The Witch Of Clan Sinclair (21 page)

Mairi almost choked on her wine.

“You said your housekeeper has a reputation for being a healer,” Logan said, turning to Macrath.

Her brother nodded. “She does. Do you have need of her services?”

“A small rash,” Logan said. “A carpet abrasion, I believe.”

She sent him a fulminating glance, which he promptly ignored.

“Tell me, Mrs. Sinclair,” Logan said, looking at Virginia, “how do you feel about kilts?”

She was going to kill him.

Virginia looked from Logan to Mairi. A slow smile blossomed on her face. “I believe there’s no more stirring a sight, Mr. Harrison, than a Scot in a kilt.”

“Are you all right?” Ellice asked, leaning over and touching Mairi’s hand.

Mairi smiled at her. “I’m fine,” she said, pasting a determined smile on her lips. She avoided the looks of the other people at the table, namely Logan and Macrath, both of whom glanced in her direction.

“You will stay the night,” Virginia was saying, to her horror. “After all, it’s beginning to snow.”

Even the weather was conspiring against her. What kind of horrible person would she be not to offer him hospitality? Of course he had to stay. With any luck, a blizzard wouldn’t keep him trapped at Drumvagen for a week.

The thought was enough to make her close her eyes.

For the rest of the dinner she was silent. Everyone else laughed and joked, but Mairi decided it would be better if she simply retreated from the field of battle, especially since it was obvious Logan had won that skirmish.

M
acrath took one look at his wife, shut the door to their suite, and swept her up into his arms.

“Were we as foolish?” he asked.

“Oh yes,” she said. “Perhaps a little more so.”

“I refuse to believe it. Mairi’s not herself,” he said. “I’ve never seen my sister so . . .” His words trailed off.

Virginia laughed. “She’s ten times herself. I’ve never seen her more annoyed. Or alive, for that matter. You aren’t going to talk to her about him, are you?”

Now, he pulled back and looked at her.

“Why not?”

“Two reasons. We didn’t exactly act in a virtuous manner, Macrath. We are not shining examples of how to behave. Mairi would pin your ears back for your hypocrisy. Secondly, she’s madly in love and not at all happy about it.”

“Maybe I should include that in the Sinclair motto,” he said. “The Sinclair Clan: struggling against love.”

“Oh, but the end result is so worth it,” she said, laying her cheek against his chest and sighing happily.

D
inner had been a disaster.

What was worse, every time she caught Virginia’s eye, her sister-in-law smiled.

Was it as obvious as that? Did the whole world know how easily Logan could reduce her to foolishness?

Mairi waited until Drumvagen settled down around her. Only then did she open the door of her bedchamber, a guest room that had been permanently allocated as hers, and slip down the corridor to the room Logan had been given.

One tap on the door was all it took before it opened and she was inside. She stepped back before he could get the wrong idea, keeping the door halfway between them.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in Edinburgh being Lord Provost?” she whispered.

“Yes, I am,” he whispered back. “But would you have me be rude and refuse your sister-in-law’s gracious invitation?”

“Yes.” The word came out as a hiss. “You have to leave.”

“I was planning on doing so tomorrow morning,” he said, folding his arms and leaning against the door. “Of course, if you wish, I can always leave now. In the dark. In the snow.”

“There was no need to come to Drumvagen.”

“You left Edinburgh without a word to me.”

She stared at him, wishing he were more than a shadow in the darkness.

“Am I required to obtain your permission for whatever I do?”

“Not permission, lass. Only explanation. You were gone when I called on you. I was concerned.”

“You called on me?” she asked. “Why?”

“Maybe I missed you.”

She was almost as frightened of him now as she was of the men who’d attacked her. They could only wound her body. Logan could shatter her heart.

“How is your search for a wife going?” she asked.

He placed his finger on her cheek, trailed a path to her chin, then tapped it lightly. “Did you come to my room to ask me that, lass? Or is it more you’re looking for?”

She took a step back.

“I’ve been thinking of your kisses,” he said. “Wondering if I imagined them. Would you care to give me a taste?”

She shook her head.

His laugh would wake all the inhabitants of Drumvagen.

When she said as much, he chuckled. “Perhaps they’re awake already. Perhaps they’re doing what I would like to.”

He took a step toward her, and she took a step back. Irritated, she stood her ground when he took another step in her direction.

“Have you always been a satyr?” she asked.

“I’ve been remarkably celibate until you,” he said. “I’ve not been able to get that night out of my mind, however.”

She was not going to tell him she felt the same.

“This is my brother’s home,” she said.

“And so you’ll not be indulging in wickedness, is that it?”

“That’s it exactly,” she said, both grateful that he understood and a little disappointed that he didn’t try to convince her otherwise.

“Not even a kiss? You could pretend that you and I are just friends. Perhaps old friends who have not seen each other for a while. It will start very friendly, almost passionless. If you want to deepen it, you’ll need to let me know.”

“I don’t think that would be the wisest idea,” she said, knowing how volatile they were around each other.

“What about an embrace? I will hold you in my arms, loosely, like this,” he said. Suddenly he was there, enveloping her like a cloud. His arms wrapped around her, but loose enough to give her room to escape.

He bent his head, rested his cheek against her hair. “I’ll just hold you like this,” he said. “Feel you pliant in my arms and wonder what you would feel like in a nightgown and wrapper.”

“Please,” she said, and it was the one word she hadn’t expected to say, the one word that silenced him.

Long moments later he dropped his arms and stepped back. “Perhaps it would be best if you said good-night now,” he said. “And leave me.”

She didn’t want to. Did he know how much she didn’t want to?

But she did, finally, turning and nearly scurrying down the hall before she could change her mind and stay.

Chapter 23

I
n 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.

“H
e’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.”