It startled Liam that he’d spoken his thoughts aloud. If she only knew. She’d run from this place. From him. “Ye’ve heard what they call me, have ye not?”
“Yes. The Demon Highlander.” Spoken with her honeyed inflection, it didn’t sound so derogatory.
“Even here, in my own land, they think I’ve been possessed by the Brollachan. Do ye believe that of me?”
He expected a practical woman like her to deny it. So when she lifted a hand to her forehead and let it trail to her cheek in an anxious motion, he was actually taken aback.
“Truly, my laird, I don’t know what I believe these days. I hardly trust my own eyes…” She blinked as if she might say something, and then obviously changed her mind. “Did you do what they say? Did you go to the crossroads and make a deal with a demon?”
He made a bitter sound. “Nay, lass, ’tis only a myth about me. Though that doesna mean I’m not possessed of a demon. I think it’s been with me since birth. That it’s in my tainted blood and turns everything I do into a transgression. There has never been salvation for me.”
“You don’t really think that, do you?” She gasped.
“Aye, I do.”
“But why?”
A bleak and arctic chill pressed in on him as a few of his darkest deeds rose unbidden to his mind’s eye. “Because, lass, there are such sins heaped onto my shoulders, it would kill me to turn and face them.”
“It is a good thing, then, my laird, that you have the strength in your shoulders to carry them.”
The lack of gravity in her voice astounded him into looking down at her again. She was staring at him again, half of that tempting mouth quirked into a careful smile. Liam basked in it like a winter bloom would soak up the first rays of spring. Blue light from the windows fell across her hair and turned it the most fantastical shade of violet. Greens and golds softened her features and illuminated her pale eyes until they seemed to smolder.
She’d never looked lovelier than she did at this moment.
“How can there be salvation, redemption, unless there is first sin?” she asked, her face soft with concern for him. “The devil is in all of us, I think. That’s what makes us human rather than divine. I believe there is a tenuous balance between redemption and damnation. You cannot have one without testing the limits of the other. No light, without first conquering darkness. No courage, without battling your fear. No mercy, unless you experience suffering.” She turned to gaze at the golden cross gleaming on the altar, her mouth pressing into a line. “No forgiveness without someone having wronged you.”
“Who wronged ye?” Liam asked, briefly forgetting his own troubles. “Who do ye come here to pray for?” And why did he want to send that person to meet his final judgment?
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she murmured, staring down into her lap.
“Try me,” he prompted, surprised by how much he wanted her to trust him, to confide in him.
To confess to him.
“All I can say, my laird, is that I have demons of my own.” She met his eyes again, hers shining with suspicious moisture. “And because of your protection, your … comraich, I like to think that they cannot find me here at Ravencroft.”
Something within him melted. Perhaps it was his native language so adorably mispronounced by her British tongue. Or the self-effacing smile that produced that dimple he wanted to explore with his lips. Or her words. Words that provoked a tiny well of light in a subject he’d thought had become hopeless. A part of Liam hated the effect she had on him, that she made his heart soft and his body hard. Though it was life affirming, in a way, this sense of anticipation between them. Of … inevitability.
She turned back to the altar and leaned closer to the side of the pew. Away from him, killing the effect. “I just left Andrew,” she said brightly. “He is doing much better.”
His frown became so grave, so hard, he feared his own features would crack with strain. “With him, I feel there is no forgiveness for me.” He scored his scalp with heavy fingers as he ran a frustrated hand through his unbound hair. “All I’ve ever been is a man without mercy. An agent of cruelty and darkness and fear. My entire life, I’ve wrought nothing but destruction. I suppose that’s why I came back to Ravencroft. The idea of growing things, of building a life, and leaving a thriving legacy for my children, the two beings I helped to create, suddenly held great appeal. As if in doing so I might find some deliverance, if not redemption. Perhaps chase away the terrible memories haunting the halls of this place. But I fear it’s too late.”
“It’s never too late to make things right.”
She had no idea of what she spoke.
“Miss Lockhart—Mena—I must ask ye. Did ye see what happened today? Could it have been Andrew that pushed that barrel?”
As though realizing what must have been troubling him, his greatest fear, Mena’s eyes widened and she shook her head vehemently. “I’m still not certain what I saw, but I’m positive it wasn’t him, my laird. I know your son has been a dark and angry cloud. But I found Andrew in his bedroom directly after the incident. He’d already made it back to the keep.” She perked, rushing to cover his skepticism. “In fact, we had a rather splendid moment, and made unprecedented progress. I think that you will be pleased with him in the days to come. He’ll approach you, I know it, and you’ll find a reason to mend things between you.”
Liam slumped back against the pew, more relieved than even he’d expected.
“You can’t be inclined to believe that your own son would take actions to cause you harm,” she said in disbelief.
He wouldn’t be the first Mackenzie son to do so.
Liam dipped his head. “I’m inclined to believe that ye’re an angel sent to look after them, Mena. The ballast to the devil that sired them.”