The Highlander (31 page)

And Mena loved him for it.

She
loved
him.

Dear God, what did she do now?

“Miss Lockhart! Jani!” An animated cry broke Mena away from her astonished revelation as she felt Jani tense beside her.

Rhianna raced up the subtle hill toward them, draped in the costume of a Grecian goddess. The effect was slightly ruined by her thick lamb's-wool wrap, but in frigid weather such as this, it couldn't be helped. Flanked by two equally red-faced and exuberant girls, she nearly bowled over Jani, but he stopped her just in time with two steadying hands on either arm.

The moment she was stable, he dropped his hands to curl them into fists at his sides.

“Whit like, Jani?” The younger girls giggled, casting not-so-subtle coquettish looks at the young Hindu. Mena had to admit, Jani was an exotically handsome young man, and it broke her heart that he only had eyes for her oblivious charge. Especially when she noted that
he
caught the notice of many a lass.

“Are ye all right, Miss Lockhart? Ye look like ye're about to cry,” Rhianna observed with her usual lack of tact, though her dark eyes were filled with concern.

“Just a bit of ash from the fires drifted over,” Mena lied as she greeted Rhianna's friends, remembering their names as Liza and Kayleigh, though she couldn't recall which was which. “What's this, then?” She gestured to the charred remains of what she'd surmised to be an apple peel in the girl's hands.

“It's a
C,
Miss Lockhart, and
C
is for Campbell.” The sad-looking apple peel was shoved beneath her nose for inspection, and it did, indeed, seem to have been singed into the shape of a
C
. Though there was a suspicious hook at the bottom of the peel that could have been a
J
if reversed.

Rhianna had explained earlier that a long-standing Samhain tradition of divination claimed that if a woman were to peel an apple, then stand with her back to the ceremonial bonfires and throw the peel over her shoulder into the flames, said peel would spell out the first letter of her future husband's name.

“Campbell, indeed?” Mena smiled into Rhianna's glowing features and glanced at Jani, who scowled at the peel as though it were his enemy.

“As in
Kevin
Campbell,” the brunette taunted in a singsong voice.

“Nay, Rhianna, it wouldna be Kevin Campbell,” the redhead—Mena thought
she
was Kayleigh—argued. “The letter only pertains to the first name of your husband, surnames doona count.”

Rhianna pouted at her friend. “But there's no way an apple peel can spell out the letter
K
!” she protested loudly. “Exceptions have to be made, isna that right, Miss Lockhart?”

Three sets of expectant young eyes turned on her and Mena couldn't help but laugh out loud, abruptly grateful for the distraction. “I would imagine that in such a case, an exception could be made. Else it would make many an unfortunate man with a name starting with the letter
K
very lonely, indeed.”

“Right!” With her raven hair glittering in the firelight, Rhianna triumphantly held the charred peel up as if it were a trophy of war, and whooped like a savage.

“What about ye, Miss Lockhart?” the brunette, who must then be Liza, asked shyly. “What did yer apple peel say? Mine was an
N
 … or an
S,
I suppose.”

Mena forced a laugh. “I'm much too old for such games, and I'm not of a mind to be married.”

Because she already was, and it had been a nightmare.

“It doesna matter!” Rhianna insisted, her dark eyes glittering with mischief. “It's not like you
have
to marry. The apple peel just tells who ye
would
marry if ye were
of a mind
.” She repeated her words with a mocking giggle.

“Really, I—”

“Oh, come on, Miss Lockhart!” they all begged, pulling at her sleeves and half dragging her toward the fires.

“Just try it once!”

“It'll be fun!”

“Please?”

Feeling rather harassed, yet enjoying the barrage of attention from energetic young women, Mena shrugged. What harm could it do?

She glanced at Jani who still studied the apple peel with a fierce expression. Though when he turned back to her, he summoned a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

Mena reached out and gave his hand one soft squeeze.

“Andrew!” Rhianna bellowed in a rather unladylike fashion across the fires to her brother, who lingered with Rune by the handsome tables laden with food. “Bob an apple for Miss Lockhart!”

Dark hair already gleaming with moisture, Andrew flashed a rare smile, tossed whatever he'd been snacking on to Rune, and lustily dove into the dark liquid of the nearby barrel face-first. His skinny legs kicked comically in his struggle, and even the solemn Jani laughed at his antics.

After emerging victorious, he slicked his hair back once more, and pilfered a knife from the tables. Simultaneously peeling and walking, Andrew presented her with a brilliant smile and the smooth red flesh of an autumn apple. “Ye have to throw it over yer shoulder and doona look until it starts to burn, or it willna work,” he whispered.

“Got it.” Mena winked and turned her back to the fire and was ready to throw the peel behind her.

“Wait!” Rhianna stopped her. “We have to say the spell over it first.”

All the youngsters nodded in solemn agreement.

“The spell?” Mena echoed.

To the Maiden Goddess of the land

The Crone please bless with divine hand

From the Mother's fruit I hold

My future soul mate's name is told.

 

Each of the girls' voices blended to the verse beautifully and Mena figured that it should count for her peel. She backed closer to the fire until its searing warmth glowed through the back of her dress. Closing her eyes, she flicked the peel over her shoulder and was rewarded with a hiss.

When her eyes opened, all those who had previously been in front of her had vanished. Turning, she found them bent as close as they dared to read her theoretical fortune.

“Look! It's a
C
like mine!” Rhianna pulled her close. As it singed and cooked, the peel did seem to be curling in upon itself.

“That's not a
C,
look at that corner there!” Kayleigh pointed to where a flaw in the corner of the peel caused it to jut out, making a specific point. “It seems more like an
L
to me.”

“Let me look,” Andrew demanded, leaning closer and inspecting it with a scrupulous eye.

Mena's heart pounded audibly when he turned to her with a look of solemn authentication. “Most definitely an
L,
” he confirmed.

The girls giggled and began to make lists of
L
names.

“Lucas or Lionel,” Kayleigh suggested.

“Aye,” Rhianna agreed vehemently, ticking off names on her fingers. “Or Lawrence, Logan, Lucius—”

“Liam,” Andrew offered quietly.

Mena froze as the party almost simultaneously made the connection, and their eyes searched each other's, trying wordlessly to surmise what their reaction should be. The laird and the governess? Dare someone even suggest it?

After a breathless moment, Andrew's face melted into the warmest smile she'd ever seen and Mena's heart broke into gossamer pieces. She swallowed the shards and forced a smile.

“Liam is short for William, dear,” she reminded brightly. “I don't imagine that counts.”

“Besides, she needs the name of a Brit,” the all-knowing Kayleigh interjected.

They all bent back over the apple peel, though something in Andrew's eyes told Mena that he wasn't convinced.

*   *   *

As people filtered out of the grounds, the sounds of horses and carts and the chatter of excitable children and exhausted parents began to dwindle. Liam turned to look for his family. After only a moment of searching firelit faces, he chuckled a little at the sight of six bent arses huddled in a neat little row around the base of the north bonfire. One particular bottom caught his attention, sheathed in a full green skirt and deliciously plumper than the others displayed. Mena's shapely legs were longer than the children's and Jani's. This pushed her round derriere higher, made it more tantalizingly accessible.

Liam silently ambled up to them until he found himself directly behind the object of his desire. If he bent his knees just a little, and pressed his pelvis forward, his erection would be nestled in the sweet cleft. Shaking his head, he stepped back, reminding himself it wouldn't do to turn into a raging tornado of primal lust in front of his clan, his children, and the visiting Highland nobles.

Animated giggles erupted from the girls and they were talking softly among themselves, observing some undetermined spot on the fire.

“What's this, then?” he asked, keeping his voice deceptively light.

Six bodies simultaneously sprang around in surprise, but the line didn't break. Mena wouldn't meet his eyes, but kept her horrified gaze locked on his bare chest.

“Father! We were just—” Rhianna was cut off by her brother.

“We were just playing a silly
girl's
game.” Andrew shot his sister a quelling look and Liam watched as confusion and then epiphany played across his daughter's features. Her gaze flew to him and then bounced to Miss Lockhart, who had still yet to move.

“Whit like, Laird Mackenzie?” Rhianna's friends chorused with matching curtsies.

“Good evening, lassies.” He gently smiled down at them. “The hour is late, I'm sure that yer families are looking for ye now.”

The pleasantly blank looks on their faces told him that they were not privy to the private thoughts of his children and therefore would be of no use to him.

They left with pleasant
fare-ye-well
s after a quick exchange of hugs and promises with Rhianna.

“Father, we were just tossing apple peels,” Rhianna said brightly, taking his arm and maneuvering around the still-frozen Miss Lockhart. “My husband's initial is a
C
. Look!” She pointed to the fire and he saw a smoldering apple peel perilously close to turning to ash.

He squinted into the fire and pretended to study the apple peel with a frown. “Now I know the initial of the man that I'm going to murder.”

Rhianna planted her hands on her hips. “Father!”

“But if I'm no' mistaken, this peel more closely resembles an
L
than a
C
.” He gestured to the point at the corner.

His children exchanged excited glances and then huddled close to him, making a big display out of studying the peel for themselves.

“Hmmmm,” was all Rhianna replied with an exaggerated nod. “So it does.”

“What do ye think, Miss Lockhart?” He turned to include her in their study, but her retreating form was out of earshot as she swiftly walked toward the growing city of tents on the far end of the grounds.

“She thought that it looked like an
L,
too.” Andrew murmured seriously, squinting after his governess.

“There ye have it, then.” Liam offered his arm to Rhianna and put a hand on his son's shoulder, wondering at their strange and guilty behavior. “What do ye say that we put ye two miscreants to bed? 'Tis almost time for the in-between masquerade.”

“Canna I stay up for it this time?” Rhianna begged. “
Please,
Father, I'm seventeen, isna that old enough?”

Liam shook his head. “Next year,
nighean,
” he promised. “Now come with me.”

He nodded to Jani and led his children toward the keep, noting that his brother Gavin ambled in the direction of the tables where Mena had escaped to seek the respectable company of Mrs. Grady.

All's fair in love and war,
his brother's voice taunted.

A dark knowledge drifted to him from where his demon stirred. Tonight he would begin the most important battle he'd ever waged.

The one for Mena's heart.

 

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN

After the matriarchs carried the flames to their hearths, Mena had thought the evening's festivities over.

Oh, how wrong she'd been.

She was wrong about a lot of things, wasn't she? Ravencroft was supposed to have been a place of quiet escape, not of sensual awakening. The laird was supposed to have been a retired old officer, not this commanding, virile mountain of walking sin and temptation.

And whatever was in her new glass was supposed to have been cider, though she had a sneaking suspicion it was anything but.

Torches wended their way through the night, and once they were left in their respective places, the grown men and women of Wester Ross emerged from their tents, tenements, manors, and mires and congregated in the city of fine canvas shelters that had sprung up on the western hill of the Ravencroft estate.

“The children are abed, safe from the in-between. Now the
real
festival begins!” Gavin St. James, Earl of Thorne, loped to catch up with her, falling into easy step with his long stride as Mena wandered to investigate the gathering. “What do ye make of that, English?”

He swept his arm to encompass the ribbons, banners, and all forms of bohemian decoration that ornamented the rather Gypsy-like dwellings which were arranged in a circle stacked about five or so deep. In the center of the large circle was another bonfire. Though not as big as the ones that smoldered next to Ravencroft Keep, the fires were accompanied by strategically placed torches to lend a darker, more intimate glow to the night's festivities.

“What are they doing?” Mena queried. “What is the in-between?” A brightly played fiddle-and-flute melody reached across the night to her and the accompanying drums called out to her spirit until her feet ached to dance.