A Taste of Sin (10 page)

Sinjun sent his brother a disgruntled look. “Where are you off to this time?”

“I’m afraid I can’t divulge that information. I’ll expect you to control your excesses when you’re with Emma. The girl is willful enough without your example of debauchery.”

“You’ve got a lot of nerve, Julian,” Sinjun blasted. “I’ll do as I damn well please.”

“A word of advice before I leave,” Julian said. “Go to Scotland and fetch your wife. With all the talk of unrest in the Highlands, Christy needs to know she has a husband she can count on.”

“The hell with Christy Macdonald,” Sinjun muttered. “I was forced to marry against my will, but I don’t have to live with her.”

“Is that why you’ve wasted your life on useless pursuits? I knew you were bitter about your marriage, but I never suspected you would rebel by embarking upon a wastrel’s life. Wake up, Sinjun. You’re not the only one forced to wed unwillingly.”

“Don’t preach, Julian. Why should I fetch my wife when I’m satisfied with the way things are now? She will only complicate my life.”

“I can see I’m wasting my time,” Julian said with a hint of regret. “Just remember, I love you too well to see you waste your life. Don’t let your behavior shame Emma. I’ll talk to you when I return.”

“I love you, too, Julian, but you can’t run my life.” Shaking his head, Julian quietly left the room.

Frustrated, Sinjun flopped down upon the bed. He knew he was out of control, but he couldn’t seem to stop. He kept himself drunk because sobriety hurt. When sober, Flora consumed his thoughts. He relived each moment with her, recalling her sweet kisses, the way her body responded to him, her passion, the bliss he’d found in her arms. Despite the constant ache of missing her, he hated her for leaving him at loose ends.

Bewilderment and battered pride were making him bitter. Were Flora to return, he couldn’t predict how he would react. Flora had left him without a word of good-bye, and his confusion regarding his feelings for the heartless chit was disconcerting. He didn’t want to feel anything.

Though Julian’s lecture had made him uncomfortable, he knew his brother was right. He had never before drunk himself to oblivion, or spent so much time in gambling hells, or paid women of easy virtue he’d picked up in Covent Gardens. Even Rudy had expressed disgust at his excesses, and Rudy was no angel.

Julian’s words continued to weigh on Sinjun’s conscience. To please Julian and keep Emma’s regard during Julian’s absence, Sinjun resolved to make a concerted effort to behave around his sister. On those nights he wasn’t required to squire Emma and Aunt Amanda to various functions, he was free to indulge himself. It wasn’t as if he enjoyed waking up the next day with a big head, wondering how much money he’d gambled away or which friend he’d insulted; it was just that he had this compelling need to prove to the world that Flora had been nothing more to him than a passing fancy.

Julian returned to London a month later. The note he sent Sinjun requested his immediate presence. Wondering what Julian had heard about him now, Sinjun removed himself to Mansfield Place with undue haste. Julian received him in the library, his face a study of concern.

“What is it now, Julian?” Sinjun asked as he flopped into a comfortable chair before the hearth. “I did what you asked. Emma found my conduct as an escort quite satisfactory.”

Julian thrust long, tapered fingers though a fine head of dark hair, clearly upset about something.

“Spit it out, brother. Is it my behavior again?”

“Not this time, Sinjun. This concerns your wife.”

“Christy Macdonald?”

“Aye. A message from your bailiff at Glenmoor awaited me when I returned home. There’s trouble. Sir Oswald reports that the crofters have refused to pay the current levies. I’ve been handling your business because you professed to have no head for it, but ‘tis time you accepted responsibility and took charge.”

“I told you before,” Sinjun repeated, “tell the king to send his soldiers to set them straight.”

“‘Tis more serious than that, Sinjun. I don’t know how this is going to set with you, but Sir Oswald heard rumors that your wife is expecting a child.”

Sinjun leaped to his feet. “What! Has she no shame? No honor? How could she do this to me?”

Disgust colored Julian’s words. “How can you expect her to honor her marriage vows when your own conduct is less than noble? You’ve flaunted your mistresses without a thought for your wife’s feelings.”

“‘Tis different for men,” Sinjun claimed. “Christy Macdonald is not a courtesan. Those kind of women are sought after by men for their beauty and experience. Christy is a Highland lass, neither beautiful nor experienced.”

Julian’s fine eyebrows arched sharply upward. “How do you know what she looks like? You’ve not seen her since she was a child of seven. I’d say her patience wore thin waiting for you to claim her.”

“Don’t preach, Julian. If the rumors are true, Christy is no better than a whore.”

“You have no choice now, Sinjun. You’d best hie yourself to Scotland and straighten out this mess.”

“Aye,” Sinjun allowed. “But before I leave, I intend to obtain a writ of annulment from the courts. If Christy is indeed increasing, I’ll present the document for her signature, assuming she can write.”

“You were given stewardship of Glenmoor into perpetuity, and that stewardship included a wife. Both are your responsibility.”

“Glenmoor belongs to me and my heirs, I know that. But I will not have a whore for a wife. An annulment is inevitable if I find Christy carrying another man’s child.”

“I’ve asked Sir Oswald to return to London to make a full report on the situation in the Highlands.”

“I can’t wait for his return,” Sinjun said, determined to confront his wife with her infidelity. For many years he’d enjoyed the freedom marriage granted him without being burdened with a wife, but Christy’s behavior went beyond anything he could condone. No bastard was going to bear the Thornton name if he had anything to say about it.

Julian’s intervention helped Sinjun obtain a speedy writ of annulment that required only Christy’s signature.

Sinjun left London within the month. In a way he was grateful for the distraction for it served to keep thoughts of Flora from overtaking his life.

He traveled in his own coach, staying at posting inns along the way. When no inns were available, he found accommodations with English nobles eager to provide a night’s lodging to Lord Mansfield’s brother, a man whose reputation had preceded him. Lord Sin’s exploits had been the talk of the
ton
for years.

After two weeks of exhausting travel over nearly impassible roads, Sinjun spied the aging turrets of Glenmoor.

Chapter 5

P
erched on a bluff overlooking the loch, Christy folded her legs beneath her, pulled her cloak closer around her narrow shoulders, and stared out across water that reflected the color of the gray clouds scudding overhead. Christy loved this land. The heather-topped moors, the craggy mountains, even the mist that clung to the ground and hung over the loch. She heaved a heavy sigh as her thoughts wandered back to London and Sinjun. Two months had passed since she’d left him but it seemed like an eternity.

It hadn’t been an easy two months. The weather hadn’t cooperated, and the coach ride home had kept her in a constant state of nausea. Rutted roads mired in mud had made the journey perilous, and the situation she’d returned to at Glenmoor was explosive.

Calum Cameron had been stirring up trouble in her absence. When she’d explained that she and Sinjun had reconciled and arrived at an amicable agreement concerning their marriage, he had been livid. He had expected her to return from London a free woman and take him as her husband.

Telling Calum and her clansmen that she was expecting Sinjun’s bairn hadn’t been easy. There had been an outcry of disbelief and disappointment Clearly no one wanted to believe she was carrying an Englishman’s child.

“I thought I’d find ye here.”

Christy started violently, surprised to see Calum bearing down on her. “Calum, you shouldn’t sneak up on a person like that. You frightened me out of my skin.”

Calum, a hulking giant of a man with shaggy brown hair and bulging muscles, hunkered down beside her. Instinctively Christy scooted away. She wasn’t exactly afraid of Calum, but the look in his blue eyes unnerved her. He would make a powerful enemy.

“We need to talk.”

“About clan business?” Christy asked, pretending to misunderstand his meaning.

His cold blue gaze raked her figure, intense with loathing. “Nay, about us.”

“There is no us, Calum. I have a husband. I’ve been married nearly three quarters of my life.”

“Ye know yer clansmen dinna accept that English swine as yer husband. We canna forget that our land has been taken from us and our freedom denied the day our fathers were defeated at Culloden. Yer own father and brothers died that day. Lord Derby shames us all by his lack of interest in his wife and lands.”

“I told you, Calum, Lord Derby and I are no longer estranged. I carry his bairn.”

Calum’s expression turned fierce. “Where is the bastard, then? Why is he not here with ye? Yer lying, lass. There is no bairn, no reconciliation. No Englishman is worthy of ye.”

His heavy hand came down hard on her shoulder. She flinched but made no other concession to his strength. “Ye know I want ye, lass.”

“You want to be laird,” Christy charged. “ Tis all you’ve ever wanted. The Highlands will never be ours again in our lifetime if the English have anything to say about it.”

“The clan needs a man to lead the fight against oppression and the unfair levies that line Lord Derby’s pockets.”

Christy bristled. “What can you do that I haven’t already done? I’ve verbally protested to Sir Oswald. We’ve even withheld the quarterly levies.”

“A man would lead a rebellion.
I
would lead a rebellion,” he said, his massive chest swelling with pride.

“What good would that do us?” Christy challenged. “Lives would be lost, innocent lives, perhaps even those of women and children. Did you learn nothing from Culloden?”

“I learned not to trust Englishmen, lass. Ye forget, I lost loved ones that day, too. Why dinna ye tell me the truth, Christy? Ye never saw yer husband, did ye? Yer not expecting a bairn, are ye?”

Christy sighed. There was no help for it. It was time to prove she hadn’t lied about her condition.

“Give me your hand, Calum.”

“Why?”

“Just give me your hand.”

He held out a callused paw, and Christy guided it to the swelling beneath her waist. Though not large, it was hard and round and could be mistaken for nothing but what it was, a bairn growing beneath her heart. Calum’s blue eyes grew as hard as diamonds and he jerked his hand away, as if scalded. His expression was so fierce that Christy feared he would strike her.

“Damn ye to everlasting hell, Christy Macdonald! Why did ye do it? Why did ye play whore to an English swine?”

Christy raised her chin defiantly. “Sinjun and I are married. We reached an agreement, Calum. Since he prefers to remain in London and I at Glenmoor, we agreed to live apart. He gave me leave to rule Glenmoor as I please. There
will
be a Macdonald laird to take my place after I’m gone,” she vowed, touching her stomach.

“What if yer bairn is a lassie?”

“So what if it is? Am I not my grandfather’s heir? The sex of the bairn will make no difference.”

“Yer grandfather did ye no favors,” Calum said sourly. “He should have made me his heir.”

Christy bristled indignantly. “You still don’t understand, do you? The land is no longer ours to claim. It was taken from the clan as punishment for their support of Prince Charles, the pretender to the throne. Wouldn’t you rather have an absentee landowner than one who rules you with an iron fist? One day my bairn will become laird. He will inherit Glenmoor from his father and a Macdonald will once again own the land.”

“Englishmen owning Scottish soil is an abomination,” Calum muttered darkly. “Ye were supposed to ask yer husband for an annulment and demand that he reduce the high levies we pay him. But what did ye do? Ye fell into his bed like a mare in heat. Have ye no shame, Christy Macdonald? Yer husband is a debaucher of women, a rake, a man without morals or scruples. He cares nothing for ye.”

Christy winced. Calum’s words held more truth than fiction. Doubtless Sinjun had forgotten she existed hours after she’d disappeared. She held no fear that Sinjun would come to Glenmoor. Should he by chance try to find her, which she seriously doubted, he would look to Cornwall, not Glenmoor.

Christy tried not to think of Sinjun with other women, but it was impossible to imagine Lord Sin without a beautiful woman on his arm or in his bed. Would he return to Lady Violet? Or would he find a new mistress to flaunt before the
ton
?

“Perhaps what you say is true, Calum, but an annulment is no longer an option. I
am
carrying Lord Derby’s child. Nothing you can do or say will change that.”

Calum surged to his feet. “We’ll see about that, lass. The clansmen are awaiting ye at Glenmoor. Macdonalds, Camerons, Ranalds, and Mackenzies. They’ve come to protest the excessive levies. Ye’d best come along and try to placate them.”