For no matter what happened when she discovered he was right about her husband, about his plans to sell the property she now defended with all of her efforts, she would want nothing to do with him.
Can you blame her?
Chapter Seventeen
Life, her life,would go back to what it was before the storm that was Sir Iain Buchanan had entered and blown it all to bits. Clare repeated that to herself, over and over, day after day, for the next weeks, believing she could make it so by pure force of will.
Though she attended a dinner or two with her sister, she avoided her father and turned down his invitations. They still saw each other at her sister’s and he tried to make introductions to those he thought she should marry, but he must have sensed a change in her, for he did not press too hard. Even if he did not understand it.
And she would not speak of it.
The nights were the worst for her.
For, damn the man, he had shown her what pleasures existed in the dark of the night. That beds or tables or the wall even could be places of passion and relief. That pleasure could be fast and hard, or slow and filled with begging. Even now, after he’d shown her that he was nothing more than a man pursuing his own ambitions at the cost of hers, she wanted him.
Worse than the physical need was the rest of it.
She liked him. He was quick-witted and intelligent and could converse on any number of topics. He’d traveled widely, read widely, and had had experiences she could only dream about.
He made her laugh. He made her sigh. He made her scream.
He made her want to love again.
Damn him. And damn her for falling for it.
Well, she would take control of her life and her wits and carry on as she’d planned.
“My lady?”
Clare blinked several times and noticed that David stood before her desk. How long he’d been standing there while she’d been going over the same arguments she’d contemplated yesterday and the day before. Her sense of usefulness and competence was destroyed. Her attentions flitted like a butterfly across spring flowers.
“My lady, Mr. Chalmers is here.”
“What time is it, David?”
“Nearly eleven of the clock.”
Clare turned around and stared at the clock, disbelieving what David had said and discovered she’d lost the entire morning since she’d sat down at her desk.
“Bring him in, please.”
Chalmers walked in in his slow, deliberative pace and sat in the chair in front of her after his bow. Did anything ever rattle his reserve?
“I have discovered more about the reason the children are leaving, my lady.”
Each day, more children had not attended. Their attendance was down to fewer than a dozen when they’d had as many as five dozen. The new school and residence planned was to expand to older children, those of almost working age, to teach them skills they could use to seek meaningful employment. But, from the numbers now...
“What is going on?”
“I traced the problem back to the area where they live, especially the few blocks nearest the north end of town.”
“Problem?”
“The one I mentioned to you before, my lady. Dougal Dubh and his gang make sure no one comes.”
“I do not understand? What business is it of theirs?” She understood that conditions could be dismal and dangerous in sections of town where the criminal element ruled.
“Someone made it their business, my lady. Someone was paying them to interfere with anyone who wanted their children to attend.”
