Victoria felt her face heat at the notion of the formidable Laird of Arnprior sleeping so close by.
“Thank you for putting me in so comfortable a room, Mrs. Taffy. It’s much too grand for a governess, but I do appreciate your consideration.”
“Och, it’s the least I could do. I’d prepared one of the more modern rooms in the west wing, but that blocked chimney caused quite a mess. The only other bedrooms in a fit state are in the old barracks wing, near Mr. Royal and his brothers. That wouldna be proper for a young lady at all.”
“Thank you,” Victoria said with a grateful smile. The notion of sleeping anywhere near a boisterous group of males—even relatively harmless ones—made her chest tighten. Oddly, sleeping a short staircase away from the earl failed to evoke a similar anxiety.
“About that chimney,” she added, “I suspect it wasn’t a bird’s nest that caused it to smoke, was it?”
The housekeeper scoffed. “As if I’d let my chimneys get in such a state.”
“One of the twins, I suppose,” Victoria said dryly. When Grant commented on the state of the chimney at dinner, with a small smirk on his face, she’d guessed that trying to smoke her out of her room had been part of the scheme to drive her away.
“They don’t mean any harm. Not really. They were left to run without a strong hand to guide them, when the laird was off to the war. I’m sorry to say they went a bit wild.”
Despite her firm intention not to get sucked into the affairs of Arnprior’s family, Victoria couldn’t entirely suppress her curiosity. “What of their grandfather? I understood he had the management of the estate and his grandsons during that time.”
“Och, that Mr. MacDonald. He encourages the lads in their bad behavior. He’ll have no truck with English ways, as if being civilized and good-mannered is only fit for foreigners.”
“We’re all subjects of the Crown and members of one union, are we not?”
“Many a Highlander would disagree. Especially one whose clan fought on the wrong side at Culloden.”
“But that was decades ago,” Victoria said.
The housekeeper sighed. “Some of the older generation willna get over the loss. They cling to the old ways, when men were warriors and not afraid to live rough.”
“Lord Arnprior is both a warrioranda civilized man. Surely Mr. MacDonald sees that.” No one in his right mind would accuse the earl of being soft. One only had to look at his brawny physique and his stern features to know the idea was laughable.
“Aye, but Mr. MacDonald thinks the laird is too modern. That he’s turning his back on the past. To some of the older folk, that’s nothing short of betrayal to the clan and to Scotland. That’s why Mr. MacDonald encourages the lads. He’s afraid they’ll forget who they are.”
“I’m sure the earl simply wants his brothers to behave in a more gentlemanly fashion.”
From what she’d seen at dinner, it seemed a hopeless task. Although the earl had done his best to manage the situation, the twins had been especially ridiculous. They’d done their grandfather proud, speaking out of turn and wolfing their food like barbarians. Royal, on the other hand, had barely said a word, eating like an automaton, then throwing down his napkin and stalking from the table before the dessert course was served. Alec and Lord Arnprior had manfully tried to carry on a normal conversation, but by the end of the evening his lordship had looked ready to murder everyone at the table.
He’d taken to scowling at Victoria halfway through the evening, which she thought unfair. She’d tried her best to be polite, but after being repeatedly rebuffed by Royal or ridiculed by Angus for her “Sassenach ways,” she’d descended into silence, which had obviously displeased the earl. Could anyone blame her from excusing herself from tea in the drawing room and fleeing upstairs to bed?
Mrs. Taffy fixed her with an earnest gaze. “The laird is doing his best, but he’s at his wit’s end. He needs a fine, ladylike teacher such as yerself to assist him.”
“He may even need an Act of Parliament.” Victoria winced as soon as the caustic words passed her lips. “I’m sorry, that was very rude of me. I can only suppose I’m more fatigued than I thought.”
The housekeeper rearranged a porcelain shepherdess on the mantel. “No one could blame ye, miss, and that’s a fact. Yer a saint to take on the job.”
A bubble of laughter welled up in Victoria’s chest at the idea of anyone calling her a saint. After all, she’d killed a man only a few short weeks ago, which was a most unholy, if unintended, act.
Mrs. Taffy turned down the bedclothes, then fetched the bed warmer from the hearth and began passing it between the sheets. “And never ye fear. The lads will eventually do what the laird tells them to do.”
When Mrs. Taffy noticed Victoria’s silence, she glanced up from her task. “Yer thinking of not giving us a chance then, miss?”
Victoria was startled by the accusatory tone in the housekeeper’s voice. “I . . . probably not. I don’t think I’d be able to do much good here,” she said.
She mentally winced at the crestfallen expression on Mrs. Taffy’s face. While feeling guilty was silly, since she’d been all but lured here under false pretenses, she hated letting people down. Even as a child, Victoria had done her best to please her aunts and uncles, working hard to make up for the fact that her very presence was a stain on the Knight family’s reputation.
But if disappointing a few strangers—or even Dominic—was the price of avoiding a hopeless situation, then so be it. Her position in Lord Welgate’s household had certainly taught her the devastating outcomes that could result from ignoring one’s instincts.
But under the older woman’s frowning gaze, Victoria found herself wanting to shuffle her feet. She almost felt like a naughty child caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
“I don’t agree with ye, miss,” said the housekeeper. “Lord knows the earl could use help from a lass such as yourself. He needs someone with yer bonny face and kind nature.”
