Nicole Jordan (37 page)

Kell squeezed his eyes shut, unable to reply.

“You took the blame for him.”

“I didn’t want Sean to suffer further,” he finally answered. “I was strong enough to withstand the rumors, the accusations, but Sean would have been broken.”

“All this time…you have let people think you a murderer. But Sean is thereal murderer.”

“Raven—”

“No!” She pushed against Kell’s chest, struggling to be free. When he released her, she leapt to her feet, looking heartbroken and outraged at the same time. “He will not get away with it! I swear I will hunt him down and see him punished!”

“I will see my brother punished,” Kell said past the raw ache in his throat.

“How, Kell? How can I trust you to deal with him? You mean to protect him, just as you’ve always done.”

Her chin rose as she fiercely dashed tears from her eyes. “Sean is a grown man, Kell! He is responsible for his own actions!”

Kell nodded, torn between love for his volatile younger brother and the necessity of facing the truth. It was hard to believe Sean could be so evil, that he had become a monster. Yet if he was indeed a killer, he was beyond saving.

And Raven was right. Sean couldn’t be allowed to get away with murder.

Without answering, Kell rose to his feet and turned toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Raven demanded.

“To find Sean.”

“I intend to go with you.”

“No, I don’t want you within a mile of him. I want you safe. I’ll have Belker see you home.” Kell’s grim gaze met hers. “I promise you, I will deal with my brother.”

Raven felt ravaged to the heart as she numbly climbed the front steps of Kell’s house. When the butler admitted her with a polite greeting, she merely nodded. She would have to inform him and the other servants about O’Malley’s death, but not now. She couldn’t bring herself to talk about it.

She went up to her bedchamber to grieve alone. A fire burned low in the grate, and she sank into a chair, staring blindly at the flickering flames. She felt bruised, hollow inside.

God, if only this were a terrible nightmare. She would awaken at any moment….

She felt tears slip down her cheeks as memories of O’Malley crowded into her mind. His strength and comfort had sustained her over the years, from the first moment her supposed father had repudiated her as a bastard. O’Malley had taught her about life, how to bear the pain and meet her fate with fortitude….

The ashes of her grief filled her throat and choked her.

Bowing her head, she wept again wordlessly, her sobs muted gasps in the dark.

She had no notion of the passage of time, but it was probably no more than a handful of minutes later when she heard soft laughter behind her.

Raven froze, ice forming in her veins.

“I told you I would make you pay.”

Her tears arrested, her heart pounding in her throat, she glanced over her shoulder. Sean stood at the dressing room door, a pistol trained on her chest.

“I wouldn’t scream if I were you,” he said mildly. “You wouldn’t want to force me to use this on your other servants.”

Her fingers dug into the arms of her chair. “What do you want?”

“Why, I mean to take you hostage, my dear. I have a carriage waiting on the next street.” He gestured with the pistol toward the door. “We will leave by the front entrance, if you please.”

She rose and turned to face her nemesis, casting him a glance full of scorn. “You expect me to meekly obey you?”

“Oh, I think you will. Otherwise I will kill anyone who interferes.”

“You won’t get away with this,” Raven declared with scathing bravado. “Kell will stop you.”

Sean’s smile chilled her very blood. “Perhaps. I truly hope he tries. You see, I mean to make my dear brother pay as well, for choosing you over me.”

Chapter

Twenty

She had never been so cold in her life, Raven thought as she sat huddled in the chair where Sean had kept her tied for the past hour. After driving through the night in a jolting, swaying coach, they’d arrived at a country estate that Sean said belonged to him. Immediately he had dismissed the caretakers with a brusque command and installed Raven in an unheated bedchamber, without giving her even her cloak for warmth.

At least he hadn’t drugged her this time or rendered her unconscious, but her limbs were so numb, she could barely feel any sensation.

Sean had left her alone only once, to allow her to relieve herself, untying all but her hands and locking the door behind him. One look at the frozen landscape, however, made Raven reconsider attempting an escape, for snow was coming down in swirling gusts. Even if she somehow managed to elude Sean and flee the house, in these near-blizzard conditions she would likely freeze to death before she got half a mile.

And so she didn’t fight him when Sean returned to retie her to the chair. And she kept her counsel as he stood watch at the window, her emotions swinging wildly between blazing fury and despair. When he deigned to give her an occasional glance, she tried not to meet his eyes, fearing that showing her outrage would only earn her more pain.

He would not balk at hurting her further, she had no doubt. Since their arrival, Sean had sunk into an icy calm devoid of any emotion whatever. His passionless detachment frightened her more than any ranting could have done. His eyes seemed soulless, almost dead.

She gave a start when he finally broke the silence. “Kell should not be too much longer,” he murmured tonelessly, gazing out through the snow. “I left a trail even a blind man could follow.”

It was the first time in nearly an hour he had spoken to her.

“What will you do when he arrives?” Raven ventured to ask.

He shot her a cool glance. “That is no concern of yours.”

“You would not really harm him, would you? Your own brother?”

The sharp twist of his mouth sent a fresh chill through her. “How touching—you pretend to care for him. But I know your heart is made of ice.”

“I do care what happens to him. He is my husband.”

When Sean’s eyes narrowed, she realized her mistake. Whatever her feelings for Kell, she shouldn’t declare them for fear of provoking Sean further. “Kell doesn’t care much for me, however,” she murmured. “We have a marriage of convenience, nothing more.”

“You lie.” Crossing the room to her, he calmly struck her across the face with his open palm, making her head snap back.

Raven stifled a cry of pain and clenched her teeth.

“Kell has been panting after you like a dog for a bitch. You seduced him, and he fell for it. He will pay for that.”

His tone was so composed, he might have been remarking on the weather. Her stomach muscles knotted with dread.

She knew she shouldn’t dare challenge Sean again, knew he would be impervious to pleas, but she couldn’t help herself. “Please, Sean, whatever you are planning, Kell doesn’t deserve to be hurt.”

“He stole you from me.”

Raven bit her tongue, recognizing that further argument was futile. Sean was so twisted by his tormented past, so filled with bitterness and hatred, that she truly questioned his sanity. Yet she couldn’t allow Kell to walk blindly into a trap.

“What is it you want? Me? If so, then…” She swallowed hard. “You can have me.”

His wintery smile lifted the hairs on the back of her neck. “Ah, but I no longer want you. Now be silent.”

Sean turned back to the window. Another dozen minutes ticked by before he spoke again. “At last he comes.”

His satisfied pronouncement filled Raven with alarm, and she flinched when Sean turned back to her.

With methodical efficiency, he released her from the chair but left her hands bound. She couldn’t help but cry out when he jerked her savagely to her feet.

“Where…are you taking me?” Raven gasped as he ushered her forcefully to the door.

“You will see soon enough.”

Kell cursed as he struggled through the drifts of snow in the rear of the Lasseter estate. He’d found the house empty but for four servants huddling in the kitchen. They’d been told to keep out of sight, but when asked, they pointed to the back exit, indicating the direction Sean had taken with his hostage.

Following the tracks, Kell bent against the razor-sharp wind, the capes of his greatcoat snapping. He could barely see in the swirling snow, yet he knew where Sean was headed. The gazebo had been chosen with a purpose, for that was where William’s abuse had begun.

A sickening sense of inevitability buffeted Kell as he realized the past had come full circle.

In a few moments he could make out the delicate cupola roof and the lacy railings of the gazebo. The ornamental lake beside it was frozen over, while a stand of elms rose behind like ghostly sentinels, their bare limbs coated with ice crystals.

When he reached the gazebo, Kell felt the same ice freeze his veins. Two figures were seated on a bench, Sean holding a rapier at Raven’s throat.

Kell’s breathing ceased as he forced himself slowly to mount the snow-slicked steps. His heart pounded as if he’d run a great distance, while his gut churned with a tumult of emotions: fear for Raven. Hatred for the bastard who had destroyed his young brother’s innocence. Anguish at what Sean would force him to do.

Sean meant to make him choose between the two of them, Kell knew. His brother and his wife. But he really had no choice.

Not wanting to incite his brother, Kell came to a halt and surveyed his wife. Her lips were blue and her body shook with cold, yet he couldn’t tell if the expression in her eyes was pain or fear or both.

“Sean, let her go. Your quarrel is with me.”

“Aye, it is with you, dear brother. You want to lock me away.”

“You’ve hurt enough innocents. You can’t be allowed to hurt anyone else.”

“What of me? I was innocent when that bastard violated me.”

Kell felt the familiar anguish rise up in him. “I know.”

“Youknow ?” The word was bitter. “You don’t know a bloody thing, Kell. You can’t understand what it was like to bear his touch, to have him pushing inside me…. He brought me here, did you knowthat ? He would make me strip for him, and then he would mount me…. I puked at first. Once I cast up my guts all over him when he came in my mouth. He struck me so hard, he knocked me senseless. After that I learned to stomach his perversions. To conceal my shame. Even though I wanted to kill him.”

Sean’s mouth twisted in a sad smile. “I did kill him in the end. I made the bastard pay for what he did to me.” His voice lowered, turning troubled. “I killed O’Malley, too, even though I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t stop myself.”

A strangled sound of grief came from Raven’s throat, and Sean jerked her head back, pressing the blade harder against her skin.

Kell gritted his teeth till they ached. It was all he could do to refrain from leaping at his brother.

Sean’s voice dropped even further, to a hoarse whisper. “I thought I wanted you to pay as well, Kell. You were my brother. You should have saved me from him. I hated you for that.”

Kell felt the accusation like a knife thrust. Sean’s resentment had festered all these years, and now, like some pestilent wound, was pouring forth. “Sean, you don’t know how much I hated myself.”

The younger man shook his head. “No, I was wrong. You could not have saved me. Not then,” he whispered brokenly. “But you can now. You have to help me, Kell.”

“Of course I will help you.”

His green eyes turned desolate. “How? By having me thrown in prison?”

“I thought an asylum would be more humane.”

Sean shook his head, his eyes bleak. “I cannot live the rest of my life locked away.”

“I can’t allow you to remain free to kill again.”

“There is only one way to stop me, Kell. You know it.” With his head Sean gestured toward the second rapier lying on the bench. “Do you recognize these? These are Uncle’s dueling foils.”

“You’re asking me to duel with you? You have little skill with a rapier. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You have no choice.” Sean glanced down at his hostage. “If you don’t want me to slit her throat, you will have to fight me, brother.”

Kell hesitated, dread roiling inside him at what Sean was implying. But he couldn’t allow Raven to be hurt any further. “Very well.”

Sean bent down to retrieve the other foil, leaving the slightest opening for Kell to act.

Yet Raven moved before he could. Raising her bound hands, she struck Sean’s shoulder, evidently hoping to throw him off balance. But all it did was earn her a vicious clout. Sean swung his arm and connected with her head, knocking her to the wooden floor.

Kell had started forward, filled with rage and fear, but he halted abruptly when he saw Sean holding the point of his foil at Raven’s nape.

“Pick up your weapon,” he ordered in a hoarse tone.

Kell’s gaze riveted on his brother’s blade, so perilously close to piercing Raven’s flesh. “It doesn’t have to be this way, Sean.”

“You know it does. You have to end it.” His mouth curved in a bleak smile. “You always tried to take care of me. Please…do it one last time. Pick up the rapier.”

Grimly Kell complied, scooping up the foil. “En garde,then.”

Sean raised his own weapon and moved forward.

From her painful position on the floor, Raven watched with her heart in her throat as the two brothers engaged in what could be mortal combat. From the first it was clear that Kell’s skill was much greater than his brother’s. Sean’s movements were clumsy, slow, as if he were deliberately exposing his defenses. It was only moments before Kell caught his brother’s blade and, with a powerful twist of his wrist, sent it flying across the gazebo.

The light in Sean’s eyes was almost triumphant, Raven thought. He wanted to lose this fight, wanted to die, wanted Kell to kill him.

Just then Sean bent his head and lunged, charging at Kell like a maddened bull, clearly intending to impale himself on the sharp steel. Kell managed to jerk the point away at the last second, but Sean crashed into him, his momentum propelling Kell backward. They hit the wooden railing with a thud, and both of them tumbled over the edge, plummeting to the frozen ground below.

Raven gasped in alarm, realizing Sean could still win the battle. Struggling painfully to her feet, she stumbled to the rail. Even though it had been a short fall, both men seemed winded and dazed as they fought for possession of the rapier while rolling down the icy embankment toward the frozen lake, both grunting and gasping, their breaths puffs of steam in the frigid air.