Deborah Crombie - Duncan Kincaid & Gemma James 09 - Now May You Weep

long as Donald’s had owned Benvulin, and Donald knew he would take over Benvulin when his father retired. He saw us as the merger of two great names, two traditions.”

“That doesn’t sound such a bad thing.”

“Oh, but that’s when it got complicated.” Hazel’s laugh held no humor. “It turns out our families were the Scottish version of the Montagues and the Capulets. Donald had some idea—only he hadn’t bothered to tell me—but I hadn’t a clue. I had wondered why he seemed so reluctant to introduce me to his father.”

“His father didn’t approve?”

“You could say that.” Hazel’s lips formed a tight line, and she resumed her pacing.

“But surely you could have worked something out, given time—”

“No. The distillery meant too much to Donald. And my family . . . When I told my father, he was appalled. But he wouldn’t explain why there was such bad blood between the Brodies and the Urquharts, and he died not long afterwards.”

“Oh, Hazel, I’m so sorry,” said Gemma, feeling an ache of sympathy.

Hazel sighed and sat lightly on the edge of her bed.

“We left Carnmore when I was fourteen. My father sold off the stock and equipment and took a job managing a brewery in Newcastle. I never knew him all that well, really. They sent me away to school, in Hampshire—that’s where I met Louise—and they cut themselves off from everything Scots, including family here.”

“And your cousin, Heather?” asked Gemma, thinking of the woman’s obvious antipathy towards Hazel.

“Heather’s father was my dad’s younger brother; he works for a whisky distributor in Inverness. Heather was just a year younger than I am, both of us only daughters.

She loved Carnmore with a passion, and she idolized me.

I don’t think she ever forgave me for leaving, or Dad for letting Carnmore go.”

“If Donald’s father disapproved of the Urquharts so strongly, how did Heather end up working at Benvulin?”

“Having your only son marry an Urquhart was a far cry from hiring an Urquhart as menial office help, which is how Heather started there. I even suspect it gave Bruce Brodie a sense of satisfaction to have an Urquhart in his employ.”

“What did you do—after you and Donald—”

“I came back to London, took my second degree. I met Tim, and after a bit we got married. We were . . . comfortable . . . together, and I told myself that was the basis for a good marriage, that what I’d had with Donald wouldn’t have lasted. By the time I started to doubt my judgment, Holly had come along, and I—well, you make the best of things, don’t you?”

Gemma gazed at her friend in astonishment. “Why did you never tell me any of this? I thought we were close, and I never dreamed you were unhappy!”

“I’m sorry,” Hazel told her, coloring. “I suppose it was partly therapist’s habit—you get used to listening, not confiding—and partly that I couldn’t stop paddling. If I stopped making my life true, every day, I was afraid I would drown.”

“But— How could you— You have everything, the ideal life—”

“Everything but someone to talk to. Tim didn’t—Tim doesn’t want to hear about my childhood, my life before I met him. I felt as if I’d lost a part of myself, the piece that held all the links together.”

“And then Donald came back into your life?”

Hazel nodded. “I bumped into him one day, literally, at the organic market in Camden Passage. It only seemed natural that we should go to lunch, catch up on our lives.

Just for old times’ sake. And after that—”

Gemma realized that in spite of her suspicions at dinner, she hadn’t really believed it until that moment. “All this time, you’ve been having an affair—”

“No!” Hazel stood, hugging herself as if her chest ached. “I haven’t slept with him! We just—he’d ring me and we’d talk. It made me feel alive again, truly alive, for the first time in years. We’d meet for a coffee or lunch whenever Donald came to London on business . . . It wasn’t— We never talked about— This weekend is the first time—”

“You were going to see what you were missing? And use me as a safety net in case you decided you didn’t want to go through with it? Or as an alibi if you did?”

Gemma was surprised by the strength of her own anger.

She felt used, betrayed.

“Oh, Gemma, I’m so sorry.” Hazel’s dark eyes filled with tears. “I should never have come. And I should never have asked you, hoping you’d protect me from myself. I’ve made a dreadful mistake. Tomorrow, I’ll tell Donald it’s no good. We can get the train back—”

“No.” Gemma felt suddenly, enormously, weary. “You had better be sure of what you want, really sure. There’s no point in going back divided—you’ve too much at stake to live it halfway.”

Hazel looked back at her, then nodded. She scrubbed a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. “You’re disappointed in me, aren’t you, Gemma?”

Gemma thought about it. “No . . . at least . . . not you, exactly. It’s just that, after my marriage to Rob turned out to be such a disaster, I based my idea of what made a family work on you and Tim—that’s what gave me the courage to move in with Duncan—and now I find it was all a sham. It makes me feel—odd.” She rose and slipped back into her jacket. “You go on to bed. I’m going out for

a bit of air.” Giving Hazel a shaky smile, she let herself out into the darkened drive.

She stood, gazing up at the stars, now mist-obscured, and listening to the faint creaking of the night. What she wanted, she realized with a shiver, was not air, but to ring Duncan and assure herself that her world was still intact.

Chapter Four

O what lies younder north of Tweed?

Monsters and hillmen, hairy kneed And music that wad wauk the deid!

To venture there were risky O!

The fearsome haggis haunts the snaw The kelpy waits—your banes to gnaw There’s nocht to eat but oatmeal—raw BUT I’M STILL TOLD THERE’S WHISKY O!

—anonymous scottish poet

Carnmore, November

By morning, the wind had died, and the world outside the farmhouse lay encased in a rippling blanket of white. This Will knew only from peering out the front windows, as the back of the house was completely blocked by drifts.

He had spent the remainder of the night dozing in the parlor armchair, waking periodically to stoke the fire, watching his mother minister to his increasingly restless and delirious father. By daybreak, Charles had begun

muttering and clutching at his throat, as if it pained him, and seemed soothed only by spoons of hot water with whisky and honey.

As the cold morning light crept into the room, Will saw that his mother’s face was gray with exhaustion. Her thick, dark hair had escaped from its knot in wayward tendrils, and he noticed, for the first time, a single thread of silver.

“He’s burning with fever,” she said softly, resting the backs of her fingers fleetingly against his father’s forehead.

“Mam,” Will whispered, “let me look after him. You get some rest now.”