The Highlander (24 page)

“Well, you sound intriguing,” she'd observe as she scanned the pages. “But perhaps I'm not in the mood for something so loquacious. What about you?” She'd select another title. “A mystery might be in order.” Liam watched her, unobserved, as she fastidiously returned every book to its proper place, lining the spines just so. She never read in the library, favoring the conservatory that looked out over the hill leading down to the sea.

A creature of the sunlight was Miss Lockhart. The very memory of her voice calmed and inflamed him at the same time.

“Miss Lockhart took Andrew up to bed right after you left,” Jani informed him.

“Aye,” Rhianna confirmed. “He said he wasna feeling well, which solves a mystery because they disappeared twice today and I couldna find them. They were likely down in the kitchens going through the apothecary cabinet.”

Liam nodded, speared with a pang of guilt that he'd been too preoccupied to notice that his son may have been ill. “I'll go look in on him,” he muttered, his notice snagging on the intimate coziness of the room. The crackling fire, the soft light, the fragrant spices.

The glow in Jani's eyes when he looked at Rhianna.

“I trust that ye'll not be up late,” he said carefully. “I'll send Miss Lockhart down to keep ye company.”

To make certain they weren't alone together for too long.

“We can stop now, if you would rather,” Jani said alertly.

“No!” Rhianna protested. “Ye only want to stop because ye're losing. Miss Lockhart says ye'll never learn unless ye see it to the end. Now sit back down and take yer medicine like a man.”

Jani remained standing, his eyes locked on Liam's as he awaited his orders. As always deferential. Faithful. Suspicion melted into a gruff sort of affection and Liam cleared his throat, cursing the fact that drink always brought the emotion that constantly roiled within him bubbling to the surface and threatening to overflow.

“Take it easy on him,
nighean
.” Liam summoned a smile for his daughter.

“Ha! Never!” She pointed to Jani's vacated seat. “I'm going to wallop ye, see if I don't.”

Liam turned away, thinking morosely that no one had ever regarded him with the patient tenderness the evening fire illuminated on Jani's sharp, young features when he looked at Rhianna.

Concern for Andrew propelled him up the grand staircase and to the west wing of the castle where his family slept. Where his governess resided. His stride faltered when he passed her closed door. Candlelight slanted over the dark hall from beneath it, and Liam found himself wondering, not for the first time, what she did in the privacy of her own chamber. He would picture her there, letting her hair down and brushing it with long, thoughtful strokes. Or perhaps she'd be in the bath, soaping her creamy skin, her shoulders, her breasts, her white thighs.

And higher. Running her fingers through soft auburn curls, shades darker than her hair and slipping into the folds of—

Liam growled as a twinge of lust seized the muscles beneath his belt and drove blood south until he clenched his teeth against the swelling beneath his kilt.

Now was not the time for that. In fact, it would never be time for that. Not when it came to her.

Andrew's suite was three doors past the governess's, and Liam knocked first, in case the boy was still awake. When no response was issued from inside, he swung the door open.

“Andrew?” His voice echoed in the quiet darkness. Venturing forward, he made a quick perusal of the disheveled sheets of his son's vacant bed.

A deep intake of breath followed the paroxysm of an illogical suspicion. Liam tried to push it away, but it embedded in his skull like the sharp end of a pick, driven with such force he winced.

Since that day in the distillery yard, when the Scotch barrel … escaped, Andrew and his lovely governess had been thick as thieves. They thought Liam didn't notice their surreptitious glances. The warmth and pleasure that touched Mena's pretty mouth when she smiled and winked at his son had, on more than one occasion, licked him with troubling and unreasonable notions.

He'd thought the covetousness had been aroused by the obvious fondness blooming amid the two. Because of the distance between Liam and his son, and the intensity between him and Miss Lockhart, the ease and affection with which Andrew and she treated each other these past few days had been enviable.

But what if he'd been blind to something altogether more illicit? What if, in his own desire for the luscious woman, he'd missed a blooming dynamic that was not only troubling, but predatory?

Liam's own initial sexual experience had been with an older woman. Like Andrew, he'd been a tall boy. Pretty, angular, and rapacious. He'd drawn the attentions of girls and women alike, and had learned quickly what they'd wanted from him.

And what he could take from them.

Something dark and brutal twisted in his gut. A stab of murderous rage that caused a red jealousy to bleed into the wound. Would a woman like Mena Lockhart dare trifle with the son of the Demon Highlander? He wasn't certain. Hadn't Rhianna said Andrew and Mena had disappeared together today? Liam, himself, had noticed that they'd seemed to avoid him more than once.

Head swimming with the Scotch he'd had with dinner—had it been three or four snifters?—and whatever had been in the decanter thereafter, Liam stalked out of his son's empty room and pointed his boots at the light beneath Mena Lockhart's door. He let the dread that weighed down his organs bloom into the familiar anger that he usually fought, but now embraced.

Ravencroft Keep was full of secrets, and one by one, he was determined to ferret them out.

And deliver swift and retributive justice.

 

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

Mena had been dressing for bed, and therefore was completely nude when her door exploded open with such force that it rattled the stones of the keep.

She was too startled to even scream.

Incomprehension stole the ability of movement from her limbs as she recognized the swarthy figure filling her door frame. He was the size of a small mountain. Dark as the night that surrounded them, and every bit as tempestuous.

Their gazes clashed and held as he stood equally as solid at her threshold. Hers wide and horrified, his narrowed and furious.

He was so savagely masculine. Relentless. Unstoppable. For a moment, as Mena stood lit by the lone lantern on the writing desk, she couldn't bring herself to move. It was the
naked
hunger etched into his chiseled features that arrested her for a breath longer than it should have. She'd never in her life had someone look at her like that. Like his yearning caused him physical pain. His skin drew tighter against the sharp bones, lending the intensity of his stare a stark, ruthless cast.

His hard mouth went slack at the sight of her, and his chest rattled as though he struggled to fill it with breath. He looked every inch the barbaric Highlander from the painting on the stairs. Hair wild down to his shoulders, eyes flashing with the ferocity of an apex predator, and muscles cording with incomparable strength. Nothing moved but the flare of his nostrils as he stared at her.

His eyes touched every part of her. Even parts that may never have been touched before. They flashed with lightning, singing along her nerves with electric currents of heat. A sultry, answering thunder whipped through her, calling forth a storm so unexpected, she almost felt betrayed by her own body.

Her nipples, already tight from the chill, budded painfully. The sensation drew a shocked gasp from her as it tingled and flushed from her breasts all the way down her belly to settle in a wet rush between her thighs.

Jesus,
God,
what was she doing? What must he think?

Scrambling for the bed, she stood behind it, yanking her counterpane up to her neck and struggling to wrap it around her exposed body.

Perhaps she misinterpreted his stare. It was anger, not hunger, surely. Now that he'd seen her without her corset, he'd have marked the softness of her belly, the round flares of her thighs, and the grotesque way everything jiggled as she ran for the cover.

“What—what the devil are you doing here?” she gasped around a lump of mortification in her throat. His boot made a foreboding heavy sound as, instead of apologizing or explaining, he breached the threshold of her room.

Her mind instantly went from blank with shock to racing with terror. Had he found out who she was, somehow? Was he here to demand answers? To force her back to London and once again into bondage? Dear God,
what
?

“Where is he?” the marquess boomed in a voice loud enough to shake the windows in their frames. She could make out the question, though the edges of the words ran together, as though he had a hard time enunciating them.

“Who on earth do you mean?” she asked, as his eyes tore away from her and searched her room with frenetic observation.

“Ye ken full well who I mean.” He stalked toward her turret, searched in the tub, and opened the doors to her wardrobe.

“I have—I have no idea who you're talking about,” she breathed around the disbelief trying to paralyze her tongue.

“Doona play coy with me,” he threatened, batting his way through the silk, crinoline, and cotton he found, parting the folds of her clothing as he would dense foliage. “The two of ye have been thick as thieves. I doona know why I failed to see it before now.”

Distraught, Mena tried to make sense of his slurred accusations whilst also yanking the blanket from where it was tucked beneath the mattress so she could wrap herself in it more completely. Had Gavin—Lord Thorne—told him lies about what had or, more appropriately,
hadn't
occurred between them? Closing her eyes against a wave of panic, she prayed such was not the case.

“You won't find him here,” she said, hating the desperation in her voice. “I'm quite alone.”

He slammed the door to her wardrobe, and it bespoke the craftsmanship that the furniture remained intact. “I know ye're hiding something from me,” he thundered, his long stride eating up the distance between them until he towered over her.

Mena shrank back from him, tears of terror pricking behind her eyes.

He sank to his knees and flipped the bed skirt up to check beneath it.

“I promise, there's no one in this room but you and me. Please,” she pleaded. “Please leave.”

“I know what ye've done.” In a swift and graceful move, he rose and seized her, his hand clamping around her upper arm. Not hard enough to hurt, but Mena knew she had no chance to escape. “Confess, and I will be lenient, but lie to me…” He let the threat trail away, though his eyes vowed retribution.

Mena's limbs went numb with fear and all the moisture deserted her mouth. She'd been threatened before. Struck. Shoved. Even choked once. She remembered the sickening sounds of fists connecting with her flesh. The strange way it took the pain a delayed moment to register. The sight of her own blood. The taste of it in her mouth. How the pain used to confuse and astound her. She'd been treated so gently as a child, and she'd always wanted to do well. To please those she loved and lived with.

But she learned soon enough. To expect the pain, to anticipate it. To see it coming and mitigate the damage.

Such skills would be useless against the brutal-featured giant gripping her arm. He could kill her with a single blow; snap her bones with a flick of his wrist.

“T-tell me what you think is going on here,” she cried. “I swear to you, my laird, I've never had anyone in here with me.”

Even in his inebriated state, he seemed to register the terror in her voice, because he instantly released her. “Then where is my son?” he demanded. “Where is Andrew?”

She blinked. Opened her mouth, closed it. Then blinked again.

“Andrew?” she echoed, quite mystified. Had he misspoken? Didn't he refer to his brother, Gavin St. James?

Whirling away from her, Liam skirted her bed and stalked back to the door. “He's not in his room, or the ground floor. I was told he was ill. I need to find my son.”

A new fear dawned on Mena as the unsteady Scot disappeared into the hall. Andrew was likely still outside with Rune, and if Liam was on alert—

“Just what the bloody hell is this?” the marquess roared.

Oh, no
. Dropping the counterpane, Mena dashed across the room to the stand where her robe hung, and she snatched, donned, and belted it in one frenzied move.

“Doona be angry, Father,” Andrew was saying, as Mena nearly stumbled over her feet in her haste to reach the door. She turned the corner to see Andrew facing her, clutching a squirming puppy in the crook of his chest and crossing his other arm over his body as though to shield Rune from his father's infamous wrath.

“Angry doesna begin to describe it,” Ravencroft bit out. “How long have ye been keeping the beast from me?”

Both father and son's blue-black hair gleamed beneath the gas lamps in the hall, and Mena saw a temper that could mature to rival that of his father's flashing in Andrew's paler eyes. “She's been in the keep for two weeks now,” the boy stated. “And ye havena even noticed. What harm is there in keeping her?”

“Two.
Weeks?
” The words were growled from deep below the marquess's ribs. A preternatural stillness settled upon Ravencroft's enormous shoulders like the shroud of death as Mena hurried to place herself between the boy and his fuming father.

Once Mena faced off with the Demon Highlander, she came to understand that the more still he became, the wider his lids peeled away from his deep-set eyes, the more true danger they faced.

Lord, but he was the most fearsome man. Had Andrew not been behind her, she would have stepped back. But she drew what strength she must to protect the boy from his anger.