The Highlander (9 page)

Mena found herself wondering if those hard lips ever softened. If those heated, merciless, assessing eyes ever became languid and tender.

“I asked Lady Northwalk to send me a capable, experienced, and educated governess and she sent ye, Miss Lockhart, what do ye make of that?” His words pierced her with panic, though his tone remained neutral.

“D-did you not receive my references? My letters of recommendation? I assure you, sir, I am beyond qualified to teach your children comportment. Lady Northwalk informed me that after reading the Whitehalls'—”

“Yer references were impeccable. However, the expectations of my children differ greatly from the Whitehalls', ye ken? They were merchants,
I'm
a marquess, if ye'll believe it now.”

“A marquess who dresses like a Jacobite rebel,” she reminded him. “Forgive me for not believing you earlier, but you
were
covered in mud and ash from the fields, and I'd never met a marquess who assisted in such—physical labor.”

Ravencroft stepped forward, and Mena retreated, her hands covering the flutters in her stomach as though holding back a swarm of butterflies. “I only meant—”

“There are some, Miss Lockhart, who would argue 'tis the responsibility of a noble to oversee every aspect of work on the land he owns. And there are others who would find it mighty strange that a proper London governess kens so much about linchpins and carriage wheels.”

Mena recalled Miss LeCour's sage advice, that a lie was best told peppered with truth. “My father was a landed gentleman and avid agriculturist, as well as a scholar. I learned quite a few things at his feet as a child which included—”

“And are ye aware of how far behind schedule my men and I are because we spent all bloody afternoon saving yer stubborn hide? If ye'd allowed me to take ye on my horse, we'd not have lost the daylight.”

“I do regret my part in that,” Mena said, and meant it. “But as I was a woman traveling
alone
you can't expect—”

“Ye'll need to ken more than farm maintenance and how to distract a man with a pretty dress in order to teach my children what they'll need to know to survive in society,” he clipped.

“Well, their first lesson will be on how rude and socially unacceptable it is to consistently interrupt people in the middle of their sentences,” Mena snapped.

Oh, sweet Lord
. She could hardly believe her own behavior. Here she stood, alone and defenseless before perhaps the deadliest warrior in the history of the British Isles, and she'd just called
him
to answer for his bad manners.

Had she escaped the asylum only to go mad outside its walls?

“Go on then,” he commanded, his voice intensifying and a dark, frightening storm gathering in his countenance. “I believe ye were about to apologize for wasting my time.”

Mena actually felt her nostrils flare and a galling pit form in her belly. What was this? Temper? She'd quite thought she'd been born without one. Affection and tenderness had made up her idyllic childhood, and acrimony and terror had dominated her adult life. She'd never really had the chance to wrestle with a temper.

And wrestle it she must, or risk losing her means of escape into relative anonymity. Closing her eyes, she summoned her innate gentility along with the submissive humility she'd cultivated over half a decade with a cruel and violent husband. Opening her mouth, she prepared to deliver a finely crafted and masterful apology.

“Why aren't ye married?” the marquess demanded, again effectively cutting her off.

“I—I beg your pardon?”

“Wouldna ye rather have a husband and bairns of yer own than school other people's ill-behaved children?” His glittering eyes roamed her once again, leaving trails of quivering awareness in their wake. “Ye're rather young to wield much authority over my daughter, as ye've not more than a decade on her.”

“I have exactly a decade on her.”

He ignored her reply, as the corners of his mouth whitened with some sort of strain that Mena couldn't fathom. “Were ye a Highland lass, ye'd barely seen Rhianna's age before some lad or other had dragged ye to church to claim ye. Whether ye'd consented or not. In fact, they'd likely just take ye to wife in the biblical sense and toss yer father his thirty coin.”

Flummoxed, Mena stared at him, her mouth agape. He still seemed irate, in fact his voice continued to rise in volume and intensity. But it sounded as though he'd paid her a compliment.

“So that causes a man to wonder,” he continued. “What is a wee bonny English lass like ye doing all the way up here? Why are ye not warming the bed of a wealthy husband and whiling yer hours away on tea and society and the begetting of heirs?”

Had he just called her “wee”? Was she mistaken or didn't that word mean little?

And bonny?
Her?

A spear of pain pricked her with such force, it stole her ire and her courage along with it. Was he being deliberately cruel? Had she left one household that delighted in her humiliation and sought refuge in another?

“I don't see how that's any of your concern.” She hated the weakness in her voice, the fear she'd never quite learned how to hide.

“Everything that happens within the stones of this keep, nay, on Mackenzie lands, are of concern to me. That now includes ye. Especially since ye'll be influencing my children.” He took another step forward, and before Mena could retreat, his hand snaked out and cupped her chin.

The small, frightened sound Mena made startled them both.

Ravencroft's gaze sharpened, but he didn't release her.

Her jaw felt as substantive as glass in his hand. Mena knew it would take nothing at all for him to crush her, a simple tightening of his strong, rough fingers. His dark eyes locked on her lips, and they seemed to part of their own volition, exuding the soft rasps of her panicked breath.

He leaned down toward her, crowding her with the proximity of his forceful presence.

She saw him clearly now, as so many must have at the violent ends of their lives. Inhumanely stark features weathered by decades of discipline and brutality frowned down at her now, as though measuring her coffin.

Suddenly the fire and candles cast more shadows in the grand room than light.

Mena knew men like the laird of Ravencroft Keep rarely existed, and when they did, history made gods of them.

Or demons.

The rough pad of his thumb dragged across the split on her lip as light as a whisper. She felt his caress in her bones. And elsewhere. It raised tingling prickles of awareness on her skin and washed all the way to her core, and lower, where something soft and warm bloomed within her.

Was he going to kiss her? Mena's heart sputtered in her chest, then stalled before taking a galloping leap forward.

His own mouth parted, his lids narrowing with something that looked like heat, but also like … suspicion. His grip on her chin gentled as he turned her face slowly toward the illumination of the candelabra and lifted an unused linen from the table to gently wipe away the powder she'd applied to hide the bruise beneath her eye.

“Tell me, Miss Lockhart.” His voice gentled to a rumble. “Tell me the truth of what happened to ye.”

Mena stood stock-still, but for the little trembles seizing her limbs. She was his captive. Though he only held her jaw, she might as well have been bound at every joint.

“I a-already did.” She forced herself not to whimper as he revealed more and more of her wounds to him.

“A carriage accident,” he repeated evenly.

“Yes.” That had sounded like more of a question than an answer, and Mena closed her eyes, fully expecting him to declare his knowledge of her falsehood, to uncover the entire farce.

And what would a man like him do to someone who'd lied as completely as she had?

“My lord?” Mena winced at the breathless panic creeping into her voice.

“Aye?” he rumbled, distracted by his examination of her wounds, particularly that of her lips.

Brittle as she was, in his presence Mena felt enormously fragile and frighteningly transparent. He could do what he would with her and no one would question him. Something about the way he regarded her told her that he knew it as well as she did. She was at his absolute mercy. And she was deceiving him.

“Permit me to … that is … it isn't seemly for us to…” Her hand lifted of its own volition, and rested on his forearm as she attempted to lift her chin from his grip.

He stared at her hand resting on his suit coat for a protracted moment as though it were an insect he feared would sting him.

Then, just as abruptly as he'd seized her, the marquess let her go.

Turning away from her, he curled his hands into tight fists at his sides. “Ye'll find, Miss Lockhart, that I lack many of yer gentle English ways,” he said gruffly.

Mena couldn't think of a single reply to that, so she silently regarded the way his dinner coat strained over the uncommon width of his back.

“Ye're here for my children, and I'll thank ye to leave by the wayside any notions of turning me into something I'm not.” The firelight gleamed off a few hidden strands of silver in his dark hair as he glanced over his shoulder. “I may be a nobleman by birth, but I'm far from noble. I think it's best we stay out of each other's path. We'll not need to interact but for dinner, or if I have a concern over the children's progress.”

Mena knew he was offering her a gift, a chance to live at her discretion, so long as the objective of her employment here was accomplished.

She wanted nothing so much in all the world.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Laird,” he corrected. “In yer land, I'm the Marquess Ravencroft. In
my
land, I am the laird.
The
Mackenzie.”

He'd neglected to mention the Demon Highlander, but that was impossible to forget, especially now that she saw that demon looking out of his eyes.

“Of course.” Mena dipped in a curtsy, mostly so she no longer had to look at him. “Laird Mackenzie.”

He nodded, the firelight playing with the silhouettes and shadows of his bold features. “Ye may go.”

The moment he dismissed her, Mena made her escape, though she didn't break into a run until she'd reached the hallway. Rich brocaded tapestries blurred into a mélange of blues, greens, and golds as she rushed by them. She'd catch sight of a majestic stag, or a frolicking faerie creature, and she'd want to stop and study it, but didn't dare.

She felt the cold kiss of something on the back of her neck. Like she'd left the Highlander behind, but his demon might be following her. In fact, when she glanced behind her, the shadows seemed to merge with the suggestion of movement. She'd catch a glimpse of something—
someone
—before it was gone.

Weaving through the halls of the keep, she didn't slow until she'd found the familiar door of her room. To her surprise, she'd been stationed on the second floor of the west wing, where the family's quarters were located, rather than below stairs with the servants. She supposed, so she'd have more access to the children and they to her.

Bursting into the chamber, she pushed the door closed and turned the key, effectively locking herself inside. Collapsing against the sturdy oak, she pressed her cheek against the wood, warmed by the crackling fire someone had laid in the hearth.

She willed her galloping heart to slow and her lungs to find their rhythm as she stood against the door frame and trembled. Unbidden, her fingers found her cheek, still tingling from the strong grip of a battle-worn hand. For a man so large, with the capability of such extraordinary strength, he'd handled her gently.

She'd quite forgotten what that was like.

Turning from the door, she ventured on unsteady legs into the bedroom. Before, she'd been in too much of a rush to dress for dinner to truly take account of it. She ran her fingers across the smooth, polished wood of the dressing table and writing desk that seemed to be crafted by the same loving artisan as the mahogany poster bed.

Drifting toward the bed, she pressed on the mattress, relishing the downy softness. Greens and gold and chocolate hues added warmth to the cold stone of the walls. This keep was obviously bereft of a woman's hand, done in masculine tones and clannish draperies. But Mena found that she rather liked the gothic feel of the place. It had housed centuries of Mackenzies of Wester Ross. Its stones had seen the births of heirs, the deaths of rebels, and more than its share of monarchies. Some would claim 'twas an English castle now, with an English titled lord.

And they'd be fools.

Laird
Liam Mackenzie was a Highlander to the very marrow of his bones. His people claimed these lands before England, even before the Scots. His blood belonged to Pictish barbarians fortified with that of Viking raiders.

A thoughtful maid had turned down the bed, draped in a quilt made of the Mackenzie plaid, and fluffed the green and gold pillows for her.

Maybe dear Jani was right. Maybe there was hope that they would accept her … that she was welcome here.

By those in employ here at the keep, if not its master.

Mena pushed the laird from her mind, thinking instead of how small and simple the room was compared to her suites at Benchley Court. She'd been the lady of the house for five eternal years, and had hated every miserable second. Her husband had insisted she allow his mother, Esther St. Vincent, to decorate the home. Mena's entire suites had been done in wicker and lavender draped in gaudy pink lace.

How she'd hated it.

But even Benchley Court was preferable to the infernal whitewashed walls of Belle Glen Asylum. Pure, cold, and sterile. Full of misery and helplessness. Even through the desperately unhappy years with her husband, she'd never suspected that a pure desolation existed until Belle Glen. She'd never known that inside every soul was a void so dark and lonely that it could take months of falling to find the true end.