“Because the more information you have, the better, easier, your life will be. I don’t know if you know this, but things are changing out there in the world, Andrew. Engines and steam power and factories are making the world a much smaller place. Land isn’t the most precious commodity anymore, and the life of the idle lord, living off his tenants and properties, is going to be obsolete before too long. Your father is trying to secure you a legacy, a living, and teach you to do the same for the generations that come after you. That means learning how to work hard to keep it. He wouldn’t do that if he didn’t love you a great deal.” Mena imagined it surprised her more than poor Andrew that she defended the marquess.
Fresh tears leaked from Andrew’s eyes, and he sat up from her shoulder. “Doona tell him about Rune,” he begged.
“I really don’t feel comfortable lying to your father.” It was hard enough keeping her own secrets from the laird. “He’s going to find out eventually,” she pointed out.
“She’s been here for two weeks already and he hasna found her,” he argued desperately. “I take her out back at night, and while he’s in the fields. But I couldna while I was down at the distillery. She only went on the floor the once. Well, there was today, but it was just wet. And it was on the stones, so it isna hard to clean. He said that I need to learn to take care of something other than myself. And so I am.” The earnest love in his eyes for the little creature in his arms broke Mena’s heart. She was glad he had the pet, that he could show it love and veneration. She’d begun to worry that his darkness was more than just sullen. That it was, indeed, the beginnings of a cruel man. That he could have such tender feelings for the small animal gave her hope.
“It’s not as though you can hide poor Rune in this room for the entirety of her life,” she said, taking a different approach. “She’ll go mad. She needs to romp about outdoors.”
Andrew’s shoulders sagged, but she could see the moment he accepted the truth of her words. “I’ll tell him,” he consented. “But give me a few days. Until he isna angry about today anymore. He told me not to leave, but I had to check on her.”
Mena considered it. What if the laird discovered their secret before then? What if she was dismissed?
Andrew took her hand. “Please, Miss Lockhart. I’ll do anything. I’ll rework my figures, read any book you want, even the ridiculously boring ones.”
“What is it about classic literature that you find so boring?” she queried defensively.
“Everything.” He sniffed, his despair replaced by disgust. “I read penny dreadfuls because they have intrigue and monsters and murder. All of the things that thrill and inspire. We read about love and melancholy and it’s so dull.”
“Indeed?” Mena asked, an idea beginning to stir. “What if I told you that I would keep your secret for three days, if you read three separate works that I specifically pick out for you?”
“I’ll do it.” Andrew sighed and looked down at Rune, who’d just wiped a streak of drool on his trousers. “Which ones?” he asked skeptically.
“What if I said that in one of them, a woman is violently raped by two men, and they cut off her hands and her tongue to keep their secret? Then her father kills them and bakes them into a pie which he feeds to his enemy? Would you find that interesting?”
“Aye.” Andrew nodded vehemently, his eyes round with shock.
“Well, that’s Shakespeare for you.”
“Nay!” he said in disbelief.
“Titus Andronicus.” Mena nodded, feeling a thrill at having enraptured the attention of one previously so morose. “Or what about a novel that accounts a man who was betrayed by an evil villain and is wrongly imprisoned for being a Bonapartist. This man escapes from prison and exacts terrible and sometimes violent revenge on all those who wronged him.”
“I’ll read that one.” Andrew nodded.
“Yes, you will.” Mena smiled victoriously. “But you can only read The Count of Monte Cristo in French.”
His face fell into a droll sort of acceptance. “All right, Miss Lockhart, ye win, I’ll learn my French.”
“Excellent!” Mena stood and beamed at him. “Thank you for being a darling, and I promise that you can trust me with your secret … for three days, Andrew. That is all I dare give you.”
Andrew nodded solemnly. “Three days.”
Looking around the messy room, she brushed an errant puff of goose down from her skirts. “Well, let’s tidy up in here, shall we? Before one of the staff discovers our intrigue.”
“Aye.” Andrew set the puppy on the floor, and Rune chased a ball of fluff under the bed. “Ye know, Miss Lockhart,” he mumbled as he turned back to his bucket and retrieved the scrub brush. “I’m glad ye’re here.”
“Thank you, Andrew,” she said, turning to hide eyes grown misty. “I am, too. Very glad, indeed.”
* * *
Liam had never been the kind of man to kneel, even in a church. The old oak pew groaned beneath his weight as he sat, and he glanced around Ravencroft’s chapel to ensure his solitude. Centuries had tarnished the ornate candelabra on the decorated altar, and the late afternoon light filtered through the stained glass that surrounded it on three sides. The window depicting a compassionate and loving Redeemer, resplendent in red robes, glowed in the middle of adjacent renderings of Saint George, the patron saint of warriors, and Saint Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland.
He would not be welcomed into their exalted presence, Liam knew that. His very existence was an affront to the man they called the Prince of Peace. But something in his restless soul had drawn him to this silent, hallowed place. Guilt, maybe. A sense of contrition tinged with emptiness. When one was haunted by the ghosts of the past, or faced with a horrible possibility, where did one turn to find clarity?
He could think of nowhere else.
It was no ghost who’d tried to kill him today. But a man. Someone strong enough to push that barrel from its nest.