The Virgin Of Clan Sinclair

by Karen Ranney

  “What rot.”

  “You didn’t love her.” She shook her head at him.

  “Change the hero. Better yet, have it published anonymously.”

  “If I hadn’t been in your carriage, you would never have read the book or even known about it.”

  “Ignorance is bliss, you mean?”

  She nodded, backing up to the settee in front of the fireplace. Unlike the parlor, there was no fire in this room and the air was damply chilled.

  “You would never have known about it. No one else will make any connection to you. You aren’t, your lordship, as important to everyone else as you think you are.”

  He advanced on her one predatory step at a time.

  “You don’t understand. Someone would read it and speculate. The gossip would start and the rumors begin. People would wonder.”

  “You’re the Earl of Gadsden. People wouldn’t talk about you.”

  “Because I’m the Earl of Gadsden, people will talk about me.”

  She didn’t understand that comment at all.

  “Very well, let’s say you’re correct.” She held up her hand to forestall his comment. “Just for a moment, we’ll pretend. Even so, the election is a few weeks away. My book won’t be published that quickly. You’ll be elected long before anyone sees the book.”

  “Do you always get your way, Ellice? Do people merely bow down before you?”

  She laughed at the thought that she had influence over anyone.

  Reaching out, he gripped her arm, pulling her to him so fast she didn’t have a chance to protest. He didn’t kiss her, though, merely held her close, her breasts pressed against the wall of his chest. He was an imposing man when viewed across the room. Up close he was almost overwhelming.

  “Shall I simply forget the looming scandal because you smiled at me?” he asked, bending his head.

  She closed her eyes, waiting for his kiss.

  He brushed his lips over her forehead as he released his grip on her arm. The message was clear. She was free to go, to escape him. She needn’t wait to flee as the minutes ticked by. She had no reason to worry about a purloined kiss.

  She opened her eyes and tilted her head back. His eyes were direct and unflinching.

  “Do you really not miss her?” she whispered.

  He didn’t answer, only bent his head, his mouth hovering over hers.

  I’ll change the hero’s appearance. The words never came. Not after his mouth greeted hers again.

  Colors swirled behind her lids as the room spun. She reached up and grabbed his shoulders for balance.

  She forgot how to breathe.

  Her heart pounded faster as fire raced through her.

  Of its own volition, one hand moved to rest against his heated, bristly cheek. She would forever feel him against her palm, know the contour of his jaw, the silky touch of hair at his temple.

  He pressed against her until the settee was at her back.

  She could have pulled away. She could have simply turned her head, breaking the kiss. She could have closed her eager mouth, bid her tongue to cease tasting his lips.

  She could have clenched her hands into fists and beat against his chest in protest.

  Instead, she sighed or moaned, the sound an audible indication of the delight she was experiencing.

  Her lips had never been so sensitive. Her mind was silenced, thought replaced by wonder. She wanted to taste him, fill herself with him.

  When he placed his hands at her waist, she wanted to be naked for him. Instead of silk, let him feel her skin. Let him know every inch of her so that he might identify each breast, a hip, her inner thigh.

  Let him be the author of her pleasure.

  “Oh dear God in heaven,” her mother said.

  “See, I told you,” Brianag replied.

  She jerked away, staring up at Ross with blinking eyes. She didn’t have to turn to see disaster on the threshold. She knew without looking that her mother was there, wearing an expression of such horror that one would have thought someone had died.

  Brianag was there, too. Did she wear a look of triumph on her face? She’d finally bested the Dowager Countess of Barrett by revealing her daughter as a strumpet.

  Ellice gripped Ross’s jacket, hoping her knees would support her. Hoping, too, that he could simply look at the women and they’d disappear. Poof! They’d magically be sent to France. Would that be far enough away?

  She pressed her forehead against his chest, still breathing hard, still adrift in the languor of budding passion.

  Why hadn’t they closed the door?

  Why hadn’t they gone to his room?

  Perhaps she should feel some degree of shame that she wasn’t condemning herself for kissing him. She wasn’t that much of a hypocrite. She’d thoroughly enjoyed it and wanted to do it again.

  A great many times, in fact.

  He placed his hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her away. She didn’t want to go, but she reluctantly did, looking up at him to discover a wry smile on his face.

  Their gazes caught and clung. In his, she glimpsed a shining bit of humor. What did he see in her eyes? Longing? If she could have taken him to her bed at this moment, she would have.

  She would pray for her immortal soul later. Right now she had to face her mother.

  “I think you and I need to talk,” Macrath said.

  Oh, dear. Not only did she have to explain to her mother, but now Macrath.

  She peeked around Gadsden to find Macrath staring at the earl’s back.

  Could this get any worse?

  “My girl is ruined,” her mother said, clenching her hands together and beginning to weep. Her face crumpled like the linen handkerchief she wadded in one hand. “Ruined by a Scottish reprobate.” She sent an accusing look at Macrath. “You promised we would always be safe here. Is this what you call safety, Macrath Sinclair?” Her gaze shifted to Gadsden. “If this is a friend of yours, I hesitate to think what your enemies might be like.”

  The Dowager Countess of Barrett drew herself up, calling upon decades of intimidation of servants and tradesmen, not to mention her husband and children. Her eyes were hard as stones as she regarded Macrath.

  He wasn’t the type to flinch under such scrutiny. Instead, he faced her eye-to-eye.

  Holding her handkerchief in a death grip, she lowered her voice until Ellice could barely hear her. Her face was splotchy and red, her lips thinned. There wasn’t a trace of tears in her eyes, only fierce determination.

  “I won’t have it, Macrath. I won’t.”

  “Leave it in my hands, Enid,” he said. “You and Ellice are both members of my family now. I’m sure it’s not as bad as it looks on the surface.”

  Ellice closed her eyes. Her mother was going to explode. Only Brianag had been the recipient of her infamous rages until now. Macrath, by trying to mollify her, had pushed Brianag aside and now stood front and center before Enid, target number one.

  “Not as bad? Not as bad?”

  Brianag, standing tall behind the two of them like a totem, looked vastly pleased with the situation. Her wide mouth, normally curved down at the corners, was now curved in a smile. But the look in her eyes warned Ellice that she was in for dire treatment. She’d embarrassed Macrath Sinclair and for that there would be punishment.

  Her clothes would be laundered with a double measure of starch. Her bedsheets would be shorter than usual. Her rooms would be filled with dust, her food cold and inedible.

  No doubt Brianag would also make some sort of sign in the air and curse her with a garbled Scottish oath, uttered in a language Ellice couldn’t translate.

  Yes, she was most definitely in disgrace.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it. No, that came when her mother refused to be calmed, when she turned once more and leveled such an intent look on her that Ellice felt singed by it.

  In that instant she realized how much of a disappointment she was to her mother. She wasn’t beautiful, talented, poise
d Eudora, who had died in the smallpox epidemic.

  “You cannot imagine how bad it is, Macrath,” Enid said. “Ellice is odd enough. Finding a potential husband has been next to impossible, not to mention she lives in the midst of the Scottish wilderness. Now you’ve rendered her unsuitable for marriage, or do you think gossip doesn’t travel?”

  She sent a fulminating look at Brianag. “Before dawn the whole of Kinloch Village will know that one of your guests”—she spat out the word—“had his way with my daughter.”

  “He didn’t—” Ellice began, only to be silenced by a look from her mother and Macrath.

  “You must make him marry her,” her mother said, addressing Macrath while frowning at Gadsden. She sent another glare at Ellice. “If not, she’s ruined for polite society. If not, she’ll be known as the Whore of Drumvagen.”

  Ellice closed her eyes and prayed that this was all her imagination. She was very much afraid, however, that her imagination had deserted her and this situation was only too real.

  Chapter 15

  She was going to be sold to white slavers. Macrath was going to stand on the shore and wave as the ship carried her away to a life of debauchery and degradation.

  Her mother would march away from the sand, muttering words like, “She should have been more like Eudora.”

  “She’s no better than I thought her,” Brianag would say.

  The Earl of Gadsden would stand behind Macrath nodding in approval of his actions.

  Or if she wasn’t sold to white slavers, she’d be sent to America, to work in one of Macrath’s factories. Or Australia where the seasons were upside down. She might like that, having winter when Scotland was in the middle of summer.

  Perhaps her mother would simply disown her and she’d never again be known as the Earl of Barrett’s daughter. Oh, her? She has no identity, no name. No one claims her. What a pity. She shunned all that anyone would be overjoyed to have—a family and a good name.

  Worse than all her imaginings was the very real chance that Macrath would listen to her mother and insist on marriage. After all, he’d caught her and the earl twice now.

  Why should she be considered a scandal when Virginia and Macrath had done far worse?

  When she first came to Scotland, there had been no explanation why their cousin had suddenly ascended to the earldom. No one had ever come out and discussed the matter with her, but it was plain enough that her nephew looked exactly like Macrath. In addition, he’d been renamed Alistair.

  Yet she was the scandalous one?

  If forced to marry her, Gadsden would only resent her, just like her brother Lawrence had resented Virginia. Their marriage had been horrid.

  Or if Gadsden didn’t resent her, he would insist that she not write anymore. How would she bear that, not being able to communicate what she thought or felt? She might as well be encased in a brick, an object without the power to hear or speak.

  When he deigned to speak to her, the earl would go on and on about his dead wife’s accomplishments. She would have been a jewel in the eye of society, while his new wife, in comparison, was a stye.

  Nothing she’d do would be right. He’d probably write letters to her mother, and the two of them would commiserate with each other through their correspondence.

  She’s clumsy, he’d write.

  She’s always been such. I’ve tried, I truly have, to make her as graceful as Eudora.

  She sits in silence at the dinner table and doesn’t say a word.

  Her mother would write back and answer, She lives within her own mind too much, dear Gadsden. She’s always been so. I’ve despaired of ever having a decent conversation with the girl.

  She was very much afraid that what she imagined could too easily come true.

  “I’ve come to offer moral support.”

  Ellice turned her head to see Mairi entering her sitting room. She’d been sitting in the dark ever since Macrath told her to remain where she was—his exact words. She hadn’t moved from the corner of the settee.

  Mairi lit the lamp on the table and came to sit beside her.

  “You look distraught.”

  “Macrath was very irate,” she said. “So was mother. I’ve been horribly shocking.”

  “When I was horribly shocking, I had a great deal of fun. Are you enjoying it, too?”

  Surprised, she glanced at the other woman.

  “Do you think you’re the only one?” Mairi asked with a smile. “I was not the demure miss I should have been with Logan. Something about the man simply lured me.”

  “I don’t think it’s the Earl of Gadsden,” she said. “I think it’s my character. I imagine all sorts of predicaments and adventures. Before I know it, I’m neck deep in them.”

  “I never knew you to be that adventurous before.”

  That was true. She hadn’t been. In fact, she’d been the pale, almost ghostly person the earl seemed to despise.

  “Perhaps it is him,” she said. She would prefer to blame her lack of character, and fall from grace, on anyone other than her own failings, but fairness prompted her to amend the statement. “Or how I am around him.”

  “I think that’s closer to the truth. Perhaps we can call it the Logan effect. I was relatively sane until I met Logan. Then I started doing all sorts of odd things.”

  Mairi smiled at her, which eased the ache in her chest somewhat.

  “What do you think will happen?” she asked.

  Mairi sat back, staring into the cold fireplace. “I think Macrath will have a lengthy conversation with the earl and impress upon him that being a peer does not give him the right to act the cad. You, despite your flaws,” Mairi added, “are still an innocent.”

  “The earl doesn’t think so, not after reading The Lusty Adventures of Lady Pamela.”

  “There is that,” Mairi said. “We do want to publish it, you know.”

  “Then you like it?”

  Mairi nodded. “I do. It’s funny and profound and poignant. Above all, it’s exciting.”

  She noticed that Mairi didn’t ask if the adventures of Lady Pamela were based on real life. As a publisher, she would know that not everything that seemed real was.

  “Will Macrath truly make him marry me?”

  Mairi sighed. “He could. Perhaps we should enlist Virginia’s help there.”

  “We mustn’t disturb her.”

  “Nonsense, she’s bored senseless in her room. When I visit her, she wants me to tell her everything that’s happening.”

  “She’ll be disappointed in me.”

  “Virginia’s just like the two of us. We’ve all acted the fool around men.”

  “Why aren’t they foolish around us?”

  Mairi laughed, reached over and hugged her. “They are, my dear, they are. They just hide it better.”

  He was being flailed alive by politeness.

  Sinclair led him to his library, offered him whiskey, invited him to sit, remarked on the full moon, and was a conscientious host.

  All the while, they watched each other warily.

  Any moment now, Sinclair would to come out and say what he really thought, and it wasn’t too hard to guess what that was.

  “The first time would have been ludicrous, Gadsden, but this has become a habit.”

  The comment was almost a relief.

  “One regrettably instituted by Miss Traylor.”

  “You’re saying that she held you down and kissed you? It didn’t look like coercion from where I stood.”

  “It wasn’t,” he said. “I shouldn’t have followed her into her room.”

  “Why the blazes did you?”

  “There’s something about the woman that irritates me like a burr.”

  “Or an itch?”

  Surprised by the question, he glanced over at the other man.

  “Like an itch. I take it you’ve had a similar response?”

  “Her name is Virginia,” Sinclair said, smiling, “and she’s my wife.”

  Ros
s sipped his whiskey and placed it on the table between them before speaking.

  “I’ve been married before.”

  “I know,” Sinclair said.

  “The marriage was not an amicable one.”

  “I suspected as much.”

  “How do you know that?”

  One of Sinclair’s eyebrows arched upward at the question.

  “You never talk about her. I’ve mentioned my wife every time we’ve met. You never add to the conversation. Oh, yes, my wife did the same. Or she loved violets. That sort of thing. You don’t remember her.”

  “Oh, I remember her.” Ross picked up the glass and stared into it, wondering what Sinclair would think if he drank the whole thing and requested another. He always wished he were intoxicated when discussing Cassandra. The better to tolerate the humiliation, perhaps.

  “You’re standing for election soon,” Sinclair said, enough of a warning.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you not think your chances would be greater if you were married?”

  Ross put his glass down. “I doubt I would be a good match for Ellice.”

  Sinclair smiled. “Technically, she’s the Lady Ellice Traylor, but she hasn’t gone by her title since leaving London. As to not being a good marriage, why not? You’re an earl. She’s the daughter of one. She would probably be happier living closer to Edinburgh. Your chances of winning an election would be better as a married man.”

  Sinclair leveled a look on him and went on. “I know for certain that you’re disposed to one another. I’ve found you in two compromising situations in a matter of days. You talk about scandal, Gadsden. It doesn’t take but a whiff of scandal to ruin a woman’s chances for a good marriage. Even here at Drumvagen.”

  He knew that to be true, just as he knew he’d been in the wrong.

  “Have you read her book?” he asked.

  Sinclair shook his head.

  “I think you need to read it to understand what I’m about to say. I think she’s a dangerous woman, Sinclair. I’m not sure if I would be saving her from scandal or pitching myself head first into it.”

  Sinclair folded his arms and regarded him steadily. What was the man thinking?

  “I can’t do a thing about my sister publishing the book,” he said.