The Lass Wore Black (10 page)

The footman had probably taken the tray, just as she did not doubt that he was at the root of this game. Did he intend to starve her to prove a point? She had to address the issue with Aunt Dina, certain that her aunt didn’t know what her newly employed footman was doing.

Putting on the heavy veil she used for her walks, she left the suite, intent on Aunt Dina’s room. But Dina wasn’t there. Nor was she in the parlor or the upstairs study. For twenty minutes she roamed through the house, unable to find a single maid or her aunt. Only when she descended to the kitchen did she discover all three of the maids sitting at the kitchen table laughing, drinking tea.

Each of Aunt Dina’s servants had been hired from Old Town. It wasn’t an act of charity, Dina had explained, as much as a training program. What they learned in her household would equip them to take other jobs elsewhere.

When she questioned the three of them as to Dina’s whereabouts, Artis responded with a barely repressed sneer.

“She’s out,” she said.

Her Aunt Mary, the housekeeper at Ballindair, had an expression for people like Artis:
Aye reddin the fire
. She was always stirring up trouble.

Isobel reminded her of a question mark. Skinny, she seemed to fold over herself and rarely spoke.

Elspeth was Isobel’s opposite in every way. Her figure was firm and full, her nose upturned at the end as if to call attention away from her tiny rosebud mouth. Her soft blue eyes were always lively, as though she had just heard a jest and repeated it to herself so as to not forget it.

“Where has she gone?” she asked the three.

Artis shrugged and looked away. “I didn’t ask.”

In London, the maids were a great deal more respectful. But there, she’d been the sister-in-law of an earl. Here, she was an oddity, a hermit, a strange woman dressed in black.

Nor had she attempted to befriend the servants. She didn’t speak to them, and they remained silent as well. At this moment, however, with all of them looking at her, she wished she’d done more to curry favor.

Rather than ask about the footman or grab something to eat, she turned and walked away.

The night was freezing, sleet icing the street. She decided not to walk, but to retire early, wishing she could command herself to sleep. Where were the footman and Aunt Dina?

The woman was devoted to helping others, but for the past six months she’d done nothing but attend to her. No, Dina had been that way from the beginning.

When she arrived in Edinburgh a year ago, it was with certain expectations. She’d thought Morgan’s aunt would be a stuffy woman who disliked the duty foisted upon her. Dina would teach her what she needed to know to take a place in society but nothing more.

Instead, she’d gotten a warm and loving woman in Dina MacTavish, someone who had become her second mother. They’d spent hours talking and laughing together. Dina had shared anecdotes with her as she taught her the finer graces. She’d sailed into society feeling a confidence that had its roots in Dina’s praise.

In London, in the early days after the accident, she’d existed in a haze of pain and fear. Dina had been there as well, sitting at her bedside, holding her hand, talking or reading to her, and keeping her calm.

Where was she now?

Had the older woman gone to dinner with friends? Or to one of those lectures she was always attending? If so, it was strange that she hadn’t mentioned it. But then, she hadn’t been open to conversation with anyone lately, had she?

Well, it was a good sign that Aunt Dina didn’t worry as much about her and was pursuing her own life.

Catriona bit back her envy.

Where was the footman? Perhaps Dina had fired him, and he would never again bother her.

It wasn’t disappointment she felt, she told herself, but relief.

Chapter 9

“W
hat do you mean, you haven’t fired him?” Catriona asked. “He’s surly, insulting, and rude. Is he another one of your good causes? Is that why you’ve employed him?”

Dina was still dressed in her wrapper, her hair braided for the night.

Catriona, however, hadn’t been able to sleep well, appearing at Dina’s door barely past dawn. Not acceptable behavior, most assuredly, but she had been pushed beyond her limits.

“Oh dear,” Dina said. “Is he all that, truly?”

Catriona sat on the end of the bed, hands twisting the swatch of her veil.

“He’s the rudest servant I’ve ever known,” she said. “He goes out of his way to bedevil me. He insists on calling me ‘Princess’ in that insulting way of his, and looks as though he’s laughing at me.”

Dina didn’t turn to look at her. Instead, she sat at her vanity and began to undo her braids. There wasn’t a touch of gray in her dark brown hair. Her face was unlined, if plump, but the whole of her body was like that. Dina reminded her of an overstuffed pillow, one that was comforting yet attractive.

“I don’t know why I need him,” she said. “I’ve already eaten my breakfast. Why does he never appear at breakfast? Why do I not see him around the house?”

“You never leave your room,” Dina said calmly.

That was certainly true.

“Then why does he never bring me my breakfast tray?”

“I have him doing something else,” Dina said, standing.

Before she knew it, she was being walked to the door of Aunt Dina’s sitting room.

“Dismiss him. If you won’t dismiss him, then at least trust me to eat, Aunt.”

“I did that,” the older woman said, her face firming into a stern expression. “I will not have you winnow away to nothing because of your grief.”

Startled, she pulled back. “I wasn’t starving myself, Aunt. Nor was I grieving.”

“Don’t be foolish, child. Of course you were. You still are.”

“I wear black for an entirely different reason. It’s less transparent. Would you have me walk around in a red veil?”

“Yes,” Dina said, to her surprise. “Anything but grieve for your former life. If we can admit something between us, let us do so, child. You are not the girl you were when you first came to Edinburgh. At first I thought it was just because of the accident. Lately, however, I’m beginning to think that the change in you isn’t simply physical, but emotional. You are hiding from the world, dear Catriona, and, I suspect, from yourself.”

“For that reason, you’ve appointed a footman as my keeper.”

“I would have hired anyone who was your match in temperament,” Dina said. Another surprise. “Mark is your equal in stubbornness, I think.”

“Mark?”

“I believe you simply call him Footman.”

Abruptly, she was on the other side of the door, staring at it.

For a few long minutes she didn’t move. Should she argue her point more vigorously? Or simply admit that Aunt Dina had won that battle?

The footman didn’t look like a Mark. He looked like an Alistair, Hamish, or Douglas. A name that matched his stern jaw and blue eyes that were the equal of hers in shade. Had she ever looked at anyone with such a penetrating gaze?

She didn’t trust Aunt Dina’s assertion that she had Mark doing other duties first thing in the morning. Her aunt was protective of her servants, only reluctantly divulging their backgrounds.

What was Mark’s secret?

Aunt Dina had looked away when she’d spoken, a habit she had when she didn’t wish to discuss a matter. She would be the last person to call Dina MacTavish a liar, but the other woman had a way of skirting the truth, avoiding it, or simply ignoring it at times.

What was she hiding about Mark, the footman?

W
hen the odious man arrived with her noon meal, Catriona refused to leave her bedroom.

“Just place it on the table,” she said through the door. “You can come back later for the empty dishes.”

“Must we discuss this again, Princess? You know my orders.”

“What do you think I’m going to do with the food? Place it in the bottom of the armoire? Hide it in one of the fern pots?”

“There are enough of them,” he said.

How dare he discuss Aunt Dina’s decorating? She frowned at the door.

“I can eat easier without an audience.”

She hadn’t meant to tell him the truth, and from the resultant silence, he evidently hadn’t expected to hear it.

“Because of your veil?” he said. “You don’t have to wear it.”

“Yes, I do,” she said.

“Then I’ll turn my back.”

“Why not just leave the room?”

When he didn’t answer, she sighed. What an exceedingly stubborn man. Was he being loyal to Aunt Dina? Or was he simply intransigent by nature?

She rearranged her veil and slowly opened the door. Gripping her hands tight, she willed herself into composure.

“You’re a bad footman,” she said. “Where were you yesterday?”

“Perhaps you could teach me how to be a more proper servant.”

“What does that mean?” Did he know that she’d once been a maid? If so, was that comment his not-so-veiled attempt at sarcasm?

“You seem to know a great deal about what I’m not doing correctly,” he said, after setting the tray on the table, sitting down and leaning back in his chair. “Is there anything I’m doing right?”

Sunlight stole in on either side of the draperies, casting a gray, pearly light over the room. He sat at his customary place at the table, his right ankle resting on his left knee, relaxed and at ease. A man who was supremely confident in himself. His white shirt was open at the collar; his sleeves were rolled to the elbow, revealing strong, muscular forearms.

All her life people had turned to look at her, commenting on her blond hair or the color of her eyes. But this footman had blue eyes that were even more striking.

She wanted to sit and study them for a moment, in order to discover what it was about him that was so arresting. Maybe it was the jaw hinting at stubbornness, or his mouth, quirked even now in a half smile. He sat with nonchalance, one arm resting on the table, the other at his side.

At an earlier time, she might have lusted after him. She might have even taken him to her bed and enjoyed him.

She’d had three lovers in her life. The first, a footman like this man, had offered comfort at a time when she needed it. Although he had been more excited than skilled, she still felt some affection for him. The second was a coachman, an older and much more experienced lover. But for all his talent on the mattress, she’d left him after one night. He’d smelled of something sour.

Andrew Prender had been her third and last lover.

A question occurred to her as she studied the footman. Would she ever have another lover?

Aunt Dina said she was grieving. If she was, this grief was nothing like the mourning she’d felt for her parents. What had she learned from that? How to endure, perhaps. Time hadn’t lessened the sense of loss, only rendered it bearable.

How, then, did she learn to live with no face? Or with a body that didn’t work as it should?

She folded her hands before her, wishing she weren’t so warm in her veil. Her face had begun to itch, a discomfort she normally tolerated. Now, it seemed to abrade on her nerves. Or perhaps it was just the footman doing that.

“Where were you yesterday?”

Instead of responding to that question, he said, “Have I nothing to recommend me? Isn’t there anything I do correctly?”

“No.”

“Surely there’s something.”

She inspected him. “You’re always dressed neatly and cleanly,” she said. “You don’t smell of the stable.” In fact, he smelled good, something reminiscent of sandalwood or spices.

“You speak well, perhaps too well for a footman. Hold up your hands.”

“My hands?”

“Another thing, you dispute me entirely too much. You should never question your betters.”

“Are you one of my betters?”

“See? You’re doing it again. You should simply accept what I have to say as the truth.”

“You are a princess, aren’t you?” he asked, holding both hands up, palms toward her.

She couldn’t see from where she stood. Impatiently, she motioned him toward her. He stood, walked around the table and held out his hands.

To her surprise, they were hard, not soft. The hands of a working man. Still, she shook her head.

“You don’t have the hands of a footman.”

“Oh? If I’m not a footman, what am I?”

“One of my aunt’s causes, I think. A confidence man, perhaps, one she wants to see lead a more honest life. Or a gambler.”

“A gambler? I’ve never been considered a gambler.”

“But you have been considered a confidence man?”

“I suppose I have, in a great many ways.”

“I will not allow you to take advantage of her.”

“Are we talking of your aunt? I can assure you, I have no intention of taking advantage of the dear woman. I have a great deal of fondness for her, as a matter of fact. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here now, talking to you.”

He returned to his chair, reprising his earlier indolent pose.

“What does that mean?”

“I’m doing a favor for her, you might say.”

“By being an irritant?”

He startled her by laughing, such an alien sound in this room that she frowned at him.