Lord Sin

“But you needn’t do so alone,” he reminded her. “Why do you not go up to Briarwood now? Victoria has told me that she has invited you to come and live with them. They would welcome you at any time.”

She was shaking her head even before he finished. “I cannot do that. It would not be right.”

Ian raised his hands in surprise. “But what do you mean? Victoria has made her affection for you clear to me. She is eager for your companionship.”

Mary glanced up at him, then away, her eyes unseeing as she stared across the yard. “I could not do anything so thoughtless to Victoria and Jedidiah. They have only been married for less than a year and have already helped me more than anyone could hope for. They have a right to spend this time, with the baby coming, together without my problems to concern them.” Her gaze flicked to his again and she raised her chin. “I shall seek a position as a governess, or…I don’t know. I shall just have to find some suitable employment.”

“But they are expecting—"

She halted him there. “Please. I have made up my mind. Victoria is not responsible for me. I wish to find my own way, to feel that I have not taken charity.”

He watched her with growing admiration. What courage and pride it must have taken for Mary Fulton to make this decision. Few young women would reject such an overture as Victoria had made to her friend. The offer she had made had clearly come out of love alone, with no expectation of return.

He tried once more to convince Mary. “There is no need for you to be so self-reliant. There is no harm in allowing someone who loves you to care for and provide for you.”

Still she did not look at him as she answered in a quiet but steady voice. “We, my father and I, have lived in Carlisle since I was a very small girl. In that time we have been dependent on the Thorn family’s generosity, though it was not given out of charity in the main. When my father was the minister he earned his keep. But do you realize that over the past year he had been able to perform none of his duties? Victoria has been so kind in allowing us to stay here. I love her more than I can say, but I cannot allow her to keep giving so much to me. It would not be right.”

He could hear the iron determination in her tone. Something told him that Mary Fulton would do exactly as she had decided, no matter what anyone else thought best. Her stubborn independence was a characteristic he could admire even while he felt a sense of frustration toward her.

Telling himself he had no right to question this young woman’s decisions, Ian still found himself shaking his head as he admitted, “I admire your will even though I cannot agree that you have chosen in your own best interest. You are very brave.”

When she looked up at him, her golden eyes were glistening like wet topaz and Ian was hard-pressed to remember he had no part in her affairs, that he had told Victoria he had no designs on her friend. Almost as if it were against her will, Mary whispered, “I do not feel very brave. I simply must make a life of my own somewhere. Staying here would be too difficult with Father gone.” Her voice broke as he watched her fight to control her emotions. “I cannot think of what life will be like without him.”

One large tear fell from her eyes to glide across the pearly surface of her cheek. His heart contracted painfully in his chest. Ian could no more stop himself from reaching out to her than he could stop the moon from turning around the earth.

There beneath the sheltering limbs of the weeping willow, Mary’s composure broke and she allowed Ian Sinclair to draw her close to him. His chest was firm and strong under her cheek. All her life she had longed for someone to care for her this way. Her father had loved her, but he had not been one to hold and comfort her. He would likely have spoken to her philosophically of the troubles she was experiencing, told her that the Lord sent the trials of life to strengthen his flock. But she had loved him.

The tears began to flow in earnest when she felt a large handkerchief pressed into her hand. Now there was no stopping the tide as she held the square of soft cotton to her face. It was as if she could no longer hold back the pain that she’d bottled up inside her since her father’s death.

Only when her sobs quieted did Ian Sinclair say anything more. Gently he patted her back, murmuring, “There, it’s all right. Sometimes a grief is just too big to keep inside. You walk around feeling like you have it all under control but it’s there, someplace inside that aches just enough to keep you from ever forgetting.”

His voice was deep and comforting next to her ear, but at the same time she could hear a strange current of pain in his words. This man had suffered hurts of his own. Realizing this left her feeling unsettled and, much as she wished to deny it, she sensed a change beginning to take place inside her—a change she did not quite understand.

Mary knew only that the tingle of awareness that traveled from her ear to the pit of her stomach was in no way connected to any memory of her father.

She became aware of Ian Sinclair’s strong hand on her back, felt its warmth through the thin cotton of her dress with a shiver that had nothing to do with being cold. And at the same time it seemed he had grown very still, as if he knew what she was feeling.

With bated breath, Mary glanced up at him from beneath the thick fringe of her lashes. He was looking at her, his dark eyes intent with some emotion she could not name.

When Ian dipped his head and placed his firm but supple lips to hers, Mary thought she would surely faint from the sweet pleasure that rippled through her. Unconsciously she tilted her head to allow him better access as his mouth caressed hers.

His arms tightened, pulling her even closer to the long length of him, and she gave a start as a foreign hardness grew against her belly. Her eyes flew open wide and Mary jerked back in shock.

She looked away from Ian Sinclair, her eyes focusing on nothing, her hand going up to cover her mouth. How could she bring herself to face him after allowing him to kiss her, after feeling his…? Crimson color stained her face and neck. She did not even know this man. Whatever would her father say about this? What must Ian Sinclair himself think of her?

She attempted to cover her shame with hauteur. “I think it would be best you go now.”

He answered, drawing her gaze, though she could gauge nothing of his thoughts by his expressionless eyes nor the cool timbre of his voice. “I am very sorry for what I just did, but let us not make more of this than there is. You were upset and I was comforting you, nothing else.”

Mary felt a shaft of rebellion rise up inside her. Who was he to tell her not to make too much of anything? He had, after all, been the one to kiss her. Her nose tilted high. “How very supercilious of you, my lord. Am I to understand that you always comfort women by kissing them? If that is the case, I very much pity any woman who might find herself attached to you.”

He seemed a bit taken aback, but only for a moment before a gleam of amusement and, dare she think it, admiration lit those dark eyes. “My, but you are direct, Miss Fulton. To answer your question, I do not always kiss women when I am comforting them, but it has happened once or twice and I’ve had no complaints.”

She took a deep breath, her hands going to her hips. “Why, you insufferable beast.”

His gaze slid down, pausing for a moment on her bosom before he looked back at her face. Mary only then recalled that she had unbuttoned the neck of her dress. She knew that if she looked down there would be far more of her showing than she wished. Only by an act of will did she keep herself from doing so. She would not allow him to see that she was embarrassed. Even as the thought swept through her mind, he smiled knowingly and she felt a deep flush of heat move down her throat and over her breasts.

His next words drove all thought of retaining a pose of unconcern from her mind. “If you keep standing there looking so completely desirable, Miss Fulton, I just might kiss you again.”

Her arms came up to shield her bosom from his view. “You, my lord Sinclair, are despicable. No wonder they call you ‘Lord Sin.’"

By the way his eyes narrowed and his lean jaw flexed she could see that this had struck a nerve. He spoke with slow deliberation. “I will thank you not to call me that again.”

“And why should I do as you tell me?”

He took a step closer to her, and Mary took an involuntary step backward. His tone was dangerously controlled. “Because I have asked you not to do so. If you will not comply with a polite request—” he shrugged meaningfully “—I can take more drastic steps to gain your compliance.”

“Why…you…you…I can’t think of anything despicable enough to call you. I’ll not stand here for one more moment.” With that she swung around and stalked away.

Ian watched her with irritation and a surprising amount of amusement and, to his further surprise, a grudging respect. What a little hellion she was. A man just did not know what she might say. Mary Fulton was the complete antithesis of his docile, obedient cousin Barbara. Unexpectedly Victoria’s warnings that his father would never approve of a minister’s daughter popped into his mind again. How very angry his father would be if he married someone like Mary Fulton, someone who would match and possibly even best the old fellow in a contest of wills.

And how very delicious she had tasted. How very much he would like to sip at those lips again, and even more, to learn if the skin on the curve of breast she had so unwittingly displayed was as smooth as it looked.

An idea was beginning to insinuate itself into his mind. The idea that Mary Fulton would make a very interesting selection as a wife. No. He could not even contemplate such a thing.

Besides, the woman obviously detested him. She had even gone so far as to call him “Lord Sin” to his face, something few men would have the temerity to do.

He pushed away the unthinkable notion that continued to prod at his consciousness. He would do well to ride straight back to Briarwood and enjoy the rest of his visit with Victoria and Jedidiah. In a few days he would be returning to London and his life there.

Not even to spite his father could Ian consider any union with that hoyden, no matter that her lips tasted of warm, sweet woman and fresh air. Or even that she was delectably rounded in all the right places despite her delicate form. He started toward his horse, which was still tied waiting for him. Yet he could not keep his gaze from straying to where one of the curtains fluttered at the upstairs window.

So she was watching him. An unconscious smile curved his lips as he rode toward Briarwood.

When the footman arrived at the rectory the next day with an invitation to dine at Briarwood, Mary told herself that she would not go. Never. Not as long as that man was staying there. With polite determination she gave the man her apology—she would not be able to attend dinner.

He bowed and left. Closing the door, she looked down at the card in her hand. With a disdainfully raised chin she promptly dropped the missive into the wastebasket.

She went back into the sitting room where she had been perusing several recent copies of The Times and The Post. Mary had circled several advertisements. Each was requesting a résumé from young women who would be interested in the post of governess. Sitting down beside the low table, she picked up her pen and continued down the columns. Her stomach churned with nervousness at the thought of what she was doing. Taking such a position would separate her from everything and everyone familiar to her. Determinedly she told herself she was only doing what was right.

Yet not thirty minutes later she found herself back in the front hall holding the invitation to dinner in her hand with a yearning expression on her face. Mary told herself she did so love Victoria and it might not be long before she was gone to make her living elsewhere.

Why should she allow Ian Sinclair to keep her from Victoria? Her friend’s companionship was especially precious to her now when she was very likely going away.

Besides, a small voice inside her piped up, he had done nothing but kiss her. Then apologized for that. Was she, as he had implied, making too much of a little thing? The man had made it very clear that he would not be losing any sleep over the matter.

Yet she could not bring herself to go.

Half an hour later, unable to concentrate on anything, Mary left the vicarage. A walk would surely clear her mind. Until recent times, being out amongst the growing things had always soothed her. Perhaps it would do so today.

But she was not soothed. She could not stop thinking about the way Ian Sinclair had kissed her and how she had reacted to that kiss. Why, oh, why did she feel this strange, unfortunate attraction for the blackguard? Why had she no more control over her own emotions and feelings?

A lush hawthorn hedge ran the length of the laneway. She followed it to where it ran past the church that sat beside the vicarage. Greeted by Matthew Brown as he used a pair of hedge clippers to trim the new growth, she raised a hand and smiled. The elderly gentleman had been looking after the church grounds for as long as she could recall. But Mary did not stop to chat with him as she usually did.

At the end of the hedge she paused and looked up at the church. It was a welcoming-looking structure, deceptive in its simplicity of design. No expense had been spared in the quality of the stained glass windows that ran the length of the building, nor in the highly polished woods, beautiful statuary and tastefully used gilt trim inside.

But it was not to the inside of the church that her thoughts turned today. It was to the bell tower. The enormous silver bell that pealed so purely every Sunday morning was silent and glistening in the sunlight far above her.

Just looking up at it caused a knot of tension in her stomach.

It had not always been that way. She had loved that bell tower as a child. She had felt that she could get just a little closer to heaven and thus to her mother by going up there. Yet that had all changed when she was seven and two older boys from the village had discovered her up there alone. They’d teased her and said she was nothing but the lord’s daughter’s live doll. When she’d replied, haughtily telling them they were only jealous, they’d held her at the very edge of the tower platform, threatening to throw her off if she didn’t retract her words. Pride had not allowed her to do so.

Luckily Victoria’s father had come along. The boys had been punished, but Mary had not been able to go up into the tower nor to any other high place since. In all the years since that event, Mary had forgotten neither the fear nor the feeling of comfort she’d known as the gentle duke had carried her home. Not until yesterday when Ian Sinclair had taken her into his arms had she known those feelings again.

But she did not want to think of Ian Sinclair.

As she looked up, she felt frustrated and angry with herself for allowing someone else to rob her of the comfort she had known from being in the tower. And now that both her mother and father were gone from her, she was doubly cheated of any comfort she might find there. Why should she let anything, especially something that had happened so very long ago, to keep her from being close to her parents?

Just as she had allowed Ian Sinclair’s presence at Briarwood to rob her of Victoria’s company. Wasn’t she made of sterner stuff?

Pushing her anxiety down with an act of will, Mary entered the church. Before she could change her mind she went quickly to the doorway that led to the tower.

At the bottom of the stairs she stopped. Her breath was beginning to come more quickly as she looked up at the seemingly endless curve of the circular staircase. Dragging her gaze back, Mary took a deep, calming breath. She would not live in fear.

She closed her eyes, telling herself not to look, not to see how far it was. Taking hold of the bottom of the railing with shaking hands, she kept her eyes closed and put her foot on the first tread. Over and over again with each step upward she told herself not to think of where she was going, to pretend she was only walking up the stairs at home, that there was nothing to be afraid of.

And her determination might have worked, might actually have gotten her to the top. But she did not find out, for her foot caught on the hem of her dress and she stumbled. With a cry of fear she opened her eyes, at the same time clutching frantically at the railing.

Her horrified gaze lit on the floor so far beneath her. Vertigo swept her in sickening waves. Her heart pounding in her chest, Mary held on to the rail in abject desperation. Completely paralyzed by her terror, she could now move neither up nor down. The rail seemed the only stable force in a continually shifting world.

With a sob of self-defeat, she sank down, closing her eyes on the reality of her overwhelming fear. She’d solved nothing, proved nothing to herself.

How long she stayed there she did not know. Time felt as if it had melded to a pinpoint of fear, and paralysis. Forever she would be here frozen in this one moment of terror.

And then through the haze of her anxiety she heard the sound of a voice. It was a deep voice, rich and filled with concern.

Ian—where he had come from she had no idea, nor did she care. “Mary, what is it?”

She could not look up, could not speak, merely shaking her head in anguish. She was past even being ashamed that he should see her this way.

“Mary,” he prodded softly. “You must tell me what has happened.”

Without lifting her face from the crook of her arm, she whispered, “Too high, this is too high.”

The next thing she knew she was being lifted, her hand being pulled from the security of that rail with gentle but unshakable insistence. It seemed the one thing she could do was cling to the only other stable object in her world.

Ian. His arms closed around her even as he pressed her face to his chest. Her own arms found their way around the solid strength of his shoulders and she clutched at him desperately as he started down the steps, the motion making her head spin anew even though she did not look.

Mary tried her very hardest to think of nothing, to make her mind a cloudless blue sky where the fear could not control her. It was not until Ian paused and lowered her to some soft object that she realized they had stopped.

She then heard him move away from her. For a moment Mary simply lay there with her eyes closed, making certain the feelings of vertigo had passed. As indeed they seemed to have done. Her head did not spin, nor her stomach.

At last, telling herself that she was quite safe now, Mary opened her eyes, and saw the cream-colored ceiling of her own sitting room. She saw also a decidedly anxious Ian Sinclair standing over her, his compelling dark eyes troubled.

He reached toward her with a glass in his hand. “Drink this,” he told her.

Automatically Mary sat up and took it and drank the water it contained. She was not entirely surprised to see how badly her hands were shaking, but now that the terror had passed she was beginning to feel a certain amount of embarrassment over what had occurred.

Why, of all people, had it been Ian Sinclair who had found her like that? How indeed had he found her?

Avoiding his gaze, Mary swung her boneless legs over the side of the settee. Still without looking at him, she put the glass on the table with exaggerated care. Taking a deep breath, she spoke, being not at all pleased at the huskiness of her voice. “How did you find me?”

He answered with a sigh. “I had come to the rectory looking for you. The man who was trimming the hedges told me you were in the church.”

She glanced up at Ian, unable to keep from seeing the sheer masculine strength of him. In spite of her fear, Mary had felt so safe in those arms. Determinedly she kept her attention focused on the conversation. “Why were you looking for me?”

He scowled. “I was in the foyer when the footman was telling Victoria that you would not come to dine.” His brows moved even farther together. “I had the distinct feeling that you had refused because of me. I could not allow you to do so.”

Her incredulous reaction to this statement seemed to wash away the lingering traces of anxiety. “You would not allow, sir? How dare you!"

He halted her with a raised hand, shaking his head regretfully. “Mary, I did not mean to insult you. I have misspoken. I simply wanted to talk to you, to make you understand that you have no cause to avoid me. I know how much you must need your friends right now.”

Mary could only stare at him, surprised by the seemingly genuine concern in his voice. The moment stretched on and she felt almost as if she was being pulled down into the dark, mysterious depths of his eyes.

Even as she watched, his expression changed. Those eyes became yet deeper, more sultry. Mary’s pulse quickened in her veins, though she tried to calm it.

She knew this was wrong, knew with utter certainty that it was mad for her to allow Ian Sinclair to matter to her in any way. He was the son of an earl. Mustering every ounce of her will, she looked away. “I…thank you for what you did for me…in the church.”

“What did happen in the church?” he asked, studying her closely. His face was set, making the fact that he refused to be put off quite evident.

She glanced over at him again, forcing herself to remain coolly polite. “I am simply afraid of heights. I had a bad experience in the bell tower as a child. I should not have tried to go up there.”

His gaze was compelling. “Why did you, then?”

She wanted to lie, to make up some story that would salvage her pride, but her upbringing would not allow her to do so. Yet neither was she able to resist his will for her to answer. “I…know this must sound terribly silly, but I wanted to be closer to my parents. Before I was held at the edge and threatened with being tossed over by two illbehaved boys from the village I would often go to the bell tower to speak with my mother. After that I could not go back.”

“That is quite understandable,” he answered with surprising kindness. “All of us live with the fear of something. And as far as thinking you silly for wanting to be closer to your parents, nothing could be further from the truth. I had my own special place to go in the wood at Sinclair Hall to speak with my mother. She died when I was born.”

She nodded, somehow touched by his sharing this with her. “It does seem as if they can hear you better in certain places, does it not?”

He nodded his own head. “I continued to go there until I was seventeen. That was when I went to live with my grandmother in London, after…” Ian stopped as if he had suddenly realized he was saying more than he wished to, his lean jaw working. “Well, enough of that,” he concluded with studied charm. “It was you we were speaking about.” In spite of the change of tone, Mary could see the tension in his stiffly held shoulders and neck. She wondered at the depth of unhappiness in him, as she had that day in the garden when he had spoken about the way unresolved hurts can influence one.

Looking at him from the outside, it seemed impossible that anything could so affect this man. He had wealth, social position and an undeniably handsome form and countenance. But each time she caught a glimpse of the man inside she sensed his hurt, and it drew her to him even more. What could possibly cause him such deep loneliness?

He went on, drawing her attention away from her thoughts, his gaze unwavering on hers. “Why today, Mary, when you are already under such constraint because of the loss of your father? Why would you try to overcome this fear now?”

Again she felt compelled to reply. “Today I just…” She looked down at her hands where they lay twisted together in her lap. “I just wanted to be free of my fear. I’ve never felt so afraid of things in my life as I have of late. I feel so uncertain about what will happen to me, about the decisions I am making.” She unconsciously waved a hand over the London papers, which lay where she had left them.