The Sinner

oddest sensation that he was seeing a feminine version of himself as a wee lad. Her hair was the same white-blond his had been as a bairn, and she was long-legged as a newborn colt.

“She’s a strange child,” the woman said. “Can’t speak a word.”

“Maybe she has nothing to say to ye.” Alex noticed how dirty the child was, and a horrible thought occurred to him. “How long have ye kept her here?”

“Since she was brought to me a couple of months ago,” the woman said. “As ye can see, I’ve taken good care of her.”

God have mercy. The child must have been here since Sabine arrived in Edinburgh. That had probably sucked the words right out of the poor wee thing. Alex remembered how desperate he had felt in that cell after just a couple of hours, and he could have wept for the child.

Alex dropped to his knee to have a closer look at her. Eyes the same shade of green met his. Though her face was heart-shaped, rather than square-jawed like his, she had a delicate version of his straight nose and his generous mouth with its full bottom lip.

Alex heard the woman leave, but he did not take his eyes off the child. He had a strange compulsion to touch her. He smiled at her as he cupped the wee lass’s cheek—and felt a surge of relief when she did not flinch. She had the soft skin of a baby. His heart hurt as he thought of her closed up in this dark, wretched place for so long.

“I’m told your name is Claire,” he said, speaking to her in French.

She nodded. While the child might be mute, she was not deaf.

“Do ye know what your name means?” he asked.

She shook her head a fraction.

“Bright and shining. Radiant,” he said, fanning his fingers out. For once he was grateful for the Latin that had been forced upon him in university. “In Gaelic, the language where I come from, we say Sorcha.”

Claire was a lovely name, but it sounded fragile to his ear.

“Sorcha is a powerful name,” he said. “Would it be all right if that is what I call ye?”

Her gaze never faltered as she paused to consider this and then gave him a slow nod.

“Sorcha, are ye ready to leave this foul-smelling place and come on an adventure with me?”

The girl nodded again. She was a brave lass, of course.

“We have a long journey ahead of us,” he said. “I’m taking ye home to Skye.”

That was as far as his plans went. He had no notion what he would do with her once he got her there.

“Skye is an island surrounded by sea,” he said, stretching his arms out. “And it’s as beautiful as Heaven.”

She put her thumb in her mouth, but he could tell she was listening hard.

When he picked her up, he was unprepared for the swell of emotion that filled his chest at holding his wee daughter for the first time. Her long hair fell in tangles over his arm as she tilted her head back to examine him.

“If ye are wondering who I am,” he said, touching his finger to her wee nose. “I’m your father, lass.”

CHAPTER 24

A woman could do worse than James,” Glynis’s aunt said over breakfast. “He is a steady man, and you’d never need to fret about other women with him.”

That was for certain. “I couldn’t marry a man who hates the sea,” Glynis said, since they would not hear that she did not wish to marry at all. “We would never get along.”

Henry looked at her as if she were mad. “What has one got to do with the other?”

A vision of Alex jumping over a log brandishing his claymore in one hand and throwing his dirk with the other came to her. Even if she had wanted a husband, how could she let one of these pitiful men touch her after Alex?

“If ye don’t like James, what about Tim the Silversmith?” her aunt asked. “Ye must remember him—his was the third shop we visited yesterday.”

Unfortunately, she remembered the silversmith all too clearly.

“He’s shorter than I am.” It was the least of Glynis’s objections, but the first that burst out of her mouth.

“’Tis a shame ye are so tall,” Henry said, shaking his head as if it were a great misfortune. “But I don’t believe Tim minded.”

“He’s pale as a fish’s belly,” Glynis said. “And he has bad breath.”

“What is important is that he could support ye very well,” her aunt said.

Glynis was a chieftain’s daughter, and her father would provide a significant tochar, or dowry, if she should marry again. But she was becoming suspicious about the state of her Edinburgh relatives’ finances and decided not to enlighten them.

“There are hundreds of merchants in our grand city.” Henry got to his feet and stretched his stubby arms. “We’re bound to find one to your liking.”

“We are delighted to have ye visit us,” her aunt said after Henry left. “But what is your plan, child, if ye don’t intend to marry?”

Glynis had intended to be the spinster relative who grew old in the attic.

“Surely ye didn’t come here expecting to live with us forever?” her aunt asked, pinching her brows