Every Highlander, including Liam, stared at her for a full silent minute, all traces of mockery vanished. Partly because of what she said, and partly because her body was now pressed against the larger window of the carriage.
Even through her dyed burgundy wool dress, every man could see she had the figure a lusty Highlander dreamed about at night. She should have looked ridiculous, arm and eyes half out a tiny window. But Liam burned with shame, and quite a few other confusing emotions, when he found himself as slack-jawed as the rest of his men.
Christ, were those breasts real, or were they the creations of some newfangled English contraption?
In that moment, he’d have given his eye to find out. And just as abruptly, he wanted to burn the eyes out of every man who ogled her.
“Well,” he snarled at them. “Check the bloody wheel.”
It was Russell who dismounted and jogged close to inspect her assessment. “I’ll be buggered if she isna right,” he muttered to Liam, who stood wondering how in the hell a young gentlewoman, one with breasts like that, would know about carriage mechanics.
“But, lass, we’ve no linchpin lying around out here on the Bealach na Bà.” Russell looked to her as though she might come up with a magical answer for that, too.
“Now that we know the problem,” Liam said very evenly, “I would ask ye to again consider riding with me the scant five miles to Ravencroft Keep.” His reasons for wanting her on his horse had become much more opaque, but mostly he wanted her away from that fucking window and the wide, lusty gazes of his men.
Her expression actually brightened. “There’s really no need.” She then addressed Russell, his round, freckled face, ruddy cheeks, and perpetually jolly expression obviously more favorable. “Mightn’t you borrow a linchpin from one of the other wheels, as they all have two? That should hold for a scant five miles without incident and then more extensive repairs can be made at the keep.” At least she pulled her arm back into the carriage with her, which angled her body away from the window.
Liam wasn’t quite sure if he should thank God or curse Him.
Russell considered her words. “We’d need something to secure it with.” He rubbed at his russet beard with a thoughtful hand, then winked at her. “Braw as we are, we canna work a linchpin with our bare fingers.”
“I’ve my tool bag.” Thomas Campbell’s son, Kevin, dismounted and reached into his saddlebags, extracting a leather case.
Liam held up a hand. “It would be easier to deliver ye to Ravencroft and then repair this without the extra weight,” he said through clenched teeth.
She gasped, and every married man made a noise of either warning or panic.
“I meant of the bloody trunks lashed to the top of the carriage!” His famously short temper was fraying rapidly. Liam gestured to his horse, Magnus, and held his hand out to her as though the carriage walls didn’t separate them. “Please, lass.”
She regarded his outstretched palm for an indecisive moment with such intensity that Liam glanced down at it to see what the bloody issue was. He found nothing but his hand. Callused, square, and unsightly scarred, but nothing extraordinary, except perhaps the size, but there was fuck-all he could do about that.
They weren’t like the hands of any marquess she’d have met before. They both knew it.
“I can’t … I’m afraid.”
Liam regarded her for another tense moment as no one moved whilst waiting for his say-so. He’d at first thought her words had been I can’t, I’m afraid. An expression of polite regret. But upon closer scrutiny, he didn’t wonder if the meaning was entirely different. An admission.
I can’t. I’m afraid.
Somehow, the ball of frustration in his chest released only slightly. Though something else took its place. Maybe a bit of disappointment? He’d seen that look before in a woman’s eyes, the innate suspicion mixed with placating caution. His mother had worn that look around his father.
He glanced back down at his hands. Could she somehow see the blood that stained them? Could she sense the cruelty bred into his black soul? Did she know the vile and unholy urges that, even now, coursed through the very fibers of his muscle?
She was right to fear him.
“All right, lads.” Liam inhaled a weary breath and took post by the axle to lift the heaviest part whilst someone affixed the wheel back in place. “Let’s get this over with.”
He felt her gaze on him as they lifted the carriage and patched it. He couldn’t figure out why he was so full of this awareness, but something about her watching him grunt and strain and sweat was damnably erotic.
He didn’t allow himself to look at her, though, even when the deed was done. Instead, he swung onto Magnus’s back and kicked him into a gallop, leaving one of the others to drive the coach back to Ravencroft.
He needed a bath and a change. If she wanted a proper marquess, she was about to meet one.
CHAPTER THREE
The rain painted the red sandstone of Ravencroft Keep a deep, melancholy shade. Mena loved it immediately, as the roof was, as her father would have said, rather crowded. She counted fourteen turrets and four towers as the carriage trundled over an ancient stone bridge arching above an emerald loch.
Renaissance architecture from the early seventeenth century overlaid defensive ramparts and the original tower that must have dated all the way back to Robert the Bruce. The windows were large and airy for such an imposing stone structure, she supposed, to optimize the view and the occasional sunlight over the sparkling sea beneath the cliffs below. She’d only begun to count the chimneys when they pulled past the fountain around the circular drive and thereby lost sight of the roof.