He’d thought the covetousness had been aroused by the obvious fondness blooming amid the two. Because of the distance between Liam and his son, and the intensity between him and Miss Lockhart, the ease and affection with which Andrew and she treated each other these past few days had been enviable.
But what if he’d been blind to something altogether more illicit? What if, in his own desire for the luscious woman, he’d missed a blooming dynamic that was not only troubling, but predatory?
Liam’s own initial sexual experience had been with an older woman. Like Andrew, he’d been a tall boy. Pretty, angular, and rapacious. He’d drawn the attentions of girls and women alike, and had learned quickly what they’d wanted from him.
And what he could take from them.
Something dark and brutal twisted in his gut. A stab of murderous rage that caused a red jealousy to bleed into the wound. Would a woman like Mena Lockhart dare trifle with the son of the Demon Highlander? He wasn’t certain. Hadn’t Rhianna said Andrew and Mena had disappeared together today? Liam, himself, had noticed that they’d seemed to avoid him more than once.
Head swimming with the Scotch he’d had with dinner—had it been three or four snifters?—and whatever had been in the decanter thereafter, Liam stalked out of his son’s empty room and pointed his boots at the light beneath Mena Lockhart’s door. He let the dread that weighed down his organs bloom into the familiar anger that he usually fought, but now embraced.
Ravencroft Keep was full of secrets, and one by one, he was determined to ferret them out.
And deliver swift and retributive justice.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Mena had been dressing for bed, and therefore was completely nude when her door exploded open with such force that it rattled the stones of the keep.
She was too startled to even scream.
Incomprehension stole the ability of movement from her limbs as she recognized the swarthy figure filling her door frame. He was the size of a small mountain. Dark as the night that surrounded them, and every bit as tempestuous.
Their gazes clashed and held as he stood equally as solid at her threshold. Hers wide and horrified, his narrowed and furious.
He was so savagely masculine. Relentless. Unstoppable. For a moment, as Mena stood lit by the lone lantern on the writing desk, she couldn’t bring herself to move. It was the naked hunger etched into his chiseled features that arrested her for a breath longer than it should have. She’d never in her life had someone look at her like that. Like his yearning caused him physical pain. His skin drew tighter against the sharp bones, lending the intensity of his stare a stark, ruthless cast.
His hard mouth went slack at the sight of her, and his chest rattled as though he struggled to fill it with breath. He looked every inch the barbaric Highlander from the painting on the stairs. Hair wild down to his shoulders, eyes flashing with the ferocity of an apex predator, and muscles cording with incomparable strength. Nothing moved but the flare of his nostrils as he stared at her.
His eyes touched every part of her. Even parts that may never have been touched before. They flashed with lightning, singing along her nerves with electric currents of heat. A sultry, answering thunder whipped through her, calling forth a storm so unexpected, she almost felt betrayed by her own body.
Her nipples, already tight from the chill, budded painfully. The sensation drew a shocked gasp from her as it tingled and flushed from her breasts all the way down her belly to settle in a wet rush between her thighs.
Jesus, God, what was she doing? What must he think?
Scrambling for the bed, she stood behind it, yanking her counterpane up to her neck and struggling to wrap it around her exposed body.
Perhaps she misinterpreted his stare. It was anger, not hunger, surely. Now that he’d seen her without her corset, he’d have marked the softness of her belly, the round flares of her thighs, and the grotesque way everything jiggled as she ran for the cover.
“What—what the devil are you doing here?” she gasped around a lump of mortification in her throat. His boot made a foreboding heavy sound as, instead of apologizing or explaining, he breached the threshold of her room.
Her mind instantly went from blank with shock to racing with terror. Had he found out who she was, somehow? Was he here to demand answers? To force her back to London and once again into bondage? Dear God, what?
“Where is he?” the marquess boomed in a voice loud enough to shake the windows in their frames. She could make out the question, though the edges of the words ran together, as though he had a hard time enunciating them.
“Who on earth do you mean?” she asked, as his eyes tore away from her and searched her room with frenetic observation.
“Ye ken full well who I mean.” He stalked toward her turret, searched in the tub, and opened the doors to her wardrobe.
“I have—I have no idea who you’re talking about,” she breathed around the disbelief trying to paralyze her tongue.
“Doona play coy with me,” he threatened, batting his way through the silk, crinoline, and cotton he found, parting the folds of her clothing as he would dense foliage. “The two of ye have been thick as thieves. I doona know why I failed to see it before now.”
Distraught, Mena tried to make sense of his slurred accusations whilst also yanking the blanket from where it was tucked beneath the mattress so she could wrap herself in it more completely. Had Gavin—Lord Thorne—told him lies about what had or, more appropriately, hadn’t occurred between them? Closing her eyes against a wave of panic, she prayed such was not the case.