The Highlander (43 page)

Jani's eyes widened until they seemed to engulf half of his angular features. “You—you are not going to kill me?”

“Nay.” Liam glanced at Mena and their gazes held. “There has been enough of that today.”

“You are a more forgiving man than I, brother,” Dorian remarked. “Usually if a man shoots me, I shoot him back … and then some.”

Liam took slow and steady steps toward Mena, whose first impulse was to retreat.

But she was done with that now, Mena decided. Done with being afraid. Of backing away when she should stand her ground. She was no longer helpless, or hopeless.

Or faultless.

The first thing she needed to do was face the consequences of her actions.

“I have recently learned the meaning of such words as
forgiveness
and
redemption
.” Liam approached her with narrowed eyes, as though trying to figure a battle strategy.

“Let's retire to the parlor,” Farah suggested, shooing her many guests into the azure room they'd only just vacated. “I'm certain we have keys for those chains around here somewhere, and poor Jani looks as though he needs to sit down.”

“I could stand here a little longer,” Gavin quipped, watching Liam and Mena with sardonic interest.

“Lord Thorne, I presume?” Dorian stepped to Gavin and hesitated before holding out his hand. “I've waited a long time to meet you.” The two shook hands, mirror images of each other in all but their coloring.

“Dorian Blackwell.” Gavin carefully extracted his hand from Dorian's grip. “Or should I say ‘Dougan Mackenzie'?”

“A long and interesting story.” Blackwell gestured to the door opposite the parlor across the grand entry. “Might I invite you to my study for a drink?”

And then Mena and Liam were alone with nothing but the sound of her rapid breath echoing off the grand marble entry.

His stare was relentless but not hard. Aggressive, but not angry. He stood an arm's length from her, towering over her like a monolith of potent masculinity, yet he reached for her with nothing but his gaze. It touched her everywhere, as though she were a specimen he'd never seen before. As if he couldn't make her out, or fathom what—or who—she was.

Mena knew this was her chance, her only chance to apologize for the wrong she'd perpetrated against Liam and his family.

“I cannot excuse what I've done,” she began, surprising herself by how her fervency steadied her voice, though the rest of her shook for want of the warmth of his touch. “When I escaped … when I accepted the position at Ravencroft as Mena Lockhart, I felt as though this world had truly carved me away from myself. I no longer knew who I was, so becoming someone else seemed permissible. Harmless, even. It was though everyone I ever knew, everyone I should have been able to trust, wanted to tear my very flesh from my bones and feed me to the vultures.” Tears she did not feel coming spilled down her cheeks as emotion swept over her, causing her flesh to prickle with it.

“I didn't know,” she whispered. “I didn't know there was someone like you in this world of cruel and callous men. I thought … I thought my future was a dark and barren corridor with a bolted door at the end of it. And when I ran, my only care was for what I ran from. I didn't stop to think where—or
who
—I ran to. I didn't know it was your arms that would make me feel safe for the first time since I could remember. I didn't know that your face would become so dear. That your children would steal my heart. That I would learn to trust the very man I so thoroughly deceived.”

Mena swiped at her cheeks, despairing at the unchanging expression on Liam's sinister features. She couldn't at all decipher what he was feeling, but he had to know the depth of her regrets, though they did neither of them any good.

“We talked once of forgiveness and redemption, and I want you to know that I neither expect nor deserve that,” she continued. “I have wronged you so absolutely, and I wish I could take it all back, but all I can say is that wounding you, Rhianna, and Andrew in any way will forever be my most profound regret and my darkest shame. For I hold no others on this earth so beloved.”

Clamping her lips together, she blinked her tears away so she could clearly see what fury was to follow.

“Are ye quite finished?” Liam asked shortly.

Swallowing a fresh wave of hopelessness, Mena nodded mutely, awaiting his wrath like a traitor would the gallows.

He was silent a moment as he studied her with bright eyes, his nostrils flaring with the force of his barely controlled breath. When he finally spoke, it was low and even.

“I am a man who has known little but suspicion and violence. I spent my life too much in the company of competitors or adversaries. I thought I'd been born under a bad star, cursed to live a brutal life. I, too, retreated to Ravencroft Keep, and there I found that I sought solitude, even from those who needed me. I was too much alone …

“And then ye came, and ye were in every room. In every corner of my every thought. I could not escape ye, Mena, and then suddenly, I didna want to. I found myself seeking ye out because somehow I knew that I couldna be apart from ye. It was the first happiness I ever knew to look into yer eyes. Ye taught me the meanings to words other than
forgiveness
and
redemption
.
Desire. Yearning
. And
love
. Ye are my blanket of stars, Mena, my reason to look to the heavens. My map when I am lost and my point of light when all is dark.”

Mena released her breath on a sob, and then another as Liam's hard expression melted into the most tender regard she'd ever before seen. Relief didn't seem like a strong enough word for the reaction coursing through her.

Had he said
love
? It was a word that had carefully eluded them until this moment.

Finally, he reached out and hauled her against his body, crushing his lips to hers in a searing, searching kiss. Branding her with his heat before pulling back to gaze down at her.

“I would make ye my wife,” he murmured.

The word froze in the air between them and Mena went rigid. She was barely a widow … not only that, she was a woman of scandal. All of London knew she'd been institutionalized. That she was barren. To marry her could be his social undoing. She'd been a miserable failure as a viscountess, how in the world could she become a marchioness?

Liam's grip tightened as though he feared her escape. “I know I'm hard man to love, Mena. A difficult man to live with. I'm a flawed brute with a famous temper. But I want ye to know that I'd cut off my own arm before I'd strike ye. That I'd kill myself before I'd ever cause ye harm. Doona fear me, Mena.”

Her heart melted into a puddle of warmth in her chest. “Is that why you think I hesitated?”

“I remember how frightened ye were of yer own shadow when ye came to Ravencroft. And now ye said that yer experiences had carved ye away from yerself, but I think ye ken well enough who ye are now. I wouldna be the man who took away yer will, Mena. Still less that husband. I doona mean to ever govern ye. Yer life, yer desires, they would be yer own. I would lay claim to yer heart, lass, and to yer body and soul, as well. But ye see, I canna possess those things without losing myself. Ye own me, Mena. I would never be the master of yer will, but there is no question that ye are the mistress of my heart. And I'd make ye the mistress of the Mackenzie clan as well.”

Mena placed trembling fingers over his mouth to stop the flood. She could hear no more or her heart might burst. He was handing her a fantasy tonight, but reality awaited them when the sun rose.

“What about Rhianna and Andrew?” she asked. “What about the fact that I am a barren and disgraced woman? You must think about that before offering me your hand.”

He kissed her fingers and offered her a crooked smile that melted years from his savage, weathered features. “Well, everyone would think ye a bit daft to marry the Demon Highlander to begin with.”

Despite herself, Mena felt the whisper of a laugh bubble in her throat.

“My children love ye, Mena,” he continued. “They are as blessed to have ye in their lives as I am. And even if I had no heir, I'd chose ye to be mine.”

“Oh, Liam,” Mena breathed, unable to express her joy.

“It's not as though there arena enough Mackenzies under this very roof to take the title if it didna pass to Andrew,” he said wryly.

“I love you, Liam,” she blurted, unable to keep the words inside. “I thought I'd lost you and I couldn't bear it. It was the one thing I didn't think I'd survive.”

“Ye'll never have to,” he vowed. “The sun will rise in the west before I stop loving ye, Mena mine.” Dipping his head, he captured her lips in a tender kiss.

Mena mine
. He'd called her that.

A name she knew she'd always answer to. For now she truly knew who she was, and looked forward to who they would become.

Together.

 

E
PILOGUE

Ravencroft Keep, Wester Ross, Scotland,

Late October 1882

Four years later

“Keep your dirty hands off me, William Grant Ruaridh Mackenzie, or we'll never be done with this in time to bathe and meet Andrew at the train,” Mena Mackenzie admonished firmly as she slapped her husband's grasping fingers away from where they teased at her waist and were drifting toward her breasts.

“I was under the impression, Lady Ravencroft, that ye like it when I'm dirty.” Liam said from behind her where she stood and gathered the orders from the distillery office desk. His lips lowered and danced across her exposed neck, sending familiar shivers across her entire body. “We'll send Jani for the train,” he rumbled before nipping at her ear in that way he knew made her instantly wet with desire.

Mena knew what she would find when she turned around. A brawny, soot-streaked Highlander fresh from singing the oak casks over the open fire, muscles thick and bulging from a day's hard work and dark eyes blazing with an even dirtier intent. She'd be lost to his masculine seduction if she gave in to the temptation to turn and admire him, so she did the only thing she could think of to save her dignity. And her time. She called out to the new fore
woman
of Ravencroft Distillery, whose own office was only across the hall.

“Rhianna!”

Her husband growled and swatted her bottom before he stepped back to a more respectful distance as a great deal of frantic shuffling preceded a bevy of footfalls in the hallway.

“Ye'll pay for that,” the laird vowed.

“Promise?” Mena threw a coquettish smile over her shoulder as the office door exploded open and a rather disheveled Rhianna stumbled into the room tucking untidy curls back into place.

“Ye called?” she asked breathlessly, wiping at moist, bee-stung lips and her rumpled blouse. The young lady's lovely eyes widened with panic as she noted the laird lurking behind Mena.

“Father!” she exclaimed rather loudly. “I … thought ye were at the kilns burning barrels.”

“I was,” Liam said slowly, as though trying to piece together whatever information he was missing. “We're finished for the day, and I'm after going to meet Andrew at the train.”

“Please inform Jani that we'll need to ready two extra carriages for the ride to Strathcarron Station,” Mena told her.

“Jani?” Rhianna squeaked. “I would have to go find him. I havena the slightest idea where he is. I will go and … do that right now. Find him. As he is not here.”

Mena's eyebrows rose, as she'd seen Jani's tall frame tiptoe past her office door only a quarter hour past and slip into Rhianna's office. A sly smile spread across her lips as she realized just who was responsible for Rhianna's dishabille.

Apparently, Jani had decided to finally throw caution to the wind and claim the woman he loved. After four years, relationships had mended and reparations had been made, and Liam and Jani were close as ever. Jani was once again part of the family, and now Mena wondered if that was going to become more legitimate in short order.

Rhianna, now twenty-one, was a grown woman. A businesswoman. As Andrew had decided that school, industry, and politics interested him more than the family business. Liam had impressed Mena by heartily embracing the idea of his daughter inheriting the distillery rather than his son.

“Yes, do go and find Jani and we'll meet you both at the keep.” Rhianna's panicked expression faded as Mena winked at her meaningfully and gestured to Rhianna's office with her eyes.

“Of course,” Rhianna said in a breathless huff, backing out of the office. “Thank ye!” Her stepdaughter dashed away, and Mena knew she and Jani would use the side entry as an escape route.

“Why would we need two carriages to pick up my son?” Liam queried, missing the entire subtlety of their interaction.

Mena finally turned to look at him, marveling that even after four years of married life, her husband still took her breath away with his wicked good looks and the demonic glitter of mischief in his eye.

“Because this year for the Samhain celebration, we're having a few extra guests,” she said brightly.

Liam's eyes narrowed. “Like who?”

“Oh, just family and close friends. Such as Farah and Dorian, Gavin and his new bride, and then we can't forget His Grace, Lord Trenwyth and his rather scandalous duchess. Argent and Millie can't make it as they're still touring America with the theater company, but they'll meet us at Ben More Castle for Christmas and…”

Her grim husband blinked thrice before reaching for her, effectively cutting her off. “Now ye have two things to pay for, and I'll collect my due before I'm inundated with relatives,” he said wickedly.

“Very well.” Mena pretended to be put out as she bustled to the door to lock it before turning back to her husband with a sensual grin.