“Liam is short for William, dear,” she reminded brightly. “I don’t imagine that counts.”
“Besides, she needs the name of a Brit,” the all-knowing Kayleigh interjected.
They all bent back over the apple peel, though something in Andrew’s eyes told Mena that he wasn’t convinced.
* * *
As people filtered out of the grounds, the sounds of horses and carts and the chatter of excitable children and exhausted parents began to dwindle. Liam turned to look for his family. After only a moment of searching firelit faces, he chuckled a little at the sight of six bent arses huddled in a neat little row around the base of the north bonfire. One particular bottom caught his attention, sheathed in a full green skirt and deliciously plumper than the others displayed. Mena’s shapely legs were longer than the children’s and Jani’s. This pushed her round derriere higher, made it more tantalizingly accessible.
Liam silently ambled up to them until he found himself directly behind the object of his desire. If he bent his knees just a little, and pressed his pelvis forward, his erection would be nestled in the sweet cleft. Shaking his head, he stepped back, reminding himself it wouldn’t do to turn into a raging tornado of primal lust in front of his clan, his children, and the visiting Highland nobles.
Animated giggles erupted from the girls and they were talking softly among themselves, observing some undetermined spot on the fire.
“What’s this, then?” he asked, keeping his voice deceptively light.
Six bodies simultaneously sprang around in surprise, but the line didn’t break. Mena wouldn’t meet his eyes, but kept her horrified gaze locked on his bare chest.
“Father! We were just—” Rhianna was cut off by her brother.
“We were just playing a silly girl’s game.” Andrew shot his sister a quelling look and Liam watched as confusion and then epiphany played across his daughter’s features. Her gaze flew to him and then bounced to Miss Lockhart, who had still yet to move.
“Whit like, Laird Mackenzie?” Rhianna’s friends chorused with matching curtsies.
“Good evening, lassies.” He gently smiled down at them. “The hour is late, I’m sure that yer families are looking for ye now.”
The pleasantly blank looks on their faces told him that they were not privy to the private thoughts of his children and therefore would be of no use to him.
They left with pleasant fare-ye-wells after a quick exchange of hugs and promises with Rhianna.
“Father, we were just tossing apple peels,” Rhianna said brightly, taking his arm and maneuvering around the still-frozen Miss Lockhart. “My husband’s initial is a C. Look!” She pointed to the fire and he saw a smoldering apple peel perilously close to turning to ash.
He squinted into the fire and pretended to study the apple peel with a frown. “Now I know the initial of the man that I’m going to murder.”
Rhianna planted her hands on her hips. “Father!”
“But if I’m no’ mistaken, this peel more closely resembles an L than a C.” He gestured to the point at the corner.
His children exchanged excited glances and then huddled close to him, making a big display out of studying the peel for themselves.
“Hmmmm,” was all Rhianna replied with an exaggerated nod. “So it does.”
“What do ye think, Miss Lockhart?” He turned to include her in their study, but her retreating form was out of earshot as she swiftly walked toward the growing city of tents on the far end of the grounds.
“She thought that it looked like an L, too.” Andrew murmured seriously, squinting after his governess.
“There ye have it, then.” Liam offered his arm to Rhianna and put a hand on his son’s shoulder, wondering at their strange and guilty behavior. “What do ye say that we put ye two miscreants to bed? ’Tis almost time for the in-between masquerade.”
“Canna I stay up for it this time?” Rhianna begged. “Please, Father, I’m seventeen, isna that old enough?”
Liam shook his head. “Next year, nighean,” he promised. “Now come with me.”
He nodded to Jani and led his children toward the keep, noting that his brother Gavin ambled in the direction of the tables where Mena had escaped to seek the respectable company of Mrs. Grady.
All’s fair in love and war, his brother’s voice taunted.
A dark knowledge drifted to him from where his demon stirred. Tonight he would begin the most important battle he’d ever waged.
The one for Mena’s heart.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
After the matriarchs carried the flames to their hearths, Mena had thought the evening’s festivities over.
Oh, how wrong she’d been.
She was wrong about a lot of things, wasn’t she? Ravencroft was supposed to have been a place of quiet escape, not of sensual awakening. The laird was supposed to have been a retired old officer, not this commanding, virile mountain of walking sin and temptation.
And whatever was in her new glass was supposed to have been cider, though she had a sneaking suspicion it was anything but.
Torches wended their way through the night, and once they were left in their respective places, the grown men and women of Wester Ross emerged from their tents, tenements, manors, and mires and congregated in the city of fine canvas shelters that had sprung up on the western hill of the Ravencroft estate.
“The children are abed, safe from the in-between. Now the real festival begins!” Gavin St. James, Earl of Thorne, loped to catch up with her, falling into easy step with his long stride as Mena wandered to investigate the gathering. “What do ye make of that, English?”