Reaching in, she carefully plucked the roses and added them to her bundle.
She closed her eyes and enjoyed their sweet, almost ostentatious fragrance as she turned toward the keep. Perhaps once she’d changed for dinner she’d beg Mrs. Grady, the housekeeper, for a vase. Or maybe make a satchel of lavender for her pillow or to soak in the bath—
Large hands clamped around her upper arms like manacles, barely stopping her from plowing into a barrel-chest.
“Forgive me, I wasn’t looking where I—”
The hands around her arms twitched with anger, or the effort it took for him to not snap her bones in two, she couldn’t tell. Dark eyes flashed with wrath in the quickly fading afternoon light, and Mena blinked against the savage majesty of the Laird of Ravencroft as he glowered down at her with barely leashed hostility.
“Explain to me, Miss Lockhart, just what the fuck ye were doing alone in the woods with that man?”
CHAPTER SIX
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?”