Secret Garden (16 page)

“And now everything has mushroomed,” Jamie said. “Colin trusts in his grandmother again, and Jessie is beating herself up with remorse, trying to see how to break the truth to him gently so he won’t hold it against her.”

“Jessie
has
to face it.”

“But she’s not, lass,” Jamie hissed. “The so-called funeral is tomorrow. When Colin finds out she lied, he’ll be furious. She’ll be more upset than ever. It’s a disaster.”

It
was
a disaster.

“Colin mentioned the inheritance,” she said.

Jamie coughed. “My wife told Colin’s mother...” He frowned again. “...on the telephone that not only was there to be a funeral, but an inheritance. An
inheritance
! As if Dougie, that charming layabout, had a pound to his name!”

“So...there’s no inheritance at all?” Rhiannon asked carefully. “Just to clarify things.”

“No, miss. No inheritance. That was a ruse to get Daisie Lee to return her call. You see, even the people in Colin’s management company didn’t forward on her calls. She didn’t have his personal phone numbers. She had to rely on the old number, from Daisie Lee. And the only way Jessie could get that woman to talk to her was to dangle the promise of an inheritance.”

“Did Jessie ever think of visiting Colin?” Rhiannon asked.

“Yes, but she has a terrible fear of flying. Surely you can understand.”

“I do,” Rhiannon said softly. She more than anyone could understand what it was like to be physically unable to do something because of fear.

Jamie shook his head. “She’s been waiting for years for Colin to play a tournament in Scotland, or anywhere on the British Isles where she could take a train or a ferry to. But it appears he’s been avoiding us. We fear his mother poisoned him against us.”

“I don’t have harsh thoughts for Daisie Lee,” Rhiannon said. “I was young then, but I remember the night she came with Colin in tow. The night they decided to divorce.”

“Aye. That was terrible. The worst day of my life.” His voice had turned soft, and he gazed into his cup.

Jamie said nothing more.

Rhiannon felt deeply moved. Jamie was right—she had to do what she could to help mediate. Both for the sake of her own goals and for the past connection she’d had to Colin and his family.

For certain, Jamie wasn’t the right person to tell him—he and Colin were already having difficulty getting along. And Jessie just seemed unable to do it.

“All right,” Rhiannon said. “I’ll do it.”

Jamie’s face brightened. “You will?”

“Yes.” She drew herself up. She needed to be strong, whether she felt it or not.

She turned to Jamie. “All I ask is that you please be kind to Colin tonight. No talk of Dougie or the anger over what you think Colin may have done wrong. Promise you’ll be supportive of both Jessie
and
Colin. Can you do that?”

Jamie scowled at her.

“Can you at least try to fake your support for him?” she asked.

“Oh, aye,” he grumbled. “But I don’t see where he cares for me. It’s Jessie who has my worry.”

“Then for Jessie’s sake, let’s hope Colin doesn’t get angry and leave.”

“For Jessie’s sake,” Jamie softly repeated.

But it was for Rhiannon’s sake, too. And she didn’t see how Colin could
not
be angry.

For her own sake, she would try her hardest to resolve this issue.

CHAPTER EIGHT

R
HIANNON PUT ON
her coat and wellies and trudged to the top of the drive to meet Colin when he returned home. She’d nearly reached Jamie’s guard shack when Colin rounded the corner in his sporty car.

Coming to a stop, the engine idling, he leaned over and opened the passenger door for her. “Were you waiting for me?” he called.

“Yes.”

He grinned, and it struck her anew at how the sight of his handsome face made her feel—she was all fluttery inside.

“Where’s Jessie?” she asked.

“I dropped her off.” He smiled sadly at her. “Hop in.”

Her heart beating quicker, she stepped inside to the smell of new leather and familiar, wet dog. Molly put her front paws on the back of Rhiannon’s seat as a greeting and licked her hair, but even that friendliness didn’t ease the shakiness Rhiannon felt.

“I need to talk to you,” she said to Colin.

“Okay.” He glanced at her sideways. “Before I forget, though, I have something to give you.”

He passed her a postal package. “It was waiting for me when I got to Jessie’s cottage. It’s my way of saying sorry about your broken camera. I tried to replace it exactly, but that model isn’t manufactured anymore. This is the best I could do.”

She didn’t need to open the cardboard box to know that he’d brought her a beautiful and improved replacement camera.

“Thank you,” she said. “That was quite fast.”

“Overnight shipping, and I apologize again.” He looked at her with that charm she loved so much, and then he drove them down the driveway to the castle. The rain squall had passed and small puddles dotted the parking area beside the drawbridge. This was her turf, familiar and safe.

But she couldn’t remember a time when she’d had to deliver such bad news. In her carefully constructed life—never. She clutched the box in her lap, wondering how to begin.

If she were Colin, she would want the news delivered gently.

She cleared her throat as Colin parked near the front door. “Did Jessie manage to talk with you about the letters you found in her purse?”

He frowned and stepped out of the car, dodging a rain puddle in the gravel drive. “No.”

“Did you tell her that you found them?” she asked through the open door.

“No. I can’t talk to her like I can you.” He leaned into the back to let Molly out, but the dog put her paws on the back of Rhiannon’s seat and barked.

Colin chuckled at the dog and turned to Rhiannon with a comical raised brow. “Will you help me with this pooch of yours?”

“Of course.” Colin wasn’t making this easy for her, but Rhiannon nodded, doing what it took to marshal the excited canine into the castle and back to Paul, who cooed over her as if she were a long-lost child.

Smiling weakly despite her task at hand—because the sight of her proper English-trained butler in his suit and tie down on all fours cavorting with an excited golden retriever was just so silly and incongruent—Rhiannon felt some of the tension drain from her shoulders.

“May I see your art studio?” Colin asked, shocking her to her toes.

“My...art studio?”

“Yeah. I’m interested in your paintings. I tried to find some of them on the internet, but I gather they’re all in private collections.”

“Yes,” she said quietly, “they are.”

“Is...that a problem?” he asked, some of the smile draining from his face.

“No,” she said quickly, aware of Paul’s presence and his quiet observation of them while he played with Molly. “You’re right,” Rhiannon said to Colin. “We should go to my art studio.”

It
was
a more appropriate place to have her heart-to-heart with Colin. And she felt relaxed there.

As a rule, though, she kept her workspace private. She could think of only six people in the past year she’d allowed inside her work area, and they were all family, except Jacob though in a sense, he would soon be family, too, because her cousin Isabel had just announced their marriage date.

“Follow me,” she said hesitantly to Colin. “But I warn you, it’s messy.”

Paul had stopped making any pretense of playing with Molly and was now outright staring at her.

Rhiannon lifted her chin and with as much calm as she could muster, led Colin out the back way and across the courtyard to the outbuilding that housed not only her studio on the second storey, but also guest rooms on the first floor. She took him up the creaky staircase and into the atelier workshop that she’d fashioned for herself shortly after she’d returned home as a girl.

She stood aside and watched Colin’s reaction to her private world.

He seemed to drink it all in, marveling at every detail.

The tall windows placed to overlook the yew garden and the Highland scenery outside, and to let in sunlight so it flooded the surface of her work. Her easel, set with the overlarge landscape she was currently creating, still unfinished. The walls, lined with other landscapes showing the glens and burns of her beloved estate. Even the floor, dappled with painted whimsy, a woodland scene she’d fancied when she was a child and had kept there even now. Painting had begun as her therapy, her way of healing after the childhood trauma. Over the years she’d developed her kernel of natural talent into a skill that produced beauty. To her, expressing herself through paint was at heart an act of joy, accessible to her only through a place where she allowed herself to be a trusting, carefree child again.

“Rhiannon, this is...” He just shook his head. But the look on Colin’s face said everything.

“After I was rescued when I was a girl,” Rhiannon said, “I had trouble feeling safe again. One of my doctors suggested that I write as part of my therapy, but I preferred to stay in my room and paint. My mother helped me by bringing in tutors and supplies, and all these years later, I still want to paint. It’s become more than just therapy for me. It’s...turned into the contribution I want to make with my life. People, collectors—they purchase my work for enjoyment and...”

While she was talking, Colin had been nodding, moving from painting to painting, tilting his head and admiring her pieces. But now he’d stopped at her worktable and was staring down at it in stillness.

The sketch I made of him!
Rhiannon ran over to it, embarrassment flooding her. She hadn’t meant for anybody to see that drawing, least of all Colin.

He picked up the pencil drawing and gazed at it wonderingly. A smile curved his face and lit up his handsome features, and part of Rhiannon’s heart seemed to break, for what she still had to tell him.

He held it to the light. “You have an amazing talent.”

“I...oh, you weren’t meant to see that! I’m terrible with portraits.”

“No. You’re not,” he said, acting miffed at her for saying that about herself.

She snatched the drawing back. “You don’t understand—there’s a spirit to you that I’m not expressing properly in the lines. But I don’t have a lot of experience with sketching people, so I don’t know how to do it well and it’s frustrating me.”

He glanced about the room, a confused look on his face. Certainly, he was comprehending that his was the only portrait in her studio. She felt that she had to explain.

She
wanted
to explain.

“Colin, I...” She swallowed. She didn’t like to speak about herself. But she wanted him to know the truth. Her truth.

“Drawing was also how I survived the kidnapping, really. The men who took me didn’t know what to do with me. They’d transported us to a large warehouse in the countryside and separated me and Malcolm. I was locked in a cellarlike room with nothing inside but blankets on the floor. One of them must have taken pity, because he tossed in a children’s coloring book and some pencils. I drew to pass the time. I’d always liked to sketch, even before...”

Colin was nodding sympathetically, listening intently, so she kept going, licking her lips. “Anyway, it’s what I did. I hid my drawings under the blanket when they came in the room, which wasn’t often. Sometimes they took me out of the cell. But it was a large place we were held in—it was dark and scary, and I always longed for my little cell back.” She rubbed her arms. “And then...well, once we were rescued, I drew sketches of the kidnappers for the police...” She rubbed her arms some more. “So many people died that night, during the rescue. One of the police officers died beside me and I... Well, he was a good man, and so I drew him, too. That was the last portrait I did. I didn’t ever want to draw
people
again, because it made me remember that horrible time.”

He was gazing at her, silently. He was always so talkative, but now he just looked quietly pained.

She lowered her head. It had been a long time since she spoke to anyone about the horror she’d gone through and the feelings her sketches had given her. Maybe not since the days of her therapy. In any event, she didn’t use therapists anymore. She really didn’t need that kind of help. She’d been in a comfortable stasis about everything in her life for so long.

She looked into his eyes. “But then you showed up on the estate, and now everything is changing. I felt inspired to draw a sketch of you so I wouldn’t forget you. That’s why it’s there...”

“Rhiannon,” he said, his voice husky, and he touched the back of his knuckles to her cheek.

She closed her eyes, letting his hand rest there. Barely daring to breathe, she leaned her cheek closer to him, the way Colin the cat rubbed against her hand when she held it out to him.

“I’m glad I came back,” he said.

“I am, too,” she whispered.

Sighing deeply, he drew her to him.

The intimacy of it made her freeze, at first. But then, gradually, she relaxed her body against his. His hands rested lightly on her back, as if letting her know that she was safe, and free, and not constrained by his touch.

She pressed her cheek against his; it was warm and scratchy and male. She’d never felt such human closeness before. Her breathing fell into sync with his, and that felt strange at first—the newness of it. She really could imagine that their hearts were beating together, that their blood flowed at the same pace.

“Thank you for telling me,” he said, his lips brushing against her hair. “You’re the bravest person I know.”

“No. I’m just me,” she whispered.

“That’s what I love about you.”

Love.
He’d said that word.

Surprise filled her, but a different kind. A happy, blissful, light-as-air feeling. She put her arms about Colin and hugged him closer, feeling her breasts flatten against his chest, her thighs press between his strong legs.

“Rhiannon,” he murmured. She felt it like a current against her bones.

And then his hand was at the back of her head, cupping her, gently tilting her mouth to his.