Free The Devil of Clan Sinclair by Karen Ranney

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