Master of Sin Read online

  Andrew didn’t need tea at the moment. Having his son in his arms warmed him in ways he hadn’t dared hope for. “I’m fine. You have yours. You’re not too cold?”

  “No! It’s just glorious, isn’t it? There’s such a hush—the landscape is so perfect and silent. Even the ocean seems quiet today.” She uncorked her flask and took a sip. “Do you want your hat back? You’ve gone quite white on top.”

  Andrew shook some of the snow from his hair. “As I said, I’m fine. In fact, it seems warmer today than it’s been in ages. The wind must be on holiday for us.” Apart from the odd gust, it had been almost pleasant to be outside, the snow falling like soft balls of cotton fluff.

  The ocean beyond the verge of lawn was flat and gunmetal gray. Not even a seabird’s cry broke the spell of the gently spiraling snow. Curious, Marc raised his pink face and opened his mouth, catching a snowflake on his tongue. Andrew was obliged to do the same to share the moment. The snow melted, and Andrew swallowed the crisp taste of winter—such a simple thing. Something he’d never experienced before in all of his many exploits. He winked down at his son, and Marc gave him a tentative smile.

  Miss Peartree was stamping her feet, making a pretense of ignoring the father-son bonding. The brim of her ugly brown bonnet was coated with snow, adding considerably to its appeal. The snow was transformative, working its magic, washing the world clean, softening its edges. Would there were such a thing in nature to change a man.

  A stream of Gaelic interrupted their blissful interlude. Mrs. MacLaren was at the front door, waving to them to come in.

  “I suppose she thinks we’re a bit mad,” Andrew said with a grin.

  “I wager she’s never made so fine a snowman. But perhaps she’s right. Marc may be getting overheated in all his clothes. Do you want me to take him?”

  “No. Grab the basket. I don’t seem quite so objectionable to him today. Isn’t that right, little chap? Your papa is not a complete ogre now, am I?” Marc said nothing but relaxed in his arms. “Yes. It’s time to get dry and warm.”

  A waft of cinnamon hit them as they entered the house, leading them straight back to the kitchen. A rack of cinnamon biscuits sat on the kitchen table, as well as a fresh pot of tea and more warm milk for Marc. Miss Peartree had located the family who owned the only cows on the other side of the island, and Gull House was now being supplied with fresh milk and butter. She made an exception for goat cheese, but plainly her insistence had made Marc much more robust than he had been when they’d first arrived.

  It took them some time to divest themselves of all their layers, Mrs. MacLaren clucking all the while and hanging up things near the fire to dry. Eventually Miss Peartree’s original hideous gray dress appeared, but her hair was half down, making her look like a schoolgirl. Its streaks gleamed in the firelight of the cozy kitchen, her cheeks and nose were a lovely shade of pink, and her wet lashes reminded Andrew of the day he caught her in the bath, all spiky and innocent like a fawn. He had to turn away.

  Marc had climbed up to the table and was devouring his third cookie before Andrew had time to remove his ruined boots. His stockings were soaked through. Would it shock Miss Peartree—or worse, Mrs. MacLaren—if he removed them and sat in his own kitchen in bare feet? He didn’t care. Balling the stockings up, he tossed them in a corner. Mrs. MacLaren mumbled something, probably along the line of “You’ll have to pick those up yourself.”

  He imagined like most servants, Mrs. MacLaren said a great deal about them all he wouldn’t wish to comprehend. Servants usually had a shrewd take on their masters, and Mrs. MacLaren seemed shrewder than most. What she thought of the scandalous Sassenach—for so he was to these people—was not likely to be without criticism. After all, he lived with a young woman, unchaperoned. The fact that he was regrettably nowhere near Miss Peartree’s bed all night long didn’t make a difference. Andrew had as good as ruined his governess. But the islanders were not apt to go to London and spread their tales, and if they ever did, their Gaelic was an insurmountable barrier.

  There was a certain advantage to not sharing the same language. Andrew thought of all the lascivious things he’d say to Miss Peartree if she couldn’t understand him. How he’d lick the cinnamon crumb from her lower lip. How he’d strip her of that awful dress and lick the rest of her. He settled for a strong cup of tea, teasing the rim of the mug instead in secret substitution.

  He admired the homely scene before him—his housekeeper bustling about the kitchen, his son’s milk mustache, Miss Peartree holding her cookie between long, delicate fingers. He watched as her small white teeth took a bite and her lids dropped as she savored the buttery richness. He took his own bite, sharing the sensation across the table, which prompted Marc to grab another cookie in his chubby fist before his father ate them all. Andrew rose to the challenge. Before he knew it, he and his son had demolished the entire rack under Miss Peartree’s fond observation.

  Andrew remembered all the elegant dinner parties he’d attended as some peer’s clandestine companion, but a plate of cinnamon biscuits and a stoneware mug of tea tasted better to him than lobster patties and champagne. His whitewashed kitchen was a happier place than the most silver-bedecked London dining room. His son was here, growing sturdy and less shy of him.

  And so was Miss Peartree.

  “You two have spoiled your supper. It’s a wonder Mrs. MacLaren hasn’t taken the broom to you.”

  “Then she shouldn’t make biscuits as delicious as these.” He caught his housekeeper’s eye, rubbed his belly, and smiled. The woman frowned and waved him off, clattering a roasting pan filled with fish fillets into the oven, but he could tell she was pleased at the compliment.

  Miss Peartree rose from the table. “I’m going to read to Marc now. I’ve made a picture book for him, you know. Sometimes he tells me what to draw, and then we say the words in Italian and English.”

  “Are you an artist, Miss Peartree?”

  “Far from it, although I had the requisite water color lessons growing up. All young ladies do. My efforts met the minimum standards. But your son, thank heaven, is not a fussy art critic.”

  “I’d like to see this book of yours.”

  “All right. I warn you, I’m not much better than you are when you’re drawing wrong-handed for the MacLarens.” She got Marc down from his chair and brushed the crumbs from his shirt.

  This time he didn’t try to carry his son back upstairs. His arm radiated pain from his shoulder to his pinkie finger. But it had been good to get some exercise, better to carry his son like a normal father might.

  What was he saying? Most fathers of his acquaintance barely saw their infants. Children were cloistered in nurseries, allowed out only for ceremonial good-night kisses. Even Marc had had limited contact with the duca, which had made Andrew’s job somewhat easier. Giulietta, however, was a loving mother who channeled her loneliness into great affection for her son. They had been inseparable. How hard it must be for the little boy to be without her, but bless Miss Peartree for filling the void.

  He followed behind them, focusing on his feet rather than folds of swaying dress that obscured Miss Peartree’s pert backside. Entering Marc’s room, he took note of the efforts Miss Peartree had made to make the place child-friendly. She had run up bright-colored quilts herself that served as window curtains and commissioned Mr. MacLaren to make a small red-painted table and chair. A tower of wooden blocks stood in one corner. Mrs. MacLaren had supplied a few ragdolls and what might be a bear, if bears were green. The room was still sparse, and Andrew felt a twinge of guilt that he’d been so anxious to hide out here he’d neglected to think of amusements for his son.

  Miss Peartree went to a shelf and removed a stack of his writing paper, a pink hair ribbon looped through a hole in each sheet. She set it on Marc’s table, and the child sat down to turn the pages. Here was the “book,” each page covered with plain pencil drawings and words printed under each picture.

  “I would have colored everything
in, but my art supplies are in my lost trunk.”

  “Impressive. But surely he’s too young to read.”

  “Of course, but it can’t harm him to see the words with the objects. One day he’ll be able to just see the letters and know what they say.”

  “What dis?” Marc asked his father, a finger pointing to a tree. It must have taken Miss Peartree ages to draw in each tiny leaf. Despite her protestations, she was a fair artist. It was she who should have been drawing all of Andrew’s little illustrations with the villagers.

  “A tree.” There were precious few of them on Batter Island—vegetation consisted mostly of heather and machair.

  Marc nodded his head in approval. “Si. Un albaro.” He turned each page, querying his father and giving the Italian word printed underneath. Andrew wondered if Miss Peartree should be teaching him Italian as she taught his son English. It was always useful, just as she said, to know several languages, and it would be a shame if Marc forgot Italian entirely. He imagined them years from now sitting in his library reading Dante together.

  This cozy fantasy came to earth as Andrew looked down at the next picture. There he was—Andrew Rossiter—standing on the cliff, the ocean behind him. Miss Peartree had gotten the angle as he favored his bad arm just right. Somehow even with gray pencil he could tell his eyes were meant to be ice blue and his shorn hair gold. The figure on the paper had a benign smile on its face, a look made to reassure a little boy that his father was not the devil who stole him from his happy home.

  “Papa!” Marc said in triumph. He tapped at both words, identical in either language.

  Andrew swallowed. Miss Peartree had achieved a miracle with her makeshift book.

  “You underrate yourself as an artist, Miss Peartree. I’ll have to start calling you Artemisia Gentileschi.” He named a famous Italian painter, one of the very few females to make a name for herself in the Renaissance art world.

  She smiled. “That’s quite a mouthful, and I’m nowhere in her league. I hope you don’t mind being a subject.”

  “I’d be delighted to pose for you anytime. Anywhere.”

  Damn. From the look on her face, all his restraint and useless scruples over the past hour were obliterated. But flirting was second nature to him, or had been. He was getting rusty if he came off as desperate as he sounded, even to himself.

  “I’m sure you have better things to do,” Miss Peartree responded in her crisp, governessy voice. “Please tell Mrs. MacLaren that Marc and I will take dinner together here in his room.”

  Relegated to another solitary meal. It was for the best. The less time he spent with the mysteriously compelling Miss Peartree, the safer she was.

  CHAPTER 9

  Mr. MacLaren knocked on the open library door. Andrew was behind his desk, as usual, trying to concentrate on the list of figures before him. If only Miss Peartree had remained in her room, there might have been hope of reconciling them. But she had come for a book while Marc was napping, looking like an enormous ripe eggplant in a purple woolen dress. For the past ten minutes, she had taken down and rejected one book after the next until Andrew wanted to send her to the attics to his boxed-up pornography. Let her rummage through that and be as tortured as he. Her hair today was concealed by a plain linen cap much like the one Mrs. MacLaren wore. Andrew assumed it was her attempt at propriety, but it failed miserably.

  Andrew knew what was under the cap—soft hair twisting into strands of melted brown sugar and gold, copper and amber. He’d never realized brown could come in so many riveting shades. Looking at her hair was like a walk in the autumn woods, each step bringing a fresh vista.

  He wondered if he’d ever see a copse of trees again. Wondered how long he’d have to stay on Batter Island until his son would be safe. Gianni might forget about the boy, but the ton would whisper about his father for years yet. Andrew had cut quite a swath in society, certain pockets of it anyhow. Was he missed? Longed for? It didn’t matter. He couldn’t—wouldn’t ever—go back to his old life.

  Mr. MacLaren bowed and handed Andrew a slip of paper. On it were three stick figures, a man, a woman, and a child. An arrow was drawn to a rectangle with a roof. There were tiny people inside the house and an odd shape outside on the grass.

  “Artemisia, what do you think of this?” For lack of anything better, he had taken to calling her Artemisia to tease her. She still refused to tell him her name, which rankled more than it should.

  But almost everything about his governess drove him to distraction lately. He’d been shut up indoors with her for days on end while the sleet blew horizontally across the front lawn. There had been no more snowmen or playful banter. Miss Peartree was all business, almost as frosty as the weather. The little cap was just one more barrier she sought to erect between them.

  She frowned. “It looks like a pear, cut in half. It’s devilish big, though, next to the house. Maybe it’s a giant’s foot?”

  “There are no giants here, and where would these people get pears in the winter? I will say, Mr. MacLaren does not hold a candle to your drawing, Miss Gentileschi.” Andrew shook his head at Mr. MacLaren and shrugged. The man lifted a gray eyebrow, stuck his left hand out straight, and with his right madly stroked the air, whistling a Scottish reel.

  “Ah! I understand. The pear is a violin! They want us to come for a party. With music. A ceilidh,” Andrew said.

  Mr. MacLaren gave a semitoothless grin and nodded vigorously.

  “Very clever, Mr. Ross. At this rate you’ll surpass me in Gaelic vocabulary words.”

  “I was born here. Well, in Edinburgh anyway. But I never had much Gaelic, just the odd word here and there. My guardian frowned upon the old language. He wanted me to be more English than the English.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m sure I couldn’t say.” Everything that Donal Stewart did was a mystery to Andrew. “Well, what say you, Artemisia? Shall we accept this invitation and kick up our heels?”

  “It looks like we can bring Marc. It will do him good to see more people. Yes, of course.”

  “And how about you, Artemisia? You must be sick to death of my company.”

  She nodded too quickly in agreement. “You are a burden I must bear to care for your delightful child. You must have noticed how quickly he’s learning. He’s a very bright boy.”

  Andrew surged with parental pride. “Brighter than your previous pupils? You did say you were the governess to Barrowdown’s heir.”

  Her eyes slid to the book in her hand, a mathematical treatise if he wasn’t mistaken. Maybe she could work the figures that danced the tarantella all over the papers on his desk. “I do not wish to speak ill of the peerage, Mr. Ross. The Barrowdowns are a sorry lot. But at least one of Lord Barrowdown’s children is as brilliant as I am.”

  Andrew laughed. “Modest little thing, aren’t you? How long were you in the household?”

  “Long enough, sir, to satisfy Lord Christie.” A little “v” appeared between her brows. “Perhaps you should go to this party without me. I can’t very well go in my potato sacks.”

  She had to come. He pictured her face, flushed from wine punch and dancing. For there would be dancing, he was sure of it. Of course, she wouldn’t stand up with him—his arm still troubled him, even more now that the weather had been unrelentingly wet.

  “Nonsense. Everyone will be dressed as you are. The island is not exactly the fashion capital of the world.”

  He examined her current dress, a virulent shade of purple, rather like a fresh bruise. Probably every lass in the village had contributed in some way to her wardrobe, selecting the worst from their trunks. He’d seen the smirks as they caught sight of Miss Peartree plodding about in her ugly floppy clothes, sleeves tumbling over her hands, voluminous skirts trailing on the ground. Even after temporary alterations, since they had to be returned in their original condition, they were hopeless.

  She’d be far better off in lads’ clothing. He imagined Miss Peartree encased in a pair of snug
breeches. That would stop the smirks but start something else altogether.

  Unfortunately, the people here didn’t have much to spare in the way of extra clothing. Perhaps he was being unfair. If malice toward an outsider—and an Englishwoman at that—had been intended, it was of a very minor kind. They didn’t know tripping on her overlong skirts would result in her falling down the stairs into his arms. Well, his arm.

  “Besides,” he continued, “if you refuse the invitation, Marc will be reluctant to go, and then we shall offend the MacLarens. And if you do wish to impress people about this school idea of yours, you’d best put a smile on your face and convince them of your good character.”

  Miss Peartree looked uncertain. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “I always am.”

  She lifted a brow but said nothing.

  Was it possible he was warming her up? It seemed of late she was less apt to argue with him, although she was scrupulous at keeping him at arm’s length. If he couldn’t with clear conscience seduce her into his bed as a lover, it would be almost as satisfactory to have her as a friend. True friends had been in short supply all his life.

  It was novel to realize that this tiny girl was becoming rather dear to him in the daytime. At night, she took on another form altogether, drifting through his dreams like a faerie sprite, wrapping her slender limbs around him, sliding her bare, cocoa-tinged skin against his. Kissing him with honeyed lips, sighing with pleasure. He’d invented the most complex couplings for his dream Artemisia, and she was always happily complicit no matter what task befell her. On her knees. On her back. Above him. There were days when Andrew longed for the sun to set so he could meet her behind his eyelids and beneath his covers.

  “It’s settled then. Yes, cinnte! Thank you for the invitation, Mr. MacLaren.” He shook the man’s hand vigorously with his left hand. Mr. MacLaren went off to tackle one more Gull House problem. “We’ll have to bring something. Damned if I can think what. I can’t very well ask Mrs. MacLaren to cook something here for her own party.”