The Virgin of Clan Sinclair (7 page)

Take me. Take me on the settee, on the floor, standing up next to the fireplace, in front of the mirror.

Unbutton my dress and worship me with your hands, your lips, your mouth. Praise my breasts, trail your fingers through the hair guarding my womanhood. Enjoy me and let me do the same.

She wanted to be naked, or at least less clothed. She almost unbuttoned the first button of her dress, but his lips were on her throat now, making her forget everything.

Oh, she hadn’t known about that spot. How delicious that was. And there, just behind her ear. She’d never imagined such a thing.

Her lips were lonely.

She reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, standing on tiptoe to press herself closer to him. Even if threatened with all the fires of damnation, she wouldn’t have released her hold. She should have stepped away, remembering who she was, their argument, and that the man who was kissing her so divinely was autocratic and annoying.

He lowered his head slowly as if to further torture her, and again softly lay his lips on hers. Just that and nothing more. No pressure or cajoling, just the soft acquaintance of the shape of his mouth, the texture of his lips, the taste of his breath. Gently, as if she might have otherwise been frightened, he threaded his fingers through the hair at her nape.

“Pamela,” he murmured against her lips. “I think you are Pamela. A sorceress.”

She would be anyone he wanted.

He tilted his head, slowly deepening the kiss, giving her a chance to refuse. One hand rested against her nape; the other was at her waist.

She didn’t remember the room they were in, the time of day, or that Drumvagen was filled with people. Darkness shimmered beneath her eyelids, befuddlement clouded her mind. All she truly knew was him, the heat of his body, the furious beating of his heart, the soft, stroking excitement of his tongue.

Her fingers slid up to the back of his neck, danced in his hair, cupped the back of his head and pulled him even closer. They shared their breaths, excited each other, daring in a way that was ancient and ordained by their bodies, independent of their minds.

She wanted him. She had wanted him from the first moment she heard him talking to Macrath, the first time she’d seen him, the living, breathing embodiment of her hero. She’d imagined him, created him, and God had taken pity and delivered him to her.

From somewhere far away she heard the crack of thunder. The windows shivered in their panes, breaking the spell, almost as if God called her back to herself.

Stepping back, she realized her hair had fallen from its bun. She pushed it out of the way, over her shoulders, and took one more step away from him.

He was the most dangerous creature in the world.

If she had the wit of Lady Pamela, she wouldn’t have been embarrassed. Her heroine would have simply sailed from the room, her lips red from his kisses, uncaring when he stared after her longingly.

“Should I offer my apologies?” he asked.

Was she that much a hypocrite? She should have flounced from the room. Or screamed that he was accosting her. Instead, she wanted to throw herself into his arms.

“Oh, miss!” She turned to find Annie, one of the housemaids, standing in the doorway. Her face was florid, her eyes wide.

“What is it, Annie?”

Had the girl witnessed their kiss?

“Is it true, miss? Is the village flooded? One of the grooms said so and we’ve no one else to ask.”

Her concerns faded beneath the girl’s obvious fear.

“I don’t know, Annie,” she said, conscious that it was the first time anyone had come to her for help since she’d moved to Drumvagen. “But I’ll find out.”

With a last glance toward the earl, she left the Great Hall.

Chapter 8

W
ithout stopping to grab a shawl, Ellice pulled open one of Drumvagen’s massive doors, racing out into the slashing rain and down the right staircase. Twice she slipped on the slick stone steps and managed to right herself.

Once at the bottom, she picked up her sodden skirts and began to run across the glen, past the cairn stones where she often sat and read. She crossed a path that lead to the cottage in a roundabout way, heading for a growth of pines perched on the hill overlooking Kinloch Village.

The slope had become almost impassable, the grass gone, replaced by rivers of mud. Her feet sank to her ankles and each step weighed more than the one before. Her clothing was dragging at her, including the hated bustle. She finally resorted to bending over and clawing at the mud, determined to make it to the top.

The rain was blinding, the thunder so close it felt as if it were grumbling in her ear.

A hand on her elbow startled her. She glanced to her left to find the earl there, his hair slicked back by the rain and his clothes as sodden as hers. He gripped her arm and helped her get her balance. Together, they made it the rest of the way.

On a pleasant day she could have seen Kinloch Village, but this downpour was unlike anything she’d ever known. Now she could barely see past the bridge, if the stone footbridge had been there. The Water of Kinloch, normally a narrow, undulating river, was so wide and deep that it looked like the ocean.

Just beyond was Kinloch Village. Half of the houses clung to the cliff, their foundations carved into the stone. The rest would flood.

Hannah and Jack’s house would be in danger, as well as those of most of the maids who didn’t choose to live at Drumvagen. Every morning a contingent of them could be found walking toward the house, their laughter marking the start of the day, their smiles and quick conversation something she’d come to expect.

Ellice moved forward, the earl’s hand dropping from her arm. Wiping her muddy hands on her dress, she stared toward the village, stunned by so much potential destruction.

She turned to face him. “The village will flood,” she said. “What are we going to do?”

His features arranged themselves into a mask. Was he going to simply turn and walk away? Or worse, say something cutting and cold?

“We need to get back to Drumvagen,” he said.

“We need to do something. I’m not a Scot,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the rain. “Nor am I altogether certain I like Scotland. But I can’t sit by and let people lose their homes. You go back to Drumvagen. I’m staying here.”

“What do you propose to do by standing there?”

“Something. I don’t know. Something.”

She folded her arms and stared straight ahead, trying to figure out something to do. Had Macrath any machines that might be moved into place to block the flow of the river?

Her face was sheened with rain, droplets falling from her nose. She hadn’t thought to grab a coat or a shawl, but it would have been soaked in only minutes anyway.

“Can you sew?” he shouted at her.

Surprised, she turned to look at him.

“Can you sew? We need to get back to Drumvagen and see if your housekeeper has any extra muslin. We need bags filled with sand to serve as a dam against the river.”

She blinked at him. Bags of sand? Would they work? At least he’d come up with an idea. She didn’t have one.

Turning, she descended the hill with Gadsden at her side.

The next hours proved her initial thought of him correct. The Earl of Gadsden was very much like her hero, Donald.

She’d never seen anyone work as tirelessly. He was ahead of all of them in filling the wagon with sand, shouting orders, commanding the men who’d come in the dozens from Kinloch.

Drumvagen wasn’t in danger because the house was on a much higher elevation than the village. Even if the water did come this far, only the basement would be affected.

They set up operations in the gazebo. The white painted structure, nestled in a clearing in the woods, was equidistant between Drumvagen and the village. There, they finished sewing and loading the sandbags before carting them down to the river. The gazebo also served as headquarters for information. The maids who weren’t involved with the sewing came to bring them news from the house, along with tea and food. In turn, they learned the status of the flooding, to take back to the house.

Ellice had no patience for needlework, but this was nothing like the intricate footstool patterns or samplers she’d done as a girl. Instead, this was production stitching. Ten of them worked side by side in the gazebo. Two of the maids cut muslin into large squares while the rest of them sewed. Once the bottoms and sides were done, each bag was passed to one of the men, who filled it with sand so the top could be stitched.

Thanks to Brianag’s militaristic planning, there were seven bolts of muslin in the attic, and Ellice prayed it would be enough to help protect the village.

Virginia’s condition had not changed. She was in and out of consciousness—that information gleaned from a pale and drawn Hannah, who’d helped her carry the bolts to the wagon.

“I can’t leave her,” Hannah said.

“Of course you can’t,” Ellice said, hugging her. They’d each given the other strength when Virginia was so ill with smallpox in London a few years earlier. Now they needed to remain hopeful, just as they had then.

“Go and tend to her,” Ellice said. “She’s in my prayers, and the prayers of every person at Drumvagen.”

Would that be enough?

Thunder roared overhead as if God Himself had heard her.

Strike me, God, and not Virginia. I, no doubt, deserve it. She does not.

They worked for hours, darkness no clue to the time. The skies were boiling black, the thunder constant, the rain unremitting. Someone lit lanterns and hung them on the eaves of the gazebo. Two of them were immediately doused by the sideways rain. They were relit and placed inside the structure, at a careful distance from the pile of muslin ready to be stitched into bags.

She pricked her finger so many times her blood christened each finished bag, but it hardly mattered. No one was going to point to it and say, “Look at what a despicable job Ellice did. How terribly gauche.”

They worked silently, the thunder and rain too loud for normal conversation. The only time anyone spoke was when the same young man who ran the bags to the river returned with news.

“The water’s at the outskirts now,” he said. “The earl doesn’t think it’ll rise higher, but we need more bags.”

“We’re working as fast as we can,” Ellice said, glancing at the other women.

Each of them looked tired, pale, and worried. Either their thoughts were filled with Virginia’s suffering or with their own homes and those of relatives in Kinloch.

“He knows that,” the boy said. “But the earl said that we still need more. He said to tell you he’s bracing the fortifications on the south side of the river, hoping that will keep most of the flooding from the village.”

“What about my house? Do you know anything?”

Ellice glanced over at the girl who’d asked, one of the maids new to Drumvagen. She’d found the girl crying in the parlor one day, afraid of Brianag and miserable in her new job. She reassured her at the time that everyone felt the same about the housekeeper. Had the girl settled in? Or was she wishing she’d found work anywhere else?

“The earl said that none of the houses are affected yet,” the boy said, “only the church, but we should be able to repair any damage once the water goes down.”

“Go to Drumvagen,” Ellice said, giving him orders, when she never gave orders to anyone. “Tell them we need any bolts of cloth still in the attic. I don’t care if it’s silk or satin. If there’s no more cloth, tell them we need extra sheets and pillowcases.”

“Yes, miss,” he said, and began running through the rain to Drumvagen.

An hour later they had two more bolts of cloth and all the extra sheets Drumvagen possessed.

Toward evening, Cook sent food to the gazebo with food for all of them. Ellice made the decision to send four of the maids to Drumvagen to get warm and dry and sleep for a few hours. When they returned, she and the other women would rest.

After being wet for so long, she felt like a duck. A very waterlogged duck who never wanted to see a lake or pond or body of water again for a long time. Or rain—dear God, please let them be spared rain for a while, although drought was not something for which to pray.

She thought it was probably early morning when the rain eased. All she was certain of was her fatigue. Her lips were numb with cold and her entire body seemed to shiver all at once. She couldn’t feel her fingers but kept stitching.

At first she thought she was mistaken, but then realized that the pounding on the gazebo roof wasn’t as strong as earlier. Several of the other women glanced up, and more than once she met a pair of eyes, the hopeful look making her wonder if they were finally being spared.

She bit off a thread, placed the bag to the stack at her right and stood, her legs feeling strange after having been sitting for so long.

Slowly, she walked to the gazebo steps, standing there to watch as the rain subsided. When she tilted her head back, she could see a section of midnight blue sky and stars. Clouds scudded across the sky, revealing a bright moon, white and full.

One by one the other women joined her.

“It’s a miracle,” one of them said, tears bathing her face.

“Hardly a miracle,” another answered. “The rain’s stopped, it has. Finally.”

“What about the flooding?”

“I’ll go and see, then,” one of the women said, and she was soon joined by the others.

“Go,” Ellice said when they hesitated at the steps. If she lived in Kinloch, she’d be as anxious to see if her house had been spared.

Returning to the bench where she’d sat for so many hours, she began to stack up the bags. The rain might start again and they might need more sandbags.

She closed her eyes for a moment. She couldn’t sleep yet. Nor was it safe to return to Drumvagen until she knew if the danger was over. The river might continue to rise.

No one had come in the last hour with news. How was Virginia faring? A tear fell from beneath her closed lids and she brushed it away.

Weeping never accomplished anything, did it?