The Devil of Clan Sinclair (26 page)

She turned and smiled at him faintly. “You know him well. Paul Henderson.”

The man he’d fought in her London town house. He should have killed the bastard.

“Does it matter?” he asked. “I didn’t come to our bed a virgin, either.”

Her eyes widened.

“I grew up in the streets of Edinburgh,” he said, annoyed again. “If you expect me to be as delicate as a London dandy, you’ll be disappointed.”

“You always sound very Scottish when you’re angry.”

“You don’t belong to him. You didn’t belong to Traylor, either.”

“Who do I belong to, then? You?”

He smiled. “I’d prefer that to the other, wouldn’t you?”

“I’d prefer to belong to myself.”

She didn’t smile, merely kept her gaze on him. He realized, then, she’d not told him the whole of it. She hated that Henderson had touched her as much as he did.

He walked toward her slowly, giving her a chance to stop him. When he stood in front of her, he reached out, tucking a tendril of hair behind her ear.

“I could love you tonight,” he said. “Burn away the memory of anyone but me.”

She remained silent.

“But I won’t keep you here by passion, Virginia.”

She bowed her head. He extended his arms around her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

“I could kiss you until you forget everything but my kisses. I could love you until you only remember my name, my touch.”

“Macrath,” she said, but he pulled back, pressed a finger against her lips.

Perhaps they talked too much. He leaned down and placed his lips on hers, gently at first. Angling his head, he deepened the kiss, her mouth opening beneath his.

She made a sound in the back of her throat. One of awareness or surrender, he wasn’t sure which. He pulled her deeper into his arms, until a thought couldn’t come between them.

Her hand reached up, fingers touching his throat. Long moments later he pulled back to find her watching him.

He smiled as he dropped his arms. “But you were right,” he said. “In the morning, we’d have the same problems between us.”

He strode to the door, turned and watched her. Did she realize leaving her was one of the hardest things he’d ever done?

Her eyes were wide, her face pale. She gripped the fabric of her skirts with both hands.

“Good night, Virginia,” he said, forcing a smile to his face.

Sleep would be a long time coming.

Chapter 28

V
irginia half expected Macrath to return to her room. When he didn’t, she wasn’t disappointed. That’s what she told herself in the soft, filtered light of a gray Scottish morning.

Hannah, despite her anger at Macrath, was overjoyed to be back in the house, with water running hot from the boiler and a bathing chamber available. Her maid was positively giddy this morning, commenting on how lovely the day was—it wasn’t. Hannah also commented on the welcome she’d received from Brianag—which Virginia doubted. The one blessing in moving to Drumvagen was that she was able to visit the nursery without a long walk.

She’d tucked Elliot in herself last night.

“I’m glad you’re happy,” Virginia said, staring at her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was perfect, if a little too styled for this raw day. She didn’t care about the loops of braids or the intricate bun. “But you mustn’t think we’re staying much longer.”

Hannah’s eyes met hers in the mirror.

“We’ve been gone for weeks already,” Virginia said. “My aim was not to remain in Scotland. Merely to get Elliot and return to London.”

Hannah bent and retrieved a hairpin, studying it like she’d never seen one before today.

“Do you think he will, your ladyship? Let Elliot go, I mean?”

“Not now,” she said. “But there must be something I can do. Or say.”

Once her hair was done, she stood, walking to the window. The brisk wind on the moor called to her. So did the sight of Macrath standing there, solitary and still, like he waited for her.

“I wish we’d packed my cloak,” she said.

“You can’t be thinking of going out in this,” Hannah said. “It’s blowing near a gale out there, your ladyship. Another storm is coming.”

“I’ve a chance to beard the lion in his den,” she said.

Without another word she left the room.

At the first rise she stopped, waiting for Macrath to turn and see her. When he did, she still didn’t move. Instead, she stood waiting for a sign, an encouragement. When he started walking toward her, she picked up her skirts and approached him.

The girl she’d been two years ago would have raced toward him, her laughter as free as a soap bubble. He would have held his arms open, catching her with his hands on her waist, twirling her around.

The woman she’d been, newly widowed, would have felt her heart expand at the sight of him. She would have joined him, held his hand, and let him lead her where he wished.

This Virginia was a bit more cautious, sadder, and more burdened.

For a moment neither of them spoke.

“I was coming to see you,” he said.

“Were you?”

He nodded. “I wondered if you would like to see the rest of Drumvagen.”

Surprised, she nodded. “I would.”

He reached into his pocket. “I’ve a present for you,” he said, extending a small book to her.

“Thank you,” she said, a little bemused. “It’s Tennyson.”

Did he mean her to recall their meeting in the Round Reading Room?

“Come and meet Jack and Sam,” he said, taking her hand.

They approached the tall building she’d seen before. When she asked him why it was so large, he grinned, looking like a boy.

“To hold my new invention,” he said. “The flywheel is sixteen feet high. It’s designed to make ice at a faster pace than anything I’ve invented,” he added. “Plus, it uses ammonia.”

He went on to explain the process and she tried to respond intelligently while vowing to read something about Macrath’s inventions.

Jack and Sam turned out to be young men who regarded Macrath as if he were godlike, asking questions and waiting respectfully for his answers.

She realized she’d never seen this side of Macrath before. Here was the man in charge of a growing empire, an employer, a task master, someone who noted the height of a massive wheel with a quick eye and asked a question about ratios beyond her understanding.

Sam greeted her with a shy smile. Jack, however, waited until Macrath and Sam were speaking to address her.

“Hannah is well, then?”

Surprised, she answered him. “Yes, she’s well. You know her?”

He nodded. “She came to visit with the laundress a few times. I met her then.”

She wanted to ask more questions but was constrained by the presence of the other men. But she did take the opportunity to give him a warning.

“She’s a good person, Jack,” she whispered. “I would not have her hurt.”

His face flushed. “I would never hurt her, miss. Ma’am. Your ladyship.”

She nodded and walked away, standing at the wide door. From there she could see the ocean glittering in the morning sun, and the rear of the house bathed by the same light.

“What was that all about?” Macrath asked, stepping close to her.

“Love, I’m afraid,” she said.

Macrath surprised her by not asking any further questions. Instead, he extended his arm and she put her hand on it, allowing him to lead her through the rest of Drumvagen.

He told her of the trials of finishing the house, pointing out where they’d found stones from a keep probably built hundreds of years earlier.

His stables were magnificent, built of the same brick as the house.

“Good Scottish stone,” he said with a smile. “Everything I could buy from Scotland, I did. What I couldn’t, I found in France or England. The chandelier in the hall, for example, is from France.”

“As is the furniture in my suite,” she said, then verbally retraced her steps. “In the suite I’m currently occupying.”

He only smiled at her mistake, led her to a stall and introduced her to a pretty little mare named Empress.

When she once confided she’d never been a great horsewoman, he hadn’t tried to convince her to try riding again. He had never tried to change her, a fact she appreciated.

They visited the barn and enclosures, where she admired one of the black-faced ewes heavy with lamb.

“Most lambs are born in the spring,” he explained. “She found herself in this predicament, no doubt from too much frolicking.”

The remark was meant to be joking, but it cut too close to their own situation. Frolicking, indeed.

Was that why he hadn’t visited her room, because he was cautious about frolicking?

The question never left her lips.

The sun appeared through a rip in the clouds, promising a bright and sparkling afternoon. But when she begged off from any more exploration, he didn’t object, merely nodded.

“I need to return to the nursery,” she said.

He only smiled, an expression that had her wanting to reach up and place her fingers over his lips. He mustn’t try to charm her as he’d done all morning. He really shouldn’t smile at her in such a way.

She took her book of poetry and returned to the house, feeling more than a little cowardly for escaping.

Macrath fascinated her too much.

She had to remember why she was here, and why she needed to leave. Daily, however, he was making it more difficult, and she couldn’t help but wonder if he’d planned it that way.

P
aul smiled and plunked down the coins for the drinks on the table. With a bit more ale, maybe he’d be able to understand his companions better.

He’d never held an antipathy for the Scots, at least until meeting Macrath Sinclair. Now every single Scot he met reminded him of the man.

Money, a perennial lubricant, aided him in his quest for information. By the second day in Kinloch Village, spent in one of the wharf-side taverns, he’d loosened enough tongues to get directions to Sinclair’s house.

He’d even had the good fortune of talking to several lads employed at Drumvagen. Now he had enough information to draw a map of the place.

The harbor town proved beneficial in another way. Two ships were leaving soon, one of them the
Oregon
, bound for America. He hadn’t hesitated in booking passage for two.

He shook his head when William would have downed the contents of his tankard. The man looked disappointed but put the tankard down. William needed to pace himself or he’d be a liability.

A beggar worked harder than a man used to eating. Before he left London, he’d hired William, who willingly confessed to being a snakesman when Paul had asked. A past they’d shared, although he hadn’t confided in the man that he, too, had been a burglar before he got too large to crawl into some of the windows.

William was tall and gaunt, like he’d never eaten his fill. His hair, black and stringy, was queued at the back of his neck, revealing features that could do with a bit of a wash.

Paul was careful never to remain downwind of William for long. His hints about the man’s aversion to bathing had fallen on deaf ears, as did his caution about drink. William liked his ale and whiskey almost as much as he disliked soap and water.

One thing he did do about the man’s appearance, and marginally his odor, was to send William off to a used clothing mart to replace his stained shirt and trousers. William had returned looking much the same but smelling better.

Amazing what a decade could do. Ten years ago he’d been just like William, a sour stench clinging to him, his clothes as dirty and soiled. He’d wanted better and had set about changing. He’d learned to speak like the toffs, to bathe and smell good, to eat with the right utensils, to rid himself of the habits clearly labeling him as lower class.

In the task he’d hired William for, appearance didn’t matter. Still, he didn’t want him to attract undo attention. Luckily, the smell of fish was so strong that it easily overcame William’s body odor.

He’d told William a tale, one of a woman who needed to be rescued. William was just young enough to believe it, and old enough to cast himself in the role of good Samaritan or a prince rescuing a princess.

He took a sip from his tankard and nodded when William glanced at him. William drank deep, settled back in the chair with a satisfied sigh and belched loud and long.

The other men laughed. Paul smiled and ordered another round. Leaning forward, he said, “Now, tell me more about this grotto.”

V
irginia sat in Macrath’s library, a room so like him she could almost feel him there with her.

The fireplace on the far wall was surrounded by white marble. In the winter it would burn brightly, warming a room now pleasantly cool.

The large desk stretched nearly the length of the room, a leather chair sitting behind it. Lining the walls were shelves of books, most of them having to do with electricity or inventions of sorts.

She’d brought the book of poetry he’d given her, picked one of the leather wing chairs, and propped her feet on a footstool. For the last hour she’d been half involved with the book, and the other half engaged in thoughts of Macrath.

She’d been his guest, if she could call herself that, for a week now. Each day, he’d been charming and polite. Every night as she retired, she expected a knock on her door.

They should be lovers, he’d say. After all, they’d already been lovers. Why were they trying to deny themselves the pleasure each felt?

Except he’d never come.

In all these nights, he’d not once kissed her or teased her into passion. He’d not seduced her or driven her mad with his touch.

Instead, he’d done things that surprised her.

A rocking chair had recently been brought to the nursery, followed by another delivery the following day. A larger cradle was carried in by two burly men. To her horror, a live hen was tied inside it. She’d been told by Brianag, who seemed to have endless knowledge of such things, that it was unlucky otherwise. Nor could the cradle touch the ground before it was put in its permanent place.

Brianag also cautioned her that she shouldn’t talk to Elliot.

“He’ll learn to talk before he walks,” she warned. “He’ll be a liar for sure.”

Being unfamiliar with Scottish customs, Virginia would have liked to ask Macrath about some of them, but he’d disappeared. He not only avoided coming to her room, but rarely made a visit to the nursery in the last week. At least, he’d not come when she was there.

If she hadn’t been afraid the answer was yes, she might have found the courage to ask him if he was avoiding her. Was it because of Paul? Was he adverse to touching her because of what she’d told him?

Suddenly, like she’d conjured him up from a wish, Macrath was there, standing in the doorway. He entered the room like a gust of fresh wind. As she did every time she saw him after an absence of a few moments or hours, she marveled at her reaction. Her pulse raced and her chest tightened.

“I went looking for you,” he said. “I couldn’t find you, and for a moment I felt almost as panicked as a grandmother.”

She closed the book slowly.

“A panicked grandmother? The only grandmother at Drumvagen is Brianag, and I can’t imagine her in a panic. Ever.”

He grinned. “She likes you, you know,” he said, coming to sit beside her on the companion chair. He reached over and held her hand loosely, the first time they’d touched in days.

“Does she? I like her as well. Once,” she added, “I realized she wasn’t nearly as frightening as she first appeared.”

His laugh brightened the room. “She struck me that way, too. I wondered why she had such high recommendations. All she did was scowl at me, demand to know what I was going to do with Drumvagen, and then dictate terms of her hire.”