Murdoch, the Blackwells’ devoted steward, opened the front door, bringing in a blast of chilly November air along with the handsome Gavin St. James, Lord Thorne, looking uncharacteristically somber. Behind his brawny frame, chains rattled as Jani was led into the front entry flanked by two frightening sentinels that looked more criminal than copper.
Blackwell’s men, no doubt.
A reckless temper rose within her, and Mena lunged at Jani, slapping him across his dusky cheek.
Hard.
“How could you?” Mena spat.
Jani squeezed his eyes shut, though she didn’t know if it was against the pain her slap had caused, or his own guilt. “I did not think you would get hurt, Miss Mena. I did not know that was part of his plan.”
“To whose plan are you referring? Explain yourself.”
“When Hamish came back from the dead, he found me in the dark halls of the keep, and told me he’d witnessed Ravencroft murder my parents with his own hands. He said it was guilt, not altruism, that prompted the marquess to take me in.”
Mena shook her head. Did the treachery have no end? Was all this madness because of Hamish’s greed? “Ravencroft loved you like a son. He’s known as a demon on the battlefield. Not for entering civilian homes. You’ve spent so many years with him, how could you not know that?”
Jani’s chin trembled and dimpled as he valiantly battled boyish tears. “Hamish reported that he threatened to expose Ravencroft, to tell me the truth, to tell everyone what horrors the laird had perpetrated in India. Against my own people. The things Hamish described…” Jani looked up, his throat working over a hard swallow as tears enhanced the disgrace in his liquid eyes. “He told me that Ravencroft set off those explosions on the ship on purpose and left him for dead so no one would find out what he’d done.”
“Did he offer you any proof of this?” Mena demanded.
Tears ran in fat rivulets down his cheeks. “Hamish described where my house was, where my parents had died and how. I remember … I remember their bodies.”
Thorne glanced at Mena, regret sitting softly on his hard features. “Once the Duke of Trenwyth got his hands on Hamish, my brother admitted to manipulating the boy. He turned every one of his own war crimes into something Liam had done and filled Jani’s head with his poison. After some time alone with Trenwyth, Hamish admitted to killing Jani’s parents.”
“It is my fault, Miss Mena, all of this is my fault. I read your telegram,” Jani admitted. “I sent word to your husband because Hamish had read your letters to Lady Northwalk and told me to do it. That is why your husband was waiting for you. And that is why I will die here today.”
A tear dropped from Jani’s chin onto the silk of his kurta, and Mena felt her own eyes well with tears on his behalf.
“How can Rhianna ever forgive what I have done to her father? I will face the marquess and beg for his forgiveness before I am hanged, but I fear I will never see her face again before I am to die.”
“Surely you’re not going to let him be hanged.” Mena turned to Gavin. “Why isn’t he with the proper authorities?”
“Because even though this is England, and even though my brother and I have our differences, the first law I recognize is clan law,” he said resolutely. “And clan law states that the Mackenzie Laird gets to decide his fate.”
“Oh, Jani,” Mena whispered. “We’ve both wounded Ravencroft so terribly.”
“Unforgivably.” Jani’s voice wavered.
She nodded, filled to the brink with a breathless pain. “I would give anything to make things right, but I fear it is too late…”
“A kind lass once told me that it is never too late to make things right.” A familiar voice rumbled from the shadows beyond the still-open door before the Demon Highlander, himself, ducked into the foyer. “I believe, Miss Lockhart, that lass was ye.”
Astonished exhilaration at seeing him alive and well made her light-headed with giddy relief. He stood as strong and wide as ever, and though his left arm was tucked into a sling, the rest of him nearly vibrated with strength and vitality.
Apprehension chased the relief away, followed by shame, sadness, and remorse.
Liam looked at her with an intensity she’d never seen before. A dark fire lit behind his eyes, and a grim, resolute set to his already stern features set off alarms of warning in her head.
Mena took a step back, and then another, refusing to believe her own eyes as she backed toward the hall off the foyer and away from those who’d fallen silent as they watched the moment unfold.
Dorian Blackwell stepped behind Liam, followed by the amber shadow of Christopher Argent.
Mena hardly noted any of them. Not Dorian, who went to his wife and reached for her hand, nor Argent, who melted into the shadows as easily as Millie melted into his arms. Not even Thorne, who gaped at Dorian as though looking into a dark-haired mirror, or poor Jani who rattled his chains with the force of his trembling.
Only Liam.
Mena’s whole world narrowed to encompass the emotion she couldn’t believe shone on his face.
“Doona run from me, lass. There is much to say.”
“You called me Miss Lockhart,” she realized with a breathless whisper. “Now you know I’m not she. That I am Philomena St. Vincent, a viscountess and a … married woman.”
His obsidian gaze became impossibly darker. “Not anymore.”
Her heart stopped. “What do you mean?”
“It is with very little regret that I inform ye that ye’re now the widow St. Vincent,” he said with not a stitch of remorse.
“Because of you?”
“Don’t give him all the credit.” Dorian sniffed.
“It was a collaborative effort,” Argent said.
Mena wished she could say that she was sorry her husband was dead. The only guilt that seized her was a regret that she didn’t feel more distress over the loss of her husband of five years.
But why would she? Gordon had humiliated and shamed her. Terrorized and abused her. Then he’d locked her away and forgotten her.
What he’d done was unforgivable, and she hoped he’d burn in hell for it.
“Laird Mackenzie.” Jani dropped to his knees in a clatter of tears and chains. “I must beg of you—”
“Get up, Jani.” Ravencroft sounded more irritated than angry as he hauled the young man back to his feet. “It is as Thorne said. Hamish confessed to everything. To what he had ye do, to what he convinced ye of. There are many sins in my past, and I canna say I blame ye for believing yer tragedy is among them. We will have words, Jani, count on that. But I ken that ye are more victim than villain.”
Jani’s eyes widened until they seemed to engulf half of his angular features. “You—you are not going to kill me?”
“Nay.” Liam glanced at Mena and their gazes held. “There has been enough of that today.”
“You are a more forgiving man than I, brother,” Dorian remarked. “Usually if a man shoots me, I shoot him back … and then some.”
Liam took slow and steady steps toward Mena, whose first impulse was to retreat.
But she was done with that now, Mena decided. Done with being afraid. Of backing away when she should stand her ground. She was no longer helpless, or hopeless.