Chapter Twenty

Rory

Edinburgh— Friday 10th August 1877

I was gobsmacked, and by the looks of her, so was Marianne, at what she'd just confessed. She didn't want to tell me any more either, and I didn't know what I felt, but I couldn't leave it. ‘Are you saying you were engaged to be married too?'

She sighed. ‘A long time ago.'

‘What happened?'

‘Like you I realised, much later than I should have, that it was a mistake. I terminated the engagement.'

Did you love him?

I couldn't ask her that. I didn't want the answer to be that she had, but I wanted to know what had happened all the same. I was still shaken by the way she'd reacted when I'd put my arms around her. One minutes she had been kissing me passionately, lighting a fire in my belly, making me ache with wanting her, and the next minute she was looking at me as if I'd tried to strangle her. Had that been his fault? Had he hurt her?

‘I don't know what you're thinking, Rory, but I would remind you, we're here to talk about your old case not my old love affair.'

The words hit me like a punch in the gut. ‘It was a love affair, then?'

‘I thought so at the time.' She lifted her eyes to meet mine, gleaming more yellow than green, and I recalled that phrase, cat-like, that the doctor I'd spoken to had used. ‘I found I was mistaken,' she added, her tone strained, ‘but not before I had surrendered—no, that's not right—not before I had indulged in the passion which I mistook for love. Now you have the truth, I expect you are shocked.'

‘I don't know what I'm feeling.' I was struggling to take in what she was telling me, and more importantly, why.

‘You must have known that you were not the first man I had kissed.'

Still that odd tone, and she was holding herself tight as a bow. ‘I didn't care, Marianne. When I was kissing you, I wasn't thinking about who else you might have kissed. I wasn't thinking at all.'

‘But afterwards...'

‘Are you wanting me to criticise you for it?' I felt a flicker of anger. ‘Are you wanting me to tell you that I think less of you?' My anger took root. ‘Do you think that I'm a bloody hypocrite?'

‘I don't!'

‘No? Then why did you take that tone with me, when you told me that you're not a virgin—for that's what you meant, I take it? You were just waiting for me to judge you.'

‘I was...'

‘You misread my reaction. Do you know what was actually bothering me? I was wondering whether it was him who hurt you. Was it him who made you terrified of having someone's arms around you? That's what was bothering me.'

I knew I was reacting out of all proportion. It wasn't like me to get angry like that, but then everything I felt for Marianne was nothing like me and I was all over the place. Kissing her like there was no tomorrow one minute, and forgetting everything except wanting to go on kissing her. Then being stared at as if I was murderer. And now, when it hadn't even occurred to me to judge her, for I was very much intent on judging him, she was ripping up at me for doing just that.

I threw myself to my feet, cursing under my breath, angry and frustrated by the pair of us. ‘I make my own mind up about people, I thought you knew me well enough to understand that. Do you think I'm a virgin? I'm forty years old, of course I'm not, and the women I've made love to—do you think I'm one of those men who thinks that only harlots can be passionate?'

Finally, I caught myself and bit the tumble of words back. ‘I'm sorry. It's not like me to lose my temper. I didn't mean—I don't know where that came from. Again.' I caught my breath, trying to steady myself. ‘I'm sorry. You'e right. What you did, who you did it with, it's none of my business. I just don't like the thought of you being hurt, that's all.'

You know that alarm bell that had clanged faintly a couple of days ago, when we talked about spending the next two weeks together? Well it clanged again at that, and I noticed it this time. I didn't like the thought of her being hurt. I wanted to be the one that stopped her getting hurt further. But if I wasn't careful...

I took a deep breath. I had to be careful or we'd both make a mistake we might well rue for the rest of our days. She wasn't for me. I wasn't for her. That's the way it was, and that's the way we both wanted it to stay. We'd lay off the kissing. And I'd send another telegram to the Marquess, asking him to get a move on. The sooner Marianne knew the truth about herself, the better for both of us.

And if I kept telling myself that, I might start to believe it. ‘Sorry,' I said. ‘Rant over. Right then.' Time to do what I always do, and get back to work. I patted my coat pocket and drew out my notebook. ‘Let me fill you in on what I've been up to, assuming you still want to know.'

She nodded. I sat down, making a point of keeping some distance between us, and opened the notebook, but her hand on my arm stayed me.

‘I just want to say that I don't think of you like that at all, I promise you, Rory.'

‘It doesnae matter.'

‘Doesnae,' she repeated, with a valiant wee smile. ‘Your accent becomes so much broader when you are emotional.'

‘Aye, well, then I reckon I must speak broad Weegie or Scots when I'm around you, but I really am sorry I lost my temper.'

She had her hands clasped again, so tightly it was stretching her gloves at the knuckles. ‘I am usually quite calm and collected too, but when I am with you, I am...'

‘All over the shop?'

‘Does that mean up and down? Yes, I'm all over the shop. I have known you just over a week...'

‘Eight days. It's only been eight days.'

‘It feels much longer, doesn't it? And we have less than two weeks left. Is that it? Do you think it's because we have so little time that we are all over the shop ?'

‘I don't know, it might be,' I said, because it was a straw I could clutch at. Twelve days left, maybe less if the Marquess could grease the legal cogs and get them to move faster. Twelve days, and we'd be going our separate ways. I didn't like the twinge I got in my guts at the thought. Part of me was thinking it might be a good idea to damn the Marquess and his orders to hell and just tell her the truth now. It would scupper any inappropriate hopes and desires I might be harbouring about us good and proper.

I wasn't just thinking of what it meant for her, but I was thinking of what she'd think of me, keeping it all to myself for so long. But I kept coming back to the fact that I'd not a whole story to tell her. And I was under orders to keep my gob shut. And they were sensible orders, what's more. So I turned back to my notebook once more, and the old case that had never failed to distract me, and I told Marianne what I'd turned up.

‘The thing that always bothered me, as you know, was that our Lillian was a missing person that no one seemed to have missed. Widening the search, getting in touch with the police in the other big cities in Scotland, see if they knew anything about her, that was going to be my next step when my career came to a sudden halt. But this morning I had another chat with one of my own contacts here, the one who gave me the friendly advice a few days ago.'

Marianne, who seemed to be trying as hard as I was to forget, put her mind on the case, nodded. ‘Billy Sinclair? You told me that he "owed you" a few favours, have I that right?'

‘You have. He wasn't happy, but I told him this would be the first and last time. What he told me was what I'd already surmised. "You're looking in the wrong city," were William's exact words. "You should look closer to home, Mr Sutherland."'

‘Closer to home? Glasgow!'

‘Exactly. And there's more. The reason William was persuaded to talk was because the man we're looking for is dead.'

‘The murderer, you mean?'

‘The man who put her in the docks. "An amateur, and a mere pawn". Again, I'm quoting William.'

Marianne's brow knitted. I had her full attention now. ‘Does that mean someone was paid to do it?'

I closed my notebook again and stretched my legs out, still taking care not to brush against her. It was there all the time I was with her, that sense of her, awareness of her, even when I was totally focused on something else—well, almost totally. ‘I think I was right all along. There could be only one reason for the pains they took to stop me investigating Lillian's murder, and that was because somehow, she was involved with someone important.'

‘So it really was all about the money?'

‘Almost certainly. The question is, whose money?' I said. ‘And my nose tells me that we're getting close.'

‘So we are headed to Glasgow?'

I hadn't meant for us both to go. But she was smiling at me, that real smile, and her eyes were warm and she'd shifted on the bench towards me, and though I meant to say no, I'm going to Glasgow, what I said was, ‘Monday, if you're up for it. I've contacts there through my father who might help, I'll send off a few telegrams today, set the wheels in motion.'