Page 73 of The Devil of Clan Sinclair
“Why didn’t you tell me you loved Lawrence?”
“I didn’t. It was you, Macrath. I always loved you.”
She called out for him and only heard Hannah’s voice. “Hush, your ladyship. Someone will hear you.”
Abruptly, she was a child again, being told to be quieter. “You’ll wake the dead with your laughter, Virginia Elizabeth.”
Mommy? Where was Mommy?
“Your mother died at your birth, Virginia. It’s a hard lesson for a little girl to learn, but learn it you must.”
Enid rapped her on the knuckles with a ruler. “You should never have married Lawrence. You can’t speak French.”
She was running in the rain. She loved the rain, storms, and thunder. Cliff House was always secure and safe, perched as it was above the Hudson, the home of a man who’d become wealthy by being ruthless.
Cliff House magically became Drumvagen. She was happy there. So much delight filled her that she was nearly weak with joy. She wanted to hug everyone she saw, or kiss them on the cheek in gratitude for sharing this day with her. They’d come from so far away to celebrate with her.
She was dressed in white, her long veil trailing behind her. She approached the altar in Drumvagen’s chapel. Macrath slowly turned and smiled at her.
In the next instant Macrath changed, becoming Lawrence, but not the sickly husband she’d known. Instead, he was a grinning corpse who held out a skeletal hand. Repulsed, she pulled away, just as he became Paul, leering at her.
She glanced around for Macrath but he was nowhere to be seen. She was no longer at Drumvagen. Instead, she was in London again.
The world faded to gray, then black, as she descended into nothingness with relief.
Chapter 19
London
July, 1870
They’d arrived in London yesterday and were directed to their quay at dawn. Now Macrath could hear conversations and cursing in a dozen different languages. The noise of creaking winches vied with the rumble of wheels against the cobbles as a procession of empty wagons appeared on the pier.
Masts of sleek clippers stood next to iron hulled steamers, each one at the end of a voyage starting a world away, bringing spices, cloth, china, and mail from such places as Shanghai, Foochow, Zebu, and Yokohama.
Granaries and warehouses edged nose to tail on the quay alongside the offices set aside for business. Captains would meet with shipowners or their factors, produce their logbooks, and give an accounting before signing over their cargo.
“It’s a fair day, Mr. Sinclair,” Captain Allen said from behind him. “A good day to win, I’m thinking.”
Macrath turned and greeted the man. The tip of Captain Allen’s beard was being blown upward by the breeze, calling attention to the man’s grin.
“It’s a good day, Captain Allen.”
They were the last of the four ships to reach the East India Dock, but the only one with a frozen cargo. Forty tons of it, which meant theFortitude—and the Sinclair Ice Company—had won the race from Australia to England.
He wasn’t celebrating just yet. Politics could come into play. Two of his rivals were Australian, and their nationality might factor into the awarding of the contract. Or it might not, since his competitors had to jettison their cargo.
Regardless of the ultimate outcome, he still had bragging rights, and he would ensure that men who’d been tentative about purchasing one of his machines knew who had won this race.
He liked being able to plan something on paper, develop it, build it, and have it work the way he’d seen it in his mind. If he built a flywheel to turn clockwise, it didn’t suddenly decide to rotate counterclockwise.
Maybe he should only deal with machines and leave humans alone.
“Will you be going home to Scotland now, Mr. Sinclair? Or is it back to Australia for you?”
“I think it’s home, Captain,” he said.
Drumvagen called to him. So did being able to work on a new version of his ice machine, a new design that had come to him on the voyage.
