham!’

‘Oh, surely not,’ he reassured her, and patted her – somewhat awkwardly – on her arm. ‘I’ve no doubt Dominic will turn up. Would you like me to help you look? I know this castle like the back of my hand, after all.’

Through sniffles and sobs, Gemma nodded. ‘It’ll take me a week to find him by myself. Thanks, Tark.’

‘Always happy to help a lady in distress,’ he murmured, and held out his arm. ‘Shall we begin?’

Together, she and Tarquin ascended the stairs, and began their search for the elusive Dominic Heath.

Chapter 38

Helen took her cup of coffee after breakfast and went to the library to have a quiet moment and a think.

She sat on the window seat and stared outside at the sun glinting off the snow, and found herself once again wondering how Colm had gotten that faint white scar on his thigh. He said it happened on one of the freighters he’d crewed on. Twenty-seven stitches... She shuddered. That was one
hell
of an accident.

Despite herself, she still had a few lingering questions about Colm...questions he’d thus far avoided answering. Why?

What was he hiding?
Was
he hiding something?

She didn’t want to dig into his past, truly she didn’t; it felt like the worst kind of betrayal. But she needed to know more about the man she was falling in love with before things between them went any further. A bit of due diligence was called for before her relationship with Colm went any further, if only to protect herself.

Clutching her coffee cup, Helen returned to her room and switched on her laptop.

She logged on and typed ‘Colm MacKenzie’ into the search engine. Nothing came up, save for links to a few other, different Colms – a writer, a doctor, a plumber.

Why was there no mention of
her
Colm?

She frowned. Was Colm MacKenzie even his real name? Had he changed it for some reason? She stared at the screen as she recalled what he’d said to her on Sunday night, the night they’d spent together.

The McRoberts were good, decent people...they gave me a roof and fed me.

On impulse, she typed in ‘Colm McRoberts.’

Immediately the screen displayed several results. Her eyes widened as she scanned the links.
‘Accident on the A96, Serious Injuries,’
she read out loud
. ‘Pregnant Woman Airlifted to Hospital Following Deadly Wreck.’ ‘McRoberts to be Charged in Accident Fatality?’

Late yesterday afternoon Colm McRoberts, 24, lost control of his car and plunged several feet down a steep embankment. Also in the car was his pregnant wife, Alanna.

While being airlifted from the wreck, Mrs McRoberts went into premature labour. The baby did not survive. Alanna McRoberts died shortly afterwards of internal haemorrhaging sustained by the crash.

Although Colm McRoberts suffered serious injuries, he is expected to live. The cause of the accident is still under investigation.

There was a knock on the door, and Helen looked up, startled out of her troubled thoughts.

‘Miss Thomas?’ Mrs Neeson inquired from the hallway outside. ‘Are you there? You’ve a phone call downstairs.’

Helen got up and opened the door. ‘Thank you. Why wouldn’t I be here?’ she added, curious.

‘Well,’ Mrs Neeson said with a lift of her brow, ‘I’m not one to tell tales, so you’ve no need to worry, Miss Thomas. Your secret’s safe with me.’

‘My secret?’ she echoed as her heart accelerated. ‘What secret?’

The housekeeper’s smile widened. ‘Let’s just say I noticed there was one less person at the breakfast table yesterday morning. And,’ she added with a smile, ‘I saw you sneak in the front door later on.’

‘Oh.’ Helen blushed and found she didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t think of a single reasonable excuse to explain away her absence.

‘I’m that happy for you,’ Mrs Neeson went on, ‘and for Mr MacKenzie. He’s a good man, for all that he’s as prickly as a thorn bush—’

‘You said that I have a phone call?’ Helen interjected, beyond anxious to change the subject. ‘I don’t suppose you know who it is?’

‘I do. It’s the mechanic’s shop, about your car.’

‘My car!’ Helen’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh, shit – I was supposed to pick it up yesterday, and I completely forgot.’

‘Well,’ the housekeeper said as she preceded Helen out the door, ‘if you need a ride to the shop, let me know. One of the girls can take you into the village.’

‘I will. And thanks.’ Helen grabbed up her handbag and coat and followed Mrs Neeson down to the kitchen.

‘Can you help us, Mr MacKenzie?’

Colm, who’d just come inside the castle in search of Archie, looked up to see Tarquin and Gemma Astley coming down the stairs.

‘Of course I will, if I can,’ he replied. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Gemma’s fiancé’s gone missing,’ Tarquin told him. ‘We’ve looked everywhere, but it’s nearly lunch time, and we still haven’t found him. Miss Astley is understandably upset.’

‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ Colm said, although personally, he shared Rhys Gordon’s opinion that Dominic Heath was a bolshie, over-pampered rock star. ‘Are you sure he didn’t leave the premises?’

‘Positive,’ Gemma said firmly. ‘Unless...’ Her face crumpled. ‘Unless he’s done a runner before the wedding!’

Tarquin patted her ineffectually on the shoulder and met Colm’s eyes. ‘There’s nothing else to do but continue searching downstairs.’

‘Downstairs?’ Colm’s expression plainly showed that he thought Tarquin had taken leave of his senses. ‘But there’s nothing down there but the dungeons.’

‘We’ve exhausted every other possibility. Could you have another look upstairs, please? You might check the guest wing again.’

Colm nodded doubtfully. ‘Aye. I’ll go and have a look now.’

Chapter 39

As he began searching the guest bedrooms, knocking on each door before he entered to have a look around, Colm found no sign of Dominic. He arrived at the last room on the left and lifted his hand to knock. The door was open.

‘Hello?’

He thrust his head cautiously around the doorjamb and glanced inside. ‘Hello...is anyone here?’

There was no answer.

Judging from the silk nightgown thrown across a chair, and the clutter of cosmetics and perfume bottles on the dresser, this was a woman’s room. He had a cursory glance round, then turned to go.

He had his own bloody work to be doing, after all.

Colm turned, impatient to be gone, and bumped into an antique desk by the window. He muttered a curse as a pencil rolled off onto the floor.

As he knelt to retrieve it, he noticed a laptop open in the middle of the desk. It was Helen’s laptop.

When he’d bumped into the desk, the movement must have jarred the screen to life.

Colm laid the pencil down, and as he did he saw a search engine on the laptop screen. He smiled. That was his Helen, always working, probably researching a new story for that editor chap, Tom...

Then he saw the links, and his smile froze.

‘Accident on the A96, Serious Injuries.’ ‘Pregnant Woman Airlifted to Hospital Following Deadly Wreck.’ ‘McRoberts to be Charged in Accident Fatality?’

A black rage gripped him as he realized she’d been up here, investigating him, delving into his background as if he were a bloody job applicant, or worse still – as if he were some kind of a common criminal.

Evidently not content with his own version of the past, she’d gone looking online to search on his adoptive name, McRoberts, to find...what? Something a bit more titillating than what he’d told her? Something more damning?

Something more...
newsworthy
?

He slammed his fist down hard on the desk, sending papers fluttering into the air, and the pencil skittered and rolled once again to the floor.

But this time, he didn’t bother to pick it up.

And he didn’t bother to shut the door when he strode out of the room.

A weak shaft of sunlight slanted in through the tiny slit of a window.

Dominic, shivering from a night spent passed out on the floor in whisky-fuelled oblivion, sat up and groggily surveyed his surroundings. He was sitting on dirt. The wall against his back was rough stone, darkened here and there with moss.

Where the
fuck
was he?

The last thing he remembered – after downing a bottle of Draemar whisky with Archie – was stumbling down the back stairs in search of car keys – any car keys – so he could get away from the castle, away from Scotland, and most importantly, away from Gemma and her incessant demands.

Try this jacket on, Dom. What do you think of this dress for the honeymoon, Dom? Will you wear a boutonnière, Dom? Shall we go with Royal Doulton or Wedgwood china, Dom?

As if it made any fucking difference what he liked! Dom thought darkly. Gemma always did whatever the bloody hell she wanted anyway, regardless of his opinion.

He pushed himself unsteadily to his feet and staggered to the door. Gripping the ancient-looking metal handle, he yanked on it with all his might, but the heavy oaken door didn’t budge.

It was locked. What the!?

There were bars inset in a small window at the top of the door, like the kind you saw in that
Man in the Iron Mask
film. But wait a minute – the man in the iron mask spent most of that film in a bloody
prison
.

What in
hell
was he doing in
prison
?

Panic overtook him as the whisky fumes fogging his brain began to lift. This was no prison. This, he remembered from the tour Tarquin had given them when they’d arrived at Draemar, was the dungeon.

He was locked in a dungeon in the bowels of the castle. And no one – no one! ‒ knew he was down here.

‘Help!’ Dominic bellowed, as real panic set in. ‘Let me out of here!’ He cast his eyes wildly over the dirt floor, hoping to find a key, or a crowbar, or maybe one of those tin cups that prisoners dragged across the bars in prison films.

But there was nothing. No key, no crowbar. Not even a tin cup. Just...dirt.

Right, then, he told himself as he began to hyperventilate. This was it. He’d always wondered how he’d die...and now he knew. No massive cocaine overdose for him, no heart attack whilst romping in bed with a couple of curvaceous groupies.

No, instead he’d die of starvation, wasting away little by little, until one day they found his bones in a pathetic heap on the floor of this bloody Scottish dungeon.

‘Lemme out!’ Dominic howled as he pounded his fists against the door. ‘Somebody get me the fuck out of here!’

Halfway down the stairs, Gemma came to a halt. ‘I can’t go down there,’ she said, and shuddered as she brushed another cobweb away from her face. ‘This is disgusting.’

Tarquin, a few steps ahead of her, turned and looked up at her with a raised brow. ‘You want to find Dominic, don’t you?’

‘Yes, of course I do,’ she gritted, ‘but only so I can kick him in the balls and give him his bloody ring back!’

‘Stay here, then. I’ll go ahead and have a look round.’

‘No, wait!’ Gemma’s eyes widened as he started back down the steps without her. ‘Don’t you dare to leave me here!’ She eyed the moss-covered stone wall that pressed in closely on either side, and with another shudder, she hurried after Tarquin.

The floor, if you could call it that, consisted of packed dirt. Gemma wrinkled her nose as she glanced around. It was dim down here, and dank, and it smelled like earth, and moss, and damp.

Oh well
, she reasoned uneasily,
dungeons aren’t meant to be comfortable or sweet-smelling, are they?

‘Do you really think Dom’s down here?’ she asked Tarquin.

‘I doubt it. But we’d best have a look, just to be sure.’

‘Right,’ she agreed reluctantly, and followed close behind him.

They were halfway along the corridor, its length liberally festooned with cobwebs and inset on either side with thick oak doors, when Gemma came to an abrupt stop.

‘Did you hear it?’ she asked as she clutched his arm, her words breathless.

‘Hear what?’

‘That!’ she hissed. ‘Listen!’

Tarquin tamped down his rising irritation – really, Gemma Astley was more dramatic (and more annoying) than a six-year-old schoolgirl – when he heard it, too. It was a low sort of moan...

...followed by the unmistakable sound of someone bellowing, ‘Get me the
fuck
out of here!’

Chapter 40

‘Dominic!’ Gemma cried. ‘Where are you?’

They stopped outside the last door along the corridor.

‘Gems?’ he croaked. ‘Gemma, is that you?’

They heard a scrabbling sound, then Dominic – looking a bit wild-eyed – pressed his face against the barred window at the top of the door.

‘How did you end up down here, locked in the dungeon?’ Tarquin asked him in bewilderment.

‘How the hell should I know?’ Dom snapped. ‘The last thing I remember is looking for a set of car keys.’

‘Car keys? Why would you come down to the dungeons to find a set of car keys?’ Gemma demanded. ‘You were drunk, weren’t you?’

He started to protest, then realized there was nothing to be gained by denying it. ‘Yeah, I was. I was drunk. So what? When I’m pissed, at least I can stop thinking about boutonnières and bridal gowns and bouquets for a bit. You’re doing my head in with all this wedding shit.’

She stared at him. ‘Are you saying...are you saying you don’t
want
to marry me?’