Page 9 of Return to Clan Sinclair
Right now he needed Carlton’s obedience, which could be achieved one of two ways: punishment or cooperation.
He didn’t have any doubt Carlton would get the message sooner or later, depending on the punishment he administered. He didn’t want to dampen his son’s enthusiasm for life, but he did want to protect him.
He came around his desk, grabbed his son by the shoulder and guided him to the chair by the fire. After moving the adjoining chair until he sat in front of the boy, he leaned forward, clasped his hands and stared straight at Carlton.
“What I’m about to tell you is to go no farther than this room, Carlton. I am not telling your brother or your sister, but I think I can trust you with the truth.”
Carlton moved forward until his feet hit the floor instead of dangling in midair. He pressed his hands on the arms of the chair and nodded soberly.
“Your mother’s in danger.”
Carlton’s eyes widened.
“It’s up to all of us to protect her. I can’t protect her well enough, Carlton, if I’m always worried about you doing something foolish. I need you to be a man now, not a child.”
“Is it pirates?” Carlton whispered.
He shook his head. “There’s a bad man who’s come from America to try to steal your mother away.”
“Bruce?”
He was making a mess of this, wasn’t he? “No, not Bruce. Bruce is here to find the bad man.”
“Does Mommy know?”
“No,” he said. “Nor do I want her to know right now, Carlton. You have to stay inside Drumvagen. I will release you from your room, but I want you to stay close to your mother at all times.”
Virginia wasn’t going to thank him for this.
Carlton nodded enthusiastically. “I’ll guard her, Papa, with my life.”
Just what had his son been reading lately? He half expected Carlton to whisk out an imaginary dagger or sword.The Count of Monte Cristo? Did they have that in Drumvagen’s library? Or had he found the old editions of the broadsides Virginia loved?
He needed to channel his son’s imagination, that was obvious.
“Not forever,” he said. “But for the next few weeks. I need your help, Carlton. Do you promise not to tell anyone what I’ve said?”
His son nodded again, less enthusiastically and more soberly this time. To his amusement, Carlton placed his hand over his heart and inclined his head in a courtier’s gesture. “I do, Papa. I shall guard your secret with my life as well.”
Carlton wasn’t much younger than Macrath had been when his father died, leaving him to support the rest of the family. He didn’t want his son aware of how cruel the world could be. Neither did he want him spoiled. A happy mix of both would be for the best.
Perhaps it wouldn’t do Carlton any harm to know there was danger in the world and unfortunately it had come to Drumvagen.
CHAPTERFOUR
Bruce was a creature of habit. He chose to think of it as disciplined. Every morning, he woke at five o’clock, went running along the beach of his Massachusetts home. At least three times a week he went swimming, finding the exercise and the chill bracing. After the swim he returned to his home, eating the huge breakfast his cook had prepared.
For the rest of the day he reviewed the notes his operatives had sent him the day before. At last count he had business in four states and employed twenty men, most of them seasoned veterans of the Civil War. He preferred to work with soldiers, finding in them the same discipline he demanded of himself. Only rarely did he handle a case on his own. This one was the only recent deviation.
Macrath Sinclair had hired him ten years ago when his business was new. The other man’s faith in him had kept Bruce solvent for a good many months while he tracked the man Sinclair had hired him to find.
When Paul Henderson had abruptly changed his schedule and made arrangements to travel to Scotland, Bruce telegraphed the information to Macrath and promptly followed Henderson.
Now he was sitting at a table in Drumvagen in the heart of Scotland, very far away from Massachusetts and significantly different from his daily regimen, which had been disturbed on a basic level.
On this afternoon, for example, he’d been a little homesick and took a dip in the ocean. On his return to shore he’d seen the youngest Sinclair child once again, attempting suicide by misadventure. He made it across the sand and rescued the boy, only to find himself face-to-face with yet another Sinclair, a beauty who startled him down to his toes.
Her blue eyes had singed him, stripping any words from him. He’d stood there naked, letting her look her fill. He’d never acted that way around any woman, let alone one in mourning.
