Cates, Kimberly (28 page)

Adam all but went to his knees, and Gavin could feel the effort it was taking his brother to remain standing. Adam—proud, fierce, warrior Adam—his face distorted from a savage beating, his powerful arms bound by shackles. His shirt was stained with blood. His eyes were seething pits of defiance and deadly resolve.

Never, in all his life, had hate surged so thick through Gavin's veins. He would have sold his soul in that instant to make those who had done this to his brother pay with their lives.

"Decide to entertain me in loftier quarters, Wells?" Adam's words were slurred by the horrible swelling of his lower lip. "I prefer rats running about when... I'm being tortured. Adds so much to the... atmosphere."

Wells took a step toward him, those eyes skimming Adam's battered face. "Are you a liar as well as a traitor?"

Adam gave a harsh laugh. "I've not had the practice you've had, but given enough time, I'm certain you could turn me into a liar. What you couldn't do is to turn me into a murdering son of a bitch with a hunger for children's blood."

Sir Dunstan lashed out with his fist, connecting hard with Adam's jaw. The lip split and bled. Gavin started to lunge from the shadows, then froze, holding himself back by sheer force of will.

"I've been told you are a liar," Dunstan purred. "An imposter."

"Imposter? What the devil?" Adam's features whitened.

"There is a man here who says you are not the Glen Lyon after all."

"Who? One of the brainless fools who has been chasing me for so long? One of your bumbling English fops stumbling over their own coattails? I am the Glen Lyon. I told you—"

"Perhaps you should tell
him."
Dunstan gestured to the shadows. Gavin stepped into the light.

He knew that if he lived forever, he'd never forget the expression on Adam's face—hopelessness, fury, and pain—deep, wild, primitive pain Gavin had never known his blustery brother capable of feeling. Then, in a heartbeat, it was gone, Adam's face a savage mask again, his eyes flooded with scorn.

"Who the hell is this puling madman? And what the devil would he know about the Glen Lyon?"

"Enough that he was able to produce this." Sir Dunstan thrust the betrothal ring at Adam. "It belongs to Rachel de Lacey, the innocent woman the Glen Lyon kidnapped."

"I
kidnapped her. She was dressed as Helen of Troy, and was plucking a rose in the garden. She'd been talking to some—some war hero who had lost a leg. I can even tell you their conversation was about you, Wells, and the gentleman's estimation of your character was none too complimentary."

Sir Dunstan scowled, and turned to Gavin. "How could he know this if he wasn't there?"

"The whole of Scotland was gossiping about what happened!" Gavin protested. "She was at a masquerade ball, was last seen with Nate Rowland. A six-year-old could tell you the same tale, but I doubt you'd believe the child was the rebel raider. Consider for a moment. The Glen Lyon is far too wily to go charging out, announcing his identity to a whole troop of soldiers! If he was that thick-headed and stupid, he would have been in a British jail a year ago!"

Adam laughed, an empty sound. "Look at him, Wells! He's a harmless lunatic! I don't know where he got the woman's ring, and I don't know why the hell he's come here, spouting lies! I am the Glen Lyon!"

"You lie!" Gavin snarled. "Admit it. He's agreed to release you if you tell the infernal truth."

"Release me?" Adam roared, his gaze slashing to Gavin's in disbelief. "Why? Why would he release me?"

"It's none of your concern—" Gavin started to snap, but Sir Dunstan cut in, his voice cold, precise.

"Because this man has agreed to provide me with the real Glen Lyon in exchange for your life."

Gavin could see the revelation strike Adam more brutally than any blow Sir Dunstan or his minions could have dealt. Panic washed over Adam's fierce features, mingled with killing rage.

Adam lunged at Gavin, only the grasp of the soldiers' hands on his meaty arms holding him back. "You son of a bitch! By God, I'll—" Adam broke off the words, turning to Sir Dunstan. "You've won at last, Wells. Defeated me! What are you going to do? Listen to the babblings of this fool? Build your accursed gallows! Sharpen your knives! You want an infernal execution? Let's get it over with! I'll give you a spectacle of death you can brag about to your accursed military friends for a hundred years!"

"He's not the Glen Lyon," Gavin insisted. "Execute him, and you'll be the laughingstock of Scotland."

"If he's not the Glen Lyon, then who is?" Sir Dunstan demanded, those eyes seeming to sear into Gavin's face. "Tell me now. If you do, I vow I'll let him go. You have my word of honor."

Honor, that most fragile of laurels. Gavin's gaze flicked to the two soldiers flanking Adam, others at the door who must have heard their commander's vow. Did he dare trust Wells to honor his promise before Adam was out of chains? Did he have any other choice?

Gavin turned to stare into those cold eyes. "I am the Glen Lyon."

"He's insane!" Adam roared, wild desperation flooding his features. "Damn it to hell, don't do this!"

"I'm Gavin Carstares, Earl of Glenlyon."

Sir Dunstan gaped at him, contempt sharpening his features, curling his lips. "Carstares. The coward."

"When I escaped Culloden Moor, I decided to stop running. I'm the one who has stolen so many fugitives from beneath your swords. I'm the man who gave the order for Rachel de Lacey's kidnapping."

"He's not! Damn it to hell! Listen to me," Adam bellowed. "I'll tell you whatever you want to know! Just fling him out—"

Wells stormed toward Gavin, fists clenched. "Where is Rachel? By God, I'll wrench the information out of you if I have to strip the flesh from your bones one bladeful at a time!"

"Do what you will with me, but believe me when I tell you Rachel is safe, and will remain so as long as the ship sails away from Cairnleven."

"Blast it, don't listen to him!" Adam roared. "He may be the Earl of Glenlyon, but I'm the son of the dead earl as well! His bastard, the son he would have made heir if it had been in his power! I became the Glen Lyon because my brother shamed the title, and my father!"

Adam was lashing out, using any weapon at his disposal, any way he might stand a chance of making Dunstan Wells believe.

"You're nothing but his bastard!" Gavin flung back. "I'm his heir! That is why, even now, you're attempting to steal away my glory! Sir Dunstan, you gave your word you'd release him. Drive him the hell out of here at swordpoint if necessary."

"Enough!" Wells's bellow shattered their warring. "Are you both so eager to die? I'll ask you this one last time. Which one of you is the Glen Lyon?"

"I am!" Gavin gritted his teeth in fury as the claim rang out in unison with Adam's own.

Dunstan stared at them, his face twisted in a frown, veins throbbing at his temples. "Prove to me which of you is the rebel traitor, and I'll hold true to my word."

"I brought you the ring, can describe every curve of Rachel de Lacey's face..."

"I can recount the kidnapping—every second, down to the color rose that fell from her fingers."

Wells's glare shifted from one to the other, and Gavin felt his blood chill. He bargained with God and the devil, praying that Adam would be shoved from the room, driven away from the death that awaited one of them, but nothing prepared him for Dunstan Wells's pronouncement.

"Hang them both."

Adam's roar of denial and fury ripped at Gavin's soul.

Gavin shouted, "No! You gave your word of honor he'd go free!"

Very real frustration cinched Wells's features tight. "How the devil can I honor that promise when I don't know for certain which of you is lying? I have no choice except to execute you both."

"Damn it, Adam, tell him the truth!" Gavin pleaded. "Tell him!"

But Sir Dunstan slashed his hand through the air to silence him. "It no longer matters what he says, Carstares. The man could swear in blood that he was not the Glen Lyon and I couldn't be sure. Better to kill one innocent man than risk allowing a rebel traitor like the Glen Lyon to escape."

"Perfect! Now you've done it, Gav, you infernal fool!" Adam tore away from his captors. His booted foot slammed into a chair, sending it careening, splintering it against the wall. One of the guards cuffed him with a pistol butt, but Adam barely grunted in pain, he was so possessed by his rage.

"I have just one request to make, Wells," Adam said through gritted teeth.

"What is that?"

"Hang him first!" Adam jabbed a manacled hand in Gavin's direction. "I want to be the one to kick the damned stool out from under his feet! Better still, cut off his head! He's sure the hell not using it for anything!"

Two burly soldiers entered the chamber, imprisoning Gavin roughly between them. Heavy shackles were locked about Gavin's wrists, chaining him.

Gavin tried one last time. "Let Adam go. You're making a mistake! I swear to you, on my honor, that I am the Glen Lyon."

"Your honor? The honor of a coward?" Sir Dunstan scoffed. "Unless a miracle occurs and I'm able to identify you as the rebel raider beyond a shadow of a doubt, you will both die." The soldiers began to drag them from the chamber. But Sir Dunstan's voice rang out, and they paused.

"As for what your existence will be like until I send you to your death, this I promise you," he said, glaring at Gavin with savage intent. "You'll welcome hell by the time I'm finished with you, unless you tell me where to find Rachel de Lacey." The threat thudded into the pit of Gavin's stomach like a cold stone. "Take them away."

The guards shoved Gavin forward, and he all but slammed into Adam's shoulder. Horrific failure ground down into his vitals, sending a sick sense of despair tearing through him.

He'd failed. Instead of securing Adam's release, he would be following his brother to the gallows. And Lydia and Christianne and the others would be forced to grieve for them both.

God, was there some other way? Could he somehow bribe one of the guards to help them? No. It was impossible. Gavin's jaw knotted as they were herded past the last of the ornate splendor of Furley House and into the crude stone remnants of what had been the castle. Dank walls pressed in on Gavin, the dampness thickening in his lungs until he could barely breathe.

Adam was going to die, and there was not a damn thing he could do to stop it. The knowledge skewered him on lances of pain and guilt and fury. The waste of it made him half mad.

When the guards shoved them, together, into the cell and slammed the door, Gavin fell against the wall, then wheeled to confront his half brother in the blaze of torchlight.

"Damn you, Adam! You stubborn son of a bitch!"

"Damn me?" Adam laughed bitterly. "I put my goddamn head in a noose for nothing! Nothing! You goddamn noble idiot! What the hell did you have to charge in here for, Gavin? Why did you have to play the goddamn hero? Why couldn't you just walk away?"

"Walk away and let you die in my place? No, Adam. Not for all the world."

"It was my choice! My sacrifice to make! The bastards would have cut down those women and children you half burned yourself to death saving. Riding into the midst of the soldiers was the only way to protect them. And once I was captured, why the hell not make them believe they had the Glen Lyon captive? They were going to kill me anyway. At least this way, my death would have counted for something. It would have bought you a future, Gav, given you a chance at freedom."

"Freedom, bought at the price of your life? You think I could live, knowing what you'd sacrificed?"

"Hell no. You're too noble. You love me too damn much to allow me to use my death—a death no one and nothing could prevent—in an effort to aid you. Yet, you don't see why the rest of us shouldn't stand back and watch you hurl yourself into disaster time and time again. You're the only one capable of feeling pain or guilt. I'm not allowed to feel that I betrayed you or to try to make things right."

"Betrayed me? You've never betrayed me!"

"Who the hell convinced you to come away to war? Who listened to Father use every filthy trick at his disposal to force you to do something you didn't believe in, you never believed in? The grand Glenlyon legacy must be honored at all costs! The hallowed Glenlyon heir, whose blood must be spilled to make ancestors moldering in the grave happy. Never once, during the time he was dying, did I tell the stubborn son of a bitch that he was wrong, that he had no right to pound you that way, layer on the guilt until your knees buckled with it."

Gavin reeled at Adam's admission, the light from the lantern suspended on an iron hook painting the planes and hollows of Adam's face in stark hues of regret. God, he'd never known Adam felt this grinding guilt, carried it with him, hidden behind his reckless smile and blustery temper.

"Christ, Gav, I'm your brother, but I let you charge off to war, knowing you didn't belong there. I watched the horror of it break you, piece by piece, saw you fighting so hard to keep from going quietly mad. You tried to hide it from me, from everyone. And then, that night when you shattered, when I found you... God, the pain you were in, the nightmares..." Adam's voice broke. "Damn you, Gavin. I wanted to give you what our father had taken away from you, what I'd taken away from you, with my bragging and posturing before Father, with my playing at brave soldier, trying to prove... prove that I might be a bastard, but I was also a man, a son he could be proud of."

"Oh God, Adam." Gavin drew a ragged breath, glimpsing for the first time Adam's secret pain, a scar that his bastardy had left, buried so deep that even Gavin had never known it was there. Had Adam blamed himself all this time for the fact that Gavin had plunged headfirst into disaster?

Gavin crossed to where Adam sagged, his massive shoulders bent not by the weight of torture or chains, but rather by something Gavin had never seen in his brother before—even in the horrifying aftermath of Culloden Moor—defeat.

Gavin placed one hand on Adam's shoulder, wanting desperately to offer comfort, not knowing how to begin. Adam dashed his hand away.