She leaned on him heavily, breathing in the scent of starch from his laundered clothing, the cedar soap he used, and something earthier. Sharper, like iron and stone. Like he’d been underground.
“How did it go with your brother this morning?” she asked, partly trying to divert the conversation, and mostly because she worried about the shadows she’d earlier seen in his eyes.
“Ye’re afraid that whatever ye’re running from will find ye in London,” he surmised correctly, not allowing himself to be misdirected. “And, though I doona ken what it is, who it is, I want ye to know that I willna let harm come to ye.” His words sounded exaggerated in the ear she had pressed against his chest. The resonance of the sound calmed her a little, though she reluctantly pulled back, stepping out of the circle of his arms.
“Why?” she asked, searching his face. “Why would you promise me such things when you don’t know anything about it? What if … what if I’ve done something unforgivable?”
* * *
Liam stared down into Mena’s angelic face, pinched with worry, and couldn’t imagine her ever committing an unforgivable sin. She was gentle to the point of demure. Dangerous as a wounded bird and as ladylike as he’d ever seen, even in bed. Though he planned to thoroughly debauch her just as soon as she’d allow. Hell, she’d only ever cursed the once.
She’d make a rather splendid marchioness.
Filled with a foreign tenderness, he traced the brackets of anxiety next to her lips. He wished she’d confide in him, but maybe it was for the best that she left her secrets where they were for now. He had his brother to deal with, and this relationship was all rather new. He was, after all, still her employer.
Trust came neither easily nor quickly to either of them, and the thread they’d woven thus far felt young and tenuous and exceedingly fine. He didn’t want to pull the string before it became a cord, lest it snap. Yet, he wanted her to feel safe, to know that if she must fight any sort of battle, the Demon Highlander was on her side. He was her champion, and would ever be.
“Have ye committed murder?” he asked, wondering if they had more in common than he initially thought. “Is Scotland Yard searching the streets of London for ye?” Had she been eager to forgive his own sin on that account because she’d committed one of her own?
“I’ve never taken a life.” He saw truth in her answer, though caution lurked in her eyes.
“Have ye done anything to personally anger the monarchy or any particular member of the royal family?” he queried, feeling his lips curl in an unfamiliar direction.
“No,” she denied again, her pale gaze latching onto his mouth as she gave a few distracted blinks.
“Have ye done aught to incur the wrath of Her Majesty’s Royal Navy or any branch of the esteemed military?”
“I have not.” Her own lips quirked in a reluctant feminine smirk.
“Then, lass, I am confident in my ability to protect ye, and we can save revelations for another time, when all of this is over.”
As he pulled her close, she tilted her head back, her careful gaze searching his features for God only knew what. “Truly?” she whispered.
“Aye. Truly,” he assured her. “And I give ye my vow as Laird of the Mackenzie clan that if I happen to encounter the man who hurt ye, I’ll put my dagger through his eye.” He’d done his best to keep his voice light, but he meant every word.
She stepped back into his embrace with an ironic noise. “And they say Highlanders aren’t romantic.”
“Who needs poetry or diamonds and gems?” He flashed his teeth in a fierce smile. “I find the most precious stones a man can offer are the ones cut from yer enemy while he’s on his knees screaming for death.”
She groaned, burying her wry laugh in the groove between his pectorals as she furrowed her face against his chest. “What a ferocious barbarian I’ve fallen for.”
They both froze at her flippant admission and her hands tightened in his shirt.
Liam’s heart stilled with reverence as he reached in between them and cupped her jaw in his gentle hand, holding it like he would a delicate bauble as he lifted her face to look at him.
She hadn’t said love. She hadn’t needed to.
Unable to speak around a strange tightness in his throat, he bent to run his lips against her forehead, her fluttering eyelids, her velvet cheek.
She was precious to him.
How fiercely he loved her. How afraid he was that she’d be yet another casualty of his accursed blood. And yet, selfish bastard that he was, he couldn’t consider letting her go.
“We should get back to the children,” she whispered, gently disentangling herself from his grasp. “They’ll wonder where we’ve gone.”
“After,” he said.
“After what?”
He kissed her swiftly, making his answer abundantly clear. He pressed his hard mouth against the softness of hers again and again, coaxing, enticing, until her moan of response drove him wild with need.
Their tongues tangled, and he tasted desperation on her as she gripped at the solid muscles of his back with a fervency he’d not felt from her even last night.
Her need heightened his, and a rush of desire directed every last drop of blood into his cock. He pressed her against him tightly, rolling his hips to show her what her beauty did to him.
He captured one of her wrists and brought her fingers to his mouth. Gently gripping the tip of her soft satin gloves with his teeth, he pulled each sheath from her fingers until it slid from her hand completely.