Master of Sin

by Maggie Robinson

  Once the boat docked at the settlement’s jetty, they were ushered into what was little more than a hut among the crescent of cottages to wait for the unloading of the ferry. Apparently most of its contents were destined for Gull House. Apart from his trunks, there were massive quantities of peat from nearby Mingulay to help heat his new home, as well as mysterious boxes from his London apartments that Andrew would be too tired to unpack. As a sharp drizzle of icy rain pelted the roof, Andrew watched the crew and island men work together to pile everything into a wagon drawn by a rather dispirited horse. More than one trip would be needed, but it was his understanding from the one crewman who spoke some English that the crew would stay overnight in the hut and leave at first light tomorrow, weather permitting.

  He supposed the wagon might belong to him, too, but he had no way of knowing. He had overlooked a significant fact about the Western Isles—Gaelic was the main language. He’d not spoken a word of it since he was a child, and then only knew the few words his Highland-born mother had cared to teach him. Donal Stewart had drummed it right out of him in his attempt to make Andrew an Edinburgh gentleman. How he had failed.

  According to Edward Christie’s letter, there were perhaps fifteen or twenty families on the island—crofters and fisherfolk. All the women and their daughters and babies seemed to be here in the little hut staring and smiling at him, chattering incomprehensibly but making Marc very welcome on a round of warm laps as the wind howled outside. Andrew had heard “Failte”—wel-come—too many times to count. He was plied with hot tea and oatcakes, but Marc screwed his little face up and refused the unfamiliar food. Even with his purchase of an Italian-English dictionary in a Paris shop, Andrew was making very little headway with his son. It would be nice to discover what the child liked to eat. He would even cook it himself if he had to.

  Once the wagon was loaded, Andrew carried Marc out into the sleet. One of the men hopped up to drive them, and the others followed on foot and a few ponies. Andrew wrapped Marc in several thick blankets, pressing him to his chest. If they could simply survive long enough to get to the house, all might be well.

  There was nothing especially picturesque about the scenery. Once one climbed the ridge away from the landing, the topography was relatively flat, with gneiss outcroppings dotting the grassland. There were few cottages, but several goats and sheep too stupid to get out of the weather. The wagon rolled south over a narrow cart track until Gull House and the surrounding ocean rose up like a gray storm.

  To call the structure a “fine historic stone manor house” was a bit of a stretch. It did not look particularly historic, though it was old enough. According to the deed, at one time there had been an Iron Age fort here at the point, but the pile of rocks in front of Andrew was no fort. The two-story rectangular building was stone, but not particularly fine, and not really all that much larger than the crofters’ cottages he had passed on the narrow road.

  But the view was indeed spectacular. Evidence of gulls and abundant birdlife was everywhere, their droppings on walls and windows that even the driving freezing rain had not washed off. Here and there slates had slipped from the roof to shatter on what passed for the lawn, a mix of nettles and silverweed. If ever any shrubs had ever hugged the foundation, they’d blown away long ago. Andrew frowned. There was no fire from the chimneys, no welcoming peat smell from a hearth. And the warped front door stood wide open to the elements.

  With a few hand signals to the driver and the dispensation of coins, Andrew left Marc sleeping in the wagon under the blankets and entered his new home. His first impression was that it was very nearly as cold inside as out. The square reception room on the right was clean but nearly bare of furnishing. The dining room opposite looked slightly better equipped—there was even a moldy painting on the wall.

  Andrew was beginning to suspect Edward Christie had the last laugh after all, giving him just what he asked for. Andrew had wanted private; he’d wanted simple. He’d suggested the Western Isles himself, having had a romantic notion about them since he was a boy and read of Viking raids. He doubted any factor of Edward’s had actually seen the place—the purchase had been accomplished in too short a time. Someone had been sold a bill of goods. And Andrew now had to live with the consequences.

  He tiptoed down the hallway as quietly as he ever had eluding a suspicious wife or husband, coming at last to the kitchen. A raggedy serving girl dressed in what appeared to be stray Tartans and tablecloths was bent over an empty fireplace, a pitiful pile of sticks on the hearth. At the sound of his footstep on the bare slate floor she turned and shrieked.

  Some of Andrew’s childhood Gaelic had come back to him the farther north he’d come. Immersion with the village women earlier had helped a bit. “Gabh mo leithsceal.” Excuse me.

  “Does bloody anyone in this bloody place speak any bloody English?” the girl muttered.

  She looked like a street urchin. Her brown hair was a nest, her pointed, unfashionably brown face was smudged, and her brown skirts were muddied. She was so very brown. Surely she couldn’t be—

  “Miss Peartree?” Andrew asked, praying not.

  The little wren’s mouth hung open like a baby bird waiting to be fed. Then she looked like she tasted the worm. “Oh, good lord. Mr. Rossiter?” She curtsied, nearly tripping on twigs.

  “Ross,” Andrew replied quickly. “Just Ross. Andrew Ross. There was a mix-up. I didn’t mean to startle you. How long have you been here?”

  “Fourteen bl-blessed days, sir. I think. One loses track of time when there is nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep and it rains every bl-blessed day when it isn’t snowing.”

  Andrew frowned. “Nothing to eat? Is there no housekeeper employed here?”

  The girl looked at her boots. They were crusted with mud, and brown beneath that, too. “There was a woman. But she left.”

  “She left?”

  She raised her sharp little chin and looked straight into his eyes. “She left. Good riddance to her.”

  Miss Peartree’s rather large eyes were, unsurprisingly, brown, but with a few flecks of gold. They were quite her best feature. It was impossible to tell what her figure was like beneath the swaths of fabric she had fastened to herself with what looked like clothespins. Good thing the ferry would depart in the morning. This little baggage and her clothespins and her mud would be on it. Good riddance, indeed. She was in no way what he thought a governess should look like. Or smell like.

  “I am afraid there has been another mix-up, Miss Peartree. I find my son and I do not have need of your services after all.”

  Her wide eyes narrowed. “È figlio di una cagna.”

  Andrew threw back his head and laughed. He may not have much Italian, but this impertinent little creature had just called him a son of a bitch. How right she was.

  “Your assessment of my character is no doubt accurate. Be that as it may, Miss Peartree, I’m afraid I find you equally unsuitable to teach my son. I will make arrangements for your passage home tomorrow morning.”

  She didn’t back down. “I have no home to go to. I need this job, Mr. Ross. I’m sorry if I seem—” She looked up to the unhelpful ceiling.

  “Insubordinate? Filthy? Certainly disheveled. Whatever you are, I have every reason to believe you drove away my housekeeper.” Andrew wondered which one of the kindly hovering women he’d met at the landing she was.

  “You try managing here for fourteen days when your trunk is lost and there isn’t one single person who speaks a bloody word of bloody English. I speak Italian, Mr. Ross. French. German. Latin and Greek, too, though just for translation. I may not understand Gaelic, but I’m certain Mrs. MacLaren called me a whore.”

  “You? A whore? For a blind man, perhaps.”

  She was remarkably quick, but then so was he. The stick merely grazed his left ear.

  “You are definitely dismissed.” He was not going to be attacked in his own home by this little harpy. Why, if there was a constable on this rock he’d clap her
in jail so fast her head would spin. He was about to tell her just that when she folded her arms over whatever it was she was wearing and spoke.

  “I signed a contract with Baron Christie.”

  “But I am not he.”

  “He assured me he was acting as your representative. His fancy barrister Mr. Maclean drew up the agreement. At least that wasn’t stolen. It’s in my reticule.”

  “I don’t care where the damn thing is. You are fired.”

  She shook her head. If Andrew was not mistaken, she created a dust cloud. “I won’t go.”

  “Oh,” Andrew said, stepping forward, “you will.”

  Miss Peartree was spared from deciding to step back or throw something else by an unearthly howl.

  “What is that?” she asked, seeming more alarmed by the cry of a two-and-a-half-year-old than the menacing sinner before her.

  “My son.”

  One of the men was bouncing Marc into the kitchen, trying in vain to stop the child’s hysterical tears. To wake in another strange place with even more strangers was the last straw for the poor little devil. Before Andrew could go to him, Miss Peartree ran across the floor.

  “Bambino, cosa c’e di spagliato? Povera bambino! E tutu bene,” she crooned, taking Marc and his blankets from the man. She put a grubby hand on his forehead. “Mr. Ross, your son is very hot.” Her hand lingered. “Burning up, actually. Poor mite. You need to light the stove so I can bathe him to get his fever down. Don’t boil the water, just heat it a little. Tell this man to get some kindling. What I foraged won’t be nearly enough.”

  Surely Marc was warm from sleep. From woolen blankets. From screaming his head off. “I brought peat,” Andrew said stupidly.

  “I don’t care what his name is! Are you just going to stand there?”

  No, he was not. He went back outside and organized the men as best he could, cursing silently in every language known to him. Marc would be fine. He had to be. It was Miss Peartree who needed a bath.

  CHAPTER 2

  His rehired housekeeper Mrs. MacLaren returned with the wagon’s second load. After a bit of creative detective work on his part, Andrew had found her husband among his little work crew. He had persuaded Mr. MacLaren to fetch her from the village, offering them both employment and rooms under his leaky roof by drawing watches and dishes and beds and handing over several more crowns. The MacLarens agreed to work days only, returning to their own seaside cottage, garden, and goats. At least Andrew thought it was a goat. It may have been a sheep. Mr. MacLaren was no artist, and his own right hand did not work as well as it used to. He could barely read his own writing. He should have bought a Gaelic-English dictionary in Paris, if they sold such things. Andrew would send for one at once.

  And send for a new governess. He could not possibly tolerate Miss Peartree one day longer than absolutely necessary. Right now she was pointlessly arguing with Mrs. MacLaren about Marc’s luncheon. The child, already much improved, was naked, beating a wooden spoon on a bucket, his fever-flushed cheeks rosy and cheerful. The great clatter of pots and pans punctuating the women’s conversation had sent Andrew from the kitchen into what he assumed was his library. There were plenty of shelves, but no books.

  Andrew started a fire and stared out the sleet-spattered window. He would have to buy books to keep himself occupied, a ferry-load of them. Once, he’d purchased a very naughty set of volumes depicting virtually every sexual position known to man—even some he had not tried personally, and there were very few. Those books would not be unpacked on these shelves where his son might stumble upon them. He expected Edward Christie had crated them up with all his other possessions from the Albany and they were somewhere about. He would burn them, every last depraved page. They’d make a roaring fire and save on peat.

  He would give his soul for a brandy. Well, he probably had no soul to give. Donal Stewart had taken it long ago. But surely there must be spirits somewhere in this house. On this island. They were in Scotland, after all. He could walk back through the muck and the wet to the village. He’d not seen a pub through the gloom, but there had been a tiny stone church. He’d make do with communion wine if absolutely necessary.

  Andrew sat down at his desk, lay his head down, and closed his eyes. His arm ached like the very devil. He was in a hell entirely of his own making. What had possessed him to trust Christie with these arrangements? He would have been better off going to America and rubbing elbows with wild Indians. Instead he was perched on top of a windy ridge, trapped with a sick child, two unintelligible servants, and a wicked little shrew.

  Now that there was a substantial fire in the kitchen, the shrew had removed a few layers of her makeshift covering to reveal a scrawny little body worthy of a twelve-year-old boy. Her dress—brown of course—was the ugliest thing he’d ever seen on a woman. He thought the only thing worse would be to remove it and catch sight of what little there was underneath.

  And Edward Christie had met her. Approved of her. Damn the man to hell. He didn’t deserve Caroline or all the comforts of life.

  There was a tap at the door. Mrs. MacLean poked her head in. Now what. Andrew lifted his good hand. “Come.”

  The woman didn’t bother to speak but dropped a tray gently on the bare surface of the desk. She was a mind reader. Or a witch. There on the toleware sat a tumbler of whiskey and a thick ham sandwich. Andrew smiled and swore he still had some of his own magic judging from the blush on the woman’s cheeks.

  “Thank you, Mrs. MacLaren. You are a godsend in this godforsaken place. If you weren’t already married to your good husband, I’d take you to bed and show you heaven, fuck you sideways and upside down. Lick a path from your toes to your iron-gray head. If I have a bed. I suppose I’ll look after lunch. But we wouldn’t really need a bed, you know.”

  He heard the snort from the hallway. Bloody hell. Miss Peartree walked in holding his son, now swaddled in a nappy. In the washing of him, she’d lost some of her own grime, though her hair still looked as if Mrs. MacLaren had taken a fork to it.

  “I hope when Marc is fluent in English, you will refrain from such disgusting vocabulary,” she said primly.

  Andrew felt his face darken. It had been very bad of him, he knew. He didn’t need this little gremlin to tell him so. “You’re one to talk. I’ve never heard so many bloody bloodies in my life.”

  She had the grace to color. Apparently he had put her in her place and she was done with her lecture. For now. He had a feeling she’d find something else to upbraid him about, and soon. “Marc has swallowed every drop of broth and had a coddled egg besides. I won’t let that woman give him milk yet, though. Goat’s milk, if you please.” She shuddered. “Here. Feel his forehead.” She offered his son to him, but Marc shied away, clinging to Miss Peartree’s bony shoulder. She murmured to him in soothing Italian, but his face remained buried in her nonexistent bosom. “He doesn’t seem to like you very much. Why is that?”

  Andrew took a long pull of the whiskey. He would have to get much more before night fell, although it really was as dark as sin outside already. “He does not know me well. My late wife and I were separated for most of our marriage.”

  Andrew was fairly sure she whispered “smart woman” into his son’s shorn curls.

  “What a pity. He asks for her, you know.”

  Andrew did. He’d lain awake all through Europe hearing his son cry for Giulietta. “He’ll get over it. He must.”

  “How heartless you are! He’s just a baby.” She kissed the top of his head and Marc snuggled deeper. “How did your wife die?”

  “An accident. Really, Miss Peartree, this is too personal and painful to talk about. You are overstepping your bounds.”

  Her eyes widened at the rebuke. Her lashes were very long, reaching nearly to her straight brown brows. “I’m sorry. I thought knowing might help me with your son.”

  “You won’t be here long enough.” Andrew bit into the sandwich and chewed noisily, hoping to repel her right out of the roo
m.

  “Oh, not that nonsense again. Surely you must know all these changes have been very hard on Marc. If I disappear, he’ll only get worse.”

  Andrew looked for his new watch in his pocket, but it had played a part in the negotiations with the MacLarens and it was still on the kitchen dresser. “You have known my son all of two hours, Miss Peartree. Three at the most. I hardly think he’ll miss your influence.”

  “You’d be surprised. Voi come mi. You like me, don’t you, love?”

  “Ti amo.” Marc gave her a sloppy kiss and giggled.

  Insupportable. That this absolute hoyden had won his child over in a matter of hours when he had worked weeks for a smile. He pointed at his chest and then at Marc. “Ti amo,” Andrew repeated. Marc shook his head and stuck a finger in his mouth.

  “Abasso il. You’ll make your teeth all crooked and not grow up to be as handsome as your papa,” she said, tickling him under his chin. She turned to Andrew, all business, as though she’d just not shamelessly flattered him. He knew he was not looking his best. There were many reasons. Two of them stood before him. “I’ve just come to tell you that the old witch and her husband will bring a crib for Marc tomorrow. Do you want him to sleep in your bed tonight or in mine?”

  “Since you are temporarily serving as his nursemaid, he may sleep with you.” Andrew had woken up urine soaked several nights running. Let her discover Marc’s little problem on her own. The child was masterful at removing his diaper well before dawn.

  “Very well. I’m going to put him down for an afternoon nap.”

  “I thought you said you had nowhere to sleep.”