The Highlander (Victorian Rebels Book 3)

“I have to go to him.” Anxious agitation drove Mena to her feet and her companions, Millie LeCour and Farah Blackwell, both rose in tandem as she began to pace across the lush cobalt carpets of the Blackwells’ Mayfair mansion. “What if he’s … the poor children … I must—”

“Mena, darling.” Farah’s robin-blue skirts rustled in the heavy, expectant quiet of the house as she put her arm around Mena’s shoulders and tried to steer her back to the settee. “Dorian and Christopher left to look after your Lord Ravencroft before Murdoch and I brought your emancipation papers to the authorities. They promised to send a messenger if there was any news to report.”

Mena’s anguish was a tight fist in her chest, squeezing her heart until every beat seemed as though it might be her last. She hadn’t felt this kind of helpless desperation since Belle Glen. For once, her pain had nothing to do with her own hopeless situation.

Even when she’d thought she was going back to the asylum, when she’d assumed Gordon had delivered her to another indefinite hellish incarceration, the only care she had was for Liam. She relived the horror of seeing his blood bloom against the gray of his vest. Of watching such a mountain of a man crumble to the earth.

“It’s been hours.” Mena had never been the hand-wringing sort, but she was certainly doing plenty of that today. “I can’t sit here and do nothing. I will truly go mad.” They’d have to deliver her to the very sort of place she’d been saved from if the man she loved was …

God, she couldn’t even think it.

What if they hadn’t sent word because the news was of the sort that one had to deliver in person.

Tragic news?

The only thing that had kept her away from the hospital this long was an alternate fear. What if Liam refused to see her? Could she face his antipathy? His rejection?

Could she bear the look of betrayal in his eyes?

The answer had been unclear until this moment. And the answer was a resounding yes. If he was alive, she could deal with whatever came after. So long as she could see his thick chest expand with breath, and his lithe, muscular body suffused with the almost inhuman strength she attributed to him, alone.

Nothing else mattered. Not until she knew he was all right. Until she saw, with her own eyes, that the Demon Highlander stood once again.

Gathering her pelisse, she hurried toward the door.

“Well, if you’re going, we’re certainly coming with you.” Millie LeCour, garbed in violet silk, also retrieved her fur wrapper, her sable eyes snapping. “I know that if Christopher were in a similar situation, the entire Roman Legion couldn’t keep me away.”

Farah moved to stop them. “I’ve learned to trust Dorian,” she said evenly. “I know what kind of hell you’re in, Mena, but if your marquess were in even a hint of danger, my husband would have called you to his side. He asked that we wait here, and I feel there’s a reason for that.”

Mena paused, seized by indecision, looking to the secure door beyond Farah’s slim shoulders, and then to the gentle gray eyes of the Countess Northwalk.

“Your marquess and my husband are brothers, Mena.” Farah’s firm tone belied her subtle push back toward the parlor. “Brothers with a long and painful past of their own to sort out. Perhaps they are doing so now, and need the time to clear what is past between them.”

She hadn’t considered that. Hers was not the only pain Liam had to deal with. There was Jani, their father, Hamish, Dorian, Thorne, and so much more. Mena probably rated rather low on the list of disasters he needed to contain.

Murdoch, the Blackwells’ devoted steward, opened the front door, bringing in a blast of chilly November air along with the handsome Gavin St. James, Lord Thorne, looking uncharacteristically somber. Behind his brawny frame, chains rattled as Jani was led into the front entry flanked by two frightening sentinels that looked more criminal than copper.

Blackwell’s men, no doubt.

A reckless temper rose within her, and Mena lunged at Jani, slapping him across his dusky cheek.

Hard.

“How could you?” Mena spat.

Jani squeezed his eyes shut, though she didn’t know if it was against the pain her slap had caused, or his own guilt. “I did not think you would get hurt, Miss Mena. I did not know that was part of his plan.”

“To whose plan are you referring? Explain yourself.”

“When Hamish came back from the dead, he found me in the dark halls of the keep, and told me he’d witnessed Ravencroft murder my parents with his own hands. He said it was guilt, not altruism, that prompted the marquess to take me in.”

Mena shook her head. Did the treachery have no end? Was all this madness because of Hamish’s greed? “Ravencroft loved you like a son. He’s known as a demon on the battlefield. Not for entering civilian homes. You’ve spent so many years with him, how could you not know that?”

Jani’s chin trembled and dimpled as he valiantly battled boyish tears. “Hamish reported that he threatened to expose Ravencroft, to tell me the truth, to tell everyone what horrors the laird had perpetrated in India. Against my own people. The things Hamish described…” Jani looked up, his throat working over a hard swallow as tears enhanced the disgrace in his liquid eyes. “He told me that Ravencroft set off those explosions on the ship on purpose and left him for dead so no one would find out what he’d done.”

“Did he offer you any proof of this?” Mena demanded.

Tears ran in fat rivulets down his cheeks. “Hamish described where my house was, where my parents had died and how. I remember … I remember their bodies.”

Thorne glanced at Mena, regret sitting softly on his hard features. “Once the Duke of Trenwyth got his hands on Hamish, my brother admitted to manipulating the boy. He turned every one of his own war crimes into something Liam had done and filled Jani’s head with his poison. After some time alone with Trenwyth, Hamish admitted to killing Jani’s parents.”

“It is my fault, Miss Mena, all of this is my fault. I read your telegram,” Jani admitted. “I sent word to your husband because Hamish had read your letters to Lady Northwalk and told me to do it. That is why your husband was waiting for you. And that is why I will die here today.”

A tear dropped from Jani’s chin onto the silk of his kurta, and Mena felt her own eyes well with tears on his behalf.

“How can Rhianna ever forgive what I have done to her father? I will face the marquess and beg for his forgiveness before I am hanged, but I fear I will never see her face again before I am to die.”

“Surely you’re not going to let him be hanged.” Mena turned to Gavin. “Why isn’t he with the proper authorities?”

“Because even though this is England, and even though my brother and I have our differences, the first law I recognize is clan law,” he said resolutely. “And clan law states that the Mackenzie Laird gets to decide his fate.”

“Oh, Jani,” Mena whispered. “We’ve both wounded Ravencroft so terribly.”

“Unforgivably.” Jani’s voice wavered.

She nodded, filled to the brink with a breathless pain. “I would give anything to make things right, but I fear it is too late…”

“A kind lass once told me that it is never too late to make things right.” A familiar voice rumbled from the shadows beyond the still-open door before the Demon Highlander, himself, ducked into the foyer. “I believe, Miss Lockhart, that lass was ye.”

Astonished exhilaration at seeing him alive and well made her light-headed with giddy relief. He stood as strong and wide as ever, and though his left arm was tucked into a sling, the rest of him nearly vibrated with strength and vitality.

Apprehension chased the relief away, followed by shame, sadness, and remorse.

Liam looked at her with an intensity she’d never seen before. A dark fire lit behind his eyes, and a grim, resolute set to his already stern features set off alarms of warning in her head.

Mena took a step back, and then another, refusing to believe her own eyes as she backed toward the hall off the foyer and away from those who’d fallen silent as they watched the moment unfold.

Dorian Blackwell stepped behind Liam, followed by the amber shadow of Christopher Argent.

Mena hardly noted any of them. Not Dorian, who went to his wife and reached for her hand, nor Argent, who melted into the shadows as easily as Millie melted into his arms. Not even Thorne, who gaped at Dorian as though looking into a dark-haired mirror, or poor Jani who rattled his chains with the force of his trembling.

Only Liam.

Mena’s whole world narrowed to encompass the emotion she couldn’t believe shone on his face.

“Doona run from me, lass. There is much to say.”

“You called me Miss Lockhart,” she realized with a breathless whisper. “Now you know I’m not she. That I am Philomena St. Vincent, a viscountess and a … married woman.”

His obsidian gaze became impossibly darker. “Not anymore.”

Her heart stopped. “What do you mean?”

“It is with very little regret that I inform ye that ye’re now the widow St. Vincent,” he said with not a stitch of remorse.

“Because of you?”

“Don’t give him all the credit.” Dorian sniffed.

“It was a collaborative effort,” Argent said.

Mena wished she could say that she was sorry her husband was dead. The only guilt that seized her was a regret that she didn’t feel more distress over the loss of her husband of five years.

But why would she? Gordon had humiliated and shamed her. Terrorized and abused her. Then he’d locked her away and forgotten her.

What he’d done was unforgivable, and she hoped he’d burn in hell for it.

“Laird Mackenzie.” Jani dropped to his knees in a clatter of tears and chains. “I must beg of you—”

“Get up, Jani.” Ravencroft sounded more irritated than angry as he hauled the young man back to his feet. “It is as Thorne said. Hamish confessed to everything. To what he had ye do, to what he convinced ye of. There are many sins in my past, and I canna say I blame ye for believing yer tragedy is among them. We will have words, Jani, count on that. But I ken that ye are more victim than villain.”

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.