Liam would then take one of the already charred barrels and bend the slats of wood to fit into the iron rings, and employ the blacksmith’s hammer to pound them into place. He enjoyed the need to sweat and strain, found a sort of physical release in the force it required of him.
A physical release that he was sorely in need of.
This peat business was an unwelcome interruption.
Taking another breath, he tossed the peat back into the crate. “There are three—and no more than three—ingredients in Ravencroft Single Malt Scotch. What are they, Andrew?”
He turned to his son, who stood behind him. The boy’s mood was as black as the soot smudged across his fine shirt and stubborn, miserable features. He’d brought Andrew down to experience the jolly frenzy of work that came after the barley harvest. The milling and mashing of the barley into grist, the import and assembly of the casks, the careful fermentation in the mash tuns, the distillation processes, and finally the stacking of the finished barrels where they would sit for no less than three years and one day, and sometimes more than two decades.
“I doona ken what they are,” Andrew mumbled.
“Aye, ye do, lad. They’ve been the same for centuries.” Liam tried to keep his rising temper from his voice.
Glowering at the crates of moss, his son lifted a shoulder. “I canna remember.”
Setting his teeth against his frustration with his son, his steward, and his fucking buyer, he ticked the answer off on his own fingers. “Malted barley, water from the river Glan, and yeast. That’s it,” he informed them both. “I’m not adding the taste of the slag ye collect from the bogs to my whisky.”
“This peat is special grown for Scotch,” Russell said. “It’s hardly from the bogs.”
Unused to repeating himself, Liam enunciated his words very slowly. “Barley. Water. Yeast.”
Russell took one look at Liam and hopped to cover the crates. “What do ye like we should do with all this?”
“Burn it. Throw it in the sea. Wipe yer arse with it! I care not,” Liam snarled. “But I’ll flay the skin from any man’s hide that puts it near my whisky.”
“You know, Mr. Mackenzie.” A soft, husky feminine voice from behind him vibrated through every hair on Liam’s body until lust dripped like warm oil straight to his loins. “I’ve heard that peat makes an excellent addition to compost. Perhaps you can add it to the fertilizer you’re mixing in with the top layer of soil before the frost.”
“Miss Lockhart, Lady Rhianna.” Russell beamed at her, wiping a self-conscious hand over his hair and replacing the cap. “What an unexpected pleasure.”
There was no amount of controlled breath that could have prepared Liam for the sight of Miss Lockhart swathed in a simple dark gold day dress the exact color of the barley roasting in the kiln. A woolen shawl of the blue, green, and gold Mackenzie plaid rested casually over her head and shoulders. Only a little of her hair peeked from beneath it, but Liam thought that she might have worn some of it down.
How long is it? he wondered. And was it truly as silky as it appeared?
Beneath the slate-gray autumn sky, she was as vibrant as a sunset. Judging by the instantaneous change in productivity around the crop of buildings that comprised the distillery, he wasn’t the only man to notice.
The lass had addressed Russell, but her gaze traveled the length of Liam from the top of his loosely bound hair, to his open shirt, soiled kilt, and filthy boots. When she’d finished her inspection, her eyes returned to meet his, and he couldn’t exactly name what he saw there before she flicked her lashes down, but his body responded to it.
Violently.
Miss Lockhart elbowed Rhianna who stood next to her, dark curls tumbling over a lavender dress. His daughter stepped forward and performed a perfect curtsy. “Mr. Russell, Mr. Campbell, Father,” she addressed them all kindly. “Good afternoon.”
Liam reached for his daughter, then noted the soot on his hands and staining the cuffs of his shirt and kilt, and thought better of it. “Ye look like a fine grown lass today, nighean.”
Philomena Lockhart had begun to turn his wild wee daughter into a lady. She never ceased to impress him.
Goddammit.
Russell sidled closer to the governess, a solicitous smile affixed beneath his beard. “So, Miss Lockhart, what were ye saying about the peat making compost?”
“Well, Mr. Mackenzie—”
“We’re most of us ‘Mr. Mackenzie’ around here. Call me Russell.” He offered her his arm and the charismatic smile that had gotten him many prettier lasses than he deserved.
“Then you must call me Mena.” She took Russell’s offered arm and drifted with him toward the crates of moss in the yard.
Mena.
Liam had to clench his teeth to stop himself from testing the name out loud. The word was soft and round, lovely and feminine. Just like everything else about her.
The sight of her clean, soft hands resting on the sleeve of Russell’s grubby work clothes set a shimmer of antipathy through him.
Abandoning his post at the open fire to Campbell, Liam followed them over to the crates. “A governess, a carriage mechanic, and now an agriculturalist? Is there aught ye doona do, Miss Lockhart?” he challenged.
She met his antagonism with a modest smile that deepened the distracting dimple next to her lush lips. “I’m no agriculturalist, but my father did have me practice my reading from an American publication entitled The Farmer’s Almanac. While I don’t remember everything I read, I do recall that often American barley farmers would import Scottish peat moss to fertilize their fields and help stave off the blight.”
“She’s ever so clever, isna she, Father?” Rhianna exclaimed solicitously.
“Ever so.” Liam nodded, though his features tightened. “But she forgets our Scottish soil is already full of peat, and thereby adding too much can create a buildup of ammonia.”
“There is that,” Russell ceded, sliding Mena an apologetic look and patting her hand with his. “But it was a good idea, especially for a lass.”
Liam noted, with no small amount of pleasure, that Mena gently but resolutely extricated herself from Russell’s arm. Apparently, she’d had enough of his masculine supremacy.
“I have it on good authority that the extra ammonia is easily balanced with an agent like sodium bicarbonate,” she observed. “Which is not at all expensive, and you can order such a substance from most any alchemical farming supply these days and it’s shipped by train. It might put you a few days behind, but the money you would save on wasting the moss would be worth it to the operation. Not to mention the benefits you’d reap next year with abundant crops.”
A stunned silence followed her declaration in which she seemed to take great pleasure. However, instead of saying something smug, which he’d fully expected her to do, she turned to Andrew, and dismissed them altogether.
“This all looks so exciting.” She addressed Andrew with a cheeky smile. “I’ll bet you’re enjoying working with your father rather than conjugating your French verbs.”
Andrew shrugged, turning to address his sister. “What are ye doing down here?”
“I wanted to see what this is all about,” Rhianna insisted. “It isna fair that only ye get to work at the distillery.”