The Witch Of Clan Sinclair

by Ranney, Karen

When Macrath had purchased Drumvagen and wanted her and Fenella to move to his new home, she’d asked him, “What would I do if I left Edinburgh?”

  He hadn’t an answer for her. But they’d both known she was talking about more than the city. Edinburgh was her home, but the Sinclair Paper Company was her life.

  If she could stay in this room, she’d be happy. But that’s what Fenella had accused her of, wasn’t it? Everything in her life had narrowed to the Gazette.

  Until, of course, Logan Harrison.

  She hadn’t thought of the Gazette last night, or her reputation, or subscription numbers, columns, or broadsides. Instead, she’d been a woman enthralled, captivated, and enchanted.

  Reason enough to want to flee Edinburgh as fast as she could.

  “She’s gone?”

  Fenella clasped her hands together, prayed for composure, and addressed a very irritated Logan Harrison.

  “She’s left Edinburgh.”

  She’d never seen anyone’s face turn to stone the way his did.

  “Where has she gone?”

  Should she tell him? Or keep Mairi’s privacy?

  “She’s gone to visit her brother,” she said, the decision having something to do with the intensity of his gaze. “At Drumvagen. Would you like her address?”

  “I know it,” he said. This time his smile was more genuine. Or perhaps it was simply because the ferocity had left his eyes. “How long will she be gone?”

  “A fortnight,” she said, although it was little more than a guess.

  The idea that her cousin had engaged in an illicit relationship with this forceful man was startling.

  The day was too cold and blustery to stand here with the door open. She invited him inside, wondering if Cook had baked that morning.

  To her relief he declined.

  “Thank you,” he said, nodding at her again. Then he turned and left, heading for the stately carriage on the curb.

  Was the Lord Provost in love with Mairi? Is that why he seemed so surprised at the news that she’d left Edinburgh?

  If so, she could certainly understand his bewilderment. Love made fools out of everyone.

  Even men like the Lord Provost.

  Going to Drumvagen was like stepping back in time. Macrath’s home crouched at the edge of the sea, sufficiently far from any train depot that the only way to get there was by carriage.

  Normally, the drive took four hours. Today, however, the distance seemed to fly by as quickly as the time. The skies were clear with no hint of snow and the winter winds subdued.

  As they were nearing Drumvagen, Mairi reached up and opened the grate, calling for James to stop.

  The carriage slowed. She gathered up her skirt, wishing she hadn’t chosen to wear one of her better dresses, but she hadn’t planned on walking through the Scottish moors.

  Ellice sat on an outcropping of rock. She might have been a statue, she was so still. The girl’s shoulders were slumped and her head half bowed, staring at a clump of gorse.

  There was something so abject about Ellice’s posture that Mairi could neither ignore her nor pretend she was invisible.

  Although there was no relationship between them, even that of marriage, she liked the girl and felt they were friends. Ellice was her sister-in-law’s sister-in-law. Virginia had been married before Macrath, and her husband had died. Ellice was the eighteen-year-old sister of that first husband.

  After Virginia and Macrath married, both Ellice and her mother had come to live at Drumvagen. The arrangement had worked out well for the two English women, at least on the surface. But it was almost as if the gods, having seen how happy Virginia and Macrath were, wanted to add spice to their lives. The spice, in this case, was Virginia’s former mother-in-law, Enid, Ellice’s mother.

  Mairi grabbed her skirts with both hands, watching the ground for stones and holes. She didn’t want to scrape the leather of her new shoes or twist an ankle.

  At her approach, Ellice turned and smiled.

  “Sometimes prayers are answered,” she said.

  “I’ve never been the answer to a prayer,” Mairi said.

  “Not specifically you,” Ellice said. “Anything that could resolve the situation.”

  The past two years had been eventful and difficult for the younger woman. Ellice had lost her older sister, nursed her mother back from deep grief, and moved from London to Drumvagen. Her entire life had changed, the circumstances enough to make her sad or even angry.

  Ellice had been neither.

  Instead, her wide brown eyes studied everything, and she watched people with great interest, rarely commenting until her opinion was solicited. Even then her thoughts were measured and considerate, as if she had a mental filter through which all her words flowed.

  When Mairi first met Ellice on the occasion of Macrath’s wedding, she’d been amused by the girl’s incessant curiosity. She was placed in service to help answer a few of Ellice’s innumerable questions about Drumvagen, Macrath, the family, Scotland, and a dozen more subjects.

  Lately, however, Ellice had been less curious or perhaps just more restrained. She wondered if it was because Ellice had been told that no one approved of a curious woman.

  She went to stand in front of the girl. “Are they at it again?” she asked.

  Enid, having been the mistress of her own establishment in London, was expected to play the part of cherished family member. In doing so, however, she was no longer able to dictate the rules of the household, supervise the menus, or approve expenditures. Such a change in roles might have been difficult for anyone, but Enid had found it impossible. Not because she disliked Virginia but because her battles weren’t with her former daughter-in-law.

  Enid despised the housekeeper, Brianag.

  Brianag reciprocated in kind.

  “I’ve never seen any two people so ill suited to be in the same room,” Ellice said. “I try to leave when that happens.”

  Whenever they were in earshot of Virginia or Macrath, Enid and Brianag maintained a perfectly agreeable tone while sniping at each other. The minute Virginia or Macrath left the room, voices were raised and the sniping turned to all out war.

  For hours each woman nominally tried to ignore the other. Then something would set one of them off and the battle raged.

  Ellice swept her skirts away from a rock strangely shaped like a footstool and Mairi dusted off the surface before sitting.

  “What is it now?”

  “Food,” Ellice said, tapping at one of her bodice buttons. “Mother says she can no longer tolerate Scottish cooking. Brianag served her haggis for breakfast.”

  Mairi laughed, hating haggis herself. “So what did Enid do?”

  “She told Brianag that we come from a long line of English witches and she was going to recite a spell.”

  “A spell?” That sounded a little desperate, even for Enid.

  Ellice sighed. “Mother’s running out of threats. Most of the time, Brianag just laughs at her. This time Brianag told Mother that she was going to kirk to pray for her, then tell Macrath that she’d have nothing to do with an ungodly woman in the house. She refused to serve her dinner.”

  “I admire your mother,” Mairi said. “Brianag is frightening.”

  Ellice glanced down at her. “The most frightening person I’ve ever known,” she said. “If I were a child, I’d have nightmares about her.”

  “Has she done anything to scare Alistair?” she asked, speaking of her nephew. He was nearly three now, and no doubt spoiled, but such a darling child that it didn’t seem to matter.

  “She dotes on him. So does Mother. I think that’s what started the whole thing this time. Mother said something or did something that violated one of Brianag’s superstitions. I think we need a list of things we should or should not do,” Ellice said, staring off toward the ocean.

  “Even if you had one,” Mairi said, “I doubt it would matter.”

  “Is it because we’re English?”

  “No,�
� Mairi said. “It’s because you’re there. I’m as Scottish as Brianag. But we clash as well.”

  The woman was phenomenally devoted to Macrath and would hear nothing bad ever said about him. Unfortunately, she felt the same way about Drumvagen and Scotland. Even a mild comment such as, “It’s a cold day today, isn’t it?” would result in a glower and a mumbled threat along the lines of refusing fuel for the fire. “We’ll see how cold you’ll be then.”

  Her brother, unfortunately, had almost as much devotion for Brianag. Whenever Mairi complained to him, Macrath would shake his head and say something along the lines of, “She’s very well respected.”

  Was it respect or fear? Was the rest of the staff as cautious about the housekeeper as she was?

  Whenever she broached the subject of Brianag to Virginia, her sister-in-law got a wild look in her eye as if she wanted to escape the room immediately. She couldn’t blame Virginia. She probably had that same look.

  She turned her head, looking toward Drumvagen, now hidden behind the pines. She really wasn’t in the mood for more drama, but it seemed as if she had no choice.

  Standing, she held her hand out for Ellice. “Come on, we’ll face them both together.”

  Ellice sighed again as she plucked at her left cuff with her right hand. “She’s my mother, but she can be very trying.”

  An apt description, but she decided not to say that to the girl.

  “Brianag can be as well,” she said.

  Ellice allowed herself to be pulled from her perch and accompany Mairi back to the carriage.

  December in Scotland could be dreary. The mornings were gray and often the sun didn’t burn away the clouds, leaving the afternoons the same. The days were short, with snow in the air and sometimes on the ground. So far this year they’d been spared, but it was only a matter of time until everything was coated in white.

  Drumvagen, however, was an oasis of green, the massive house surrounded by tall pines. Built of gray brick only slightly darker than the white-flecked ocean to her right, the house was square, with four tall towers on each corner. The dual staircases in front curved from the broad portico to the gravel approach, welcoming a visitor like outstretched arms to Macrath’s magnificent home.

  Because they were family, James pulled around to the back of Drumvagen. Before they were out of the carriage, Mairi heard the shouting.

  “Macrath and Virginia are at Kinloch Village,” Ellice said. “The two of them have been going at it all day.”

  Mairi had the uncharitable thought that at least Brianag was fussing at Enid and not her. Normally, the housekeeper didn’t have any qualms about telling her what to do and how to do it whenever she visited Drumvagen. If Brianag was focused on Enid, perhaps she would be left alone on this visit.

  As they left the carriage, approaching the back entrance, she realized why she could hear them arguing so well. The two women stood in the middle of the laundry yard.

  “You’re a harridan!”

  “At least I’m not a tumshie Sassenach,” Brianag replied more calmly.

  They were probably close in age, but in appearance they were opposites. Enid was short and plump, and Brianag tall and thin.

  Mairi had the strangest notion that if they were chess pieces, Brianag would be the queen and Enid the pawn. That didn’t mean, however, that anyone should underestimate Enid. The Dowager Countess of Barrett had kept her own establishment after having been widowed for a dozen years, negotiated a marriage for her invalid son and, when faced with penury, revealed the true extent of her manipulative powers.

  Brianag, on the other hand, was rumored to be a wise woman, dabbled in healing, and was knowledgeable about anything to do with Kinloch Village and its environs. She also had a very bad habit, when irritated, of retreating to a peculiar type of Scottish the locals spoke, which meant that the servants understood her but no one else did.

  The two women were well-matched in temperament, will, and determination. They were also very tiring to be around.

  She and Ellice exchanged a look.

  “Awa and bile yer heid,” Brianag said, catching sight of them. She smoothed her apron down with both hands and smiled.

  The sight of Brianag smiling was daunting indeed.

  Drumvagen’s housekeeper was as tall as Macrath. Pink cheeks adorned her square face. Her nose was knifelike, too narrow to fit well on her face. Two vertical lines were etched between her deep-set brown eyes, giving her a glower even when she was in a good mood, a rarity for Brianag.

  Her hair, brown threaded with gray, was normally arranged at the back of her head in a severe bun, but now several tendrils escaped, giving her an uncharacteristic disheveled appearance.

  Her mouth was thinned in a smile as she approached them. Mairi didn’t trust that expression because Brianag had never hesitated in conveying how she felt, and her feelings did not lean toward affection.

  “Mairi,” Enid said before Brianag could speak. “How delightful that you’re here.” The Dowager Countess of Barrett, short, stocky, and determined, nearly skipped to reach her first.

  Enid’s face was plump, her face, although lined, appearing younger than her years. Now a triumphant smile curved her lips as she enveloped Mairi in a fulsome hug.

  Brianag frowned impressively.

  Ellice’s eyes twinkled as she moved away, leaving Mairi in the middle of the two women.

  She had the thought that perhaps Edinburgh, with all its complications, might be a calmer place than Drumvagen.

  Chapter 21

  Mairi’s reluctance to talk to Macrath was like walking through a wall only she could see. She had to talk to herself all the way to her brother’s library.

  She loved Macrath and she respected him as well. When their father died, she had worried about the burden placed on his too young shoulders, but her brother had taken up the responsibility, providing for all of them. Not once had he complained about the addition of another mouth to feed when she’d impulsively adopted Fenella. Nor had he ever hinted to their cousin that she wasn’t welcome.

  Macrath had taught her, by example, what it was like to face adversity, which is why she pushed through the wall, entered the room and went to sit on one of the chairs at the other end, a warm and comfortable spot in front of a blazing fire.

  He joined her, and for a moment they simply sat and watched the flames.

  They’d shared some difficult years together, enough experiences that she was reasonably certain what Macrath would say about the recent activities in Edinburgh.

  Standing, she walked to the window, staring out at the view of the wind-tossed sea. In turn, she went to stand in front of his desk, then to the bookcase that hid the passage to the beach.

  Macrath and Virginia had shown the grotto to her last year. When she’d made the comment that the stone window was a lovely place to sit and while away the afternoon, Virginia blushed, making her wonder if her brother and his wife had done exactly that.

  Since marrying Virginia, her brother’s blue eyes, a shade matching her own, had never been so filled with humor or his lean face as relaxed. As a boy he’d been fueled by ambition. He wanted to create an empire and a clan. Now that he had the empire and was working on the clan, he’d lost his impatient edge. He was calmer and more patient, especially with his son, Alistair.

  Yet it wasn’t just Alistair who had the ability to bring a smile to his face. When Macrath was with Virginia, even his stature changed. His body curved as if to cover and protect her. Earlier, Mairi had interrupted them on the staircase, and he’d had his arm braced against the wall while he kissed his wife senseless.

  Recalling that, she felt a twinge of envy and regret, the scene bringing back memories of the evening in Logan’s library. Perhaps it would be better not to remember that night. Or Logan, for that matter.

  “What’s wrong?” Macrath asked.

  She glanced at him. “Why would anything be wrong?”

  “Because it takes a pry bar to get you out of Edinbur
gh,” he said, smiling. “You whine about leaving the paper, about not being able to report, a dozen excuses that keep you chained to the Gazette.”

  “I do not whine.” At his look, she sighed. “Very well, I whine a little.”

  “So what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Everything.”

  “Why do I think you need to confess something?”

  She came and sat beside him again. Staring up at the ceiling, she wondered exactly how much to tell him. Macrath was incredibly protective, despite the fact that she was two years older.

  “Start at the beginning,” he said.

  “I haven’t the slightest idea where that is. When you left Edinburgh? When you left James and Robert in charge?”

  “Not in charge,” he said. “Merely there for your protection.”

  She turned and sent him a look that resulted in his smile.

  “I wasn’t trying to constrain your independence, Mairi. I really wanted them there simply for your protection. A single woman is not safe living alone.”

  Since she’d proved him right in that regard, she didn’t have a rejoinder.

  “How much has James told you?”

  He took a sip of his whiskey and placed the glass on the table. “I haven’t met with James.” He raised one leg, resting his ankle on his knee. He looked relaxed and not at all anxious. She hated to disturb his calm.

  She told him the story of the broadside, why she’d written it, and the resultant financial impact. Throughout her recitation, Macrath remained silent.

  “Do you expect me to criticize you, Mairi?” he asked when she was done.

  “I expect you to be disappointed.”

  “I agree that you could have picked someone a little less influential.”

  “He deserved it,” she said. At least, she’d thought so at the time. Several weeks had clarified the magnitude of her mistake.

  “I can never be disappointed in you, Mairi,” her brother said.

  “It’s a wonder I haven’t bankrupted us,” she said. “I’ve been a fool, Macrath.”

  He sat and sipped at his whiskey, attentive and aware. Somehow, his patience made this meeting more uncomfortable.