“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.