Karen Ranney Read online

  The wedding that had never happened.

  “How long will she be staying?”

  He wasn’t about to tell her he didn’t know. Hell, he didn’t even know why Virginia was here.

  He was not going to question Providence at the moment, however.

  “You’ll see to her maid and the driver as well?”

  When his housekeeper just raised one eyebrow, he amended his statement. “Of course you will. And dinner, too. Something special, I think.”

  The second eyebrow joined the first. Her mouth thinned and her arms remained folded in front of her.

  Brianag’s annoyance wasn’t as important as another fact, startling, confusing, and a blessing.

  Virginia was at Drumvagen.

  Brianag tapped her foot impatiently. Who employed whom?

  “Is there anything else?”

  “You might try smiling once in awhile,” he said. “Or stop looking so ferocious. Or try remembering I’m your employer. A simple ‘sir’ wouldn’t be amiss from time to time.”

  “Is that all? Sir?”

  He nodded, and she left the room, mumbling something in her indecipherable Scots.

  Macrath had been born and raised in Edinburgh. He considered himself a Scot through and through. Yet the people of Kinloch spoke with such a thick accent he had a hard time understanding them. He’d heard Brianag in the kitchen, talking to the maids, and it might as well be a foreign tongue. When she noticed him, she always switched to a more understandable Scottish English, one not requiring interpretation.

  When she was irritated, however, she spoke whatever she wanted.

  He eased back in his chair, staring at the carved ceiling. Reaching inside his jacket, he plucked out the note he’d kept with him for a year. A handy piece of remembrance, a morality tale in a few sentences. Something to keep him sane—and probably bitter—for all these months. A reminder that he shouldn’t be so overjoyed to see her now, or not until certain questions were resolved.

  He read it again although he could see the words whenever he closed his eyes. A moment later he tucked it away again.

  What explanation would she give him for both the note and her arrival at Drumvagen?

  The last time he’d seen her, Virginia had been walking away from him with a smile, heading toward her father.

  A man to whom he’d taken an instant dislike, a confession he’d never made to her.

  “My daughter tells me you own a newspaper,” Anderson had said on that first meeting. They’d both been sipping whiskey offered in one of the rooms set aside for bored spouses and male escorts.

  Of average height, Anderson had black hair and blue eyes that were cold and flat, without one ounce of warmth. The only time he appeared remotely approachable was when he talked about his empire, how many shares of stock in railroads he owned, his cotton mills, and ships. Evidently, the recent war in America had only expanded his holdings.

  A curiosity—not once did Anderson mention his daughter.

  “The newspaper is a family business,” Macrath told him. “I’ve since branched out into other fields. I’ve invented an ice machine.”

  “An inventor, eh? One of those fellas who tinker with things, then try to convince the rest of us to give them money for it. Is that it?”

  “I suppose it is,” Macrath said.

  The American had just described, in unflattering terms, what he’d done to get funding for his first machine. He’d come up with the idea, created a prototype, then solicited investors to whom he proved it would be a good risk. After the first flurry of sales of the Sinclair Ice Machine, having made five men richer than they’d been, he declined any further investments.

  When he explained this to Virginia’s father, the man didn’t look impressed. Instead, Anderson studied him with a sour expression on his face.

  “I’ve heard tales about Scotland. How you all prance about in kilts, showing your bare asses. I’m surprised there are any of you left, what with you beating each other over the head with swords for hundreds of years.”

  “Perhaps I’ll get a chance to show you the real Scotland,” he said, hoping such an occasion never happened. He couldn’t imagine being trapped in a railroad car or carriage with Anderson for longer than a minute or two.

  The man flicked his hand at him, as if to dismiss Scotland and Macrath. In the next moment he’d wandered off, leaving Macrath staring after him and trying to imagine the man as an in-law.

  However, he’d been willing to put aside his feelings for Virginia’s sake.

  Evidently, Virginia had put aside hers as well. For him.

  Why was she here? Should he even care? She was here, and that was all that mattered.

  Virginia studied her reflection in the pier glass as Hannah fluffed her hem and straightened her hoop.

  “It’s a good thing you’re one of those women who look handsome in black,” her mother-in-law had said. “But you needn’t wear those nightgowns edged in black, I think.”

  She had closed her eyes on that comment, not wishing to discuss her nightgowns with Enid.

  Did she look her best in black?

  Her eyes seemed to sparkle with unshed tears, looking bluer than normal. Even so, they were not as arresting as Macrath’s eyes.

  If she could be only half as attractive a woman as he was a man, she would be beautiful indeed. Once, a maid had told her she had all the qualities of beauty save one: the confidence.

  Now she was trembling, and when she clenched her hands into fists, the tremors crept inside.

  She was caught on a fulcrum, one side of her grateful she was here because it was the one place on earth she most wanted to be, while the other desperately wanted to be away from this place. It was almost like being split into two—angel and sinner—and each side warring with the other.

  The storm had struck since she’d seen Macrath. Rain sheeted the windows, and gusts of wind occasionally caused the panes to shiver in their frames. Should she be worried about the rolling thunder? Was it a sign of disapproval from God? This was not the first time she’d sinned, but the only time she’d done so egregiously, with premeditation and not as much regret as she should have felt.

  “Have you been given your quarters, Hannah?” she asked.

  “Yes, your ladyship. I have an acceptable room with a window overlooking the sea. I can smell it and hear the birds as well. No doubt they’ll wake me up in the mornings. Better than the maids arguing or carriage wheels on the cobbles, I’m thinking.”

  “Good,” she said, wishing she had something to say to the girl. She and Hannah had never conversed much, but now it felt almost uncomfortable not to do so.

  Or was she trying to think of anything but her upcoming dinner with Macrath?

  Her gaze fixed on the massive four poster bed. Had Macrath imagined her here, too?

  “Is there anything else I can do, your ladyship?”

  Talk me out of this. Keep me from leaving this room. Instill some sense of decorum if not morality in me.

  She only shook her head in response.

  When Hannah answered the soft knock on the door, Virginia gave herself one last look in the mirror.

  God help her, but she was running full tilt toward sin.

  Chapter 8

  The dining room was shrouded, lit only by a pair of silver candelabra on the long mahogany table and one on the sideboard. Shadows lingered in the corners as if wishing to reach out and snare her.

  She was seeing threats that weren’t there. If anything, she should be afraid of her own actions, not ghosts in a Scottish house.

  “Perhaps it would be better if your maid joined you.”

  She started, clasped her hands tightly together, and turned to the sound of his voice. He emerged from the darkness like Satan given human form.

  If ever a devil tempted a woman, Macrath Sinclair did.

  “Do I need a chaperone?”

  “Perhaps it would be best if you had one,” he said. “You might be safer.”

>   Her skin pebbled at the sound of his voice, almost like he had drawn a cold finger along her skin. And the heat bubbling inside? Where did that come from? Her own thoughts? Her recollections of a stolen kiss in London? Or from warm, forbidden dreams after her wedding?

  No, this wasn’t a safe place to be. This entire journey had been unsafe. Standing here, without an answer for him, was even more dangerous.

  He came to the table, and drew out a chair. She nodded and sat, thanking him. He took his place at the head of the table, an expanse of at least six feet between them.

  “Tell me about your marriage,” he said.

  She placed her napkin on her lap, rearranged her fork and spoon, moved the wineglass an inch to the left, then to the right.

  “What do you want to know?” she finally asked. “My day-to-day routine?”

  “I would like you to tell me about your marriage.”

  “It was a marriage,” she said with as much equanimity as she could muster. “He was not much interested in me.”

  “Were you interested in him?”

  She stared down at the plate, wondering at the pattern of the thistles along the edge. There was movement from the shadows, approaching the table. Then one girl served her a steaming bowl of turtle soup while another offered a dish of oyster pâté. She thanked them both.

  In the next few minutes the courses started and she didn’t have a chance to answer him. Or did he expect her to speak in front of the servants?

  She was given a plate piled with slices of roast venison, accompanied by French mustard, eggs in aspic, slices of duck, and a concoction of peas mixed with mayonnaise.

  When the servants melted back into the shadows, he said, “They’re gone.”

  In other words, he expected an answer.

  “I didn’t like Lawrence,” she said. “I don’t think it mattered to anyone whether or not we liked each other. My father simply wanted something to show for all his money. A title he could brag about.”

  She forced herself to pick up the fork and taste the venison. He took a sip of his wine, but otherwise wasn’t eating.

  “And you, you wanted the title as well.”

  She smiled. “I didn’t care,” she said.

  The food was excellent, and when she said as much, he only nodded, as if he expected no less. Was he always surrounded by effortless luxury simply because he was Macrath Sinclair?

  He took another sip of wine, the gesture graceful and unhurried.

  She’d never been afraid of him, but she feared this meeting, these questions. She might reveal too much.

  Silence stretched thin, the only sound her fork as she rested it against the plate. How could she hope to eat when her heart was in her throat?

  “Why are you here, only days after you’re made a widow?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Your coachman.”

  “So, you plied Hosking with drink and managed to extricate from him information I would’ve given you gladly had you asked.”

  “I didn’t ply him with drink,” he said with a smile. “I asked a question and he answered it. Which is more than you’re doing.”

  She took a deep breath, staring down at her plate.

  “Almost a year has passed,” he said.

  She didn’t raise her head. “Yes.”

  “A year in which you went from being an American heiress to a countess. Have you changed, Virginia?”

  Had she changed?

  What would he say if she told him the truth? She’d changed so drastically she expected to see a different person in the mirror. Someone with more experience in her gaze, her mouth thinned, her face tight with dread.

  “What did you expect me to be like?”

  “A society matron, perhaps. Someone who had fashion on her mind.”

  She could only smile. Had he forgotten the conversations between them, when she confessed to having no love or care whatsoever about what she wore?

  “I haven’t changed that much,” she said.

  “How do you find being a countess, then?”

  “It’s a comfortable life.”

  “Are you comfortable in it?” he asked.

  What would he say to learn the truth? She decided to test him on it.

  “I am not as hopeful as I once was,” she said softly. “I don’t anticipate the arrival of every morning with delight. I rarely laugh.”

  “Why is that?”

  She shrugged.

  “Was he kind to you, Virginia?”

  She’d never thought this would be so difficult. Or that he would peel the veneer away from the truth so easily.

  “No,” she said. “He resented me, and you rarely treat those you resent with kindness.”

  His goblet came down on the table so hard she glanced at him.

  His face was expressionless, but his eyes were heated.

  She studied her plate again, a much easier sight than Macrath. The plate didn’t peer into her soul or make her tremble.

  “Then damn him,” Macrath said softly. “May his soul rot cheerfully in Hell.”

  Shocked, she looked at him. “You shouldn’t say such things.”

  “Why, to keep my soul from shriveling? Of the two of us, I think your earl has more to answer for.”

  He mustn’t be protective of her. She didn’t deserve it.

  She twisted her napkin in her lap until it was a ball of damp linen, wishing he would say something else, lighten the mood between them.

  Evidently, she was going to have to change the tenor of conversation. Should she speak about the storm still pounding Drumvagen? Was it God, voicing his displeasure in ways other people would note?

  “Your sister is well,” she said.

  “Yes, I know. She speaks of you in her letters. I’m grateful for your friendship.”

  What had Ceana told him? Did he ask about her? Did Ceana keep her confidences?

  She wanted to retreat to her lavish borrowed suite and pray for guidance. Or would God, having washed His hands of her, give her only thunder and lightning in return?

  “Why are you here?”

  There, an answer from God himself. She was not going to be allowed to retreat easily.

  “I wanted to see you,” she said. That wasn’t a lie but it might be a sin. She shouldn’t betray herself with words. “I wanted to see if you were well and happy.”

  “I am well,” he said.

  “Are you happy?”

  “Are you?”

  “You haven’t married.” Not a question, but he answered nonetheless.

  “The woman I wanted went to another,” he said.

  She warmed at his words. “Not because she wished it.”

  “I think you could’ve fought harder had you wanted.”

  So said a man who was the king of his kingdom. A man, even in the semidarkness, who exuded power and confidence.

  “I had a choice,” she said. “To marry Lawrence, or be taken home to America in disgrace.”

  “I would’ve found you there,” he said.

  She stared into the candle flame, trying not to allow his words to affect her. He would have come after her, she was certain of it. The wedding night she’d so dreaded would have been with him and not Lawrence.

  “You never protested?”

  Yes, she had, but what good did it do to tell him? She’d been afraid, but she’d pleaded anyway. She’d begged. She’d offered logic and reason. Her father had never heard her.

  Two reasons spared her from punishment, and neither was due to kindness or affection. Her father had no one to administer a beating to her and was no doubt loath to do it himself. Plus, since she was promised to the earl, he didn’t want her to go damaged to her bridegroom.

  Macrath didn’t know about that, either.

  She was suddenly angry. Why did he spear her with questions now?

  “If you’d cared so much,” she asked, “why did you give up so easily? It’s easy now to say you would have gone to America. A year later.”


  He stared at her for long minutes while the fire crackled and the wind pushed against the windowpanes. She was not going to be the first to break the brittle silence.

  “I never gave up,” he said. “I went to your house many times and was turned away each time. I wrote you a dozen times. I never stopped until I got your letter.”

  She couldn’t breathe. Had Hannah laced her too tightly?

  “I never received one letter from you,” she said. “Nor did I ever write you.”

  She’d been guarded so well she might have been able to compose a letter but never to post it.

  He abruptly stood, striding toward her.

  Reaching into his jacket, he pulled something out, placing it on the table beside her without a word.

  Slowly, she picked up a much folded paper, unfolded it and read:

  Macrath,

  I am to be married. I know you will understand that it would be foolish of me not to agree to a union with the Earl of Barrett.

  Please don’t write me again.

  I wish you great success in your future.

  How could he think she would write something so impersonal and almost flippant to him?

  “That isn’t my handwriting,” she said.

  “Look at the signature.”

  She hadn’t paid it any attention, but at his words, she did, feeling her heart sink to her toes.

  Maud.

  Of course he would think it was from her, from their meeting in the British Museum. The jest only the two of them had shared from that day forward.

  “Mrs. Haverstock,” she said.

  Her chaperone had to have heard them that day. Or had Bessie told her? Had the woman also known about their meeting in the garden, when they’d kissed?

  He returned to his chair as she placed the letter on the table between them.

  He’d been as wounded as she.

  She wasn’t close to seducing Macrath. He was looking at her like she was a stranger, as if all those weeks they’d spent together had never happened. Had he tamped down the pleasant memories in favor of those that made him angry?

  Easing back in the chair, she calmly straightened her napkin, smoothing out the wrinkles and folding it into fourths.

  “I didn’t write that letter, Macrath. But that hardly matters now, does it?”