Chapter 32
Mairi sat in the parlor, wondering how much longer she could bear the room. She’d already grown tired of the house. She wanted to be doing something, anything.
She’d made one daylight visit to the site of the building that had once housed the Sinclair Printing Company. Charred timbers and the remains of the staircase lay in a heap in one corner. She thought the grayish lump of metal near the front of the building must be the press. Ash and a black, tarlike substance lay a foot thick everywhere. The acrid stench of smoke and a curious chemical odor hung in the air.
She knew she would remember that smell for the rest of her life and be able to label it. Nothing so easy as Fire or Disaster. It was pain, sharp and persistent.
For almost an hour she stood in the bitter cold, remembering. James and Allan were beside her, silent, as if they were all mourning. Perhaps they were, for something forever gone.
Nothing could be salvaged from the fire, so she hadn’t been back. Nor would she ever return again. She didn’t even want to rebuild on the site. Too many memories were buried there. No, if she was going to start the Edinburgh Women’s Gazette, she would do so in a new location, not build on a ruin. She would lease an acceptable building and start from the beginning.
She stared out the window, transfixed by the snow piling on the mullions. Edinburgh in December could experience a day of bright sunshine followed by three days of snow. The snow had been falling for two hours, covering the street in white, making every corner of her world beautiful for a little while.
She glanced down at the book in her hand. She’d read the same page three times and had yet to remember anything.
Yesterday she’d sent Abigail out to collect as many broadsheets published by their competitors as she could. Blessedly, there wasn’t a hint of scandal about the Lord Provost.
Although news of the Gazette fire had been reported in the other papers, none of them gloated over their demise. Instead, she’d been pleasantly surprised when several representatives of competitive papers came to call, each of them offering their press until she could find another building. As gratified as she was, she’d turned them down. Once the Edinburgh Women’s Gazette was up and running, she intended to be the best newspaper in Edinburgh, and she’d feel bad trouncing someone from whom she’d taken charity.
Robert had left the house, packing his trunk, finding lodgings in Leith. They hadn’t spoken, and when he bid the rest of the household farewell, she remained in her room, refusing to see him. She’d taken a great deal of abuse at Robert’s hands. Not only his weekly tirades about expenses, but his forever muttering dire predictions about her actions. The letters were almost anticlimactic, demonstrating exactly what he thought of her.
Although she wasn’t certain she believed his protestations of innocence about the fire, or even that the fire had been an accident, she was sure she couldn’t trust Robert again.
James occupied himself in duties in the stables. She noted, however, that Abigail took him his meals from time to time, along with a cup of tea and a few biscuits. Not to mention a purloined scone or two.
Were they all guilty of a subterranean life?
Allan had been offered the surprising task of helping out at one of Logan’s bookshops. When he announced that he’d taken the position, she couldn’t find the words to protest. How could she employ him when there was no paper? With no means to make an income, she couldn’t afford his salary.
“The minute the paper is up and running, Mairi, I’ll be your pressman.”
She had only nodded, wondering when that would be.
She’d also begun to wonder if the fire wasn’t a lesson of sorts or punishment for her arrogance. The moments of introspection were coming too frequently, as if someone had given her a stereoscope. Except that the slides she viewed weren’t those of famous sights in Rome and Florence but those of her own life.
Each scene was a different example of where she hadn’t been the person she’d always thought herself to be. Instead of diligent and conscientious, she’d been intense and dismissive. She recalled times when she wasn’t as kind as she could have been, when she was impatient or simply didn’t see other people. She heard her voice etched with irritation or boredom.
She’d told herself that she had to make the Gazette a success, which had only been an excuse to justify living a solitary life. She’d been hurt and shamed by Calvin’s rejection but never admitted it. Looking back, she saw that she’d wrapped all that pain around her in a tight cocoon.
Fenella was right.
Somehow, she’d thought that Fenella wanted the same solitary life. How selfish she’d been, and now she compounded that feeling with envy.
Until meeting Logan, she hadn’t known she was lonely. She thought her life was full, rich, and filled with events that propelled her from morning to night to morning again. She woke up energized and excited. She went to sleep grudgingly, knowing she needed her rest but unwilling to lose so many hours.
Yet something had always been missing.
She knew what it was now.
How odd that being refused admittance to the Edinburgh Press Club had changed her life simply by introducing her to Logan. Until that very instant when she’d first seen him, when her eyes locked with his, she’d been content with the existence she created for herself.
Seeing him had changed something, had unlocked a door she hadn’t even known existed.
Would she ever be the same again?
She pressed her fingers over her eyes, trying to ease their stinging, a result of nights of fitful sleep.
From the moment she left his house she’d been in pain. She hadn’t been able to sleep. She questioned everything in her life, and she was miserable. Worse, she was angry and on the brink of tears most of the time.
The door suddenly opened, and Fenella entered, followed by Abigail, each of them carrying a tray.
“Since you insist on remaining here or in your room,” Fenella said, “I’ve brought lunch to you. We’ll sit and eat together.”
“I’m truly not hungry,” she said.
“Then you can watch me eat,” Fenella said, directing Abigail to place her tray directly in front of Mairi. “You can surely have some tea.”
Before Mairi could say a word, Fenella thrust a cup into her hands. She took it and remained silent while Fenella poured the tea, then added the sugar she liked.
Maybe she would have a pastie or two. The smell wafting from the platter made her stomach growl in protest.
Fenella didn’t bother hiding her smile when Mairi reached for one.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” her cousin said a few minutes later.
Her pastie finished, Mairi reached for a chocolate-covered biscuit. She wasn’t hungry so much as fumbling for something to say.
“I wasn’t avoiding you,” she said. “I just didn’t seek you out.”
“Or come down for dinner. Or lunch. Or breakfast.”
An unwilling smile curved her lips. “Very well, perhaps I was avoiding you.”
“Why?”
“Jealousy,” she said.
Fenella’s eyes widened and she stopped eating. “Of me?”
Mairi nodded.
Fenella put her pastie down on the plate.
“Why would you be jealous of me?” she asked, smiling gently. “You have the same potential for happiness.”
“Embarrassment, then.”
She sat back and looked at Mairi. “Hasn’t that faded?”
“Regrettably, no.”
“Are you embarrassed about being caught, Mairi? Or embarrassed for going to Mr. Harrison’s home?”
She didn’t know how to answer that. She wasn’t embarrassed about going with Logan, but all of them descending on his house like hungry locusts was still humiliating.
Her only answer, however, was a shrug.
For a few minutes they didn’t speak, the room cocooned by the falling snow.
Fenella dusted off her hands.
“You seem very interested in the idea of fighting for the rights of women, Mairi. Could you not also fight for the right to be a woman?”
She put the half eaten biscuit down. “What does that mean?”
Fenella sighed. “Why can’t you love someone and still be yourself? Love doesn’t change a woman. It makes life better, Mairi. It doesn’t make it worse.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Oh, you know,” Fenella said. “If you’d allow yourself to. You’re in love with Logan, but you won’t allow it. Why, Mairi?”
She didn’t answer.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were afraid. But you’ve never been afraid of anything.” Fenella sat back. “Or am I wrong? Does he frighten you?”
She shook her head.
She felt protected around Logan, as if his size, the power of his personality, shielded her, even from herself. She’d never had anyone to depend on like Logan. Her father had always been too busy. Macrath had been too driven. And Calvin? She almost laughed at the thought of depending on Calvin. He’d been a weak man, terrified of the opinion of others. He would be horrified at her recent actions.
Calvin was a shadow next to Logan.
When would she stop doing that? Measuring other people against Logan wasn’t wise. Worse, it made her sorrow even greater, if that were possible.
Fenella drank her tea then put the cup down, eyeing Mairi.
“I think you’re in love with him.”
“What I feel for Logan Harrison isn’t love. Love isn’t volatile. I want to shout at him more often than not. I want to march up to him and poke him in the chest with my finger.” And then pull his head down for a kiss.
Fenella smiled. “The right man excites you, pushes you, makes you laugh with abandon.”
She stared at her cousin.
“Love shouldn’t make me want to run from the room and hide my head under a pillow.”
Fenella shocked her by laughing.
Mairi frowned at her cousin.
“Love should make me feel warm inside, not as if someone has punched me in the stomach. I shouldn’t be trembling at the thought of love. It should make me sigh in contentment, not make me nauseous.”
“If you want to feel contentment, get a kitten. Or a puppy,” Fenella said. “Feel that way for a pet, not a man.”
Fenella shook her head, still smiling. “You’re just like him, you know,” she said.
Surprised, Mairi gave up all pretense of eating. “Macrath said the same.”
“You’re both strong-willed people, determined to get your way. You see a goal and you go after it. I think Logan is like that, too. Did you know that he’s our youngest Lord Provost?”
“I may have read something about that,” Mairi said.
“He’s also been very successful in his businesses,” she continued. “He has three bookstores.”
“Yes, I know,” Mairi said.
She glanced at her cousin, to find Fenella’s eyes twinkling.
“We’re not the same at all,” she said. “Besides, he never said a word about the future until Macrath suggested marriage. I’ll not force a man to the altar.”
She didn’t tell her cousin about his declaration of love, even though the words still echoed in her mind.
“Is that what has you in knots?”
Mairi studied her skirt as her fingers pleated the fabric. “I’m human. I have feelings.”
“Perhaps he’s the same,” Fenella said, picking up one of the trays.
Mairi looked up at her.
“Perhaps he was loath to say anything for fear of your reaction. Would you have been receptive to his courtship?”
She stared at Fenella, who smiled at her.
“Oh, Mairi, love is exactly what you described. It’s volatile and messy and inconvenient and glorious.”
She vanished through the doorway, leaving Mairi to stare after her. Had Fenella always been so direct and she’d never noticed it before? Or had love changed her, as it seemed to change everyone?
As for her, she was almost sick for the loss of Logan and furious because she was. Then she was even more miserable because she realized she’d brought all this unhappiness on herself.
Logan had come up with a half-dozen strategies, all of them worthwhile. He could simply appear everywhere she went until she threw up her hands in exasperation and allowed him to plead his case.
Or he could send her a note for every hour of every day until she begged him not to write her again.
He’d compose a broadside—perhaps write a bad poem to her—have it printed and distribute it around her house, sending a hundred or so to her. Or hang them from the branches of the trees around her house.
He’d take out an ad in one of Edinburgh’s papers and confess his love to her for all the good citizens of Edinburgh to read.
He’d stand in front of her house with musicians and serenade her. He’d been told he had a passably good baritone.
He would bring her books he’d liked, editions from his own library. He wasn’t a fan of poetry, but perhaps she would like Burns. Every Scot liked Burns.
The problem was that none of those ideas would change Mairi’s mind if she were determined that it wasn’t going to be changed.
She didn’t want his money. Although he hadn’t amassed a fortune, his bookshops were doing well. Edinburgh was a city of lawyers, bankers, and politicians, and he catered to each group. Because of the success of his business, he’d always have an occupation to return to should he wish to leave politics.
He suspected that if the costs he had to pay to be a politician became too dear—the loss of privacy and the endless need to always be available—he could walk away from being Lord Provost without much difficulty.
He couldn’t walk away from Mairi.
She didn’t want his house or his possessions.
She didn’t want him.
That was the most difficult thing to accept. How could she forget those moments in his bed? Or those hours when they’d talked and he’d been more honest with her than anyone?
He opened the bottom drawer of his desk, placed his feet on it and settled back in his chair. Weaving his fingers together over his stomach, he stared out the window at the view of the castle.
His classic thinking pose, as Thomas would say.
He had never courted a woman, let alone one like Mairi. Perhaps if he instituted all of his plans, she wouldn’t have a chance to say no. She’d be so overwhelmed by his single-minded assault that she’d surrender.
He grinned. When had Mairi ever surrendered?
Thomas entered the room, his arms filled with papers. No doubt a hundred tasks he had to review before the next council meeting.
He smiled at his secretary. “Have I ever taken a holiday, Thomas?”
Thomas deposited the lot on top of his desk, rearranging his face from an instant frown to a more acceptable expression.
“Other than the few days you went to Drumvagen, sir? I don’t think so.”
“Then I think it’s time I do, don’t you?”
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.