The Virgin Of Clan Sinclair

by Karen Ranney

  Sinclair glanced over his shoulder at Ross. “Come in. If you’re as wet as me, the fire will be welcome.”

  “It’s been a long time since I was dry,” he said, joining Sinclair.

  For a few moments neither spoke, the silence surprisingly companionable. He’d expected to be lectured as to proper behavior, but after glancing at the man, he realized Sinclair was as exhausted as he was.

  They’d fought their own battles in the past day and a half and he had the inkling that Sinclair’s was the more difficult of the two.

  “I’m very happy to hear about your wife.”

  Sinclair nodded.

  When he didn’t speak, Ross subsided into silence. Should he broach the reason why he was here? Or simply excuse himself and allow the man to rest?

  “I hear I owe you a great debt,” Sinclair said.

  “No debt is owed.”

  Sinclair turned to face him. “You saved Kinloch. Some say single-handedly, and the Scots here are not given to awarding praise where it isn’t due.”

  “You would have done the same,” Ross said. “But you were occupied.”

  “Why did you? It’s not your land.”

  That comment surprised him.

  “Because the situation demanded it. People were going to lose their homes.”

  “Yet there was nothing in it for you, other than my thanks.”

  “Must there be some gratification in every deed?”

  “I would have thought so, especially of you,” Sinclair said.

  “You’re saying I act only to better my own circumstances,” Ross said carefully.

  “I’m saying that’s the impression I got of you. Why shouldn’t I? I’m aware of your wealth, Gadsden. I’ve seen Huntly. I know you’ve political aspirations. Was that why you helped the people of Kinloch?”

  “I came to apologize for my behavior with Miss Traylor, not to defend my actions to you, Sinclair.”

  “Nor do you need to do the latter, Gadsden.” Surprisingly, the other man smiled. “I don’t think your efforts were politically motivated. And I am grateful, more than you know.”

  Before he could speak, Sinclair held up his hand. “As far as the former, it’s to Ellice you owe your apology. Have you?”

  Ross speared his hands through his hair.

  He wanted to ask about Ellice and her history. Who was she, really? Evidently she wasn’t the charming ingenue she pretended to be. No woman could kiss that well without some practice.

  Had she a reputation in London? Was that the reason Sinclair had made a home for her and her mother in Scotland?

  “No,” he said, “I haven’t apologized to her.”

  “Then I would appreciate if you did so,” Sinclair said. “She isn’t as worldly or as experienced as you, your lordship. She does not deserve to be treated in such a way.”

  He doubted she was as innocent as Sinclair believed, but that was a comment he didn’t voice.

  The less he thought of Ellice, the better.

  Chapter 10

  For two days Ellice waited for her mother’s explosion. She readied herself for the lecture to come.

  How could you have done such a thing! My own daughter to shame me in such a way. Eudora would never have acted in such a disgraceful fashion!

  Or: What have I done, to be treated like this by an ungrateful child? What sins have I committed, to be humiliated in front of the whole of Scotland by a daughter who transformed herself to a harlot?

  Without even thinking about it, she had changed herself from being demurely proper to acting just like Lady Pamela, hadn’t she?

  She’d become surprisingly brave, but had no defense against her mother’s tirade.

  Gadsden had looked at her with those glorious eyes and that stubble of beard and she’d nearly swooned in his arms.

  To her surprise, her mother didn’t say a word about harlotry or wickedness. Oh, but she said a great deal about helping to save the village.

  “Whatever could you have been thinking of, being out in the weather, and with the maids, of all people? What will they think of you?”

  She didn’t know. Nor did she care. She felt curiously distant from the opinions of others, but she did note that the maids smiled more easily at her. Even Brianag unbent enough to thank her for her efforts to save Kinloch.

  Gadsden was still at Drumvagen. The river hadn’t subsided enough for the bridge to be passable. She vacillated between hoping the water level would soon drop to praying that it wouldn’t do so anytime soon.

  Even her mother noticed her mood.

  “What has gotten into you, child?” Enid said on the morning of the second day after the scene in the gazebo.

  Would she always think of time that way, she wondered: the day before the gazebo and afterward?

  “I’ve never seen you so unsettled. Are you certain you’re not ill?”

  “No, Mother.”

  “If you are, do not go to see Virginia. That’s all she needs, to come down with your cold.”

  “I assure you, Mother, I’m well. Truly,” she said, leaving the room to see Virginia for the first time since she’d given birth.

  The baby was large, loud, and greeted everyone but his mother with a squalling cry. As far as Virginia, she was still pale, her eyes shadowed and her lips nearly without color. When Ellice handed her a cup of tea, a restorative blend Brianag swore by, Virginia’s hand trembled as if she were still weak.

  “I’m not to stay but a moment,” Ellice said, “but I wanted to see you.”

  “Who told you not to bother me?” Despite her wan appearance, there was a spark of humor in Virginia’s eyes.

  “Brianag.”

  “Not Macrath?”

  She hadn’t seen Macrath since the night he’d come to the gazebo, yet another person she avoided assiduously. In Macrath’s case it wasn’t difficult. He was either at Virginia’s side or in his library. As long as she avoided those rooms, she was relatively safe.

  “I’m surprised,” Virginia said. “He’s very protective of me. More so since Carlton was born.”

  The baby snuffled in his cradle beside the bed as if knowing he was the topic of conversation.

  Virginia stretched out her hand toward her son. “My milk has not come,” she said. “It’s the first time I’ve not nursed my child.”

  “You had a very difficult time.”

  Did Virginia know how close she’d come to dying?

  She sat with Virginia for five minutes more, talking of the baby and the flood. Before Macrath came back, or Brianag arrived to chastise her, she stood, kissed Virginia on the cheek, and left for the nursery.

  To give Mary a respite, Ellice took the children to the large parlor on the first floor. Brianag called it the Tartan Parlor because every upholstered surface was in a bright red and black plaid. Even the curtains were tartan, framing a view of the rear of the house, the barn, and Macrath’s laboratory.

  Brianag had placed bouquets of heather in clay jars on the tables. Ellice liked the fragrance but preferred roses from the sheltered garden at the rear of Drumvagen.

  She was not about to mention that to Brianag. As Enid’s daughter, she was naturally suspect and considered in the enemy camp.

  Macrath’s suggestion, a few years earlier, for the Dowager Countess of Barrett and Brianag, housekeeper to Drumvagen and wise woman of Kinloch Village, to pen a book between them had been considered odd. No one, least of all her, had expected the The Lady’s Guide to Proper Housekeeping to succeed as well as it had. Macrath told her they’d received orders from as far away as Australia.

  They’d been at each other’s throats within months of the publication of the book. The only respite had been the days of worrying about Virginia. Now that life was almost back to normal, her mother and Brianag were fighting again.

  Even now she could hear them.

  “Of course the Scots would want to know how an Englishwoman manages a household,” her mother said. “The Scots always look to the English.”r />
  Brianag was not to be outdone. She muttered something in that unintelligible Scots of hers, followed by, “Only if they want to know how to ruin something.”

  Macrath had urged them to work on another book in the futile hope that activity would keep their antipathy at bay. So far they couldn’t be in the same room for more than five minutes.

  How could they be so shortsighted?

  If she had the opportunity they’d been given, she would have leapt at the chance. She would have done anything Macrath wanted in order to get her book published. As it was, her manuscript remained a closely guarded secret. She and Virginia—and now the Earl of Gadsden—were the only ones who knew of its existence.

  “Glib i the tung is aye glaikit at the hert,” Brianag said, her voice just this side of a shout.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” her mother said. “Would it be too absurd to hope that one day you would speak the Queen’s English? Even a Scot can learn that.”

  When a door slammed somewhere, she closed her eyes. Who had made a grand exit now?

  Alistair was drawing, an occupation Ellice fervently approved of, since she had to rescue Fiona every other minute. What the little girl didn’t try to eat she wanted to climb.

  The first notice she had that Macrath entered the room was Fiona’s screech in her left ear. Since she was holding the child at the time, she wasn’t prepared for a high-pitched squeal or for Fiona to suddenly lunge forward with her upper body, arms outstretched.

  Ellice nearly fell on her face.

  Thankfully, Macrath was there, plucking the little girl from her arms and into the air, which prompted yet another squeal.

  “I’ve come at the right time,” he said, smiling.

  She nodded, struck dumb by surprise. He didn’t seem angry at her. Nor were his eyes narrowed in disapproval or disappointment. Perhaps his relief over Virginia’s health had made him more sanguine about her lapse of decorum. Or it was possible he’d forgotten.

  She doubted either, but perhaps he wasn’t going to tell her mother how wanton she’d been.

  “I never got a chance to thank you for your efforts for Kinloch,” Macrath said.

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to replace all your bedding, and the muslin as well.”

  “A cheap enough price to save the village.”

  She nodded again. Evidently, she wasn’t going to be reprimanded for the scene in the gazebo.

  “Go and get some air,” Macrath said. “We’ll survive without you for a few hours. The day is a beautiful one.”

  “If you’re sure.”

  “I am,” he said, placing Fiona on his shoulders. His daughter squealed in delight as she left the room.

  “Ellice.”

  She turned at the door.

  “We’re having a farewell dinner tonight. Gadsden is leaving in the morning.”

  “He’s leaving?” she asked, feeling a curious constriction in the area of her heart.

  “The water is subsiding. The bridge is passable and the roads clear enough.”

  She nodded again.

  “I know you’ve been avoiding him, but I’d appreciate your presence at dinner.”

  For a third time she nodded, incapable of speech. Escaping the parlor, she rushed up the stairs to her suite, where she grabbed her manuscript then flew down the stairs and out Drumvagen’s front door, heading toward the crofter’s cottage.

  Virginia had found her in the gazebo once, when she’d gone there to find some peace and to write. She made the cottage available and ensured that a table and chair were delivered along with a lamp to use on those gray days.

  Many rainy afternoons Ellice sat at the table beside the window, watching the raindrops fall from the thatch, thankful for the tranquility Virginia had given her.

  Now she opened the cottage door and, with the sigh of one to whom a reprieve had been given, studied the interior. Other than the floor being muddy along the edge of the walls, and signs that the thatch needed repairing again, the cottage had survived the storm well.

  The interior smelled of damp, though, and she opened the door and the windows to air out the space.

  In the last two days, whenever her imagination threatened to catch her up and lift her away from the real world like a gust of wind, she’d stop herself and concentrate on the task at hand. Nor would she allow herself to write, and that was the most grievous self-punishment she might have devised.

  She had no one to whom she could confide her deepest thoughts. If her sister were alive she might have spoken to her. Or perhaps not, for fear Eudora would go to their mother. She certainly couldn’t waylay one of the maids, pull her into her room and regale her with all the thoughts she’d had over the last two days.

  Her only confidante was a blank page. Her self-punishment, therefore, only lasted a few hours.

  Once her pages had been arranged on the table, she sat, picked up her pen and began to write.

  He was leaving.

  Of course he was leaving. He was returning home. He’d never think of her again. Never smile at her.

  He is on my mind so much I would think myself enchanted, one of the Scottish creatures Brianag is either threatening to summon or promising to vanquish.

  I was captured by the moment, by the sheer passion of it all. I was no longer Ellice Traylor but someone else. Not as exciting a personage as Lady Pamela, but someone close. My own version of Lady Pamela, perhaps, without the auburn ringlets and the magnificent green eyes.

  How I wish I were different. Not as plain brown as I am. I wish my hair and eyes were a different color. I would have a smaller mouth, a less forceful chin, a face in a round shape. My jaw is too square and my features forgettable. What would a man say about my nose?

  She has a nose. There, that’s it. That’s all anyone could possibly say. Would a man ever kiss the tip of my nose like Donald did to Lady Pamela? Would he ever wax eloquent as to the shape, about the way it tipped at the end? No.

  Her lashes were full and thick, however.

  Did a man ever notice eyelashes? She doubted it.

  What would he think of other physical attributes? Would he admire her breasts? They were rather large, compared to the other females of her family, an announcement her mother had made in exasperation after she tried to button one of her mother’s older bodices.

  No other woman of her acquaintance. so said her mother, was ever so blowsy, or so possessed of a music hall shape. At the time, she’d been humiliated and strangely apologetic—it wasn’t as if she could have altered anything about her body, after all.

  Now, however, she wondered if writing about Lady Pamela had freed her. She was beginning to think of her body in different terms. She no longer wanted to be reed thin with a flat chest. No, she quite liked her breasts, her hips, and was proud of her narrow waist.

  It seemed to her that a man would pay more attention to a fine figure than he would a tiny nose.

  What would the Earl of Gadsden say?

  She put her pen down and pressed her hands against her heated cheeks.

  Macrath had known she was avoiding him. If Macrath knew, then Gadsden must know, too.

  She’d dreamed of him. Her imagination, unfettered in her sleep, had featured him. He’d been gloriously naked and her hands had explored the whole of him, delighted to discover that the handsome man was even more magnificent without clothes.

  Drumvagen might be set into the Scottish wilderness, but it had furnished her with a great deal of knowledge she otherwise might not have had. She listened to the maids discuss their love lives with a frankness they never would have had they known she was eavesdropping. Then, there was the sight of the handsome Scots lads bathing in the sea.

  The books she read from Mairi’s library had strengthened her imagination, adding details otherwise missing from her personal experience.

  She picked up her pen again and sat back in her chair. She was safer inventing someone scandalous like Lady Pamela than revealing her own thoughts. Le
t Lady Pamela pant in ecstasy. No one would know that she yearned for fulfillment as well. Lady Pamela might wonder about a certain earl, but no one would know that Ellice’s thoughts were similar.

  She could almost feel his kiss, the press of his mouth against hers, and that yearning she felt for it to lead to something more.

  Oh dear. The Earl of Gadsden was proving to be a very dangerous character, one she couldn’t control.

  She had the oddest feeling that he was staring up from the page and smiling at her, amused at her discomfiture.

  Perhaps it was a good thing she was never going to see him again after tonight. The disappointment she felt at the thought would simply have to fade, that’s all.

  She stacked her pages carefully, rewrote the title page so it was pristine, and wrapped the twine around the manuscript.

  A loose stone in the half wall at the end of the cottage led to a space that had been a safe of sorts in the past. She debated leaving the manuscript there, then chose to take it with her. For now, she had some privacy in her suite.

  She didn’t doubt that her mother would search her rooms, however, if Enid thought she had something to hide.

  Closing the cottage door, she took the stepping stones to the road.

  Tonight she would have to say good-bye to him. She would no longer have to avoid him for fear of doing something foolish, like throwing herself into his arms.

  As she was returning to Drumvagen, Ellice heard the rumble of carriage wheels and stepped to the side of the road.

  The vehicle slowed and the door opened.

  “Can we give you passage the rest of the way?” Logan asked. “Or are you set on walking?”

  “I’m not, no,” she said as he opened the carriage door. She didn’t wait for him to get out but stepped inside, closing the door behind her and settling in beside Mairi.

  “You’re the first person to come down this road in days,” she said.

  “Have you come to see the baby?” she asked at the same time as Mairi said, “Is everything all right at Drumvagen?”

  They smiled at each other.

  “Everything is wonderful at Drumvagen,” Ellice said. “Virginia is recuperating. Carlton is healthy and looks just like Macrath, and Fiona and Alistair are well.”