Sabrina shook her head. “You don’t know—him. Or the circumstances. It was entirely accidental. I can’t—I just can’t believe this!” she whispered.
“But—is the father a terrible person? A madman? A monster of some sort?—”
“No, no, nothing like that.”
“Well, is he a handsome man? A young one, an old one?”
Sabrina looked at her irritably. “Oh, he is quite striking,” she murmured, then her words suddenly came forward in a rush. “When he walks into a room, every woman there is instantly aware of his presence. He is tall, lean as a whipcord. He can be quite incredibly charming, but he can be completely merciless. He is unique in all that he is, and we met under the most ridiculous circumstances. Oh, it’s all so ironic!”
“But you don’t despise him?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. He is so self-assured, so set in his ways, and so caught up in his own conflict! I don’t—I don’t think that we can solve my dilemma at all right now. Thank God I’m here, and I’ve got time to think. And—please, I don’t want to talk about it anymore!”
Shawna decided that she had best let the matter drop. She was being far too personal.
Yet, so was Sabrina Connor, for—glancing back to assure herself that the others still rode far behind them—she again turned the conversation to Shawna’s past sins.
“You’ve raked me over the coals. Now it’s my turn. What exactly happened the night when David was supposedly killed? If you could recall everything in minute detail, perhaps?—”
“I have recalled everything in minute detail thousands of times. And I still have no answers.”
“Tell me what happened. Maybe I can help. Looking in from the outside, you know.”
Shawna felt her cheeks coloring. “Alistair had been guilty of shifting some money. I was quite sure of myself, certain that I could keep David talking long enough for my uncles and cousins to remove any incriminating evidence that might be found in either his office or the castle’s master’s chambers.”
“So, what went so wrong?”
“I don’t know.”
“See, you’re not giving me details. You kept David in the stables?”
“Oh, aye. But then…I don’t know. I had closed my eyes. Everything seemed surrounded by darkness. I had—” She paused, shrugging unhappily. “The wine we were drinking was drugged. Mine wasn’t supposed to have been drugged, but David suspected I was up to something and switched the glasses. I was with David, then suddenly, I was not. I remember darkness and shadows—then the fire. And waking up. Next to…”
“A charred corpse,” Sabrina finished.
“God, it was awful,” Shawna remembered.
“But it’s quite incredible. Someone substituted a dead man for David in the stables. Well planned, don’t you think?”
“Evidently. But Alistair did no such thing, of that I’m certain. I think that David’s death hurt him incredibly. He felt terribly guilty for what he had done to begin with, then he was ashamed of the way we planned to undo it—and then when David was discovered dead…or we thought he was discover dead…” She broke off, glancing at Sabrina again. “That’s what Laird David doesn’t understand,” she said angrily. “He has simply condemned MacGinnises and has no idea what we went through, assuming he was dead!”
“Shawna, you have to see that someone here did want to kill him.”
“Then why is he alive?”
“That is the baffling part,” Sabrina admitted.
“Do you have an answer?” Shawna demanded.
Sabrina thought a minute. “I’ve a hunch.”
“Oh?”
“I think that several people must be involved?—”
“My entire family?” Shawna queried, a rush of anger rising within her.
Sabrina shook her head. “I’m not saying that. I’m saying that a lot of things happened for just one person to be involved. The others are coming closer,” she warned, lowering her voice, then keeping it quiet but fierce. “You mustn’t say a word to my sister or brother-in-law, do you understand? I beg of you, you must keep quiet about—me.”