Lord of Sin

Chapter One The Earl of Lyndale was dying. Again. He lay shriveled and frail in his bed, cheeks sunken and skin wan. His right hand rested over his heart as if he waited to feel its last pulse. He presented a pitiable image of an old man facing the end. Ewan McLean was not impressed. His uncle Duncan pretended to lie at death's door at least once a year. Each imminent departure from the earthly realm summoned his sons and nephew so they could ease his passing. While on his deathbed he issued demands and extracted promises of outrageous presumption. Then he would "recover" and use those promises like a whip to get all the cattle lined up in the direction he had decided they should go. "I fear the end will come tonight." The earl spoke it like a line in a stage drama. Which, for all intents and purposes, it was. "I need to set matters in order before I go." He held out a trembling hand. Ewan took it and smiled indulgently. He had been here for four days, waiting for the earl to decide when to finish the game. "Since Hamish is not here, I must confide in you," the earl said, referring to his heir. Ewan was all too aware that Hamish was not here. Right now Hamish and his younger brother were enjoying fresh air and sunshine on the Continent and not sitting in this drafty old castle in a room hung with heavy green drapes. The same faded fabric framed the earl's body on the big bed, falling in languid swags like stage curtains. The interruption of Ewan's visit to London by the summons had been irritating enough, but the discovery that his cousins, the earl's own sons, had escaped the call by going abroad, really annoyed him. "I will confess that I am glad it is you, my boy. Hamish would not have understood the matter that weighs on me. You know how he is." "I certainly do." All too well. Hamish had grown into one of those purse-lipped, morality-spewing, judgmental Scots. When the earl eventually died, which Ewan expected would not happen for another decade or so, Ewan anticipated that Hamish would try to reform his cousin by threatening the allowance that augmented Ewan's income from his modest property. His uncle had never been so intrusive in his private life, but then, his uncle had a history that did not permit umbrage over bad behavior without considerable hypocrisy. The current Earl of Lyndale had been a rake in his youth and a roue in his maturity. Ewan suspected that the fair-haired woman floating about the castle today was the current mistress. In short, the earl had more in common with his nephew than with his sons. If he chose to play at dying when only Ewan was available, that meant his demands for promises this time probably had to do with matters that only another rake would take in stride. "There is a letter that explains it all." The earl pointed his trembling hand toward a writing table. Ewan watched the arm and finger stretch out while the earl rose on one shaky arm. His pose imitated that of a dying father in a painting by Greuze. An engraving that reproduced the painting was in Uncle Duncan's extensive fine-print collection, its theatrical sentimentality obviously appreciated often by its current owner. "You must give the letter to Hamish. You must swear that you will see that he carries out my wishes that are contained in it." "I will be in no position to do so. He will be the earl. I will remain a dependent relative and can demand nothing of him." "Tell him you are bound by your promise to me." "That will be of no account to him. You are asking that I harass a man for the rest of my life. That I pound my head against a stone wall. It isn't fair to make demands that I cannot fulfill." "You can make him see that it must be done, if you put your mind toHunter, Madeline is the author of 'Lord of Sin ', published 2005 under ISBN 9780553587302 and ISBN 0553587307.