The Hellion and the Highlander (22 page)

He paused and swung back, but then froze, his eyes narrowing with rising fury as he saw her face. It was only then Averill realized she’d moved into the candlelight when she’d chased after him. She turned her head away quickly and tried to move back into the shadow, but it was too late. Kade caught her arm and drew her back into the light to examine her face grimly. When he spoke, his voice was cold and calm with a pure rage that was frightening.

“Did he do this?” Kade asked, brushing his fingers lightly over the skin by her eye. Even that light touch was enough to hurt, and Averill winced, but nodded wearily.

Kade released her arm at once and whirled to head for the door again.

“He is unconscious,” she reminded him anxiously.

“Then I will beat him awake,” Kade growled as he strode out of the room.

Averill followed as far as the door, watching worriedly, but relaxed a little when she realized he was headed for Brodie’s room.

Her gaze slid the other way, toward their own room, where Brodie lay in unconscious bliss, then
she backed into the room they were sleeping in that night. She eased the door closed and scampered to the bed to climb in.

Averill was settled in the bed and was lying waiting when Kade returned. His movements were jerky with anger as he crossed the room, stripping his weapons and plaid away as he moved.

“Is all well?” she asked quietly, eyeing him.

“Aye. The bastard isna in his room or below. He must ha’e regained consciousness and returned to the inn. He’ll stay there for a week at least if he kens what’s good for him, for he’s in for a beating when he returns,” Kade said furiously as he tugged off the shirt he wore under his plaid. The use of the damaged muscles in his back and side made him wince, and he sighed unhappily and forced himself to move more carefully as he crawled into bed beside her, arranging himself on his side, facing her.

Averill was biting her lip and worrying about the morning ahead, when Kade suddenly shifted himself closer to where she lay on her back. He then threw his arm around her waist and drew her side against his chest.

When Averill turned her eyes reluctantly to his, she saw by candlelight that his own eyes were open. He stared at her silently, his expression growing more rigid with every moment as he peered at the bruise by her eye.

“Did ye tend to that?” he asked in a low rumble. “Put something cold on it?”

No, she hadn’t, Averill realized. In all her worry, she’d neglected to take care of it. But she was reluctant to admit that for fear that Kade would insist and head below to get something to place on it. With the way things were going, did he do that, Brodie would probably wake up and stumble out as he was passing, and all hell would break loose, Averill thought unhappily. She’d rather take her chances and risk not tending to it, she decided, and rather than answer the question, merely said, “’Tis fine.”

Before he could say anything else, she rose up on one arm to blow out the candle on the table beside the bed, immersing the room in darkness. The moment Averill reclined again, Kade pulled her back tight against his chest and sighed into her hair.

“I’ll take care o’ him in the mornin’. I’ll hunt him down to do so do I need to. He’ll ne’er hurt ye again, wife. I vow it.”

“Aye, husband,” Averill whispered, but his words had not eased her worry as he’d intended. She was now fretting about Morag and what the woman might say. While Averill had told Kade that Brodie had hit her, she hadn’t told him that he’d intended to rape and kill her, and that he certainly would have had Morag not appeared. If the woman told Kade that as she’d threatened to do…

Averill bit her lip in the darkness and silently prayed that Kade did not kill his brother and have to live with the memory.

Kade eased from the bed, dressed quickly and silently, then crept from the room like a thief…all to keep from waking his wee wife. Averill was sleeping soundly finally after lying awake half the night. He knew because he’d lain there awake, too. He suspected she’d been fretting over what he intended to do to Brodie. It was what had kept him awake, that and grief at the loss of Ian. He and his cousin had always been close, but those three years sharing a cell with Will had brought them even closer. In that cell, they had spoken of things men didn’t normally speak of, things like the hopelessness and frustration that had plagued them, and what sort of future they would have if and when they got out. For the man to have died just weeks after returning home was harder to accept than the rest of what had happened. Why let him suffer all that only to die the moment he was free?

God’s plans made no sense to him at times, and Kade had lain awake fretting about that and the fact that in the morning he was going to tear his brother limb from limb. While they had been in that hellhole, the bastard had sat here on his arse, drinking himself silly, abusing the people of Stewart, and not doing a damned thing to keep the castle and lands from sliding into the horrid state they were both in. At least his father and Gawain had only neglected matters. Brodie had worsened them with his cruelty and vile behavior.

All that he’d learned about Brodie had enraged
Kade on his arrival at Stewart. So much so that he’d thought it best to give his temper time to cool before dealing with the man. Not to mention for the man to sober up before speaking to him, but now Brodie had gone too far. No one was going to raise a hand in violence to Averill. No one.

Kade’s mouth tightened as he thought of what he’d seen once the sun had risen that morning. Averill’s eye was black-and-blue and so swollen, he doubted she would be able to open it when she woke.

Brodie would pay for that…tenfold. His brother would never again make the mistake of thinking he could touch Averill in any way…or any of the servants. Kade was going to make that plain, then give him a choice: stop drinking or get the hell off Stewart land immediately and never return…. And he was going to do it before Averill woke up so that she could greet the day to the news that Brodie would never bother her again.

“Oh, good morn.”

Kade blinked his thoughts away and glanced to the side to see that Will’s door was open, and the man was standing in it as if he’d been about to step out as he passed.

“Morn,” he rumbled.

“I was wondering if—”

“Not now,” Kade said quietly to prevent waking anyone. “I ha’e to deal with me brother.”

He caught a glimpse of Will’s eyebrows rising, then he was past him, continuing up the hall.

“Which one?” Will asked in hushed tones, hurrying after him. “Gawain or Brodie?”

“Brodie.”

“What has he done?” Will asked grimly.

“He hit Averill.” Kade announced coldly.

“
What?
”

Kade glared and hissed, “Shut it. Ye’ll wake the whole castle.”

Will frowned but spoke more quietly as he asked, “How? When?”

“Last night,” Kade said on a sigh. “Apparently he sorted out that she was dosin’ the whiskey to make ’im ill.”

“Was she?” Will asked with amazement.

“Aye,” he said, but added in her defense, “She was tryin’ to make them stop drinkin’, but he thought she was tryin’ to kill him and hit her.”

Will was silent for a moment, then muttered, “Bastard. Though I suppose he had reason if he thought her trying to kill him.”

Kade nodded reluctantly. “That’s the only reason I’m no killin’ him for touchin’ her.”

Will grimaced. “What are you going to do?”

“Wake ’im up, beat him senseless, and when he wakes up from that, ha’e a talk with him. He either stops drinkin’ and refrains from takin’ his fists to anyone here, or he leaves for good.”

“Banishment,” Will said solemnly, as they reached Brodie’s door, and Kade pushed it open.

He immediately started into the room, but paused just inside the door with a curse when
he saw that his brother wasn’t in the bed. Brodie wasn’t in the room either and it looked much as it had last night. Kade suspected the man hadn’t even returned to sleep.

“Where could he be?” Will asked.

“Passed out drunk on the road between here and the village, no doubt,” Kade said with disgust. He’d hoped to have the matter over and done with before Averill awoke, but it was looking like that wouldn’t happen.

“Where are his furs?” Will asked, as Kade turned, intending to leave the room.

Pausing at his question, Kade raised an eyebrow and swung back to the bed, noting that the furs were gone.

“Mayhap he moved to another room to avoid you until your temper cooled,” Will suggested.

“Nay,” Kade said at once. “All the rooms are in use but Merry’s, and he wouldna—” Pausing abruptly as it occurred to him that Brodie might very well take up residence in her room, he spun back to the door and hurried out of the room and along the hall to his sister’s old room. But a quick glance inside showed it was empty.

“What about the room between mine and the one Domnall is in? It is empty is it not? He could have moved there.”

Kade shook his head as he closed the door. “Nay. Averill and I slept in there last night. She said Morag spilled a food tray in our bed.”

“That is unusually clumsy of the woman,” Will commented.

Kade’s eyes narrowed suddenly as he considered the situation. It was uncommonly clumsy for any maid to spill a tray of food on a bed, but Morag had proven to be a very capable woman, not the clumsy sort at all. Something must have distracted her or—Kade shifted his gaze, moving toward the door to their vacated room as it occurred to him that Averill had not mentioned the particulars of her confrontation with Brodie. Things such as where he had approached her. She had, however, said that Morag had knocked him unconscious. And Morag had spilled a tray of food on their bed.

He knew his friend was thinking along the same lines as he when Will asked, “Where did he confront Avy? He would not have gone in your room, would he?”

“He better not have,” Kade growled, and moved on to the door to the room they’d had to vacate for the night. He pushed that door open and cursed when he saw that someone was sleeping in his bed. Kade started forward at once and would have ended up on his arse when his foot slid out from under him on the slick floor if Will had not grabbed his arm.

Muttering a thank-you, he straightened and peered down at the mess on the floor.

“I thought you said Morag spilled it on the bed?” Will asked in hushed tones.

Kade frowned as he thought back to last night, then admitted, “She didna actually say the bed, I just assumed so, else why could we no’ sleep here?”

Will turned to peer at the man in the bed. “I am guessing because it was already occupied.”

Kade felt his stomach churn with fury as he put it all together. Brodie was too heavy for the women to carry, so he lay where he’d fallen. And it didn’t take a genius to sort out how Morag had spilled the food on the floor, Kade thought as he recalled Laddie hitting Brodie over the head with the shield to make him let go of Averill. Morag had probably done the same thing with the tray after dumping its contents on the floor. And the two women hadn’t told him. They’d let him think the bastard was out of the keep to give his temper a chance to cool.

Shaking his head, he crossed the room, paused beside the bed, and glared down at his brother. The man lay on his side, facing away from him, his face covered by the furs and only his hair poking out, Kade noted, as he growled, “Wake up.”

“He is dead to the world,” Will muttered at his side.

“No’ for long,” Kade said grimly, and bent to give him a rough shake. “Dammit, Brodie. Wake up and get yer arse out o’ me bed.”

When that had no effect either, he pulled him onto his back, intending to slap his face, but stopped when the fur fell away and he got a good look at him.

Kade straightened abruptly, shock replacing his anger of a moment ago.

“He’s dead,” Will breathed, sounding as stunned as he felt. They were both silent for a moment, simply staring at him, then Will asked worriedly, “You do not think whatever Averill was dosing the whiskey with killed him, do you?”

“Nay,” Kade said at once. “He had none last night. Averill was out of the weed she uses to make it. ’Tis what she was collecting yesterday when Domnall found ye. ’Twas untainted whiskey he drank last night. He got it from the inn.”

Will sighed, then asked, “Then what do you think happened?”

Kade hesitated and bent to run his hands over his brother’s head. He found a bump on the back, suggesting he’d been right in guessing Morag had hit him. Fretting over the possibility that the woman had hit him too hard and accidentally killed him, he turned Brodie back on to his side as he had been when they’d entered. He’d intended to get a look at the back of his head to see how bad the head wound was, but paused when he saw the edge of a bloodstain visible on the back of the dirty white shirt he wore. The edge of it could be seen just above the furs as they dropped slightly from all the shifting.

A sick feeling in his stomach, Kade pulled the furs down to his waist, then straightened abruptly again.

“He has been stabbed,” Will said in hushed tones.

Averill’s first awareness was a pounding head and a miserable tenderness around her eye. Grimacing as she noticed she was only seeing out of one eye, she tried to force the other open and sighed when it was too swollen to manage it.

“Averill?”

Frowning at Kade’s tone, one that suggested it wasn’t the first time he’d said her name, she rolled onto her back to peer at him out of her good eye and found him looming over her, his expression one she wouldn’t care to have to see too often. He looked cold and grim beyond countenance.

“Tell me what happened last night?” her husband demanded the moment he saw that she was awake.

“L-last night?” Averill stammered, recollection rolling back through her head.

Kade sighed, some of the coldness seeping from him as he settled on the side of the bed. “Do no’ stammer. I am no’ angry with ye, but this is important. What happened with Brodie?”

Averill hesitated, then rather than answer, she asked, “Have you banished him, or has he agreed to stop drinking?”