Now May You Weep: A Novel

by CROMBIE DEBORAH

• ISBN13: 9780060525248
• ISBN10: 006052524X
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

A Scottish vacation turns deadly for Scotland Yard Detective Inspector Gemma James when her traveling companion is accused of slaying her blackmailing former lover.

Excerpts

Now May You Weep
A Novel

Chapter One

If there's a sword-like sang
That can cut Scotland clear
O a' the warld beside
Rax me the hilt o't here.

-- Hugh Macdiarmid,
"To Circumjack Cencrastus"

Carnmore, November 1898

Wrapped in her warmest cloak and shawl, Livvy Urquhart pacedthe worn kitchen flags. The red-walled room looked a cozy sanctuarywith its warm stove and open shelves filled with crockery, but outside thewind whipped and moaned round the house and distillery with an eerilyhuman voice, and the chill penetrated even the thick stone walls of theold house.

It was worry for her husband, Charles, that had kept Livvy up intothe wee hours of the night. He would have been traveling back fromEdinburgh when the blizzard struck, unexpectedly early in the season,unexpectedly fierce for late autumn.

And the road from Cock Bridge to Tomintoul, the route Charles musttake to reach Carnmore, was always the first in Scotland to be completelyblocked by snow. Had his carriage run off the track, both horse and driver blinded by the stinging wall of white fury that met them as they came upthe pass? Was her husband even now lying in a ditch, or a snowbank,slowly succumbing to the numbing cold?

Her fear kept her pacing, long after she'd sent her son, sixteen-year-oldWill, to bed, and as the hours wore on, the knowledge of her situationbrought her near desperation. Trapped in the snug, white-harled house, shewas as helpless as poor Charles, and useless to him. Soon she would noteven be able to reach the distillery outbuildings, much less the track that ledto the tiny village of Chapeltown.

Livvy sank into the rocker by the stove, fighting back tears sherefused to acknowledge. She was a Grant by birth, after all, andGrants were no strangers to danger and harsh circumstances. Theyhad not only survived in this land for generations but had also flourished,and if she had grown up in the relative comfort of the town, shehad now lived long enough in the Braes to take hardship and isolationfor granted.

And Charles ... Charles was a sensible man -- too sensible, she hadthought often enough in the seventeen years of their marriage. He wouldhave taken shelter at the first signs of the storm in some roadside inn orcroft. He was safe, of course he was safe, and so she would hold him inher mind, as if her very concentration could protect him.

She stood again and went to the window. Wiping at the thick pane ofglass with the hem of her cloak, she saw nothing but a swirl of white.What would she tell Will in the morning, if there was no sign of hisfather? A new fear clutched at her. Although a quiet boy, Will had astubborn and impulsive streak. It would be like him to decide to strike offinto the snow in search of Charles.

Hurriedly, she lit a candle and left the kitchen for the dark chill of thehouse, her heart racing. But when she reached her son's first-floor bedroom,she found him sleeping soundly, one arm free of his quilts, his much-read copy of Kidnapped open on his chest. Easing the book fromhis grasp, she rearranged the covers, then stood looking down at him.From his father he had inherited the neat features and the fine, straight,light brown hair, and from his father had come the love of books and thestreak of romanticism. To Will, Davie Balfour and the Jacobite AlanBreck were as real as his friends at the distillery; but lately, his fascinationwith the Rebellion of '45 seemed to have faded, and he'd begun totalk more of safety bicycles and blowlamps, and the new steam-poweredwagons George Smith was using to transport whisky over atDrumin. All natural for a boy his age, Livvy knew, especially with thenew century now little more than a year away, but still it pained her tosee him slipping out of the warm, safe confines of farm, village, anddistillery.

More slowly, Livvy went downstairs, shivering a little even in hercloak, and settled again in her chair. She fixed her mind on Charles, butwhen an uneasy slumber at last overtook her, it was not Charles ofwhom she dreamed.

She saw a woman's heart-shaped face. Familiar dark eyes, so similarto her own, gazed back at her, but Livvy knew with the irrefutable certaintyof dreams that it was not her own reflection she beheld. Thewoman's hair was dark and curling, like her own, but it had beencropped short, as if the woman had suffered an illness. The dream-figurewore odd clothing as well, a sleeveless shift reminiscent of a nightdress oran undergarment. Her exposed skin was brown as a laborer's, but whenshe raised a hand to brush at her cheek, Livvy saw that her hands weresmooth and unmarked.

The woman seemed to be sitting in a railway carriage -- Livvy recognizedthe swaying motion of the train—but the blurred landscape spedby outside the windows at a speed impossible except in dreams.

Livvy, trying to speak, struggled against the cotton wool that seemed to envelop her. "What-- Who--" she began, but the image was fading.It flared suddenly and dimmed, as if someone had blown out a lamp, butLivvy could have sworn that in the last instant she had seen a glimpse ofstartled recognition in the woman's eyes.

She gasped awake, her heart pounding, but she knew at once it wasnot the dream that had awakened her. There had been a sound, a movement,at the kitchen door. Livvy stood, her hand to her throat, paralyzedby sudden hope. "Charles?"

Now May You Weep
A Novel. Copyright © by Deborah Crombie. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from Now May You Weep by Deborah Crombie
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