Lord of Sin

by Madeline Hunter

  Suddenly Joan was standing atop the stairs leading to the basement kitchen. Joan’s eyes held the misty sympathy that Bride so often glimpsed in them, only now the mist threatened to turn to rain.

  “What is it?” Bride asked.

  “You had best come down, Bride. It is Anne.”

  “Is she ill?”

  Joan shook her head. She turned and walked back down to the kitchen. Bride hurried after her.

  Jilly stirred a pot at the kitchen fire and Mary sat near the door. The mood in the room made the silence of the carriage seem benign in comparison.

  “Anne left,” Mary blurted as soon as she saw Bride. “Can you believe it? She just left. She had them carry down her trunks right in front of us. Then she was gone.” Mary’s awed tone implied the entire drama had impressed her as much as dismayed her.

  “I told her she could not go, but she paid me no mind,” Jilly said with a shake of her head.

  Bride felt as stunned as her sisters and Jilly looked. “Where has she gone?”

  “Back to Scotland,” Mary said, rolling her eyes. “‘Back home,’ she said. She is mad.”

  “She is not mad,” Joan said. “She went back with the MacKays, Bride. Roger promised me he would watch out for her, and see that she found a home. He will not allow her to come to harm, so you are not to worry too much.”

  Bride sank onto a stool near the worktable. If she had not left today— She doubted it would have made a difference. In her quiet way, Anne could be very stubborn.

  “She is a grown woman,” Bride said. “If she wants to leave, we cannot hold her.”

  “She must have been planning it for days, maybe weeks,” Mary said. “She knew Roger would have to come here to get the money he left with her. She was all packed when he did. It was something to behold, Bride. I think he tried to dissuade her, but to no avail. So they left with her in one of their wagons.”

  “Mary offered to go with her,” Jilly said. “Anne would not hear of it.”

  Bride looked over at Mary. “I thought you never intended to leave London.”

  Mary shrugged. “It did not seem right that she should go alone, and I am not much use to you the way Joan is. London will always be here. I could have always come back.”

  It was the most mature thing Mary had ever said or done, and it left Bride speechless. She sensed that she was glimpsing the future, when her little sister would shed her childhood.

  Joan forced a small smile. “I have never seen Anne so determined. She had made up her mind, that was clear. She said—she said to give you her love. Also this.” Joan put a folded paper on the table in front of Bride.

  Bride opened it. Anne had written a parting letter.

  Dearest sister,

  I mourn that you are not here as I leave, but perhaps it is for the best. Do not be distressed on my behalf. The MacKays will see to my safety on the journey, and their mother will help me once we arrive home. I have a long friendship with Roger, deeper than you know, and he will take care of me.

  I do not blame you for the decision to leave Scotland. It was necessary. However, we are not all needed in London. I know that you want us to remain together, but it is time for me to go home.

  I have taken some of Father’s journals. I hope you do not mind my desire to have these tokens in my possession. I sold most of my new dresses yesterday, so I have some money. I ask that you arrange for my income to be sent to me once the funds pay. I will use it wisely, I promise.

  Please find it in your heart to forgive me for abandoning you. I believe that you will do fine without me, however. Joan is here for you, and Mary will not always be a spoiled child.

  I think that you belong in London, Bride, but I know that I do not.

  We will see each other again. I believe that in my heart.

  Your loving sister,

  Anne

  Bride read the letter several times. Then she ran up the stairs to her bedroom. She unlocked and threw open the trunk that held her father’s plates and papers, dreading what she would see.

  Her racing heart calmed. Nothing looked amiss. She lifted the larger plates and glanced beneath them. The banknote plates and paper still nestled in their neat stacks.

  “I dared not look.” Joan’s voice broke the silence of the room. She stood in the doorway.

  “She did not take them. Of course, she would not have a press, and there is no way to pass them, so it would have been foolish—”

  “No doubt she intends to use her income.”

  “No doubt.”

  Joan walked over and embraced Bride. “You appear shocked. And very concerned.”

  “She is so vague, Joan. It is as if she sees a different world and breathes different air. She may only be my junior by two years, but she is childlike. If it had been you—but Anne? How will she take care of herself?”

  “She did not appear childlike today, I promise you. She was a knight starting a crusade. Roger was very sincere when he promised to look after her. He is the best of the MacKay sons.”

  “That is not a high reference, considering the rest of them.”

  Joan laughed. Bride did, too, but she felt her face folding into another emotion. Her vision blurred.

  “She will make a terrible faerie, too,” she said, sniffing to hold in the tears. Picturing that made her laugh despite the streams snaking down her cheeks. “She will get lost in the glens at night.”

  “She will probably try to give some of the money to Sutherland’s factors, or lecture them on their bad behavior,” Joan said, biting her lower lip.

  “And the clothes. The faerie is thought to be a man. Did she take the clothes and hat?”

  “I will check. I am guessing she did. Or maybe she is counting on a real faerie helping her.”

  They both laughed again. Then they both cried.

  Bride wiped her face and took a deep breath. “I am glad she left. If we are caught, I do not know if she could survive what will happen. Maybe now she will be safe. I will write to her and say if anyone comes asking about us, she is to be as vague as she ever has been. She is to let them think it was me alone.”

  “You had better write to Roger and tell him to put her someplace safe, and tell her to take a different name, too. It would be best if it is thought we all left the glens for good.”

  They stood in silence for a long spell. Bride looked down at the letter in her hand. Her heart was breaking. “I will badly miss her.”

  “We all will. Although it is as if she is still here, in an odd way. I can feel her in the house. I do not sense the hole such a departure normally leaves.”

  Joan gave her a consoling kiss, then left to help Jilly finish the supper. Bride opened her sister’s letter and again read the carefully controlled script that hinted at Anne’s skills in forgery.

  Dear, sweet, dreamy Anne.

  She pictured her sister in doublet and pantaloons and hat, riding through the night to bring coin to the displaced families. Their father had done so for years, then Bride had taken his place. Now Anne would continue the legend.

  Perhaps their father had been right. Maybe Anne did have faerie blood, and the myth would be made truth this time.

  Bride would have liked to put off meeting Lyndale the next day. She could have used some time to accommodate her emotions to Anne’s departure before facing a further loss.

  Sick at heart, she set out in the afternoon for the little cottage west of the city.

  They had met there twice already, and she relived those hours as she rode in the hackney cab. Lyndale always made her smile. His good humor brought out her own. Future duties and responsibilities seemed bearable when she was laughing with him.

  She did not expect there to be much laughter today.

  She looked down at the flat package resting on her lap. She had brought the Caraglio prints. It was time to be honest with this man, at least about this part of her father’s legacy.

  When Lyndale learned of it, he would probably be very angry. He would
also be relieved at his narrow escape from the marriage he had impulsively offered.

  The cottage was deserted when she arrived. Lyndale’s carriage was nowhere to be seen. She entered to see evidence that the woman who came to clean had visited earlier. A cold supper waited in the little kitchen.

  She strolled through the sitting room, with its simple furnishings. There was the little writing table and chair, and the comfortable sofa to which Lyndale had immediately pulled her upon her first visit, impatient after the passage of two days apart.

  She went upstairs and gazed at the bed they had shared. No mirror hung above this one, nor any luxurious drapes.

  She would miss making love with him.

  She doubted she would ever know anything like it again. It was not the pleasure she would remember most, however. Rather it would be his aura of both command and caring.

  He sensed what pleased her before she realized it herself. More important, he sensed what did not. There had been novelties enough to fill a lifetime, but no demands. He abandoned any game if he perceived she did not want to play.

  She gazed out the window at a small kitchen garden in the back. All the plants were dormant. The low sun warmed her skin, but it could not penetrate the chill in her heart.

  She wished . . . It did not matter what she wished. Her path had been laid long before Lyndale rode into their Highland glen. She could not undo her past or escape her father’s legacy.

  Nor was she sure that she would, even if she could.

  She heard the carriage approach and a little panic beat in her heart. She glanced around the bedroom.

  Not here. Not in this house. She did not want her memories sullied.

  She hurried below and arrived just as Lyndale entered the house. His eyes sparked with seductive, joyful lights when he saw her. He removed his hat and gloves and tossed them aside.

  She let him kiss her, but stopped him from removing his frock coat. “Let us go to the garden and enjoy the sun while we can.”

  “Certainly. We should take advantage of the clear air and sunshine of the country.”

  He followed her through the cottage to the kitchen door. A little stone path sliced the garden in half. A rustic bench waited at its end, and they sat there under the bare branches of a fruit tree.

  Lyndale gestured to the package she had carried out with her. “What is that you have there?”

  “The Caraglio prints. You asked me to bring them.” She carefully broke the seal fastening the paper in which she had packed them.

  He displayed none of the enthusiasm she expected. That made it easier. She folded back the paper to reveal the top image.

  He lifted it to the sharp scrutiny of an expert. She searched his expression for any indications of suspicion.

  She took a deep breath. “I need to tell you something. It is a forgery. You will know as soon as you compare it to your series.”

  He barely reacted. He merely returned the print to its stack and looked at her. Waiting.

  “My father made it. He saw some old, worn impressions of these images in France, and realized they must belong to the Caraglio series. So he created plates based on them.”

  “An artist’s exercise, no doubt.”

  She grimaced. “Not entirely.”

  “Are you saying he sold some as Caraglio originals?”

  “I do not think so.” She was sorely tempted to leave it there, but she had decided to give Lyndale the truth about this, at least. “He expected the extra images to eventually be connected to the series, however. I do not think he sold any impressions, but he made the plates with the intention of doing so and selling them as originals.”

  There it was, baldly stated. Her father was a forger.

  Lyndale remained calm. She would have preferred outrage.

  “When did he make the plates?”

  “Before I was born. When he was a young man, soon after his travels, I think. To my knowledge, he pulled no impressions from these plates while I was alive. Even these prints on my lap were earlier.”

  “It appears he saw the error of his ways. I do not think any harm was done.”

  She hated having to go on. Dreaded it. “He also engraved other plates to re-create images that were lost, but known to history.” She swallowed. “Raimondi’s ‘I Modi,’ for example.”

  He went very still. She had to look away. She could not bear that silence.

  “Did your father print those plates and sell the images, Bride?”

  “No.”

  There was a horrible pause.

  “Did you, darling?”

  “No. But someone did. The plates were stolen just over a year ago. I am convinced your series was printed from them.”

  His stillness deepened and spread until it engulfed her. It seemed as if the breeze could not penetrate it. She stared at a dead vegetable vine clinging to a stick, feeling sick.

  Finally she snuck a glance at him. His expression astonished her.

  His face was firm and serious, but not angry. He looked confident. And oddly contented.

  “You knew.”

  “I suspected.”

  “How?”

  “Something happened long ago that ultimately sent me to that Highland glen. My uncle ruined your father for a reason. At first I thought it involved your father’s radical politics, but Uncle Duncan was not very interested in politics. He was very fond of engravings, however.”

  “That would not mean anything in itself.”

  “No, but you knew my uncle’s name, even though you pretended you did not. You knew what had transpired between Duncan McLean and your father, but did not want me to know. So, I suspected your father either sold Duncan some questionable work, or tried to, and my uncle discovered it and made your father leave the city and the trade on threat of exposure.”

  “You are right. I did not want you to know my father had done this, and if I admitted I had heard him speak of your uncle, you would have wanted to know in what way. I hope you can understand why I pretended ignorance.”

  “Of course I understand.” He gestured to the prints. “Possibly it was even those prints that started it all. I inherited my series from Duncan. It was in his collection for a long time. He might have seen your father’s newly discovered Caraglios, and realized they were forgeries.”

  “I do not see how my feigning ignorance of your uncle’s name led you to suspect my father had engraved your ‘I Modi,’ however.”

  He stretched out one leg and made patterns in the dirt with his heel. “In asking around for engravers talented enough to forge old masters, the name Thomas Waterfield was offered to me. I ignored it, since I thought you were Waterfield. When I learned your father had also used that name in his latter career, possibly to avoid Uncle Duncan’s detection, I realized it could have been him. So I compared my ‘I Modi’ against a print by the late Mr. Waterfield. I was sure then.”

  “You were so certain it was not me?”

  “It was a thought I considered and discarded. For one thing, if you had engraved them, you would not have had to study the burin work so closely in my salon that night. If the forgeries were yours, you would have known it at once.” He gestured to the Caraglio prints on her lap. “Were those plates stolen along with the ‘Modi’?”

  “Yes.”

  “We had better find all of them. There could be printings being made and sold very privately. The erotic subject matter would make many collectors secretive about their purchase and ownership.”

  She had expected a storm. She had steeled herself for scorn and accusations. Instead he merely recommended continuing the search.

  “You are taking it very well.”

  He clasped her hand in his. “I am honored that you confided in me. Perhaps now that you have revealed your dark secret, you will look more kindly on my proposal.”

  Gratitude swelled inside her. So did sorrow. Another emotion joined them, shading her pain with its sweet poignancy.

  She gazed down at the hand holding
hers firmly but gently. The scathing ache in her heart insisted she admit the truth to herself.

  She was in love with him.

  She squeezed his hand to release the building emotion. She barely managed to keep her composure and hold her tongue.

  She had thought admitting to the smaller deception would cause him to leave, and she would thus be spared a decision on making the worst revelations. Now his generosity and her love provoked the urge to go on, to admit to all her father’s crimes, and her own as well.

  She swallowed the impulse. She could not tell him everything. For her sisters’ safety, she could not.

  Nor could she allow this affair to continue. Not because she feared his discovering the truth, but because continuing her deception would be a betrayal of her love.

  “You made that proposal recklessly. I relieve you of any obligations you may feel.”

  “I do not asked to be released. In fact, I just proposed again, in case you did not notice.”

  “If those plates have been used, it will all come out eventually. At best, your countess will be known as the daughter of a criminal. Since I also engraved under the name Waterfield, there will be those who think I was the forger, not my father.” She pressed her other hand atop his. “You are kind not to end our association, but you know that you should. Even this affair will taint you.”

  The first flicker of anger lit his eyes. “Did you come here today thinking to throw me over, Bride? A month, you agreed, and it is barely a fortnight.”

  “You know our parting is for the best.”

  “Then let the best be damned. You may be accustomed to sacrificing your life and happiness for the best, but I am not. I’ll not let the best make a martyr of either you or me.” He rose. “Now, I am done with sunshine and fresh air. Come to bed.”

  She had to laugh, despite the brimming tears. “Is that your best way of concluding this conversation, Lyndale?”

  “If you speak of ending and parting, it is.” He held out his hand. “Come with me, Bride. There are no worries where we are going. No fears that cannot be conquered, and no sins that cannot be redeemed.”

  She knew she should not agree, but she could not refuse him. She could not refuse herself the solace he promised. She could not deny her love the chance to know the joy he gave, at least one more time.