The Hunter (49 page)
Authors: Kerrigan Byrne
Mena was suddenly aware of how
very
alone and vulnerable she was. Chances were, she told herself, this was the help Kenneth Mackenzie sent for, but she didn’t see him among the men. She now counted seven, each one burlier and—dirtier—than the last. On the other hand, they could be brigands. Highwaymen, rapists, murderers …
Oh, dear God.
They circled the carriage, all peering inside the rain-streaked windows with not a little curiosity, speaking the lyrical language of the Highlands. She understood it to be Scot’s Gaelic, though she comprehended not a word.
Then she saw
him
.
Her mouth became dry as the desert, and a tremor that had nothing to do with the cold ripped through her.
Though he wore a soiled kilt and loose linen shirt beneath his drenched cloak, he sat astride a black Shire steed with the bearing of a king. Dark hair hung long and heavy with moisture down his back, and menace rolled off the mountains of his shoulders in palpable waves.
Whoever he was, he was their leader. She saw it in the way they looked to him, in the deference they used when speaking. If not by birth, then by the physical laws of nature, surely. As the largest, the strongest, and the most fearsome of them all, he towered above the brawny men as he scowled through the window at her.
Even through the mesh of her hat’s veil, and the black soot streaked across his features, Mena could see the tension in his strong jaw. The aggression etched into the grooves of his fierce, deep-set eyes. Viewed through the chaotic tracks of rain upon the window, he could have been a savage Pict warrior, bred not only to survive in this beautiful and brutal part of the world but to conquer it.
Mena gasped at the shocking flash of muscled thigh bared to her as he dismounted, and despaired that even on foot his astounding height and breadth diminished not at all. Dear lord, he was coming closer. He meant to reach for the door.
Lunging forward, she threw the lock and extracted the skeleton key just as his big hand turned the latch.
Their eyes met.
And the rain disappeared. As did everything and everyone else.
Mena knew that there were moments in one’s life as significant as an epoch. Existence was then split into a before, and an after, and whatever was left as a consequence of that moment illuminated who someone really was. It laid one open, exposing them for honest and brutal inspection and the acceptance that one was inexorably altered forevermore. She’d lived long enough to experience a few of these. Her mother’s death when Mena was only nine, her first real taste of tragedy. The first time she’d galloped on a horse on her father’s farm and experienced true freedom. Her first kiss. The horror of her wedding night. The moment she was told she’d never be a mother.
So she recognized this as one of those moments, though the Leviathan on the other side of the now-seemingly-inadequate barrier of the window was not the only one conducting the inspection.
What Mena saw in the striations of amber and ebony in the Highlander’s eyes alternately terrified and fascinated her. Here was a man capable of inconceivable violence. And yet … a weary sorrow lurked behind the incredulity and subsequent exasperation in his glare. He was surprisingly handsome, but in the feral and weathered way the Highlands themselves were appealing.
Mena blinked, berating herself for noticing such a thing of her probable-robber-highwayman-rapist-assassin, and the spell was broken.
“Open the door,” he commanded in a deep and booming brogue.
“
No
,” Mena answered, before remembering her manners. “No, thank you.”
* * *
They called Liam Mackenzie “The Demon Highlander.”
Over the course of the previous two decades, he’d led a number of Her Majesty’s infantry, cavalry, and artillery units. He’d stormed countless mobs during the Indian Mutiny and made his fame when the so-called Indian rebellion had been crushed. He’d facilitated the disbandment of the East India Company with espionage, assassination, and outright warfare, painting the jungles with blood until the crown seized the regime. He led the charge against Chinese cannon in the second Opium War, leaping from his horse over cannon fire and slicing through Asian artillery. He’d secretly conducted rescue missions to Abyssinia and Ashanti, leaving no trace of himself but a mountain of bodies in his wake. He’d trained killers and killed traitors. He’d toppled dynasties and executed tyrants. He was William Grant Ruaridh Mackenzie, Lt. Colonel of Her Majesty’s Royal Secret Highland Watch, Marquess Ravencroft, and Laird and Thayne of Clan Mackenzie 3rd of Wester Ross. A high agent of the crown and a leader of men was he.
So how in the name of all the gods that were ever worshiped on his land could he be struck dumb by a pretty, stranded English governess? It boggled the mind.
He had no time for this. A fire had somehow ignited in the east barley fields that morning and his men were exhausted from tirelessly fighting it. The rain had been a blessing, one that had saved their crops. When Kenneth had ridden up and explained their predicament with the carriage, they’d ridden five miles through the sac-shriveling autumn rain to save her pretty hide.
Had she really just locked him out of his own carriage and then disobeyed his command with a polite
No, thank you
? If he was feeling himself, he’d have ripped the door off its hinges for her insolence. But something about the bruised softness of her vibrant green eyes, the only thing about her he could see with any clarity, had stolen his wits from him.
When their eyes had met, he’d felt the earth shift beneath him in a way he’d never experienced before. Not with the unstable feeling of a peat bog or slick silt beneath his boots, but exactly the opposite. Like the land might alter and align to please the cosmos, clicking into place with prophetic finality.
It was damned unsettling. Infuriating, even.
ALSO BY
KERRIGAN BYRNE
Praise for
Kerrigan Byrne
“The romance is raw, edgy, and explosive … deeply satisfying.”
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RT Book Reviews
(Top Pick!)
“Captured me from page one and never let go. Romantic, lush, and suspenseful.”
—Suzanne Enoch,
New York Times
bestselling author on
The Highwayman
“A passionate, lyrical romance that takes your breath away. From the first page, you’ll fall in love.”
—Elizabeth Boyle,
New York Times
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“Byrne makes a stunning debut with a beautifully written, intensely suspenseful, and deliciously sensual love story.”
—Amelia Grey,
New York Times
bestseller
Whether she’s writing about Celtic Druids, Victorian bad boys, or brash Irish FBI agents,
Kerrigan Byrne
uses her borderline-obsessive passion for history, her extensive Celtic ancestry, and her love of Shakespeare in every book. She lives at the base of the Rocky Mountains with her handsome husband and three lovely teenage girls, but dreams of settling on the Pacific Coast. Kerrigan loves to hear from readers. You can contact her at
www.kerriganbyrne.com
. Or sign up for email updates
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.
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C
ONTENTS
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE HUNTER
Copyright © 2016 by Kerrigan Byrne.
Excerpt from
The Highlander
copyright © 2016 by Kerrigan Byrne.
All rights reserved.
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eISBN: 9781466887411
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / February 2016