The Witch Of Clan Sinclair

by Ranney, Karen

  His secretary straightened, reached out one hand to align a file that had dared to stray from the stack.

  “There isn’t time now, sir. Perhaps in the spring.”

  He raised one eyebrow. “What if I disagree? What if I insist on now?”

  “Then I would urge you to reconsider, sir. The Tramways Act is about to come up for a vote and your cooperation is needed in the venture. Plus, Sir Douglas Wood is giving a speech next week on the advantages of steam power.”

  None of which was as important as his personal happiness. He thought it of vital importance that the balance of his life be restored, a balance that had somehow become skewed when he wasn’t looking.

  “That’s all well and good,” he said. “But I want some time cleared from my schedule.”

  “May I ask why, sir?”

  No, damn it, you may not. A thought not expressed due to his years of practice at tact.

  Was Mairi the only one with whom he’d been completely honest?

  “I’m going courting, Thomas,” he said. “For a while, I want to be myself and not the Lord Provost.”

  “Miss Sinclair, sir?”

  “Most definitely Miss Sinclair,” he said, dropping his feet and sitting up.

  “Sir, do you think that’s a wise idea?”

  “I don’t believe being my secretary gives you the right to question my personal life, Thomas.” He smiled as he said the words, but they were a slap, nonetheless.

  Thomas recognized them as such, straightening from his stance by the desk. His face firmed, his lips thinned, his eyes were flat with hidden thoughts.

  “I’ve been with you ten years, sir,” he said. “From the beginning. I helped you win your first election and I was instrumental in your becoming Lord Provost.”

  Some of that was true, some was grandiose posturing, but he let Thomas have his say.

  “Have you given up thought of running for Parliament, sir?”

  “Not necessarily,” he said, placing both hands on the top of his blotter. Where was Thomas going with this?

  “With my guidance, I have no doubt you would win, sir.”

  Another bit of exaggeration he decided not to challenge.

  “Your point being?”

  “Sir, she’s not suitable.”

  While he was in council chambers, he was adept at allowing words to wash over him like a fierce northern wind, separating those he wanted to examine in greater detail.

  Most people talked twice as much as they needed, words to convince, cajole, and persuade. Sometimes he paid attention more to how a conversation was initiated in order to make decisions about the speaker. Did he come directly up to his desk? Did he speak down to the floor or address him directly? Did he hurry with his words or give each the weight of gold?

  Rarely, however, had he ever heard a comment and felt that the words had a power greater than the speaker had intended.

  “She’s not suitable?” he asked, his voice giving no hint of his rage.

  “No, sir,” Thomas said, warming to his subject. “Not like Miss Drummond. The Sinclair woman doesn’t come from the proper family, one with advantages.”

  “You know who her brother is, I take it?” he asked, picking up his pen and examining it as if he’d never seen the instrument before this moment.

  Thomas’s lips twisted. “But who was her father, sir? And she’s not related to the peerage in any way.”

  “Poor Mairi,” he said. “She might as well be a bookseller.” He smiled humorlessly.

  “Your own background is such, sir, that you need a touch of aristocracy.”

  He held himself still with an effort.

  “And even if you chose someone other than Miss Drummond, sir, I dare say she would comport herself with greater care than Miss Sinclair.”

  “Explain yourself,” he said, leaning back in the chair. “How, exactly, does Miss Sinclair comport herself?”

  All these years, he’d respected Thomas’s intelligence. Any other man would have figured out by now that he was in trouble and that the best course of action was to simply slip out of the room and start running.

  Instead, Thomas prattled on.

  “She doesn’t do what women should, sir. She doesn’t act like a proper woman. She speaks her mind, and publishes drivel. You should know, sir, being the subject of one of her broadsides. She shouldn’t be allowed to do what she does. She’s not only shocking, sir, but she steps over the boundaries of proper behavior.”

  “Who set up those boundaries, I wonder?” he asked, his voice still surprisingly calm. The question was similar to Mairi’s complaints. Why should she be judged by someone else’s criteria?

  Thomas didn’t have an answer.

  “You don’t endorse her, then?” he asked, allowing his lips to curve into a smile, almost as if soliciting Thomas’s approval was important to him.

  Thomas smiled, taking the bait. “She wouldn’t make a proper wife, sir.”

  A glint of an idea burned bright in the back of his mind. Almost as if it were a spark, the beginning of a larger blaze, say a fire that engulfed an entire building.

  Logan stood so abruptly that the stack of paperwork on his desk flew to the floor.

  “It was you,” he said. He rounded the desk and advanced on his secretary.

  Thomas finally had a sense of his own danger and backed away, but not fast enough. Logan grabbed him by the lapels and threw him against the wall.

  “You’re the one who started the fire. Why?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He went to Thomas and shook the man. “Why did you do it?”

  “I knew you felt something for her,” Thomas said. “She was going to ruin your career. I’ve worked too hard for her to destroy everything.”

  “So you thought to burn her newspaper down?”

  He released Thomas only to throw him against the wall again.

  Thomas straightened his jacket, regarding Logan much the same way he might an errant mouse that had found its way into his desk drawer.

  “She won’t do for you, sir. Not at all. She’s already making inquiries into buildings to house the paper. She won’t change.”

  “You could have killed her.”

  “I didn’t know she was working that night,” Thomas said.

  Logan stared at the man he thought he knew.

  “I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known she was in there.”

  “What about the man who lived above the paper? What about him? How far are you willing to go, Thomas, to ensure I’m successful? Murder? One murder? Two? Just what are your limits?”

  Thomas drew himself up, his eyes glowing like a fervent monk.

  “There are no limits, sir.”

  He gripped Thomas by one arm and opened the door with the other, shouting for the runner who occupied the bench, waiting for orders.

  “Summon the authorities,” he told the young man.

  He nodded and stood, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his neck.

  When Thomas made a sound, he glanced at him.

  “Did you think I was going to let you go?” he asked. “Because of everything you’ve done for me? Because of how hard you’ve worked?” He shook his head. “Power has gone to your head, Thomas. What you did for me was as much for yourself. You liked working for the Lord Provost, having my ear. I can only wonder how you’ve taken advantage of it.”

  “I gave you ten years of my life,” Thomas said.

  “I’d give it back to you if I could, to be quit of you now.”

  As the authorities took Thomas away, he stood watching, feeling curiously relieved. The man’s actions had helped him make a decision, one that had been hovering in the back of his mind for weeks.

  He was going to change his life drastically. First, he would obtain some freedom for himself. Next, he would convince Mairi Sinclair that she couldn’t live without him.

  Of the two goals, he had the thought that the second was going to be more difficult than
the first.

  Chapter 33

  The holidays had come and gone, for which Mairi was grateful. She hadn’t felt like traveling to Drumvagen for Christmas or Hogmanay, so she’d remained behind in Edinburgh.

  January was here, bringing in a new year, a new start. She was anticipating anything other than the malaise that had marked the last two weeks.

  She’d pushed aside her pride and written Logan. Would he call on her? She had something important to tell him.

  When he came, she was prepared to confess that she was a fool, that she was desperately in love, and that she couldn’t live without him.

  Except that he had never answered her note. Nor had he appeared at her doorstep.

  What if she’d truly ruined everything?

  Should she write him again? Should she beg? If begging was necessary, she would.

  Instead, she’d written a letter telling him how she felt, but this one she hadn’t posted. She was trying to find the courage.

  She could get a new press delivered in three weeks and could replace the type with little difficulty. The problem was the building. She had yet to find the right location for the new Women’s Gazette. Even though she’d always thought she knew Edinburgh before, after the last two weeks she was familiar with every inch of the city.

  Edinburgh was her home and she had no plans to relocate, but she was considering acquiring land outside the city and constructing her own building, anything but exist in this purgatory of waiting.

  Her fingers itched to fly along type. She’d filled pages after pages in her journal with ideas for columns. She’d written the writers who’d contributed to the Gazette in the past, urging them to submit articles for the new Women’s Gazette when—not if—it became a reality.

  In the interim, Mr. McElwee had surprised everyone by announcing that the SLNA had received approval from the council for their march through Edinburgh.

  In the middle of January, on a cold, crisp day, she arrived early to the staging area dressed in her new red cloak, a present from Fenella.

  A platform had been erected on Princes Street, and banners were already proudly flying. Some of the women were assembling placards. She debated if she should volunteer to carry one as well.

  The weather was cooperating, piercing blue skies hinting not at snow but a glimpse of the sun, at least for an hour or two. The cold, however, penetrated to the bones, which meant they wouldn’t be attracting a huge audience like a summer event might.

  She caught sight of Mrs. MacPherson, startled as the woman raced toward her, her beaming smile turning into a curiously charming giggle.

  “We cannot thank you enough, Miss Sinclair,” the woman said, enveloping her in a hug. She pulled back and smiled toothily at her. “Thanks to you, the SLNA will get the attention we need, and the causes of women will be advanced a hundredfold.”

  “I don’t understand, Mrs. MacPherson.”

  The older woman extended a gloved hand toward the hundreds of women beginning to congregate around them.

  “This is because of you, Miss Sinclair. The Lord Provost made that clear. Without your efforts to convince him, he would never have agreed to the march.”

  Suddenly, she wasn’t as cold as she’d been a minute earlier.

  “The Lord Provost said that?”

  “Oh, yes, and that he himself would be here today to laud you in public.”

  Logan here?

  “There he is now.”

  She knew, even as she turned, that he would be standing there, watching her. She hadn’t expected him to be on the platform, hatless as usual, without a scarf wrapped around his throat. Where were his gloves?

  Someone spoke to him, and his head tipped back, revealing the column of his throat. Her stomach clenched. Every part of him was magnificent, even the parts that weren’t visible.

  Her cheeks were going to catch fire. Her ears warmed and she clamped a mental door on the thought that she wished he were wearing a kilt.

  He winked at her.

  She’d spent the last two weeks in agony and he was winking at her?

  He began to speak, his voice easily carrying over the growing crowd. Instead of welcoming the women to the march, he startled her by addressing her personally.

  “I own a building,” he said. “One I’ve been meaning to find a use for. I only use a portion of it for Blackwell’s and the rest is storage. I’m thinking it would make a fine place for a newspaper. But only to the right tenant, of course.”

  She could barely breathe, let alone speak, but she made a valiant effort.

  “Are you thinking to offer me your building, Lord Provost?”

  A murmur in the audience indicated that those who hadn’t known who he was certainly did now.

  “Aye, lass, I am, for a price.”

  “What would that be?”

  She kept both hands clasped together, conscious of the interested gazes of the women close to her.

  “Marriage.”

  She wished she had some witty remark to say in response. All she could do was watch as he slowly descended from the platform.

  “I decided to offer you a bribe, Miss Sinclair.”

  “Is that so, Lord Provost?”

  “Perhaps not a bribe. Perhaps we could call it an exchange. You get a building. I get a wife.”

  “I wrote you,” she said. “You didn’t come.”

  “You wrote me?”

  She nodded, deciding to be brave and daring. “I wrote you and asked if you would come to the house.”

  His face darkened for a fleeting moment.

  “I didn’t get the letter.”

  She glanced away.

  “What would you have said if I’d come to your house?”

  “That I’d try to learn tact, and how to keep silent. That I’d be the very best politician’s wife I could be.”

  His smile made her heart soar.

  “That’ll not be a problem, lass. I’m retiring from politics.”

  “You can’t do that on my account,” she said.

  “As much as I’d like you to think I’d sacrifice all I have for you, it’s not the reason.”

  “It isn’t?”

  He shook his head.

  “Then I’m glad. I doubt my tact would have lasted all that long,” she said. “I’m very opinionated,” she added, wondering if she needed to be so honest.

  “I’ve noticed,” he said, his smiling broadening.

  “And so are you, Logan Harrison.”

  “That I am.”

  “I won’t become your shadow, just because you’re a man.”

  To her surprise, the women close to her broke out in applause. Logan turned and grinned at the audience then looked back at her.

  “It’s part of what I admire about you, Mairi. Your passion and your spirit. I want to know what you think. I want a companion, not a shadow. But I’ve a feeling it’s not going to be all roses and rainbows with us. There’ll be enough vinegar to make it interesting.”

  Anticipation nestled behind her heart. What would life be like with Logan? Joyous. Fascinating. Exciting.

  “I’ll remind you of what I said before,” he said, walking closer. “I love you.”

  He reached out and touched her cheek, trailing his finger down to her chin.

  She pressed both her hands against his coat, not to push him away as much as simply be closer to him.

  “I want to start the Gazette again, Logan. This time a paper devoted to women. The ‘Edinburgh Women’s Gazette.’ I’ll be at the paper every day and sometimes into the night.”

  “Then wouldn’t it be handy if Blackwell’s was nearby? When I can, I’ll be with you. When you can, you’ll be with me.”

  “It can’t be that easy, Logan.”

  “Aye, lass, it is.”

  Her heart was too full and her eyes overflowing.

  He tucked her to his side and addressed the audience, surprising her once again.

  “I know you witnessed a private moment, and that’
s as it is. You’ll know that I love this woman with my whole heart. Enough to make an idiot of myself in front of all of you.”

  Laughter swept through the women.

  “It’s entirely possible that you’ll be privy to the rest of our courtship and our marriage as well.”

  How could she possibly refuse him? He stood there, his green eyes blazing, his legs braced apart as if he stood on a hill attired in a kilt, addressing an army he was about to lead into battle.

  She fought the sudden urge to press her hands against her bodice to see if the hole in her chest was real or something she only felt. Her heart was crystal and it had shattered, all those tiny shards crashing around her insides as he smiled at her.

  Bending his head, he kissed her right there in front of hundreds of women. When he dropped his arms, she reached up and placed her hands around his neck, not wanting the contact broken.

  She heard a collective gasp from the audience, but they were going to have to get used to Logan kissing her, and often.

  “Heaven help you, Logan Harrison,” she said, blinking up at him, “but I love you with my whole heart as well.”

  “A wise lass you are, Mairi Sinclair.”

  She heard laughter around them, but she didn’t pay it much heed.

  She was too busy being kissed.

  Author’s Notes

  A broadside ballad entitled, “Address to Robert Montgomery Esq; Late Lord Provost of the City of Edinburgh,” 1758, was my inspiration for Mairi’s poem about Logan.

  A number of women met discrimination for one reason or another in the nineteenth century and went on to form their own journals and magazines. One of them was the Women’s Journal (1870-1917), published first by Lucy Stone, then her daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell.

  The LNA, or Ladies National Association, existed, and was the first group to be formed and led exclusively by women. The Contagious Diseases Acts, the reasons for which the group was originally formed, were repealed in 1886. The SLNA is the author’s fabrication.

  The Municipal Franchise act of 1869 applied to English women only. Early in the Parliamentary session of 1881, a member from Glasgow, Dr. Cameron, introduced a bill to ensure that Scottish women had the same rights as English women.