The Highlander (7 page)

She hoped the carriage debacle would be her only unpleasant surprise for the rest of the day. If she avoided anyone like the frightening Highlander she'd met on the road, she'd likely succeed.

His men had been nice enough, one of them even going so far as to drive the carriage to Ravencroft. But
his
savage visage had unsettled her, so much so, her heart had yet to slow from its frantic pace.

What was it about a ferocious man that terrified her so? To date, it had been so-called civilized men that had caused her harm.

But the power in the Highlander's body as he'd strained and lifted the carriage with his men had impressed her to a bewildering degree. It had to be his sheer, inconceivable size. And the magnitude wasn't only pertaining to his towering height, but the breadth of his shoulders and the depth of his chest. Some of that had to be the cloak he wore, didn't it?

Mena knew Dorian Blackwell as a well-built man, strong and broad. And likewise Christopher Argent filled a doorway with impossibly wide shoulders, his like not often seen in the boroughs of London. But … Mena didn't think she'd ever witnessed a feat of strength to match what she'd seen today. Never cast her eyes upon a man so large and well hewn. His kilt had revealed more than it covered as he'd used his tree-trunk thighs to lift the carriage. His neck had corded and jaw clenched in a most … captivating manner. The disturbing notion that something even more intriguing was happening beneath the thick cloak still hadn't abandoned her thoughts.

Lord help her, she hadn't been able to look away.

Once he'd galloped off into the mist, she'd had a strange feeling, much like she'd done after stumbling upon an uncommon creature in the wild, and watching it leap into the shadows. The sense of disenchantment in the knowledge that such a glimpse was rare and extraordinary, and one was likely not to experience it again.

Which was for the best, she decided. Who knew what a man like that was capable of?

Mena sobered a bit when the carriage passed the entrance with the grand stairway and circumvented the keep toward a wide but decidedly less grand portal in the back.

The servants' entrance.

Right.
Now was the time to remember not who she had been, but who she was meant to become.

She filled her lungs with a bracing breath, though nothing could have prepared her for the streak of color in the form of what she supposed was a footman, who danced down the few stone steps. He opened the door with a flourish, covering the space with an overlarge umbrella.

“Miss Philomena Lockhart?” He swept her one carpetbag right off her lap before she had the chance to reply, and gave her the most graceful bow she'd ever seen. It was much like being accosted by a sunrise. “I am Rajanikan Dayanand, valet to Laird Liam Mackenzie, Marquess Ravencroft, and I have arrived for the purposes of collecting you and conducting you to the keep.”

The word
vibrant
aptly described both the lean young man's manners and his wardrobe. A bright orange and gold silk kurta shimmered from beneath his crimson sherwani, what Mena understood to be the name of the long, lushly embroidered coat favored by the Hindu people. His legs were wrapped in bolts of umber silk, the same color as the long scarf draped around his neck.

Mena took his outstretched hand and ducked under the umbrella with him as they trotted up the stairs and into an alcove off the kitchens that served as a cloakroom.

“Thank you, Mr. Dayanand.” She shook a few stray drops of moisture off her wool pelisse as he wrestled the umbrella closed and stowed it in the stand.

“Everyone calls me Jani.” His smile was luminous and his black eyes sparkled. Beneath all the opulent drapery he wore, his true age was indecipherable. He could have been fifteen or twenty-five, though his skin was the color of teak, and just as smooth.

“Jani, then.” She offered her hand. “I am—”

“Miss Philomena Lockhart, yes, I know. We've all been very curious to meet you.” He swept his hand to the cluster of staff gathered in the kitchens on various perches all staring at her in peculiar silence.

A collection of maids were gathered around a large table laid with tea, as a kitchen girl paused in the middle of clearing the evening meal to gawk. A handful of footmen, livery, and ground workers sat on rough-hewn stools at the cooking island, their meaty hands wrapped around tankards of ale as they'd been chatting with a portly cook as he turned a large spit adorned with what appeared to be some sort of lake fowl. They were all filthy and exhausted, peering at her from behind bleary eyes and sooty features.

“How do you do?” Mena pleased herself by saying around the heart beating in her throat as she executed a slight curtsy.

She suddenly felt a pang of guilt for not getting to know her servants better. Though in her husband's household, such familiarity would not have been tolerated. She'd been utterly isolated, even from the kindness of her staff.

The men at the cooking island nodded back to her, their stares oddly concentrated as a few of them mumbled something that she thought was
whit like?

Hoping it was a local greeting, she replied. “It's a pleasure.”

“English.” The cook muttered loudly enough for most to hear in his heavy French accent. “Humph.”

“That's Jean-Pierre, our ill-tempered chef,” Jani informed her by way of introduction.

In this situation, at least, Mena knew what to do.
“Votre canard sent la perfection. Je peux seulement espérer goûter quelque chose de si délicieux pendant mon séjour.”

All eyes shifted to the chef as his chubby face melted into a smile. “Madame's
French
is perfection. I shall make for you a special dessert tonight. Please tell me you prefer wine to the Scotch swill these Luddites slurp like water.” He spat on the floor.

“Truth be told, I am rather partial to the wines of Provence above all else.” Mena offered him the most dazzling smile through her veil, painfully aware that the so-called swill sold internationally for more money per volume than gold.

“Then welcome to Ravencroft, mademoiselle!”

“Merci.”

“Come, come, Miss Philomena Lockhart.” Jani seized her hand and pulled her through the impressive kitchens with startling energy. “Dinner is to be served soon and the marquess has requested your presence there. We must hurry if you are to dress in time.”

Mena had barely stepped away from the kitchens before it erupted into chaos. She couldn't understand a thing they said, as they conversed in Gaelic, secure in the knowledge that a proper Englishwoman would not likely have learned their language.

“They like you,” Jani informed her as he pulled her down a narrow servants' hall.

“How could you be certain?” Mena wrinkled her brow. But for the good impression she'd left with Jean-Pierre, her welcome had been decidedly cold.

“You must not blame them. There was a fire in the fields earlier today. It was a blessing that the storm came when it did, or this year's winter crop could have been lost. Everyone is recovering from the fear and the excitement of that.”

“Oh, dear,” Mena exclaimed. “That's terrible, indeed, was anyone injured?”

“No and we are lucky. But the fire is why no one was able to meet you at the train but the driver. I know that the marquess had planned to drive out to collect you, himself, and now, I think, he will be sorry that he did not.”

“Why do you say that?” Mena queried.

“Because, Miss Philomena Lockhart, we all expected you to be old and fat, not young and pretty.”

“I am not so young.” Certainly not pretty. Mena thought of the many times she'd been told she was too fat. A flatterer, this Jani. She liked him immensely. “You may call me Mena.”

Jani shook his head. “You are a proper English lady. I am to address you appropriately.”

“Miss Mena, then.”

Throwing a brilliant smile over his shoulder as he pulled her along, he nodded. “Miss Mena. It is my feeling that the marquess will like you, as well.”

Mena worried her lip. She certainly hoped so, because the Marquess Ravencroft, the so-called Demon Highlander, was her only chance for refuge.

*   *   *

Liam couldn't seem to stop himself from glancing into the shadows beyond the door to the dining room. He was famished and furious. It was now three minutes past the hour and everyone at the table waited in silent anticipation for the final dinner guest to arrive.

Miss Philomena Lockhart. His new English governess. What name could be more particularly British than hers?

Philomena
.

It belonged to some starched, beak-nosed spinster with a nasal voice and a perpetual wrinkle of disapproval between her stolid brows.

Not the young, buxom creature with emerald eyes that had so charmed and bedeviled his men this afternoon. The shadowy hint of her features he'd spied from beyond the rain-speckled window and behind the black veil of her hat had insinuated comeliness. And Liam had spent the entire time he'd bathed and dressed peering into his memory of those few maddening moments with her as though they would reveal her mysterious features to his mind's eye.

He
should
have been thinking of the disastrous fire today. He should have been contemplating the reasons for the sheared carriage-wheel linchpins, a cut so clean it could only have been done on purpose.

Obviously he had enough to occupy his mind without the addition of Miss Philomena Lockhart and her distracting breasts.

He'd come to the table frustrated, and quickly embarked on the road to a downright foul mood.

Sharp, rapid clips of a woman's shoes against the stone floor in the hall echoed the staccato strike of his heart against his ribs. Liam rose to his feet with such speed, his chair made an alarming sound on the floor as she rushed into the dining room, in a breathtaking array of curls and cleavage.

“Do pardon my tardiness,” she puffed as the rest of the table stood upon her arrival. “For such a square structure, Ravencroft is surprisingly labyrinthine, and I became hopelessly lost…” Her words died an abrupt death as her eyes alighted upon
him
at the head of the table.

Liam had expected a sense of smug satisfaction in this moment, and he'd taken special care with his appearance tonight in anticipation of the very expression she now wore. He'd gone so far as to tie his hair back in a queue and shave a second time to rid himself of a shadow beard.

That he would feel like an imposter at the head of his own table was not something he'd considered. But didn't he just? He was yet unaccustomed to this role. He'd been soldier, he'd been leader. He'd been killer and monster.

But a gentleman? A nobleman?

A noble … man?

He'd planned on eviscerating her publically for questioning his word and nobility in front of his men. For costing him precious time in the fields. For making him wait for dinner.

And for dominating his thoughts all bloody afternoon.

But perhaps she'd provoked his ever-ready ire because she gave voice to the doubts that Liam had about his ability to turn a demon into a laird.

He'd waited for that look of wide-eyed, astonished panic all evening. However, it became apparent to him immediately that any intentions he'd had involving thought or speech would have to be reconsidered. As he was bereft of either at the moment.

The blame for that, too, rested squarely on her shoulders. Her lovely
bare
shoulders.

Liam gripped the sturdy table for support. Nothing he'd imagined she hid behind that veil and thick wool pelisse could have prepared him for the unadulterated view of Miss Philomena Lockhart he now enjoyed.

Her dinner dress was a simple, modest green silk affair with little adornment but for some black cording about the bodice and a few black lace ruffles at the hem of the skirts. But on a figure like hers, it was nothing less than a stitched scrap of temptation. The cords, through some magic of tailoring, puffed into translucent sleeves below her shoulders, which met with the edges of her long black dinner gloves. A simple onyx satin ribbon about her lovely throat was her only ornamentation.

There was something about that Liam grudgingly admired. She didn't need any jewels in order to catch the eye.

She was enough all on her own.

Liam knew he'd meet her seamstress in hell for the slew of pure sin racing through his mind and pouring down his body like molten lava. For the wicked fingers that had made this dress knew
exactly
what they were doing to any man who had to submit to the presence of
this
woman in
that
gown. It was crafted to the specifications of propriety, but anyone should know that a woman with breasts like hers should be buttoned to the neck.

The gown had been constructed to make him suffer.

Liam swallowed a rush of profuse hunger flooding his mouth with anticipatory moisture. Philomena Lockhart was, in a word, delectable. Her lips plump and ripe as strawberries. The mounds of her breasts lush and white as Devonshire cream. Her wealth of hair swept back but for a few tantalizing waves spilling down her shoulder like a garnet cabernet.

His eyes snagged on the unrealistically dramatic flare of her hips, at the way her gloves bound to the soft flesh about the upper arm. His hand tightened on the table until the creases of his knuckles turned white. For unlike the oak he gripped to keep his balance,
she'd
be so soft beneath his hands … Beneath his—

“Not quite the retired
older
man ye expected, is he, lassie?” A chuckling Russell broke the silence, and Liam glanced to his right, noticing for the first time that his middle-aged steward had also taken more care with his appearance than usual. He'd even trimmed his russet beard, which he rarely did before winter's end.