The Highlander (Victorian Rebels Book 3)

“Andrew?” Mena pushed open the door to Andrew’s bedroom only to find him bent over in the corner scrubbing the stones with a bucket and brush. “Whatever are you doing?”

“Miss Lockhart.” He scrambled to his feet and scowled at her. “What are ye doing in my room? Is my father with ye?”

Mena read something beneath the aversion in his voice. Anxiety, maybe, or guilt, as though she’d caught him doing something wrong. The farther she ventured into his chamber, the more concerned she became. It was done entirely in red and black, but for the goose down fluffs that now covered the floor and almost every other surface of the otherwise tidy room. They rolled across the stones and carpets in the slightest breeze caused by her skirts. The disemboweled corpses of his pillows lay strewn at the foot of his bed, and one or two hung limply by the wardrobe.

“There was an … incident at the distillery. Your father is dealing with it now,” she explained. She didn’t feel comfortable calling it an accident. Because she’d become certain that it wasn’t. She’d seen more than she’d let on. A figure in the darkness.

The Brollachan?

“Andrew. Tell me what happened here. Did you … did you do this?” Motioning to the chaos, she bent to pick up a shoe that appeared to have been torn apart. Just what was going on in this ancient keep?

“Aye. It was me.” He hadn’t moved from whatever he protected on the floor in the corner, though he regarded her with the frozen, unsure expression of a culpable party in a crime.

Heart squeezing with concern, Mena stopped at his writing desk, where charcoal renderings of dark shadows and red eyes stared up at her with spine-chilling familiarity. That shadow. She’d seen it before the ledge supporting the Scotch barrel had given way and nearly crushed Ravencroft. How terrible it was, to not trust your own eyes. Had Andrew seen the demon as well? Did he have something to do with this?

“Andrew, do you mind explaining to me—”

A commotion interrupted her. It came from the wardrobe, the heavy wood doors trembling as something pressed against them, struggling to be released. Was all this some kind of elaborate prank? Or something entirely more sinister?

“Miss Lockhart, doona open—”

Ready to be done with this mystery once and for all, Mena hurried for the wardrobe and flung the doors open. She gave a startled cry as a familiar form lunged for her.

And began to enthusiastically lick her face.

Utterly relieved, she stroked and cuddled the wriggling puppy in her arms as everything suddenly began to make sense. “So lovely to see you again, darling!” She laughed, enjoying the silky black and brown fur against her cheek, much as she had the day she’d pulled the poor thing off the rocks. “You wicked thing,” she scolded. “Look at that face, not one bit of guilt over the absolute chaos you’ve wrought.” Tucking the cheerful puppy into her bosom, she turned. “You never told me that—”

The tears streaming down Andrew’s crumpled face astonished her into stillness.

“Everything’s a disaster,” he sobbed, the scrub brush clattering to the floor. “It’s all ruined. He’ll take Rune from me. The only thing I love. The only one that loves me back. And then he’ll leave again, and ye’ll go, too, because I’ve been beastly to ye. Rhianna will be off getting a husband. I’ll be alone!”

Recovering from her initial speechless incredulity, Mena rushed to Andrew and wrapped her arm around his shoulder, handing him little Rune, who instantly went to work on lapping up his tears.

“I don’t see why your father should take her,” she cajoled. “What’s a few ruined pillows? We can clean up the mess in no time. Don’t worry if she wee’d on the stones, at least it wasn’t the carpets. I can’t even smell it.”

“You doona understand!” he wailed, his newly deepening voice cracking with emotion. “He will take her from me. He told me nay when I asked if I could have her. But I told Uncle Thorne that Father said I could.”

“I see.” Troubled, Mena led Andrew to the bed, clearing away some unruly down feathers so they could sit, though she kept her arm around his slim shoulders. He collapsed against her side, his cheek buried into her shoulder, as he cried and clutched the squirming pup.

Fighting against a quiver in her own chin, Mena stroked his thick dark hair, so much like his father’s. “Darling, first of all, let me promise you that I’m going nowhere, and neither is your father. He retired his commission to stay here with you because he loves you. Very much. You should have seen him today when a barrel fell and he thought you were in danger. He couldn’t find you and he was so worried. Frantic.”

“Worried my work wouldna get done.” The bitterness in his tone was at once too adult for one so young, and yet completely adolescent.

“That’s not fair,” Mena said gently. “The things he is trying to impart to you are so important. In fact, your father and I might be teaching you very different things, but it’s all for an identical reason. Do you know what that is?”

Andrew shook his head, though he didn’t lift his eyes from where he stroked Rune, who kept trying to gnaw on his hand.

“Because the more information you have, the better, easier, your life will be. I don’t know if you know this, but things are changing out there in the world, Andrew. Engines and steam power and factories are making the world a much smaller place. Land isn’t the most precious commodity anymore, and the life of the idle lord, living off his tenants and properties, is going to be obsolete before too long. Your father is trying to secure you a legacy, a living, and teach you to do the same for the generations that come after you. That means learning how to work hard to keep it. He wouldn’t do that if he didn’t love you a great deal.” Mena imagined it surprised her more than poor Andrew that she defended the marquess.

Fresh tears leaked from Andrew’s eyes, and he sat up from her shoulder. “Doona tell him about Rune,” he begged.

“I really don’t feel comfortable lying to your father.” It was hard enough keeping her own secrets from the laird. “He’s going to find out eventually,” she pointed out.

“She’s been here for two weeks already and he hasna found her,” he argued desperately. “I take her out back at night, and while he’s in the fields. But I couldna while I was down at the distillery. She only went on the floor the once. Well, there was today, but it was just wet. And it was on the stones, so it isna hard to clean. He said that I need to learn to take care of something other than myself. And so I am.” The earnest love in his eyes for the little creature in his arms broke Mena’s heart. She was glad he had the pet, that he could show it love and veneration. She’d begun to worry that his darkness was more than just sullen. That it was, indeed, the beginnings of a cruel man. That he could have such tender feelings for the small animal gave her hope.

“It’s not as though you can hide poor Rune in this room for the entirety of her life,” she said, taking a different approach. “She’ll go mad. She needs to romp about outdoors.”

Andrew’s shoulders sagged, but she could see the moment he accepted the truth of her words. “I’ll tell him,” he consented. “But give me a few days. Until he isna angry about today anymore. He told me not to leave, but I had to check on her.”

Mena considered it. What if the laird discovered their secret before then? What if she was dismissed?

Andrew took her hand. “Please, Miss Lockhart. I’ll do anything. I’ll rework my figures, read any book you want, even the ridiculously boring ones.”

“What is it about classic literature that you find so boring?” she queried defensively.

“Everything.” He sniffed, his despair replaced by disgust. “I read penny dreadfuls because they have intrigue and monsters and murder. All of the things that thrill and inspire. We read about love and melancholy and it’s so dull.”

“Indeed?” Mena asked, an idea beginning to stir. “What if I told you that I would keep your secret for three days, if you read three separate works that I specifically pick out for you?”

“I’ll do it.” Andrew sighed and looked down at Rune, who’d just wiped a streak of drool on his trousers. “Which ones?” he asked skeptically.

“What if I said that in one of them, a woman is violently raped by two men, and they cut off her hands and her tongue to keep their secret? Then her father kills them and bakes them into a pie which he feeds to his enemy? Would you find that interesting?”

“Aye.” Andrew nodded vehemently, his eyes round with shock.

“Well, that’s Shakespeare for you.”

“Nay!” he said in disbelief.

“Titus Andronicus.” Mena nodded, feeling a thrill at having enraptured the attention of one previously so morose. “Or what about a novel that accounts a man who was betrayed by an evil villain and is wrongly imprisoned for being a Bonapartist. This man escapes from prison and exacts terrible and sometimes violent revenge on all those who wronged him.”

“I’ll read that one.” Andrew nodded.

“Yes, you will.” Mena smiled victoriously. “But you can only read The Count of Monte Cristo in French.”

His face fell into a droll sort of acceptance. “All right, Miss Lockhart, ye win, I’ll learn my French.”

“Excellent!” Mena stood and beamed at him. “Thank you for being a darling, and I promise that you can trust me with your secret … for three days, Andrew. That is all I dare give you.”

Andrew nodded solemnly. “Three days.”

Looking around the messy room, she brushed an errant puff of goose down from her skirts. “Well, let’s tidy up in here, shall we? Before one of the staff discovers our intrigue.”

“Aye.” Andrew set the puppy on the floor, and Rune chased a ball of fluff under the bed. “Ye know, Miss Lockhart,” he mumbled as he turned back to his bucket and retrieved the scrub brush. “I’m glad ye’re here.”

“Thank you, Andrew,” she said, turning to hide eyes grown misty. “I am, too. Very glad, indeed.”

*   *   *

Liam had never been the kind of man to kneel, even in a church. The old oak pew groaned beneath his weight as he sat, and he glanced around Ravencroft’s chapel to ensure his solitude. Centuries had tarnished the ornate candelabra on the decorated altar, and the late afternoon light filtered through the stained glass that surrounded it on three sides. The window depicting a compassionate and loving Redeemer, resplendent in red robes, glowed in the middle of adjacent renderings of Saint George, the patron saint of warriors, and Saint Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland.

He would not be welcomed into their exalted presence, Liam knew that. His very existence was an affront to the man they called the Prince of Peace. But something in his restless soul had drawn him to this silent, hallowed place. Guilt, maybe. A sense of contrition tinged with emptiness. When one was haunted by the ghosts of the past, or faced with a horrible possibility, where did one turn to find clarity?

He could think of nowhere else.

It was no ghost who’d tried to kill him today. But a man. Someone strong enough to push that barrel from its nest.

It had been his personal consideration of all the people who might want him dead that had driven him to this place, beneath which several generations of Mackenzie lairds were entombed.

His brother Thorne, who still saw their father when he looked at Liam. Who blamed him for so much, including Colleen’s death.

The ever-present Jani, who’d truly glimpsed the Demon Highlander more than any other person on this earth. The gentle boy had scrubbed the blood of his own countrymen off Liam’s uniform more times than he could count. Had he been biding his time, waiting until Liam felt not only safe, but affectionate toward the boy, to take the revenge he rightfully deserved?

Then … there was his own child. His heir. Though Andrew was of smaller stature than him, he teetered on the cusp of manhood. He was sturdy … but was he strong enough? Maybe his hatred had lent him the might he’d needed to push that barrel. Maybe he wouldn’t wait until he could look Liam in the eye to challenge him, but would use his cunning and intellect, instead of brute strength and physical prowess.

The thought lodged in the cavity of his chest, driven like a wedge with a mallet, until the pressure was more than Liam could possibly bear. His chest refused to expand. Guilt and regret were heavy mantles, smothering him until he fought for breath.

Lost in his struggle, Liam barely noted the whisper of soft slippers against the long violet carpet leading up the aisle until the ruffle of a golden skirt teased at his peripheral vision.

He didn’t want to look at her. She was a temptation that didn’t belong in this sacred place. To gaze upon her was to commit a dozen sins at least. How was it that God could grant someone so angelic a body crafted for little else but wickedness?

“Forgive me if I’m disturbing you.” His governess’s voice permeated the stillness and warmed the cold stones of the walls with a sacrosanct melody. Like the song of a seraphim in spoken form. “I confess I didn’t expect to find you here.”

Why would the Demon Highlander be in a church? There was nothing for him here … No forgiveness, nor redemption.

He’d been beyond that for longer than he could remember.

“I doona often find myself in this place.” Liam neither moved nor dared to glance at her. He wanted her to go, but not as badly as he wanted her to remain.

“I can leave—”

“Nay.” He spoke with more haste than he’d meant to. “Nay … say yer prayers, lass. I’ll go.” When Liam would have stood, she sat. The soft, gilded fabric of her skirt pressed against the rough material of his kilt. Liam stared at the tiny loose fibers of his wool plaid as they rose to touch her silken skirts, drawn by some unseen current toward her.

Just as he was.

“Are you here to give confession?” she queried uncertainly.

Liam’s scoff grated roughly against the smooth stones. “I keep no priest at Ravencroft.” He had no desire to confess his sins to a man who would take it upon himself to deem him worthy or damned. In his life, men had only been judged by battle where there was no good or evil, only strong or weak. He had no use for priests. He knew what he was, and where he was headed once this life was through with him.

“Then … do you come here to be closer to God?”

“Nay, lass, only farther from my demons.”

“Oh.” They sat in silence a moment while she smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from her skirts before primly returning her hands to fold in her lap.

It occurred to Liam that she may have been seeking a priest. “Have ye sins to confess, Miss Lockhart?” He doubted she was Catholic, but he knew curious little about the mysterious woman next to him.

“I come here sometimes to pray for forgiveness.”

“Forgiveness?” he echoed. “What possible atrocities could ye have committed that need forgiving?”

“Perhaps I don’t ask to be forgiven, but to be granted the ability to forgive.”

She was looking at him with level eyes when Liam finally lifted his head. In the dim room, cast only in the illumination of the sun filtered through stained glass, she was a kaleidoscopic study in blasphemy. No artist could have given her face a more cherubic shape, but the rendering of her plump lips brought to mind only the most profane acts a man could devise.

The moment his gaze lowered to those lips, she turned away and bowed her head.

“That isn’t to say I’m not without sin,” she continued. “We all have things we’ve done in the past that haunt us. Of which we feel ashamed.”

Some more than most, he thought darkly. “Do ye believe, Miss Lockhart, that we may be forgiven our sins? That the past can ever be left behind us?”

She shook her head. “We may try to leave the past, but I don’t think the past ever truly leaves us. It is a part of us; it shapes us into who we are. I don’t think any of us escape that fate, my laird.”

Then I am damned. He finally looked up to the window, and met a stained-glass gaze that no longer seemed compassionate.

“Why do you believe you are damned?”

It startled Liam that he’d spoken his thoughts aloud. If she only knew. She’d run from this place. From him. “Ye’ve heard what they call me, have ye not?”

“Yes. The Demon Highlander.” Spoken with her honeyed inflection, it didn’t sound so derogatory.

“Even here, in my own land, they think I’ve been possessed by the Brollachan. Do ye believe that of me?”

He expected a practical woman like her to deny it. So when she lifted a hand to her forehead and let it trail to her cheek in an anxious motion, he was actually taken aback.

“Truly, my laird, I don’t know what I believe these days. I hardly trust my own eyes…” She blinked as if she might say something, and then obviously changed her mind. “Did you do what they say? Did you go to the crossroads and make a deal with a demon?”

He made a bitter sound. “Nay, lass, ’tis only a myth about me. Though that doesna mean I’m not possessed of a demon. I think it’s been with me since birth. That it’s in my tainted blood and turns everything I do into a transgression. There has never been salvation for me.”

“You don’t really think that, do you?” She gasped.

“Aye, I do.”

“But why?”

A bleak and arctic chill pressed in on him as a few of his darkest deeds rose unbidden to his mind’s eye. “Because, lass, there are such sins heaped onto my shoulders, it would kill me to turn and face them.”

“It is a good thing, then, my laird, that you have the strength in your shoulders to carry them.”

The lack of gravity in her voice astounded him into looking down at her again. She was staring at him again, half of that tempting mouth quirked into a careful smile. Liam basked in it like a winter bloom would soak up the first rays of spring. Blue light from the windows fell across her hair and turned it the most fantastical shade of violet. Greens and golds softened her features and illuminated her pale eyes until they seemed to smolder.

She’d never looked lovelier than she did at this moment.

“How can there be salvation, redemption, unless there is first sin?” she asked, her face soft with concern for him. “The devil is in all of us, I think. That’s what makes us human rather than divine. I believe there is a tenuous balance between redemption and damnation. You cannot have one without testing the limits of the other. No light, without first conquering darkness. No courage, without battling your fear. No mercy, unless you experience suffering.” She turned to gaze at the golden cross gleaming on the altar, her mouth pressing into a line. “No forgiveness without someone having wronged you.”

“Who wronged ye?” Liam asked, briefly forgetting his own troubles. “Who do ye come here to pray for?” And why did he want to send that person to meet his final judgment?

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she murmured, staring down into her lap.

“Try me,” he prompted, surprised by how much he wanted her to trust him, to confide in him.

To confess to him.

“All I can say, my laird, is that I have demons of my own.” She met his eyes again, hers shining with suspicious moisture. “And because of your protection, your … comraich, I like to think that they cannot find me here at Ravencroft.”

Something within him melted. Perhaps it was his native language so adorably mispronounced by her British tongue. Or the self-effacing smile that produced that dimple he wanted to explore with his lips. Or her words. Words that provoked a tiny well of light in a subject he’d thought had become hopeless. A part of Liam hated the effect she had on him, that she made his heart soft and his body hard. Though it was life affirming, in a way, this sense of anticipation between them. Of … inevitability.

She turned back to the altar and leaned closer to the side of the pew. Away from him, killing the effect. “I just left Andrew,” she said brightly. “He is doing much better.”

His frown became so grave, so hard, he feared his own features would crack with strain. “With him, I feel there is no forgiveness for me.” He scored his scalp with heavy fingers as he ran a frustrated hand through his unbound hair. “All I’ve ever been is a man without mercy. An agent of cruelty and darkness and fear. My entire life, I’ve wrought nothing but destruction. I suppose that’s why I came back to Ravencroft. The idea of growing things, of building a life, and leaving a thriving legacy for my children, the two beings I helped to create, suddenly held great appeal. As if in doing so I might find some deliverance, if not redemption. Perhaps chase away the terrible memories haunting the halls of this place. But I fear it’s too late.”

“It’s never too late to make things right.”

She had no idea of what she spoke.

“Miss Lockhart—Mena—I must ask ye. Did ye see what happened today? Could it have been Andrew that pushed that barrel?”

As though realizing what must have been troubling him, his greatest fear, Mena’s eyes widened and she shook her head vehemently. “I’m still not certain what I saw, but I’m positive it wasn’t him, my laird. I know your son has been a dark and angry cloud. But I found Andrew in his bedroom directly after the incident. He’d already made it back to the keep.” She perked, rushing to cover his skepticism. “In fact, we had a rather splendid moment, and made unprecedented progress. I think that you will be pleased with him in the days to come. He’ll approach you, I know it, and you’ll find a reason to mend things between you.”

Liam slumped back against the pew, more relieved than even he’d expected.

“You can’t be inclined to believe that your own son would take actions to cause you harm,” she said in disbelief.

He wouldn’t be the first Mackenzie son to do so.

Liam dipped his head. “I’m inclined to believe that ye’re an angel sent to look after them, Mena. The ballast to the devil that sired them.”

He couldn’t be certain, but he thought a blush tinged her cheeks.

“Hardly an angel,” she whispered, and seemed to lean toward him in a way that told him she wasn’t aware of her action. “Your children, they have been so lonely for you. Would it be unforgivable of me to ask you what kept you from them all these years?”

His heart thumped so hard, he wondered if she couldn’t hear it. He’d never had someone dare to ask him such a question. His gaze darted about the chapel, until it landed on the long unused dark wood box with its royal-blue curtains. Perhaps, Liam thought, now was the time for confession. Maybe he could, just this once, unburden his soul.

His voice felt like gravel in his throat as he gave words to his darkest thoughts. “As I said before, there is a demon, of a more figurative kind, that has tainted the blood of the men in this family for generations. It burns through us until there’s nothing left but ash and char. I’ve fought innumerable battles in my life, but none as difficult as the one I wage with myself. Ye canna know what it is to live with this much fire. With so much anger and hatred that it chews through ye until ye’re nothing but a black void. I would save my children from knowing that kind of cruelty. I would protect them from the abject violence of it. For decades I thought that dark abyss would swallow me whole, and until I stepped away from its edge, I couldna risk taking them into it with me. And so I did whatever I had to do to keep it away from them, even if it meant … keeping myself away.”

“I don’t think you ever would have hurt them,” she reassured him after a thoughtful moment.

He shook his head. “But I couldna return until I was certain.”

“What changed?” she asked softly. “When were you convinced?”

Liam knew the exact moment; it was branded onto his soul. It haunted his nightmares. “When I lost my brother.”

“Hamish?”

A bitter sound escaped him. Of course she’d have heard about Hamish. He’d been a part of this clan. A part of their lives. Their father’s not-so-secret shame, and the man that their father would have preferred over Liam to be his heir.

“Our company was sent on a mission to put down a secret sect of Irish insurgents that had been hiding in Canada since the Fenian Rebellion. They’d taken a ship full of people and packed it with explosives. Their plan was to drive it into an English port and detonate it, killing masses of innocent people. We couldna stop the ship, but we boarded it, executed the mutineers, and Hamish was able to steer it back out to sea whilst the rest of us evacuated the civilians. It took longer than we thought to get them a safe distance from the blast radius. I was returning for Hamish, when I realized we’d run out of time. There was a fire on board, the fuse had been lit, and in that moment I knew if I boarded that ship, I’d not make it off again. That my luck as the Demon Highlander had run out.”

“Poor Hamish,” Mena murmured.

“Aye.”

“Was he a good man?”

“Nay, not really. But neither am I. We were forged by the same brutal father, though, and so I suppose ye could say we were bound in that way.” Liam let his shoulders lift and fall with a weighty breath. “I wanted to go back for him. I considered it, even though it would have been the end of me. But the only thing I could think of as the explosion ripped the ship apart was that I had to see my children. That I had so much to make up for.” His hand curled into a fist at the memory of his brother, begging for rescue. Pleading to be saved. “Something shifted the day Hamish … I just knew I needed to come home.”

When Mena laid her pale, elegant hand over his rough knuckles, it felt like a miracle.

“I’m truly sorry for all you suffered, and for all you lost. But regardless of the struggles you have with your children, they’re better for you having returned. It was the greatest choice you ever made. You must know that.”

The fervency in her voice tightened his throat, and for the second time that night he had to look away from her. “I made certain they never knew my father. I shielded them from their mother’s madness. All they’ve known of family is me, and Thorne, I suppose. But I never want them to meet my demon. My greatest fear is of them bearing witness to the evil of which I am capable. Of which I’ve proven myself capable.”

She squeezed his hand. “When you are subjected to such misfortune, it is difficult for those who are closest to you to comprehend it because you appear to be ordinary. Outwardly, you seem what you have always been, who you strive to show them that you are. But inside you are inconceivably altered, and perhaps you don’t even recognize yourself.” Her other hand joined the first, and she wrapped them around his palm, her voice growing with ardor. “I think, once you discover who you’ve decided to become, your children, your people, will get to know that man. And I have no doubt they will grow to love him. You are a good man, Laird Mackenzie, despite what you believe. I think your clan, and your children, know that more than you do.”

There it was, that reassuring smile again. The slight tilt of her sensual lips that coaxed a dimple into her cheek. Lord, but to look at her was pleasant. And to be touched by her, divine.

Bless her for what she believed of him, but Liam knew better. The maelstrom of emotion whirling through him at the depth of his confession suddenly flared into a physical inferno. His demon burst into flames of lust. Liam knew she could read it in his eyes, as she released his hands with a shocked gasp and made to rise. To retreat.

Well, if he was already damned, he might as well follow his wicked impulses all the way to hell.

At least he’d get to taste her again.

Liam sprang toward her, grasping her wrists and pulling her back down to him. He sank his fingers into her luxurious hair, loosening the intricate coiffure there, and pinned her head between his two strong palms as he took her wicked mouth with his own.

It was in the joining of their lips that Liam found what he’d come to the chapel seeking. He kissed Mena with a reverence he’d never felt in the entirety of his life. Driven by a hunger that welled from the darkest, most heretical depths of his soul, he knew he’d finally found something worthy of his worship.

Though he didn’t want to do so with soft prayers and humble words. He wanted to pay her homage in the most primitive way his Pict ancestors would have. With drums that beat with the rampant frenzy of his heart. With fire that licked at the black sky, ablaze with the strength of the heat spilling into his loins. Passion, years denied, clawed to the surface of his iron will as he feasted on her. Laid siege to her defenses as vigorously and mercilessly as he had so many walls and armies. He used the ruthlessness that had vanquished legions until he was the one man standing in the midst of the fallen.

Her hands closed around his wrists. She didn’t pull away, though he knew she wanted to.

They both knew she should.

Instead, a soft sound of surrender escaped her as she arched her neck, and opened her mouth to accept him.

Victorious heat surged through him, as he claimed her with his tongue, a delicious thrill spearing that dark place he’d always imagined had housed the Mackenzie demon. Her sweetness overwhelmed and stupefied him, and Liam realized that if anything, anyone, could bring him to his knees, it would be this singular woman. She could accept him deep into her body, and perhaps her soul. She could temper his fire, while illuminating the darkness.

God, but he had burned his entire forsaken existence … but had never felt true warmth until this moment.

And never felt true loss until she ripped her lips from his and pulled his hands down away from where they cupped her face.

The air between them vibrated with needful frenzy, and the frightened tears in her eyes only dampened the fire of a lust that would never truly be extinguished. “Mena.” Her name became a prayer.

A plea.

“Forgive me,” she whispered, surging to her feet and turning away from him. “You can’t know how wrong this is.”

She took the warmth with her as she gathered her skirts and fled.