Other distilleries were suffering, she knew; some had already closed their doors, and as the weeks went by she became more and more worried that Benvulin would share that fate. If the same thing were to happen to Carnmore, she and Will could at least fall back on her father—
Rab had nothing. She’d wished desperately for some way to help him, but it was not until her autumn visit to her father in Grantown that she’d conceived a plan.
Both she and Rab had attended a recital at the home of a Grantown dignitary. Aware of Rab’s absence during the dinner buffet that had followed the musical performance, she’d slipped away from the dining room to search for him. When she’d found him at last, he’d been sitting alone in the small conservatory, his head in his hands.
He looked up at the sound of her entrance. “Livvy! You shouldn’t be here. People will talk.”
“I don’t mind,” she said, going to him as he stood.
“Rab, what is it?”
He’d touched her cheek. “You’re too kind, Olivia, do
you know that? I’ve no intention of spoiling your evening with my troubles. Go back to the buffet, before someone notices your absence.”
“Not until you tell me what’s troubling you.”
“Blackmail, is it?” he said, giving her a crooked smile.
“Well, I suppose I might as well tell you, as everyone will know before long. I don’t think I can keep Benvulin going any longer, Livvy. I’ve had a hint of a buyer for some of the stock, from a grocer in Aberdeen who’s selling his own blend—”
“But, Rab, that’s good news—”
“It would be, except that it will take several months to complete the arrangement—if it materializes at all—and in the meantime, I can’t pay the men’s wages. Not that it’s likely another distillery can take them on, but they can at least try to find some sort of work that will feed their families. I can’t see that I have any choice but to close the doors.”
“Rab, what about your family?”
“Margaret has gone back to her uncle’s in London—
leaving the sinking ship, I fear—although I don’t know how long he will keep his patience with her spending habits. I’ve kept the children here, but it looks as though I’ll have to let the governess go soon, as well.”
“And your sister?”
“Helen will stand by me until the bloody end, I think.
She loves Benvulin almost as much as I do. And she has nowhere else to go.”
“Rab . . .” Gazing at him, Livvy realized the seed of an idea had been germinating for weeks. “Is there any way you can hold out a bit longer?”
“I could sell some of the pictures, and the silver, I suppose, but if I do, there may be nothing else to keep us.”
“Do you trust me?”
He looked at her in surprise. “Of course. You’ve been a good friend these last few months, Livvy. If things were different . . .”
It was the first time either of them had spoken of what lay between them. She swallowed and glanced away.
Wishful thinking would get them nowhere, and she couldn’t let it distract her from what she could do.
She had money, left to her by her mother. It was hers to do with as she wished, but she knew Rab would never agree to take it if she told him what she meant to do.
“Rab, promise me you won’t take any action yet. Wait just a bit longer, even if it means selling a punch bowl or two.”
He smiled at that but quickly sobered, taking her shoulders in his hands. “Do you mean to work miracles, Livvy? I fear that’s not possible.”
“Wait and see,” she had told him, and slipped back to the party.
It had taken some maneuvering on her part to remove the money from the bank without Will’s or her father’s knowledge, but on the evening of the harvest-home given by one of the Laird of Grant’s tenants, she had pulled Rab aside and presented him with the banker’s draft.
He had looked up from the paper he held, his usually ruddy complexion gone pale with shock. “Livvy, you can’t be serious. I can’t take this.”
“You can,” she said earnestly. “It’s not for you, Rab, it’s for Benvulin. Consider it a loan. You can pay it back as soon as things improve.”
“I—”
“Don’t ye argue with me, Rab, my mind’s made up. It’s my money, and I want to help you. It will be our secret.”
And so it had remained, until now. Her father’s outrage had leapt from the page in the quick, bold strokes
of his handwriting. She had betrayed his trust, he said; she had compromised her family, and he meant to take steps to learn exactly what she had done with the funds.
Livvy’s cheeks burned with humiliation. She very much feared that her father would have no trouble coaxing further indiscretions from the banker . . . and that meant she’d have to find some way to warn Rab before he faced the onslaught of her father’s wrath.
Gemma could think of no innocent reason why Tim Cavendish would have been in Aviemore over the weekend. Nor had she been able to offer much comfort to a stricken Hazel, who had at first insisted on flying back to London with Kincaid.
“There’s nothing you can do in London until we know more,” Gemma had told her. “At least here you can help Heather. I’ll come straight back from the airport, and Duncan will phone us as soon as he’s seen Tim.”
Hazel had seemed too shocked to offer much protest.
“Tim can’t have shot Donald,” she had whispered as they were leaving. “There must be some other explanation.
There must be.”
Now, as they passed the turnoff for Culloden Battle-field, Gemma said to Kincaid, “Do you suppose Ross is wrong about the gun, then?”
He looked up from the map he’d been studying and absently ran a hand through his hair. “Of course, it’s possible. But in that case, there’s no logical explanation I can see for John Innes’s gun ending up in the river. And how would Tim have laid hands on a gun? He’s not exactly the sporting type.”
“I’d never have imagined Tim Cavendish spying on Hazel, or lying about what he’d done, or refusing even to
speak to her. What’s one more improbable thing to add to the list?”
“But if Tim shot Donald, who poisoned Callum MacGillivray?” argued Kincaid. “We know Tim was in London yesterday. Are we looking at two different per-petrators, two unrelated crimes?”
Frowning, Gemma slowed for the exit onto the A, the route to the Highlands and Islands Airport east of Inverness. “I suppose it’s possible,” she said, echoing Kincaid’s earlier comment. “Could someone have been taking advantage of the suspicion Donald’s murder cast on John?”
“To lay another murder at his door?”
“Or . . .” Gemma drummed her fingers on the wheel.