Mena shrank back from him, tears of terror pricking behind her eyes.
He sank to his knees and flipped the bed skirt up to check beneath it.
“I promise, there’s no one in this room but you and me. Please,” she pleaded. “Please leave.”
“I know what ye’ve done.” In a swift and graceful move, he rose and seized her, his hand clamping around her upper arm. Not hard enough to hurt, but Mena knew she had no chance to escape. “Confess, and I will be lenient, but lie to me…” He let the threat trail away, though his eyes vowed retribution.
Mena’s limbs went numb with fear and all the moisture deserted her mouth. She’d been threatened before. Struck. Shoved. Even choked once. She remembered the sickening sounds of fists connecting with her flesh. The strange way it took the pain a delayed moment to register. The sight of her own blood. The taste of it in her mouth. How the pain used to confuse and astound her. She’d been treated so gently as a child, and she’d always wanted to do well. To please those she loved and lived with.
But she learned soon enough. To expect the pain, to anticipate it. To see it coming and mitigate the damage.
Such skills would be useless against the brutal-featured giant gripping her arm. He could kill her with a single blow; snap her bones with a flick of his wrist.
“T-tell me what you think is going on here,” she cried. “I swear to you, my laird, I’ve never had anyone in here with me.”
Even in his inebriated state, he seemed to register the terror in her voice, because he instantly released her. “Then where is my son?” he demanded. “Where is Andrew?”
She blinked. Opened her mouth, closed it. Then blinked again.
“Andrew?” she echoed, quite mystified. Had he misspoken? Didn’t he refer to his brother, Gavin St. James?
Whirling away from her, Liam skirted her bed and stalked back to the door. “He’s not in his room, or the ground floor. I was told he was ill. I need to find my son.”
A new fear dawned on Mena as the unsteady Scot disappeared into the hall. Andrew was likely still outside with Rune, and if Liam was on alert—
“Just what the bloody hell is this?” the marquess roared.
Oh, no. Dropping the counterpane, Mena dashed across the room to the stand where her robe hung, and she snatched, donned, and belted it in one frenzied move.
“Doona be angry, Father,” Andrew was saying, as Mena nearly stumbled over her feet in her haste to reach the door. She turned the corner to see Andrew facing her, clutching a squirming puppy in the crook of his chest and crossing his other arm over his body as though to shield Rune from his father’s infamous wrath.
“Angry doesna begin to describe it,” Ravencroft bit out. “How long have ye been keeping the beast from me?”
Both father and son’s blue-black hair gleamed beneath the gas lamps in the hall, and Mena saw a temper that could mature to rival that of his father’s flashing in Andrew’s paler eyes. “She’s been in the keep for two weeks now,” the boy stated. “And ye havena even noticed. What harm is there in keeping her?”
“Two. Weeks?” The words were growled from deep below the marquess’s ribs. A preternatural stillness settled upon Ravencroft’s enormous shoulders like the shroud of death as Mena hurried to place herself between the boy and his fuming father.
Once Mena faced off with the Demon Highlander, she came to understand that the more still he became, the wider his lids peeled away from his deep-set eyes, the more true danger they faced.
Lord, but he was the most fearsome man. Had Andrew not been behind her, she would have stepped back. But she drew what strength she must to protect the boy from his anger.
This was the worst thing that could possibly have happened. The absolute worst way he could have discovered them. Now, all she could think to do was to delay this terrible discussion until the light of day.
“Perhaps, my laird, we should leave this conversation for the morning,” she suggested evenly.
Ravencroft assessed her with eyes almost shrewd enough to be sober. “Ye knew.” It was a statement, not a question, though he posed it to her breasts rather than her eyes.
Mena glanced down, and noted that her nipples still pebbled through the thin silk of her peach robe. She crossed her arms over them and scowled at the man. How he could notice such a thing at a time like this was inconceivable.
“I found out recently,” she admitted. “I wanted Andrew to tell you, instead of tattling on him. And he was planning to talk to you about it, tomorrow, in fact.”
“Tomorrow. How convenient.” Ravencroft’s scowl deepened. “This is inexcusable, Andrew. The rule has been, and forever will be, no beasts in the house. No pets. Especially dogs. Now get rid of it.”
Mena’s own brows drew together as she felt the desperation of the boy behind her, could sense the gathering storm. “Let’s not be hasty,” she cajoled. “Andrew’s taken good care of the little thing, and shown great responsibility.”
“Responsibility? He lied!”
“And—and that should be addressed,” she conceded around the heart beating in her throat. “But you said yourself he should learn to care for something other than his own desires, and he’s worked very hard to—”