And she would have, had his fingers not tangled in her hair. A thrill of fear pierced her with its icy arrow, and leached the heat from her liquid bones.
Gordon used to pull her hair.
He’d used it as a tool of submission, to lock her head where he wanted, to compel her to be still as he forced himself into her mouth. Sometimes her hair would rip from her scalp, and the sound of it would echo through her ears from the inside.
Whatever desolate, frightened sound she made when she wrenched her mouth away from his and turned her head to the side was enough to pull him out of his aroused stupor.
“Please,” she begged in an uneasy whimper. “I can’t.”
She found herself released as abruptly as he’d seized her, and Mena would have fallen if the wall hadn’t caught her.
Ravencroft flung himself to the opposite side of the room, where he braced his hands against the far wall. His head hung below his shoulders as his wide back expanded with panting breaths.
Dazed by a maelstrom of fear, lust, and shame, Mena gripped the sagging folds of her robe and wrapped them back over her inflamed body, belting it closed.
“Forgive me,” he finally said. “I’ve had too much to drink. I wasna thinking.” His voice was thicker than usual, the accent more pronounced. The few seconds of silence between them stretched on for an eternity as Mena desperately groped for the thoughts that had scattered about the darkness of her room like a child’s errant marbles.
“Ye canna go, Mena,” he ordered.
She couldn’t think of a thing to say. Leaving would be safer in some ways, and utterly dangerous in others. Her husband was still out there, searching for her.
But if she stayed …
“Andrew can keep his beast,” he rumbled, pushing from the wall and moving to the broken door.
Mena remained silent, still trying to catch her own breath. Trying to ignore the pulses of need still throbbing between her legs, and the pulses of fear threatening to stop her heart.
“And…” Ravencroft continued, still refusing to turn around. “I’ll not dictate how ye spend yer free time … or with whom.” He said this as though the words cost him a great deal.
Dumbfounded, Mena could still think of no reply until a polite “Thank you,” escaped her out of sheer habit.
“Doona leave.” It had to have been the gentlest command he’d ever issued, as close to a request as she’d ever get from the Demon Highlander. “Doona abandon them as I have, as everyone has.”
He’d used the most devious and effective weapon in his arsenal to get what he wanted. His children. They did need her help and, in truth, she needed them. Needed Ravencroft. Not just the man but the stones of the fortress around them. She remained a fugitive from the crown, and returning to England was simply out of the question.
“Ye’ll stay,” he prompted again. “And I’ll … leave ye alone.”
That should have made her feel safer, but it didn’t.
“I’ll stay,” she whispered, and didn’t allow herself to slide to the floor until he’d left the room, shutting the splintered door firmly behind him.
* * *
Mena dreamed of the Brollachan that night.
She tossed and writhed about in her sleep as though afflicted with a fever. Rough, callused hands soothed her until she settled from thrashing to merely fitful.
“Liam?” she whispered through the miasma of dream mist and moonlight.
“Nay, lass,” a dark voice rasped back at her. “Ye should go. Leave this place. If ye stay with the Demon Highlander, it’ll mean the end of ye.”
In her dream she was on her bed, but it was not as before. A cold mist billowed inside her room. It fragmented the moonlight and obscured her vision. Her lungs filled with ice and it coursed through her blood blooming with fear.
“Is he going to hurt me?” Mena whispered to the dark, her eyes searching the mist for the frightening demon-red eyes.
“Aye.” The word came from behind her, but she dare not turn around from where she lay curled on her side. “He takes what he desires, and then he crushes it. He canna help it, lass, it is in his blood.” The voice seemed closer now, stronger. “Ye are the object of his desire now, which means ye are in danger. Run before he claims ye, too.”
Mena shook her head in emphatic denial. “He does not mean to claim me. He was drunk and I was weak, but nothing will come of it, I’m only the governess.”
“We both know ye’re more than that.”
Panicked tears pricked her eyes and she yearned to run, but in her dream, her muscles didn’t seem to be working.
“Who are you?” she whispered, frightened tears springing to her eyes. “How—how do you know what I am?”
Mena thought she felt the whisper of a breath against the tendrils of hair at the nape of her neck. She released a terrified gasp that escaped as a whimper.
“I am the horrible embodiment of the Mackenzie’s many sins. The specter of his demon. He’ll not escape the promise he made me.”
“What did he promise you?” she couldn’t stop herself from asking.
“Everything, lass. Everything. And I’ll collect what I’m owed.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Liam had gone to Andrew’s room in the morning and had done what he could to make things right before he left on business that very afternoon. He and his son had traded apologies, something that may have never been done in the Ravencroft household for generations.
He’d left feeling both heavier and more hopeful than he had in a lifetime, and the conflicting emotions set him more on edge than ever.
It took the entire train journey from Strathcarron to Dingwall for Liam to decide upon the woman he’d use to fuck the memory of Philomena Lockhart away. How would he ever make it through the tedium of the Agriculture Council of Highland Lairds as randy and distracted as a pubescent schoolboy? There was no concentrating on late-summer harvest reports, the sowing of winter crops, settling on export prices, or meeting with the Fraser’s French cousins to purchase next year’s oak sherry casks if he couldn’t get his runaway libido under control.
’Twas the reason he left Ravencroft two days early; it would take that long in bed, at least, to erase the memory of her incomparable body, of her slick desire on his skin.
Mary Munroe flung her door open before he had the chance to knock. Her lovely face alight with a welcoming smile, she fanned herself coquettishly and gave him a saucy wink.
“Well, if it isna the Demon Highlander, himself, come to take my virtue.” Twirling a dark ringlet around her finger, Mary laughed at her own joke. It had been many years since Mary Monroe had been a virgin, or virtuous for that matter.
She was the most expensive courtesan in the Highlands. It was rumored she stayed in Dingwall because the lord of Tulloch Castle kept her in these lavish apartments.
But as long as she was at his leisure, she could keep her own appointments, as well.
Mary Munroe only held in reserve the most exclusive clientele, and Liam was lucky enough to be counted among their few numbers. He not only enjoyed her dexterity, he enjoyed her company. He could say that about very few people.
She gave a delighted squeal as he crowded her into her apartments, slammed the door, shoved her against the garishly papered wall, and kissed her.