Ecstasy

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.”

“You know?” 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 know that? 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.

Shaking with fear as well as cold, Raven strained futilely against her bonds. She wanted desperately to help Kell but had no idea how without proving a lethal distraction. She cried out when Sean clawed at his brother’s face, nails raking blindly, but Kell twisted his head and eluded the vicious attack. Somehow he even managed to wrest the foil away, thank God.

Her gratitude came too soon. Sean swung a savage blow that connected with Kell’s cheekbone. Then, rolling free, the younger man lunged to his feet and staggered across the snow-packed ice, heading toward the center of the small lake.

Kell went after him. He had nearly caught up to his brother when the ominous groan of cracking ice reached Raven’s ears. Sean suddenly lurched forward as first one leg, then the other, broke through the frozen surface.

Raven clutched at the railing, her heart leaping in horror as he disappeared into the icy water.

“Sean!” Kell’s cry was nearly whipped away by the gusting wind. Dropping to his knees, he crawled toward the jagged hole in the ice.

Sean’s head appeared, his mouth wide with shock and gasping for air, his arms flailing. His fingers found purchase on the edge of the ice just as Kell stretched himself full length.

Raven’s vision was hampered by the swirling snow, but she could see Kell straining to reach for his brother, urging Sean to take his proffered hand.

For a moment it looked as if he would succeed, but then Sean struck out fiercely, fighting the very man who was trying to save him.

“Sean!” Unwilling to give up, Kell tried again, clutching at his brother’s shirt.

Resisting, Sean grabbed Kell’s arm with both hands to fend him off. Raven drew a painful, gasping breath, knowing Sean could drag Kell under with him, drowning them both.

For the space of a dozen heartbeats, neither of them yielded. Raven bit her lip till it bled, but she could only watch in terror as the silent battle raged between the two brothers.

Kell’s arm was submerged up to his shoulder, the other braced against the ice when she saw Sean’s mouth form the word, “Please…”

He was pleading for release, she realized.

His jaw clenched, Kell refused to let go, but then he gave a sudden jolt. The edge of the hole had broken off, upsetting his balance. With a jerk, Sean wrenched free. An instant later, he sank below the surface of the lethal water, vanishing from view.

Kell froze, staring in denial as Raven watched. When long moments passed with no sign of his brother, he squeezed his eyes shut in agony. The cry that tore from his throat was the keening of a wounded animal.

Raven gave a sob as well as another ominous crack sounded from the surface of the lake. The ice was fracturing beneath Kell’s weight. Dear God, if he fell through, the frigid water would swallow him up the way it had his brother…

Rasping Kell’s name, she rushed across the gazebo and down the treacherous steps, nearly falling in her haste. Righting herself, she picked her way around structure, then slid down the embankment and started across the frozen lake.

“For God’s sake, Raven, stay back! The surface could give way at any minute.”

She halted in indecision. The ice might not bear their combined weight, and she could send them both plunging into the freezing depths. But if she did nothing, Kell stood little chance of survival.

From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed movement in the distance-the house servants, she realized. But they would never arrive in time to help. She had to try to save Kell on her own.

Kneeling on the surface the way Kell had done, she crawled forward, praying with every tentative inch that she wouldn’t be too late, sobbing and cursing her bonds all the while.

“Dammit, Raven, you could die!”

She couldn’t abandon Kell, though, even if it meant drowning with him. She loved him more than her own life.

His legs were closest to her, she saw through her blinding tears. She could see the soles of his boots a yard away.

“Kell…help me…”

He uttered a grim curse, but stretched one leg out as far as he could. Her fingers were so raw and numb, she could barely grasp the toe of his boot, but somehow she managed to find purchase.

Not breathing, Raven pulled on his leg, trying to brace herself against the slick surface. It was nearly impossible; Kell barely budged an inch.

“Try again,” he urged.

Stifling a sob, she pulled again, struggling with all her might. Her effort was more successful this time; he moved nearly half a foot.

With another desperate prayer, she threw every ounce of her strength into the task. Her progress seemed infinitely slow, but with her arms aching, her lungs straining, she managed inch by inch to draw Kell back from the treacherous edge and onto more solid ice.

An eternity later she felt grasping hands lifting them the final way to safety. The servants, Raven realized, exhaustion sapping the last of her will.

Kell had no more strength than she did. When he reached the bank, he collapsed to his knees, unable to go farther.

With a superhuman effort, Raven shrugged off the supporting hands and staggered to his side. Sinking in front of him, she clung to his neck as tightly as her bound hands would allow, the tears slipping down her face and turning to ice.

His arms came around her, and he held her without speaking, his face buried in her hair, his shoulders shaking.

He was weeping as well, she knew. Weeping for the brother he had been unable to save.