Chapter 23
In the morning Mairi slipped out the back door, heading for one of her favorite spots at Drumvagen, the gazebo.
At dawn Drumvagen’s forest had been a wonderland of icicles and ice encrusted branches. Now the air was slowly warming and the incessant drip, drip, drip on the decaying leaves was an oddly sad sound, as if the trees wept.
Drumvagen was easily ten times the size of her Edinburgh home. Macrath must have plans for filling it with children. Since he’d already begun at that task, she didn’t doubt he’d be successful.
Until Macrath married, she’d never felt odd about being his older, unmarried sister. After Calvin rebuffed her, she hadn’t given much thought to marriage. Or perhaps she’d known, somehow, that she wasn’t the type to settle down to a union of wedded bliss.
She wasn’t, as Calvin had said, “conformable.” She didn’t fit in. She wasn’t like other women. She’d considered that a badge of honor. Seeing her brother so happy, knowing that his love for his wife had added to his life, made her examine her own in greater detail. Was she missing something by being so independent? Were other people happier?
She was happy. Or if not happy, she was certainly content, at least until she’d met Logan. She enjoyed her work, wanted to get to the paper every morning. She enjoyed pulling together the various stories people submitted, including those she paid to use from her small staff of reporters. She thought she’d done a good job with the paper.
Was it enough?
She’d never before asked herself that question.
“I was told I might find you here.”
She didn’t turn, didn’t face him. How could she, when she’d come to Drumvagen to escape him?
“I thought you would have left this morning. At dawn,” she said. “Without a word to anyone, satisfied that you’d done what you came to do.”
“What was that?”
She held tightly to one of the pillars of the gazebo, feeling the wood give beneath the pressure of her fingers.
“To make me miserable. To make me question my own mind. To make me regret.”
“All that? What an insensitive boor I am.”
Because his voice was laced with humor, she finally turned.
She shouldn’t have looked at him.
Logan in the early morning made her remember. He hadn’t yet shaved and his chin was bristly. His eyes were red, as if he, too, hadn’t slept well.
“Who told you I was here?”
He walked toward her, clad in his black greatcoat, his boots making a crunching sound on the ice and snow. “Your brother’s very surprising housekeeper. A surly woman, isn’t she?”
That forced a smile from her.
“Brianag is one of the most disagreeable people I’ve ever met. Why Macrath puts up with her I’ve no idea. But he tolerates her and the Countess of Barrett. Together the two of them are misery. They are forever quarreling, but Macrath tolerates it.”
His smile was too tender. She looked away.
“Perhaps he practices tolerance.”
She blew out a breath. “My brother is not a saint. I think he does it for his wife. Virginia would be sad if Enid was forced to live somewhere else and she’d feel guilty if Brianag left Drumvagen.”
“Your brother must love his wife very much.”
She did not want to talk about love with Logan.
Thankfully, neither did he. But his next question was just as bad.
“Did I make you regret that night?” he asked. “Is that why you came to Drumvagen?”
Yes. No. Perhaps. Yes.
She steeled herself to look at him again. “I wanted to see my brother.”
“Which necessitated a trip in the middle of winter.”
“Yes.”
“Do you lie to everyone or only to me?”
“I normally don’t lie to anyone,” she said, releasing her grip on the wood and thrusting her hands inside her cloak.
“Do you regret that night?”
“Must you keep asking that question?” she asked.
“Yes, I must.”
Lying would be safer than the truth. Honesty would bare her soul, lay herself open to his derision.
“No. I don’t,” she said, finding that, unwise or not, she didn’t want to lie to him.
“Neither do I,” he said. “Although I should. It would make you less enticing.”
She glanced at him again. She’d never been called enticing before, especially by such a handsome man. But he knew her better than anyone, didn’t he? He’d seen her naked and abandoned on his library room carpet and in his bed.
If Logan Harrison thought her enticing, then she must be.
She wanted to bat her eyelashes at him, simper a little, perhaps coo at him as she’d seen other women do in public around men. She was lamentably lacking in the social graces as defined by predatory females.
Dear heavens, was she feeling predatory about him?
Perhaps she wasn’t the prey after all.
To test him, and perhaps herself, she went and sat on the bench built into one of the gazebo’s walls.
“Am I enticing enough that if I invited you to take me here, would you?”
His laughter startled her.
“Have you a penchant for freezing your arse off, Mairi? I prefer a different place for my loving.”
She was feeling quite warm now and she was certain her cheeks were flaming. This business of seduction was more complicated than she considered.
“Then come to my room,” she said. “We’ll have an afternoon of loving.”
There, the whole of it. She wanted him to touch her, to please her. She wanted to kiss him, to lose herself in joy with him. Did that make her a ruined woman or just a foolish one?
“No.”
Surprised, she reared back. “No?”
“I’ll not take advantage of your brother’s hospitality by seducing his sister beneath his nose. Come to my house and you’ll get all the loving you can handle.”
How had this situation been turned on its head? Instead of testing him, she was the one being dared.
“Once was quite enough,” she said.
“It was more than once.”
Should he look so proud of that fact?
“I’m not afraid of you.”
His smile abruptly disappeared. “I should hope not. Why the hell should you be?”
He should immediately apologize for his language. When he didn’t, she frowned at him. He frowned right back.
“Have I ever given you reason to fear me?”
“No,” she said.
He took a step into the gazebo. “Is that why you said ‘once was enough’? Were you afraid of me?”
“No, but—”
He didn’t give her time to explain. Instead, he gripped her arms and hauled her up to face him.
She disliked having to look up at him. Nor was she all that pleased to discover how angry he was. His eyes glittered; his mouth was pressed into a thin line, and a muscle on his cheek flexed.
“Of course I’m not afraid of you,” she said, deliberately looking away. Facing him was difficult. Facing him while confessing her reaction to him was nearly impossible. “If anything, I’m afraid of myself around you.”
He didn’t let her go. Instead, he took a step closer until even the chilled air couldn’t seep between them.
He warmed her just with his presence. The thought of what he could do to her, how much pleasure he could bring her, heated her even further.
“Tell me what you mean.”
“What do you want from me, Harrison? Haven’t you enough women falling at your feet? How is your search going for a wife, by the way?”
“I’ve given it up. Tell me why you’re afraid of yourself.”
He’d given it up?
He leaned closer, his mouth hovering only an inch over hers. She closed her eyes, wishing he would kiss her.
He didn’t.
“Tell me, Mairi,” he said.
Very well, perhaps she would. Perhaps the truth would bring one of them back to his senses.
“I want to be abandoned with you,” she said, looking him straight in the eye. “I want to be naked. I want to seduce you. I want to do all the things all the forbidden books I’ve secretly read say happens between shocking women and experienced men. I want to wear you out until you can’t rise from the bed.”
“Good.”
He wasn’t supposed to say that. Nor was he supposed to smile at her like she’d pleased him.
Logan Harrison was an immensely dangerous man.
She gripped his coat with both hands, lowered her head until her forehead rubbed against the wool. He bent closer, his breath warming the curve of her ear. He smelled of spices and the cold.
Oh, dear, what was she going to do about him? Staying away from him was the best solution, but they didn’t seem to be able to do that, did they?
She didn’t step away, but rather, placed her hands on his chest, her nails curving into his coat. She closed her eyes, hearing the sounds of the forest around them, the melting ice, the chilled breeze causing the branches to clack together. From somewhere came the rustling sound of a small foraging animal.
He didn’t speak. Nor did she.
She wanted to weep, and she rarely did. Her chest felt heavy, as if her heart weighed five times what it should. Her breath was tight, her lips thinned in an effort to hold back words of wisdom. Words such as, “Let me go.” Or, “Please go away.”
She ran from Edinburgh and he followed her. She invited him to her bed and his honor marched to the forefront, shaming her. When she expected him to tease her, he only tenderly held her in his embrace.
What was she going to do about him?
She was going to be wise for the first time. Slowly, she stepped back, holding up her hand when he would have reached for her again.
“I think you should leave,” she said. “Go back to Edinburgh.”
“Is that what you want?”
No. Yes. No.
She nodded.
He smiled, another expression that touched her heart. She wanted to place her fingers on his lips, banish the expression, but that would be as useless as wanting him to be less handsome or forceful.
Logan Harrison would not change.
Nor could she, even though at this moment she felt a tinge of regret that she’d never be a proper wife for him. Someone else would have to be politic and demure. Some other woman would have to brush his hair back from his brow, counsel him to wear a hat to keep his head warm, or always tell him he was right regardless of whether he was or not.
Another woman, reared with obedience and docility, would be the perfect politician’s wife.
Not Mairi Sinclair, too outspoken and too independent.
She slid around him, leaving the gazebo without another word, taking the path back to Drumvagen and keeping herself from running only because he was watching.
“He’s gone, you know,” Virginia said, entering her suite of rooms.
Mairi put her book down. “I know.”
She’d watched his carriage leave Drumvagen. Part of her had rejoiced at his departure. A greater share had wept at the loss of him.
“He left us a lovely note,” Virginia said, coming to sit beside her on the settee. “He’s a very charming man. Macrath quite likes him.”
“You sound very English this morning,” she said. Virginia’s accent always amused her, especially since her sister-in-law was an American.
Virginia smiled. “I’ve been told that I’m sounding quite Scottish lately. My r’s are rolling, and I picked up a few words of the Gaelic.”
“God forbid you ever sound like Brianag,” Mairi said.
Virginia laughed.
They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes.
“Have you ever thought yourself a fool?” Mairi asked.
Virginia laughed again. “Is it a man doing that to you? The Lord Provost, for example?”
“Yes,” she said. “And I think he knows exactly how he affects me.”
“Oh, they always do, the brutes. Somehow, they never seem to worry about it.”
“Most of the men I know are supremely confident. They know exactly who they are in the world.” She glanced at Virginia. “I don’t. I haven’t the slightest idea where I fit in or what I’m to do or how I’m to do it. I know what I want, but I don’t know if I can achieve it.
“When I was a little girl, my goal—my only goal—was to grow up. And then the older I got, the more I became aware that I was supposed to become a wife and mother.”
“Aren’t those normal goals for women?” Virginia asked.
“Of course they are. But for all women? I doubt I will ever marry, since it’s been so many years since I was of a marriageable age.”
Virginia made a sound like a snorting laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous, Mairi, you’re not too old to marry. Granted, you’re no longer a schoolgirl, but you’re certainly not a spinster.”
“I’ve always detested that word, spinster. Bachelor is a much better sounding word. Every time I hear the word spinster, I think of a skinny, gray-haired woman hunched over her cane, frowning at the world and shaking her fist.
“And what is a bachelor?” Virginia asked with a smile.
“A portly man sitting back with his feet on a footstool, enjoying a cigar and a glass of whiskey. There are no children running about underfoot. He has no complaints from a wife, and he is thoroughly enjoying his solitary life.”
“Do you?”
Mairi looked down at the toes of her shoes peeping out from beneath her skirt hem.
“If you had asked me that a few months ago, I would’ve told you that my life was complete.”
“But now?”
“Fenella is getting married. I’ll be alone in the house with my elderly second cousin, who can’t think of anything nice to say about most people.”
“I’ve often wondered why you haven’t married.”
“Macrath didn’t tell you about Calvin?”
Virginia shook her head.
She wasn’t surprised. Macrath kept other people’s secrets as well as he kept his own.
“Calvin was my first love. I thought, until recently, that he broke my heart. Now I wonder if I was ever truly in love with him.”
When Virginia didn’t respond, she continued.
“I think I was a great deal more trusting before I knew him than I am now. Or perhaps I was more childlike. I used to talk with Fenella about when the two of us would get married, how our children would grow up together. Our husbands would be men of influence, and friends, of course. We’d have houses close together and go shopping and do errands.”
“I can’t imagine that you envisioned that future for yourself, even as a child.”
She considered Virginia’s comment for a moment. “I think, at the time, I did. But I loved working at the paper. I loved almost everything about it.” She glanced at her sister-in-law. “Except sweeping the pressroom.” She smiled.
“Even setting type was fun. The process of printing the newspaper was one that fascinated me. I loved helping my father, looking at the folded editions and knowing that my own labor went into it.”
“How did Calvin fit in?”
“He was a friend of Macrath’s. Perhaps not a good friend, because Macrath was always too busy for friendship. An acquaintance, shall we say. He came around the paper often enough that we became friends. When he asked Macrath for permission to call on me, I was excited.”
She smiled in remembrance of her own innocence.
Resuming her story, she said, “Calvin continued to call on me even after I decided to become the editor of the paper. I don’t think he was happy about that, but he didn’t say anything at first. I was so busy I didn’t notice that he was calling on me less and less.”
“That’s a sign, don’t you think?” Virginia asked. “I couldn’t imagine not noticing when Macrath wasn’t around.”
Mairi smiled again. “I think I still believed I was in love at that point. At least until he told me he didn’t think I was acting in a proper fashion.”
“Because you were running the paper?”
She nodded.
“He told me that his parents didn’t approve of me, that his friends thought he was a fool to consider marrying me.”
Virginia reached over and clasped her hand over Mairi’s, a wordless show of support.
“I think I knew, right at that moment, that I would have to make a choice about my life. Either I was going to be able to do what I truly enjoyed, what I was good at, or I was going to have to act completely different in order to attract a man.”
“I think Calvin was a coward. You’re a strong woman,” Virginia said. “But strong women still want to be loved.”
“He told me, essentially, that I was not proper enough to be his wife.”
Virginia startled her by laughing. “What a fool he was, and how much better off you are without him in your life. Logan, however, is a different story, isn’t he?”
“I’ve never met a more arrogant, stubborn man.”
“I’m guessing that you’ve acted as yourself around Logan, yet he certainly seems attracted. Is he the reason you asked if I’ve ever considered myself a fool? The answer is oh, dear heavens, yes. Perhaps even now. Most of my thoughts are about your brother. He occupies a great deal of my mind and my heart.”
“That’s hardly fair, is it? Do you think you occupy that much of his mind and heart?”
Virginia smiled. “Yes, I do.”
Logan occupied too much of her mind and heart as well.
How could she possibly tell anyone that she was very much afraid she’d done the worst thing in the world, fallen in love with Logan?
“Does passion strip your wits from you? Are you supposed to forget everything but him?” Or consent to be taken on a library floor, laughing with delight?
“Yes,” Virginia said. “If you’re fortunate.”
She turned to face her sister-in-law.
Virginia smiled. “Being in love is a lovely type of insanity.”
Mairi shook her head. “He makes me do things I’d never do.”
“Are you talking about coercion?” Virginia asked, her smile fading.
Only if passion could be considered coercion.
“When I’m around him something happens. I want to kiss him senseless. I want to do things I never think about with any other man. It’s just him. It’s only him. I don’t think of anything other than him.”
“Here’s where I’m supposed to counsel you on your reputation,” Virginia said. “And urge you to consider your position.”
“Are you?”
Virginia smiled again. “No, because you are smart enough to do what’s right for you.”
“I wish I felt the same. I don’t know what to do.”
“Macrath has taught me that love makes anything possible.”
When had her brother become so wise? Or maybe she was just excessively foolish.
“I’ve come to ask you about my sister,” Macrath said.
James looked up from where he was repairing a piece of tack and nodded.
Macrath went to the bench where James sat, joining him. The stable was a warm and active place, even on this wintry afternoon. The horses blew loud snorting breaths, their hooves stomping the ground. As they worked at the end of the building, two stable boys found something amusing. Their laughter made him smile.
The stable wasn’t far from the building he’d erected as his work room and laboratory. There, they built the biggest of his ice machines, behemoths developed for ships transporting foodstuffs across the oceans.
At the moment, however, his aim was to develop an ice machine that could be used by every household, thereby enabling people to get ice whenever they needed it. To that end, he had Jack and Sam working on a smaller model. Each successive iteration of the Sinclair ice machine was more compact than the one before.
He’d hired another man in the last year, someone who was adept at mechanical design. Ian could draw anything Macrath imagined, allowing him to instantly decide if an idea he had for a new device would work.
Drumvagen was getting crowded, when for so many years the place echoed around him. Now he had associates and friends here. Most importantly, he had family.
Family required a great deal more work, which was why he was sitting here in silence, trying to find the words to ask James what, exactly, Mairi had been doing.
What he hadn’t expected was for James to shock him.
“Mairi’s no’ actin’ like a lady, sir. Not with her spending the night at the Lord Provost the way she has. Twice, I figure.” James glanced at him.
Macrath stared at the stall ahead of him, at the plume of air from a young mare’s nostrils. The horse pawed at the ground as if eager to be gone from this place. At the moment, he felt the same.
“Did she tell you she was attacked?” James asked.
Their gazes met. “No, she didn’t mention that.”
“Aye, the night she gave the speech,” James said, and proceeded to tell him the whole of it. “The Lord Provost’s man came and found me himself,” he said. “I was to go home and not worry about Mairi, since she’d gone to speak with him with a few other ladies.”
Macrath glanced at him. “But you didn’t believe that?”
“I knew it wasn’t true, sir. I’d been looking for her myself. No one else was missing but Mairi, and everyone was talking about how the Lord Provost himself had rescued her.” He shook his head. “Some people seem to think they’re invisible, sir, that just because they don’t want to be seen, they won’t be.”
“So she spent the night with the Lord Provost?”
James nodded. “And a time after that as well.”
Macrath leaned his head back against the timbered wall behind him and told James about the letters.
When he was finished, James stared straight ahead.
“I’ve no idea who would do that, sir. But I think a woman would be behind it.”
Surprised, Macrath looked at him. “You would, why?”
“Because a man would come right out and say something direct. It’s women who hint and threaten all delicate like.”
He couldn’t say that he agreed with James, but the idea did have merit.
Right now he needed to figure out a way to get Mairi to mitigate her behavior. Not only for her reputation but more importantly for her safety.
“I’d have you stick a little closer to her, James. Protect her from whatever threat she’s facing.”
“And what if she’s a yen for the Lord Provost, Mr. Sinclair? What am I to do then?”
The two men stared at each other, leaving Macrath with two thoughts: life around his sister was never dull and maybe Logan Harrison was exactly what she needed.