Page 41 of The Devil of Clan Sinclair
“You’re proud of her,” she said, surprised.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Her father had never been proud of any of her achievements, not that there were many to laud. Nor had Lawrence ever cared enough to ask what she’d done or even wished to do.
Suddenly, she wanted Macrath to be proud of her. She could hardly do that on this journey to Scotland, could she? What she was doing was wrong in so many ways, she owed him an apology now. Or perhaps an explanation.
“I think it’s easier for a man to create his own destiny. Like you,” she said, nearly desperate to stop her thoughts. She’d much rather talk about him than think about what she was doing.
He moved to the window and she followed. Leaning against the sill nature had created, he stretched out his legs, smiling into the distance “I had it in my mind to create an empire so that people would always know about my achievements.”
“They would revere you,” she teased. “They might even bow down in front of your picture.”
“I need to get my portrait painted,” he said. “In order for them to do that, of course.”
“Of course,” she said, smiling. “However, I think they’ll remember you even if you never get your portrait painted. You’re an unforgettable man.”
Without looking at her, he stretched out his hand. She took it, threading her fingers with his. What a wonderful person he was, and how quickly he’d become lodged in her heart again.
She looked around. “Is it a secret? Does everyone know about the grotto?”
“I would imagine a great many people know,” he said. “After all, Drumvagen stood empty for years.”
“Did it?”
He nodded. “Evidently, the first Earl of Pembarton and the architect argued about money. The house was unfinished, open to the elements, and nearly a ruin.”
“Until you came along,” she said. “Perhaps it was meant to be. Drumvagen needed an owner, and you needed a house.”
“I was looking for a castle,” he said.
Startled, she glanced at him. Rather than meeting her eyes, he looked away, almost like he was embarrassed.
“When I was a boy in Edinburgh,” he said, “I always thought it would be a wonderful thing to own a castle. To start my own clan. Perhaps I thought of myself as the Sinclair, laird of all he surveyed.”
“A clan?”
“Who doesn’t want to leave some part of himself behind? My father was much beloved in Edinburgh. I think I wanted the same, but in my place, on my terms.”
She looked around. “I think you made a better choice,” she said. “A castle would be drafty and cold. Drumvagen is not only magnificent, but it’s a comfortable place to live, even being so close to the ocean.”
“You don’t like the ocean?”
“I don’t like the ocean.”
He stared out the window. “The ocean makes you feel as small as a grain of sand. I worry about the factory in Glasgow, or how sales will go on the Continent, only to look at the ocean and realize all my cares and concerns aren’t important.”
“While I look at the ocean and think of all the people who died.”
He glanced at her.
“My father owned several ships. I happened across a manifest one day,” she explained, deciding not to tell him she had broken a rule by being in her father’s office. But she’d wanted to leave him a note, someplace where he could not overlook it. A note he would have to read. She didn’t want to go to England, but he’d been stubbornly refusing to hear her pleas.
“One of his captains reported there had been seven births and twelve deaths aboard ship during the voyage.”
She glanced down at the sand laden floor and fluffed her skirts. “He listed all their names, how old they were, and how they’d died.” She folded her arms then unfolded them. “They’d been buried at sea. I remember the manifest when I look at the ocean.”
He did not, thankfully, utter any platitudes about life or death. Nor did he try to cajole her out of her thoughts. He merely listened, which was such an oddity in her life, she marked each conversation with him as special.
