Page 62 of A Scandal at Stonecliffe

“Yes, but I’m afraid he’s not old enough to have been here at that time.”

“So you think his predecessor accepted the bribe?”

“Perhaps. Or the clergyman could have been the one lied to. Did you notice the names of the witnesses?”

“No,” Nathan admitted.

“One was a Dr. Joseph MacPherson. The other was Mrs. Donald McCready.”

Nathan looked at her blankly, then remembered. “You mean the woman who lets out her home to visitors?”

“Seems likely, doesn’t it? She takes paying guests. Flora and Margaret had to have a place to stay. Her house may not be as fine as the villagers said, but obviously it must be nicer than any other house in Gairmore.”

“So she paid her landlady and the physician to lie?”

“Do you think this village has a doctor?” Verity asked skeptically, and Nathan shook his head. “Neither do I. I think they brought a physician with them. One whom they knew would say whatever they wanted.”

“If Flora Douglas brought a doctor along with her, she clearly planned to have the baby here instead of at the family estate—which makes no sense. The family had no connection here, and it’s difficult to get to. And who in her right mind would choose to give birth in the Highlands in the winter?” Nathan said.

“Exactly. There had to be something questionable going on.”

“It seems to be a common occurrence in this family.”

“If Malcolm was your father and Margaret’s son, he was not legitimate because he was born in February, months before Margaret married your father. So...let’s say you are Margaret’s mother and you wished to hide that your daughter had an illegitimate child, but you didn’t want to give the child to a foundling home. And let’s say you are young enough that it isn’t entirely unbelievable that you yourself could have a child at your age.”

“Then you might whisk your daughter away before anyone knows,” Nathan completed the thought. “Go to a remote place for the final months and the birth, and then pretend that the baby is yours.”

“Such things do happen,” Verity said. “A relative taking an illegitimate child and raising it as their own to protect the unwed mother.”

“But we know that my father married Margaret.”

“Several months later. The Douglases might not have known that he would marry her.”

“But after that, surely he and Margaret would raise the boy, not his grandmother.”

Verity shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps they felt they couldn’t reveal that the original story was untrue.”

“I suppose.” He sighed. “Well, we’ve no idea who or where this doctor is, but...”

“We can find Mrs. McCready,” Verity finished for him.

As it turned out, finding Mrs. McCready was easy, for Verity’s newfound friends had talked to the woman in question and revealed that she did, in fact, have rooms to let. Getting information out of her was another matter.

Mrs. McCready was a soft, plump woman with a sweet smile. Her white hair peeped out around the edges of her ruffled mobcap. Nathan was reminded of the cotton cap that Verity had worn when he first met her as she pretended to be a maid in Lady Lockwood’s house, and he smiled a little to himself. Verity’s cap had been almost comically large in order to cover her hair and partially conceal her face. He remembered, too, the golden eyes beneath its edge.

At the time she had thoroughly irritated him in almost every way. And now...well, he had to admit that she still had the ability to irritate him, but somehow he didn’t mind. Indeed, he almost enjoyed it, which he suspected meant there was something seriously wrong with him.

Mrs. McCready greeted them with pleasure, assuring them that she had rooms for both of them. “Mr. Dunbridge on the floor above your room, of course. We’re always verra careful with the proprieties. It wouldnae do to...” She leaned in a little, lowering her voice. “Appear at all questionable, if you know what I mean.”

Nathan wished Verity had set them up with a different story instead of using the one she’d already told the townsfolk of her being employed to help Nathan find his true parents. The role of a married couple would have been much more agreeable.

“I do,” Verity said, sending Nathan a twinkling glance that told him she knew precisely what he was thinking. She went on to inquire into their supposed mission. Nathan noted that the warm brogue Verity had been using with the townspeople had become a fainter gloss of a Scottish accent, her tone crisp and authoritative as she spoke to the landlady.

The other woman looked flustered. “Och, nae, lass, I cannae remember that far back.”

“They were a bit unusual,” Verity said in an apparent attempt to jog her memory. “Flora and Margaret Douglas. Two refined ladies from Edinburgh, accompanied by a doctor.”

“I dinnae remember.” Mrs. McCready shook her head vigorously, sending the several bows of her cap fluttering, and gave them an apologetic smile. “My memory’s not what it was.”