Read Online The Devil of Clan Sinclair by Karen Ranney - Free Book Online

the timetable of getting everything perfect for Virginia before their wedding.
    The wedding that had never happened.
    “How long will she be staying?”
    He wasn’t about to tell her he didn’t know. Hell, he didn’t even know why Virginia was here.
    He was not going to question Providence at the moment, however.
    “You’ll see to her maid and the driver as well?”
    When his housekeeper just raised one eyebrow, he amended his statement. “Of course you will. And dinner, too. Something special, I think.”
    The second eyebrow joined the first. Her mouth thinned and her arms remained folded in front of her.
    Brianag’s annoyance wasn’t as important as another fact, startling, confusing, and a blessing.
    Virginia was at Drumvagen.
    Brianag tapped her foot impatiently. Who employed whom?
    “Is there anything else?”
    “You might try smiling once in awhile,” he said. “Or stop looking so ferocious. Or try remembering I’m your employer. A simple ‘sir’ wouldn’t be amiss from time to time.”
    “Is that all? Sir?”
    He nodded, and she left the room, mumbling something in her indecipherable Scots.
    Macrath had been born and raised in Edinburgh. He considered himself a Scot through and through. Yet the people of Kinloch spoke with such a thick accent he had a hard time understanding them. He’d heard Brianag in the kitchen, talking to the maids, and it might as well be a foreign tongue. When she noticed him, she always switched to a more understandable Scottish English, one not requiring interpretation.
    When she was irritated, however, she spoke whatever she wanted.
    He eased back in his chair, staring at the carved ceiling. Reaching inside his jacket, he plucked out the note he’d kept with him for a year. A handy piece of remembrance, a morality tale in a few sentences. Something to keep him sane—and probably bitter—for all these months. A reminder that he shouldn’t be so overjoyed to see her now, or not until certain questions were resolved.
    He read it again although he could see the words whenever he closed his eyes. A moment later he tucked it away again.
    What explanation would she give him for both the note and her arrival at Drumvagen?
    The last time he’d seen her, Virginia had been walking away from him with a smile, heading toward her father.
    A man to whom he’d taken an instant dislike, a confession he’d never made to her.
    “My daughter tells me you own a newspaper,” Anderson had said on that first meeting. They’d both been sipping whiskey offered in one of the rooms set aside for bored spouses and male escorts.
    Of average height, Anderson had black hair and blue eyes that were cold and flat, without one ounce of warmth. The only time he appeared remotely approachable was when he talked about his empire, how many shares of stock in railroads he owned, his cotton mills, and ships. Evidently, the recent war in America had only expanded his holdings.
    A curiosity—not once did Anderson mention his daughter.
    “The newspaper is a family business,” Macrath told him. “I’ve since branched out into other fields. I’ve invented an ice machine.”
    “An inventor, eh? One of those fellas who tinker with things, then try to convince the rest of us to give them money for it. Is that it?”
    “I suppose it is,” Macrath said.
    The American had just described, in unflattering terms, what he’d done to get funding for his first machine. He’d come up with the idea, created a prototype, then solicited investors to whom he proved it would be a good risk. After the first flurry of sales of the Sinclair Ice Machine, having made five men richer than they’d been, he declined any further investments.
    When he explained this to Virginia’s father, the man didn’t look impressed. Instead, Anderson studied him with a sour expression on his face.
    “I’ve heard tales about Scotland. How you all prance about in kilts, showing your bare asses. I’m surprised there are any of you left,