Mena was struck not just by his masculine beauty, but also by the beauty of his people gathered around, their faces warm with whisky, ale, and rapture as they repeated parts of the lovely verses, cheering as each herder finished driving his choice few symbolic animals between the fires to finish the blessing.
The rite wasn’t long, formal, or ponderous as the mild Protestant services she’d attended growing up had been, and before she knew it, the spell was over. A bagpipe blared, and then another, until four pipers placed at the north, south, east, and western points of the circle lifted their wailing tunes in perfect synchronization.
A young child toddled too close to one of the bonfires, and Ravencroft swept her up and flung her high before settling her giggling body on his massive shoulders. He patiently ignored her playful tugs on his braids as, one by one, middle-aged or wizened women stepped forward to light torches in the fire before leading entire families in their wake.
“What are they doing now?” Mena asked Jani.
Jani gestured to the older women. “The reigning matriarch of each family must take the ritual fire home to her hearth. If their house is close, then she’ll take it to the village tonight. If not, she’ll take it to the tent and tend the coals until they travel safely home and ignite in their own dark fireplace. The Druid-blessed Samhain fire keeps them safe over the coming winter.”
“How lovely,” Mena murmured, as she marveled at how quickly the crowd began to disperse, each family following their matriarch back to where she would take the blessed flame.
She noted that the young father of the errant child affixed to Liam’s shoulders had wound his way to his laird. Liam tossed the little one up, eliciting one last squeal of delight, before he settled her back in the young man’s grateful arms. The men exchanged what Mena imagined to be paternal smiles and words of exasperation over mischievous young daughters before they locked forearms in a traditional show of kinship.
An emotion gathered in Mena’s throat in the form of a lump that refused to be swallowed. Did Ravencroft want more babies? Would he like another chance to raise children from the beginning? Were he ever to marry again, he was most definitely virile enough to father many sweet, dark-haired little ones.
Little ones she could never have.
Frustrated tears welled in her eyes. It didn’t matter, she reminded herself firmly. None of it mattered, as a relationship between them was as unattainable as the stars. She knew it, and eventually, he would as well.
Miserably, she watched him move through the throngs of his clan. Women doted on him, using any excuse to touch his exposed skin the color of his own famous whisky. She could see from her vantage that though some people feared him, the women desired him, and the men respected him. Be he the Brollachan or the berserker, his people flourished beneath his leadership, and they loved him for it. How could he not know that?
A man like him would be easy to love.
Once the word amalgamated out of the universal impossibilities of the future and the terrifying rifts of the past, Mena realized that she was utterly lost.
She hadn’t fallen in love with Liam Mackenzie. No, she’d drifted into it in subtle shifts. The moment they’d met had been like the whisper of a storm kissing a hot, humid day with a blessed chill. The promise of something dark and exciting gathered on the horizon, and Mena had watched that storm rumble closer with every instant they’d spent together. Every time she’d banked the fires that blazed in his eyes. Every time he’d ignited heat into her cold heart. He’d chipped a bit of her resistance away and replaced it with the force of his raw, unbridled passion. He shared with her what men rarely did, and he unveiled the darkest parts of himself for her to see. Illuminating them not only to her eyes, but to his own and his children’s in an attempt to try and be better. He wanted her to understand him more so that she feared him less.
And Mena loved him for it.
She loved him.
Dear God, what did she do now?
“Miss Lockhart! Jani!” An animated cry broke Mena away from her astonished revelation as she felt Jani tense beside her.
Rhianna raced up the subtle hill toward them, draped in the costume of a Grecian goddess. The effect was slightly ruined by her thick lamb’s-wool wrap, but in frigid weather such as this, it couldn’t be helped. Flanked by two equally red-faced and exuberant girls, she nearly bowled over Jani, but he stopped her just in time with two steadying hands on either arm.
The moment she was stable, he dropped his hands to curl them into fists at his sides.
“Whit like, Jani?” The younger girls giggled, casting not-so-subtle coquettish looks at the young Hindu. Mena had to admit, Jani was an exotically handsome young man, and it broke her heart that he only had eyes for her oblivious charge. Especially when she noted that he caught the notice of many a lass.
“Are ye all right, Miss Lockhart? Ye look like ye’re about to cry,” Rhianna observed with her usual lack of tact, though her dark eyes were filled with concern.
“Just a bit of ash from the fires drifted over,” Mena lied as she greeted Rhianna’s friends, remembering their names as Liza and Kayleigh, though she couldn’t recall which was which. “What’s this, then?” She gestured to the charred remains of what she’d surmised to be an apple peel in the girl’s hands.
“It’s a C, Miss Lockhart, and C is for Campbell.” The sad-looking apple peel was shoved beneath her nose for inspection, and it did, indeed, seem to have been singed into the shape of a C. Though there was a suspicious hook at the bottom of the peel that could have been a J if reversed.