by Lynsay Sands
"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 b
rother. 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?"
"Neither. He is dead," Kade said baldly.
"What?" She sat up abruptly, as shocked as if he'd poured cold water over her in the warm bed.
"He is dead, wife," Kade repeated quietly. "Now tell me what happened."
"How?"
"I will explain after you tell me what occurred last night," he said firmly, his expression determined.
Averill frowned at his tone. Kade claimed he wasn't angry, but his tone said otherwise. Deciding that it mattered little to tell him now if Brodie was dead, she dropped to lie back in the bed, and said, "He was in our room when I went in after taking up the tray for Domnall. I was weary and Morag had suggested I eat in our room, that she would bring up a tray. When I entered, he was there. He covered my mouth so I could not scream and said he had come to ask me why I was poisoning him. That he'd suspected something was wrong when he kept getting sick, but had known for sure when he went down to the inn that night and drank whiskey without his stomach rebelling. He called me a murdering bitch, threw me on the bed, came down on top of me, and punched me in the face." She paused briefly then, debating whether to tell her husband Brodie had claimed he was going to rape and kill her, but then decided not to bother. Brodie was dead, and it would only hurt Kade.
Sighing, she continued, "And then Morag hit him over the head, and he slumped on top of me, unconscious."
"And then what happened?" Kade asked quietly when she paused.
Averill shrugged. "Morag helped me roll him off and we left him there."
"He was covered up with furs," Kade said solemnly.
"Aye. I decided you and I would sleep in here and had Bess help me make up the bed with fresh linens, but we had no furs for the bed, so we took Brodie's from his room, rolled him around to get our furs out from under him, then tossed his furs over him before leaving." She frowned, and said, "I am sure he was not dead then, husband. He was limp, but still warm. You do not think it was the tincture that did him in, do you?"
"He was stabbed," Kade said quietly, and Averill jerked upright in the bed again.
"Stabbed?"
"Aye. In the back," Will announced, drawing her attention to his presence. He was standing on the left side of the bed, in her present blind spot, and she had to turn her head a good way to see him.
Averill turned back to Kade to ask with bewilderment, "But who would stab him?"
"Any number o' people," Kade said wearily. "He was no' well liked here."
"If he was the target," Will commented, and when Averill and Kade both turned to him in surprise, he shrugged, and pointed out, "He was in your bed, Kade. It could have been someone thinking it was you. You have already had other attempts on your life."
"But those were all away from the keep," Averill protested quickly, not wishing to believe it had been another attempt on Kade.
"The stone that was pushed off the curtain wall onto him was not away from the keep," Will pointed out.
"But that was outside, not inside the castle itself. Surely a murderer would not risk creeping around the castle and..." She fell silent as Kade covered her hand with his own and squeezed gently.
"I ken ye doona want to believe our home has been breached, but Will is right, it could ha'e been meant fer me, and we must consider that."
Sighing, Averill nodded and lowered her head, admitting to herself that it might very well have been meant for her husband. And then anger washed through her, and she lifted her head again to glare out of her one good eye. "Have you not yet figured out who would be behind these attacks? Surely for someone to be so angry at you and determined to see you dead, you must have an idea why or who?"
"Nay," Kade said calmly, and added, "I've wracked me mind, but there's no one I can think o'."
"Mayhap it is not someone you have angered," Will reasoned, then asked, "Who would benefit from your death?"
Kade shook his head. "No one. Well, mayhap Gawain. He would be next in line did me father no' reclaim his title and position as laird."
"Not Gawain," Will said with a shake of the head, and Averill tended to agree with him. She liked what she knew of the man, so far. Now, had Gawain been accidentally killed, she would have had no trouble believing Brodie behind it, but she just did not think Gawain the sort.
"Nay," Kade agreed as he stood. "I shall have to think on it some more."
"Where are you going?" Averill asked worriedly. If the person trying to kill her husband had brought his efforts inside the castle, Kade would not be safe anywhere, she thought, and said, "If you are correct, should you not arrange for a guard for protection?"
"Aye. I'll set two men outside the door while ye sleep," he said reassuringly. "They will follow ye throughout the day today, and another two will guard our door at night."
"Not for me," she said with exasperation. "'Tis you someone is trying to kill. I meant a guard for you."
"I will not leave his side, Avy," Will said quietly. "And if I do, I shall ensure someone else is with him to keep him safe."
Kade grimaced at the words, but merely said, "We'll go below and leave ye to get more sleep. I ken ye had trouble droppin' off last night."
Kade and Will started across the room, b
ut Averill called out, "Husband?"
Pausing at the door, he glanced back. When she hesitated, he quietly asked Will to wait in the hall. The moment her brother had stepped out of the room, he closed the door and returned to stand beside the bed. "Aye?"
"I am sorry about your brother," Averill murmured, and she was. She was not that broken up over Brodie's death, but she was sorry for Kade that his brother was dead.
He nodded. "Thank ye."
"Are you very upset?" she asked uncertainly, wondering how she was to comfort him.
"Nay," Kade assured her on a sigh, and tried to explain his feelings, something she suspected he did not often do. "He was me brother, but I hardly kenned him...and I didna like him. While I'm sorry he's dead, I feel no real grief at the loss. In truth, the news o' Ian's death saddened me more."
Averill nodded, supposing she wasn't surprised. She doubted if anyone but Kade's father would feel grief at Brodie's passing...and possibly Gawain and Merry...which seemed terribly sad, and yet the man had brought it on himself with his cruel actions. 'Twas hard to feel any real grief at the loss of a tyrant.
"Get some rest," Kade said, and turned away. This time she let him leave without calling him back, but she also tossed the bed furs aside the moment the door closed behind him and got up to dress.
There was no way she was going to be able to sleep now. Brodie was dead, and it was all her fault. Had she told Kade last night that the man was in their bed, he might have been moved to his own and still be alive.
Of course, then she and Kade would have been sleeping in their room last night, and her husband would have been the one stabbed, Averill thought grimly. Perhaps she didn't feel so guilty about her actions getting Brodie killed. She was selfish enough to be glad it was him and not her husband. And, truthfully, this was probably the first useful thing the man had done in his life. Too bad it was his last.
Chapter Seventeen
"Wife." Kade paused on the stairs as he encountered Averill coming down as he went up. "I thought ye'd sleep a while longer."
"Nay." She grimaced, but shook her head. "I am awake now and have things to do."
Kade hesitated, his gaze sliding to the room at the top of the stairs. He'd just finished breaking his fast with Will and Gawain. The two men were convinced Brodie's death was the result of another attempt on Kade's life. He tended to agree with them and had decided that two armed guards should be placed in the upper hall at night to ensure such a thing didn't happen again.
