by Shayla Black
Aric did not think Drake would have survived much longer in that dungeon hell. If he survived at all.
The fresh, brutal scars on Drake’s back pointed to nay.
Aric wanted to kill Murdoch MacDougall. No apologies would change his need; no explanations would soften his hate. Murdoch deserved to die like a dog, for he had treated Drake in that manner—and worse.
“Pssst. Aric!” Kieran whispered through an entrance to the now-empty wicket gate.
“’Tis clear?”
“Aye. I had but to knock a few heads together. Hurry! The roaming sentries will come this way again soon.”
With a nod, Aric anchored Drake to his shoulder and stooped down to make his way through the small tunnel. Mercifully, they encountered no resistance.
Bribing the jailer had not been difficult. But he and Kieran had been compelled to eliminate a host of other guards, either with fists or blades, in order to secure a clear path to the outside of Dunollie Castle, home of the MacDougall clan. ’Twas one time Aric welcomed the battle and blood—anything to save Drake.
As a stiff Scottish wind blasted over the wild crags of heather-dotted land, Aric made his way toward safety, carrying his blood brother—trying to push concern at bay. Kieran kept watch for interlopers in front and behind them.
Within minutes, the trio made their way to their waiting horses. Fearing for Drake’s condition, Aric was suddenly glad he had had the foresight to procure a wagon of sorts to transport Drake. His friend could not otherwise endure the difficult trek back to Guilford’s estate in England, where he would be blessedly safe.
Kieran and Aric tied their horses to the wagon. Kieran climbed in to drive the makeshift vehicle. The scents of rain and desperation tinged the empty night as Aric scrambled up beside his unconscious friend and prayed.
The three-hour ride south to an inn he and Kieran had deemed safe seemed an eternity. By moonlight, Aric had caught snatches of this gaunt, almost yellowed friend. He looked years older and wore tatters of the very clothes he had donned the day his father had been murdered, over seven months ago.
Aric knew then Murdoch MacDougall was a monster whose cruelty was only outmeasured by his hatred for his younger half brother.
Once at the inn, exhaustion tried to claim Aric. With ruthless control, he shoved it back. Beside him, Kieran worked with a grim, tired face as they carried Drake up the dark stairs, to a waiting room.
The fire inside the chamber burned brightly. A light repast of wine, bread, and cheese had been laid out, as they had requested before leaving for Dunollie. In the morn, the innkeepers would provide a heartier breakfast. Aric only hoped Drake would live long enough to eat it.
Heaving a worried sigh, Aric helped Kieran lay Drake on the room’s lone bed.
“We’ll need water,” Aric said finally, trying to temper the anger he felt at seeing his friend’s pitiful condition in full light.
With a tight-jawed scowl and fierce eyes, Kieran stared at Drake, seeing the damage done to their friend for the first time. “Bloody hell! That man is a savage.”
Aric nodded, knowing the bleak expression in Kieran’s eyes was reflected in his own. If Drake died, a part of him would die as well. The part that remembered laughter by the river when they had gone there as young men to spy on the village’s bathing women—and saw an old crone instead. The part that remembered each of them taking a knife to their palm and sealing a pact to protect one another forever in blood.
Staring at Drake, Aric realized he had failed his friend miserably and vowed he would do everything possible to stave off death.
“Aye, Murdoch is savage,” he said to Kieran. “Get the water.”
With a tight nod, Kieran disappeared out the door and down the steps. Aric removed Drake’s shirt, peeling away the ribbons of its back that clung to fresh lash marks in his skin. Working to control his fury, Aric moved to Drake’s pants, noticing that everywhere he looked, his friend’s skin was so browned by dirt and grunge, he wondered if it would ever come clean.
With a fresh blanket, Aric covered Drake’s bare form and sank on the mattress beside him. “Live, my friend. We are here, Kieran and I.”
A thick lump rose to his throat, and Aric worked to swallow it down. Drake must live. Murdoch could not deal in such treachery and win.
“The innkeeper’s wife is heating water for a bath. We can start with this.” Kieran entered and gestured to a clean bucket of water, lye soap, and a bundle of cloths in his arms.
“Quickly,” Aric barked.
Side by side, the two men worked. Aric washed Drake’s face, now covered with a crusty, misshapen black beard. Kieran soaped Drake’s hands, arms, chest, and neck. By mutual consent, the men turned Drake over to his stomach.
Lash marks confronted them across nearly every inch of Drake’s back. New wounds over fresh scars over older scars, all covered in thick grime. Aric shivered, while Kieran looked as though he were restraining the urge to hit someone or something.
“Not now,” Aric whispered. “The time will come, my friend.”
With a jerky nod, Kieran poured fresh water into the bowl and prepared a fresh soapy cloth for Drake’s back. Aric placed the cloth on his friend’s open wounds.
Drake came up screaming, dark eyes wild, glazed.
Gently, Aric and Kieran restrained Drake and lay him down upon the bed.
“You are gone from Dunollie, Drake. We are here to help you,” Aric assured.
Drake looked about, then from Kieran to Aric. Sanity returned slowly to his haunted, thin features as Aric handed him a cup of wine.
“How?” he asked finally, voice slurred and scratchy from illness or disuse. Or both.
“Guilford tried for months,” Kieran began as Drake sipped from the full cup. “Then he sent us for you.”
“We will take you back to Hartwich Hall,” said Aric as he passed Drake a hunk of bread and cheese and watched his friend take a hearty bite. “There you can recover—”
“Nay,” Drake refused in a sharp, husky syllable.
“But—” Aric frowned. “Where would you go?”
“Dunollie.” Drake bit into the dark bread.
“You cannot!” Aric blurted.
“Nay!” Kieran shouted.
Drake rolled bare, lean shoulders, grimacing against pain. “I can. I will. Murdoch must die.”
“But—” both men began at once.
“The butcher killed my father and bloody near killed me. ’Tis by my hand he must die, and quickly,” Drake insisted, then sipped again from his cup.
“Your ill health will not permit this vendetta.” Aric frowned. “Return with us to Hartwich Hall. Guilford awaits you, and his soldiers can protect you until you are well.”
“Or I should be happy indeed to kill the swine for you,” Kieran offered with a nod.
Drake, usually the one to laugh at Kieran’s ways, cracked not the slightest smile. “’Tis my duty to be done in a manner both swift and brutal.”
Aric frowned, not liking the bleak determination in his friend’s tone. “I do not believe you can survive such a mission.”
His black gaze was full of…nothing. Only his voice showed disdain. “So?”
Kieran’s alarmed gaze caught his a moment later. Aric sucked in a hard, dismayed breath. Drake had always been the cautious one, the planner, the most deft with strategy.
Was he so bitter that he would throw away his own life to obtain revenge by killing his half brother?
“My idea will gain you more,” Aric offered in what he hoped was an intriguing, low voice.
Drake responded to it, instantly alert. “What speak you?”
“A carefully planned revenge, something to cost Murdoch more than his life.”
“He holds nothing else sacred,” Drake argued.
Nodding in sudden understanding, Kieran tossed out, “Do you not ache more for living amongst all you have lost in your home, your father, the respect of your clan?”
Running long, thin fingers
through his beard, Drake seemed to peer off into the distance, considering.
Aric held his breath, sending Kieran a silent glance of thanks for assisting in his plan. Such would not keep Drake safe forever, but safe enough until his body and spirit might heal and reason might prevail.
“Murdoch loves Dunollie,” Drake began. “And power. ’Tis as necessary to him as breathing.”
“Then take those from him,” Aric urged. “Make him walk alone, poor and unheard. Make others shun and heckle him.”
Drake frowned, clearly impatient. “How? He and Duff have convinced the entire clan they witnessed me murder my father. I know of no one who can say nay to this falsehood.”
Aric clapped a hand to Drake’s shoulder. “You have ever been cunning and patient. Soon, you will see such a way. And we will help you if you have need.”
With a reluctant nod, Drake addressed them both. “You have my thanks for saving me. I vow, even if I must die trying, Murdoch’s life will become an earthly hell.”
As Kieran and Aric cleansed the red, painful wounds on Drake’s back, talk turned to politics, memories—and Aric’s new hellion wife. But Aric was not fooled. Drake had emerged from Murdoch’s dungeon a changed man—and not necessarily for the better. He kept a part of himself distant, remote, mired in hatred and dwelling on revenge.
Aric hoped such would not be the death of one of his dearest friends. But hope dwelt dim within him.
* * * *
Weeks later, though Drake’s health had much improved and he resembled his self of old, his determination had not lessened, nor his demeanor cheered. Both were made of steel.
Cursing into his half-empty mug of ale, Aric looked about Guilford’s clean keep. The foolish jesters made his head ache. The loud troubadours made his teeth hurt.
Before him, he watched Kieran toss back a long swallow of ale, then grab a passing kitchen maid to join him in dance. The young woman lifted her lips in a smile and her skirts above her ankles as she hopped and skipped to the merry lutes.
To his right, Aric found Drake watching the scene without emotion. The ale in front of him remained untouched.
Cursing, Aric wished he had never suggested Drake find a more sinister way to punish Murdoch. He and Kieran should have slaughtered the fiend while rescuing Drake and had done with it. Instead, Drake had thrown his mind and soul—what was left of it—into the strategy of revenge with cold abandon.
Aric tossed back another sip of ale and rubbed tired eyes with his thumb and finger. Glad he was that he had sent word to Northwell this morn that he would be coming home. Well, glad…yet uncertain. How would Gwenyth feel about his return? Would she welcome him into her arms—and bed—or would she be too busy about the castle she had always longed for to notice?
Ceasing such morose thoughts, Aric looked up to find Kieran, a mug of ale in each hand and a wench under each arm.
“I’m off to battle again, ladies. Send me away a happy man!” shouted Kieran as he climbed the stairs to his chamber with the laughing maids.
Grimacing, Aric shook his head, wishing the battles in Spain held no lure for his Irish friend.
Ever a scamp was Kieran. Aric doubted anything or anyone would change that. He also wondered if Kieran would ever realize he used the whirl of battle and the haze of pleasure to mask his pain.
A dew-cheeked kitchen maid cast a tentative smile his way—nay, he realized a moment later. ’Twas Drake she smiled at, and with good cause. If Kieran’s charm drew women, Drake’s dark face compelled them.
Beside him, Drake rose, gazing at the young dark-haired woman with purpose. When he paused at the bottom of the stairs and cocked a brow in question, the maid darted to his side and wrapped slender fingers around the thick of his arm. Together, they disappeared.
As the feast around him wound down, people found their beds for the night. Soon, Guilford approached and seated himself on the bench beside him.
“Thank you again for bringing my grandson back to me.”
Aric glanced up at the old man, something of a father to him these past dozen or more years. “Drake is like my brother. I could do no less for him.”
Guilford paused, rubbing his wiry white beard. “He is not the same.”
So the old man had noticed. Aric knew such should not surprise him. Very little passed without Guilford’s awareness.
“He needs time,” Aric assured.
With a shake of his head, the old man’s eyes turned bleak. “’Tis more than that he needs. It seems he feels nothing but hate.”
Nodding uncomfortably, Aric acknowledged that truth.
“Well, lad, ’tis not like you to frown in your cups so,” Guilford said, changing the subject.
“I am tired,” he lied.
Guilford accepted the evasion with a nod. “Now that we are alone, tell me of this wife you have taken. Kieran says she is uncommon pretty and has a fiery temper to match.”
In that moment, he tried not to miss Gwenyth, as he had for many days, but a flash of something—nay, a pang—jolted him in the gut. Why? Their last words had been harsh, and she had told him more than once she preferred that milksop Penley to him.
But he could not forget her sharp wit and sharper tongue—and the fact they masked a soft heart. Nor could he forget how she ignited in his arms when he touched her, how she arched toward his mouth when he claimed her breast, how her arousal had thickened in the air between them when he had but brushed the bud of her need… He felt something clench again, this time lower. A glance around told him he could have a comely woman if he wanted one.
Damnation! For some blasted reason, he did not. He refused to examine why.
Aric sighed. “Gwenyth is…all Kieran says.” And more.
“Bring her round to meet me, boy.”
“Aye,” he agreed with a dispirited nod into his cup.
A prolonged silence followed. Aric knew crafty old Guilford, knew the aged man sized him up, saw through his façade.
“There was a time you would have joined my grandson and that rogue Kieran in finding a wench or two to tumble.”
True. Until recently, until Gwenyth, he had scarce missed an opportunity. Why?
Beside him, Guilford watched with wise blue eyes and the softness of an old man’s smile.
“Ah lad, ’tis like that when you are in love.”
In love? Did he love Gwenyth? How could he love an ill-tempered witch who sought castles of wealth and yearned for someone like Sir Penley to share them with? ’Twas simply lust.
“I do not love her.”
Guilford rose with a hearty slap on the back. “’Tis something fierce you are feeling for her. Soon enough, you shall find out what it is.”
Aric watched the old man walk away, then finished off his ale. Aye, he felt something fierce. Something needy, something that sought release. Something he feared only Gwenyth could assuage.
With a curse, he called for another ale. And another. And another.
A long hour later, Kieran’s two wenches came fluttering down the stairs. One, a lanky girl with dark hair, giggled. The other, a plump blond, all but flittered into the great hall with rosy cheeks and a grin.
Aric smiled wryly. Kieran did love women—all women. All shapes, all sizes, from the shy to the brazen. And in return, they seemed to love him. But would he ever be able to love with his heart? Aric wondered.
Another dark hour passed before Drake’s wench appeared on the stairs. She looked pale. Her dark hair tangled wildly about her shoulders. The woman’s eyes were half-closed in weariness as she trudged down the stairs.
Frowning, Aric rose. Whether ’twas curiosity or foreboding that took him to the woman’s side, he was not certain. Drake had indeed changed. Certainly not enough to hurt a woman, had he?
When he paused beside her, she looked up, stunned, as if she had not seen him approach.
“Are you well?” he asked, frowning.
“Tired,” she murmured, lunging toward her bed on the straw floor.
She opened her hazel eyes slightly. “Hurt? Nay.” Her eyes drifted closed again, and she yawned. “But yer friend, he ’as control of iron, the vigor of five men, and no heart at all.”
The woman rolled to her side and fell into slumber almost instantly. With a puzzled frown, Aric rose and glanced up the stairs. What had the woman meant? She did not seem distressed or ill-treated, merely sated…overly so. Had Drake used her to forget his days at Dunollie? It seemed so, and Aric had a suspicion from the wench’s words that his friend had not succeeded.
* * * *
May breezes had given way to June rains, then to the shimmer of July’s heat. Gwenyth idly clasped the ruby pendant Aric had given her and wondered again when—or if—he would return to Northwell. Beside her, Dog whined despondently, seeming to echo something inside her.
With a sigh, she sat upon the garden’s bench covered in chamomile and listened to the sound of the ocean behind the keep. The bench’s cushioning fragrance rose up to blend with the mixture of mint, thyme, and perfect roses in the garden’s air. Mandrake added a hint of spice.
Ah, she loved Northwell and its environs. Bessie, the cook, full of mischief and kindness, had made her feel welcome, as had Baswain, the porter, once he had recovered from the shock of Aric having taken a wife. She had been ensconced in the master’s chambers since her arrival, and such fine luxuries she had never imagined. Penhurst paled in comparison. The wild, stark crags of this northern country, dotted with heather and gorse, captured her imagination. Everything here was so riotous, so alive—from the weather to the land itself and the surrounding vast ocean. She would never grow weary of life here.
It had been satisfying indeed to write to Nellwyn of her new home and her new fortune, to feel equal at last. Now she had a secure future, one that rivaled her cousin. Life should be nothing but pleasing.
