A Bewitching Bride by Elizabeth Thornton Page B

met. She felt the power of that stare all the way to her toes. It felt as though he knew about her vision and had smacked her hand for her vulgar curiosity.
    Assuming her most innocent expression, she pretended an interest in what Constable Hamilton had to say.
    She’d anticipated that the guests would be interviewed one by one, but it was far more informal than that. Paper and pencils were distributed, and guests were asked to give an account of their movements from dinner the night before until they came downstairs for breakfast that morning. Obviously, it was nothing but routine. Officer Hamilton wasn’t expecting anything shocking to come to light. She chewed on the end of her pencil, wondering what to put down and what to leave out.
    She couldn’t help chancing another quick look at her nemesis. He was looking at her, too, his eyes narrowed and dark with menace. He couldn’t know that she had trespassed in his mind. Then what had put that look on his face? Was it because she wouldn’t let her maid open the door to him? She couldn’t have faced him then. Now that she had herself well in hand, she gave him a cool smile, then bent her head and wrote exactly what they’d agreed on earlier that morning.
    Her eyes had begun to tear by the time she’d finished. She’d forgotten Hepburn and Janet Mayberry by then, and her thoughts had turned to Will Rankin and how unjust it was that such a good man had been struck down in his prime. She owed him so much, and she hadn’t told him how grateful she was for all he had done for her. She’d tried, but every time she’d begun to stammer out her thanks, he’d cut her off with a smile. He was only doing his job, he’d said. So she had repaid him by helping out at his clinic in Aberdeen and had been well and truly caught. She’d found something bigger than herself to give her time and energies to.
    Murder . It didn’t seem possible. But neither did what had happened to her when she’d been locked out of the hotel last night. Then there was the voice and her vision. No wonder she was confused.
    Sally Anderson, who was sitting on her left, broke into her thoughts. “I think,” said Sally, “that your admirer has just put Janet Mayberry in her place, and about time, too, if you ask me.”
    Kate looked up just in time to see a red-faced Janet rushing out of the room.
    “What admirer?”
    “Why Mr. Hepburn, of course. Have you two had a falling-out?”
    “Why should we? I hardly know him.” Kate folded her sheet of paper and held it loosely in one hand. Hepburn had told her to say nothing of the night they’d spent together until he’d had a chance to explain things to the police. It would get out soon enough, if she knew anything about belowstairs gossip, but by then she and Hepburn would have gone their separate ways.
    Sally laughed. “Strange,” she said, “he has been looking daggers at you since he walked in here.”
    Kate looked up with a start. He had been looking daggers at her since he walked into the dining room. What was the matter with the man? He couldn’t possibly know that, in all innocence, she’d wandered into his assignation with the ever-so-ripe Mayberry—could he?
    Officer Hamilton made another announcement. They were to leave their statements with him, signed, of course, then they were free to go. That didn’t mean much. There were no trains running yet, and the roads were still impassable, except for the old drovers’ road that came out at Braemar.
    With her eyes carefully averted, Kate got up, crossed to the table where Hamilton sat, and added her statement to the stacks of others that were lying there. That done, she attached herself to her friends and exited the dining room with her head bent and eyes on the floor.
    It didn’t do her a bit of good. He was waiting for her in the corridor, and before she could take evasive action, he had cut her out of the herd.
    “This will only take a moment, ladies,” he said. His eyes crinkled at