Page 112 of The Devil of Clan Sinclair
“What did I do?”
She glanced at him. “What did you do? Except refuse to release my son and keep me prisoner?”
He’d seen Virginia’s many emotions, but never anger. She’d been contrite, sad, amused, and fiercely protective of their son. He had never seen her cloud-colored eyes flashing their own kind of lightning until tonight.
“Are you a prisoner?”
She walked away from the window, marking each object in the room with a delicate touch of her fingertips. Her palm swept across the front molding of the bureau. At the secretary, she halted to straighten the blotter and a journal.
Returning to the window, she stood there for a long moment before finally turning to face him.
“It’s a luxurious prison, but it’s a prison all the same, Macrath.”
“You’re an honored guest,” he said.
Her slight smile was mocking. She’d never been derisive before.
When had she become so adept at putting him on the defensive?
“Have you come to seduce me, Macrath? Charm me into remaining at Drumvagen.”
“If I have?” He planted his feet apart, gripping his hands behind his back.
She was no longer the girl he’d known in London. Marriage hadn’t changed her as much as motherhood. He’d seen what she was willing to do for Alistair. The kitten had become a lioness.
Strange, she was only more fascinating.
“My marriage was never consummated,” she said, turning back to the window.
He remained silent, waiting.
“Lawrence paid his servant to bed me,” she said. She quickly glanced over at him and away.
“Did he?” How calm he sounded when he wasn’t feeling especially calm. The image of Lawrence in her bed hadn’t been one he wanted to contemplate, yet here she was, giving him another vision to lay over the first.
She turned and smiled at him faintly. “You know him well. Paul Henderson.”
The man he’d fought in her London town house. He should have killed the bastard.
“Does it matter?” he asked. “I didn’t come to our bed a virgin, either.”
Her eyes widened.
“I grew up in the streets of Edinburgh,” he said, annoyed again. “If you expect me to be as delicate as a London dandy, you’ll be disappointed.”
“You always sound very Scottish when you’re angry.”
“You don’t belong to him. You didn’t belong to Traylor, either.”
“Who do I belong to, then? You?”
He smiled. “I’d prefer that to the other, wouldn’t you?”
“I’d prefer to belong to myself.”
She didn’t smile, merely kept her gaze on him. He realized, then, she’d not told him the whole of it. She hated that Henderson had touched her as much as he did.
He walked toward her slowly, giving her a chance to stop him. When he stood in front of her, he reached out, tucking a tendril of hair behind her ear.
