Free The Virgin of Clan Sinclair by Karen Ranney

us.”
    “That’s ridiculous,” she said, turning and walking toward the door again. “Why should they? I’d never set eyes on you while working on it.”
    “Nevertheless, the hero looks like me. You live in Macrath’s home. I’m asking for Logan’s support in my election. Logan is Macrath’s brother-in-law. Of course the relationship will be considered, especially if you publish the book.”
    “I’ve never heard of anything sillier,” she said.
    “The book could damage my career.”
    “No, I was wrong,” she said. “ That is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.”
    She was talking loud enough to wake the groom, who started, eyes opening wide, then straightened on his chair, pretending he’d been wide-awake the whole time.
    “I’m standing for election for representative peer in a few weeks,” Ross said, lowering his voice. “There are four men in contention for two slots. Your book could cost me the election. The scandal could destroy any future chances I might have.”
    “There’s no scandal involved,” she said airily. “I have no connection with you whatsoever. I have nothing to do with you. You are a thimble filled with water next to my ocean. You are a grain of sand to my beach. You are a tiny star in the sky. You’re nothing to me.”
    She opened the door then and stood there staring at the sheet of rain. Without another word, she left him, disappearing into the torrent like a watery sprite.

Chapter 7
    E llice fell into an uneasy doze around dawn, only to wake in a few hours.
    When she opened her door, she was greeted by silence. The maids had disappeared.
    Please, God, no. Don’t let anything have happened to Virginia.
    She descended the stairs, finding most of the staff in the kitchen.
    “Is there any news?” she asked.
    The cook answered her. “Brianag says no progress.”
    How much longer could this go on? She left the kitchen without responding, wanting to be alone. The problem was that this was Drumvagen. There was no place to be alone.
    The rain still fell, making the front lawn of Drumvagen look an extension of the ocean to their left. She heard her mother come down the stairs and into the family parlor, and deliberately walked in the other direction.
    Even though she was desperate for a place to escape, she was chained by worry to the house. Because she was unmarried, she wasn’t allowed at Virginia’s side. Evidently, being a virgin meant she was supposed to be ignorant of all things, including how babies are brought into the world.
    She walked into the Great Hall, a room even larger for it being empty. How strange, that of all the rooms at Drumvagen, the Great Hall was the one least used. They all crowded into other rooms, smaller but more cozy.
    She walked a path around the room, wishing the day weren’t so dark and the thunder so ominous.
    A storm in Scotland was like nothing she’d ever experienced in London. Here, the elements felt alive, sentient. This storm was a raging monster that had grown in fury since yesterday.
    Sometimes, she thought Scotland was more than a country, more than a rough and magnificent land with a border created by men, written on a map, and defended for hundreds of years. Scotland was almost a living creature that could turn and bite your hand if you didn’t speak about it in fond and loving tones.
    When she walked the hills and glens surrounding Drumvagen, she sometimes felt like she was being watched. Not by living inhabitants, but those who’d gone before, proud men and women who hated the English and now hovered over their land to protest her appearance.
    For all her imagination, she didn’t believe in the hundreds of folktales Brianag told the children. The trees weren’t alive; they were simply trees. Brownies didn’t do chores for obedient children. Sea creatures in the shape of horses didn’t bedevil the coast.
    Yet something about this storm was otherworldly, as if God were punishing them.
    In the sunlight, the Great Hall was a