Quarterback's Secret Baby(118)

When Mr. Clyde caught Diane and the gardener in an outbuilding without their clothes on, she had tried to play it off as another lascivious Scotsman forcing himself upon her but that time, it hadn't worked. Everyone knew the gardener - everyone knew his parents, too. When he told the story of how he'd rejected her advances over and over until the fateful afternoon, it included a cup of tea he'd shared with an oddly friendly Diane and a sudden feeling of extreme intoxication that came over him. All he remembered, he said, was stumbling back to the garden shed and blacking out until a few hours later when he woke up to an enraged Darach shaking him and shouting at him to never show his face at Castle McLanald again.

It had been Diane's undoing to mess with the gardener, who was well-loved by all the staff. Mr. and Mrs. Clyde, as well as everyone else who worked on the estate, had started to keep a very close eye on her after that. It was Mrs. Clyde herself who had peered through a crack in the door as Diane lowered a screaming baby Cameron into a bath of ice water over and over until the baby's skin was red and she was shivering so hard she could no longer cry.

Darach had had no choice but to listen to Mrs. Clyde when she told him about what she'd seen - she had practically raised him and he knew her to be an honest woman. Diane was on her way back to London within twenty four hours, already on the phone to her father and then to the most powerful divorce lawyer in England. When I asked how she had been granted weekend custody in light of the incident in the bath (which made me feel sick to think about) Mrs. Clyde told me Diane had wept in court and claimed Cameron had been running a high fever. The panic and fear had driven her to try anything she could to bring the baby's temperature down, including the ice bath.

"Cameron was fine at breakfast that day, less than an hour before it happened, as bonny as ever. No, she wasn't sick. She must have done something to displease her mother, probably a dirty diaper or a mess of some kind but no, she wasn't sick at all."

"Did you testify in court?" I asked, shocked that someone could just get away with behavior like that.

"No, I didn't. Diane's lawyer is very good, she convinced the judge we were all biased against her and that our testimony wouldn't be truthful."

"So what's happening now? Are they divorced? Will Cameron be allowed to stay here in Scotland?"

I was furious by then and unable to keep the image of a screaming baby Cameron being lowered into the ice-water over and over again by her own mother out of my head. Darach had said she was clever. She knew the bath would leave no marks. There were a lot of things that wouldn't leave marks. I was determined to make an effort to get the information out of Cameron once and for all when she got back from London.

"No, Diane is dragging her feet. She wants half of everything - half of the estate. If she gets it, the Laird will have to sell the place. I'm sure he'd do it tomorrow if she'd give him full custody - she doesn't even want the child, she just doesn't want the Laird to have her, either. Cameron is her trump card and the Laird's biggest weak point. And Diane spots weak points like a lion spots a gazelle, Jenny."

I sat across from Mrs. Clyde and let everything she'd told me sink in. I was already angry with Diane - for whatever it was that was causing Cameron's upset - but I was started to get a taste of the hatred I could feel in Darach and the Clydes when they spoke of her.

"I thought you should know, Jenny. The Laird is a private man but you're in charge of Cameron and I thought maybe if I told you the story, you might be in a better position to help her. We all love the bairn so much, and it's hurting us all to see her so unhappy every weekend."

I thanked Mrs. Clyde for telling me and then left her in the kitchen to go and get ready for my trip to the pub with Darach. I had no idea what I was going to say to him about what I'd been told, if anything.





Chapter 9


Darach drove us to the pub in an ancient, dusty Land Rover and I didn't mention anything Mrs. Clyde had said - not at first. He noticed my mood, though, and tried to make me laugh.

"What were you expecting, a Lamborghini? I'm not the Lamborghini type, Jennifer."

I forced a smile. "I'm not the Lamborghini type either. But only because I can't afford it."

My comment wasn't even really a joke but the Laird laughed anyway. He was wearing a thin, blue cashmere sweater over a button-down shirt and a pair of dark dress pants. I watched him drive out of the corner of my eye, noting the way his long, pale fingers gripped the steering wheel at the top and the way he used the heel of one hand to turn it. He looked so perfectly at ease in his own surroundings - I envied him that sense of belonging - of home.

We got a few stares when we got to the pub and Darach noticed me noticing them.