The Devil of Clan Sinclair (2 page)

Chapter 1

London, England

July, 1869

T
he ferns near the window wiggled their fronds as if they wanted to escape the room.

Virginia Anderson Traylor, Countess of Barrett, wiggled on the chair and wanted to do the same.

She sat in the corner of the parlor, swathed in black. Her hands were folded on her lap, her knees pressed together, her head at the perfect angle.

How many times had she thought about this scene? In the last year, at least a dozen or more, but in her imagination she’d always been surrounded by weeping women rather than sitting a solitary vigil.

She stood, unable to remain still any longer. She’d been a good and proper widow for nine hours now. For the last four, she’d watched over her husband’s coffin alone.

Her thoughts, however, had not been on her husband.

A dog howled, no doubt the same dog that howled for three nights straight. Ellice, her sister-in-law, thought he’d announced Poor Lawrence’s death.

The parlor where she sat stretched the length of the town house. Two fireplaces warmed it in winter, but now it was pleasantly temperate. The room had been refurbished with the infusion of money she’d brought to the marriage. The wallpaper was a deep crimson, topped by an ivory frieze of leaves and ferns. Four overstuffed chairs, upholstered in a similar crimson pattern as the wallpaper, squatted next to a tufted settee. A half-dozen marble-topped tables, each adorned with a tapestry runner, filled the rest of the available space, their sharp corners patiently waiting to snare a passing skirt.

No doubt Enid meant for the room to be the perfect showplace in the Earl of Barrett’s home. What her mother-in-law had accomplished, however, was a parlor reeking with excess. Even the potpourri was overpowering, smelling so strongly of cloves that her nose itched and her eyes watered.

The coffin was crafted of polished mahogany, wider at the shoulders and narrow at the feet, with three brass handles on each side. A round brass plaque over where Poor Lawrence’s heart would be was engraved
OUR BELOVED
.

Not
her
beloved, and he hadn’t shown much love toward his family. The hyperbole, however, was expected of them. So, too, all the mourning rituals that would be carried out in the next year.

Perhaps Lawrence had arranged for his own coffin and the plaque was a last thumb in the eye to his wife, mother, and sisters.

For her sitting, she’d insisted the top of the coffin be lowered. The other members of the family would probably want to view Poor Lawrence once more.

“A bad heart,” Enid had called it. A bad disposition as well, although perhaps she shouldn’t fault him for being angry at the circumstances he’d been dealt. A semi-invalid since birth, he’d been limited in what he could do, to the point of being imprisoned in this house.

Poor Lawrence was what she called him in her thoughts. To his face, she’d been a proper wife. “Dearest husband,” she’d said on those occasions when he allowed her to visit him.

“Dearest husband, how are you feeling?”

“Dearest husband, you’re looking better.”

“Dearest husband, is there anything I can bring you?”

He never answered, only slitting his eyes at her like she was an insect he’d discovered in his food.

Lawrence was, whether it was right to say such a thing about the deceased, a thoroughly unlikable person. Yet John Donne, the poet, stated that every man’s death was a loss to be experienced by all mankind.

With age, Lawrence might have changed. He might have become a better person. He might have even been generous and caring.

How foolish it was to ascribe virtues to the dead they never owned in life. Lawrence wasn’t a hero and he wasn’t kind. Look at how he’d thrust them all into poverty.

She could easily understand his antipathy toward her. After all, didn’t she feel the same for him? Why, though, would he treat his sisters and mother with contempt? Why punish them when it was obvious they hadn’t done anything but treat him with kindness and care?

Every day, Eudora and Ellice called on their brother. Even if Lawrence wouldn’t see them, they still returned, time after time. Eudora selected books she thought he’d like to read from their library. Ellice relayed stories to him of their days and the world outside the house.

Enid was as fond as any mother could be, worrying about Lawrence’s health, querying his attendant about his cough, his color, his weakness. Despite his wishes, she insisted the doctor make regular visits, and listened when his examination was done.

What had Lawrence done to repay them? Guaranteed they would forever be dependent on others.

He could, just as easily, have given some of her father’s money to his mother—or to her—to ensure their future was secure. Or he could have spent it on personal property not subject to his will.

But he hadn’t done anything kind or caring.

At least, now, she would never again have to pretend to be a loving wife. These sleepless hours were little enough sacrifice for such blessed freedom.

Custom dictated the curtains be drawn, but she’d opened them at midnight, unable to bear the closed-in feeling of the room. The mirror was swathed in crepe. Candles sat burning on the mantel beside a clock stopped at the time of Poor Lawrence’s death.

The room celebrated death, but she’d never been afraid of death. She was not overly fond of the dark, heights, or the ocean, however, and she detested spiders.

“The world is not going to swallow you whole, Virginia,” her father had said more than once. “There’s no reason to be a timid little mouse.”

She circled the bier, her fingers trailing over the polished top of the coffin, closer to Poor Lawrence in death than she’d ever been in life except one time, the night their marriage had been consummated, six months after their wedding. On that occasion, he’d kissed her, so passionately it jolted her. The coupling, however, had been a painful experience, one she’d not wished to repeat. To her relief, he felt the same and they never touched again.

Enid, Dowager Countess of Barrett, pulled open the sliding doors of the parlor, then closed them just as quickly.

Her mother-in-law was stocky and short, her shoulders as wide as her hips. When Enid headed toward her, it was like facing a solid wall of determination. Enid’s brown eyes could be as warm as chocolate sauce. Now they were as cold as frozen earth.

“Have you decided?”

Even though it was just before dawn, her mother-in-law was dressed in a black silk dress with jet buttons. Her hair was pulled back from her round face and contained in a black net snood. Although she wore a full hoop, she expertly navigated the room filled with furniture, moving to occupy a chair close to the bier.

“What you propose is so . . .” The words trailed away.

“Practical? Logical?” Enid asked.

Virginia walked to the window, trying to find some way to respond.

“Do not think Jeremy will support us, my dear. He will banish us from this house with a quickness that will surprise you. What he doesn’t do, his harridan of a wife will. They’ll care nothing for what happens to us.”

“Would you?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at her mother-in-law. “If the situation were reversed, would you care for Jeremy and his wife?”

“And their brood of children?” Enid sighed deeply. “I don’t know. They’re badly behaved children.”

Virginia bit back a smile. Yes, they were, and she dreaded any occasion when she had to encounter Jeremy’s seven children.

If Lawrence had left behind one child, they wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Her mother-in-law was a planner, witness her brilliance in arranging a marriage between Lawrence, an invalid, and an American heiress. One thing Enid hadn’t been able to do, however, was inspire Lawrence to bed his wife on more than one occasion.

She rarely called Enid “Mother,” falling back on a habit of not addressing her at all unless it was in the company of others. Her own mother had died at her birth, a fact she’d been reminded of endlessly as a child. Not by her father, who seemed surprised when she was trotted out for his inspection at Christmas and during his one summer visit. A succession of nurses and governesses, all hired to tend her and keep her out of her father’s way, ensured she knew her entrance into the world had been accompanied by the greatest tragedy.

She couldn’t even imagine her mother’s disembodied voice on this occasion. Would she have sided toward logic and survival? Or would her mother have been horrified at Enid’s suggestion?

“Something must be done,” Enid said. “You know as well as I.”

The title was going to pass to Lawrence’s cousin, Jeremy. He was a perfectly agreeable sort of person, pleasant to Virginia when they met. She didn’t see anything wrong with him assuming the title. The problem was, everything Lawrence had purchased since receiving the bulk of her estate: the numerous houses, parcels of land, dozens of horses, farm equipment, and furnishings. Lawrence had ensured they would also go to his cousin by willing them to the “male heir of his body.” Without an heir, the property traveled back up the family tree to Jeremy.

Without any cash or assets they could sell, they’d be penniless.

All she had was her quarterly allowance, and it wouldn’t buy more than a few bottles of perfume. She had her mother’s jewels, but they were more sentimental than valuable since her mother evidently had not been ostentatious in her dress. One good ruby brooch and a carnelian ring could be sold. How much would those bring her? Not enough to care for all the people who needed to be supported.

They were in dire straits, indeed.

Unless she produced an heir to the estate.

What Enid was proposing was shocking. Somehow, she needed to get with child and quickly enough that he would be viewed as Lawrence’s heir.

“It’s a solution to our dilemma,” Enid said. “Have you given any thought to it?”

She nodded. She’d thought about nothing but their situation in the last four hours. God help her, but here in this room with her husband’s body in a casket, she’d thought about nothing but him.

Macrath.

Chapter 2

London

A year earlier

W
hen they’d arrived in London, Virginia had no idea she’d be heartily tired of the city within the month.

Tonight’s ball was the third in two weeks, and the tenth engagement. Through it all, she saw the same people in different attire. The muscles of her face ached from smiling. Her feet hurt from walking on hardwood floors in her thin kid slippers.

She wanted to put her feet up, first, and second, she couldn’t wait to read the broadsides her American maid had smuggled to her. Her father had come to her room, interrupting them, so she’d folded them quickly and stuffed them into her reticule, and all night she’d been dying to see what the talk of London was now.

She slipped away, retreating to their host’s library. Settling into the corner of the settee and tucking her feet beneath her, she retrieved the broadside and smoothed it with her fingers.

On Monday an inquest was held at the National School, before Mr. Worley, coroner, to inquire into the cause of the death of Thomas Newbury, a boy who was found dead with his throat cut in a pea-field, near Haversham.

A sad, a cruel dreadful deed,

To you I will unfold, The murder of a little boy,

As base as e’er was told;

Murdered by a cruel man,

At Haversham we hear,

Near the town of Newport Pagnell,

In the county of Buckinghamshire.

“There’s a better light over here,” a masculine voice said.

Startled, she dropped the paper, then bent to pick it up, pressing it against her chest.

“I do apologize,” she said. “I thought the room was empty.”

She glanced toward the two massive leather chairs arranged in front of the fireplace. The speaker wasn’t visible.

“As you can see, it’s not,” he said.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt your . . .” Her words trailed off.

“Reverie? Contemplation? Solitude?”

“Yes, all that,” she said. “Your musing. Your considerations. Perhaps even your meditations.”

He peered around the side of the chair, his smile surprising her. Or was it his intent blue eyes she saw first?

Her father always said she looked half finished. God had certainly taken the hue from her pale blue eyes and given it to this man. His eyes were such a startling blue she noted them from across the room.

The color reminded her of midnight over the Hudson, when the sky seemed like a curtain behind which a celestial lantern hid, revealing the night to be not black at all, but a deep and rich blue.

“My escape, most like,” he said. “Are you doing the same?”

“I’m afraid I’m doing worse than that,” she said.

An eyebrow lifted. “Are you absconding with something belonging to our hostess?”

“Of course not.”

She debated whether to confess. To her father, a broadside was coarse and common. No one in proper company ever confessed to reading them. Nor was she to associate with people who did so.

“I was reading a broadside,” she said. “About a horrible murder.”

“Were you?” He didn’t frown in dismay at her. Nor did he suddenly seem coolly aloof. He merely relaxed there, a handsome stranger who had evinced more curiosity about her than anyone had since arriving in England.

She stood, walked to the two chairs, and without invitation sat in the one beside him. What a handsome man he was. His mouth and eyes seemed paired in humor. His face was lean, the planes of it sharpened rather than shaped. Nothing about him was soft or genial, but she wanted to smile at him as she stared.

While she couldn’t tell since he was seated, he seemed to be tall. His shoulders were broad enough, taking up the width of the chair. His legs were stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. If there had been a roaring fire in the fireplace, she could understand why he’d escaped the entertainment. Since the evening was a temperate one, he must have retreated here for privacy.

She wanted to apologize for intruding. Instead, she handed him the broadside.

“It’s about a murder of a young boy.”

“Are you given to studying murder?”

She sighed. “I’m not very brave,” she confessed. “I don’t think I could bear an actual murder. But I do like reading about things that would terrify me otherwise. Besides, I’m very interested in what’s going on around me. How can anyone not want to know what’s happening in the world?”

“I thank providence for people like you.”

“Do you?” she asked, surprised. “Why?”

“I own a company in Scotland that prints broadsides.”

She sat back, clasping her hands together on her lap. “Are you jesting? Or making fun of me? I realize a great many people don’t think highly of broadsides, but why would you say such a thing?”

He handed back the paper, smiling at her. “I wouldn’t think of making fun of you,” he said. “What man in his right mind would ridicule a beautiful woman?”

Now she truly knew he was jesting. No one ever called her beautiful. Smart, perhaps, when she was dressed in the fashions her father had ordered. Perhaps even handsome when her hair was done correctly and she stood straight and tall, as her governess always instructed. But she’d never been called beautiful. Not even once, by the kindest person.

Her cheeks warmed and she was instantly filled with two conflicting wishes. She wanted to flee as quickly as she could. Yet she wanted to stay and talk with him at the same time.

“It’s called the Sinclair Printing Company,” he said. “We operate in Edinburgh. Have you ever been there?”

“This visit to England is my first outside New York,” she said. “I’m from America.”

“I discerned that,” he said with a smile. “From your accent. It sounds almost English, but it’s not.”

“You are not the first person to say that,” she said, looking down at her reticule. “My nurse was English and maybe I speak the way I do because of her. But everyone else has an accent, too. Such as yours. I could tell you were from Scotland.”

He leaned his head back against the chair, his hands resting on the arms, the pose of a man at ease.

She didn’t feel the least relaxed.

For the first time since she’d come to England, she was speaking with a truly handsome man. Even better, he was talking to her, and they were conversing about something more important than the weather.

“Do you print newspapers as well?”

“We do. Well, I don’t. I don’t run the company anymore. I’m involved in something else.”

His name was Macrath Sinclair and he was in London, he told her, to escort his sister.

For the next hour they talked of politics and broadsides, books and plays. Each thought London overwhelming at times, with traffic an endless obstacle. Each thought Londoners unbearably arrogant, topped only by the French, who were arrogant and smelled bad. Neither had an affinity for English food, or the melodramas of the day, preferring to read instead. His humor was dry yet he was polite enough to laugh at her few jests. They talked of everything, some subjects not considered proper in mixed company. She was, however, as she’d told him, fascinated with history and, too, intrigued by English politics.

“I’m an American,” she said, “and supposed to mind my manners. I’m not to be too inquisitive.”

“Have you always minded your manners?”

She smiled. “I have, yes.”

“That’s right. You’re not very brave. Are you really so cowardly?”

She sighed again.” I hate heights,” she said, “and spiders.”

He merely smiled at her, so charmingly that she found herself breathless.

With great regret, she left him finally, glancing back as she made her farewells, thinking that the miserable voyage to England had been worth it if only for this night.