Read Online The Highlander by Kerrigan Byrne - Free Book Online Page A

call me Mena.”
    Jani shook his head. “You are a proper English lady. I am to address you appropriately.”
    â€œMiss Mena, then.”
    Throwing a brilliant smile over his shoulder as he pulled her along, he nodded. “Miss Mena. It is my feeling that the marquess will like you, as well.”
    Mena worried her lip. She certainly hoped so, because the Marquess Ravencroft, the so-called Demon Highlander, was her only chance for refuge.
    *   *   *
    Liam couldn’t seem to stop himself from glancing into the shadows beyond the door to the dining room. He was famished and furious. It was now three minutes past the hour and everyone at the table waited in silent anticipation for the final dinner guest to arrive.
    Miss Philomena Lockhart. His new English governess. What name could be more particularly British than hers?
    Philomena .
    It belonged to some starched, beak-nosed spinster with a nasal voice and a perpetual wrinkle of disapproval between her stolid brows.
    Not the young, buxom creature with emerald eyes that had so charmed and bedeviled his men this afternoon. The shadowy hint of her features he’d spied from beyond the rain-speckled window and behind the black veil of her hat had insinuated comeliness. And Liam had spent the entire time he’d bathed and dressed peering into his memory of those few maddening moments with her as though they would reveal her mysterious features to his mind’s eye.
    He should have been thinking of the disastrous fire today. He should have been contemplating the reasons for the sheared carriage-wheel linchpins, a cut so clean it could only have been done on purpose.
    Obviously he had enough to occupy his mind without the addition of Miss Philomena Lockhart and her distracting breasts.
    He’d come to the table frustrated, and quickly embarked on the road to a downright foul mood.
    Sharp, rapid clips of a woman’s shoes against the stone floor in the hall echoed the staccato strike of his heart against his ribs. Liam rose to his feet with such speed, his chair made an alarming sound on the floor as she rushed into the dining room, in a breathtaking array of curls and cleavage.
    â€œDo pardon my tardiness,” she puffed as the rest of the table stood upon her arrival. “For such a square structure, Ravencroft is surprisingly labyrinthine, and I became hopelessly lost…” Her words died an abrupt death as her eyes alighted upon him at the head of the table.
    Liam had expected a sense of smug satisfaction in this moment, and he’d taken special care with his appearance tonight in anticipation of the very expression she now wore. He’d gone so far as to tie his hair back in a queue and shave a second time to rid himself of a shadow beard.
    That he would feel like an imposter at the head of his own table was not something he’d considered. But didn’t he just? He was yet unaccustomed to this role. He’d been soldier, he’d been leader. He’d been killer and monster.
    But a gentleman? A nobleman?
    A noble … man?
    He’d planned on eviscerating her publically for questioning his word and nobility in front of his men. For costing him precious time in the fields. For making him wait for dinner.
    And for dominating his thoughts all bloody afternoon.
    But perhaps she’d provoked his ever-ready ire because she gave voice to the doubts that Liam had about his ability to turn a demon into a laird.
    He’d waited for that look of wide-eyed, astonished panic all evening. However, it became apparent to him immediately that any intentions he’d had involving thought or speech would have to be reconsidered. As he was bereft of either at the moment.
    The blame for that, too, rested squarely on her shoulders. Her lovely bare shoulders.
    Liam gripped the sturdy table for support. Nothing he’d imagined she hid behind that veil and thick wool pelisse could have prepared him for the