A Scandalous Scot

by Karen Ranney

  “It’s not important,” he said. “I was merely making conversation.”

  She retreated into that irritating silence again.

  “Get your damn book,” he said.

  She didn’t.

  Nor did she move. Instead, she turned her head, studying him as if he was an insect she’d never seen, some repulsive specimen that horrified her at the same time it fascinated.

  “What happened to your wife?”

  Of all the things she might have said, he was the least prepared for that.

  “I divorced her,” he said, giving her the truth. “Does that shock you?”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment. When she did speak, her words surprised him again.

  “I wasn’t raised to be a maid,” she said. “It’s an honorable profession, however. Anything you do well is honorable, don’t you think?”

  “Would you be an honorable man if you were a very good thief? Or an honorable woman if you were an accomplished harlot?”

  She didn’t have an answer to that.

  He moved to the other side of the bookcase where he couldn’t see her. His fingers trailed across the tops of the books, irritated when he found a layer of dust on them.

  “Do you clean in here?” he asked.

  “Not recently, no,” she said, her voice low. “Mrs. MacDonald rotates the staff.”

  Did he imagine the tone of pity in her voice, as if she understood he wanted to banish her at the same time he wanted to force her to remain?

  “What have you been doing recently?”

  “Working in the laundry. And being a scullery maid.”

  “What does a scullery maid do?”

  “Dispose of garbage and clean pots,” she said, and now there was a note of humor in her voice. He wished he hadn’t moved away from her. He would’ve glanced at her then, to see if there was a small smile on her lips.

  “And floors, and tables, and more pots, and dishes, and silverware. And anything that needs to be cleaned. Or scrubbed.”

  “Is the laundry a promotion?”

  “Anything is a promotion from the scullery,” she said. “But before you arrived, I was an upstairs maid. The scullery and the laundry are punishment, I’m afraid.”

  He walked around the end of the bookcase in order to see her. “Why are you being punished?”

  She smiled at him, then glanced away, her attention once more on a book. “I was unpardonably rude to a certain earl.”

  “Perhaps he deserved it,” he said.

  “Perhaps he did,” she said, her smile deepening.

  “Shall I speak to the housekeeper?”

  Her smile abruptly disappeared. “I hope you won’t, Your Lordship.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ll be moved back to my normal duties soon enough. And if you do speak to the housekeeper, it would undermine her authority.”

  “Plus, she’d resent you for my interference.”

  She shrugged but didn’t answer.

  “Have I no influence even in my own home?”

  “I think you have more influence than you know, Your Lordship. People wish to please you. Everything they do is for that singular reason.”

  “Do you wish to please me, Jean?”

  She took a step back, and he regretted the question the moment she moved. He’d frightened her, somehow. Or played lecher, more like.

  How did Andrew do it? How did Andrew convince all those women he seduced that he wasn’t to be feared? Would Jean have listened to him? Or believed Andrew, for that matter? He knew, suddenly, she wouldn’t have been any more receptive to Andrew’s blandishments than to his rusty conversation.

  Was that what he was trying to do, seduce a maid? The thought brought him up short. Surely he wasn’t that lonely. Or that dishonorable.

  “Where is the book about the ghosts of Ballindair?” He’d get the book, then banish her, the wisest course.

  “You don’t believe in them,” she said.

  “Is it necessary to believe in something to study it?”

  She tilted her head and regarded him solemnly, like the wren she was. “I think it requires an open mind, Your Lordship, to fully study something. Not a mind narrowed by suspicion and disbelief.”

  Now that was surprising. “Are you given to philosophy also, Jean?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Tell me more about the French Nun,” he said. “Why does she insist on haunting Ballindair? Is it to punish the Murderous MacCraigs somehow? Inspire them to change?”

  “Do you think a ghost could have altered the behavior of your ancestors?” she asked, her smile back in place.

  “I don’t,” he said. “A cudgel, perhaps, would have had more effect.”

  She laughed, an odd sound in this room dedicated to contemplation and learning. The fact he’d made her laugh gave him a strange and curious warmth, as if he’d just consumed a particularly fine single malt whiskey.

  “Are you seeing anyone?” he asked, abruptly curious.

  She blinked at him, as if processing the question before answering it. “Seeing anyone?”

  “Are you stepping out with anyone? Or are you engaged? Hell, are you married? Do I employ married maids?”

  She had that look on her face again, as if she couldn’t decide whether to be annoyed or insulted.

  “Isn’t that a very personal question, Your Lordship?”

  “So was wanting to know about my wife,” he said.

  She folded her arms and began to tap her shoe on the floor, for all the world like his nurse when she’d been impatient with him. How many decades ago had that been?

  He folded his arms as well, the two of them staring at each other in identical poses. Surprisingly, she wasn’t much shorter than he. Nor did she look remotely like a maid at the moment. In fact, she had a countesslike appearance, the look on her face reminding him oddly of Lillian at her most intransigent.

  However, Jean did not spark in him a desire to retaliate. Probably because he had no emotion invested in the woman. Or perhaps it was simply because he knew, in some deep part of himself, that she was in the right. He had no business asking her if she was involved with someone.

  She dropped her arms first. Then he did, each of them smiling at the other. Did she wonder at their sudden amity as much as he?

  “You do,” she said. “Employ married maids, that is.”

  Would she answer his other questions? When she turned to leave him, he got his answer—no.

  “Are you one of those women who wish to remain a mystery, the better to deepen her allure?”

  She began to laugh in earnest as she descended the staircase. The sound of her rich and tantalizing laughter gradually faded into nothingness, as ghostly as those specters she hunted.

  When Jean reached her room, her heart was still pounding, less from the possibility of being discovered outside the fourth floor at this hour than for another reason entirely.

  He was divorced. A shocking thing, for a man to turn his back on his vows, to abjure his wife.

  Why had he done so?

  That was the reason for his return to Ballindair, then. The Earl of Denbleigh was a figure of scandal.

  But he thought she was mysterious.

  And womanly.

  And alluring.

  He’d wanted to know if she was married, or to be married, or even interested in someone. Surely that was not a question an employer normally asked?

  Perhaps he was just being kind to a member of his staff. Would he have talked to anyone about books? Or about the ghosts of Ballindair?

  Or was she simply guilty of thinking too highly of herself?

  What a foolish girl she was.

  She’d seen him, even after she’d not wanted to see him. It hadn’t been dreadful at all. She’d entirely forgotten about the sight of him naked. Almost, perhaps—very well, she hadn’t.

  She closed the door of her room softly behind her and began to unbutton her dress.

  “Where were yo
u?” Catriona asked. “The library again? One of these days you’re going to get caught, Jean.”

  Jean turned, her back to the door, facing the shadows surrounding her sister’s bed.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I went to look for a book to read.”

  Too late, she realized she’d left the library empty-handed.

  Catriona sat up, lit their lone taper, and stared at her. She didn’t say anything, but her look was accusation enough.

  “I couldn’t find anything interesting to read,” Jean said, removing her dress and hanging it on the hook beside the door. Clad only in her shift, she sat on the edge of her bed. “It’s no good looking at me that way, Catriona. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  Her sister blew out the candle. They were given only one a week, so had to be judicious in its use.

  “You lecture me on propriety all the time, dear sister,” Catriona said. “Yet you see nothing wrong in wandering through Ballindair at night.”

  Catriona was right. She’d been foolish. But sometimes she needed to be alone. Sometimes she needed to pretend her life was other than what it was. This time, she left the room when she shouldn’t have, and flirted with her employer. If Catriona had behaved in such a fashion, she would’ve lectured her for hours.

  Instead, her sister remained silent.

  Jean got into bed, staring up at the dark ceiling. Her heart was still beating too fast, and a warm feeling was spreading through her, a feeling she’d never experienced, and one that troubled her more than just a little.

  She reached under the bed for the book about the ghosts of Ballindair. She hadn’t wanted to tell him she’d taken it from the library.

  Now, she lay awake, holding the book in her arms and feeling an absurd—and forbidden—connection to the Earl of Denbleigh.

  Chapter 10

  RULES FOR STAFF: Make the proper demonstrations of respect to the family. Women shall curtsy. Men shall bow.

  Every morning, just after breakfast, Aunt Mary assembled the staff and gave them their assignments for the day. As housekeeper, she believed rotating people in their tasks made for a more skilled staff and a cleaner Ballindair.

  This morning, however, Aunt Mary’s face was florid and her voice quavered as she spoke to the assembled maids and footmen.

  “You’ve been shirking your duties,” she said, looking at each of them in turn.

  When Aunt Mary focused her gaze on Jean, she felt like crawling beneath the bench on which she sat.

  What had she done now?

  “His Lordship informed me this morning,” her aunt said, “that the library was in deplorable condition. He stated that more than a few shelves were layered with dust.”

  Aunt Mary’s gaze had moved to Fiona, and held steady on her. “I believe you were in charge of cleaning the library last week, Fiona. Is that not so?”

  The woman paled, but nodded.

  Then Jean became the object of her attention. “His Lordship specifically requested you be placed in charge of cleaning the library, Jean. Have you any idea why he would single you out?”

  Catriona’s indrawn breath was a warning not to look in her sister’s direction. Instead, Jean studied the floor and shook her head.

  “I have no choice but to accede to His Lordship’s demands.”

  Jean sneaked a glance at her aunt’s face. Evidently, the audience with the earl had not been an easy one for Aunt Mary.

  “You’ll take Jean’s place in the laundry,” the housekeeper said to Fiona. “Perhaps after you’ve boiled a few dozen sheets you’ll begin to pay more attention to your dusting.”

  Jean knew everyone was looking at her, no doubt speculating why she’d been chosen by the earl. Aunt Mary continued her lecture, including admonishing each person to do his job to the best of their ability and to follow her dictates to the letter.

  The lecture over, they all stood in two long lines to be inspected. Had there been a majordomo on staff, he would have been the one to examine the males. Aunt Mary did so now, rigorous and demanding with both sexes.

  “Charles,” she said, “go and change your neckcloth. You’ve spilled some jam on it.”

  “Sally, your hair is untidy. Your cap is askew.”

  “I would have you brush your jacket, Mark, before presenting yourself.”

  When she came to Catriona, her sister gave her a bright smile. Aunt Mary, always attuned to any hint of favoritism, only nodded to her niece.

  The only public criticism her aunt gave Jean was a shake of her head, as if she despaired of ever making more of her.

  Jean bit back her sigh, replacing it with a determined smile, all the while avoiding looking in Fiona’s or Catriona’s direction.

  A few minutes later she entered the Earl of Denbleigh’s library and closed her eyes, experiencing the room as she never had before today.

  The air smelled musty and tinged with the scent of leather and wood. Something else tickled her nose. Opening her eyes, she turned to the wall, sniffing at the mahogany panel. Tobacco. Had the previous earl smoked a pipe? Did the present earl do so?

  How silly she was, to wonder at such things.

  Like the Long Gallery, this room had been a haven. When she could, she’d escaped here in the evening, well aware that it was not allowed but unable to avoid both the lure of all these wonderful books, and the blessed solitude. For a few hours she could forget that she was a maid and simply be Jean.

  Over there, on the small chair in the corner, she’d read Plato. One quote was oddly apt now. “Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.” What, then, could she ascribe as the cause for her foolishness last night? Desire, of a certainty. She’d wanted, very much, to talk to the earl. Emotion? Loneliness, perhaps? What kind of knowledge had she possessed? She didn’t know anything. Instead, she had an abundance of ignorance about her own feelings. Why had she remained awake half the night, thinking of him?

  She glanced up at the iron staircase. How many times had she mounted it in violation of the rules? How many times had she slipped to the back, to the settee, spending hours engrossed in one of the books? Would she ever be able to slip from her room again and come here? Prudence dictated not. Or not as long as Morgan MacCraig was at Ballindair.

  But for a few moments last night it had been a magical time. The earl had talked to her as if she wasn’t a maid at all, but a person. She hadn’t thought of him as her employer or the Earl of Denbleigh, only a handsome man who’d made her heart beat faster.

  Being with him had reminded her of a poem she’d once read in this very room.

  Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!

  To all the sensual world proclaim,

  One crowded hour of glorious life

  Is worth an age without a name.

  Had the minutes she’d spent with Morgan MacCraig been her time of glorious life? Oh, it had felt that way.

  He’d made her feel like a woman. A female. Was it because he was so male? His collarless shirt had been opened, and she’d had the strangest compulsion to put her fingers against his throat.

  The image of him naked came to her again, unbidden, and certainly forbidden.

  She should recall the words of her grandmother instead. A gowk at Yule’ll no be bricht at Beltane. A fool at Christmas would not be wise in May.

  Forcing thoughts of the earl away, she grabbed a cloth and went about dusting the first bookcase. She’d been sent here with a job to do, and she would do it as well as she could.

  A noise from above made her stop and listen, but before she could investigate it further, Catriona opened the library door.

  “You were with the earl,” her sister said, shutting the door firmly behind her.

  Jean closed her eyes and prayed for patience. When she opened them, Catriona was still standing there, eyes flashing with fury. Twin spots of color on her otherwise porcelain complexion revealed the degree of her anger.

  “Last night, you were with the earl. Why didn’
t you tell me?”

  “There was nothing to tell,” Jean said, directing her attention to the shelves in front of her. “We merely talked books for a few moments, and that was all.”

  “You talked books with the earl?” Catriona asked, frowning. “Why ever for?”

  “What would you prefer we discuss, Catriona? We were here in the library.”

  “You didn’t flirt with him?”

  Aghast, she stared at her sister. “Of course not,” she said, hoping her part of their conversation couldn’t be construed as flirting.

  She’d left the library even when she truly wanted to remain. She’d been sensible despite herself. Now, here was Catriona, being the opposite.

  “Are you sure you weren’t flirting?”

  Jean fixed a look on her sister.

  “Good,” Catriona said, smoothing her palms down her dress as if to accentuate the attributes straining against the dark blue fabric.

  Jean concentrated on a large book that looked old, its binding so worn it should be sent to be repaired.

  “Do you know what Aunt Mary has me doing today?” Catriona asked, holding out her hands. Each fingertip was stained black. “Blacking all the fireplaces in the downstairs parlors!”

  “It’s better than starving, Catriona,” she said, moving to another row of books and beginning to dust.

  “I’m beautiful,” Catriona said. “You must admit that.”

  She glanced at her sister.

  “There’s more to a woman than simple appearance, Catriona. She should have character, a loving, open heart, and the willingness to care for others.”

  Catriona only smiled pitying at her. “How foolish you are sometimes, Jean. A woman should have courage most of all. I’ve decided to become the earl’s mistress.”

  Jean regarded her sister with a mixture of shock and irritation.

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “By being in his bed when he retires tonight. He won’t be able to refuse me.”

  Jean took a step back. “You wouldn’t.”

  “I would,” Catriona said, tossing her head. “I have to. I’m destined for greater things than being a maid.”

  She’d promised her father to look out for her younger sister. For years she’d tried to protect Catriona. But how did she steer her sister to a bridge when Catriona was all for jumping into the river?