The Devil of Clan Sinclair (33 page)
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Authors: Karen Ranney
Tags: #Regency, #Historical Romance, #Fiction
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Drumvagen, Scotland
May, 1874
E
llice could not tolerate any more.
Really, how much was one person supposed to bear? Day in and day out, all she heard was sniping.
The two women had been companionable for a year, almost friendly. When their book had been published—
The Lady’s Guide to Proper Housekeeping
—she expected the amicable behavior to continue, especially since the book had become popular in Scotland and England.
Macrath’s suggestion, a few years earlier, for the Dowager Countess of Barrett and Brianag, housekeeper to Drumvagen and wise woman of Kinloch Village, to pen a book between them had been considered odd. No one, least of all her, had expected the book to succeed as well as it had. Macrath told her they’d received orders from as far away as Australia.
Instead of feeling grateful for their good fortune, her mother and Brianag were at each other’s throats again, each taking credit for their success.
Even now she could hear them although they were probably in her mother’s sitting room.
“Of course the Scots would want to know how an English woman manages a household,” her mother said. “The Scots always look to the English.”
Brianag was not to be outdone. She muttered something in that unintelligible Scots of hers, followed by, “Only if they want to know how to ruin something.”
Macrath had urged them to work on another book in the futile hope that activity would keep their antipathy at bay. Ellice thought this newest venture was doomed to failure. They couldn’t even be in the same room for more than five minutes.
When a door slammed somewhere, she closed her eyes. Who had made a grand exit now?
How could they be so short sighted?
If she had the opportunity they’d been given, she would have leapt at the chance. She would have done anything Macrath wanted in order to get her book published. As it was, her manuscript remained a closely guarded secret. She was the only one who knew of its existence.
She moved from the window seat to her secretary, unlocked it, then placed the manuscript inside, locking the desk again and pocketing the key.
“Glib i the tung is aye glaikit at the hert,” Brianag said, her voice just this side of a shout.
“What is that supposed to mean?” her mother said. “Would it be too absurd to hope that one day you would speak the Queen’s English? Even a Scot can learn that.”
Ellice rolled her eyes. Couldn’t they pick another place other than the hall to quarrel? Or at least insult each other in a softer voice?
Because of Macrath’s kindness and generosity, she and her mother had been given wonderful quarters at Drumvagen, almost as if they were family in truth, instead of claiming only a tenuous relationship to the owner of this magnificent home.
Virginia had once been married to Ellice’s brother. After Lawrence’s death, Virginia had fallen in love with Macrath Sinclair, a Scot who made even Ellice’s heart pound occasionally, especially when he looked at Virginia across the room with that certain look in his eyes.
Perhaps it was that look that had sparked her imagination. What would she feel if a man looked at her in that way, or treated her as if there was nothing more important in the world than her?
Her mother chose that moment to open the door to her suite. “Are you daydreaming again, child?” her mother said, bustling into the sitting room. “Have you no other occupation to mark your time?”
“I’ve been reading,” she said, feeling a twinge of conscience at her lie.
Reading was considered the occupation of a gentlewoman. Even here, in the wilds of Scotland, she was to comport herself as the sister of an earl.
“You and Brianag have to stop arguing,” she said.
Her mother raised her eyebrows.
She was not given to correcting her mother. Enid was, after all, the Dowager Countess of Barrett and quite a formidable personage. But something must be done before Macrath decided to act. Virginia was heavy with her third child and Macrath was on edge, just the kind of mood where it wasn’t wise to tweak his nose.
“The woman is a cretin,” her mother said. “She wants to have a chapter on laundry in the new book.”
Ellice frowned. “Why would you object to that?”
Enid shook her head, looking up at the ceiling as if for divine interference. “A gentlewoman hires a laundress, my dear child. She supervises. She doesn’t do the work herself.”
“But shouldn’t she know everything about it, to ensure the work is done correctly? Otherwise, she might be fooled if a laundress states that a stain can’t be removed. It’s like having a lady’s maid, Mother. Shouldn’t you know how to care for your own jewels, in order to prevent them from being damaged?”
Her mother stopped and stared at her, such an intense regard that Ellice wished she would blink. Enid finally nodded, just once, a signal that Ellice wasn’t to be chastised for speaking out.
“I’ve been giving some thought to your future,” her mother said, changing the subject from her own shortcomings to something more terrifying.
Ellice stood and very calmly walked to the other side of the room, sat on the window seat and regarded her mother.
Calm. She needed to remain calm, that was all. She wouldn’t fidget, which was—as her mother had often told her—a nervous habit. She didn’t particularly want her mother to know she was terrified.
“You’re of an age to be married,” Enid said, moving through the sitting room, touching objects Ellice had brought from London to give her a bit of comfort in the Scottish countryside. A book her sister, Eudora, had given to her on her fifteenth birthday. A sketch of her brother, Lawrence, framed in silver. A small porcelain statue, called a Foo Dog, if she remembered correctly, that resembled a wrinkly lion more than a dog.
She was aware of her own age and her circumstances, perhaps a bit more than her mother who occupied herself with quarreling for most of the day.
As lonely as she was at Drumvagen she couldn’t summon up one iota of interest in a purchased husband. Macrath wouldn’t hesitate in providing a dowry for her. That’s the kind of man he was.
She wanted exactly the same kind of man for herself.
Where did she go to find another Macrath?
Enid was still walking through the sitting room, her substantial hooped skirt grazing the tables and brushing against the wall.
“Why should I marry?” she asked. “I’m perfectly happy.” A bit of a lie but her mother didn’t need to know that.
Her mother drew herself up, shoulders level, and hands clasped tightly in front of her. Enid was a short woman, one whose bulk made her appear squared. A small and formidable enemy if she wished to be.
“Marriage is a woman’s natural state, Ellice.”
“You’re not married.”
“I have mourned your father all these years, child. I do not wish to replace him in my affections.”
Not once had she ever heard her mother talk about the late earl fondly. Whenever Enid referred to her long-dead husband it was in an irritated tone, as if his demise had been planned to annoy her. Now she was claiming to feel affection for him? Ellice didn’t believe it. She was not, however, unwise enough to say that to her mother.
Enid, Dowager Countess of Barrett, never forgot a slight, even one from her own daughter.
If Eudora had lived, no doubt her older sister would have known some calming words. Or by this time, Eudora would have married and made Enid a grandmother several times over.
“Would you be pleased to be a grandmother?” she asked.
“Without benefit of marriage?” Enid abruptly sank into a chair. “Tell me you haven’t done anything so precipitous. It was bad enough that Virginia bent the rules of society, but you?”
If Virginia hadn’t bent the rules of society, they wouldn’t be living in this grand house, each given a lovely suite, and treated like family members. Another comment she wouldn’t make.
“No,” she said. Should she tell her mother she was still a virgin? That was a word never spoken about in polite company. People merely assumed you were maidenly until you weren’t.
Society, and she would freely admit that she hadn’t been out in it very much, seemed like a giant organization whose members all knew secret rules, the purpose of which was to shield everyone from real emotions.
“Thank the good Lord and all the saints for that, at least.” Enid fanned the air in front of her flushed face.
KAREN RANNEY wanted to be a writer from the time she was five years old and filled her Big Chief tablet with stories. People in stories did amazing things and she was too shy to do anything amazing. Years spent in Japan, Paris, and Italy, however, not only fueled her imagination but proved that she wasn’t that shy after all. Yet she prefers to keep her current adventures between the covers of her books. Karen lives in San Antonio, Texas, and loves to hear from her readers at [email protected].
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from
The Witch of Clan Sinclair
copyright © 2014 by Karen Ranney LLC
Excerpt from
The Virgin of Clan Sinclair
copyright © 2014 by Karen Ranney LLC
THE DEVIL OF CLAN SINCLAIR
. Copyright © 2013 by Karen Ranney LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition AUGUST 2013 ISBN: 9780062242457
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-224244-0
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