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.