The Witch Of Clan Sinclair

by Ranney, Karen

  All her life, she tried to think ahead, to take a cautious path, see the hurdles she needed to conquer. Around Logan Harrison emotion always got the better of her. Circumstances simply happened. She, who so prided herself on her intelligence, lost it in his presence.

  There, the truth, as unpalatable as it was.

  Nothing had been the same since the day she met him. He’d turned her life upside down. She’d acted the idiot around him. She’d found herself in impossible situations, doing insane things, making outlandish remarks.

  It would be a relief to avoid him from this moment forward. She wasn’t going to think about him or his soon-to-be wife.

  She had no right to be jealous, and it served no purpose whatsoever to be sad.

  His habit of rising at dawn was proving to be decidedly unhelpful.

  Despite the early hour, his staff was already moving about. He could hear them beyond the baize-lined door. No doubt he’d already been seen dressed only in his robe, escorting Mairi to the front door.

  He’d kissed her there, with the door open to the cold November morning. His breath had transformed into clouds. He’d wanted to utter improvident words that were no wiser on this morning than his actions had been the night before.

  Don’t go. Stay with me today. We’ll sit together in the garden, wrapped up in our coats, watching as the leaves freeze on the trees and the gray morning gives way to a slate-colored afternoon. We’ll talk and I’ll tell you foolish thoughts that ricochet around my mind even now. How I was as a boy, my bookstores, what I want to do with my life. I’ll learn of the paper, how it drives you, what you wish for your life as well.

  But he didn’t say anything. He remained silent, giving her a quick hug before releasing her. She walked away from him, stood at the side of her carriage for a moment before opening the door and entering.

  Feeling a discordant tug on his emotions, he wanted to stop her, coax her back into his house, talk to her about a hundred different subjects. Ask her opinion about a dozen different items before the council. Instead, he turned, slowly mounted the stairs and went to his room.

  There, he closed the door, leaning against it, telling himself it wasn’t wise to walk across the room to the window, where he could see her one last time. Like a boy in the throes of his first love, he nonetheless did, placing his fingers against a pane of glass, willing her to turn and look up at him.

  A last smile was all he wanted. Or her saying his name in that way of hers, as if she couldn’t decide whether to be sarcastic or charming and the result was a mixture of both. He wanted to hear her laughter again. Or that startled, abortive sound when her own body surprised her.

  She’d been as swamped by passion as he, and the sheer surprise of it startled him.

  What kind of situations was she going to put herself in, walking through the wynds and closes of Edinburgh? He wanted to caution her to be more careful, to know that daylight could be as dangerous as darkness.

  Mairi Sinclair, however, was a force unto herself. She would say or do whatever she wished. She’d go wherever she wanted and there was nothing he could do about it.

  He wanted to tether her to him in some fashion, but knew he couldn’t. A sense of powerlessness fell over him like the fog that rose as her carriage pulled away. As if the wheels churned up a cloud and she simply disappeared into it.

  Or maybe she’d never existed at all and his memories of the night before had been merely wishful thinking.

  James didn’t pull to the front of the house. Instead, he drove around to the stables in back, letting her out before pulling the carriage into one of the bays.

  She left him, opening the gate to the garden. The shape of it was a square with a copse of trees plopped in the middle. Tall brick walls bordered the property on three sides, with the back of the house forming the fourth side of the square. At the rear of the garden was a wooden gate with a carved archway over the top, the design of Celtic letters spelling out a bit of whimsy: SEE THE BEAUTY IN ALL THINGS.

  She picked up her skirts, walked the flagstone path along the mulched beds prepared for winter, past the fountain drained and filled with sand lest it crack in the cold. In the summer, sunlight sparkled through the trees, teasing her to come and walk slowly through the garden, smelling all the various blossoms. Now, remnants of fog clung to the grass, being blown away by a wind that chilled her ears and neck.

  Perhaps she should have engaged in some subterfuge, hidden herself in the shadows and crept into the house.

  No doubt everyone in the household knew she had been gone all night, and if they didn’t know now, James was certain to tell them. The maids would look at her and no doubt titter behind their hands. Fenella would be shocked. Robert would lecture her on her duties to the Sinclair name.

  Very well, she’d brought disgrace on the family. Why weren’t men judged in the same fashion as women? She doubted that anything would happen to Logan because of last night even if his staff had happened to see her. No one would consider him fallen. No one in his employ, not even Mrs. Landers, would look sideways at him.

  She approached the kitchen door slowly, took a deep breath and opened it, expecting the whole household to be standing in the kitchen waiting for her.

  To her great surprise, no one was there.

  A kettle simmered on the stove, but the room was empty.

  Had she been fortunate beyond belief?

  The wonder of the night before wouldn’t be ruined by recriminations. No one would fuss at her.

  She didn’t need lectures. She knew very well what she’d done. She’d acted the part of a loose woman. She’d been no better than a doxy. There, she’d excoriate herself in the absence of anyone else. She’d been loose. She’d not respected herself or her position as editor of the Gazette. She’d been tossed to the carpet and had not once screamed for help. The only screaming she’d done had been another type entirely.

  Now, she needed to forget last night and get on with the business of living. Her real life, not the one she’d allowed to happen for a few hours.

  Her steps, loud on the polished wood floor, sent caution hurtling through her. She stopped and unlaced her shoes and removed them, carrying them in one hand while the other held her bonnet.

  She made her way to the back stairs without seeing another soul, only to look up to find Fenella standing at the top of the steps.

  Her cousin stood there in her wrapper, her arms folded, her chin jutting out. Her hair was wrapped in strips of cloth, the only way Fenella could coax a little curl into her hair. The whites of her eyes were curiously gray, as if she hadn’t slept all night.

  Had she kept Fenella up all night with worry?

  Shame raced through her, not simply for her actions of the night before but now, standing a few steps below Fenella and not wanting to go farther.

  Taking a deep breath, she prepared herself to give her cousin an explanation.

  Chapter 20

  “Are you going to tell me where you were last night?” Fenella asked, her hazel eyes dark and flat like a stone.

  “I was at the paper. We had a large order of brochures to print,” she said.

  “You’re lying.”

  Surprise held her mute. She disliked lying to anyone, and lying to Fenella seemed doubly wrong. But to be called on it was even stranger.

  Fenella had never once doubted her word.

  “You weren’t at the paper,” her cousin said. “You weren’t at the paper, because I was.”

  She stared up at Fenella, not understanding.

  “Allan and I were there. In his room.”

  Every thought flew out of her mind. In the stillness, she stared at her cousin, a curious bubble of silence surrounding them.

  “We wanted a place to be alone.”

  Should they be having this conversation so close to Robert’s room?

  Mairi walked down the hall, opened Fenella’s door and waited until her cousin joined her. After Fenella entered, she closed the door softly, trying
to marshal her thoughts.

  “Are you saying that you and Allan . . .” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

  Had the world turned on its axis? Fenella, shy and quiet and unassuming, was as guilty as she of aberrant—and some might say abhorrent—behavior?

  And with Allan, which made it only worse. She wasn’t at all certain Allan was to be trusted.

  “Yes,” Fenella said. Twin splotches of color bloomed on her cheeks.

  “Fenella, how can you do such a thing?”

  “I find that a little incongruous, Mairi, since you’re tiptoeing through the house holding your shoes. Where have you been?”

  Fenella sat on the edge of her bed, one arm wrapped around a bed post, her gaze direct and unflinching.

  Mairi looked away, inspecting Fenella’s vanity. Sparkling bottles and pots sat on a lace doily. Not a speck of dust could be found. The lamps were pristine; the windows shone, as did the mirror. Her embroidered bed linens matched the immaculate antimacassars on the reading chair. Fenella’s room was always neat, always smelled of roses, and was always a haven, at least until now.

  “Allan asked me to marry him,” her cousin said, further surprising her.

  Her world was upside down. Nothing was making any sense.

  “I love him, Mairi. You have to know that. I want your blessing but I’ll marry him without it.”

  She abruptly sat on Fenella’s reading chair.

  “I know you’re hurt. I know you thought I would always live here, but I want my own home, Mairi. My own family.”

  She could only blink at her cousin. “I’m not hurt,” she said. “I just never thought about you leaving.”

  Fenella’s smile was kind and strangely maternal, as if she were Mairi’s mother, accepting her daughter with all her sins and loving her regardless.

  “That’s because you don’t really notice people, Mairi. You don’t see them. It’s only the paper for you.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Isn’t it? You don’t go anywhere unless it has something to do with the paper. You don’t socialize. You don’t entertain. Everything is centered around the Gazette.”

  Since she hadn’t noticed that Fenella was interested in Allan, there was nothing she could say to that criticism.

  “I’ve written Macrath,” Fenella said.

  Was the whole world in communication with her brother? She was certain Robert complained about her weekly. James was no doubt going to regale Macrath with her exploits, and now Fenella? What was Macrath, some sort of puppet master who dictated the actions of everyone in the household?

  “Are you certain you know Allan as well as you think you do?” she asked, and then told her about the letters.

  “You think Allan would have done something like that?”

  “I don’t know,” Mairi said. “I hope not but I don’t know anyone else.”

  Fenella stood, moved to the other side of the room, as far away as she could get.

  “Don’t do anything to him, Mairi, or I’ll go to Macrath about that, too.”

  She didn’t know whether to be hurt or angry. Fenella’s words stung.

  “You wanted to know what I was doing tonight, Fenella? I was making new friends,” she said. “I was with the Lord Provost. With Logan.”

  Fenella stared at her. “All night?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Fenella’s wide-eyed glance goaded her, but she wisely refrained from telling her cousin more. Let her guess that she and Logan were lovers, if that word adequately described what Logan was. He was like a thunderstorm and she parched earth.

  “Mairi, is that wise?”

  “No wiser than your relationship with my pressman,” she said.

  Suddenly, she wanted to guard her emotions and her thoughts, keep them hidden from her cousin. She wanted to tell Fenella that she would be fine. Perhaps she would even take another lover after Logan, become known as the very shocking Miss Sinclair. No one need worry about her or chastise her because she was more interested in ideas than people.

  She willed her lips to curve into a smile, and banished even the thought of tears.

  Without another word, she retreated to her bedroom. Once inside, she dropped her shoes and her bonnet, flattened herself against the door, both arms outstretched like a living barrier. No one would breach her privacy. Not a person in the household would dare.

  Fenella’s words felt like arrows that had found a perfect target. Maybe her cousin was right. She’d been so single-minded in pursuit of her own goals that she’d never noticed other people close to her.

  What else had she missed?

  Allan loving her cousin, for one.

  She’d never seen hints of their relationship, and she should have. She most definitely had not been aware of what was going on in her own world.

  At least the world of the Mairi Sinclair she’d known herself to be a few weeks ago. Who was she now?

  She unbuttoned her cloak and draped it over the end of the bed before sitting beside it.

  Perhaps the Gazette had always been the reason she attended an event. Because she was probably too direct and less charming than she should have been, people did not gravitate to her in social settings. Only two reasons prompted them to do so: they wanted to be featured in a column or pass along some information to the public. People did not, however, want to become friends with her. Tell Mairi Sinclair something of an intimate nature? You might as well run through Edinburgh shouting the story.

  Fenella was her only friend, someone she trusted implicitly.

  Hurt sat like a lump in her stomach.

  She hadn’t closed the drapes the night before, and dawn thrust broadswords of pink and blue from a rising sun. A new day, one in which she was mired in a bone deep confusion.

  “You’re late,” Mairi said when Allan finally entered the pressroom a few hours later.

  He only nodded in response, which surprised her. She expected him to say something in defense of himself, but he merely donned the apron to protect his clothes from the ink spatter, and moved to the press.

  “Do you hate working for a woman?” she asked.

  He glanced over at her and frowned. “Have I given you reason to think so?”

  “That’s not quite an answer.”

  He jerked the tie of the apron into a bow and answered her, “No, I don’t hate working for a woman.”

  “Do you hate working for me?”

  “What’s this about, Mairi?”

  His pleasant, agreeable face was folded into a frown. She realized that she’d not often seen him out of sorts.

  “Would you tell me if there was something you didn’t like?” she asked. “If there was something that made you angry?”

  “I told you I thought the broadside was a bad idea.”

  He had, but he’d still helped her finish it.

  She didn’t want him to be responsible for the letters. Not for Fenella’s sake but for her own. She liked him; he was a good worker, and she’d grown accustomed to the feeling of safety she felt around him.

  “Do you think running a paper is woman’s work?” she asked.

  To her surprise, he smiled. “Not until I met you,” he said. “But you seem to enjoy it and the Gazette is a good paper. One with a future.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  He nodded. “Have I done something, Mairi?”

  She wiped her hands on the rag beside the press, walking to the line of shelves. She studied a few of the crates as if she were looking for something. She needed the time to come up with the right way to broach the subject.

  “I’ve been getting letters at home,” she said. “I’ve only seen one, but there have been two, I understand.”

  “What kind of letters?”

  “The kind you don’t want to read aloud,” she said. “Not highly complimentary of me.”

  He frowned. “Does it have something to do with your SLNA work?”

  “Perhaps. Or the broadside I wrote. Or a colum
n. Or simply because someone doesn’t like me.”

  The idea that it could stem from her work with the SLNA appealed to her. If someone could assault her for what she said, then it was certainly possible for someone to write her nasty letters for the same reason.

  At least that way the letters wouldn’t be from someone she knew.

  “And you thought they came from me?” He rotated the wheel of the press, studying her.

  “If I did, I wouldn’t be leaving you in charge.”

  “In charge?” His eyebrows drew together. “And where would you be going?”

  “To Drumvagen,” she said. “I need to see my brother.” She also needed to escape Edinburgh, but that wasn’t a confession she’d make aloud.

  Moving to the other side of the room, she pulled the apron off her head, hanging it on the hook where it belonged. She turned and studied him in the light from the windows.

  How many nights had they worked together? How many times had they laughed over something or discussed the news? He knew her as well as anyone, because he knew the Mairi of the Edinburgh Gazette. Here at the paper she was her truest self.

  Please, God, don’t let her be wrong. If he was responsible for the letters, she didn’t think she could bear it.

  Sometimes, however, she had to believe. When circumstances were against her, when people urged one way of thinking, she had to listen to her own counsel. Something told her that Allan hadn’t written those letters, and she was going to act as if he were innocent.

  She turned and looked at the board where she pinned their next projects. Two broadsides were due as well as the next edition of the Gazette. In addition, three brochures and notices of meetings had been promised, for free, of course.

  “We’ll do the notices, and the brochures can wait until I return. We’ll postpone the next edition as well.”

  He nodded, turning the wheel of the press. The clacking sound was strangely reassuring, as if the press was happily talking to her.