It was her mouth that did him in, Liam decided, as he glowered down at the startled governess held captured in his hands.
He’d spied her drifting through the gardens like a wayward flower petal, her lush lips tilting up slightly, as though the fragrance of the blooms brought a forbidden secret to mind.
Her mouth not only haunted his dreams, but also his every waking moment. And if that fucking ingrate had charmed her into letting him have a taste, Liam was going to burn Inverthorne Keep to the ground.
With Gavin St. James still inside.
After an enjoyable day out with his children, Liam was surprised to discover how much he looked forward to returning home. Because Miss Lockhart would be there, swishing about the halls of his keep in some lovely gown or other. Charming the staff, tantalizing the men, and smiling that kind but mysterious smile.
He’d anticipated that smile all bloody afternoon.
Once they’d arrived back at the keep, the lass had been disappointingly absent, and Russell had informed him that she’d been seen running into the woods alone, as though chased by the reaper.
Ravencroft was generally a safe place, but peculiar and dangerous things had occurred lately, and he didn’t like the idea of a London lass in the Wester Ross woods alone. Concerned, Liam had taken it upon himself to go after her, as the hour began to grow late, and had barely set off when he’d heard the musical cadence of her laughter drift from the tree line.
She’d appeared, and not alone.
The smile in which Liam had meant to bask, she’d bestowed upon someone else. And not just anyone else, the very man who’d already betrayed him once before.
A familiar rage ignited inside him. Liam grasped onto that anger with both hands, calling forth the demon that had been forged in the inferno of his fury. It smothered the pain and suspicion with arrogance and superiority. He couldn’t allow himself to notice the soft give of her flesh beneath his rough hands as he held her. Nor could he glance down to see the wet skirts clinging to her legs, outlining every lush curve of her voluptuous body.
“Answer me, woman,” he growled. The image of her rolling beneath Gavin St. James in the waves sent a shock of murderous rage through him that lit his blood aflame. “What the bloody hell were ye doing in the forest with him?”
“I—I took a walk by the sea.” Her eyes searched for anywhere to land but his. “A pup almost drowned and I waded out to save it for poor Trixie, and Mr. St. James was likewise looking for his dog and he offered to escort me home and—um…” The words tumbled out of her in desperate chaos bereft of any of her characteristic eloquence.
“It is dangerous to lie to me,” he roared, giving her a firm shake.
Instead of offering more excuses, as he’d expected, the woman blanched a ghostly shade, and moisture welled to the rim of her lids as angst tightened her soft skin against her lovely features.
Confronted by what seemed to be guilt, Liam felt physically ill. “Is this how you conduct yourself? The second ye’re left alone, you run off to whore in the woods with a known scoundrel?”
Her chin snapped up, and her eyes locked onto his, brimming with something other than tears, something he’d never expected to see from such a timid creature.
Fearless defiance.
It turned her irises an intense shade of azure-green and flashed at him with the strength of a sea storm, as though she were Calypso herself readying to unleash her wrath.
“You will unhand me, sir.” She whispered the order, softly, slowly, as she twisted in his grip in such a way that Liam knew it would cause her pain if he didn’t let go.
So he released her, though his hands curled at his sides, aching with a sense of loss. With the need to touch her again.
She took a step backward, then another, brandishing her bouquet like a shield as her features became harder and colder with each careful retreat.
Conflicted, provoked, angry, and bemused, Liam advanced, which seemed to fuel her hostility.
“How dare you?” she spat, her voice almost a whisper, and somehow carrying the weight of a Viking’s cudgel. “How dare you cast such unfounded aspersions at me when I have given you no reason to draw such dreadful conclusions?”
Liam summoned his indignation to smother the shame he felt at handling her roughly. “What other conclusions do ye expect me to draw, Miss Lockhart?”
“Perhaps you should gather information before making wild and ridiculous accusations. Before calling me a whore.”
Would that she were a whore rather than a governess.
The errant wish shocked Liam so thoroughly that his next words escaped more harshly than intended. “Do ye deny that any of yer pretty London lords and ladies wouldn’t suspect the same after witnessing such behavior?”
“Wasn’t it you who informed me you were different than they are?” she accused.
Liam blinked, momentarily speechless. No one dared to speak to him like this, not in decades. He’d thought this wee lass a timid English mouse. And though her heart-shaped face was leached of color, her eyes burned with a lovely jade fire, fueled by her defensive indignation.
“Mr. St. James treated me with more respectful deference and gentlemanly conduct than you have since the day I arrived at your keep, my laird, and he kept his hands to himself.”
“How do I know that?”
She’d looked so guilty when he’d accused her of being a liar.
“You have my word as a lady.”
“I trust no one’s word.” Besides, she was no lady. Merely a governess.
“That’s no fault of mine,” she quipped. “What was it Shakespeare said? ‘Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.’”
Liam’s head snapped to the side, as though she’d slapped him. He couldn’t look at her for a moment, couldn’t see the fire in her eyes match the heat burning inside of him.
He’d not be responsible for what he would do next.
Gritting his teeth against his conflicting emotions, he pressed forward, forcing her to step back again, retreating toward the walls of the keep. His demon temper wanted her cornered. Wanted her helpless and trembling before him.
He wanted her to beg. Wanted her to kneel. He. Wanted …
Her.
Beneath him. Above him. He didn’t care. The thought of her with another man, with that man, caused his Mackenzie blood to simmer with dominance.
For such an intelligent lass, she wasn’t smart enough to fear him. He needed to change that, for her own good.
He was a monster, after all. A demon. And it was best for all involved that she stay out of his way.
Though … hadn’t he sought her out?
Pushing that troubling thought to the side, he gave her the look that had sent the most powerful of men to their knees. “If ye wish to retain yer position here, or if ye want Mr. St. James to live with his hands attached to his wrists, ye’ll make certain they stay away from yer person. I’ll not have ye keep company with the likes of him.”
“I had no further intention of doing so,” she stated, her eyes widening as her back found the stone wall of the keep, impeding further retreat. Yet she stood against him, her chin lifted haughtily, and her shoulders thrown as far back as the wall behind her would allow. “Regardless of my intent, you don’t have the right to dictate how I spend my free time, or with whom!”
The leash on his temper snapped and roared to the surface. “Like hell! I am laird here!” He threw his arms out wide to illustrate the scope of his domain before gesturing at her. “And whilst in my employ, ye will mark me when I order ye to—”
Her reaction turned the flames of his temper into shards of ice. Heated words crowded his throat, suddenly filled with shock and remorse, and turned to ash.
The woman didn’t just cringe or wince, like someone who’d been startled, when he’d gestured at her.
She cowered.
The bouquet of blossoms scattered to their feet as her hands flew up to protect her face, chin tucked tightly against her chest, and her lovely eyes squeezed shut. Bracing herself. Preparing for him to strike her.
And that wasn’t even the worst of it.
From one of her trembling, splayed palms little crimson dots of blood revealed a terrible truth. She hadn’t been fearless in her defiance as he’d initially assumed …
She’d been brave.
Clutching the flowers with white knuckles, she’d not even winced as the thorns had pierced her delicate flesh.
Because the entire time she’d stood against him, she’d been too terrified to notice.
All suspicion and—he finally admitted to himself—jealousy drained from him as he watched her courage likewise desert her. As the haze of red receded from his vision, he noted the details that supported her story. She smelled like the sea and the forest and late-summer herbs. Beneath that, the unmistakable smell of a wet dog clung to her damp bodice.
Her skirts were soiled and damp, but her blouse remained clean and her hair was undisturbed in its intricate coiffure. If she’d had a proper go with Gavin St. James, she’d be a disheveled mess. An image of her danced into his mind, lips swollen from rough kisses and her luxurious hair wild and spilling down her back. Naked flesh flushed with passion and begging to be touched, tasted, nay, worshipped.
“Christ,” he whispered.
Never in his long, regret-filled life had he felt like such an unmitigated arse.
Liam tried to stop. Told himself to turn, to march away and leave this conversation for another time. But somehow he was reaching for her again, his fingers circling her wrists with all the infinite gentleness he could muster.
She gave little resistance as he pulled her hands away from her face, revealing her pale, pinched features.
And the haunted eyes of a refugee.
He’d seen the same look on the faces of victims from the Orient to India and Africa. The question in their forlorn gazes lurking behind the exhaustion and despair.
Are you going to be the next one to hurt me?
Hurting people was something he’d always excelled at, something his superiors in the military had noticed right away. They’d honed him from a violent youth into an efficient weapon and had unleashed him upon their enemies. Pain became his arsenal and his ally. In his long life, he’d hurt so very many.
But causing her pain seemed as unfathomable as did erasing the sins of the past.
Liam hated himself almost as much as he loathed whoever had put those shadows in her eyes. He’d relish using his considerable skills to bring the word pain a new and horrific perception to that man.
Grappling his temper, he schooled the wrath from his features as he searched his person for a handkerchief.
“Mo àilleachd,” he whispered gently.
Her eyes sharpened with a question, but she remained still and watchfully silent as he pressed his handkerchief to the few small wells of blood.
“Tha mi duillch … Maith mi.”
Forgive me.
Liam had never apologized before, and could only bring himself to do so now in his native tongue. Perhaps because he asked too much? That he was beyond forgiveness.
Had been for years.
Miss Lockhart searched his face with those huge, haunted eyes, her entire body still, yet coiled to spring away, like a rabbit beneath a stroking hand.
Working his jaw as though grinding his pride down enough so he could swallow it, he flicked her a penitent look. “I vow on my honor as Laird of the Mackenzie clan never to strike ye.”
She watched him with care, testing each movement of his muscle, assessing every change in his expression. “I do not question your honor, Laird, but it seems that I, also, may trust no one’s word.”
She’d heard such a promise before. And it had likely been broken.
So where did that leave them?
A small tendril of her lovely hair escaped its pin, caught the breeze, and snagged over her soft features. Liam released her uninjured wrist to reach up and brush the curl away from the nearly healed bruise on her cheek.
She winced, but did not flinch away.
“I’ve been the cause of enough such wounds in my life to recognize one made by a fist,” he murmured. He wanted to say that he’d never raised his hand to a woman … but a terrible night in his youth would have made him a liar, and a familiar shame choked him into silence.
Her throat worked over a swallow, and the tension loosened, if only the slightest measure.
“I’ll believe that yer walk through the forest with Gavin St. James was innocent, lass … if ye admit ye’ve been keeping a secret from me.”
Her lashes swept down over her pale cheeks, and it warmed Liam that she was a terrible liar. An endearing trait in a woman.
“This was no carriage accident,” he prodded. “Some bastard struck ye, did he not?”
The backs of his fingers caressed her cheek, the satin skin cool and unutterably soft beneath his work-roughened hands.
She stared at the space between them for several uncertain moments, and gave a barely perceptible nod.
“Tell me,” he urged.
Her features became indescribably bleak. “I—I can’t. Please don’t ask that of me.”
The sun gave one last explosion of light as it finished its dip below the trees, setting fire to her hair. Her jade eyes became luminous with unshed tears.
Never in his life had Liam seen anything so heartrendingly beautiful.
It unsettled him. It was as though when she looked at him, she saw not the man he struggled to be, but the man he truly was.
The demon he tried to keep locked away, but that he’d very nearly unleashed upon her.
A protective instinct welled from deep in his gut and seized his chest. It was wrong, and it was dangerous, but it was as undeniable and inevitable as the coming night. This woman, this stranger Farah Blackwell had sent him, she was intelligent, capable, indescribably lovely …
And she was running from something. From someone?
Perhaps that was why her perceptive gaze disturbed him, caused him to wonder what those observant eyes saw when she looked at him. Why did he care? He’d not done so before. Why did he look down at her now and yearn to be the savior she so obviously needed?
Because he’d never been that to anyone before. Indeed, it had always been the opposite. He’d been the one to run from. The Demon Highlander. The man from whom there was no salvation.
Only pain.
God, but he was tired. Tired of the fear he read in the eyes of others. The deference. The expectation.
The English loved him for the atrocities he committed for their empire. His clan hated him for the atrocities committed by his father, but they needed his land, his business, to survive. So they tolerated him, and feared him, and obeyed him. Avoided his temper because his wrath had become legend.
But what if, just once, he inspired a different emotion? What if he used what made him hard and dangerous to protect something soft and vulnerable?
Someone rare and brilliant and beautiful.
What if, in return, he found the thing he sought most in this world?
Peace.
Testing the strand of silken hair between his thumb and forefinger, he tucked it behind the shell of her ear.
“Do ye know what this land was called before it was Wester Ross, before it was Scotland even? A name that is still whispered to this day?”
Her brows drew together, creating a little wrinkle of confusion between them. “I confess I do not,” she said carefully, her mistrust of this subject change apparent.
“Comraich.” He murmured the word with all the reverence it deserved. “It means sanctuary. Protection. People have been climbing the Bealach na Bà Pass to Wester Ross to hide for thousands of years.”
She caught her lip in her teeth, and Liam’s gaze snagged there. “Is that what ye’ve done, Miss Lockhart? Have ye come here in search of refuge?”
Her face turned toward his fingers, as though searching for the warmth they would find there. “I don’t know what to say.” Uncertain eyes met his, looking for direction. For assurance.
“Ye’ll find it here.” Liam could tell his words had stunned her.
“Why?” she breathed. “You cannot trust me.”
Did she mean that he should not trust her? Or that he was incapable? Something about the secrets held in her eyes brought to mind paintings of Renaissance angels hinting at the great, divine mystery.
Why, indeed?
Because he wanted her close. Because the sound of her soft and husky voice did things to him physically that the most exotic whores had failed to provoke. Because she’d only just done what no other seemed brave enough to do. She’d stood against his ire. Put him in his place.
She’d provoked the fire of his temper, of course. But then—somehow—she’d put it out.
“Because, in my blood, before I am the Marquess of Ravencroft, a British title given to my ancestors, I am the Laird of the Mackenzie clan of Wester Ross. Like I said, we lairds have provided sanctuary to anyone who seeks it, even our enemies, and especially against the British. Highland hospitality is our sacred duty.” Though he felt as though his smile would crack from disuse, he attempted one, and judging by the complete change in her features, he was pretty certain he’d succeeded.
Her eyes became impossibly wider and one breath of disbelief followed another. “But I am British.”
“Am I correct in assuming that so is whomever ye’re hiding from?”
After a protracted, level look, she nodded. Her first concession, which ignited a spark of hope.
He noted that her hand had relaxed from where she’d gripped his handkerchief, and he began to gently dab her palm. Once the dried blood was gone, it was impossible to tell where the thorns had punctured her.
“I thought you were going to—” She swallowed when he looked at her, and seemed to forget what she was going to say, so he concentrated on her palm. “I thought you were going to dismiss me.”
Not a fucking chance in hell would he allow her to leave.
In lieu of that, he said, “Sanctuary aside, I think ye’re good for Rhianna and Andrew.”
“You do?” He found the surprise in her voice both bemusing and endearing.
“I just spent an entire day with my children, and after only a week, their behavior was better than it’s ever been.”
Her pleasure at his compliment was palpable, and Liam let it spread over him like a cooling balm.
“I’m so delighted to hear it. I was worried that progress has been rather … gradual.”
“We Highlanders are a stubborn, hardheaded lot. Gradual is the best ye can expect from us by way of progress.”
“You don’t say.”
Liam glanced up at the dry note of levity in her voice.
There it was. That smile. The one that made her eyes glimmer with the brilliance of the jade sculptures he’d admired in China. It was all he wanted out of this day … and he’d been the cause.
Liam had thought himself too old, too cynical to ever again experience a marvel at his own sense of achievement.
Would wonders never cease?
Apparently not, when it came to his governess.
It was then he noticed her shiver. In fact, her lips had lost some of their rosy color, and some fine veins had become visible beneath her pale, nearly iridescent skin.
She was cold, he realized.
“Come, lass, let’s get ye inside.”
“Yes, that sounds wonderful.” Bending down, she used the hand not clutching his handkerchief to gather the scattered pile of flowers and herbs she’d dropped.
Berating himself, Liam crouched to help.
She flicked a grateful look at him, and Liam noticed that her eyes caught at his shoulders and held, then traveled down the places where his arm strained against his shirtsleeves.
“Blast.” She grimaced, and dropped the rose she’d clutched at, as well as his handkerchief.
A thorn remained in the soft pad of her finger, and she reached for it with a wince.
“Och, lass.” Liam beat her to it. “These roses are a jealous flower.” Cupping her hand with his, he pressed a thumb into her palm to secure it before plucking the thorn out quickly, to cause her the least amount of distress.
A tiny drop of blood welled from her fingertip.
Liam had no other handkerchief to offer her, and didn’t want to use the one on the ground, so he did the only other thing he could think of, and slid her finger into his mouth. Closing his lips around the insignificant wound, he watched her reaction with rare pleasure.
She froze, her eyes growing round as two glowing moons.
His body’s reaction was just as astonishing, and just as instantaneous.
Her finger was cold inside the heat of his mouth, and he fitted his tongue against it, warming her with a soft sucking motion. He enjoyed her quick intake of breath with a predatory thrill.
She tasted of the sea. A bit of brine mixed with lavender. Liam could see the pulse jump against the thin, delicate skin of her wrist. Could feel the quiver of sensation that washed up her arm when he gave another gentle pull with his mouth.
No more blood welled from the wound; he would have been able to taste it. But he couldn’t seem to let her go. Instead, on a dark whim, he ran his tongue up the underside of her finger and reveled in the startled catch of her breath and the dilation of her eyes.
It was then he realized just what a colossal mistake he’d made.
He never should have allowed himself to taste her. Never should have glimpsed the way her eyes liquefied and her plump lips parted and softened at the illicit motion of his mouth.
Her gaze ripped from what his lips did to her finger and caught his eyes. His primeval instinct—the same one that made him such an efficient killer—identified the heat he glimpsed beneath the innocent confusion. Her fear, a primal emotion, had become something equally as primitive.
The knowledge that he could fan that soft spark into an inferno set flame to his own blood.
He wanted to be the answer to the questions he saw building inside her. To allay her every curiosity and teach her things she’d never even thought to inquire about. To peel away the wet layers of her clothing and fit her naked body against his, and distinguish the moment when her shivers of cold became shudders of ecstasy.
To allow lust to consume them both.
It was as he’d warned his men when commanding them to avoid the opium dens and pleasure palaces of Asia. It was better to never take that first step.
Because once you tasted the smallest part of something so infinitely sweet, you’d want the rest of it with a fiendish, obsessive hunger. You’d give away every part of yourself to savor it again. Would beg, steal, or kill in order to obtain it.
Miss Philomena Lockhart was exactly that kind of unattainable pleasure.
And he’d just had his first taste.
Velvet shackles wound their way around his bones, locking his soul down with an ominous sound of finality. He’d always been a beast of greater appetites than most men. He understood that he needed too much and too often. He’d been careful, so fucking careful, when it came to drink, or gambling, or the myriad other things that men like him lost themselves to.
Even women.
It was because of his consuming need that he held himself in check, even to the point of denial. He was a large man, larger than most. It wasn’t just the strength of his temper he feared … it was the idea that he wouldn’t be able to temper his strength.
This, he realized, was a great deal of Miss Lockhart’s allure. The wrist beneath the grip of his hand was feminine, but not delicate. Her voluptuous, statuesque build intrigued him. She was strong, hearty, with more dips and hollows, more curves and handfuls, than the women he was accustomed to.
He’d thought that perhaps he could unleash the full force of his voracious lust on a woman such as her … and she’d be able to withstand it. She didn’t seem so fragile, so easily broken.
But that was wrong, wasn’t it? Someone had already tried to break her, and very nearly succeeded.
As though she could sense the direction of his thoughts, she gasped and slid her finger from between his lips, reclaiming her hand and enfolding it to her chest. Blinking rapidly, she rose to her feet.
“Thank you, Laird, for…”
Liam watched her grope for the words and wished he could help. Manners dictated that he rise when she did, but he couldn’t. Not with his body in the urgent state of arousal it was now.
“Excuse me,” she murmured, and rushed around him, flowers forgotten where they lay strewn in colorful chaos.
Liam glared down at the fragrant blossoms. He didn’t allow himself to watch her. Couldn’t afford to appreciate the sway of her ample arse as she hurried away from him. He didn’t dare stand. If he stayed here—stayed low—the predator within wouldn’t urge him to chase her as she fled.
Because he would catch her … and there would be no accounting for what he would do to her once he did. She would be a lamb in the jaws of a lion, and her fate would be the same as any other beautiful, innocent thing he’d dared to care about.
She’d end up dead.
For destruction was the destiny of those he loved. The cost of his glory. The counterweight of the stewardship over this ancient land. He was the result of untold generations of cruelty. And as the world became more civilized, he had less of a place within it.
Nay, he admonished himself, as the cold of the encroaching evening seeped past his flesh and into his soul, but did nothing to erase the shiver of yearning or the flavor of her flesh from his tongue.
He never should have allowed himself a taste.
