“Good evening, John.” He struggled to sound as if nothing important had happened. “Aye. It turned out she was on the run from her husband and bairn.”
John’s response was thoughtful, rather than surprised. “So you know her name now.”
“Fiona.” He made himself go on, although giving his mermaid her marital name tasted like vinegar on his tongue. “Fiona Grant. Her husband and his brother took her away.”
Now John looked troubled. “And you let them?”
“What the hell else could I do?” Diarmid made an angry gesture, although he couldn’t have said whether his resentment was directed toward the Grants, his deceitful former guest, or his friend. He had a sick feeling that most of all, he was angry with himself.
How had he been so easy to dupe, when he had such good reason to mistrust beautiful women? How could he still be regretting that she’d gone?
“There was nae question she was the lass they were looking for. They gave me a description when they turned up. Anyway, the moment she saw them, it was clear that she knew who they were.”
John came further into the room. “So she went willingly?”
His gut knotted with guilt he shouldn’t feel, as he recalled Mrs. Grant’s violent resistance to departing with her kin. “I wouldnae say that.”
John didn’t remark on the girl’s eagerness to escape, but Diarmid could see his friend adding that fact to the picture he built in his cool, scientific mind. “So she regained her memory?”
His lips twisting in bitter humor, Diarmid dropped into a chair. “I’d wager half of Invertavey that she never lost it.”
“She put up such an elaborate masquerade. There must have been a good reason.”
Diarmid paused to note that John didn’t argue about the false amnesia. “Aye, doubtless a lover somewhere. There usually is.”
John’s expression didn’t ease, as he stepped toward the sideboard. “If you want a medical opinion, you look like you need a wee dram.”
“No’ so wee,” Diarmid admitted with a heavy sigh.
The silence that fell wasn’t entirely easy. John poured the whiskies and settled in the chair opposite.
Not even the liquor’s warmth melted the cold, sick feeling in Diarmid’s belly. For God’s sake, what was his problem? He’d done exactly what the law demanded. The girl deserved neither his good opinion nor his help.
“The lassie wasn’t wearing a wedding ring,” John said.
“Wedding rings can be removed, or she might have lost it in the wreck.” Diarmid scowled at his friend. “I have nae doubt she’s who the Grants say she is.”
“Oh, I’m sure she is. But we still don’t know why she ran away.”
“Dinna look at me like that. We ken she’s a liar. Worse, she stole from me. I caught her with a bundle of money just before she went, and she certainly didnae have that on her when she arrived.”
He still flinched to recall that appalling moment when the handkerchief full of money had tumbled from her pocket. The strangely pathetic bundle still sat disregarded on the corner of the desk. He hadn’t had the stomach to open it up and see just how much she’d taken.
“She must have been desperate,” John said in what Diarmid recognized as a carefully neutral voice.
“Desperate to escape her responsibilities.”
To his relief, John didn’t remark on the similarity with his mother. John didn’t have to. It was brutally obvious.
This silence was as uncomfortable as the last one.
Eventually Diarmid broke it. “She was their kinswoman, the younger Grant’s wife. I had nae right to keep her here.”
“Except the right of care.” John’s gray gaze was stark. “She was in trouble. Whatever else you think of her, you must see that much was true.”
“Trouble of her own making,” Diarmid growled, even as renewed guilt added a sour flavor to the words.
Although he doubted she’d spoken one true word since she’d arrived at Invertavey, he couldn’t forget the expression in her eyes when she’d thanked him for taking her in. The dread and despair—aye, and grim courage, much as right now he didn’t want to credit her with any finer qualities—in those azure depths still haunted him.