“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.
EPILOGUE
Ravencroft Keep, Wester Ross, Scotland,
Late October 1882
Four years later
“Keep your dirty hands off me, William Grant Ruaridh Mackenzie, or we’ll never be done with this in time to bathe and meet Andrew at the train,” Mena Mackenzie admonished firmly as she slapped her husband’s grasping fingers away from where they teased at her waist and were drifting toward her breasts.
“I was under the impression, Lady Ravencroft, that ye like it when I’m dirty.” Liam said from behind her where she stood and gathered the orders from the distillery office desk. His lips lowered and danced across her exposed neck, sending familiar shivers across her entire body. “We’ll send Jani for the train,” he rumbled before nipping at her ear in that way he knew made her instantly wet with desire.
Mena knew what she would find when she turned around. A brawny, soot-streaked Highlander fresh from singing the oak casks over the open fire, muscles thick and bulging from a day’s hard work and dark eyes blazing with an even dirtier intent. She’d be lost to his masculine seduction if she gave in to the temptation to turn and admire him, so she did the only thing she could think of to save her dignity. And her time. She called out to the new forewoman of Ravencroft Distillery, whose own office was only across the hall.