by Karen Ranney
She didn’t want to discuss the earl’s appearance. What good was a handsome exterior when the man had an arrogant character? Or when he viewed others with contempt?
She was as good as the Earl of Denbleigh. He’d been born into the role. She’d been thrust into hers, but she’d done her best not to shame herself, while he’d evidently tarnished his title.
How dare he, of all people, judge her with a glance?
She noticed she hadn’t pushed the bureau back into place. She did so now as Catriona went to the armoire and opened it, obviously disappointed to find it empty. The earl’s trunks had arrived a week ago and were piled on the landing outside, but no one had the keys. None of the drawers Catriona opened held anything but a few sachets, the scent of sandalwood wafting through the air.
“Have you finished your inventory?” Jean asked. “Are you ready to work now?”
Catriona shrugged.
They would need to shake out the draperies at both the windows and the bed, fluff the mattress, dust, and clean the floors. Even with the two of them working, Jean wasn’t sure how long it would take them to finish.
When she said as much, Catriona answered, “I’d rather not work at all.”
Her honesty brought a smile to Jean’s lips.
“I’ll start on the furniture if you’ll take down the bed hangings,” she said.
The world might forgive Catriona anything because of her beauty, but Jean knew she wasn’t so fortunate. She’d already broken so many rules—rules the maids had to memorize—she’d be lucky to escape without being punished.
She balled up a rag and began to wipe down the bureau behind which she’d sat the previous night. Her stomach rumbled again, and Catriona laughed.
“You missed a wonderful breakfast,” her sister said, engaged in unhooking the draperies from their rod. “Scones with butter, and rashers.”
Jean ignored the words, just as she ignored her hunger, and set about finishing the dusting. Once that task was done, she moved to the bed.
After pulling off the sheets, she dragged the mattress toward her and shook it vigorously. With Catriona’s help, she turned the mattress, then plumped it back into place. Before sweeping the floor, she tucked the bottom valance out of the way.
Catriona opened the window, grabbed one end of the bed curtains and, allowing the rest to hang outside, began shaking the fabric. A cloud of dust billowed back into the room.
Jean took one look at what her sister was doing and sighed. She’d have to wipe down the furniture again.
First, however, she sprinkled the spent and dried tea leaves on the carpet, rubbing them gently into the soiled spots. Only then did she use the broom she’d found in the cupboard near the stairs.
The linen press held a clean set of sheets, thickly embroidered with a pattern of thistle blossoms. After she’d dusted again, she and Catriona hung the emerald bed curtains, then made the bed.
She looked around. The furniture gleamed, the bed was freshened, and the floors were swept. The curtains at the window still needed to be aired, the windows washed, and the bathing chamber cleaned.
The Earl of Denbleigh had indeed returned.
How soon would the odious man leave?
Chapter 3
RULES FOR STAFF: Never allow your voice to be heard, unless you have been addressed directly.
Morgan sent Andrew off to breakfast in the care of the housekeeper, but delayed his own meal in favor of a meeting with his steward.
“His office is in the north wing, Your Lordship,” Mrs. MacDonald said.
He stopped himself, just barely, from commenting that he knew Ballindair better than she. His five-year absence might well prove him a liar. But, no, the steward’s office was just where it had been on his last visit.
He hesitated, then knocked. When he heard Seath’s voice, he pushed the door open.
The man who occupied this office had served his father before him. In the last five years, William Seath had proved invaluable, acting as gillie, tacksman, and chamberlain for Morgan. Whatever Morgan needed done, Seath did it without fanfare and with excellence.
Seath had come to London every quarter to report on Ballindair and the estate. The last time Morgan had seen him was two months ago.
The change was startling.
Seath’s Adam’s apple was glaringly prominent, as well as the line of his jaw. His wrists looked frail and his jacket hung on bony shoulders. His ears, always pronounced, now stuck out from his head as if blown by a stiff breeze. The man’s angular face was gaunt, and dark circles appeared beneath his bloodshot blue eyes.
What the hell had happened to Seath?
He didn’t comment on the man’s appearance. If Seath had wanted him to know about his health, he’d have said something. Morgan was all too conscious of the steward’s privacy, having had so little of it himself the past two years.
“Have my trunks arrived?” he asked, taking a look around the room.
The steward’s office was more crowded than he remembered. Shelves of books—all ledgers holding records of rents, expenditures, and other minutiae pertaining to the castle and estate—occupied two walls. The third wall held two windows with a view of the grounds, and the fourth a fireplace where a small fire was blazing.
He didn’t comment that it was summer.
“Last week, Your Lordship. Will your valet be arriving shortly?”
“No,” he said. “I’ve dismissed him.”
The man had quit. He’d given Peter a letter of recommendation but doubted that his valet would use it. To do so might well tarnish Peter’s chances for any position in the future. He had been the faithful servant of the Earl of Denbleigh. That Earl of Denbleigh. Or perhaps Peter would be sought after because of all the gossip he knew.
“Shall I interview likely candidates, Your Lordship?”
He shook his head. “I’m tired of servants hovering about me.” He’d become acutely sensitive to the silent derision of his staff.
Another curse the Countess of Denbleigh had screamed at him. You’ll find yourself alone, Morgan! No one will want to be around you!
“And your secretary, sir?”
“He won’t be arriving,” Morgan said.
His secretary had remained behind in London, to look after his English investments. His ancestors might have been murderous, but they’d also known their whiskey. The distilleries that bore his name were prolific, prosperous, and had all received the royal warrant. To his eternal gratitude, MacCraig whiskey was prized throughout the world.
“Will you be remaining long?” Seath asked.
“Isn’t this my home?” he asked, irritation tingeing his words. He was a little tired of being treated as a visitor, an unwelcome one at that.
Yet a small voice whispered that if he’d come home more often, perhaps he’d have been welcomed with some emotion other than trepidation.
The ghost hunter hadn’t been afraid of him, but then, she’d not been afraid of the Herald, either.
He turned and walked to the window, seeing the view stretching out before him and beyond to the MacCraig Forest where he’d played as a boy. Every place he looked was filled with memory.
Thick, spiny gorse blooming with yellow flowers swayed in the morning breeze as if in greeting. To his left was Loch Tullie, narrow and nearly twelve miles long. Gray-green at the shoreline, the water deepened to black in the loch’s center. Near bottomless, his nurse had said, and as cold as a Murderous MacCraig’s heart.
Forested islets jutted out into the loch. Places where he’d rowed his boat under the strict and watchful eye of either his father or his nurse. He’d wanted to stay and play, explore and pretend, but as the only child of the Earl of Denbleigh, he was too precious to court danger.
Now, the sun glittered on the surface of the loch, changing it to a bright triangle of mirror, an arrow’s point leading to a dense pine forest, more MacCraig land. Everywhere he looked was his, and the thought conjured up another memory of his father.
’Tis a land we fought to hold, son. More than one of us died in the service of it.
Five years had passed since his father died and he’d become an orphan. Strange, the word had a punch to it even as an adult. Five years since he’d become the Earl of Denbleigh.
Four since he’d become a bridegroom. A scant four years.
“Is there anything I can do for you, Your Lordship?” Seath asked.
Give me back my childhood. Keep me ten years old. Tell me why the promise of my boyhood did not mature. Tell me why I feel nothing but ennui and a sadness that sticks with me like dung to my shoe. Give me a purpose to my life.
“Nothing at all,” he said, turning to face the steward. “You’ve done a magnificent job. As to the length of my stay, Ballindair has always been a family home. It’s my home now.”
“You won’t be returning to London?”
London didn’t want him. He didn’t want London. Who had truly repudiated whom? He wanted nothing to do with the life he’d lived for the past five years, and perhaps even longer than that.
“Tell me about Mrs. MacDonald,” he said.
Seath’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “The housekeeper? Have you not met her before, Your Lordship?”
“I have,” he said. “I don’t remember her being as intrusive. Or as incompetent. I would’ve expected the Laird’s Tower to have been kept in readiness for my arrival, however unexpected.”
“She’s been at Ballindair for eleven years, Your Lordship, and I’ve known her to be unfailingly competent at her job.”
“Perhaps you need to reevaluate her performance,” he said.
A look flitted over Seath face, but the man didn’t say a word. Morgan could decipher his thoughts easily enough: Were they supposed to anticipate him every day of his five year absence?
Yes, damn it.
Mrs. MacDonald abruptly opened the door, without a knock, without any notice at all.
“Would you care to attend the Laird’s Greeting now, sir?” she asked.
Had she been listening at the door?
He’d been traveling all night and now it was barely ten o’clock in the morning. He was tired, irritated, and not in the mood to charm people. When had he ever been? Even Andrew had commented on his lack of empathy for his fellow man.
When the hell had his fellow man given a flying farthing about him, especially in the last year?
His conscience murmured to notice the trembling of her hands, the jiggling of her eyes as they darted on one object after another. He made Mrs. MacDonald nervous.
The Laird’s Greeting was a tradition, a duty. Each time the laird returned home from an absence of any duration, he was greeted by the staff and inhabitants of Ballindair, a tradition dating back to the Murderous MacCraigs. Since he hadn’t been home in a while, it was even more important for the chore to be done now.
Morgan doubted he was going to receive any spontaneous cheers.
“Yes,” he said, watching her eyes widen. Had she thought he’d decline? “I’d like to greet the staff. All of them, please. In a quarter hour’s time.”
She bobbed a curtsy and left the room silently.
Seath didn’t say a word.
Sally popped her head into the bedchamber. “Hurry, Catriona! Mrs. MacDonald says we’re to be inspected.”
“Inspected?” Jean asked.
Sally’s look traveled to her. “By the earl. It’s the Laird’s Greeting. All staff is to be assembled in ten minutes!”
Once in their room, Jean surveyed herself in the mirror over their shared bureau.
Her hair was a mess, but she gathered it up as well as she could, pinned her cap on, and changed to her only remaining clean apron. If she kept her hands together, no one would see the stains on her cuffs. Her skirt, however, was still dirty from when she’d tumbled to the floor with the earl.
Her sister, on the other hand, looked perfectly acceptable, perhaps even darling, with the lace cap atop her curls and her face a becoming shade of pink.
“Why do you think he wants to inspect us?” Catriona asked as they made their way to the front of Ballindair. “Do you think he’s brought his own servants from London?” She turned worried eyes to Jean. “Do you think he means to dismiss us?”
Although she had much the same fears, Jean pinned a determined smile on her face. “Surely not,” she said. “Training a new set of servants would take time.”
“But they would be from London. Everyone knows London servants are better.”
Catriona was forever doing that, stating “everyone knows” in an emphatic voice when Jean wasn’t at all sure anyone knew anything of the sort.
What had the earl planned? Insufferable prig that he was, it was probably not going to fare them well.
On the way to the main entrance of the castle, Morgan stopped at the Great Hall. The chamber, located in the middle of the H of Ballindair, had been the meeting place for generations of MacCraigs. Now it served as a family gathering spot, the four-foot-thick walls of Ballindair rendering it cool in the summer and surprisingly warm in the snows of winter.
His grandmother had converted the Great Hall into a family space. All the weapons once arranged here had been moved to the West Tower, thereby hinting at a more peaceful past for the Murderous MacCraigs than was true.
The couches and chairs were all upholstered in the same fabric, a shade reminding him of overcooked salmon. The mahogany tables were all oversized, to compensate for the height of the ceiling. The carpet below his feet was Flemish and had been woven to his grandmother’s design in a pattern of thistles and heather blossoms.
His grandmother had lived longer than her daughter, and had provided him with a large dose of maternal affection. Her death had come two years before his father’s, and Morgan mourned them both deeply.
Perhaps it was better they were no longer alive, rather than see what he’d made of himself.
He moved into the Great Hall, conscious that Seath was standing directly behind him. Thankfully, the man didn’t speak, allowing him a few moments of silence.
Not so, Mrs. MacDonald.
She clapped her hands at the doorway, as if he were eight years old and late for supper.
He turned and faced her, keeping his face arranged in as pleasant an aspect as he could manage. Evidently, it wasn’t as friendly as he thought, because Mrs. MacDonald dropped her hands immediately and sank into a fulsome curtsy.
He wished she’d quit doing that.
“The staff is ready for the greeting, Your Lordship,” she said.
Should he wave her off like an Asian potentate? Or smile, which would no doubt frighten her just a little? The choice was taken from him by Seath, who nodded and said, “Very well, Mrs. MacDonald. We’ll be with you shortly.”
She nodded and disappeared again. Perhaps he should insist Seath remain beside him as a way to keep the housekeeper at bay.
He turned to the steward. “How many staff do we have now?” For the life of him, he couldn’t remember. Had he ever known?
“Sixty-three, Your Lordship.”
“And the number of maids?” he asked. A strange question, evidently, from Seath’s look.
“Seventeen, Your Lordship. Would you like to know their rankings?”
“I think not,” he said, striding to the doorway.
What had made him ask that question? What did he care if he employed two scullery maids or four? Did it matter the number of upper floor maids? As long as he didn’t have to be bothered with the ghost hunter, he’d be content.
Jean, that was her name.
The staff was arranged in the front courtyard, spread out in a semicircle in front of the main entrance. The archway leading to the courtyard beckoned to him: come away, come away. Be a boy again and escape to the hills, the river, the woods.
Instead, he turned to greet Mrs. MacDonald, who curtsied yet again.
Seath, no doubt sensing his irritation, stepped forward and took command of the introductions. Bless th
e man.
Andrew wandered out of the front entrance, sauntering over to them with a smile on his face. Andrew was amused by a great many things, and no doubt this ceremony would serve as fodder for his cutting remarks later.
He ignored Andrew, intent on Seath’s introductions. In the next few minutes, Morgan learned that Ballindair employed a dozen very tall young men as footmen, gardeners, and stable boys. Two cooks and a number of undercooks provided all the meals. Females outnumbered the males, and all of them, regardless of their station, looked terrified of him.
Was he that much of an ogre?
He stopped in front of the ghost hunter. She was staring down at the drive, her heightened color the only indication she was aware of him. She held her hands tightly together in front of her. If she trembled, he saw no evidence of it. Her apron was spotless and the little white lace cap on her brown hair was a new addition to her uniform.
What a little wren she was.
The girl next to her, however, was her opposite in every way. Her hair was blond, her eyes blue. She was as petite as the wren was tall. Her shoulders didn’t slump, and when he looked at her, she glanced back cheekily. A smile curved her lips and reached her eyes.
“Have you worked here long?” he asked.
“A year, Your Lordship,” she said. Her voice was laced with honey, low and inviting, and rich with a teasing burr.
“Where are you from?”
“From Inverness, Your Lordship. Both my sister and I,” she added, glancing toward the wren.
“The MacDonald sisters,” the housekeeper said, stepping forward. “Very good workers, all in all, Your Lordship. Once again, I apologize for the events of this morning.”
“Sisters?” he asked, ignoring the woman, and addressing the question to the blonde. “With the same father and mother?”
The wren’s face reddened further, but the blonde thought his comment a delightful jest. A burbling little laugh escaped her before she placed her fingers over her lips. She curtsied, with more grace than he’d seen today.
“Yes, Your Lordship,” she said, smiling again, and revealing white, even teeth. “We had the same father and the same mother.”