Free The Witch Of Clan Sinclair by Karen Ranney Page A

written about the saintly Lord Provost.
    For the first time in her life, she dreaded going to work. Nothing she’d ever written or reported had created as much ire as that poem.
    They’d lost twenty subscribers, and they only had three hundred to start. She was never going to make a success of the newspaper this way.
    Why had she never realized that, to the citizens of Edinburgh, Logan Harrison was nearly a saint? She hadn’t lied to him. She had never, at least not until meeting him, been involved in politics. But surely she should have known about his reputation. According to the people who had come to the paper, he was concerned about people’s welfare. He enacted reforms. He ensured that each individual who had ever come in contact with him—and from the number of people in her office, that was a great many—remembered him not only for his generosity of spirit but also his charm.
    Was she the only person in the world who hadn’t been charmed by the Lord Provost?
    She wished she’d never encountered the man.
    But the very last straw had come this morning when she visited Mr. Donovan, only to have the man nearly slam the door in her face.
    “I’ve nothing for you today,” he said, his chin jutting out.
    He was turning back to the interior of the tavern when she stopped him.
    “I haven’t seen you for a few days, Mr. Donovan. For you not to have any information is odd.”
    “Would you be having me make up things, then?” he asked, frowning. “Like you do?”
    That’s when she knew.
    “The Lord Provost told you not to talk to me, didn’t he?”
    “A finer soul you’ll never know. I’d watch your words before you start imagining stories about him.”
    Logan Harrison had evidently threatened Mr. Donovan, and probably most of the men who’d been too busy to speak with her in the last two days.
    Tucking her notebook into her reticule, she frowned back at him. “You’ll not be advertising with me either, then?”
    “I’ll not,” he said, his gaze focused on the neighboring building, the yard of which adjoined the alley.
    “I never wrote anything untrue, Mr. Donovan. You know I don’t do that.”
    He finally looked directly at her. “I used to think that, Miss Sinclair. I wonder, now, if being a woman has changed your thinking.”
    It was beginning to, in ways he probably didn’t realize. His prejudice, and that of the other men, was cementing her resolve.
    She was declaring war on stupidity.
    All these years she’d been very careful to act behind the scenes, to allow Macrath to be the figurehead. He was more than willing to cede the power to her and intervene when it was necessary. But now she no longer wanted anyone, even Macrath, to fight her battles for her.
    Yesterday she’d received a letter from the Scottish Ladies National Association. The woman had written:
    Miss Sinclair, it is imperative that women such as you, in positions of power and influence, come out to support other women. I am gratified to know another woman in publishing, as my dear friend Mary Louise Booth is the editor of Harper’s Bazar in New York . . .
    The letter writer went on to ask her to speak publicly. Until this morning she had every intention of writing the woman and telling her she couldn’t possibly do so. Her forte was in the written word. Besides, she wanted to remain in the background.
    That was before the meeting with Mr. Donovan. Now she was determined to go through with it.
    Just as intent as she was in stopping Logan Harrison.
    His house was of deep red brick trimmed in black, with a peaked roof and three rows of small paned windows. On either side of the black door was a brass lantern now flickering a yellow welcome against the gray sky.
    Stately and magnificent, the house lorded it over the rest of the neighborhood. She had the sudden and inexplicable image of the emblem of Scotland itself, a lion rampant, right paw raised, claws extended.
    She should have brought Fenella with her. Or Abigail at the