Page 117 of The Devil of Clan Sinclair
She took a step back, shaking her head.
“Come with me,” he said, his voice low.
She was prevented from answering by Hannah’s appearance.
The maid halted at the doorway. “A secret passage, sir?”
Macrath glanced from her to Hannah, evidently understanding the moment had passed. Or perhaps it had never truly come.
“Yes,” he said, closing the bookcase door. Giving Virginia a rueful smile, he bent and kissed her on the cheek.
“I’m to tell you the package has arrived, sir,” Hannah said, placing the tray on the table between the two chairs with great concentration. She gave the task more attention than it required, meaning she felt as embarrassed at interrupting them as Virginia.
She’d almost gone to the grotto with Macrath. Surely she shouldn’t be feeling so excited.
Without another word, Macrath left the room.
She and Hannah looked at each other.
“A package?”
The maid nodded. “Brianag was most determined I should say package. Not crate or present.”
The mystery deepened when Macrath and Jack reappeared a few moments later, the two of them carrying a large wooden crate. She smiled at the young man, but his attention was on Hannah. Macrath called him back to the task, and Jack helped set the box down on one side of the library.
When they were done, he stood there smiling at Hannah, who smiled back.
Virginia bit back her sigh.
“I have a present for you,” Macrath said after Hannah and Jack left the room. “I remembered how much you like to read broadsides.”
“I could tell you it was to educate my mind,” she said. “But you and I know such is not always the case.”
“You were interested in the Atlantic cable.”
She nodded. “I’m afraid that was the exception to the rule. I was fascinated with the most gruesome stories.”
“Then you will love these,” he said, using a small iron bar to open the top of the crate. “I had my sister send the last few months of broadsides.”
She went to the corner, peering inside the crate. There, stacked in neat little bundles, were all sorts of broadsides and what her father would’ve called scandal sheets.
Macrath had done this for her.
“I always wondered,” she said, picking up one of the stacks, “if the reason my father refused to consider you as a suitor was because you owned a newspaper.”
“I take it he was not in favor of them.”
“He was excoriated by reporters. When he became interested in politics, they held him to account more strictly than he’d expected. They were always asking questions, and he was always trying to avoid them.”
“He was the only man I was willing to beg.”
She glanced at him, feeling her chest tighten.
“I never got the chance,” he said.
She looked away, occupying herself by trying to untie the rope binding one bundle. She didn’t want to weep today. She didn’t want to think of the girl she’d been a few years ago. Had it only been a few years? Why, then, did it feel like a lifetime?
“Perhaps if he’d agreed and you and I had married,” she said, “we would have become disinterested with each other.”
