Deception (14 page)

'I'm not.' Thea
paused, meeting the unusual dark eyes. 'I'm Thea Andrews, Mr Murray's new
housekeeper.'

'You're what? Good
heavens, not another!' Coming closer, she stared at Thea insolently. 'Wherever
did he find you?'

Thea tried to speak
evenly. 'He didn't. I saw his advert and applied.' Which was nearer the truth.

'And, as always, he's
so relieved to get anyone that he never stops to have a good look at what he's
getting.'

Trying to keep a grip on
her temper, Thea asked politely, 'Have you called to see Mr Murray? If you have
then I'm afraid you've just missed him. He's gone out.'

'I'll find him, when
I'm ready.' Negligently, as though she owned the place, the woman strolled over
to a chest against the wall, picking up a small ornament. 'Wherever did he get
this?' she frowned. 'I seem to recognise it as part of the junk I put in one of
the attics. And this,' still acting in a proprietorial manner that set Thea's
teeth on edge, she picked up and studied a framed photograph of three young
men. 'Logan isn't all that sentimental, yet he keeps this?'

Thea felt like
snatching the photograph from her. 'That's Mr Murray and his two brothers, I
believe.'

The
woman's face hardened cynically, marring its smooth
perfection. 'You're
quite right. As his elder brother's widow, I should know. I'm Ingrid Murray.'
 
 

'Oh.'
Thea was startled, but did her best to hide it as
she wasn't supposed to know anything about Logan's
family. This woman must be James's wife. 'Oh,' she stam
mered again, 'I see. I'm sorry, Mrs Muray, I didn't
realise
who you were.'
                         

Ingrid
Murray shrugged. 'Why should you? My husband
died four years
ago and I went to live at Fort William.
Logan took over here.'

Again,
Thea wasn't sure what to say, if she was expected
to
say anything. She knew very little of what bad taken
place
at Drumlarig after her mother left. After James died,
had
Logan put his sister-in-law out? If the estate was en
tailed
then Drumlarig would automatically have come to
Logan, but she
couldn't imagine he would be that ruth
less. 'Did you really
want to leave Drumlarig?' she asked
impulsively.

'No,
not really.' Ingrid stared at Thea coolly. 'Logan
did
want me to stay, but I wasn't sure it would work.'

'There's
Jamie, of course.'

'I
agree,' Ingrid purred. 'He could do with a mother.'

'Miss
Andrews!'

Both
girls swung around. Logan stood in the doorway,
anger tightening
his strong features as his gaze clamped
on Thea. She felt shaken.
Why did he look so furious? She
was certain she hadn't
been indiscreet. It might have been
difficult not to be, but
so far she was sure she hadn't said
anything out of place.

'Bring
coffee to the library,' he ordered tersely, not
deigning to
explain his annoyance. He was too arrogant
to explain anything, Thea
thought waspishly, watching as
he took his sister-in-law's arms and
turned her away. 'How
are you, Ingrid?' she heard him ask.

'It's
Mr Murray's sister-in-law,' she replied to Martha's
query,
as she hurriedly rushed cups and saucers to a tray. Somehow Mrs Murray didn't
look the mug and biscuits
passed round in a packet type! She
arranged several bis
cuits on a pretty plate, ignoring the freshly
baked and still hot scones which Logan liked. They couldn't have every
thing
in the library, she decided bitterly. They had each
other!

After
a few moments, in the way she had, Martha nod
ded
sagely. 'That will be Miss Ingrid. She comes some
times.'

'Why?'
It mightn't be her business, but Thea was burn
ing
to know. Everything about Logan Murray, even the
hard, ruthless,
arrogant part of him, was fast becoming an
obsession, if this was
what was meant by scarcely being
able to think of anything else.

'Why
does she come here?' Martha repeated in her
sharp, painstaking
fashion. 'To see Himself, of course!
She wouldn't mind being
mistress of Drumlarig again,
that I can tell you!'

'Then
why did she go away?'

'She
couldn't stay on and expect to sell the place, could
she?'

In
the act of pouring hot water into the heated pot, Thea
glanced
at Martha sharply. 'How could she sell Drum
larig? Wasn't it entailed?'

'No,' Martha shook her
head, 'it was hers when Mr
James died. Mr
Logan had to buy it back—from her.'

'Mr
Logan?'

'Yes,'
Martha's small mouth pursed. 'She even sold the
furniture. It's
said that for everything she got not far short
of a million, but she's still not
satisfied.'

'The
furniture?' Thea was concentrating so hard on this
that
she barely heard the sum of money Martha mentioned.
'So
that's why there's so little in the library—why the other
rooms are so bare!'

'Some
of the books in the library were very old and
valuable and Mr
Logan didn't get back in time to save
them. Or it might have
been that he couldn't afford to, I
forget. But it's unlikely that things will
ever be the same again.'

Thea frowned. 'Where
did Mr Murray buy the furniture he has now?'

'He didn't buy it,'
Martha explained stiffly. 'It was in the attics, stuff which the auctioneering
people said wasn't worth selling.'

That explained the
extreme shabbiness! 'Couldn't Mr Murray have bought the old furniture back
again, or got something new?'

'I think it took him
all his time to buy the estate, Drum-Iarig and the other farms. She put it up
for public auction, you know, all in one lot, and some foreigners were very
keen to have it. The furniture, though, she sold privately beforehand.'

Thea, too intrigued to
stop at this point, was too full of a kind of anguished sympathy for Logan to
remember Martha's discretion wasn't to be relied on. She rushed on, 'Where was
Logan while all this was happening?'

'Somewhere in foreign
parts, making his fortune.' Martha spoke as if it was a wonder he had got back
alive.

Unexpectedly, tears
clogged Thea's throat as, incredibly, she seemed to share Martha's remembered
anxiety. Without being entirely aware of what she was saying, she cried,
'If he was away so long why should he want to buy Drum-larig back?'

'Miss Andrews!'

Horrified, Thea gasped
to see Logan striding in through the door. For the second time in about as many
minutes she appeared to have maddened him. 'I'm just coming,' she gathered up
her tray hastily, wondering how much he had heard.

'You'd better be,' he
snapped, turning abruptly to depart again.

Martha wisely got on
with her nap as Thea marched out behind him. The coffee smelled good, but Thea
hoped it would poison their visitor. It was difficult to imagine how Ingrid
Murray had the nerve to show up here, after what she had done, even if she had
been within her legal rights. Still, who was she, a mere housekeeper, to
criticise, especially when Logan himself treated Ingrid like an honoured
guest. Besides, before the day was out she would probably be on the receiving
end of a lecture about poking her nose in where it wasn't wanted, if the
expression on Logan's face was anything to go by!

She was. It began with
Martha, no doubt looking after her own interests, informing him that Thea had
been asking questions again.

'About Miss Ingrid
this time, Mr Logan.'

Despairingly, Thea
made a weak attempt to save herself. 'I only asked because ...'

Logan rose from his
lunch, which Thea had seen he enjoyed, with a grim look on his face. He cut
through Thea's unhappy faltering like a knife through butter. 'If you can spare
me a few minutes in the library, Miss Andrews, I'd be much obliged.'

Unhappily she followed
him, not caring for the rigid set of his broad shoulders. Was it only a few
hours ago since he had curved her head against them, almost devouring her lips
with his mouth? She must have dreamt it—if it hadn't been for the searing
response she could still feel within her, she would never have believed it had
happened. If she didn't watch out she might find herself in love with him,
and be worse off than ever.

Attempting to put all
thoughts of love from her mind, Thea tried to compose herself. Why couldn't
Martha have held her tongue? When she liked she could be a spiteful old woman.

'Close the door,'
Logan commanded from his usual stance beside the fire. He stood with his back
to it, his strong legs braced, indicating the muscled strength of his tall,
powerful body. Standing there he looked capable of anything, certainly of
reducing to size one foolish young girl.

Staring at him, as she
did as she was told, Thea wondered how, even in his shabby old kilt, he
managed to look like a king. He was full of black arrogance, despite his
poverty, but there was something very fine about him which she couldn't ignore.

Her eyes still fixed
on him, she said nervously, 'I didn't
deliberately
ask anything. It was only because of some com
ments your
sister-in-law made, and—and one thing led to another.'

Logan's eyes examined
her face, boring into her, making her draw back with an involuntary gasp which
he ignored.
He was well aware of his
mounting power over her, or so it
seemed to her, as she stood scorching
beneath his cynical regard.

'She wasn't the only
one making comments,' he said at last. 'Your own, about Jamie needing a mother,
was very enlightening.'

'I
never suggested that
    
'

'Thea!' his voice was
low but suddenly explosive as he caught hold of her arms in a grip which hurt.
'Women have been suggesting that to me ever since Jamie's mother died. I'm
immune to such hints, you'd only be wasting your time. I've had one wife and
she was enough. I don't want another. Besides,' his eyes taunted, 'at
twenty-nine I'm not sure whether you're too old or too young for me.'

That seemed to
frighten her, somehow, and she reacted badly. Her face went white and she
looked shaken. 'Jamie might prefer you to have a wife, though, rather than a
succession of girl-friends. I expect there's been more than the doctor's
daughter and your brother's wife?'

'My brother's wife?'
His mouth tightened angrily while his eyes narrowed on her tormented face.

'Well,
^!
Thea had the grace to feel ashamed, 'she didn't
actually say anything. She only implied that you wanted
her to
stay here."

'Did
she, indeed?'

Thea's
temper rose quickly. 'You can take that cynical
expression off
your face! You believe every woman's after
you, don't you? Well, if
you think I'd like you for a husband, you can think again! I don't like
men, Lo—I mean,
Mr Murray.'

'Indeed?
he rejoined, reverting to lazy mockery, his eyes
on the betraying
pulse at the base of her throat. 'It appears, then, that neither of us is
interested in a permanent re
lationship. All the same,
my dear, UKor out of marriage, I
prefer an older woman
who knows what she's doing.'

She
wouldn't enter into anything with him, no matter
how old she was!
It must have been because his hands were
hurting her arms, the
way her heart was racing, which
made her insist angrily,
'Why should age matter, if there's
something between a man and woman?'

He
smiled, this time with a touch of wry humour. 'You
do
believe in plunging in, do you not, just as you do
through
the rivers? You might be interested to know that Ingrid thinks you're too young
to be working for me, let
alone anything else. I had the
greatest difficulty persuading
her you're thirty.'

'Thirty?'
Thea murmured apprehensively.

'Just
so,' he agreed softly, releasing one of her arms to
raise
her rounded, babyish chin with a steely finger. 'I even
find
it difficult to believe myself, when I get this close. Not
a
line, such dewy freshness, all the bloom of extreme youth-
fulness.'

For
a few more moments, breathless ones for Thea, he regarded her closely, before
dropping his hands and mov
ing away, unaware, she hoped, of her
uneven breathing.
His eyes went cold again, as he said
cynically, 'Considering
the kind of life you must have led, your
look of innocence is
amazing.'