A Bewitching Bride by Elizabeth Thornton

when it came to the point, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. His suspicions were too bizarre, Will said.
    Murder. That was what Will was alluding to.
    Gavin worried at that thought for a long, long time.
     
     
    A blast of cold air had him awake on an instant, with all his faculties honed for action. The moment the intruder stepped through the door, he leaped at him, and they both tumbled to the floor. The fire had dimmed and there were no candles lit, but he knew at once that he had made a serious blunder. He lowered the fist he had raised to disable his assailant. Beneath him, covered in a blanket, a wriggling, nubile, squawking female fought to free herself of his punishing grip.
    “Bloody hell!” he roared as he rolled off her. He got to his knees, then to his feet. “What game are you playing, Kate Cameron?” He turned aside to light the lamp.
    She sat up, pushed out of the blanket so that she could breathe, and blew away the hair that had tumbled free of her makeshift turban to fall over her face. “Imbecile!” she hissed, as angry as he. “Do you always act first and ask questions later?” She tossed her turban on the floor and pushed the hair out of her eyes. “I went to the privy, that’s all.”
    Her answer only added to his ire. “You went to the privy? That’s why you left the cottage?”
    “Don’t shout! I’m not deaf!” She allowed him to help her up and guide her to the bed. When she sank into the bedclothes, she shrugged. “What else was I to do? I did not want to waken you, so I took Macduff with me instead. It’s all your fault, anyway. You kept forcing me to drink cup after cup of tea till I thought I would drown in it.”
    Macduff chose that moment to pad behind the bed and cower in the corner with only his massive paws showing.
    Gavin’s temper, fueled by fear, barely softened. “There’s a perfectly good chamber pot under the bed.”
    She squared her shoulders and answered him with all the dignity of a duchess. “As I am well aware. I, however, prefer to have some privacy. Good God, even the patients at Dr. Rankin’s clinics expect privacy when they need to use the facilities, even if it’s only a bedpan.”
    He sat on the edge of the stool and regarded her steadily. Until now, he’d never considered her one of the beauties, but with her color up and temper glinting in her eyes, he allowed that Miss Kate Cameron could hold her own. Her hair, gilded by the light from the lamp, hung heavy and straight to her shoulders. She kept flicking it back as she glowered at him from beneath her straight black brows.
    “Did I say something amusing?” she asked truculently.
    He shook his head.
    “Then why,” she demanded, “do you have that silly grin on your face?”
    Because he was bemused. When he had first set eyes on her, he’d discounted her beauty and her power to make her presence stand out. It seemed that the laugh was on him.
    He turned away and poked the fire to life. “Will tells me,” he said, “that you’re a frequent visitor to his clinic.”
    He sensed her wariness, and that made him more alert.
    “I’m not really a visitor,” she said. “Visitors come to gawk. Dr. Rankin does not encourage gawkers unless they are immensely rich and willing to endow his work.”
    “There are two clinics, aren’t there?”
    “Yes. One in Aberdeen and one in Braemar. The clinic in Aberdeen serves the poor and castoffs in our society, you know, people who can’t afford to pay a doctor’s bill. There’s no money to be made there, but Dr. Rankin has several backers whose generosity keeps the clinic open.”
    Her voice had gentled considerably when she talked of Will’s work, and once again Gavin wondered whether there was more to her relationship with his friend than either of them had cared to admit.
    “What about the clinic in Braemar?” he asked crisply.
    “There is a surgery attached to it, but it’s more of a rest home for those who have lost touch with reality or