Read And the Bride Wore Prada Online
Authors: Katie Oliver
She turned it over; two thin blue lines met her gaze. Natalie stared at it, scarcely able to comprehend the enormity of what she saw. She was really pregnant, then. There could be no question.
She left the bathroom and sank down on the end of the bed. There was no need to go and see Dr MacTavish; no need to schedule an appointment. She’d arrange to see an obstetrician just as soon as they returned to London.
Natalie’s thoughts whirled. She’d need prenatal vitamins, and an examination, and she’d need to start shopping straight away for lots of adorable little baby things...
...but she’d have to tell Rhys, of course. He’d want to go along with her to see the doctor, she knew he would.
First, she thought with a tiny flutter of uncertainty, she had to find her husband, and tell him that there could be no doubt.
She was definitely, unquestionably pregnant.
As everyone assembled in the dining room for luncheon, Natalie took the chair Rhys held out for her.
She longed to tell him her news. But he’d only just walked in. Besides, she could hardly discuss something of such import with him in the middle of Draemar’s enormous dining room.
‘Where did you disappear to this morning, Rhys?’ she asked instead as she picked up her napkin and smoothed it over her lap.
‘I had a look around the castle.’ He took a sip of water and offered nothing further.
‘And what do you think of our wee castle, Mr Gordon?’ Archibald enquired. ‘Being that you’re a fellow Scotsman, I’m curious to know your opinion.’
‘I don’t know much about castles, I’m afraid. I grew up in a tower block in Edinburgh. It was nothing like this, I can assure you.’
‘That must’ve been difficult.’ Laird Campbell eyed him with interest. ‘Nevertheless...you made your way out of there and went on to become a highly regarded businessman.’ He raised his wine glass. ‘That’s a heroic accomplishment in my book.’
‘Thank you.’ Rhys took a sip of his wine and glanced around the table. ‘I found an interesting room during my explorations this morning, at the top of the west tower. There were books, and a desk, as well as some intriguing paraphernalia – Maori weapons, a didgeridoo, even a West African talking drum.’
Tarquin glanced up. ‘That was my brother Andrew’s study, Mr Gordon,’ he said quietly.
There was an awkward silence.
‘I see,’ Rhys murmured. ‘I apologize. I’d no idea. I shouldn’t have gone poking about like I did.’
‘Nonsense,’ Penelope Campbell reassured him, and smiled as the soup course arrived. ‘Andrew’s been gone for eighteen years, Mr Gordon. I keep meaning to clear his things away, but...’ her words trailed off. ‘I can’t quite bring myself to do it. By leaving everything exactly as it is, I can pretend that he might come back.’
‘Excuse me.’
They looked up to see Colm standing in the doorway, flat cap in hand. ‘I’ve brought in your luggage and left it in the entrance hall, Laird Campbell,’ he said.
‘Good man. Come in,’ Archibald invited him.
Helen sipped her wine and studied Colm over the rim of the glass as he took a couple of wary steps into the dining room. Although his face remained impassive, he looked a bit out of his element, like a thief at a policemen’s ball.
‘Join us for lunch, MacKenzie?’ Laird Campbell asked.
‘Thank you, no.’ Colm’s words were polite but firm. ‘I’ve work to be doing. If there’s nothing else?’
‘No, not a thing. Off you go, then, and thank you.’
And as he left, striding past Laird Campbell on his way out, Helen was suddenly struck by the resemblance between Colm MacKenzie and his employer. They were roughly the same height and build, with the same dark-ginger hair; they even shared the same long Campbell nose.
Why had she not noticed it before?
Was the resemblance merely coincidence? Or was it, perhaps, something more?
Before she could ponder the matter further, the main course arrived, carried in by Mrs Neeson, the housekeeper, who was lending a hand in the kitchen, and Helen had no choice but to put her curiosity aside and join in the conversation around the table.
‘We just got another of them odd phone calls,’ the housekeeper informed Mrs Campbell as she deposited the food and turned to go.
Penelope frowned. ‘Odd? How so?’
‘When I answer, they don’t say nary a word.’ Mrs Neeson shook her head in irritation. ‘But someone’s there all the same; I can hear ’em breathing.’
‘Perhaps it’s a naughty phone call,’ Gemma suggested with a smirk.
Mrs Neeson snorted. ‘If that’s what our mystery caller has in mind, he’s barking up the wrong tree, he is.’ She turned and sailed back out the door in high dudgeon.
‘How do you like Scotland so far?’ Mrs Campbell asked her assembled guests as she reached for her glass.
‘It’s lovely,’ Natalie enthused.
‘Gorgeous,’ Helen agreed. ‘So picturesque!’
‘So much bloody
snow
,’ Dominic grumbled.
Penelope smiled. ‘I quite understand how you feel. When I married Archie and he first brought me up here from London, I thought I’d never get used to it. It snowed constantly. The castle was terribly cold all that first winter. The boiler was temperamental; when it died, we had to stay in the drawing room and kitchen, huddled by the fireplace, until it was replaced. Every night, we slept under a massive pile of eiderdowns.’
‘It sounds very romantic,’ Gemma observed.
‘Oh, it was. Although at the time I didn’t think so. I didn’t know a shooting brake from a motor scooter, did I, darling?’ Penelope turned to Archie with a smile. ‘I was so incredibly stupid!’
‘My wee Sassenach,’ her husband said fondly, and reached out to cover her hand with his. ‘You were a Londoner, I dinnae expect you to know about such things. Did you know,’ he told the others, pride plain in his voice, ‘that my lovely wife was once a model?’
‘A model?’ Natalie echoed, and leant forward. ‘How exciting.’ She studied the woman’s dark-auburn hair and green eyes. ‘I thought your face looked familiar, somehow.’
She blushed. ‘I was no supermodel, mind, but I made a decent living at it.’
‘Oh, don’t listen to her,’ Archie scoffed. ‘She was quite the celebrity in her day! Had flings with a couple of film stars, she did, and then there was that chap – oh, what was his name, darling? I always said he was sweet on you...he almost ran for prime minister?’
‘Graeme Longworth.’ She spoke quietly.
‘Longworth! Yes, of course. He didn’t run, though. There were rumours of a scandal of some sort, and so he withdrew.’
The conversation moved on to other subjects, and there was much conjecture as to whether it would snow again; but although she joined in the discussion, Helen couldn’t help but notice that Penelope Campbell remained strangely silent for the rest of the meal.
‘How in God’s name could this happen, Natalie?’ Rhys demanded.
Natalie’s lower lip trembled as she met his eyes. They’d gone back to their room after lunch, and she told Rhys straight away that she was definitely pregnant. He listened without expression. Now, his face was hard and his eyes were dark with anger. She’d never seen him quite so furious.
‘This wasn’t what we planned,’ he ground out. ‘We agreed to wait! How could you let this happen?’
‘It’s not like I did it on purpose, Rhys!’ she protested. ‘I’ve been very careful! I haven’t missed a pill, so I honestly don’t know how it could have happened…’
‘But it
did
happen. You’re pregnant. And are you quite sure,’ he added, rounding on her suddenly, ‘that you didn’t do it on purpose? You’ve talked of nothing else but having a baby since the day we got married.’
‘Yes, I
do
want a baby! Is that so terrible? But you can’t really believe that I’d deliberately disregard your wishes, can you? Because if you do,’ Natalie added, her voice unsteady, ‘then you don’t know me at all.’
There was a small, charged silence.
‘I don’t know what the hell to think,’ Rhys snapped. ‘My God, Natalie – I’ve barely got Dashwood and James back on track. There’s still a lot of work to be done to strengthen the finances and stabilize the company. I’m just getting used to being married after so many years on my own! And now...this.’
Natalie blinked the tears from her eyelashes and glared at him. ‘Yes, Rhys ‒ this.’ She put a hand protectively over her stomach. ‘I’m sorry if our baby – our
inconvenient
baby – doesn’t fit in with your plans, and I’m sorry if our marriage has been such a difficult thing for you to come to terms with. I’d no idea you felt that way. Perhaps,’ she let out a tiny, hiccupping sob, ‘perhaps it’s best if we just end things now, and go our separate ways.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ Rhys erupted. ‘Why must you turn every argument we have into an “all or nothing” drama? Having a baby doesn’t only affect you, you know. It affects me as well. And please don’t try to tell me how I feel. I don’t
know
how I feel right now.’
As he turned away and slammed out of the room, Natalie’s face crumpled, and she flung herself across the bed, and thought she might never stop crying.
Helen returned to her room when lunch ended and shut the door. And just for good measure, she turned the lock.
Her thoughts whirled. She had plenty of questions, and she wanted answers...but she didn’t want Colm MacKenzie turning up in the midst of her research.
After unearthing her laptop bag from the closet, she took out her computer, flipped it open, and switched it on. A few taps of the keyboard brought up the search engine. She typed in ‘Andrew Campbell, drowning, Sierra Leone’ and waited impatiently until half a dozen URLs and several photographs popped up on the screen.
Curious, Helen clicked on the first photo. Andrew Campbell stood next to an upended surfboard. His wetsuit glistened with seawater, and he was laughing.
What a shame, she thought with a wash of real regret as she studied him. He was a handsome specimen of Scots manhood ‒ tall and well built, muscular, but not overly so. His smile was wide and engaging.
And it struck her quite suddenly that he bore more than a passing resemblance to Colm MacKenzie.
She clicked on a link to
The
Times
article on his death and skimmed through it. Andrew was sailing from Freetown to the Banana Islands along with Michael McFarland, an Australian traveller he’d met in Freetown.
According to McFarland, the sea roughened when an unexpected late-afternoon squall kicked in, and the sloop capsized. Both men clung to the hull as the boat was carried further and further out from shore. When the worst of the storm passed, Andrew, a strong swimmer, decided to strike out and swim the twelve miles to shore. He never made it. Michael was rescued early the next morning.
Andrew was presumed drowned, his body carried out to sea. There was also speculation that perhaps he’d been attacked by a shark, a not uncommon occurrence along the Sierra Leone coast.
At any rate, his body was never recovered.
Helen gazed into the distance with a frown etched on her face. Some suggested that Campbell, who was well travelled and fascinated with West African tribal culture, had disappeared deliberately, unwilling to take on the responsibility of running his family’s Scotch distillery in his father Archibald’s stead.
Could it be true, she wondered? Had Andrew faked his own death in order to start a new life elsewhere? Her frown deepened. Could Colm actually
be
Andrew, the missing heir? He was thirty-eight, the same age Andrew would’ve been, had he lived; and they were the same height and build.
But she discarded the idea as soon as it occurred. It made no sense. Why would Andrew Lachlan Campbell suddenly come home to his family after turning his back on them for eighteen years? And if he did return, why keep his identity a secret? Surely his parents – his own
mother
– would recognize heir son the moment they laid eyes on him.
Still, Helen mused, eighteen years was nearly two decades. People could change a lot in that amount of time, physically and emotionally.
Her frown deepened. Perhaps Colm ‒
Andrew
‒ was back because he was in danger of some kind. Had he returned to Draemar to hide?
On impulse, she grabbed her mobile and tapped in a number. After two rings the call was picked up. ‘News desk,
London Probe
.’
‘Tom Bennett, please.’
Helen waited impatiently as the call was put through. When he answered she came straight to the point. ‘Tom, it’s Helen. I need a favour. Get me the police report for Andrew Campbell. Yes, Campbell. He drowned off the coast of Sierra Leone. Let me know what you find.’
‘All right,’ he said doubtfully, ‘but why? That was years ago ‒ I remember it. His sailboat capsized, his body was never found, and they thought he might’ve been finished off by a shark. Poor bugger.’ He paused. ‘Why the sudden interest in a rich toff who drowned nearly twenty years ago?’
‘I’ll explain later. Just get me that report, okay? I’ll owe you. Big time.’
‘You bet your arse you will,’ he grumbled, and rang off.
The knock on Caitlin’s door was quiet, but determined.
She sat up on her bed, where she’d thrown herself earlier in a torrent of angry tears, and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. ‘Who is it?’ she asked, even though she already knew.
‘It’s Mum. Let me in, please.’
With an exaggerated sigh, Caitlin pushed herself to her feet and went to the door and cracked it open. ‘What do you want?’
‘I want answers, madam, and I want them now. You can either open this door,’ her mother said again, more firmly, ‘or you can explain yourself to your father. And I don’t think either of us wants
that
.’
Reluctantly Caitlin swung the door open and waited as her mother came inside and swung around to face her.
‘Why were asked to leave university?’ Penelope demanded. ‘What on earth did you do?’
‘It’s all a silly misunderstanding,’ Caitlin said, and closed the door. She crossed her arms against her chest. ‘It’s stupid, really.’
‘I hardly think you’d be dismissed on the basis of a “silly misunderstanding”. Tell me what happened.’