Highland Fling Episode 44

Downstairs, in the great hall, the maid arrived with their coats. Gwendolyn continued playing lady of the manor, talking about the thickness of the walls and the horrors of the dungeon.

“It’s full of wine now, and barrels of whisky,” she cooed.

“They say if you were incarcerated in the Dougal dungeons, you could scream for a hundred years and nobody would hear.

“The best of it is we don’t need to build a fallout shelter. I mean, if we had a new house like yours...” she drawled.

Mirabelle smiled politely. Bruce and Eleanor’s house had been built in the 18th Century.

“Well, you must come for dinner one evening,” Gwendolyn continued. “Are you free over the next few days?”

“We’ll see about the arrangements for the Orlovs,” Eleanor piped up. “The police have not yet released Nina’s body.” “Yes, of course. It’s a time of mourning.” Mirabelle wasn’t quite ready to leave but it was difficult to get a word in edgewise, never mind find out anything useful.

“My, aren’t you colourful?” Gwendolyn commented as Mirabelle pulled on her coat.

She took her chance. “I can’t help wondering, how did you meet Nina, Gwendolyn?”

Gwendolyn’s chest practically swelled. “She wrote to me,” she said. “When she knew she was coming to Scotland. She’d heard about the castle and asked if she might visit.”

“And did she?”

Gwendolyn looked sad. “She didn’t have time. Her life was cut so tragically short.”

“So when you visited her that afternoon...?”

“We had corresponded. I had seen pictures of her in the society pages – we take all the magazines at Brochmor, even the American ones. Willie has cousins across the pond. I knew Nina and I would get along like a house on fire.”

“Did she invite you over?”

“We were coming to the Robertsons’ anyway. It’s such a sweet little lodge, isn’t it?” Gwendolyn slipped a sly smile.

“It must be so handy for you, Eleanor, when you haven’t the room to accommodate guests in the main house.”

Again, Eleanor did not rise to the bait. “Thank you, Gwendolyn,” she said. “We’d best be going. Our menfolk will be expecting us.”

Gwendolyn stood waving at the door as the car disappeared down the hill. Tash sat back in her seat and laughed.

“God, she is awful, isn’t she?” “Well, she seems to have hit it off with your godmother. Do you know what Nina could possibly have seen in her?” Mirabelle asked.

“I do.” Tash turned in her seat. “Gwendolyn told us herself – they would have agreed. Politically, I mean.”

“But Gwendolyn is a racist. I don’t understand – for a start, Nina employed Gregory...”

“My godmother wasn’t very... nice. That’s the truth. Running her stupid errands was all Gregory was fit for as far as she was concerned.

“She treated him like a slave.”

Tash fumbled with a button on her coat. Her cheeks flushed. Mirabelle realised this explained the girl fussing after Gregory, pouring him a whisky. She had been embarrassed by Nina’s behaviour. She’d wanted to differentiate herself.

Tash pursed her lips. “Also,” she paused, “I expect Nina and Gwendolyn had an arrangement.”

“What do you mean?”

The girl heaved a breath dramatically. “Nina was partial, Mirabelle. Gosh, I’m not sure how you even put it here. She liked women. As well as men. She just liked everything, I guess.

“That’s what they said about Nina and my mother. That is why she took me in. My mother was the love of my godmother’s life. Not that her death stopped Nina, you know, with other people.”

Mirabelle cast a glance over her shoulder. Gwendolyn was still at the door, waving. From the driver’s seat, Eleanor giggled, her eyes alight in the rear-view mirror.

“You look shocked,” she said. “I guess that’s what you get when you go poking around – you can’t complain when you actually uncover something.”

“Oh. Quite right. But you mean that Gwendolyn is...?” Mirabelle couldn’t quite finish the sentence. Gwendolyn Dougal seemed so proper.

“I mean, she’s married,” she managed to get out, realising how naïve she sounded.

“It’s not entirely a secret, poor Willie. Well, I say poor Willie, but as Bruce always says, perhaps he likes it,” Eleanor said. “Who can tell?”

Tash seemed relieved to have got this off her chest. “Gwendolyn was just Nina’s type. She had a thing for rich and vicious.”

Mirabelle pieced it together. “So when Mrs Gillies said she didn’t want any gossip –?”

Eleanor cut in. “She probably meant about a Sapphic love affair. She is protecting your honour, Tash. She seems to have taken a shine to you. Or maybe it’s the honour of Scotland or Gwendolyn – I don’t know.

“She’s probably out-and-out shocked that such things go on, as if it isn’t just the way people are. Your face, Mirabelle, is a hoot.”

Mirabelle sat back in her seat. “It’s not that it’s shocking – it’s a motive, don’t you see? Do you think the police know?”

“There have been rumours for years about Gwendolyn Dougal,” Eleanor said over her shoulder.

“So, that afternoon, if they had fought or even if they hadn’t. If Gwendolyn had become jealous... why, it could be key –”

“Gwendolyn left with her husband that night. I can attest that she was so drunk she had to be helped into the car,” Eleanor cut in again.

“She can’t drive anyway. It’s far too modern for her. Are you suggesting Willie drove her back to our place the following night to an assignation with her lover that went wrong?”

“Or perhaps he drove back himself. He might have been overtaken with jealousy. Maybe it wasn’t her, it was him.”

Eleanor laughed. “I’ve known Willie and Gwendolyn for a few years now. The pair of them are the least passionate people I ever met. I doubt it, Mirabelle. Honestly I do.”

“Gwendolyn was pretty uncomfortable there.”

Nina was partial, Mirabelle. Gosh, I’m not sure how you even put it here. She liked women. As well as men

More tomorrow.

Copyright © Sara Sheridan 2020, extracted from Highland Fling, published by Constable, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group, at £8.99