The House Between Tides (55 page)

They stood together and looked across at the tumbled ruin. “I'm sorry,” Ruairidh spoke softly beside her.

Hetty shook her head. “I think I'm glad. The storm took matters into its own hand, which somehow makes it alright.”

They stood a moment longer, and returned to the kitchen. Then Ruairidh saw the painting propped against the chair in the corner. “Good gracious. Where did
that
come from?”

“The cupboard under the stairs.” James went and fetched it into the light. “Wrapped in an old potato sack. I was going to tell you—” Ruairidh gave him an incredulous look as James handed it to him. As he did, the card came off the back and fell to the floor. He bent to retrieve it. “It's a note from Emily Blake to Donald Forbes.”

Ruairidh read it, glanced at Hetty, and then turned the painting over. “But it was stuck over something else,” he said, and read: “ ‘
To the future, Beatrice, and all that it holds for us, Your loving husband, Theo. March 1910.
' Good God. Poor devils.”

James stared at it, and then went back to the sink and poured boiling water into three mugs. “Was the package from Inverness, then?” he asked abruptly.

“It was.” Ruairidh pulled out a chair and sat.

“And?”

“It takes a bit of telling.” He hooked another chair out with his foot. “So sit down.” James sat, his eyes fixed on his cousin's face, and Ruairidh looked back at him. “There can be little doubt, James. Taking the DNA evidence and the bones, there can be only one answer.”

Midsummer Day 1911, Cameron

Cameron Forbes walked along the path which linked the two houses. The light was fading, that slow creeping change of midsummer as the long, soft evening gave way to a fleeting night. He lifted his head, turning it slightly to feel the breeze on his face, and drank in its sweet familiarity. A day to live for, his mother would have said.

The clouds were piling high on the horizon, but the weather would hold for the bonfire. Good. Everyone had worked hard for the celebration, and they deserved their holiday. Once all was in readiness there, he had crossed back over the strand and waited until he saw from the window of his room that the trap bearing Blake and Beatrice was halfway across the sand. Then he had picked up his travelling bag and gone down into the empty kitchen, giving it a last fond farewell. He had gone up the track to Muirlan House, where he would leave his letter and cross back over the strand to the bonfire. See Beatrice, then go. Morning would find him on his way; he would catch a lift with one of the fishermen, cross on the early mail boat, then to the port of Glasgow and his passage to Halifax. Leaving all this behind.

For now.

He paused on the ridge between the two houses, dropping his hand instinctively to fondle Bess's ear. But she was with Donald on Bheinn Mhor, forging a new alliance, and the thought made him sad. It was so very hard to go, leaving Beatrice here, and he felt again the now familiar stab of pain and anxiety.

Leaving would be very different this time. From the backwoods of Ontario, the island had pulled him back here, tugging at a bond, reeling him back. But this time when he left, it might well be forever. If his plan worked and if Beatrice did find the courage to leave and join him, he knew he'd never come back. He could never sustain the necessary lies to his all-knowing father, nor look Blake in the face. And if Beatrice's courage failed, and she stayed, he couldn't come back to see her still bound to the man, faded and diminished; it would be more than he could bear.

He looked at the letter clutched in his hand and wondered again if it were better not written. There had been several drafts as he struggled with the dreadful hypocrisy of the task. But some form of farewell would be expected, and his father had more or less ordered him to try and make amends before he left. Not knowing what he asked.

He looked up at the walls of the great house in front of him, and it seemed that the house looked back, affronted by what he had done and appalled by what he was planning. Muirlan House and those hours spent beside Blake in the study had made it almost a home to him, and yet he had abused it.

He crossed the drive to the front door. He rarely used this entrance unless he was with Blake or Beatrice, but today it seemed important that he did. It lent a little dignity to the undignified act of slipping in to leave a letter of gratitude and peacemaking to a man he had wronged—and intended to wrong more grievously. A man who had supported and encouraged him, treated him for many years almost as a son. He shook his head, dispelling Beatrice's conviction that it had ever been more.

It was hard to justify his actions, even to himself. Conventional morality would be outraged, his father mortified. Both would damn him unconditionally. But there was another morality that he now believed in, a deeper judgement which would exonerate him,
vindicate him for releasing Beatrice from a loveless marriage to a man who was incapable of love.

His footsteps crunched on the gravel of the drive. Blake had changed, and Cameron had watched it happen. Where once he had been questioning, talented, and creative, he had turned in on himself to the point where he was capable only of grasping and holding, controlling and possessing on terms of his own devising. He had brought Beatrice here, then neglected her shamefully—and he had wanted to control Cameron. He looked down at the letter again, turning it in his hands. There was a time when, as a boy, he had worshipped Blake, grateful for the unexplained attention, the world he had opened up. But now . . . To leave Beatrice with Blake would be as great a wrong as taking her from him. And it served no purpose. Blake would be no more content with her there beside him than with her gone, and Beatrice would droop and fade like the rusty brown buds on her yellow rose.

And besides, he thought savagely as he mounted the steps, she wanted him as much as he wanted her. The memory of her as she lay in his arms yesterday brought renewed conviction. From the beginning she had loved without reserve, her cool demeanour cast aside. This was the woman that Blake had rejected! And in so doing he had forfeited both her love and Cameron's remorse, and his own actions became justified by a code more sacred than cold convention. He clamped his jaw tight, opened the door, and entered the hall.

He was met by a great stillness. The stillness of an empty house, vacant of life. Only the long case clock ticked on, indifferent to the passing hour, and he stood a moment in the hall, looking about him, watched warily by the stag and fox. This house was as familiar as his own, known intimately since childhood. He shook his head. There was no room for sentimentality; he would leave the letter and then go. Cross back over the strand to the bonfire. Then there
would be time for only formal farewells, not the wrenching pain of parting yesterday, accompanied as it had been by the exchange of keepsakes and promises. A pain which was compounded by the ache of leaving his family and by the sharp stab of deceit. He crossed the hall to the study, pushed open the door . . . and froze.

Blake sat at his desk like a stone effigy, staring into the empty hearth. As Cameron halted at the doorway, he lifted his head and looked across at him.

Cameron looked back, thrown off-balance, his mind racing. Blake.
Here?
So who had been beside Beatrice in the trap? Had Blake come back across? But why?

And only then did he see what lay between them on the desk, its head fallen to one side beside the basket with its blue-grey plunder.

He came slowly into the room, dropping his bag in front of the fireplace, and went to the desk, running a finger along the black-and-white feathered necklace of the dead bird, turning his wrist to feel the chill of the eggs on his skin. He lifted his eyes to connect with Blake's, and the air between them crackled, charged with something more complicated than anger and much more dangerous. Neither spoke, then Cameron turned abruptly to leave, his letter still in his pocket.

“These
trophies
are no surprise to you, of course.” Blake's words followed him. Cameron's head went up then, and he turned. Slowly. Wary now. What did he mean? Blake regarded him steadily, then gestured to the dead bird. “Am I not to receive another lecture?” he asked, letting the silence deepen. “No? Is it, perhaps, that you no longer have the moral high ground?” Cameron held his look, his heart hammering hard, saying nothing, as Blake's face grew darker, beads of sweat erupting on his brow, and the air tightened between them.

He knew. Dear God, he
knew
! Cameron's mind roared. Where was Beatrice? It had been her in the trap for certain, even though
he had mistaken Blake. Fear jagged through him, and he turned to leave, knowing he must find her.

“If you go
anywhere
near my wife, I will break you both.” Blake's voice cut the space between them. “You have my word on it.”

“Where is she?”

“Where do you think?” Blake raised his eyebrows and barked a laugh. “Do you imagine I had Calum dispose of her in the sea pool? Settling the matter in the traditional way? My dear Cameron!” Cameron looked back at him, thinking frantically but finding himself incapable of thought. Blake's face was rigid, implacable, but for Cameron there was only one solution, and it hit him hard and sure.

“Let her come away with me. We'll leave tonight.”

Blake's eyes widened in incredulity. “My God, I believe you're serious.” Cameron clenched his fists by his sides, willing him to see the rightness of it. “That was the plan, was it? You'd slip off together tonight?”

“I would have gone. Beatrice would have stayed.” He did not add
for now
, Beatrice might need that protection.

Blake sat a moment, digesting this, watching him, and again the silence lengthened. “So this—this little
affaire
was just for sport, was it, to pass the time before you left?”

Cameron kept a tight grip on himself. If it would spare Beatrice, let Blake believe it to be so. He looked away instead, and his eyes fell on the limp form of the bird, the female, judging by its size. As ever, Blake's shot was perfectly placed to do the least obvious damage and so preserve the specimen, and he felt again the stirring of anger. A stranger would not see the wounds on Beatrice either, nor see the emptiness inside. He lifted his head and looked again at Blake, knowing his position was indefensible. “So what happens now?”

Theo continued to watch him. “What happens now?” he echoed
softly, then rose and walked over to the window, looking out to where the sun had disappeared behind the cloud bank, one hand gripping the other wrist behind his back. “My God, if you only knew.” The words were hardly more than a murmur, and Cameron raised his head in enquiry, but Blake continued to stare out at the darkening water before abruptly turning back. “Adultery is a
crime
in the eyes of the law. Did you know that?” He leant across the desk to confront him, his eyes now hot with fury. “More serious than shooting some wretched bird, I think.” Cameron watched him, unflinching, and Blake sucked in his breath. “I could make things very unpleasant, you know—for both of you.” Then he slumped back into his seat behind the desk, his face drained and haggard, his anger spent for the moment, and he looked aside, as if weary with the matter. “I think you should leave, Cameron. Go now, before I find the thought of seeing you both shamed too tempting to resist.”

But Cameron could not leave, not now. “Beatrice—”

“Beatrice is nothing to you.”

Wrong! She was everything
.
Sunlight across the strand. The breeze rippling over the marram grasses. The sweet heart of a yellow rose. How could he possibly make him understand?

Anger had suffused Blake's face again. “It is as you said. Beatrice stays. You go.”

“That was before tonight. I can't leave her here with you now.”

“You have no choice.”

No choice? At the quiet words, Cameron felt the net tighten and braced himself against it. “No, but
she
has.” Blake's head snapped up again, but Cameron had nothing left to lose. “Do you imagine she will stay with you?”