Having ended the conversation, she picked up her skirts and hurried up the stairs. Gavin watched her for a few moments, then pulled up his collar and left the house. Macduff, he knew, would be having a great time exploring every nook and cranny of his new hunting ground.
Once outside, he put his fingers to his lips and emitted a shrill whistle. No sign of Macduff. He tried again. A moment later, a huge sheepdog bounded out of the gloom and hurled itself at Gavin’s feet. The dog stared up at Gavin and began to whine.
“What is it, boy? This isn’t like you.”
Gavin sank down and ran his fingers over Macduff’s heavy coat. “No scratches or limbs broken,” he said. “What is it, Macduff? Why do you whine?”
Macduff stopped whining and gazed steadfastly up at Gavin.
Gavin straightened. “Come!” he commanded and immediately struck out along the path that led uphill to the edge of the moor where his cottage was situated.
The snow was falling thickly now, which wasn’t unusual for this time of year. It wouldn’t last. In a day or two, it would turn to slush. With a little luck, however, it might turn into a full-blown blizzard. That would cut Ballater off from the rest of the world and give him time to get to know Miss Cameron better.
As he trudged up the hill, he sifted through all the little flags that had caught his interest.
Are you the one?
That wasn’t a little flag. It was more like a firework bursting into flame inside his head. Could he trust his psychic power after neglecting it for so long? The real question was, now that it had found him, would it leave him alone?
Then there were Will and his clinics. Will had suspicions but no solid evidence to bring a murderer to justice. Miss Cameron was connected to the clinics, too. Will had spoken of her so naturally, so warmly, that Gavin was convinced that she was not Will’s suspect. According to Will, she had a way with outcasts and misfits. Will, his clinics, a murderer, Miss Cameron—how were they connected?
It took him a good ten minutes to reach the cottage. He opened the door to allow Macduff to enter, but Macduff was not there. Gavin whistled; he cursed and shouted Macduff’s name, all to no avail. Macduff, evidently, had found something more exciting than this lonely cottage on the moor.
When he entered the cottage, he had to push the door shut. A wind was getting up. He could hear it whistling in the chimney stack and rattling the windowpanes. Outside, snow was piling up on the windowsills.
There was one small flag he had overlooked. For reasons beyond his comprehension, Miss Kate Cameron had caught his interest, not only as a magnet that attracted his psychic powers but also as an intriguing female in her own right.
The thought brought Alice to mind. Her vibrant beauty had stopped his heart when he’d first caught sight of her riding in Hyde Park. Her vibrant looks were matched by a vibrant personality. Naturally, she attracted men like moths to a flame. He hadn’t even tried to infiltrate her group of admirers, knowing that he didn’t stand a chance. All that changed when they found themselves sitting side by side at some pretentious musicale in Lady Tinsdale’s music room in her house in Mayfair. They’d caught each other’s eye and had both started to laugh. It had gotten so bad, they’d had to excuse themselves and leave the room. And from that night on, they had become inseparable.
Alice was a daredevil and had found her perfect complement in him, or rather, he suppressed his misgivings because Alice did not take correction easily. Her guardian was indifferent to her comings and goings and allowed her free rein. And he had indulged her, too, giving in to her every whim. If Alice wanted to attend a risqué masked ball, he readily agreed to be her escort. Curricle races, bathing in the sea, climbing the peaks in Derbyshire—Alice was up for anything, and so was he.
Everything changed the day they went sailing on her guardian’s yacht. They were the only two guests. It began to be borne in on him that there was more to it than a pleasant afternoon of sailing. Alice had set the scene with meticulous care—a picnic lunch on deck and champagne to go with it. She was obviously anticipating a proposal of marriage, and he didn’t know why he couldn’t say the words.
He remembered the sun was shining; there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the waves that lapped the side of the yacht were gentle and unthreatening. He had tried to imagine life with Alice for the next five, ten years, and the prospect gave him pause. Alice and her temper tantrums? Alice and her odd fits of unbridled jealousy over trifles? Alice and her steely determination to get her own way?
But those were the quirks of character that made her such an exciting companion. He didn’t want to lose her. He just wanted to make sure that they knew their own minds. Or so he had told himself.
He had taken her hands in his and said seriously but gently, “Let’s not rush things. Let’s get to know each other better before we take that irrevocable step. I’m not thinking so much of myself but of you. I’m a boring fellow. What if you tire of me in another month?”
Would he ever forget what happened next? She had jumped to her feet and, before his startled eyes, stripped down to her underthings. “I’m going for a swim,” she said, cold as ice. “When I get back, I want you gone—out of my sight and out of my life, you fainthearted bastard.” Then she had climbed onto the rail and jumped into the water.
It was the last time he saw her alive.
He tensed for the guilt that never failed to grip him when he thought of the accident that had claimed Alice’s life. It was there, simmering below the surface, but tempered now by the passage of time. He couldn’t blame Alice for being Alice. He blamed himself for being blind to her faults.
Kate Cameron did not possess Alice’s fire. All the same, there was a restrained sensuality about her that he found oddly appealing. But that was only a first impression. When he looked into her grave brown eyes, he sensed . . . not fragility. She was anything but fragile.
Lonely
was the word he wanted.
So much introspection was making his head ache. He shrugged out of his clothes and climbed into bed.
Are you the one?
The words became a litany as he drifted into sleep.
Two
The snowfall during the night caused quite a stir at the Deeside Hotel. The trains weren’t running, carriages couldn’t navigate the slippery slopes, and the only way to get about was to walk. Before the storm hit, canny travelers had changed their plans, and now the hotel was filled to capacity with paying guests. There weren’t enough servants to see to the influx, and dinner had been a prolonged affair.
A long, boring affair,
Gavin thought. He was searching the crush of people for a sign of Miss Cameron. He’d seen her enter the dining room with a group of young women, young marrieds by the sound of them, but somehow she and her friends had slipped away unseen.
“We shall just have to make up our minds to the fact that we may be marooned here for the next day or two,” joked Mr. Massey, one of the paying guests. He beamed benignly at the group of card players who sat around several tables in the dining room. Now that dinner was over, and there was nowhere for guests to go, they had turned the dining room into a parlor to accommodate everyone.
“It’s no hardship for me,” Mr. Massey went on. “I’m retired. My time is my own, and I like nothing better than to pass the time in pleasant company.”
He was a big, silver-haired man, on the heavy side, and spoke with an Edinburgh accent. His fellow card players might have forgiven the gentleman’s origins had he not been winning every hand.
He’d told the company that he’d hoped to take the train to Braemar to look up relatives with whom he’d lost touch over the years, and had had the shock of his life when the stationmaster told him that the train went only as far as Ballater.
“He told me,” said Mr. Massey, frowning down at his cards, “that I’d have to hire a carriage to take me the rest of the way. That seems strange to me. Why does the line stop here? It’s only what—another few miles to Braemar?”
“Eighteen miles, according to the desk clerk,” his wife answered. She was the opposite of her husband, thin to the point of scrawny, and the lines on her face were not laugh lines. She was ensconced in a chair by the fire and occasionally glanced over at the card table where her son, Massey junior, was also engaged in a game of cards. It was the younger Massey who was footing the bill for this ill-fated holiday in the Highlands. Without looking up, Mrs. Massey said, “The train stops at Ballater at the queen’s pleasure.” Her voice was subdued and respectful.
Someone added provocatively, “Her Majesty doesn’t want visitors gawking out of train windows as they pass her estate. God only knows what frolics our royals get up to that would shock lesser mortals such as ourselves. At any rate, the queen always gets her way, so the natives of Braemar make do with horses and carriages.”
Mrs. Massey bristled and glared at the speaker.
Her husband laughed.
The squire and his lady,
Gavin thought. One was the salt of the earth, though a trifle uncouth, and the other was a cut above him, or so she liked to think. He was sitting close to the fire, too, pretending to read a book, but that was only a device to indulge his favorite pastime: people watching. He kept looking at the entrance, hoping that Kate Cameron would put in an appearance. They’d done no more than exchange a few inconsequential words the other night, and he was determined to pick up the conversation where it had left off. It was imperative that he discover whether or not she was the one he’d been called to save.
Something whisper-soft touched the nape of his neck, and he smoothed it away with his hand, an involuntary movement that he was barely aware of, but all his senses were on the alert. Something in this room was out of kilter. What was it?
Will Rankin joined him, and Gavin moved over on his comfortable sofa to make room for his friend.
“You’ll have to look to your laurels, old sod,” Rankin said in an undertone. “Young Thomas has cut you out with the girls.”
Gavin’s gaze flicked to the object of Rankin’s aside. It was true. Thomas Steele, the groom’s younger brother, was the center of female attention. He stifled a yawn.
Needling his friend, the doctor went on, “He’s young, handsome, charming, and comes into a tidy fortune when he comes of age. He’s also a true Highlander. What more could a woman want?”
“A man?” Gavin replied without much interest. “Young Steele is only a boy.”
Will smiled and nodded at the lady on the other side of the blazing fire, Mrs. Massey, who had looked up with a question in her eyes. “You must be very proud of your son, Mrs. Massey,” said Will, raising his voice. “I was telling my friend that he has taken over at the helm of his late uncle’s—um—publishing firm, has he not?”
Mrs. Massey’s stern demeanor dissolved in a simpering smile. Her flat chest puffed out. “Gordon deserves his success,” she said. “He was always a hard worker.” Her fond gaze moved to her son. “His uncle relied heavily on his judgment.”
Gavin hardly spared Gordon Massey a glance. He was more interested in his friend’s problems. “So, Will,” he said, “you missed your train this morning?”
“No trains running, I’m afraid.”
“What about the problem you mentioned? What will you do now?”
“There’s nothing much I can do until the trains are running again.” He shrugged. “I wish that you would forget I ever mentioned it. The more I think about it, the more bizarre it seems. Accidents do happen, and I’m coming to believe that’s all they were, accidents.”
Gavin might have said more, but his friend was borne away by the young widow McCrae to make up a four at her card table. No sooner had his friend vacated his place on the sofa, when it was taken by Mr. Fox, another of the hotel’s paying guests. Gavin swallowed a sigh. He’d had the misfortune to sit beside Mr. Fox at dinner, and he’d heard enough about the former headmaster’s views on the younger generation to last him a lifetime.
Mr. Fox said solemnly, “I could not help but see, Mr. Hepburn, that you and that doctor fellow had a lot to say to each other.”
“We’ve been friends for a long time,” Gavin allowed. He didn’t like the tone of Mr. Fox’s remarks. In fact, he didn’t like anything about Mr. Fox, from his highly polished boots to his too-tight neckcloth.
“He’s a psychiater, I believe?”
“He’s a doctor,” Gavin replied. “Some of his patients suffer from . . .” He searched for the right word.
“Dementia?” Fox supplied.
“I was going to say from a nervous condition. Dr. Rankin has had some success in treating them.”
“Really?” said Fox. “Do you know what I think, Mr. Hepburn? I think that Dr. Rankin has discovered an easy way of making money out of his patients’ misery. In another twenty years, we’ll look back on the medical profession and call this the age of humbug.”
Gavin rarely lost his temper, but Fox’s unprovoked attack on the character of a man who had given up a lucrative practice in Edinburgh to work in the slums of Aberdeen, the city of Will’s birth, was more than he was willing to tolerate.
He got to his feet. “Excuse me,” he said abruptly. “I believe I’m being invited to play cards.”