The Highlander (11 page)

“
Most
handsome,” Mena corrected instinctively over the piano she'd placed in between them.

Ravencroft's eyes sharpened, his features tightened, and Mena met a look so searing, she thought her clothing might catch flame if he did not glance away.

Realizing what her correction had insinuated, she hurried to cover the mistake. “Not
most handsomest
,” she elaborated. “But handsomest is also correct.”

Rhianna's giggle did little to help the situation.

“That is,
most handsomest
is incorrect … in that sentence, not that you're not … most…” Burning with mortification, Mena puffed out a beleaguered breath.

Though he didn't smile, a dangerous heat lurked beneath the amusement dancing in the laird's eyes.

The longer he stared at her, the tighter her corset became. Mena's hands flew to the lace cravat at her bodice. She thought it had given her an air of professional respectability, but now it just seemed to strangle her over the high neck of her russet gown.

“Andrew refused to dance with Miss Lockhart, Father,” Rhianna tattled, ignoring the sharp look from Mena. “He was unaccountably rude.”

The merriment in his eyes died. “What? How?” the laird demanded.

Mena took a step forward. “It really wasn't as bad as all that.”

“He said that Miss Lockhart was built like a man.”

Ravencroft's eyes touched on all the abundant curves that distinctly established Mena as a woman.

“My. Son. Said.
What?
” The careful enunciation of each low word as darkness gathered on the laird's features filled Mena with no small sense of alarm for Andrew.

Gorging on the drama of it all, Rhianna became even more animated, though Mena had previously thought it impossible. “Yes! And Miss Lockhart made him apologize to Jani and excuse himself before he left. Ye should have seen how angry he was.”

“Rhianna!” Mena reproached.

“Did she, indeed?” The laird's brows lifted and some of his wrath seemed to flicker and melt away.

“Please.” Mena inched around the piano toward the towering Scot and his daughter. “I was going to let this incident pass quietly. Andrew and I have yet to bond … and sometimes, I think, boys at that age have difficulty adjusting to such situations…” She paused, her guilt at her lack of true experience with such things making it difficult to meet the sardonic eyes of her employer. “It—it really is quite normal,” she lied as she ran a restless hand over the gleaming polished wood of the instrument, following the delicate grain with the sensitive pads of her fingertips in rhythmic strokes.

When she gathered the courage to glance up, she found Ravencroft's eyes also focused on her stroking fingers with an alarming intensity. Curling her fingers, she quickly hid her hand behind her back.

“All right, Miss Lockhart. Ye're the expert.” He didn't look entirely convinced. “But I'll not have my son behaving like a barbarian.”

“I understand,” Mena murmured, thinking that the distinction was strange coming from such a man as him.

Kissing his daughter on the forehead, he finally allowed his hard mouth to curve slightly. “There is only room for one at a time in this keep, eh,
nighean
?”

“Aye, Father,” Rhianna replied warmly.

Something tight and fearful unfurled from inside Mena and dissipated as she observed a tender moment bloom between father and daughter. Liam Mackenzie might be the Demon Highlander, but he loved his children. So why, she wondered, had he spent so much time away from them? Surely he could have retired his commission any time over the last several years and returned to Ravencroft Keep to raise his family. Their mother had been gone for nearly a decade, so why pick now to come home?

With one last fond pat of his daughter's arm, he strode to the doorway. “I'll be in the distillery this week,” he said, and disappeared around the stone arch.

Mena had barely remembered to breathe again when he reappeared, a devilish gleam in his eye. “Excuse me, ladies.” He executed a perfect bow, his eyes never leaving Mena's, holding her captive with his indefinable intensity.

“There
is
no excuse for ye, Father.” Rhianna giggled again, shooing him away.

“But ye ken, even a barbarian can learn the ways of a gentleman if he has the right tutor.” With a lingering look that weakened Mena's knees, and a quick wink at his daughter, he quit their company.

To Mena it seemed that every time she chanced to meet the marquess, she was introduced to someone new. The Demon Highlander, the barbaric clan chieftain, the regimented nobleman, and now, the fond and affectionate father. Each incarnation of Ravencroft, however, stared at her in the most disquieting manner. As if she were a mystery he planned to solve, or a secret he intended to uncover.

She'd rather be anything to him than that, for her secrets were too dangerous.

Heaving a deep sigh, Mena turned to Rhianna, who slid a knowing look in her direction.

“What did he call you just then …
nighean
?” Mena queried.

“It's a Gaelic endearment for
daughter
.”

“Oh.” It had been lovely. Mena decided whilst she lived among the Highland people, she'd do well to learn some of their language.

“Well, let's
do
see where your brother has run off to.” What she needed was a diversion from the unwelcome intrusion of the laird Mackenzie into almost every waking thought.

“Must we?” Rhianna whined. “He's so dreary all the time.”

Mena slid her arm through the girl's and they strolled over the lush carpets of the solarium. “You were very wicked today, tattling on him so,” she scolded gently.

“I know.” Rhianna shrugged and smirked. “I must get it from my father. He's a
brollachan,
ye know.”

“A what?”

“A demon. Hadn't ye heard?”

“You don't really believe that, do you?” Mena scoffed, though a little thrill of anxiety touched the base of her neck. “That your father is a demon?”

“I doona ken whether he is or no, but I do hear what everyone whispers about him. If he's not a demon, then he is a very wicked man, indeed.”

“Indeed,” Mena murmured. Considering, not for the first time, if she believed in such things as demons.

 

C
HAPTER
F
IVE

He's a demon. He'll destroy ye.

Mena dropped the edges of the library's drapes and whirled around to face the enormous,
vacant
room.

Who had said that?

A pervasive stillness permeated the gloom as Mena frantically scanned the tapestries and ornate furniture of the library for the source of the unsettling voice.

“H-hello?” Her uncertain whisper echoed off the stones and the windows, though no answer followed. “Is anyone there?”

A chilling silence greeted her, and Mena could think of nothing worse at that moment than the feeling one was not alone in an empty room.

The marquess had taken his children to the village of Fearnloch for the afternoon, and Mena had intended to use her first day off to escape into a good book, and bask in the rare and lovely autumn sunlight in the conservatory. The library had the fewest windows in the castle, though it boasted an impressive fireplace and far too many candelabra. The marquess claimed to be an uneducated man, but he obviously understood that the sun would fade the tomes in his collection, and therefore kept out the light with drawn, heavy velvet drapes.

This part of the keep faced away from the sea and offered a view of Wester Ross and the Kinross Mountains. Mena had wandered to one of the covered windows and pushed aside the drapes. The glimmer of the afternoon rays off the golden waves of barley clinging to the verdant hillsides had diverted her immediately. Perhaps a touch of her distraction had been drawn by the strong backs of the clansmen toiling in said fields, some with nothing but a kilt wrapped around their hips while the light kissed their flesh with amber.

Unsettled, Mena scanned the gloom of the library again. A large, dark shadow caught her eye, but darted away as soon as she thought she'd found it.

“Please,” she called. “Show yourself. You're frightening me.”

“If I showed myself ye'd be terrified.” The masculine voice could only be identified as serpentine. The s
s
drawn out in a bone-chilling hiss that seemed to come at her from everywhere and nowhere at once. “But I mean ye no harm, 'tis the laird ye should fear.”

“Why?” Mena asked the shade, inching along the wall toward the door that now seemed miles away rather than across the room. She wanted to call for help, but didn't dare. What would she say once help arrived? That a disembodied voice had accosted her?

She'd be sent back to Belle Glen for certain.

Cold fingers caressed above the high collar of her gown, and Mena let out a strangled scream. Whirling around, she saw nothing but a dark blurred shadow, and the flash of white streaked with veins of startling red surrounding black, abysmal pupils.

Surging back with terror, she somehow forced her legs to move, and bolted from the library.

Mena didn't stop in the hallway, nor did she seek refuge in the solarium, her room, or the conservatory. Running on pure, heart-pounding fear, she flew down the back stairs and burst from the keep into the embrace of the sun outside.

Racing through the back gardens, she didn't stop until she'd plunged deep into the forest that grew wild on the south and west of Ravencroft lands. She quickly found a deer path that led through the foliage. Picking up her skirts, she allowed her fear to drive her deep into the trees. She'd always taken refuge in the forest back home in Hampshire, and while the sun broke through the dancing leaves, Mena could pretend she was at Birch Haven, and that demons didn't chase her.

When her lungs felt as though they'd burst, Mena reached her arms out and braced them against the trunk of an ancient oak. Clinging to it, she focused on catching her breath, her thoughts racing as if chased by whatever malevolent presence she'd fled.

Had she truly just encountered a ghost? Or a demon?

She couldn't believe it was so, and yet there was no denying the chill bumps that still lifted every fine hair on her body. If she closed her eyes, she could see nothing but those dreadful black pupils rimmed with white and streaked with alarming bolts of red. She'd never in her life encountered eyes like that before.

Because surely no living creature was bestowed of something so horrific.

As she began to catch her breath, another terrible fear pierced her like an icicle as a memory she fought to repress rose to the surface.

Are you hearing voices? Or perhaps seeing things that are not there?

Dr. Rosenblatt's even timbre was as bloodcurdling as a banshee scream, and Mena fought the impulse to clap her hands over her ears.

Could it be? Was she going mad? Hallucinations were the hallmark of true insanity and Mena couldn't decide which was worse. A demon in Ravencroft's library, or one in her mind.

The things he'd said about the laird …

A sound permeated the roar of her own blood in her ears. A high-pitched yip and a howl followed by a succession of barks. Lifting her head and peering around the tree, Mena identified the unmistakable roll and crest of the sea.

The canine sounds intensified in strength and pitch until Mena was certain they were distressed. Drifting carefully forward, she climbed over a fallen tree limb and followed the sounds through the thick foliage until the tree line suddenly gave way to a thin, steep grassy knoll. She found that she was at the peak of this hill, though taller, imposing black cliffs rose to to the north, and to the south. A steep path led down some amber-tinged autumn grasses to a hidden cove of golden sand.

Below her, a tall sheepdog and her tiny replica frantically paced at the surf, barking and howling loudly. Occasionally the mother would dive in and attempt to break the pull of the waves to reach an outcropping of rocks, upon which one little black and brown puppy yipped and cried for help.

Demons all but forgotten, Mena checked her surroundings before tucking her skirts into her wide belt and descending the steep and rocky trail to the cove as hastily as she could while still keeping her balance. She guessed the dogs had been playing on a sandbar and frolicking around the rocks when the tide had come in. The mother must have only been able to rescue one pup before the water became too deep and powerful for her to reach the other.

Since the coast of Wester Ross was buffeted by the Hebrides and the Isle of Skye, the surf was not as wild as the open ocean, and Mena felt confident that she could reach the little creature in time.

Abandoning her shoes and stockings the moment she reached the sand, she pulled her skirts even higher as the mother and her puppy raced toward her. They danced at her feet, barking pleas for help, rushing back to the water's edge, and then returning to nudge her legs.

A pang of fear slid between her ribs as she realized how cold and alarming the water would surely be, but it only took one look at the whimpering, stranded puppy for Mena to find her courage.

“I'm here,” she told the frantic mother, who wouldn't stand still long enough to be touched. “I'll get your little one.”

The icy shock of the autumn ocean drew a gasp from Mena as she plunged into the gentle surf. But as frigid as it was, it had nothing on the asylum's dreaded ice baths. Mena knew exactly how long she could function in water this cold.

Her skirts became heavy as the water engulfed her knees, then her thighs. But she quickly found the sandbar that the dogs must have crossed, and was able to navigate quite a ways to the outcropping of wet rock without the water reaching past her hips.

Once she neared the terrified pup, she reached out just in time as the little creature leaped into her arms. “Come here, my darling,” she soothed as the tiny warm body squirmed and whined and burrowed its little face into her neck. “I've got you. You're safe now. Your poor mum is awfully worried.” The chill of the water now stung her legs, and the depth began to creep upward toward her waist. Mena cuddled the wet pup to her breast and turned toward the beach.