“I do appreciate your kind offer, sir, but I’ll wait for someone from the Ravencroft household to collect me. They should be along any moment.”
That elicited a rumble of amusement from his clansmen.
It occurred to Liam that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been thanked so often in one conversation. Or denied.
“That’d be us, lassie.” Thomas Campbell, a bear of a man, gestured to Liam. “And this here be the marquess, himself, isna that right, Laird?”
“Aye.” Liam nodded, expecting her to open the door now that that had been cleared up.
Instead of the deference he anticipated, one skeptical brow dropped over her right eye as she took in his appearance. “I think not.”
The laughter came louder this time, and Liam set his teeth. “I am Liam Mackenzie, Marquess Ravencroft, laird and thane of the Mackenzie of Wester Ross.”
Her tongue snaked out to test what he now knew to be a split in her lip as she seemed to work a problem out beneath that troubled brow.
Liam shifted restlessly, testing the strength of the latch as her eyes brightened with an idea.
“Do you happen to have any proof of your lordship or nobility?” she suggested, blinking pleased, expectant eyes at him as though she’d offered some sort of foolproof plan. “A signet ring, perhaps, or a seal of—”
“The fact that I havena torn this carriage apart with my bare hands is proof enough of my nobility,” he growled through lips drawn tight over his teeth. “Now open the bloody door.”
“I’m sorry, but no.” She shut the window.
His men’s chuckles came to an abrupt stop when he whirled to glare at them. Facing her again, he knocked on the window this time, careful not to break it, and she opened it as primly as any English valet.
“Is there something else?” she queried.
“Aye!” Russell Mackenzie hooted before Liam had a chance to finish his intake of breath. “How do ye know he’s not the Mackenzie laird?”
Liam would have growled in kind at Russell, but he had to admit it was a good question.
“Because the marquess is the father of two children nearly grown and lately from a decades-long career in the army. By now he’s got to be a retired older man, not this … this … strapping sort of…” The lady flicked those long lashes at him in another nervous gesture before finishing. “Not him.”
Something Liam had thought long dead rose from the ever-still, ever-dark place within him. Some strange pride belonging to adolescents and young bucks during mating season. At forty, he’d never expected to experience it again. He fended off overt sexual advances regularly, from beautiful women. Younger women. But this veiled lass’s insinuation of virility nearly had him flushing like an untried whelp.
Goddammit, was this going to become an issue?
“Coax her out of there, Liam,” Russell urged, again in Gaelic, though his voice still conveyed amusement. “It’s colder than a witch’s tits in a brass corset out here.”
Liam took a bracing breath. “What would it take to get ye to Ravencroft Keep?” he asked as though speaking to a simple child.
“Well…” She hesitated, glancing at each of his men, then back to him. “Since you asked, I would pay you, of course, if I could prevail upon you … gentlemen … to perhaps secure the wheel?”
All four mounted Mackenzies and two Campbells exploded into booming spasms of mirth, which drew a frown from the woman. Even Liam had to bite his lip to repress a smile, and he didn’t miss how his new governess watched the movement with an arrested expression.
“That’s what it takes, does it?” Thomas Campbell chortled whilst wringing the rain from his cap.
“Just slip the wheel back onto the carriage and off ye go!” Russell laughed hard enough to startle his horse into a prance.
“As a matter of fact, yes,” she huffed.
Highlanders were a jolly lot, but it had been a long time since he’d heard his men laugh quite so heartily. They jibed him in their native tongue.
Ye should send her back. She’s not too bright.
Maybe ye could keep her as a mistress, instead, she’s entertaining as well as pretty.
Bemused, Liam squinted at her indistinguishable expression through her veil. She did seem rather young judging by her voice and what little of her features he could make out. He wondered why Farah Blackwell had selected her, specifically, to send for the position. Had he not been clear enough in his specifications?
The lass waited with a long-suffering air for the joviality to die before she spoke again. “Do forgive me, sirs, if I’m mistaken, but I inspected the wheel a little earlier, before it started to rain, and it seemed to me a simple fix if you could use your cumulative strength.”
“Well, lassie, do educate us on how simple it would be.” Russell wiped either a raindrop or a tear of mirth from his ruddy cheek. “We just pop the wheel back on the axle and hold it with what, a prayer?”
Now it was she who smiled. “Well … no.” She dragged the word in a protracted manner then pointed out of the window with a long, elegant finger. “Upon assessment, you’ll find the wheel and axle both in excellent repair. If you gentlemen would look to that two-parted hub there, its principal features are these two linchpins.” She rose on her knees to slide her arm out of the window and point downward toward the problem. “They’ve both been sheared at the top here, you see, which is why the wheel came loose.”