He lifted a brow. ‘Thanks. I’m still adjusting to the idea.’
Amid the squeals of the women and the general furore of excitement that Natalie’s news had unleashed, Wren stood up suddenly. ‘I’m so very pleased for you, Natalie,’ she murmured. ‘So very pleased…’
With a small cry of anguish, she burst into tears and ran, sobbing, out of the dining room, leaving a circle of shocked faces behind.
‘Oh, poor Wren,’ Natalie said in dismay, and pushed herself to her feet. ‘How thoughtless of me. I’ll just go upstairs and see if she’s all right—’
‘No.’ Tarquin was already halfway to the door. Although his face was a study in turmoil, he spoke firmly. ‘I know you mean well, Natalie, but I think it best if you just...leave things, for the moment.’
‘Yes. Yes, of course,’ she murmured, and sank back down in her seat, abashed. ‘I’m so sorry...’
But Tarquin didn’t hear her. He was already gone.
‘I feel awful,’ Natalie confided to Rhys that evening, as she sat with a troubled expression in front of the dressing table in their room. ‘I know Wren’s been trying to get pregnant, she told us so. It was inconsiderate and selfish of me, blurting out my news in front of her like that—’
‘No, it wasn’t,’ Rhys said firmly. ‘You did nothing wrong. You were excited and you wanted to share our news. You meant no harm. Tark knows that. And Wren did ask you.’
‘I know, but I still feel terrible.’ Her voice wobbled in remembered pain at Wren’s anguished expression. ‘She wants a baby so badly.’
‘Well, Mrs Gordon,’ Rhys said as he came up behind her at the dressing table and leant down to encircle her in his arms, ‘I can think of something that might make you feel marginally better. Take your mind off things.’
‘Oh? And what’s that?’ she asked, and frowned. ‘A rousing game of draughts? A cup of tea and a tin of chocolates? A television programme?’
‘Well, you could call what I have in mind rousing, I suppose.’ He nuzzled the sensitive skin behind her ear. ‘Or we could take our time, and make it last.’ His lips made their slow way down her neck to the slope of her shoulder.
She closed her eyes and leant her head back as his mouth warmed her skin, inch by delicious inch, and her breath quickened. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr Gordon,’ she murmured.
He pulled Natalie to her feet and into his arms. ‘Let me give you a demonstration, then.’ He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her, very thoroughly, and Natalie soon forgot everything but the irascible, aggravating, and decidedly sexy Scotsman in her arms.
‘Did you leak my story, Tom?’ Helen demanded as she grabbed the pack of cigarettes on the dresser – she had two left ‒ and thrust one between her lips.
At the other end of her mobile phone, there was a sharp intake of breath. ‘Leak your story? No, damn your eyes, I most certainly did not! Why would I do that?’
‘Then tell me how the news of Dom and Gemma’s upcoming wedding ended up in the Probe’s Tweeper feed this morning!’
‘I’ve no bloody idea. Someone else up there in the land of kilts and cold weather must’ve found out. It’s not inconceivable, you know. Someone probably overheard you in the pub, or on the street, blathering away into your mobile phone.’
‘I haven’t been to the pub,’ she said through gritted teeth, ‘because we’re still housebound by the snow. And we haven’t seen the Tarmac in a week. And I don’t blather.’
‘Then it’s someone at the castle. Who else knows about this wedding?’
‘Who doesn’t?’ Helen retorted. She took a deep drag on the cigarette to calm herself and went over the list in her mind. Tarquin, Wren, Nat and Rhys, Caitlin, Colm—
Her eyes narrowed. Colm. Of course! She’d told him about her desire to score an exclusive story on Dominic and Gemma’s wedding. She’d admitted how important it was to her, how badly she wanted to quit being a hack and become a real writer.
She’d told him she wanted to look in the mirror without despising herself.
And she thought he’d understood. She’d confided in him. She’d bared her innermost soul to him. She’d trusted him. And he’d betrayed her at the first opportunity.
She exhaled a plume of smoke and crushed the cigarette out.
The ginger-haired, conniving bastard.
The next morning, snow greeted Colm as he got out of bed and cast a glance outside. Flakes still fell thickly; overnight, at least another half-foot had blanketed the sloping hills and frosted the roof and turrets of the castle.
It’d be beautiful, he thought dourly, if it wasn’t so much of a bloody nuisance to clear away.
He was about to turn aside when he saw a figure in a woollen cap and a puffa jacket sliding and slipping down the snow-covered drive.
‘Helen! What in God’s name?’ he muttered, and flung on some clothes and a coat and thundered downstairs. Was the woman touched in the head, going for a walk in weather like this?
‘What the devil are you doing?’ he shouted as he stormed outside and confronted her halfway up the drive. ‘Have ye lost your mind? It’s a proper blizzard out here! It’s nae a day to be out for a walk!’
She catapulted herself at him, her face contorted with anger, arms cartwheeling as she pummelled him mercilessly with her fists. ‘You backstabbing bastard! How could you! After I trusted you, you couldn’t wait to run to the phone and call the news desk and – and screw me over!’
Colm muttered an expletive as she kicked him – hard ‒ in the shins. Only the fact that her feet were encased in wellies saved him from significant pain. He reached out and grabbed her by the wrists, not easy to do given her whirling, flailing limbs, and dragged her towards him as he snapped, ‘What the hell are you on about, woman? Have you lost what little sense God gave you?’
‘I have sense enough to know you leaked my story to the Probe,’ she gasped, struggling furiously to free her hands from his.
He stared at her. ‘What? What story? What are you talking about?’
‘You called and told them all about Dom and Gemma’s secret Christmas wedding, didn’t you? How could you do that, Colm? I trusted you! I trusted you enough to tell you,’ she let out a harsh sound between a laugh and a sob ‘everything about myself. I told you about David. About our baby. About our life...our life together, the life we n-never got to have, all because of a fucking lorry driver who f-fell asleep at the wheel...’
She collapsed against him and wept.
His arms came around her after a moment, circling her as she sobbed and pummelled
