“Dear God, Jani!” she gasped. The petticoat Mena had been folding slid from her fingers and fell in a heap at her feet.
He shook his head, the deft movements of his fingers never ceasing. “It was so long ago. Time has a way of softening all tragedies, and after a while, it is easier to forget the pain of it.”
Horrified, Mena tried to focus on their task, but she simply couldn’t bear it. “But Jani, how can you bring yourself to work for him? To live under his roof and serve him?”
His dark, gentle eyes lit on her as he smiled sadly. “Because he offered me revenge.”
“What?” Mena could hardly believe what she was hearing.
“The marquess was a captain then. He and his lieutenant found me picking through the rubble searching for food. I was so angry that when I saw them I threw things, even glass. I screamed at them and spat at them. His superior took out his pistol and was about to put me down when Ravencroft stopped him. I remember being very frightened when he approached me. I never had seen a person so big before. So tall and wide. He subdued me and picked me up. Then he took me to his tent and fed me. I was so angry, but also starving.” Even in the dim light of the fading evening, the youth’s hair gleamed a brilliant black, and it matched the darkness in his eyes. “Do you know what he said to me while I ate?”
Mena shook her head, astounded. “I can’t even imagine.”
“He said that if I wished, he’d feed me, train me, and protect me. He promised that if my anger grew to hatred as I grew into a man, he would be always close, and I could have my revenge whenever I wanted to take it. He said he would not fight me.”
Plunking onto the bed behind her, Mena just shook her head in disbelief. “You had to have been tempted.”
Jani’s eyes lost some of their luster as they gazed into the past. “I would sit on my cot eating the supper he brought me. He always provided a sharp knife, even when there was no meat to cut, and we’d eat in silence. For years I went to bed, fully intending to slit his throat while he slept.”
“What stopped you?” Mena breathed.
“I think it was the way he looked at me every night before he blew out the lantern…” Jani paused, glancing up at Mena as though remembering that they were not so well acquainted.
“How was that?” she inquired, unable to stop herself from asking.
“Like he wanted me to do it.” Jani gathered an armful of her new skirts and carried them to the wardrobe, leaving her to stare after him in dumbfounded amazement until he glided back for more.
“But he has children.”
“Yes, he does.” Jani’s expression turned contemplative. “But he’s never really allowed them to know him.”
With movements that felt stilted and stiff, Mena rose to help, but her mind wouldn’t stop racing. “Even after all these years, you can’t have just … forgiven him.”
“The marquess, he has kept his promise. He took me with him all over the wide world, and even provided for me in his will should he die. I do not know, Miss Mena, if he’s responsible for the deaths of my parents, but I do know that we were both part of an empirical war machine that was built long before that day.” Jani paused in his work to look out her window and over the forest that rolled down to the sea. “The first time he brought me to this place, I understood that Ravencroft was bred to be a warrior, it was his destiny.” He turned back to her with that white smile, though this time it was not so bright. “Can you imagine him as anything else?”
“No,” Mena admitted, her heart bleeding for the pure tragedy of it all. “No, I don’t suppose I can.”
“I did not mean to distress you, Miss Mena,” the young man said earnestly. “I am content with my life here, and there are … other reasons for me to stay.”
It was strange, Mena thought, that for the first time in their entire conversation, Jani truly seemed sad.
She had a good idea as to why. “Rhianna?” she prompted softly.
He looked at her, and his heart was revealed.
“Does she return your feelings?”
“She does not know.” Fear crept over his features and Mena hurried to comfort him.
“It’s all right,” she murmured to him, placing a hand on his silk sleeve. “I’ve mentioned it to no one. I have secrets of my own to keep, and would never betray a confidence of a friend.”
He searched her gaze, then nodded. “It is not to be, Miss Mena. The daughter of a marquess doesn’t marry a valet, especially a foreigner. I mean, is that not why you are here, to teach her how to be the wife of a gentleman and a nobleman?”
Mena lifted her hand to his smooth cheek and rested it there, a lump of emotion in her throat. “I think, sweet Jani, that there may be no man alive more gentle and noble than you.”
A curious sheen glimmered in his dark eyes before he quickly turned away. “Then you will allow me to arrange your writing desk to further maximize your efficiency,” he said with forced brightness. “When you reply to your letter, you will be thanking me.”
“If you must.” She offered him a tremulous smile, allowing him to alter the course of the conversation. She stepped back to her trunks to finish sorting and unpacking them. She and Jani worked in relative but comfortable silence, though, she suspected, their thoughts were anything but.