The Witch Of Clan Sinclair (15 page)

She wasn’t herself around him.

He leaned close to her, so close she pulled back.

“You can’t kiss me here,” she said, panicked. “Mr. McElwee’s on the other side of the door.”

He chuckled. “Why, Miss Sinclair, you shock me. Why would you think I’m about to kiss you?”

He was staring at her mouth. Now he was stroking his finger across her bottom lip as if priming her for his touch.

“Do you fear a kiss or anticipate one, Miss Sinclair?”

Both, but that was something she most definitely wouldn’t say. She hadn’t lost her mind to that degree.

“I’ve got to leave,” she said, glancing in the direction of his office.

He stepped back, allowing her to escape. She could only wonder as she made her way to Mr. McElwee’s side what would have happened had the man not been there.

A quick glance in Logan’s direction made her think he was considering that question, too.

Chapter 16

M
airi felt like she was sinking into the ground as she walked. Each step was more difficult than the last, as if her feet weighed a hundred pounds. Her head was bent, her eyes intent on the darkened path from the street to the door. She’d asked James to drop her off in front of the house because she didn’t have the energy to walk through the garden.

In one hand, she held her proper bonnet. She should have left it in the carriage, but Fenella would ask about it and she’d have to retrieve it. A trip to the carriage house seemed impossible when she was so tired she could have dropped to the ground where she stood.

Her crusade to become involved with the SLNA had taken all her time for the last two weeks, not to mention money she hadn’t expected to expend. Because she was the editor of the
Edinburgh Gazette,
the SLNA thought she would be more than happy to print anything they wished in the way of pamphlets and announcements. Free, of course. Not only was the expense becoming burdensome, but the time required to typeset all of the materials and print them meant she was working even longer hours.

If the paper were making enough money, she would have hired another pressman. But it wasn’t. Nor was it going to as long as she was giving away so much work.

She’d received a letter from one of the principals of the SLNA in which the woman had been compassionate about her injuries while counseling her that the path would be a difficult one.
People will revile you,
she stated,
but you must prevail at all costs. The more women who speak the truth, the faster we will awaken the populace to justice.

But was being injured a criterion? If so, she might have to reassess her participation in the SLNA.

She wanted to be the editor of the
Gazette
without having to hide behind her brother. She wanted to be able to go places and do things without being limited because she was a woman. She wanted to be able to choose her own elected officials.

But the cost might be higher than what she’d originally thought.

She begged off giving any more speeches. She didn’t know if she had the courage to stand on a stage and wait to be heckled and jeered again. Nor was she entirely certain that she was brave enough to attend a meeting. She’d accompanied Mr. McElwee to the council offices one additional time, to call on a councilman he thought might be influential in their cause. To her disappointment, she hadn’t seen Logan. Nor had he contacted her in all this time.

Twice, she thought she saw him in a carriage in front of the paper, but he hadn’t stopped, nor had he turned his head and acknowledged her.

Was she pining for the man? How utterly ridiculous.

The house felt deserted even though there was a lamp lit in the foyer for her. Although it was full dark, it wasn’t that late. The quiet was absolute, however, as if the house inhaled every extraneous noise.

December would soon be upon them, a month that always felt like a tunnel of darkness to her. Only a faint flicker of light at the end promised spring, her favorite season. Spring was the time of hope, of renewal, something she almost desperately craved at the moment.

She called out for Fenella. When her cousin didn’t answer, she removed her cloak, left it and her bonnet in the foyer, and walked to the kitchen in the back of the house. A cozy room, it was twice that tonight, with the stove warming the space and the lamps casting a pleasant yellow tinge over the cupboards and floor.

Three of the maids, still in their serviceable blue dresses and aprons, were sitting around the rectangular kitchen table, all of them intent on a paper Robert held in his hands. At her appearance, he folded the sheet into a square, clasping his hands atop it.

“Where is Fenella?” she asked, curious about what he didn’t want her to see.

“In her room,” Robert said. “She has another headache.”

Robert was often testy. She’d learned to ignore it unless she was irritated herself. Tonight was going to be a challenge to keep her mouth shut.

“I’ve laid out a place setting in the dining room, miss,” Abigail said. “I’ll bring your dinner to you now if you wish. Or would you rather have a tray in your room?”

Robert wasn’t looking at her. Instead, his head was bent and he was staring down at his clasped hands.

“I’ll eat in a little while,” she told Abigail. “What is it you don’t want me to see?” she asked, sitting at the end of the table.

Hannah and Sarah stared down at the table just like Robert. Since Abigail was the only one who looked at her, she addressed her question to the maid.

“What is it?”

Abigail looked to Robert, who only sighed heavily.

“Is it bad news? Has something happened to Macrath?” She held her breath as Robert turned to look at her, his bloodhound eyes sadder than normal.

Her heart clenched, and even as she readied herself to hear the worst news, she wondered how she would be able to bear it. Macrath was her anchor. She and her brother didn’t always agree, but she respected his judgment, his strength, and his character.

“It’s not Macrath,” Robert said, his voice thick with his accent. For some reason, he always sounded so much more Scottish than she. Was it because he hailed from Inverness?

“Virginia?” she asked. Had Macrath’s wife fallen ill again?

He shook his head.

“What is it, Robert?” she asked, a little calmer since it wasn’t bad news about Macrath and Virginia.

“It’s nothing,” he said, but he glanced down at the paper.

She stretched out her hand and he sighed again, extending the paper to her slowly.

“It’s not the first one, miss,” Abigail said.

Robert’s quelling look had no effect on Abigail.

The girl simply frowned back at him. “She needs to know, Mr. Robert. It’s a letter, miss, left on the doorstep, and it’s not the first one.”

She opened the letter, conscious that everyone at the table was watching her.

She read quickly, scanning the words as she normally did, absorbing the meaning. Only after a moment did she begin to feel what it said, realizing that what she was reading was tantamount to a broadside. A vile broadside filled with such profanity that she skimmed over the words. She’d been called such things the night of the SLNA speech, but she’d rarely read the words.

One section more than the others stopped her. She looked at Robert, but his impassive gaze was impossible to decipher. None of the women said a word.

“This isn’t the first one?”

“No, miss,” Abigail said.

“How many?” To her dismay, her voice was quavering. She steadied herself, determined not to allow anyone to see how horrified she was.

Someone hated her.

“How many?”

Robert didn’t answer, so she looked to Abigail.

“This is the second,” the maid said. “I threw the first one away. Beg pardon, miss, but I thought it was rubbish and rubbish it is.”

“You’ll stop now.”

She glanced at Robert, thinking he was talking to Abigail. Instead, he was looking straight at her.

“Stop what?”

“Trying to be a man,” he said, slapping his hands flat on the table. “The newspaper’s not a woman’s job. Give it over to Allan.”

In all these years, Robert had never once indicated his disapproval of her. Granted, he had grumbled at her expenses on a continual basis, but she’d put that down to his personality, not to his dislike of her work.

He’d never come out and said the words “not a woman’s job.”

The one place she expected support was at home. People could say what they would to her in public. They could come to the newspaper office and complain about the
Gazette
’s stand on this or that or about her reporting. When she entered the door of her home, she expected to be greeted with kindness and care.

She stood, taking the letter with her.

“I think I’ve changed my mind,” she said to Abigail. “I believe I will have a tray in my room.”

With that, she turned and left the kitchen, the taste of betrayal as sharp as acid on her tongue.

F
ifteen minutes later she changed her mind, slipped from the house and made her way to the stables.

She knocked on James’s door over the carriage bay, stepping back when he answered it only seconds later.

“I need you to take me somewhere.”

“Now?”

She nodded, knowing he was going to fuss.

“To the Lord Provost’s home.”

“I’m not sure that’s wise, Mairi.”

“It probably isn’t,” she conceded. “But it’s something I need to do. And you need to keep it to yourself. I don’t want anyone to know about this.”

He didn’t answer her, the glitter of his eyes in the light of the gas lamp warning her well enough. James was not a man to challenge. Macrath would not have put him in her household if he was easily cowed.

When James still didn’t speak, she placed her hand on his arm.

“Please,” she said, the first time she’d asked a favor of him.

“I like Cook’s tarts,” he said. “The ones with the apples.”

“I’ll see that you have a dozen of them every day if that’s what you want.”

“Not a dozen,” he said. “One or two saved back for me. Maybe with some clotted cream.”

“You’ll have it,” she said, smiling.

Soon they were parked in front of the house. Darkness gave the Lord Provost’s home an even more overpowering air. Lights in the windows looked like bright eyes, and the wide portico with its brass lanterns an open mouth.

The hour was too late to make a social call. However, she wasn’t going to lose another night of sleep because of Logan Harrison.

Instead of his majordomo, Mrs. Landers answered the door, and the woman’s shocked face was an indictment of Mairi’s actions. She shouldn’t be calling on an unmarried man at night, alone.

“Is he here?”

Mrs. Landers stared at her.

“Well, is he?”

She was being rude in addition to being shocking. She took a deep breath.

“I am sorry, Mrs. Landers. Is Mr. Harrison at home?”

The woman seemed to shake herself out of her daze.

“He is. Returned just a few minutes ago from chambers.”

Was the woman going to make her ask? Evidently, she was, because Mrs. Landers didn’t open the door any wider. Instead, she stood there, her hand on the latch, her lips so thinned that her cheeks looked like plump apples.

“I would like to see him, Mrs. Landers,” she said.

The woman looked as if she wanted to refuse.

Mairi slapped her hand flat against the door and pushed her way into Harrison’s home.

Mrs. Landers followed her.

“He’s an important man, Miss Sinclair. He’s not to be disturbed.”

Mairi made her way to the library. If he had retired for the night, she’d invade his bedroom.

Mrs. Landers stepped in front of her.

“You can’t be bothering him.”

“Does he overpay you, Mrs. Landers?” she asked. “Why is everyone so eager to protect the man? Does he massage your feet at night? Has he hired your entire family?”

“That will be all, Mrs. Landers,” Logan said from behind her.

Before Mairi had a chance to respond, he grabbed her arm, pulled her into his library, and slammed the door shut.

“A clue for your edification, Miss Sinclair,” he said in a voice as chilled as the night, “the way to my housekeeper’s heart is not to insult her.”

She poked him in the chest with her finger. “You give them some kind of potion, don’t you? I’ve heard about people hypnotizing other people. Is that what you do?”

He grabbed her finger. “What are you talking about?”

“Everyone I talk to adores you. They all have nice things to say about you. It isn’t normal, Logan. You’re an angel come to life. You frequent their establishments, you praise their businesses. You probably know the names of all their children.”

“I’m the Lord Provost, Miss Sinclair. I’m expected to know my constituents.”

She refrained from screaming only by a hair.

“You aren’t wearing a bonnet again.”

“You never wear a hat. But I doubt wearing something on my head will make all of Edinburgh love me.”

He laughed. “All of Edinburgh doesn’t love me, I can assure you. You should come to a council meeting one day and see that for yourself.”

She made a mental note to do exactly that, dug into her reticule and produced the letter. She handed it to him.

“Tell me if you’re responsible for this.”

He took the letter from her and read it, his amusement vanishing.

“Do you actually think I’d use such language?” His voice roughened. “Or direct those kind of comments to you?”

“What about that part?” she asked, pointing to the second paragraph. “ ‘A whore’s behavior one would say. In dawn’s light she crept away.’ It’s horrid poetry, by the way.” She rolled her eyes when she realized she’d rhymed with the idiotic poem.

“While your broadside about me was a literary masterpiece,” he said.

“It was better than this.”

He threw the letter on the desk. “I didn’t write it, and I’m more than a little annoyed that you would think so.”

She didn’t think she’d ever seen anyone as angry as he looked at the moment. His eyes positively boiled.