Intrigued, Mena watched their interaction.
Rhianna barely glanced up at Jani, though she thanked him politely.
He bowed to Mena, and then back to Rhianna, his head dipped in a way that, Mena suspected, hid the worship shining in his eyes. “Do you require anything of me?” he asked, and the hopeful deference in his voice nearly broke Mena’s heart.
Oblivious to his reverence, Rhianna shook her head, her dark curls bouncing against her shoulders. “No, thank ye, Jani.”
“Summon me, ladies, if there is need.” He made no noise as he gracefully strode away.
“Doona listen to a word my brother says, Miss Lockhart,” Rhianna pleaded, rushing to her side the moment they were left alone. “I’d murder someone to be as tall and elegant as ye. Ye willna let Andrew drive ye away?”
Mena looked into the girl’s dark eyes and softened at the desperation she saw there. A girl on the cusp of womanhood, bereft of a mother or any steady governesses to bring her up. To teach her how to be a woman. Mena ran a fond hand over Rhianna’s obsidian curls, and then patted her on the hand.
“I’m made of sterner stuff than that, I’m afraid.” She smiled. “It’ll take more than a few jibes to be rid of me.”
Rhianna immediately brightened. “I suppose ye’ll have to tell Father,” she goaded with an exaggerated sigh.
Mena chewed at her lip while she considered it. “Well, Andrew did excuse himself,” she said. “I see no reason to bring your father into it.”
As she regarded her from behind long black lashes, the lively girl’s mouth curved mischievously. “What do ye think of my father, Miss Lockhart? Think ye he is handsome?”
Taken aback, Mena put a hand to her fluttering stomach, willing the sudden upset to quiet. “What a question!” she remarked.
“It’s all right to admit it. I willna say a thing.” Rhianna wiggled her dark brows. “There are many women in the clan who think my father is quite handsome. I only wanted to know if an Englishwoman would agree.”
“Well…” Mena floundered, unsure of how to proceed. Ambiguity, she decided, was the most diplomatic route. “I don’t believe male aesthetics differ so much between England and Scotland.” Though she was beginning to think that female aesthetics did. “It doesn’t at all surprise me that your father, being a marquess and a hero of the crown, is an attractive prospect for some women.”
“That’s not what I asked,” Rhianna said cheekily, smoothing the skirt of her lovely yellow frock. “I asked if ye find him handsome.”
Mena pressed her lips together, an image of the marquess rearing in her mind’s eye. His forbidding presence last night at dinner, his abundant black hair caught up in a sleek queue, and his eyes smoldering with dark flames. His massive body contained by the trappings of a gentleman crowding her so close, she could still smell the sweetness of the soufflé on his breath.
Though it was the memory of him as he’d been at their first meeting that often leaped unbidden into her errant thoughts. Rain streaming from his loose hair, his thick legs burnished a tawny hue, as though he often bared them to the sunlight. Eyes that flashed with wrath and temper and masculine potency.
Was he handsome? Not in the traditional sense of the word. Not like Gordon, her husband, was handsome. Lean and elegant with haughty, aristocratic features.
Laird Mackenzie was much too large, his features too fierce and barbaric to be considered elegant. But, she supposed, he held a particular masculine allure. Especially when he spoke. The gravel in his voice lent his brogue an extraordinary depth that delighted her senses like the deep roar of the ocean cresting against stone.
“There’s no polite way to tell a sweet girl that her father is brutish, old, and unsightly, is there, Miss Lockhart?” As though he’d been evoked by her improper thoughts of him, the marquess’s resonant voice drifted to her from the doorway behind them. “Therefore, Rhianna, it’s an impolite question to ask.”
Mena leaped to her feet, almost upsetting the piano bench, and whirled to face him.
He stood with his wide shoulder resting against the arched entry. There was a Sisyphean quality to his stature that suggested it was the laird who supported the weight of the castle stones, rather than the other way around.
Lord, but he was handsome. There was no denying it, not to herself or anyone. He’d again donned the garb of the clannish rebel warrior. The cotton of his thin shirt molded against the swells of his chest. The rolled cuffs exposed tanned forearms that flexed beneath her stupefied gaze. He’d left his hair loose, and a few strands of silver gleamed in the rays of sun piercing the solarium with warmth. This was a laird she hadn’t yet encountered. His expression as casual as the low sling of the Mackenzie kilt on his hips, he sauntered toward them.
Mena fought with a heavy, dry tongue to form a proper greeting as she inched away from Rhianna, trying to put space between her and the approaching marquess. Why, oh why, did he insist on saying things to which there was no proper response?
And why did every nerve in her body seem to stand at attention at his nearness?
“Ye are such a brute, Father,” Rhianna teased, rising on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on his stubbled cheek. “But that doesna mean ye arena the most handsomest man in Wester Ross. Or perhaps all of Scotland. Every lass says so.”
“Most handsome,” Mena corrected instinctively over the piano she’d placed in between them.