She should have said something to Simon, even just a brief mention of having to answer questions for the procurator fiscal.
But because she hadn’t, now poor Simon was left to his anxiety and worst-case catastrophizing.
She was a terrible person.
But how was she to answer this?
Well, you see, Simon, it is all rather complicated. I am (possibly) being accused of murdering one hundred and twenty-seven men, and without my memories to defend myself, it has left me in a bit of a muddle. My (sort of) husband has been attempting to help me remember information that might exonerate me, but that also is fraught . . .
She could already see the horror on his face.
But good, sweet, earnest Simon was right—
He did not deserve to have his affections abused or trifled with.
If she intended to marry him, she needed to tell him everything. She could not keep such information from her betrothed. It would not be right.
She had to tell him.
And she would tell him.
Shewould.
She simply had to find the right words.
She looked at the whittled kelpie sitting on her bedside table, waiting to be delivered to Ewan and Lady Kildrum.
Perhaps . . . perhaps she could seek some guidance.
Eilidh clutched thecotton bag with the kelpie, nodding at the butler who showed her into the drawing room of Kilmeny Hall.
Three heads turned her way—Lady Kildrum and her two sisters, Lady Aster and Lady Rose.
Lady Kildrum greeted Eilidh with a weary smile from her seat on a sofa opposite her sisters.
“Forgive me for not rising to greet you, Miss Fyffe.” Her ladyship waved a hand to indicate her distended belly. “I am told that I will be delivering a child any day now.”
Eilidh managed a smile in reply, even though her heart lurched and panged to see Lady Kildrum rounded with child and glowing. Eilidh was infinitely happy for her ladyship and Ewan. But the premature end of Eilidh’s own pregnancy still pulsed hot and feverish when touched upon.
One of the myriads of memories she wished to never relive.
“I apologize Ewan isn’t here to greet you,” Lady Kildrum continued, motioning for Eilidh to be seated. “But as you know, he is frantically working on his submission to the Academy for this year, trying to get it done before the baby is born.”
“No bother, your ladyship.” Eilidh sat in a chair placed between the women—Lady Kildrum to one side of her, the twins on a chaise to the other. “I’ve come to see yourself anyway.”
“Please, call me Violet,” her ladyship said. “I feel as if we have been friends for years, after all the tales I’ve heard.”
“You are too kind, your lad—uhm, Violet.” Eilidh resisted the urge to squirm. She might have new gowns and a maid to style her hair in the latest fashion, but she had never mixed with such august company as the Countess of Kildrum. “You must call me Eilidh then.”
“Not Jamie?”
A bit of a pause. Eilidh resisted twisting her hands in her lap.
“I don’t . . . I don’tknowJamie, if that makes sense. I don’t really remember being her and so, it is difficult for me to associate the name with myself. Jamie was my brother, not myself.”
Violet studied her for a moment, gaze pensive.
“I like Eilidh,” Lady Rose said into the silence. “It’s pretty and traditional.”
