Fascination -and- Charmed Read Online Free PDF Page B

vines.
    Mr. Innes had assured her the marquess would not be able to see her tonight. Grace hoped her relief had not been too apparent. Perhaps the marquess was not so well after all. Guilt made her grimace.
    A light tap came at the door.
    She frowned and called, “Come in.”
    The door opened a few inches, then a few inches more, and a girl cautiously popped her round face into the room.
    Grace smiled. “Hello.”
    Shoulders appeared. Fine brown hair escaped from a knot to trail around the face. Bright blue eyes regarded Grace with alarm.
    “What is it?”
    “Mairi, miss. It’s Mairi.”
    “Come in, Mairi.”
    Alarm visibly approached panic. “Are ye certain ye want me to?”
    The day had been too much. The past weeks had been too much. “If you would
like
to come in, then I’m certain.”
    “Verra well.” In she came, plump, with a sweet face and jerky movements. A white apron clearly intended for a much taller woman trailed below the hem of her brown woolen dress. She wound her red-knuckled hands together.
    “Come by the fire,” Grace said. “You look chilled.”
    “Och, no. I’m not chilled. Not a bit o’ it.”
    Grace smiled and nodded—and waited.
    Mairi made a faint humming sound.
    “Did someone ask you to come and tell me something?” Preferably that she was to be returned to London forthwith.
    “Dearie me.”
    “Something’s wrong?”
    “Nothin’s wrong, miss. Except that I’m to be your new maid, and I never was anyone’s maid before.”
    “I see.” She didn’t.
    “They came for me in the village since there was none here at the castle as would do the job.”
    Grace made a grim note to have words with Mrs. Moggach about that. “You did not have another job, Mairi?”
    “I’ve a job here—in the kitchens. It’s not enough to keep me livin’ here, so I come in evra mornin’. I come in to cook the servants’ puddin’ for Grumpy.”
    “Isn’t that the housekeeper’s job?”
    “Aye, but she’s not a good hand at it.” Mairi puffed at the hair that flitted near her eyes. “I’m not good either, but Grumpy doesna care to spend her time on anythin’ ... Och, I’m talkin’ too much. I always talk too much. It’s been the bane o’ my poor father’s life, and doesna he tell everybody so.”
    “You can say whatever you please to me,” Grace said. She’d welcome a little friendly chatter inside this silent stone edifice. “Who’s Grumpy?”
    “Och!” Mairi layered her hands over her mouth, and her face turned scarlet. “Will ye listen to me blatherin’? Mrs. Moggach is Grumpy, an’ she’ll have my skin for the haggis for sayin’ so. Please say ye’ll not tell hersel’.”
    For the first time since she’d arrived, real laughter welled in Grace. “I won’t tell her if you don’t tell her I’m going to call her Grumpy, too. It’s a perfect name for her.”
    “Aye, and it’s true enough. Moggach means grumpy in Gaelic, y’see.”
    Grace saw. “So, Mairi, what are we to do tonight?”
    “Ye’re to do nothin’, miss. I’m to be your maid.”
    “It’s late.”
    Mairi hunched her shoulders. “I know, but I was told to see to your needs.”
    They looked at each other.
    “So I’ll start on that, I suppose.”
    Grace didn’t move. Neither did Mairi.
    “Mayhap ye’d tell me what I should do first?”
    “Sit down.”
    Mairi frowned.
    “Sit down,” Grace repeated, sinking into a purple chair herself. When Mairi had hesitantly followed the instruction, Grace leaned back. “How old are you?”
    “Eighteen, miss.”
    “I’m twenty-four.”
    “So old?” Mairi nodded sympathetically. “I s’pose that’s why.”
    “Why?”
    Mairi went to rise, but Grace signaled her to remain seated.
    “Why what, Mairi?”
    The girl fidgeted with her apron. “Well, why ye’d agree to come, I s’pose.”
    Some things were better left unasked for a while. “Perhaps you’d best start being my maid some other time.”
    “Dearie me,” Mairi said, her eyes