McGillivray's Mistress - By Anne McAllister Page 0,37
an affair.”
“Oh.” Julie sounded almost disappointed.
“Julie!”
“I mean, of course you’re not,” her sister-in-law said hastily. “That’s what I told them…” she added, her voice trailing off inconclusively.
But…
Fiona could hear the word even though it wasn’t there.
“You’re an adult, after all,” Julie said after a moment. “And they did see him. So if you were…”
“Lachlan McGillivray and I are not having an affair!”
Julie went silent on the other end of the line.
“Look,” Fiona said desperately, knowing she couldn’t tell Julie why Lachlan had really been here. He’d have her head if she did that. But she clearly wasn’t going to be able to pretend both Miss Saffron and Trina had been seeing things. “Yes, Lachlan was here this morning, but it was no big deal.”
“No big deal,” her sister-in-law echoed in the tone she might have used if Ahab had said Moby Dick was not a very big whale.
“There’s a simple explanation,” Fiona insisted. “Last night, after I got home from the dinner at Beaches—the dress was great, by the way—I went to bed. By myself,” she added firmly before Julie could ask. “And I suddenly realized, about midnight, that I’d promised to move The King of the Beach.”
“Move the—?” Julie sputtered. “Why? Where?”
“I thought I’d take him over by the cricket ground,” Fiona said, deliberately answering the second question and not the first. “So I went down to get started.”
“At midnight?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I was too excited. David—Lord Grantham—really liked my work. He thought the King was super, but he liked the rest of it, too. He thinks I have talent—”
“Of course you have talent!” Julie said staunchly.
“And he wants to feature me. He wants me to give talks to the groups that come on tours.”
“Talks? To the tourists? Oh, Fee! That’s marvelous! No wonder you couldn’t sleep!” Julie, as Fiona had known she would, completely bought this as a reason for lying awake. There was no need to explain about The Kiss at all.
“He wants to use a photo of it for his tour brochure,” she went on. “So I thought I’d better get it moved quick.”
“But why move it at all?”
“Because I told Lachlan I would. It does sort of interfere with the serene upscale ambience of the Moonstone.”
“I thought that was the whole point,” Julie said drily.
“Yes, well, I think I made my point. And I sort of, um, owe Lachlan one.” Not that she was going to say what for, of course. “Anyway, I was taking it down, and I was right up at the top, taking off the head—that big bucket, you know? And all of a sudden I heard this voice yell at me, and I lost my balance and fell.”
“Oh my God! Are you—?”
“I’m fine,” Fiona said firmly. “I just got the wind knocked out of me.”
“Thank heavens. Who yelled? Those rackety boys go down to the beach at night, I know. If they—”
“Lachlan yelled. He thought I was a vandal wrecking the sculpture.”
“I’d have thought he would have paid any vandal who did that,” Julie said.
“That’s what I said. But he’s changed his tune a little. He wants to keep Grantham happy. Anyway, he was worried about my having fallen, so he walked home with me.”
“And spent the night?” Julie said doubtfully.
“Actually, yes. He said a friend of his had almost died of a blunt trauma injury. He was worried I would. He wanted me to go to the doctor, and I wouldn’t. Can you imagine me getting Gerry up in the middle of the night and saying I’d fallen off my sculpture?”
“Not really.” Julie knew Gerry Rasmussen as well as Fiona did.
“Exactly. So he stayed.”
“All night?” Julie repeated. Obviously this was the difficult part to get past.
“On the couch.”
“Lachlan McGillivray spent all night on your lumpy couch?” Julie said after a long moment. She still sounded doubtful, but at least she wasn’t saying, Oh, go on! That’s the biggest laugh I’ve had in months.
“Yes.”
“To make sure you didn’t die?”
“Exactly.”
There was another very long assessing pause on the other end of the line.
“I see,” Julie said at last. “Well, that explains it. I understand perfectly why he was leaving your place this morning. Makes complete sense.”
Fiona smiled. “Good.”
“I’ll be sure to tell Trina and Miss Saffron and anyone else who asks.”
“Thank you.” Disaster averted, Fiona heaved a huge sigh of relief.
Long pause.
“So why did they see him leaving yesterday morning as well?” Julie asked.
THE THING ABOUT LIVING on an island, which Lachlan had forgotten somewhere along the way, was that wherever you