After emerging victorious, he slicked his hair back once more, and pilfered a knife from the tables. Simultaneously peeling and walking, Andrew presented her with a brilliant smile and the smooth red flesh of an autumn apple. “Ye have to throw it over yer shoulder and doona look until it starts to burn, or it willna work,” he whispered.
“Got it.” Mena winked and turned her back to the fire and was ready to throw the peel behind her.
“Wait!” Rhianna stopped her. “We have to say the spell over it first.”
All the youngsters nodded in solemn agreement.
“The spell?” Mena echoed.
To the Maiden Goddess of the land
The Crone please bless with divine hand
From the Mother’s fruit I hold
My future soul mate’s name is told.
Each of the girls’ voices blended to the verse beautifully and Mena figured that it should count for her peel. She backed closer to the fire until its searing warmth glowed through the back of her dress. Closing her eyes, she flicked the peel over her shoulder and was rewarded with a hiss.
When her eyes opened, all those who had previously been in front of her had vanished. Turning, she found them bent as close as they dared to read her theoretical fortune.
“Look! It’s a C like mine!” Rhianna pulled her close. As it singed and cooked, the peel did seem to be curling in upon itself.
“That’s not a C, look at that corner there!” Kayleigh pointed to where a flaw in the corner of the peel caused it to jut out, making a specific point. “It seems more like an L to me.”
“Let me look,” Andrew demanded, leaning closer and inspecting it with a scrupulous eye.
Mena’s heart pounded audibly when he turned to her with a look of solemn authentication. “Most definitely an L,” he confirmed.
The girls giggled and began to make lists of L names.
“Lucas or Lionel,” Kayleigh suggested.
“Aye,” Rhianna agreed vehemently, ticking off names on her fingers. “Or Lawrence, Logan, Lucius—”
“Liam,” Andrew offered quietly.
Mena froze as the party almost simultaneously made the connection, and their eyes searched each other’s, trying wordlessly to surmise what their reaction should be. The laird and the governess? Dare someone even suggest it?
After a breathless moment, Andrew’s face melted into the warmest smile she’d ever seen and Mena’s heart broke into gossamer pieces. She swallowed the shards and forced a smile.
“Liam is short for William, dear,” she reminded brightly. “I don’t imagine that counts.”
“Besides, she needs the name of a Brit,” the all-knowing Kayleigh interjected.
They all bent back over the apple peel, though something in Andrew’s eyes told Mena that he wasn’t convinced.
* * *
As people filtered out of the grounds, the sounds of horses and carts and the chatter of excitable children and exhausted parents began to dwindle. Liam turned to look for his family. After only a moment of searching firelit faces, he chuckled a little at the sight of six bent arses huddled in a neat little row around the base of the north bonfire. One particular bottom caught his attention, sheathed in a full green skirt and deliciously plumper than the others displayed. Mena’s shapely legs were longer than the children’s and Jani’s. This pushed her round derriere higher, made it more tantalizingly accessible.
Liam silently ambled up to them until he found himself directly behind the object of his desire. If he bent his knees just a little, and pressed his pelvis forward, his erection would be nestled in the sweet cleft. Shaking his head, he stepped back, reminding himself it wouldn’t do to turn into a raging tornado of primal lust in front of his clan, his children, and the visiting Highland nobles.
Animated giggles erupted from the girls and they were talking softly among themselves, observing some undetermined spot on the fire.
“What’s this, then?” he asked, keeping his voice deceptively light.
Six bodies simultaneously sprang around in surprise, but the line didn’t break. Mena wouldn’t meet his eyes, but kept her horrified gaze locked on his bare chest.