The Witch Of Clan Sinclair

by Ranney, Karen

  Logan nodded to the Queen’s portrait, a habit he’d formed when first taking up his position a year ago, then settled behind his desk.

  “Was the lecture worth the time, sir?” Thomas asked.

  “It was, for the most part.”

  Strange, that during the lecture he’d seen the Sinclair woman’s flashing blue eyes and stubborn mouth. More than once he had to drag his thoughts back to the author’s words.

  Several men engaged him in conversation afterward. He allowed himself to be dragged into a discussion of the new royal infirmary and the talks about the Edinburgh Academy Cricket Club, but he begged off meeting Hampstead himself. He preferred some mystique to exist between himself and the writers of the books he enjoyed, the same reasons he hadn’t met Mr. Dickens during a similar lecture four years ago.

  Now, he pulled out a piece of paper on which he’d jotted a name. “Find out what you can about her,” he said.

  Thomas stood and came to his desk, taking the paper from him. “The Edinburgh Gazette? It isn’t a very large paper, sir. Not like The Scotsman.”

  “I want to know everything you can find out about its editor.”

  Thomas nodded, not asking any more questions.

  Logan knew, just as the sun was rising in the east, that Thomas would make a thorough job of discovering anything he could about Mairi Sinclair.

  At dawn, Mairi dressed, donned her cloak, and was on her way to wake her driver when she found him in the kitchen.

  The room was warm, smelling of sausage and scones. James was finishing what looked to be a fine breakfast of black pudding, two slabs of sausage, and a few fried eggs. Abigail, one of the maids, was flitting around the table like a butterfly only too aware of its short life span. Any trace of scones had vanished.

  Abigail personified sunlight. Her smile was always in place, her brown eyes sparkling. Her blond hair was kept braided and tucked beneath her cap, tendrils occasionally escaping to frame her round face.

  James was tall and spare, with a shock of brown hair that was unkempt even after he’d combed it. His Adam’s apple was prominent. She often found herself staring at it in fascination, wondering if it hurt him to swallow. When he smiled, like now, he looked more like a boy or a brownie in coachman’s garb than a fully grown man.

  Bemused, Mairi watched the two of them for a moment until James glanced in her direction.

  “You’ll be wanting to get to the paper, I imagine,” he said, standing.

  Abigail nodded to her, smiled, then busied herself clearing up the dishes. Did Cook know that Abigail had taken over her duties? Mairi decided she wasn’t going to ask.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know it’s early.”

  “Don’t fash yourself,” he said, grinning at Abigail and then at her. “I’ve already readied the carriage.”

  Evidently, she was becoming a creature of habit.

  Although they lived close enough to the paper that she could have easily walked there, Macrath had given orders that a driver was to be at her beck and call. Her relationship with James had never been employee to employer. He was a cross she must bear, and she was his task.

  At least he wasn’t as annoying as Robert.

  Once at the paper, she sent James home. Since Allan lived above the paper, she was safe enough. She didn’t need a duenna. Having Allan there was a reassurance she hadn’t had six months ago. Back then she had worked on her own and sometimes with Fenella as a companion. But the newspaper finally provided enough income to hire a pressman with talent like his.

  Unlocking the door, she entered the front office, then walked down a long hall, turning up the lamps as she went. Entering the pressroom, she hung her cloak on a peg by the door and pulled the poem from her reticule.

  She read it through once more with a critical eye. Only when she was satisfied did she move to the frame beside the press. There, aligned in military precision, sat all the letters she needed to compose the broadside, along with symbols and spaces.

  If she’d had the time, she would have ordered a lithograph carved of the Lord Provost, a pose with his bearlike arms stretched out to protectively enfold all the male inhabitants of Edinburgh while leaving the women huddling in a group to the side. But that would require time—and expense—she didn’t have.

  Her fingers flew as she began to typeset what she’d written, the click of metal against metal the only sound in the silence. In hours the broadside would be hawked through the streets of the city, sold for a penny apiece. The idea that what she thought would be conveyed to hundreds of Edinburgh citizens never failed to amaze and fascinate her.

  The pressroom was a cavernous space devoid of any but the barest amenities. Two high-placed windows let in the dawn light, coloring the beige walls pink. She hadn’t bothered to light the brazier in the corner, but she had donned her fingerless gloves. The walls were covered with wooden bins and shelves overflowing with paper. She’d plundered those files often enough to know what each contained even if they weren’t labeled.

  The woodsy scent of paper vied with the odor of the chemicals used to clean the press. Added to that was the ever present smell of ink. Would her skin be saturated with the odors after a lifetime of work here?

  She’d spent her childhood in this room, had grown to womanhood doing exactly what she was doing now, setting type, preparing to work the press. Every memorable event in her life had somehow involved this exact place.

  She’d learned to read here, by placing the metal letters in their boxes.

  She’d come here after her father’s death because this was the one place she’d always seen him. Sometimes she could almost feel him with her, whispering in her ear. “No, lass, there you’ve misspelled a word. Go back and change it. Always check yourself.”

  Here she’d been spurned, not far from where she stood. Calvin had held his hat in his hands, explaining with earnest embarrassment how his parents didn’t think her suitable for their only son.

  When Macrath had gotten word that his ice machine was a success, she’d celebrated with him here, toasting him with whiskey until the room had spun. She wasn’t sure if it was an abundance of laughter and joy that had made her dizzy or simply the spirits.

  Until her brother’s success, when Macrath moved them into a substantial house, they had all lived in the cramped rooms upstairs. Now, half of them were used for storage except for Macrath’s old room, which Allan now occupied.

  Mairi heard a sound down the hall. Grabbing a rag, she wiped her fingertips, greeting Allan as he came into the room holding two steaming cups. She took one, biting back her smile at his shiver. A native of Dumfries, Allan had started complaining about the cold in September. She wondered how he’d like Edinburgh come spring.

  The dazed look in his brown eyes was normal. Allan didn’t wake easily, rarely speaking until nearly noon. His beard and mustache were always well trimmed, unlike the brown hair that flopped over his brow. He was forever brushing his wrist over it as he worked the press. He was only her height, but his shoulders were broad, his arms heavily muscled from years of manipulating a printing press.

  Today, Allan wore his normal attire, so familiar it might have been a uniform: a blue shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbows, and dark blue pants.

  She’d never seen anyone work a press as quickly as he did, not even her father. Allan could produce twice what she or Macrath did in the same time frame. Plus, he was a near genius at figuring out which bolt or screw was loose or needed to be replaced, and which part should be oiled.

  “I had a visit from your cousin last evening,” he said.

  “Fenella?” she asked, surprised.

  “No, Robert.” He shook his head. “He wanted to know if I’d be willing to work for half my wages.”

  She bit back her irritation. “I hope you told him no.”

  Allan smiled. “He’s a crafty old badger. He started making noises about how he could fire me if I didn’t come cheaper.”

  “I’m the only one who c
an fire you,” she said, making no attempt to hide her annoyance now. “And I’ve no wish to do that. Robert will simply have to grumble. Still, I’m sorry he bothered you.”

  She didn’t care if Macrath had installed him to be her chaperone. Badgering her pressman wasn’t included in Robert’s duties.

  “I’ve written a broadside,” she said after taking a few sips of her tea. Before she handed him the paper, she told him about what had happened the night before.

  “Is it wise, do you think?” he asked, reading it. “It’s the Lord Provost.”

  “I may not be able to vote, Allan. I may not be able to do a great many things, being a woman, but my voice has not yet been fettered.”

  “Still, he’s the Lord Provost,” Allan said.

  “I’m not insulting the position, merely the man. If he hadn’t appeared, I might have been able to convince the doorman to let us in.”

  Allan only bent his eyebrow in response.

  “Very well, I might not have,” she admitted. “But he certainly didn’t do anything to assist us. He’s the Lord Provost. He could have done something. If he believed in treating women equally, he could sway countless people. He’d no doubt even be heard in Parliament.”

  “There are rumors he wants to run for election there.”

  Surprised, she glanced at Allan. “How do you know that?”

  “Gossip,” he said. “I hear it occasionally.”

  “Well, you should tell me,” she said. “Gossip makes for readership.”

  Before she could ask, Allan moved the stack of paper below the press, guided the finished blank into the housing and locked it into place. The press was old and needed to be replaced, but Allan was a genius at repairing it every few days.

  After carefully rolling ink over the blank of the broadside, he rubbed off the excess. Placing a page on the press, he moved to the large iron wheel and turned it in a practice run. The plate descended to the page and back up again. Opening the press, he peeled the printed page away, handed it to her, and waited.

  After reading it through quickly, she gave her approval.

  She glanced at the brooch pinned to her collar. She had three hours to produce five hundred sheets. Allan, even working at moderate speed, could do that easily.

  “The provost could make things very difficult,” Allan said.

  “How? By demanding that we not publish the truth? That would only get us more publicity.”

  “Is it the truth?”

  She turned and looked at Allan. He was fully awake now, his brown-eyed stare direct and unflinching.

  “Yes, it’s the truth,” she said, wishing she didn’t feel on such shaky ground.

  Perhaps the provost couldn’t have changed the rules, but he could certainly have been more gracious. Nor did he have to smile at her like that.

  She nodded just once, hoping Allan wouldn’t question her further.

  Chapter 4

  Fenella hadn’t been able to see her lover for a whole day. Her lover. The word skittered up her spine and curved her lips in a smile.

  How shocking she was, but no more so than Mairi had been. Or a hundred, thousand other women, she suspected.

  How decadent she was, almost wicked. People would think so, and they would probably comment among themselves. “Did you know Fenella has taken a lover?” They might as well say, “Did you know that she has embraced her downfall with such joy?”

  Allan was her lover, and the secret ached to be spilled and shared. Allan, her beloved, who slipped away when he could to see her, who made the very air shimmer with joy.

  No one noticed that she was out of sorts all day, or how close she was to tears. Not even the maids, with whom she had more dealings than anyone, seemed to think anything was amiss.

  Fenella closed her eyes, listening to the night and the sound of barking dogs. For whom did they bark? Each other? Or did one of them mourn a fallen master and the others simply join in to share his grief?

  She willed Allan to her with a thought. Beloved, come soon. She’d wait for another quarter hour and if he wasn’t here reluctantly head to her room.

  Sometimes he couldn’t get away, but when he could, Allan walked from the paper, meeting her in the garden. If circumstances permitted, she accompanied him back to his room, where they were guaranteed privacy and passion.

  If she were lucky, she’d see him tonight. She would be able to talk with him. She’d raise her hand and put it on his face and trace the contour of his smile with her thumb.

  She missed him so much she ached with it.

  The creak of the garden gate alerted her.

  Gathering her cloak close, she flew along the flagstone path, and when Allan grabbed and held her, she laughed against his chest, his coat smothering the sound.

  A moment later his mouth warmed her lips and set her heart quivering in her chest.

  “I thought she would never leave,” Allan said.

  She placed her hands on his chest, worried that his coat wasn’t thick enough against the cold.

  “Can we go back to the paper, then?”

  “Can you get away?” he asked, as he did every time.

  She nodded. “Everyone thinks I’ve retired to my room. I’ve a headache again.”

  “Poor sick sweetheart,” he said, kissing her once more.

  She muffled her laughter.

  “We have to tell her,” Allan said. “I don’t like all this secrecy.”

  “I know, I know,” she said, patting his chest. “But I’m all she has.”

  He stepped back. “So you’ll stay with her for the rest of your life, then? Simply because you feel sorry for her?”

  She smiled at the thought of anyone feeling sorry for Mairi. Her cousin was such a sweet person but people didn’t notice that about her. Instead, they only saw Mairi’s passion. She was never just irritated, she was incensed. She never felt badly for someone, she wept for them. She wasn’t interested in a cause, she was engulfed in it.

  She’d always been that way, even as a child. But Fenella knew that if Mairi hadn’t been so intense with her emotions, and so spirited, she might not be standing in the garden of a home far lovelier than the one in which she’d once lived.

  “I owe her so much,” she said. “She took me in, made me a sister.”

  Mairi had given her a home after her parents died, only months apart: first, her father of a heart problem, and then her mother, of pneumonia. Mairi had taken her hand at her mother’s funeral, marched over to Macrath and announced, “Fenella is coming home to live with us now.”

  At the time, her cousins had been as poor as she, but at least there were three of them. The idea of being part of a family, of not being alone, was so heavenly that she’d started crying right then and there. She knew it hadn’t been her tears that convinced a much younger Macrath—barely more than a child himself—to take her in, as much as Mairi’s stubborn insistence that she was one of them.

  Since then, she had truly become one of them. She was as much a member of the Sinclair family as Mairi or Ceana or Macrath.

  How could she make Allan understand?

  After Calvin, Mairi had walled herself off from people. She no longer trusted as easily. Nor was she as generous in spirit. She eyed other people with more caution, as if waiting for them to disappoint—or worse—hurt her.

  She’d narrowed her world until it became only the Gazette as a source of pride and Fenella as her only friend.

  The best thing, she thought now, was to tell her about Allan, and quickly. Mairi would simply have to understand why she hadn’t mentioned her feelings before. What she felt for Allan was special and hers. She hadn’t even wanted to share it with her cousin.

  “She’ll have to make her own life,” he said. “Without you.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck. The night was cold but she didn’t care. Even here, in a knifing wind, it was heaven as long as Allan was with her.

  “Give it a little time, Allan,” she said. “We’ve only kn
own each other for a few months.”

  “I knew the minute I saw you,” he said. “It was the same for you.”

  She nodded. She’d come to the paper to fetch Mairi for some errand or another, and her cousin had introduced her to Allan.

  She was used to being ignored, which was why she was so shocked when he had said, “You’re so beautiful.”

  Stunned, she only stared at him.

  “I’m sorry if I was rude,” he said.

  She shook her head, bemused by his grin.

  “It’s just that I needed to say it. I imagine you hear it all the time.”

  She’d blushed in response, and he’d stared at her. At that moment she’d felt beautiful. Whenever she was with him, he made her feel that way.

  That day had abruptly changed, become sunnier, and each day afterward had been the same.

  Whenever she saw him, she was different, as if air was trapped in her stomach, buoying her up, making her feel strangely light.

  She found reasons to call on Mairi during the day, made excuses to go to the paper. Some days Allan was so busy he could only spare her a quick grin. Sometimes Mairi was out and they had time to talk.

  She’d learned of his apprenticeship. She told him of her early life in Leeds. They liked the same kind of books, wanted to see more of the world. Each had a sense of humor that meshed well with the other.

  Love crept up on her unaware.

  One morning she looked at him and suddenly the world was different. Spring was all year long and happiness alternated with misery as her predominant emotions.

  They’d been in each other’s arms the night he asked her to marry him.

  Allan was right. She had to talk to her cousin.

  As Logan sat in his library at home, signing letters that would be posted the next day, Thomas recited the guest list for the night’s entertainment.

  As usual, Thomas was concise, listing the names of the invited guests, their occupations and interests. Logan was expected to remember as many details as possible, so as to be charming and gracious when being introduced to the fashionable citizens of Edinburgh. At least their host had been gracious enough to provide the list. That way he had some warning who would be in attendance.