The Highlander (10 page)

And contained in the depths therein was only madness.

She hadn't thought about Belle Glen since she'd left. Hadn't allowed herself a moment to process the fact that she'd truly been rescued from the brink of utter despair. That if Dorian Blackwell had been seconds later, she might have been raped.

No
. Mena ripped the ribbon from her neck, as it suddenly felt too confining. She didn't allow herself to consider it. She needn't mourn. Needn't dwell on what was before, or might have been.

She'd stay busy, stay distracted, it was the only way to cope and thereby forget.

Mena remembered that she'd seen a wardrobe tucked in a small round turret just past the fireplace. Perhaps she should unpack. Though it would be better to prepare a plan for the children tomorrow and leave unpacking unnecessary things for later. Thinking of the wardrobe, she swept into the little round turret room.

And froze.

Something inside her shriveled as she spied what sat in the center of the room, awaiting none but her. Her heart kicked over again, and she could feel her features crumpling. Though she didn't want to, she took small, plodding steps forward, forcing herself to approach what might become a nightmare.

What if she'd been dreaming this all along? The dashing and piratical Blackheart of Ben More. Farah and Millie. Her new clothes, her new identity.

Her second chance.

What if awaiting inside that large, gleaming, pristine white bathtub … was nothing but ice?

Mena gritted her teeth and ignored the sting of a lone tear as it slipped from eyes blurred with emotion. She pulled the glove from her arm, revealing fingers white and leached of blood. Reaching out trembling fingertips, she forced herself to dip them below the surface of the water.

A sob escaped her. Then another.

Finally her legs could handle her weight no longer, and she crumpled to the floor. But as the strength and courage she'd learned the last few days ripped from her throat in raw, ragged sobs, so did the grief, the rage, and the terror.

The bath, it had been real.

And it had been very,
very
warm.

 

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

“One, two, three. One, two, three. Ouch!” Mena hopped back on one foot after rescuing her other from beneath the heel of Rhianna's boot.

Again.

“Oh, Miss Lockhart, I'm so sorry!” the girl cried, following her as Mena hobbled away and collapsed onto a plump couch by the window in the solarium. “I'm hopeless at the waltz. I doona think I'll ever become comfortable with dancing backward.”

“It's all right.” Mena soothed both the girl and her own smarting toes. “The waltz isn't easy to master.” She'd picked this room for dancing as its windows and French doors opened onto the balcony overlooking the sea, and a lovely piano hunkered on a plush carpet. The nursery-turned-classroom was a dreary place, and Mena had formulated a plan to relocate to a more cheerful set of rooms.

She'd begun the day with some classic literature and rudimentary French. After she'd found Andrew tucking a penny dreadful behind his Jonathan Swift, and listening to both the children reduce the language of love to the equivalent of a verbal assault, Mena decided that music and a dance lesson would provide a welcome diversion. Often she'd found the mind operated more usefully after dancing. Almost as though the music and rhythmic exercise opened pathways of thought not established on one's own.

Evidently in the case of the Mackenzie children, she'd been mistaken.

Rhianna proved a willing and eager pupil, if not particularly accomplished. Though Andrew treated Mena with a solemnity bordering on contempt. He was, however, a brilliant musician, and played the pianoforte with effortless style and technique.

Mena was able to ascertain that they'd suffered a slew of tutors and governesses intermittently over the years. They'd been taught the basics of reading, writing, arithmetic, and history. But as they grew, their governesses had all deserted them in short order. Their knowledge of economics, refinement, conversation, etiquette, French, music theory, and the social arts was all but nonexistent.

Well, she was a viscountess, by Jove, and a gentleman's daughter before that. She had mastered every British social policy, written and otherwise. There was no one more qualified to guide them than her. She was determined to succeed, not just because she needed this position to guard her secrets, but because the Mackenzie children desperately needed to learn what she could teach them.

And their father knew it.

“Come, Andrew,” she prompted. “Why don't you dance with your sister, and let me play the piano? I need a rest.”

“I doona dance,” he informed her, studying his fingers curled against the piano keys.

“That doesn't matter,” she said encouragingly. “I'll teach you, then, while Rhianna practices her piano. We can go slowly.”

“Nay, I didna say I doona know how. I said I doona dance.” He thrust his jaw forward; his eyes alight with stubborn rebellion.

“But how are you going to impress the young ladies unless you perfect your waltz?” she tempted him.

“I have no desire to impress anyone,” he spat.

Mena glanced to the window, longing to bask in the rare autumn sunlight instead of Andrew's dark mood. Clouds loomed in the distance, but right now the sun sparkled off the sea and illuminated the peaks of Skye. After so long in Belle Glen, she yearned to feel the warmth on her face, to wander unimpeded through the forest.

But for now, she must teach.

Gathering as much kindness as she could from behind her frayed nerves, she approached the piano and reached for the boy. “Please, dear,” she cajoled. “I confess that I'm not the best at leading, and so it's not fair to your sister. I'm not used to dancing the gentleman's part.”

“Ye should be,” Andrew muttered, flinching away from her. “Ye've the stature of one.”

Mena snatched her hand back as Andrew lunged from the bench and stalked toward the west door of the solarium.

“Andrew, doona be an arse!” Rhianna called after him.

Jani crossed the threshold carrying a tray laden with their afternoon tea. The two nearly collided, ruining Andrew's chance for a dramatic exit and allowing Mena to recover from her astonishment at his hurtful outburst. Andrew made a rude noise at a startled Jani before attempting to circumnavigate him.

“Andrew Mackenzie.” Mena enunciated the syllables in his name as she'd heard her father do when she'd been in trouble as a girl. The enunciation, when applied with a low register, always brought her to heel. “If you don't want me to have a lengthy discussion with your father this afternoon, you will apologize to Jani for your haste, relieve him of his tray, and bring it here.”

The room was as silent as a mausoleum as they waited for Andrew to move. The youth muttered something that must have been an apology to a wide-eyed Jani, and then took the tea tray from his hands. The threat of his father was an effective one, but not one Mena had wanted to use. This was no way to establish trust, or a genial relationship, but she couldn't allow such behavior. Left unchecked, a boy with such terrible angst could grow into a cruel man.

And the world had enough of those already.

Andrew set the tea tray none too gently on the solarium table and stood before her as rigid as a gallows post.

“When you quit a room with ladies present, you will bow and excuse yourself first.” Though confrontation of any kind had always made her feel shaky and ill, Mena narrowed her eyes to meet his discourteous glare with one of authority. “I won't ask for an apology, because I won't accept a disingenuous one, but your father hired me to teach you how to behave in polite society. I intend to do my job, whether you wish me to or not.”

Repugnance gathered in his stormy eyes and his thin frame shook with rage, but after a tense moment, wherein Mena didn't allow herself to breathe, he bowed to her. “If ye ladies will excuse me.” His voice could have dried the Nile, but Mena gave him a tight nod, and watched him march away with a sadness clenched in her heart. What made the boy so angry?

She read abundant approval in Jani's meaningful look, but it did nothing to lift her spirits. She would rather ingratiate herself to Andrew, or at the very least have a civil interaction. Her unsteady legs gave way, and she plunked onto the piano bench without a modicum of poise or grace.

“Some tea, Miss Rhianna.” Jani's voice was smooth as the crimson silk he wore while he poured Rhianna her tea and handed her the dainty china cup. His eyes were pools of liquid bronze as he waited on his mistress.

Intrigued, Mena watched their interaction.

Rhianna barely glanced up at Jani, though she thanked him politely.

He bowed to Mena, and then back to Rhianna, his head dipped in a way that, Mena suspected, hid the worship shining in his eyes. “Do you require anything of me?” he asked, and the hopeful deference in his voice nearly broke Mena's heart.

Oblivious to his reverence, Rhianna shook her head, her dark curls bouncing against her shoulders. “No, thank ye, Jani.”

“Summon me, ladies, if there is need.” He made no noise as he gracefully strode away.

“Doona listen to a word my brother says, Miss Lockhart,” Rhianna pleaded, rushing to her side the moment they were left alone. “I'd
murder
someone to be as tall and elegant as ye. Ye willna let Andrew drive ye away?”

Mena looked into the girl's dark eyes and softened at the desperation she saw there. A girl on the cusp of womanhood, bereft of a mother or any steady governesses to bring her up. To teach her how to be a woman. Mena ran a fond hand over Rhianna's obsidian curls, and then patted her on the hand.

“I'm made of sterner stuff than that, I'm afraid.” She smiled. “It'll take more than a few jibes to be rid of me.”

Rhianna immediately brightened. “I suppose ye'll have to tell Father,” she goaded with an exaggerated sigh.

Mena chewed at her lip while she considered it. “Well, Andrew
did
excuse himself,” she said. “I see no reason to bring your father into it.”

As she regarded her from behind long black lashes, the lively girl's mouth curved mischievously. “What do ye think of my father, Miss Lockhart? Think ye he is handsome?”

Taken aback, Mena put a hand to her fluttering stomach, willing the sudden upset to quiet. “What a question!” she remarked.

“It's all right to admit it. I willna say a thing.” Rhianna wiggled her dark brows. “There are many women in the clan who think my father is quite handsome. I only wanted to know if an Englishwoman would agree.”

“Well…” Mena floundered, unsure of how to proceed. Ambiguity, she decided, was the most diplomatic route. “I don't believe male aesthetics differ so much between England and Scotland.” Though she was beginning to think that female aesthetics did. “It doesn't at all surprise me that your father, being a marquess and a hero of the crown, is an attractive prospect for some women.”

“That's not what I asked,” Rhianna said cheekily, smoothing the skirt of her lovely yellow frock. “I asked if
ye
find him handsome.”

Mena pressed her lips together, an image of the marquess rearing in her mind's eye. His forbidding presence last night at dinner, his abundant black hair caught up in a sleek queue, and his eyes smoldering with dark flames. His massive body contained by the trappings of a gentleman crowding her so close, she could still smell the sweetness of the soufflé on his breath.

Though it was the memory of him as he'd been at their first meeting that often leaped unbidden into her errant thoughts. Rain streaming from his loose hair, his thick legs burnished a tawny hue, as though he often bared them to the sunlight. Eyes that flashed with wrath and temper and masculine potency.

Was he handsome? Not in the traditional sense of the word. Not like Gordon, her husband, was handsome. Lean and elegant with haughty, aristocratic features.

Laird Mackenzie was much too large, his features too fierce and barbaric to be considered elegant. But, she supposed, he held a particular masculine allure. Especially when he spoke. The gravel in his voice lent his brogue an extraordinary depth that delighted her senses like the deep roar of the ocean cresting against stone.

“There's no polite way to tell a sweet girl that her father is brutish, old, and unsightly, is there, Miss Lockhart?” As though he'd been evoked by her improper thoughts of him, the marquess's resonant voice drifted to her from the doorway behind them. “Therefore, Rhianna, it's an impolite question to ask.”

Mena leaped to her feet, almost upsetting the piano bench, and whirled to face him.

He stood with his wide shoulder resting against the arched entry. There was a Sisyphean quality to his stature that suggested it was the laird who supported the weight of the castle stones, rather than the other way around.

Lord, but he
was
handsome. There was no denying it, not to herself or anyone. He'd again donned the garb of the clannish rebel warrior. The cotton of his thin shirt molded against the swells of his chest. The rolled cuffs exposed tanned forearms that flexed beneath her stupefied gaze. He'd left his hair loose, and a few strands of silver gleamed in the rays of sun piercing the solarium with warmth. This was a laird she hadn't yet encountered. His expression as casual as the low sling of the Mackenzie kilt on his hips, he sauntered toward them.

Mena fought with a heavy, dry tongue to form a proper greeting as she inched away from Rhianna, trying to put space between her and the approaching marquess. Why, oh why, did he insist on saying things to which there was no proper response?

And why did every nerve in her body seem to stand at attention at his nearness?

“Ye are such a brute, Father,” Rhianna teased, rising on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on his stubbled cheek. “But that doesna mean ye arena the most handsomest man in Wester Ross. Or perhaps all of Scotland. Every lass says so.”