The Heiress Bride - Catherine Coulter [139]
“Colin! You will be quiet!” Sinjun heaved her soup spoon at him. It fell short since the table was twelve feet long, clattering against a vase of daffodils.
Philpot cleared his throat loudly but no one paid him any heed.
Serena sighed, looked from Colin to Sinjun, and said, “Colin never looked at Fiona or at me like that. It’s not just a man’s lust he’s taken care of, no, it’s something beyond that. He looks like a cat who’s eaten more cream than he deserves. I think he’s very selfish. I hope he vomits up all that cream. I think you’ve quite ruined him, Joan. Philpot, would you please give me some tarts?”
Philpot, poker-faced, gently placed the plate of tarts in front of her.
“I’m relieved he’s beyond lust now,” Ryder said in great good humor to his sister. “You have a witches’ brew, little sister? Perhaps you’ve been sharing that recipe with Sophie here? She is so greedy, so without pity for me, that it requires all my nobility to remain bravely standing in the face of her demands. Regard a man who’s striving with all his might to provide her with another child. She won’t leave me alone. She’s after me constantly. I am safe from her only at the dinner table.”
“Surely she will stab you again if you don’t close your mouth,” Alex said. “I just hope, Sophie, that when you’re with child again, you will turn green and lose your breakfast just once.”
“Oh no,” Sophie said. “Not that, never that. Besides, I’m much too nice a person to have that happen. I think it’s your husband, Alex. It’s he who makes you sick.”
All three wives were laughing.
Douglas was frowning at his sister-in-law.
Ryder puffed out his chest. “No, Sophie will never know a day’s illness. I will simply forbid her to.”
Alex just shook her head back and forth and said to Sophie, “Sometimes I forget what they’re like. When I’m reminded, why, I realize that life is more than sweet, it’s delicious. It’s even better than those blueberry-and-currant tarts Douglas is gobbling down.”
“Now that you’ve spoken the pure truth,” Douglas said, “I beg you not to run out of here toward the basin Philpot set in the entrance hall.”
“I would that we shift the subject a bit,” Sinjun said.
“Yes,” Ryder said, “now that Douglas and I see that you’re pleased with this man, Sinjun, we will move on to other matters. Douglas and I have given this situation a good deal of thought, Colin. It seems to us that the person who told Robert MacPherson that you’d killed his sister is quite likely the same person who killed her himself.”
“Or herself,” Alex said.
“True. But why would anyone want Fiona dead?” Sinjun asked. “And to have Colin there, unconscious by the edge of the cliff, all ready to blame because he couldn’t remember anything. It was a carefully thought-out plan. Serena, do you know of anyone who hated your sister that much? Someone who knew enough about potions and such to erase Colin’s memory?”
Serena looked up from her tart, smiled vaguely at Sinjun, and said in her soft voice, “Fiona was a faithless bitch. I quite hated her myself. I also know enough about the effects of opium and henbane and the maella plant. I could have done it quite easily.”
“Oh.”
“Let’s go another step,” Douglas said. “Serena, who hated Colin?”
“His father. His brother. Aunt Arleth. Toward the end, Fiona hated him because she was so jealous of him and he didn’t love her. She was even jealous of me, but I never touched you then, Colin. I was very careful.”
Colin went very still. He slowly lowered his fork back onto his plate. He said mildly, belying the pain Sinjun knew he must feel at Serena’s words, “My father didn’t hate me, Serena. He merely had no use for me. My brother was the future laird. I wasn’t important. I understood that as much as I realized it wasn’t right or fair, as much as it hurt me. It would be like Joan and me having a son and disregarding him because Philip is the firstborn.
“As for my brother, why, Malcolm had no reason to hate me, either. He had everything. If there was any hate to be festered, why, I should be the one brimming