Page 50 of The Devil of Clan Sinclair
July, 1869
Returning home, if London could ever be considered that, took forever. Virginia survived the journey by not once thinking of Macrath. Whenever he came into her thoughts, she caught herself and immediately started to think of something else, anything but him.
Once they reached London, traffic was horrendous, as usual. She could probably walk to their town house faster than the carriage would arrive. She’d already broken so many of society’s edicts, she didn’t dare do such a thing. One look at her, in her attire, and people would start gossiping about the Walking Widow.
She was tired of mourning, and yet she had another year and a half of it. In truth, she didn’t mourn Lawrence as much as she mourned Macrath.
No, she would not think of him.
“It looks to rain again, your ladyship,” Hannah said, peering behind the leather shade.
She didn’t care, but she mustered a smile for the maid’s benefits. “Isn’t it always raining in London?”
“Was it ever so at your home? In America?”
She clasped her hands together tidily in her lap, sent her mind back to those days of her childhood, to the estate overlooking the Hudson River. She’d run and tumbled over acres of lush green grass, laughed with abandon, and hid from those instructed to care for her behind the great oaks bordering the property.
“I don’t remember it raining much,” she said, as images of deep blue skies came to mind. “But when it did, we had pounding thunderstorms that felt like God was shaking his fist at us.”
She’d had a privileged childhood, if a lonely one. She rarely associated with children her own age. Most of her companions were adults. She’d been reared to be silent rather than vocal, unobtrusive rather than to step forward, timid rather than courageous.
She had enjoyed growing up at Cliff House, loved everything about her life until the day she’d been told to prepare for her English debut.
“I’ll be damned if you’ll marry a common man, Virginia,” her father told her. “I’ll get a title for myself. I’ve always liked the idea of being a duchess’s father.”
But he was unable to find a likely duke. The only available one had been a nearly deaf octogenarian.
“He smells bad,” was the one and only comment her father ever made about the Duke of Marbleton. To her everlasting gratitude, the man had annoyed him.
Harold Anderson was a man of varied opinions and obstinate viewpoint. When he took umbrage to someone, there was no changing his mind. For that reason, he’d never truly considered Macrath’s suit. Macrath had not groveled enough for her father. He wasn’t impressed by her father’s consequence.
He had only loved her.
No, she would not think about Macrath.
Oh, but she would long for him in earnest now. She would gaze at herself in her bath and remember when he’d praised her breasts, lifting one, then the other, saluting their shape with a kiss to each nipple.
Her knees would not simply be knees from now on, but marvels of creation, objects of his kisses and the teasing touch of his fingers behind them, to see if she was ticklish there.
Not one spot on her body was left untouched, bereft of a stroke or comment. Not one inch had been left unaltered.
Would he remember her touch as well?
Her fingers seemed to retain the memory of his hard chest, the curve of his muscular buttocks, the tantalizing shape of his manhood. He’d urged her to learn him and she had. Even now she could feel him, hard and heavy against her palms.
She closed her eyes, wishing she could return in time. He’d loved her three times, and each had been a memory that would last all her life. What she experienced with him had been unlike what she’d imagined love to be.
No, she would not think of Macrath.
How could she help but think of him? Regret colored each thought.
The seduction had been accomplished then, her mission performed. But, oh, it had been so much more than that. He’d changed her with his loving, and she wasn’t the same woman who’d left London.
He wanted her to stay with him and had offered her marriage. She would tuck that memory into a box called Impossible Wishes. Being with Macrath would guarantee her future, but what about Enid and her daughters?
How much was she to sacrifice for them?
Even now she ached to be in Scotland.
