She drew her anger to her like a protective cloak. "Why? Haven't you ever seen a decent woman before?"
"Many. But none as lovely as you."
He could see he had confounded her, momentarily tying her tongue. He used the time well, saying something quickly to quell her anger.
"What is it you're doing?" he wanted to know.
He was patronizing her again, just as he had been by calling her lovely. She knew what she looked like in her worn dress. "Any fool could see that I'm printing the Gazette."
"Rachel," Riley chided softly as Sin-Jin picked up the sheet she had printed moments ago. "Not everyone's familiar with our trade."
"It's far more than just a trade, Riley. A blacksmith has a trade. A miller has a trade. We do not have a trade." She raised her chin as she looked at Sin-Jin. "We have a calling. We're preserving events for future generations."
A smile played on Sin-Jin's lips. He tapped a space near the bottom of the first column. "Like Mistress Wilson's lost pig?"
It was a story Rachel had placed in the Gazette herself to balance out the first column. After all, news was scarce at times. But if he thought to make her feel foolish, he hadn't succeeded, she thought. She was very proud of what they did here and her own part in it. "Some events are more historic than others."
He laughed, entertained by her display of spirit. He saw anger rise a measure higher in her eyes; undoubtedly she mistook his mirth for laughter at her expense. He pressed on prudently. "Who taught you to read?"
And didn't he say it as if it was the eighth wonder of the world? Undoubtedly he was used to illiterate ninnies. "I taught myself, thank you."
Sin-Jin raised a brow, looking to Riley for further enlightenment.
"In the main, she's right. Our Da had no use for a girl doing sums and reading. Thought it useless." Their father, a simple tenant farmer, had been a kind man, a good man, but a man who was very set in his ways. To change something, however small, within the boundaries of his life was to change his concept of the world completely.
"It was my books she begged for. I showed her the path, she found the rest of the way herself." Riley smiled fondly at Rachel. There was a kind heart beneath the sharp tongue, and he of all people knew that to be true. "It was a stubborn girl she was, even at that tender young age.
Sin-Jin exchanged an amused look with Riley. "I'd have never guessed."
They were talking about her as if she wasn't even in the room, or worse, some dumb object without ears or a tongue with which to defend herself. And her brother was as much to blame as this irritating man he had fallen in with.
"I'm not in the need of a eulogy." She fisted her hands on her hips, looking from one to the other. "I haven't died and gone to my reward, thank you very much." Her eyes narrowed as she turned her attack on the worst offender. "If you have questions, you can be addressing them to me."
"I did," he reminded her easily, "but there was no one receiving the query."
She frowned, the frown all the more deep because he was right and she guilty of being rude. Even though she hated everything she believed he stood for, she hated rudeness even more. It was an attribute she ascribed to his kind, not hers.
Bracing her shoulders, she raised herself a full two inches on her toes and looked him in the eye as best as she could. Her tone was formal and coldly polite. "Will there be anything else you'd be wanting to know, Mr. Lawrence?"
"Many things," Sin-Jin answered. His smile crinkled the corners of his mouth and traced a path to his eyes. "None of which I can safely ask now."
The blackguard! And to think she had felt guilty at being rude. He deserved rudeness and more for the thoughts he was probably having. Swearing at him, Rachel returned to the task of inking the typeset.
Camaraderie always came easily to him. Sin-Jin had the gift of being able to make most men like him. He turned toward Riley now, knowing he was short one convert.
"As I said, my main purpose in coming here was to see you." He looked the man over. The color of his face was a little rare, but other than that Riley looked fit. "Well, I'd say you seem to be suffering no ill effects from last night's revelry."
Riley laughed, then held his head as the sound multiplied there a hundredfold. "I wouldn't be entirely sure of that."
Sin-Jin peered sympathetically at Riley. There was a time or two when his own head had felt as if it was going to explode. "Does you head ache?"
"Aye." He cast a glance at Rachel. She was busy working, ignoring both of them. "From within and from without. It makes her happy to point out my shortcomings. I'm sure you heard her as you came in."
"I've no doubt Philadelphia heard her as I came in," Sin-Jin commented. There was nothing wrong with the lady's ability to voice her mind loud and clear.
"Possibly," Riley agreed. He smiled at Sin-Jin. "But at any rate, 'tis nice of you to be inquiring after my health."
He leaned closer to Sin-Jin. He didn't want his words carrying to Rachel just yet. He was the head of the house, but he did prefer to enjoy some measure of peace when he could. That meant not provoking Rachel. "Perhaps you'd do us the honor of dinner some evening. There isn't much, but what there is, Rachel can work miracles with. Her tartness is in her tongue and not her pies."
"Not entirely in her tongue," Sin-Jin corrected, speaking loud enough for Rachel to hear.
He knew she had overheard by the blush that crept along her neck. He was more than certain that it fed onto her cheeks. For a moment, he nearly gave in to his desire to turn her around to see for himself.
But he had no intentions of enlightening himself at the expense of her pride, so he let the matter go. Instead, he crossed to the door once again. "I think I would like that, Master O'Roarke."
Friends were something to treasure above all else. Riley felt he already had one in Sin-Jin. "Riley, please." He clasped Sin-Jin's hand in his.
"Riley it is." He tipped his hat in Rachel's direction. "And now, there's a plantation to oversee."
She could not resist a parting volley. "And slaves to mistreat?" Slave-owners to her were only a step above lords of the manor. Both were leeches, living from the sweat of others.
Never had it pleased Sin-Jin more than now to say, "I have no slaves."
She had thought that he was the owner of a plantation from the way he spoke. Perhaps she had attributed too much to his abilities. "You oversee them, then, in someone else's employ?"
Sin-Jin shook his head. "I'm not in anyone's employ but my own." It was not a popular stand, but it was his and he would not back down from it, though there had been a threat or two to his person for it. "I have no slaves because I set them free. Those who work for me earn a wage." He saw the surprise bloom in her eyes. Sin-Jin continued with relish.
"Not a very high one because as of yet I am not in the same financial position as some of my neighbors." Now suspicion edged out the surprise on her face. She was a hard woman to deal with, he thought. But he had ceased to enjoy the easy way out and welcomed a good challenge. "But it is an honest wage and I am proud to give it, Rachel."
She pouted slightly at the use of her given name. "Mistress O'Roarke," she corrected him, though the conviction in her voice wavered.
"You set your slaves free?" Riley's interest was aroused. The ache in his head had taken itself, in lesser proportions, to the corners of his temple.
Sin-Jin nodded. He answered without first weighing the import of his words. "Upon receiving them from my father-in-law as a gift on my wedding day."
Rachel's eyes grew dark and accusing.
He was married!
Married and he had kissed her! If she could, she would have cut out his heart here and now and fed it to her cat. Only fear of poisoning the small animal would have prevented her.
Married.
The word echoed in her brain like the annoying tattoo of an Indian chant. She hardly heard her brother's questions. They had something to do with talking to Sin-Jin at length some time in the near future. He wanted to do
a story on him as a visionary.
He wasn't a visionary, she thought, feeling hot tears claw in her throat. He was only a brute.
Chapter Eight
So now there were two things to despise him for.
Rachel hated him for being British. A memory flashed through her brain—Lancaster assaulting her mother, laughing when she pleaded to be released—and Rachel's mouth hardened. Only the lowest scum of the earth were British.
And if she had any doubts of that, she could add the lowest thing of all; Mr. Saint John Lawrence was married. Saint indeed. Saint in the same way that Lucifer had been an angel before The Fall.
Married and he had kissed her in the manner a man kissed his intended. Fury flamed in Rachel's eyes as she thought of it. May his immortal soul burn in hell for all eternity! Indignation rekindled in her breast. She couldn't wait to be rid of him.
Rachel remained uncharacteristically silent as Sin-Jin bid her good day. She refused to so much as look in his direction. Seconds dribbled passed by ever so slowly as she waited to hear the door close.
When it finally did, she whirled upon her brother, an accusation hot on her lips.
"Riley, how could you?"
During the course of Sin-Jin's visit, Riley's self-inflicted condition had begun to slowly dissipate. Now the pounding returned with a vengeance. He eyed his sister wearily, but with a measure of patience. She was, after all, doing the tasks that he should have been about this morning.
"And what 'how could I' is it now, sweet sister?" He shook his head, thinking that she had probably driven Sin-Jin off permanently with her display of temper. "Rachel, I swear by all that is holy, you are beginning to be a very difficult woman to love."
Her small features puckered into a pout. "Don't you swear at me, Riley Sean O'Roarke." She tossed her head as she reached for the ink. "And if you did love me, you wouldn't have invited the likes of that horrid man to eat with us."
She never wanted to see his face as long as she lived. Or longer. And here was her brother, inviting the man to dinner. With an oath, she grasped the handle of the inker and applied it to the typeset with more force than was necessary. Ink oozed between the letters and she swore even more royally.
Riley knew that there was something about the situation that wasn't quite right, but a sweet temper was something neither one of them possessed. He moved until he was directly before her, his male pride wounded.
"And since when is it that I'd be needing your permission before asking someone to come and break bread with us?"
Her chin went up like the comb of a game cock before a battle. "Since right now." Riley could have sworn lightning flashed in her eyes. Green lightning. "It's his head I'd rather be breaking than any miserable loaf of bread."
Riley's temper simmered down like a pot of stew that had the flame go out beneath it. Concern took over. "Rachel, what's come over you?" He failed to understand his sister's reaction. It appeared to be totally out of proportion to what had just transpired. Even for Rachel.
She didn't want to share the details with him, at least not yet. It was too raw. "I don't like Tories. And, I might add, I was under the opinion that neither did you."
She glanced down at her hand. With an annoyed cry, she set the roller down and looked at her fingers. They were all tipped in black. She sighed, rubbing her apron over them. It seemed as if the ink had permanently seeped into her skin.
Was that all there was to it? Riley wondered. She thought Sin-Jin was a Tory? Didn't she realize that he would have never befriended a loyalist? Riley let out an annoyed breath. "The man isn't a Tory, Rachel. He's an American."
Rachel raised her eyes to Riley's. "And how do you know that?"
There were times that Riley felt Rachel was too suspicious. "He said so."
Was Riley really that simple? She spread a sheet of paper over the platen with a snap of her wrists. "And if I'd be telling you that I was the queen of England, would you believe me?"
Riley grasped the handle on the printing press. As he pulled it toward him, the two sides moved closer together. He frowned at his sister's condescending face. "No, of course not."
Rachel tossed her head impatiently as she made her point. "Well, why not? I said so."
When she was like this, there was no reasoning with her. He had more of a chance of winning an argument with the King than he had with his pigheaded sister. "Rachel Colleen O'Roarke, you are impossible."
"No, not impossible." She turned to pick up another sheet of paper. A movement caught her eye, and she looked out the window that faced the edge of town. Sin-Jin was just disappearing from view astride his horse. He cut a magnificent figure and she hated him for it. "Just very, very angry," she said in a heated whisper.
It was her cherished conviction that married men who kissed women other than their wives or their mothers should be hung by their thumbs over the nearest chasm.
Especially when they kissed so well.
With a huff, Rachel spread out the sheet. Riley knew better than to continue the conversation. It was doomed from the beginning.
Bronson Calloway let out a prolonged sigh of relief as he saw the big black stallion approach the house. Hurrying out of the shed where he had been working, he was ready to grasp the reins when Sin-Jin dismounted.
"I was just about to send someone into town to search for you. I thought you'd been shanghaied aboard some privateer or pressed into service by a ragtag brigade of soldiers."
Though the air was crisp, Bronson's rounded face was sweaty just from the effort of hurrying across the lawn. He was a short, stocky man, and his weight was evenly distributed, giving him the appearance of an amiable brick wall.
Sin-Jin waved over the stable hand who stood peering at the two men in the distance. The young boy was quick to comply. Everyone liked Mas't 'Jin.
"Thank you, Seth," Sin-Jin murmured to the dark-skinned youth. He turned to Bronson. The overseer had been worried, just as Sin-Jin had predicted. He smiled at the man easily. "I'm afraid that the evening slipped away from me."
Bronson was aware that when his employer had left yesterday, there had been a sadness about him that was rare. Yesterday was the date of his marriage to Miss Savannah. Bronson had guessed that loneliness was licking at Sin-Jin's soul. It had been his fervent hope that Sin-Jin would find relief in town. He grinned now. Apparently he had. "Was she pretty?"
Sin-Jin walked into the stately mansion that had been his home for the last five years. Bronson followed in his wake. Sin-Jin thought of the taste of Rachel's mouth as he walked past the parlor to his library. "Like ripe strawberries dropped on a field of fresh virgin snow."
Bronson scratched the thinning fringe of wheat colored hair that still decorated his pate. He'd been to town and stopped by the tavern only the week before.
"That doesn't sound like any of the ladies Sam has at the tavern." His moon-like face broke into a hopeful grin. "Has he brought in any new barmaids?"
Sin-Jin laughed, shrugging out of his coat. He draped it with care over a settee. He knew Emily would be by to put it away before long. He looked at the wistful expression on Bronson's face and guessed at his thoughts. "I believe that you're making a good deal more of my evening than I did."
Bronson was a simple man, not given to subtleties. "Sir?"
Sin-Jin sat at his desk, stretching his legs out before him. There was a healthy fire burning behind him. He could always trust that Emily and her husband, Joe, would keep things running smoothly at the house.
"I met the printer's sister Rachel last night under very chaste circumstances." He smiled, steepling his fingers together. "Not that I wouldn't have entertained the notion of having them not quite so chaste."
Bronson scowled, his thick brows knitting together in a furrow. "I didn't know the printer had a sister Rachel." He paused to consider his own words. "Or that we had a printer."
"That we do." Leaning over, Sin-Jin took out a folded sheet that he had taken with him when he left Sam's. It was part of the
Gazette. "As of two months ago, or so, the good citizens of Morgan Creek have been graced with a periodical."
Bronson stared at the sheet. When Sin-Jin offered it to him, Bronson took it, turning it around in his hands. "A what-i-gul?"
"Periodical." Sin-Jin sat up and tapped the sheet to emphasize his words. He studied the blank look on Bronson's face as the latter regarded the newspaper with interest. "A publication that makes its appearance regularly."
Bronson shrugged, handing the paper back to him. He straightened, dusting his clothes a little awkwardly. "Well, it can appear as regularly as it wants, makes no difference to me."
"You can't read?" Sin-Jin guessed, surprised. When he had hired Bronson under Morgan McKinley's recommendation five years ago, it had never occurred to Sin-Jin to inquire whether Bronson could read or not. It was just something he had assumed. To learn differently, after all these years, was a surprise.
The shrug became more pronounced and self-conscious, though his inability had never really troubled Bronson before. Book learning, he had always believed, was only for the rich who didn't have to worry about working for a living. "Not a word."
Sin-Jin crossed his arms before him as he leaned back in his chair. He couldn't imagine having the written word remain a mystery to him. "Doesn't that bother you?"
"Why?" Bronson challenged, then his tone mellowed. "Who the bloody blazes has time to read? I'm busy from sunup to sundown." He laughed, trying to imagine himself even holding a book. "Besides, what would I read if I did have the time?"
"I have books in the library." Sin-Jin gestured around the room to make his point. Two walls were completely devoted to shelves he had made himself. They were filled with books. Well-thumbed books.
Bronson looked around solemnly as he thought was expected of him, though he had been in this room countless times. "They make the room like nice and cozy, they do," the overseer declared, thinking that was the response Sin-Jin wanted.
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