Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

Kate detested mice, spiders, and London’s most infamous rake, the Marquess of Brookhouse.

Now she could add Scotland to that list.

Everything not green was brown, or the sky was gray, and no one wished to speak to an Englishwoman, especially as the coach had continued its journey up toward Aberdeenshire. She had heard of their distaste toward the English, and she had certainly heard of men in kilts battling other clans, but she had never heard tales of the mud.

And there was so much mud.

After the coach left her in a small village consisting only of a few buildings, she waited for her ride to Dunsmuir Castle. The largest ravens she’d ever seen circled in the sky above, caw after caw as a woman unloaded a cart in front of a cottage with a moss-cover thatched roof. But after a few hours, no one arrived to pick her up as had been arranged through the brief correspondence with her new employer.

She pushed through the inn’s doors, her skirts muddy and her stomach rumbling. The inn was nearly empty. A few patrons sat at the long bar that stretched across the back half of the dark room. Filtered light forced itself through wavy, clouded windowpanes .

Her stomach flipped at the stale, stagnate air. Was that smoke she smelled? And fish?

“Hello?”

No one turned around. Very well.

Kate dropped her bags at her feet, ripped off her gloves, stuck her fingers in her mouth, and whistled.

“Christ, woman. Too loud.” A man groaned at the bar counter across the room. He rested his head in his hands. “Too loud.”

“Where’s the barkeep?”

“No barkeep,” the other, much younger man said a few stools down. He turned in his seat and narrowed his dark-green eyes at her, boyhood still clinging to his full cheeks. “No inn. We’re no’ open.”

She tilted her head. Later, this would be funny. Later, once she managed a meal and perhaps a few hours of sleep, but what she discovered in Scotland so far was not funny. “The door was unlocked.”

“I told ye, Archie,” the man mumbled, still folded in half over the bar.

Just then, a third man appeared in the doorway behind the bar, wiping his hands on a grimy dishtowel. A tall man, with broad shoulders and rugged arms, and fine linen shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal strong forearms.

Oh.

“We’re no’ open,” he said, his voice gruff.

She expected him to look away and ignore her as the others had, but instead, he pinned her there to her spot on the filthy wooden floor. It wasn’t disgust in his bright blue eyes, but he certainly wasn’t welcoming. And yet she couldn’t look away.

“Sir,” she said in way of a welcome. Or perhaps it was a warning. She couldn’t tell if she needed to run toward the man or run away from him. But the mess of bronze curls on his head made him appear somewhat angelic. Well, perhaps that was a stretch of the word. The marquess had been handsome, and this man, while not classically so, was beyond striking.

His entire person was a beacon of control. She felt everything within shift as if drawn to him. Which could only mean trouble. She had not escaped to Scotland to land in more trouble. She was protecting her independence, and Kate wasn’t about to hand it over to the first man in Scotland who looked at her as if she were dessert and spoke with the most delicious Scottish burr.

“What do ye need?” he asked, clearing his throat. He snapped the towel over his left shoulder which only drew her attention to his arms once more. The arms of a boxer. He certainly had the stance of one.

“I need a meal, please. I have been traveling, and it’ll be awhile yet before I am settled where I need to be.”

“Where do ye need to be?” the man mumbled, slumped over on the counter still.

He moaned once more, cutting off her reply. She shrugged once she reconnected her gaze toward the taller man behind the bar.

“Sit down. I will find something in the kitchen.”

“I don’t mean to impose. If you are not open, then can you direct me to another inn or a coffee house?”

“Isna one,” the younger man replied. He stood up and slapped his hand across the low beam stretching across the ceiling.

“Is he feeling well?” she asked, pointing to the man slumped on the bar.

“Finn? Och, he’s fine.”

“Nae!”

They both said at once, speaking over one another.

“Canna hold his whisky is all,” the younger man said, all tall and lanky. If she were to guess, he wasn’t much older than twenty. He laughed before slipping behind the bar and shoving his body into the older man’s, a silly territorial claim to the doorway. Funny that men felt they had to bristle their way everywhere, as if anyone could forget who this world worked for.

The older man whispered something as the younger one—Archie, it was—pushed past and disappeared.

“Finn Wallace, sit up and get out! Ye’re scaring the lady away.”

“Yer brother never would have tossed me out of his inn.”

Those blue eyes of his went cold. “Out,” the older man commanded in a deep, sturdy voice .

Yes, he most definitely was control personified. How the other man didn’t move was beyond Kate. She stepped forward as if pulled along by some invisible string. Or perhaps it was that she noticed that soft indentation on his strong chin, and how his lips drew her eyes. That perfect top lip. And how there was the lightest shadow of dark stubble across his jawline.

For a man dressed as if he had just strolled off Savile Row, it was an interesting contradiction.

Not that she was in the market for interesting contradictions. She needed to put something in her stomach to keep it from trying to consume itself, then find a castle. Which in Scotland wouldn’t be a challenge precisely, it was just finding the correct one.

The man referred to as Wallace stood, wobbled, then clutched his head before he stumbled out the door, grumbling the entire time in such a thick accent that Kate couldn’t make out what he was complaining about.

Kate startled when the door slammed shut behind him and flexed her hands. The man in the doorway motioned her to join him, so she did, her stomach gurgling as she glanced around her at the old inn walls of rough-hewn wood.

“I appreciate the meal,” she called out.

He grunted.

Very well. Not a man of conversation. Considering the last had left her ruined, she wouldn’t complain much.

Dried herbs hung from the old beams above as she followed behind in the short, dark hallway. The smell of smoke burned her nostrils, and the cool damp air didn’t help any. It wasn’t exactly an inviting place, but certainly one with potential. Only a few tables had been set for patrons out front.

“Have a seat,” he said before she entered the kitchen. His voice boomed off the wall of the small cream-colored room.

Kate nodded, walking behind him in a wide berth in case he spun around and growled. She wouldn’t put it past the man. She sank down in the rickety chair with her back against the wall, watching as this stranger cooked for her. He reached for a heavy cast-iron pan from the warped tabletop. His shirt pulled against his body with each precise move.

One day, when she was braver, she might ask if he were a fighter. For now, she would appreciate that whatever he did, he did it well.

“Do you like eggs?” he asked, never looking at her, instead reaching into a basket and gingerly cradling two eggs between his large hands.

“I do.”

He cracked them as if he had spent years learning how to do so. She had never seen a man cook before. Her father certainly never had. And she would guess the only kitchen the marquess ever saw was while passing through to the wine cellar or tupping a maid in the larder after hours.

This man…

She cleared her throat and tugged at her traveling dress. A fire burned in the giant fireplace nestled between two windows. Outside those windows appeared to be a garden, or a ghost of one anyhow. Now it was quite overgrown. A set of stairs led to a stable block and a river beyond that. In the back left corner of the room, behind a worktable, was an opened door to a precarious stack of paper and a desk and chair.

Kate only had more questions than answers as she waited.

Soon, butter sizzled in the pan and this man, perhaps the owner, whisked the eggs in a large ceramic bowl, adding a little water and some salt and pepper. Then he poured the deep-gold mixture in the pan. It sizzled before he added a heap of velvety cheese and folded the eggs over onto themself.

“It’s no’ much, but it will do,” he said, plating it up and placing it on the table in front of her.

Kate’s stomach grumbled. “Thank you.”

“I’m sure ye’re hungry. Where did ye travel from?”

“London.”

“Long way.”

“It is.” She used the side of her fork to cut off a piece of egg, so fluffy and creamy. She almost moaned once it hit her tongue. Perhaps the most delicious egg she had ever consumed. Made by a stranger… at a deserted inn in the middle of the muddiest place she had ever been.

“That is delicious.”

The man didn’t say anything, of course, but instead picked up the dishes and brought them over to a washbasin in the adjoining scullery to be scrubbed.

“Do you enjoy cooking?” she asked, desperate for some conversation.

“I have.”

Interesting answer. “I have never known a man to cook.”

“Many dinna in London.”

“Oh, have you been?”

He set the cast-iron pan down on the worktable and wiped his hands on the towel. Not a splatter of butter or egg on his immaculate clothes. “I have a lot of work to see to and no’ much time. I made ye something to eat, but I’m no’ in the mood for conversation. I apologize if that is frank, it’s only…”

She set her fork down, sure she was being whipped up into a rage until she caught the hopeless look washing over his brilliant blue gaze.

“There’s much to do,” he said more to himself than her.

“I understand,” she said, talking around her forkful of eggs. She laughed, certain she could hear her mother’s outrage at such impoliteness. “Please, tell me how much I owe, and I will see myself out. I mean to be no trouble.”

He froze, his hands balled by his trim waist. “I’m an arse, aye? I’m no’ meaning to be one, only…” The man waved her off, then raked a hand through his bronze curls. Kate really should have paid attention to her governess because she couldn’t for the life of her remember the name of the Greek god who was so incredibly handsome. Ares? Asclepius?

“I was the one who walked into a closed inn and asked for food,” she reminded him. “I am on my way to Dunsmuir Castle. Could you help me? A ride there was supposed to be arranged…”

“Damn it,” he muttered. Whatever calmness had washed over him vanished just as suddenly, and soon he stormed around the kitchen, grabbing folders with papers and keys. “What do ye want?” he hollered at her, stuffing an unlit cigar into his mouth.

“Pardon?”

“What do ye want with Dunsmuir Castle?”

“I believe it is my turn to be uncivil now and insist that it is my business.”

“As it’s my home, I think it’s mine as well.”

Oh.

“Mr. MacInnes?”

Oh no.

“Aye, lass.”

This man was to be her employer. No, no, this wouldn’t do. She wouldn’t rescue herself here in Scotland if she stayed with him.

Kate would truly and thoroughly be a ruined woman if she remained.

She licked her lips, setting her fork on her plate and pushing it away as he glared down at her. “I am the new governess.”

He set down his papers on the worktable and grabbed her plate, tossing it to soak with a few other utensils. “Miss Katherine Bancroft, is it?”

She sat forward, gleefully watching as the color drained from his cheeks, and he spun, striking a match against the worktop to light his cigar.

“Yes, I believe so.”

“I told Wallace to pick ye up hours ago.”

“Well, I met Mr. Wallace, and he could barely pick himself up to stumble out of this inn, so here I am.”

“And now I must deal with ye?”

“Well, pay me as agreed upon at least. If you tell me where the house is, sir, I’m capable of walking. I don’t wish you to trouble yourself…”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “That isna what I meant.”

“Pray, then do tell me what you meant because so far I have been a giant inconvenience when I am solely here at your request, to help you educate and care for your daughters.”

“Nieces.”

“Very well, your nieces. It has been a long day, and I wish for nothing else than to find a bed. So please, how do I find this castle? Your castle.”

“My brother’s castle.”

“Your brother?”

“It was his until recently.”

She nodded, not quite following. Her father’s cousin mentioned only a castle and orphaned girls.

“I am not here to debate who owns the property, only here to do what I was hired to do, but nothing has gone right as soon as I stepped foot in this country. I feel as if I have passed at least twenty castles on my journey here. Where is yours?”

He spun toward the back door, motioning for her to follow.

“My luggage is in the front,” she hedged.

He puffed on his cigar, pulling a timepiece out of his vest pocket. “I will fetch it after. Do ye ride?”

“Yes.”

“Good, ye can help me harness the horses. I will take ye to the castle.”

“I didn’t ask for you to take me, only for you to tell me where the castle is.”

“Over there,” he pointed toward a narrow road disappearing into a thick forest. “And beyond the river.”

“Very specific,” she mumbled to herself, stepping outside. The elbow of her sleeve became snagged on a garden bramble, and she struggled to free herself, her boot sinking into thick mud instantly. “Sir?”

Halfway to the small stable behind the inn, he turned, yanking the cigar out of his mouth and narrowing his eyes on her. Over her. It felt like a stolen caress, which was odd considering she felt nothing but hatred rolling off the giant man.

“What do I call you, sir? We haven’t made a proper introduction. ”

“London,” he scoffed.

“Mr. London?” She wore a smile, satisfaction filling her chest at the annoyance that filled his features. “So nice to finally meet you.”

“It’s Gabriel MacInnes. And I’ll have no more talk of London.”

“Didn’t like it much?”

“Didna much like me.”

“Well, on that account, we have the same experience.”

She lifted her dress and pressed on toward the white-washed stones of the stable, navigating the rutted drive from carriages and listening to the horses whinny.

“Aisling will do. She’s a gentle mare,” he said mostly to himself, storming through the dark stable. Once, it must have been a beautiful space, but it was damp and dirty, and the few windows allowing in light were in need of cleaning.

Kate hurried along with her bags, peeking into each stall to find a horse with a fresh bucket of water and hay.

Very well, it was only the building which needed repair.

“Have something ye’re wishin’ to say?” he asked, righting the saddle.

Plenty, but wasn’t that the problem? No, she didn’t wish to speak any longer to this man, no matter how delicious the eggs were. He was a self-centered arse like the rest of them.

Instead, she mounted the horse without his help. She bent down and whispered in the beast’s ear, then waved for her bag. Let him convey her trunk back.

“The carriage’s axle is broken. Otherwise…”

It didn’t matter. Nothing much did right now. She was on her own, and she didn’t wish for this stranger to see how broken she truly was. Kate must rely on herself now. And if he didn’t wish to help, she wouldn’t allow him the satisfaction of seeing her fail.

“Please store my trunk safely. I will bring this bag for now.” She settled into the saddle and balanced the bag by her hand and the rein.

He eyed her, the cigar still hanging from the corner of his mouth. “Maybe it’s best to walk.”

“I can ride,” she shot back .

“Never said ye couldna.”

“Listen, Mr. MacInnes. You hired me to be the governess. I was promised conveyance from the village to the castle. This wasn’t what I had in mind, but I will manage. You will discover I can manage a great deal.”

He patted the horse’s bum, and the horse shot off through the stable.

The insufferable oaf.

Yes, she could manage. She gripped the rein tighter. And if she couldn’t, she’d be loath to admit as much to him.

No fear of falling in love in Scotland. She hadn’t escaped London to find love. She was here for her independence, and that meant, above all else, tolerating that man.

And his amazing cooking.

And the way she didn’t need him. Kate had been burned once. She was turning a new leaf, one where she loved herself most of all. She didn’t need Mr. MacInnes or his faulty promises. She didn’t need love. It wasn’t for her anyhow.

Oh, not Ares or Asclepidus. Apollo!

Mr. MacInnes was no Apollo.

Kate rode the mare through the small village perched on the side of a generous swooping hill that melted into a dark-green glen. Beyond, the forest cover grew thick, and she rode for some time before the forest faded to fields and stone walls, and then, ahead in a beautiful clearing was Dunsmuir Castle. When she dismounted and discovered no one to help with the horse, she was seething. She led Aisling into the stable and settled the tame animal before bracing herself for what awaited inside.

She glanced upward at the stone fortress. It felt cold and not in the slightest as romantic as she had imagined. It towered up toward the moody Scottish sky, swirling with gray. The wind swept through the large oak tree at the front of the home, and what would have been a garden was a gnarled tangle of weeds and brown, decaying flowers.

With a steadying breath, she knocked on the door, and then pushed it open .

“Hello?” she called out.

She stepped onto the large, worn rug tossed over the large flagstones of the entryway. No wonder Mr. MacInnes was a giant.

This castle was…

Well, not entirely inviting. It was dark, cool, and drafty.

“Hello?” she called again.

“Ahhh, we’re under attack!” A little girl poked her head out from behind a tapestry covering a doorway.

“No, not under—” Kate began.

But it was fruitless when two girls began shrieking.

Kate dumped her bag at her feet and crossed her arms, waiting.

“Yer English,” another girl announced, appearing from behind the tapestry. She stood before Kate in boy’s trousers, and her dark-red hair looked as if it hadn’t been brushed in a week. “Might as well be the enemy.”

“Away, English,” the youngest shouted, bursting through the tapestry and throwing a rag doll at her.

“My name is Miss Bancroft, and your uncle has hired me as the new governess.”

“We dinna need a governess.”

“The governess?” An older woman shuffled up, grasping a broom and wearing a blood-stained apron. A lace cap sat crooked on her head. “Very well. Here are ye charges. I’m Mrs. Malcolm and these two”—the older woman glared at them—”are Lorna and Maisie. Lasses, say hello.”

“Uncle willna like ye,” the younger one said, spinning into a low bow. “I willna either.”

“Maisie Greer MacInnes, ye best try again, ye wicked wee pest.”

The little girl just shrugged and crossed her arms. Her body was dwarfed in an ivory wool jumper, and like her sister, her curly honey-brown hair was tangled, and there was a smudge of drinking chocolate by her small, heart-shaped mouth.

“I’m expectin’ ye girls to treat Miss Bancroft with manners. I’m back to the kitchen now. Nae trouble, lasses. ”

“Miss Bancroft, haggis for dinner. The girls eat at six. I will bring ye a plate in yer room upstairs.”

Kate exhaled. Haggis. She shivered. “Very well. It was lovely meeting you.”

“Upstairs in the attic is yer rooms. I’m no’ friendly-like.” The older woman continued mumbling to herself as she turned and swung the broom at Lorna, shooing the girl away. “Stay back and keep out of my kitchen. Ye’re no’ my problem any longer.”

Maisie waited for the older woman to turn her back, then stuck out her tongue, and Lorna giggled.

“Who can show me to my rooms?” Kate asked, dread welling up in her chest. She always wished to live in a tower like the heroines in her novels. Though it felt far less romantic and far more foreboding as they stepped back into the great hall. The room towered overhead, the vaulted ceilings were adorned in bright paintings of saints and shields.

“Oh, I can,” Lorna said. “Follow me.”

Maisie nodded, stifling back a giggle and pointing to Kate’s muddy hem. “Ye’re muddy, might as well sleep with the pigs. Or in the kitchen with the soot and stinky ol’ Ben.”

“Stinky ol’ Ben?”

That must have been a slight too deep because Lorna elbowed her younger sister, hard. “Never ye mind, Miss Bancroft. We dinna keep pigs. Ben’s a cat.”

“I see. A stinky one, I presume?”

“Ye’ll find out soon enough.”

Kate followed behind, glancing around at the dreary castle. Little was hung on the walls, so each step echoed. Kate wished for a wool jumper of her own, or a fire she could warm herself with. The inside of the castle was damp, and perhaps it was that she hadn’t slept for some time now, but she shivered from exhaustion.

At least there had been eggs.

Up they climbed. Higher, and higher yet, onto narrow and steep stone steps before Lorna spun and grinned.

“Here we are. Yer rooms, Lady Bancroft.”

“Miss,” Kate corrected, but it didn’t matter. She narrowed her eyes, scanning the small room and quickly surmising its intended use. “This is the water closet.”

The girls collapsed on the floor in a peal of laughter as the door swung open farther.

“Best room we’ve available,” Lorna announced.

“For a governess,” Maisie added, throwing her hands on her hips like her older sister.

Very well. It was to be like that. Well, all the members of the MacInnes household were lovely.

Simply lovely.