The Witch Of Clan Sinclair (24 page)

She put Alistair down on the carpet. He promptly went to the chest in the corner and pulled out one of his puzzles. Virginia plucked a few broadsides from the shelf to read. Mairi always kept her furnished with the latest from Edinburgh. Some women liked flowers. Others liked confections. Virginia loved reading broadsides, the more gruesome, the better.

“Even if we take a loss on the book,” he said, “it’s worth the expense.”

She laughed, the sound of it carrying her through the library and spearing his heart. Was there any sound as beautiful as Virginia’s laugh?

“Perhaps they’ll surprise you, Macrath, and it will sell well.”

“I don’t honestly care,” he said. “It’s worth whatever it costs just to have a little peace.”

He straightened the top of his desk, having learned from prior experience that it wasn’t a good idea to have an inkwell where Alistair could get to it. He also put away his best pen in case his son decided to try to use it to draw again.

As he opened his desk drawer, he saw the letter Mairi had given him. To his discredit, he’d put it there and forgotten about it.

“Why are you frowning so?” Virginia asked.

“Mairi’s been getting anonymous letters,” he said.

“Has she?”

He extended the letter to her. Virginia uncurled her legs from the chair, stood and retrieved it. Taking it back to her chair, she sat and read it, her frown deepening as she did so.

“What has she done that’s so terrible?” she asked, lifting her gaze to him.

He shrugged. “Written something that annoyed someone. Always a chance in the newspaper business. She went after the Lord Provost. That might have incited the letter writer. Or her involvement in the SLNA.”

“From what I saw, her relationship with the Lord Provost isn’t an adversarial one.”

He needed to tell her what James had said, where little ears couldn’t hear.

“Does the handwriting look familiar to you?” she asked.

“Something about it does,” he said. “But I’m not certain what.”

Virginia stood, crossing the room. Without a word, she grabbed a ledger from the shelf, bringing it back to his desk. Opening the book at random, she pointed to a page.

“Look at the writing.”

“It’s not the same,” he said. “He’s printed there.”

“Not everywhere. Look at the letters. They match.”

She was right. Why hadn’t he seen it before? For that matter, why hadn’t Mairi, unless she’d only seen the printing on Robert’s ledgers? The next question, why had the man he’d hired to help his sister written something so vile?

Robert owed him an explanation.

“You’d better leave first thing in the morning,” she said calmly, picking up the ledger and putting it back into place.

He sat back, watching her. From the very first moment, he’d known he could fall in love with this woman. Not once had he considered that the love he felt for Virginia might deepen and grow until it was a part of him, as important as breath or his beating heart.

She understood him and now she knew he felt he had to get to Edinburgh for Mairi’s sake.

“Have I told you how much I love you?” he asked.

He stood and opened his arms. As simple as that, and she was there, smiling at him.

F
enella was an excellent hostess, making Ellice comfortable in the guest room, asking if there was anything the girl liked to eat. She even mentioned taking her around to see various sights in Edinburgh.

However, she barely spoke to Mairi and she never once looked in her direction.

Mairi waited until her cousin was alone in the dining room before approaching her.

“You’re still angry with me.”

Fenella didn’t look at her when she answered. “Shouldn’t I be? You accused Allan of something horrid.”

“I don’t think it was Allan. I don’t know who it was.”

Her cousin glanced at her.

“I want only the best for you, Fenella. I like Allan very much and I’ll warmly welcome him into the family.” Reaching out, she enveloped Fenella in a hug. “I want you to be happy.”

“Do you still suspect him?”

Mairi shook her head. “No,” she said. “I don’t.” She was listening to her heart on that decision. She didn’t want Allan to be guilty.

“Mr. Harrison will be pleased you’re home,” Fenella said. “He’s inquired about you almost every day.”

“Has he?”

She most definitely did not want to talk about Logan.

“Tell me, have you and Allan selected a date?”

Fenella spent the next five minutes telling her everything she and Allan had planned. Allan’s brother, the last of his family, was traveling from Dumfries to meet her. The wedding was to be a small one, but the date had not yet been selected.

As she spoke, Fenella’s joy was visible for anyone to see.

Mairi had never once been jealous of her cousin and she found the emotion uncomfortable now.

At dinner, she wasn’t surprised to discover that Ellice was charming, amusing, and able to converse with both Fenella and Robert easily. She’d noted a change in Ellice the more distance she’d put between herself and Drumvagen. No longer was she quiet, almost shy, and certainly fearful. Was it leaving Drumvagen? Or was it coming out from beneath the shadow of her mother?

Robert looked at Ellice with approval. Of course, the girl didn’t say anything shocking, was filled with praise about the house and its furnishings, and stated that she was excited to see more of Edinburgh.

He was less pleased with Mairi, who waited until they were served dessert to make her announcement.

“I’m changing the name of the newspaper,” she said. “Well, not just the name, but the emphasis as well. The new name is going to be the ‘Edinburgh Women’s Gazette.’ We’re going to feature stories that would be of interest primarily to women. Even the columns will be slanted for women.”

She looked at each face, noted Fenella’s and Ellice’s interest. She hesitated a moment before looking at Robert, but when she saw his eyes flatten to two brown stones, she wasn’t surprised.

“It will not cost that much,” she said, breaking a rule and discussing finances at the dinner table. “I have Macrath’s blessing.”

“What will happen to the current subscribers?” Fenella asked.

She’d already thought about that.

“They’ll be given an opportunity to continue their subscription. If they object, then they will be taken off the roll.”

“You’ll have to refund the money,” Robert said.

“Only on a pro rata basis,” she said. “Thankfully, most of our subscriptions have come at different times throughout the year. We won’t feel an immediate financial hardship if they all discontinue at once.”

She smiled determinedly. “But I won’t give them the opportunity to cancel,” she said. “They’ll be so impressed by the new paper that they’ll not only renew, but convince their friends and neighbors to subscribe as well.”

Robert abruptly stood, said good-night to Fenella while once more welcoming Ellice to the household. Pointedly ignoring Mairi, he made his way to the stairs. They could hear him stomping to his room.

“We don’t feel the same, miss,” Abigail said, gathering up the dishes on the sideboard. “As Mr. Robert, I mean.”

She glanced at the maid.

“It’s proud we are of you, all of us.”

“Thank you, Abigail,” she said, feeling a surge of warmth at the girl’s words.

If she had to fight this battle in her own household, how much worse was it going to be among the citizens of Edinburgh?

Why did it suddenly seem more than she could accomplish?

Chapter 26

T
o Mairi’s dismay, sleep wasn’t easier in her own room than it had been at Drumvagen. Instead, she lay staring up at the ceiling illuminated by the bluish white glare of moonlight. She could hear Fenella and Ellice giggling down the hall, but gradually even the sounds of amusement faded, leaving only the sigh of the wind against the windows as company.

The hole in her chest expanded, growing larger and larger until she could envision a giant black space in the middle of the mattress encompassing everything, even her.

She missed him.

There, a confession she should have been too wise to utter even to herself.

He was close. Close enough for her to walk to his house if she was thoroughly foolhardy. In her imagination, she dressed and donned her cloak and her gloves, roused James from his room above the stable. She would caution him to secrecy, knowing that it meant nothing because he would tell Macrath. Now she simply didn’t care. She would laugh at his threats and race to the carriage, waiting impatiently.

She wouldn’t bother to explain herself to Logan’s majordomo or Mrs. Landers. Instead, she would run up the stairs to Logan’s room, throwing off her cloak and her clothes.

He would rise in his bed, surprised at her appearance.

Wicked and wanton, she would mount him, keep his head still for a kiss.

She’d take advantage of him, stroke her hands over his arms and chest, let her fingers dance along his skin, and incite shivers where she touched him. She’d inhale his moans and kiss him until he was senseless. Only then would she take him into her body and hold him there until the pleasure was so great she had to have her release.

The thought of being so abandoned was hardly restful or conducive to sleep.

After a while she sat on the edge of her bed, then went to her secretary, placing her hands flat on the surface where she’d written the broadside about him. If she wrote another about the Lord Provost, what would she say? What would she accuse him of? Stealing her sleep, perhaps. Infusing her mind with all sorts of wicked images, none of which she could easily banish.

She sat, laid her head down on her folded arms and sighed, thinking that she was sad sight indeed, a woman in thrall to a man.

Surely, though, men felt the same way. She would discount Calvin for the moment. He wasn’t the epitome of all things good about men, being as disloyal as he’d been. Did Allan feel that way about Fenella? Perhaps one day, if she had enough courage, she would ask him.

Her father had loved her mother long after she died in childbirth. He spoke of her often, and whenever he did, it was with a smile.

Perhaps, in her reporting, she could ask the men with whom she conversed how they felt about their wives. She would use the information for a future column of the
Gazette
. Surely women would be interested to hear what opinion husbands held.

She picked up her pen and jotted that idea down, along with another. She would ask Fenella her thoughts about love. What did it feel like? Was it a general ache in the body? Was it a burning sensation in the stomach? Was it a cacophony of thoughts that flew about in the mind like bats escaping from a cave? Was it the sudden inability to form a cogent thought?

Or was she ailing in some way?

Going to Drumvagen had not been the least bit relaxing. She’d been miserable there, and even more unhappy after Logan left.

Now, despite her plans for the
Gazette,
she wasn’t as enthused as she should have been. Why wasn’t the paper enough? Why was she so jealous of Fenella? Why did she feel so ancient when Ellice looked at her with admiration in her eyes?

Something must be done. She couldn’t allow this malaise to continue.

One way or another, she had to revert to her normal self. The Mairi Sinclair who was enthusiastic about each day, who knew exactly where she was going in life, who fretted about her restrictions but found a way around them nevertheless.

She removed her nightgown and began to dress, irritated with herself, Logan Harrison, and life in general. James was not going to be happy, but like it or not, he was going to have to drive her to the newspaper.

“I
’ll not leave you,” James said, opening the carriage door.

“Allan is here. You don’t have to stay.”

“It’s the middle of the night. I’ll not leave you.”

“Very well,” she said, “but you’re not going to sit out here. It’s too cold. Come with me.”

After she unlocked the door, he followed her inside, where she led him to her father’s office.

“You can stay here,” she said. “It’s warmer than sitting outside in the carriage.”

He nodded and settled behind her father’s desk.

Work had always been a panacea. She’d always found comfort in the pressroom, being able to immerse herself in a story, a broadsheet, or reading through the submissions to the paper.

Tonight, however, she roamed through the room, feeling the cold of the night that even the lit brazier in the corner couldn’t dispel.

She loved the look of the
Edinburgh Gazette.
She loved that it had been founded thirty years earlier, that it bore the Sinclair name on its masthead. It was created from thoughts converted to words, and printed using metal on paper. Each issue took her breath away.

Somehow, however, the paper wasn’t enough. When had that happened? When a certain tall and broad man had crossed her path, grinning at her until her heart stuttered?

She missed him.

Dear God, she missed arguing with him, touching him, anticipating his kiss, his comments, his stubbornness.

What was she going to do?

Work—that was all she had left.

Allan slept above. Could he hear her? Would he come to see what the noise was and why the lamps had been lit?

Perhaps he would keep James company.

Still clad in her cloak, she removed her gloves, wandering from the shelves along the walls to the massive press in the middle of the room. Allan had taken advantage of her absence and cleaned the plates and the mechanism. Her fingers trailed along the metal, feeling no trace of oil or ink.

She would need to talk to him in the morning, ensure that he knew she welcomed him into the family, another person to whom she owed an apology or an explanation.

She should just print an announcement and distribute it like a broadside:

To the whole of Edinburgh, I’m sorry.

For daring to be more than just a woman. For wanting to be treated like a man, or at least with the same respect. For having dreams beyond my sex and my station. For being rash and improvident. For allowing a charming smile to lull me into being fascinated by a man.

She should concentrate on the next issue of the paper. From her pocket she withdrew those submissions she’d read at home. There were enough to fill six columns, at least. She’d let other writers talk for her during this edition, and next edition she’d make the announcement about the
Gazette.

Would she lose all their subscribers?

Her sources might disappear completely. Would they be as reluctant to talk to her as they’d been after her broadside about Logan?

Perhaps she should tell them that she’d been with him one night, his mistress for an evening, his paramour for a certain number of hours. Knowing the high esteem in which the inhabitants of Edinburgh held their provost, perhaps it would elevate her standing.

After removing her cloak, she hung it on a peg near the door. Walking to the typesetting area, she stared at the rows of letters and phrases. These, too, had been cleaned. She placed the papers where she could read them, began with the first column, the movements of her fingers learned from when she was a girl, standing in front of her father and taught how to see the type in reverse.

The first article was one on the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and how each Scot should become involved in their campaigns.

She saw something out of the corner of her eye and glanced in that direction, thinking it might be James or a querulous Allan, coming to ask why she was at the paper in the middle of the night. Neither man appeared.

Turning back to her typesetting, she focused on her task, but not for long. The light in the hall was too bright to be a lamp. She smelled it before her conscious mind could accept its presence: fire.

Fire was their greatest enemy. Not only did they store newsprint on the second floor, but vats of ether used to clean the type were kept in the back along with other chemicals needed to run the press.

James was in the room closest to the storeroom.

She threw down the type and ran toward him, only to barrel into him as he was coming out of the office.

“Allan’s upstairs!”

James thrust her in the direction of the building entrance and raced up the stairs.

She stood there for a moment, then ran into the pressroom, grabbing the buckets of sand they kept there for just this purpose. One she emptied in the hall before the pressroom. A second she poured around the press, hoping it might keep the fire from it. The press and type were the most valuable items in the whole building.

She could hear the fire now. How strange that she’d never realized fire had a voice. It grumbled like a querulous Robert, creeping ever closer.

L
ogan hadn’t told his driver to go past the paper on his way home. But he hadn’t told the man to go straight home, either, so he was amused to note that they were nearing the Sinclair Printing Company. Evidently, his behavior of the last week had formed a habit.

He wasn’t certain he wanted to see the building.

She hadn’t yet returned, and her absence was eating at him. Mairi had never struck him as a coward, however. Sooner or later she would have to return to Edinburgh, and when she did, he was going to start courting her in earnest.

As they passed the building, Logan pushed the grate aside, calling for his driver to halt the carriage. A flickering yellow light beyond the windows confused him. Just as he realized what he was seeing, the sound of a woman’s shout skittered down his spine.

He opened the carriage door and began to run.