Deception by Margaret Pargeter Read Free Book Online Page A

had come, she called
at the doctor's house, which Jamie had pointed out to her.
    The
doctor was out, but she left word with his daughter, stressing how important it
was that her father called at Drumlarig as soon as possible. Mr Murray, she
said, was very
ill.
    The
doctor's daughter, a tall, dark girl, studied Thea curiously, with a hint of
alarm in her face. She didn't ask any questions, however,
she simply promised that the doc tor would get Thea's message.
    The
Land Rover, Thea discovered, was much the same as the Range
Rover which her grandfather had owned when they had lived in the
country. She hadn't explained to Logan Murray that she
had'learnt to drive in the Range Rover, that she had
driven it for miles over quiet estate roads. As it had stopped
raining, the water at the ford was shallow and she had little trouble in
getting across.
    She
could see this morning that she had been wrong in her previous estimation. What
she had thought was merely a stream, and Jamie had referred to
as a burn, was in reality exactly what Logan Murray had called it, a
river—a fairly narrow one, it was true, but definitely a
river. Thea had a hollow feeling inside her at the thought of
what might have happened if she had fallen into it when it was deeper. With just
a little more rain to swell it, it might easily have been a
raging torrent, strong enough to sweep her away.     
    She drove fast, the
thought of Logan Murray being alone in the house and ill troubling her. She
might never come to like the man, not after the way he had treated her during
the night, to say nothing of his curtness this morning, but she would hate to
think she couldn't feel normal human pity. Martha might sound as if she
worshipped the ground Mr Logan walked on, but she didn't seem very keen to do
much to help him. If he was unconscious again he might easily have fallen out
of bed?
    Logan. Logan Murray!
Suddenly it came to Thea that this must be the same Logan Murray who had
obligingly stood by her years ago while she had had her photograph taken. Why
it hadn't really registered until now she couldn't think. It must have been
because of the more startling things she had been listening to regarding his
wife. Ruefully she supposed that the long years and an ill-fated marriage
must have changed him. The vague remembrance she had of him as a youth, gentle
and kind, didn't somehow fit in with the man he was today, ruthlessly hard and
dangerously masculine.
    Would—could an unhappy
marriage alone so harden a man? Martha had insinuated that the marriage hadn't
been happy, and certainly Logan's own remarks would back this up, but surely Jamie was living evidence that
Logan Murray and his wife hadn't always been so estranged? She wondered
how long his wife had been dead, how she had died. She couldn't have been so
very old.
    Other things puzzled
Thea as she drove carefully through the ford again before putting on speed for
the remaining distance to the house. Martha had spoken of a brother's widow,
which must mean that Logan had lost a brother as well. And what of his parents?
When she and her mother had left Drumlarig they had both been alive.
    Thea sighed as she
drew up too quickly outside the front door, impatient of her own feelings. What
had happened at Drumlarig since she had lived here years ago was none of her business, and she was uneasily
convinced that it wouldn't improve
her relationship with Logan Murray if she were to try and make it so!
    Remembering
that the doctor would need room to park his car, she parked her own vehicle
nearer the end of the house. After she had jumped out something
made her glance up at the window above her. To her
astonishment she thought she saw Murray standing there
looking down on her, but when she blinked with dismay and
looked up again he was gone. If he had ever been there. Yet she could have sworn
she hadn't just imagined she had seen him.
    Without
going near the kitchen, she rushed straight up stairs.
She had been right to