Christmas At Pemberley: And the Bride Wore Prada

She blushed. ‘I was no supermodel, mind, but I made a decent living at it.’

‘Oh, don’t listen to her,’ Archie scoffed. ‘She was quite the celebrity in her day! Had flings with a couple of film stars, she did, and then there was that chap – oh, what was his name, darling? I always said he was sweet on you...he almost ran for prime minister?’

‘Graeme Longworth.’ She spoke quietly.

‘Longworth! Yes, of course. He didn’t run, though. There were rumours of a scandal of some sort, and so he withdrew.’

The conversation moved on to other subjects, and there was much conjecture as to whether it would snow again; but although she joined in the discussion, Helen couldn’t help but notice that Penelope Campbell remained strangely silent for the rest of the meal.

‘How in God’s name could this happen, Natalie?’ Rhys demanded.

Natalie’s lower lip trembled as she met his eyes. They’d gone back to their room after lunch, and she told Rhys straight away that she was definitely pregnant. He listened without expression. Now, his face was hard and his eyes were dark with anger. She’d never seen him quite so furious.

‘This wasn’t what we planned,’ he ground out. ‘We agreed to wait! How could you let this happen?’

‘It’s not like I did it on purpose, Rhys!’ she protested. ‘I’ve been very careful! I haven’t missed a pill, so I honestly don’t know how it could have happened…’

‘But it did happen. You’re pregnant. And are you quite sure,’ he added, rounding on her suddenly, ‘that you didn’t do it on purpose? You’ve talked of nothing else but having a baby since the day we got married.’

‘Yes, I do want a baby! Is that so terrible? But you can’t really believe that I’d deliberately disregard your wishes, can you? Because if you do,’ Natalie added, her voice unsteady, ‘then you don’t know me at all.’

There was a small, charged silence.

‘I don’t know what the hell to think,’ Rhys snapped. ‘My God, Natalie – I’ve barely got Dashwood and James back on track. There’s still a lot of work to be done to strengthen the finances and stabilize the company. I’m just getting used to being married after so many years on my own! And now...this.’

Natalie blinked the tears from her eyelashes and glared at him. ‘Yes, Rhys ‒ this.’ She put a hand protectively over her stomach. ‘I’m sorry if our baby – our inconvenient baby – doesn’t fit in with your plans, and I’m sorry if our marriage has been such a difficult thing for you to come to terms with. I’d no idea you felt that way. Perhaps,’ she let out a tiny, hiccupping sob, ‘perhaps it’s best if we just end things now, and go our separate ways.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ Rhys erupted. ‘Why must you turn every argument we have into an “all or nothing” drama? Having a baby doesn’t only affect you, you know. It affects me as well. And please don’t try to tell me how I feel. I don’t know how I feel right now.’

As he turned away and slammed out of the room, Natalie’s face crumpled, and she flung herself across the bed, and thought she might never stop crying.

Chapter 17 (#ulink_b30a191b-bbeb-542f-95f3-03c1fa3971e8)

Helen returned to her room when lunch ended and shut the door. And just for good measure, she turned the lock.

Her thoughts whirled. She had plenty of questions, and she wanted answers...but she didn’t want Colm MacKenzie turning up in the midst of her research.

After unearthing her laptop bag from the closet, she took out her computer, flipped it open, and switched it on. A few taps of the keyboard brought up the search engine. She typed in ‘Andrew Campbell, drowning, Sierra Leone’ and waited impatiently until half a dozen URLs and several photographs popped up on the screen.

Curious, Helen clicked on the first photo. Andrew Campbell stood next to an upended surfboard. His wetsuit glistened with seawater, and he was laughing.

What a shame, she thought with a wash of real regret as she studied him. He was a handsome specimen of Scots manhood ‒ tall and well built, muscular, but not overly so. His smile was wide and engaging.

And it struck her quite suddenly that he bore more than a passing resemblance to Colm MacKenzie.

She clicked on a link to TheTimes article on his death and skimmed through it. Andrew was sailing from Freetown to the Banana Islands along with Michael McFarland, an Australian traveller he’d met in Freetown.

According to McFarland, the sea roughened when an unexpected late-afternoon squall kicked in, and the sloop capsized. Both men clung to the hull as the boat was carried further and further out from shore. When the worst of the storm passed, Andrew, a strong swimmer, decided to strike out and swim the twelve miles to shore. He never made it. Michael was rescued early the next morning.

Andrew was presumed drowned, his body carried out to sea. There was also speculation that perhaps he’d been attacked by a shark, a not uncommon occurrence along the Sierra Leone coast.

At any rate, his body was never recovered.

Helen gazed into the distance with a frown etched on her face. Some suggested that Campbell, who was well travelled and fascinated with West African tribal culture, had disappeared deliberately, unwilling to take on the responsibility of running his family’s Scotch distillery in his father Archibald’s stead.

Could it be true, she wondered? Had Andrew faked his own death in order to start a new life elsewhere? Her frown deepened. Could Colm actually be Andrew, the missing heir? He was thirty-eight, the same age Andrew would’ve been, had he lived; and they were the same height and build.

But she discarded the idea as soon as it occurred. It made no sense. Why would Andrew Lachlan Campbell suddenly come home to his family after turning his back on them for eighteen years? And if he did return, why keep his identity a secret? Surely his parents – his own mother – would recognize heir son the moment they laid eyes on him.

Still, Helen mused, eighteen years was nearly two decades. People could change a lot in that amount of time, physically and emotionally.

Her frown deepened. Perhaps Colm ‒ Andrew ‒ was back because he was in danger of some kind. Had he returned to Draemar to hide?

On impulse, she grabbed her mobile and tapped in a number. After two rings the call was picked up. ‘News desk, London Probe.’

‘Tom Bennett, please.’

Helen waited impatiently as the call was put through. When he answered she came straight to the point. ‘Tom, it’s Helen. I need a favour. Get me the police report for Andrew Campbell. Yes, Campbell. He drowned off the coast of Sierra Leone. Let me know what you find.’

‘All right,’ he said doubtfully, ‘but why? That was years ago ‒ I remember it. His sailboat capsized, his body was never found, and they thought he might’ve been finished off by a shark. Poor bugger.’ He paused. ‘Why the sudden interest in a rich toff who drowned nearly twenty years ago?’

‘I’ll explain later. Just get me that report, okay? I’ll owe you. Big time.’

‘You bet your arse you will,’ he grumbled, and rang off.

The knock on Caitlin’s door was quiet, but determined.

She sat up on her bed, where she’d thrown herself earlier in a torrent of angry tears, and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. ‘Who is it?’ she asked, even though she already knew.

‘It’s Mum. Let me in, please.’

With an exaggerated sigh, Caitlin pushed herself to her feet and went to the door and cracked it open. ‘What do you want?’

‘I want answers, madam, and I want them now. You can either open this door,’ her mother said again, more firmly, ‘or you can explain yourself to your father. And I don’t think either of us wants that.’

Reluctantly Caitlin swung the door open and waited as her mother came inside and swung around to face her.

‘Why were asked to leave university?’ Penelope demanded. ‘What on earth did you do?’

‘It’s all a silly misunderstanding,’ Caitlin said, and closed the door. She crossed her arms against her chest. ‘It’s stupid, really.’

‘I hardly think you’d be dismissed on the basis of a “silly misunderstanding”. Tell me what happened.’

She shrugged. ‘I wasn’t keeping up with my studies, Mum, that’s all. My grades were poor.’

‘And?’ her mother prodded. ‘You wouldn’t be kicked out of school merely for poor grades, Cait.’ She sat down on the edge of the bed and levelled a shrewd gaze at her daughter. ‘There’s something more, isn’t there?’

She said nothing.