Destroying Angel by Alanna Knight Read Free Book Online Page B

remembered my painful, early days alone in Solomon’s Tower and knew I would have been extremely vulnerable had I met Hubert Staines then.
    Jack Macmerry had been just a pleasant young policeconstable. There was no bond between us until he saved my life and infatuation was not one of my failings. From twelve years old, my eyes had always been steadily fixed on Pappa’s Sergeant Danny McQuinn who had snatched my sister Emily and me from kidnappers. I had vowed to marry him and, against all odds, had done so.
    Even when Jack and I became lovers, I was uneasy, unwilling to commit myself to marriage, somehow sure that Danny McQuinn would one day walk back into my life.
    But a meeting with a handsome stranger on Arthur’s Seat, in search of his lost deerhound, with an invalid stepdaughter and the weight of past tragedies on his shoulders… It was a scene out of a romantic novelette indeed! And with the experience of ten years of marriage behind me, I might have reacted less conventionally than my favourite fictional heroine Jane Eyre.
    But now the situation was different. And for me, there was no better opportunity than the present for prying deeper into Hubert’s motives for bringing me to Staines.
    ‘What I would be most grateful to know is why…’ I hesitated. His physical closeness bothered me. I moved as far away as the rustic seat would allow.
    I never got to finish that question, as out of the corner of my eye I saw Collins rapidly approaching from the direction of the house.
    We both heard her footsteps and a moment later she was gazing down at us, her face scarlet, murmuring something inarticulate about Miss Kate.
    Hubert sprang to his feet. I was overcome with embarrassment, as if by sitting on that tiny seat together we had been apprehended in some indelicate situation.
    I was certain of one thing; the atmosphere she had comeinto was charged with emotions. Hubert’s, not mine, although I found myself blushing and stood up so hastily that I stumbled. Hubert steadied me and, excusing myself hastily, l left him to deal with Collins’ ill-suppressed anger.
    As I hurried up the path with Thane trotting at my side, they remained within earshot. I heard protests, murmurs, sharp words, denials, as I hastened towards the house.
    In my bedroom, I closed the door thankfully, with no wish for an embarrassing encounter with Collins. Seated on the bed, I considered Hubert’s extraordinary conversation. Had he seemed remotely a flirt, I would have laughed, but there was something deep and serious and even sincere in his manner. His behaviour towards me had changed in this short time to that of a man utterly captivated, which I found very difficult to understand.
    I have no illusions about my appearance. I am no beauty, just a woman in her early thirties, small with very average looks, and a cloud of unruly yellow curls – the bane of my life. Surely, I told my mirror, no man would ever pause to give me a second glance.
    Yet, looking out of the window, for a moment I allowed myself to imagine a future as lady of the manor, floating down the grand staircase in a beautiful gown with Thane at my side. Would that be a happy ending for us both…?
    Stop this! Stop this nonsense, Rose McQuinn. It isn’t you and what is more, it never could be you. Be sensible, remember your mission in life – Lady Investigator, Discretion Guaranteed. And I suspect if you keep your eyes open there will be much in Staines to investigate.
    I was right. Dangerous matters involving life and death and, as I was to discover, much need for that discretion, too. 

CHAPTER SIX
    I met Mrs Robson in the hall. ‘Is he’, she asked, indicating Thane, ‘to go to Miss Kate? I’ll take him upstairs, Collins isn’t around,’ she added, a fact I already knew.
    As he followed her into Kate’s room, Thane’s woeful look hardly fitted his role as her beloved pet.
    Alone again, I sat by the window and, while trying to read, my thoughts drifted longingly to