Chapter 31
The carriage ride home was a silent one and uncomfortable as well. Mairi deliberately didn’t meet anyone’s eyes. She knew what she would see: condemnation as well as surprise.
She had always been level-headed. She’d never been a dreamer or a romantic. Not for her balls or parties or strolls in the park. No, she wrote her articles, solicited information from her sources, set type, and ran the press. Until Fenella had spoken up, she’d no idea she had imposed her schedule on anyone else.
Calvin had been her only frivolity, if she could call him that, but the relationship was short and painful. In the end he had considered her unacceptable and unfeminine in her pursuits.
At least Logan had never thought her unwomanly. She wanted to fan her heated cheeks but didn’t wish to call any more attention to herself. No doubt each of the carriage occupants were thinking Calvinlike thoughts.
There she goes, losing her mind. And not just subtly, either. She had an affair. An affair with not just any Edinburgh inhabitant. No, she had to choose the Right Honorable Lord Provost.
Then, to compound the horror of her actions, she turned down a perfectly acceptable proposal of marriage. Just when she would’ve been saved from her own actions and contemptible character, she refused.
She could hear the words, although not one person spoke in the carriage.
Marriage was too high a price to pay for being foolish.
Oh, and she had been foolish, hadn’t she?
She could fight against society’s prejudice of her as a woman. She could convince a man who was reluctant to speak with her that it would be in his best interest to do so. She could produce broadsides and sell them, thereby preventing the company from going under financially. She could force herself to stand in front of a group of strangers and speak to them about her life. She could even survive being attacked by a gang of men.
But she had no defense against herself.
Nor had she ever thought she’d need one.
No one had ever told her that she might feel such passion or be helpless when faced with it. They certainly had never told her that she’d call herself twelve times a fool.
What had she done?
She was not a weak woman. Why, then, was she acting that way around a man? Logan smiled at her and her insides warmed. He grinned and she wanted to laugh. He walked away and she had the strangest compulsion to follow him.
In his bed, she’d acted the harlot. How could she disagree about that? She’d nearly dared him to take her on the floor of his library and gloried in the possession.
They were combustible together.
Just like that, memories of this morning were there, so real she could almost feel him inside her. A hot tide swept over her, made her look down, anywhere but at someone. They would see it on her face. They would know, by her eyes, that she was suddenly overcome.
What had she done?
What did it matter that he’d asked her to marry him in a moment of embarrassment for both of them? Why was that important?
He loved her.
Oh, dear God, he loved her.
What had she said? Something foolish about not being a politician’s wife. She didn’t care if he was a politician or a ship’s captain.
What had she done?
Logan would probably never willingly be in the same room with her after this morning. Had he ever been rejected? Or so publicly?
After all, he was the Right Honorable Lord Provost and Lord Lieutenant of Edinburgh, Highlander of old, braw and strong and too much a champion to lose easily.
A man with a great deal of pride, too much to appear on her doorstep and beg her to hear him out or take his hand in marriage.
No, he’d only agreed to Macrath’s outlandish proposal because of circumstances. He felt nothing but a smidgeon of embarrassment, if that, over the situation.
If they’d never been found out, he wouldn’t have demanded she marry him. Instead, he would have fed her breakfast, had his driver take her home, and congratulated himself on a night well-spent.
Or maybe she was wrong. Had she really been so foolish to turn her back on Logan Harrison?
Dear God, what had she done?
When they returned home, James stopped the carriage in front of the house.
“I need to speak with you, Mairi,” Macrath said.
She truly wanted to escape to her bedroom, but a look from Macrath indicated that it wouldn’t be wise to avoid this meeting. She sighed inwardly and went into the parlor, standing in front of the glowing fire.
She heard him entering behind her.
“Say what you have to say and be done with it, Macrath,” she said without turning.
“Thank you for joining us,” her brother said in response.
She turned to see Robert entering the parlor. Everyone else, however, had evidently been dismissed, because Macrath closed the door, leaving the three of them alone.
She truly wasn’t in the mood to be lectured by both of them. Very well, she erred. She’d admit that without reservation. It was altogether likely that she would make stupid mistakes in the future. Perhaps even mistakes involving the Lord Provost.
Would Logan ever seek her out again? Or would he be so offended by her refusal that he avoided her?
She would have to simply learn to get along without him. Granted, he’d been in her life for two months, but before that, she’d never seen him. She’d never sat in a room with him, feeling like the air was charged by his presence. She’d never argued with him, feeling her blood heat from trying to convince him of a point. She hadn’t seen him in his kilt, a laughing glint in his eyes daring her. She’d never known what it was like to kiss him, or to be loved by him.
She would probably be known as a fallen woman, but the journey off the pedestal had been glorious.
All she had to do was forget a few things. Like the way he kissed, for example, or the shine of the sun on his hair. Or his eyes glittering with amusement. How he’d laughed, the sound echoing through the room and lodging in her heart. Or his white-toothed smile as he grinned at her.
She would take pains to forget his anger, too, as well as his heroism and courage. She would not remember the chill in his eyes or the knife edge in his voice.
“We have something to discuss, you and I,” Macrath was saying to Robert.
“Then you certainly don’t need me here,” she said, grabbing her skirts. She would’ve made it to the door had her brother not grabbed her elbow and held her there.
“This involves you as well, Mairi.”
“Is this truly the best time to discuss finances, Macrath?”
“I’m not discussing finances, Mairi.”
He dropped his hand and she turned to face him. Robert went to sit on the end of the settee, stretching his feet toward the fire. He often complained, in the winter months, that each joint felt the crimp of the cold.
Now, however, he didn’t utter one word. She looked from him to Macrath, frowning. Perhaps, after the debacle of this morning, it was best to keep her mouth shut, at least until she figured out what Macrath had to say.
“Don’t you have something to tell us, Robert?”
The older man tilted his head back, staring at Macrath, the point of his beard making his face appear long and narrow. A smile would have softened his appearance, but Robert rarely found amusement in life.
“Your father was nearly a saint,” Robert said. “I never thought to say this, but it’s glad I am that he hasn’t lived to see the day when his children turned against all he thought dear.”
He extended a bony forefinger in Mairi’s direction. “You have acted the whore with no shame, no regrets.”
Before she could comment, he turned to Macrath. “And you, encouraging her in her sin. She should be punished, and all you do is accept her willfulness.”
“Is that your long-winded way of denying your culpability?”
Robert stood, drawing himself up so straight he looked as rigid as one of the iron poles of the ornamental fence in front of the house.
“You set the fire?” Mairi asked, stunned.
“I did not. I most assuredly did not.”
“No,” Macrath said. “You might not have set the fire, but you wrote incendiary letters. Or are you going to deny that, too?”
Robert dragged a hand down his beard until it pointed toward the floor.
Macrath folded his arms in front of his chest, looking as sympathetic as a wall.
Did he really believe that Robert had done such a thing? Granted, he was a fire and brimstone kind of man, but she couldn’t see Robert using the words that had been written in the letter.
“Not only did you write the letters, Robert, but you’ve tried to make Mairi’s life miserable. I asked you to help her, not question the expenditure of every coin.”
Robert held his hands out, palms up. “If I erred, Macrath, it was in memory of your father. I knew what he gave up to make the paper profitable.”
Mairi had had enough.
“I loved my father with all my heart,” she said. “But the Gazette was never profitable when he was alive. Macrath didn’t make it profitable, either. Whatever contributions you made to it, Robert, were in terms of words like frustration and irritation. I was the one who made the paper profitable. I was the one who worked all those nights alone. I’ve been the only reporter for weeks and months and years. I even became a hawker when one of them couldn’t come to work.
“What did I come home to? Not praise. Not support. Nothing as fine as that. I had to justify every cent I spent. You never said a kind word to me, including anything about my father. If you cared so much for my father, you would have cared a little for his daughter.”
Macrath started to speak, and she turned and faced him. “I love you, Macrath. You are my only brother. Yet you treat me like I’m a child. Why not come to me and tell me your suspicions about Robert, rather than confronting him in my place? I don’t need to be protected. I don’t need to be shielded from the world.”
She shook her head, but stopped abruptly when Macrath began to smile.
“Am I amusing to you?”
“I just figured out why you turned down the Lord Provost,” he said. “Not because you don’t love the man, Mairi, but because of your pride. You won’t be married for the sake of shame.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Macrath.”
“Which part? That you won’t be married? Or that you love the man? Any fool could see that part.”
When he was a little boy, Macrath hated to have his face washed. Instead of listening to him fuss, she would simply grab him around the neck and apply washcloth and soap to the dirty bits, holding him firmly when he squirmed. Right now she wished he hadn’t grown too big for such treatment. She would’ve done the same thing, and while she was at it, left the soap in his mouth.
“You’re like two donkeys in harness,” he said, still smiling.
“I thought you would offer me an apology, Macrath, rather than a smirk. And you,” she said, pointing at Robert, “I deserve an apology from you, too, for three years of being an insufferable ass.”
When the older man reared back, she almost apologized, but restrained herself. People—men—simply had to understand that she was not going to stand for it anymore.
She was tired of working herself to the bone and receiving absolutely no appreciation for it. The only person who had ever seemed to appreciate her was Logan.
Must she think of him again?
She looked from Macrath to Robert.
“Just tell me why. Why would you do such a thing?”
Robert looked at her. “I thought you would listen to reason, realize how the world perceived you. But you didn’t. You were all for going about your business with no care to propriety.”
She wasn’t certain if he meant running the newspaper or lusting after Logan. She wasn’t going to ask for clarification, either.
“I want you out of my house.” She turned to Macrath. “I don’t need a keeper. I can keep myself.”
Macrath had the good sense to stay quiet and mute his smile. Robert almost started to say something, but she gave him a look that made him think twice before she marched out of the room, leaving the two of them alone.
The next morning Mairi opened her door reluctantly at the knock. She really didn’t want to see anyone. What could she say that she hadn’t already said? Nothing anyone told her would make her change her mind.
Macrath stood there, looking much as he had when he was a little boy and caught her doing something wrong: part charm and part delight that she, as the older sibling, had erred.
She sighed inwardly and waited for his lecture.
Instead of launching into a speech, however, all he said was, “In view of all that’s happened, I’m taking Ellice home.”
She didn’t offer a comment, such as: the girl hasn’t had a chance to see Edinburgh yet. She’d been a hideous chaperone and she couldn’t blame Macrath for whisking the girl away, back to Drumvagen and safety.
“I understand,” she said, her voice sounding oddly gray.
She should get dressed and bid them farewell at the door, ensure that Cook supplied them with a basket of treats for their journey. What she wanted to do was go back to bed and put a pillow over her head.
Macrath’s eyes were filled with sympathy, an expression she disliked when aimed at her. She looked away.
“I meant the fire, Mairi,” he said. “You’ll have enough to do finding a new building and getting the Gazette up and running.”
She nodded. One day she would have to think of that. Tomorrow, perhaps, or when she felt able.
“I’ve made arrangements with my banker,” he said. “All you need do is go to him and tell him what you need.”
“A loan, Macrath,” she said, her feelings of tenderness balanced by irritation. “That’s all. A loan.”
“Don’t be foolish.”
“I’m not being foolish, Macrath,” she said. “Allow me a little of your pride. Just a smidgen of it.”
“A ten year, noninterest loan, Mairi. If you don’t pay me back, I’ll send you to debtor’s prison.”
An unwilling smile tugged at her lips. “You know we don’t have those anymore.”
He thought for a minute. “I’ll assess your wages.”
“What wages?”
He frowned at her. “Don’t say that you haven’t given yourself a salary, Mairi.”
“There was never enough money to pay me, Macrath. I was getting to that point when the fire occurred.”
“Then you’ll just have to take the money, Mairi. If you want to consider it a loan, then fine. But you deserve the chance to run the Gazette as you wish. Besides, you’ll need the money for the publishing company.”
She shook her head. “You do know how expensive that will be, don’t you?”
“It’s worth it, even if we only publish Enid and Brianag’s book.”
He had a point.
“Let me know if there’s anything you need.” He held her gaze. “Promise you will.”
She nodded.
He turned to leave her but hesitated.
“I’m sorry, Mairi,” he said. “For my part in all of this.”
“I know, Macrath. You do have a tendency, however, to barge in and think about the consequences later.”
He laughed. “Virginia would agree,” he said.
“I have nothing to fault you for, Macrath. Everything that happened was my doing.” She held onto the door, feeling as if it was the only solid thing in her world. She didn’t want Macrath to go, but he had his own life at Drumvagen. She had hers, whatever it might turn out to be, here in Edinburgh.
“Not Robert. That was my doing and none of yours.”
She nodded. “Very well, not Robert. Will you replace him?”
“Do I need to?” he asked.
Did she need a chaperone? Once she would have enthusiastically told him no, but after the last two months, perhaps she needed to reassess herself. She hadn’t been wise or calm or measured or anything else she thought herself to be.
She shook her head, determined never again to be as foolish as she had been.
“About Harrison. I think you love him, Mairi, and love is such a fleeting and rare thing that it would be a shame not to acknowledge it and act on it.”
“What does it matter?” she asked. “I ruined everything. I doubt he’ll even want to see me again.”
“Don’t be foolish. You’re mirror images of each other. Come now, haven’t you seen it? He’s stubborn and so are you. He’s filled with pride and so are you. He’s also intelligent, passionate, and determined to convince other people. All traits you possess, Mairi.”
Macrath smiled, such a sweet and understanding expression that her heart felt as if it had been squeezed. She really was going to weep if he didn’t leave, and soon.
“Are you an authority on love, Macrath, just because you married?”
“I’m an authority on love, Mairi, because I almost threw it away, just like you’re doing. If Virginia hadn’t been as hard-headed as you, I might not be as happy as I am today. Go to him. Tell him you love him. Don’t throw away this chance at happiness.”
The effort of simply standing there, listening to him, nearly overwhelmed her, and he seemed to sense it, too, because he caught her face between his hands and kissed her on the nose, much as he had as a boy.
“Be happy, Mairi. Do it. I want you happy.”
She was not going to let him see her cry. Macrath would be horrified at first and then he’d tease her unmercifully. She looked away, studying the floor intently, trying to salvage a shred of dignity from this moment.