“The best thing is not to try stopping it. It’ll wear thin in another week or two.” He cleared his throat. “No, it’s not the letters that’ve brought me here. Not directly. Fiona—now it’s said that the boy’s not yours.”

“Not mine?” She stared at him, frowning. “If I’m a fallen woman, how can he not be mine? It’s the sin I’m accused of! Wantonness.”

“I told you, it wasn’t to do with those letters. They’re no more than wicked nonsense. No, what’s brought me here is another matter. Serious enough for the police to be looking into it.” He hesitated, searching for words, awkward with his discomfort. “There’s a suspicion that—er—that you killed his mother—and took the child.”

He could see the shock in her eyes, the draining of warm color from her face. It cut him to the heart.

“I don’t believe you!” she whispered. “No, I don’t believe you—it’s all part and parcel with the whispers!”

“Fiona,” Alistair said pleadingly, “Mr. Robson sent me here, I didn’t want to come. He said, ‘No need to make a fuss. You’ll do it best.’ But I don’t know how to do anything of the sort—”

Mr. Robson was the Chief Constable. Serious, indeed.

She became aware that they were still standing in the door, where all the world could see. “Come in. There’s no one about. There never is anymore.”

Fiona led him down the narrow passage that connected the inn to the little wing built into the side of it a hundred years earlier. She’d lived there since before her aunt died. And run the inn as well, from the time her aunt fell ill until custom dried up in June.

He followed her, staring at her straight back and her trim waist. And felt sick. Removing his hat, he tucked it under his arm. His boots clattered heavily on the wooden floor. His uniform seemed to choke him.

In the small room that served her as parlor, she gestured to the best chair and said, “I haven’t harmed anyone. It’s barbarous to say that I have!”

“I’m not liking it myself, to tell you the truth!” He turned away to stare at the tall clock that ticked quietly in the corner. He didn’t feel like sitting down, nor did he want to stand there and hear his own voice speak the words. But it had to be done. “They’re saying that—” His throat seemed to close.

“That what? You may as well tell me the rest!”

He flushed darkly and said, “—that you’ve got no marriage lines. You call yourself Mrs. MacLeod, but it isn’t true, you’ve never been married.” It came out in an anguished rush. “Could I please see your marriage lines? It will stop the talk, it’s all I need.”