At the new edge of steel in his voice, the women leapt into action, disengaging from one another and hastening to don dressing gowns. Impassively, he wondered whether the one who had been covered in trifle had managed to wipe herself clean before attending to her dubious modesty.
“Maxim,” Nando complained.
“Cover yourself,” he commanded his brother crisply. “The last thing I wish to see is your hairy arse, and covered in lashes, no less.”
“My goddesses told me I was being a very bad lad and that I needed to be punished.”
Just how sotted was his brother?
One of the ladies tittered and then emitted a hiccup.
How sotted were they all?
The room, now that he thought upon it, stank of spirits and sexual congress. He swallowed back the urge to gag. After the tender passion he’d shared earlier with Tansy, this sordid spectacle was all the more repugnant to him.
“Be gone,” he repeated thunderously to the ladies.
He waited as they sauntered from the chamber, some more unsteady on their bare feet than others. When the door had finally closed on the last of them, he turned back to Nando, gratified to discover his brother had at least possessed the decency to cover himself and sit up in the mound of pillows he’d been inhabiting.
“Do you know,” Maxim began, his voice vibrating with suppressed rage and concern, “how worried I’ve been about you?”
“Worried about me?” Nando raised his brows. “Why should you be? You told me no more married women. I would’ve thought you’d be pleased I’ve followed your edicts.”
Maxim had never wanted to cuff his brother more. He clenched his hands into fists at his sides and cast a look around the room for signs of his brother’s garments. It didn’t take long to discover them draped over various pieces of furniture, likely flung wherever he had discarded them.
“I’m not in the mood for your games, Nando,” he said curtly, using a calming, rhythmic march to pace down one length of the chamber in an effort to cool his rising ire and the fit that was never far behind moments of great upheaval and upset.
He had been damned distressed when he had learned Tansy was potentially at peril as well. The sole motivating force that had kept him going was the need to see her as safely protected as possible. And then, when he’d seen her, he’d fallen into the abyss of desire.
Now that he had located Nando and the necessity of his retaining his wits had faded, he was losing control. It was likely the combination of fear and fury. His heart was galloping faster than a spooked horse.
“Maxim?” Nando’s voice reached him, as if from the other side of a tunnel. “You’re not having one of your spells, are you?”
Some of the jocular air had faded, and in its place was concern. Maxim attempted to concentrate on his brother’s tone, his safety, his presence. He tried to tell himself that Tansy was being guarded by his best men. That no harm would befall her.
But then he thought of Mina.
Of Mina’s battered, bruised face, her broken, lifeless body.
And everything inside him seized.
A sound escaped him that was more animal than human. He hated this wretched weakness. Hated the memories. Hated the bastards who had killed his wife so many years ago, the enemy soldiers who had captured her and paraded her around like spoils of war before killing her.
Hated the thought that he could ever again be responsible for such a horrific, brutal attack.
Breathe, damn it,he told himself, pacing, pacing.
He’d intended to fetch his brother’s clothing, but now he was two-and-twenty and he was rolling over the body of the woman he loved, left battered and bloodied on the ground as if she hadn’t been someone precious. Someone beautiful and vivacious and filled with life. Someone so very loved and innocent. A wife and a sister, a daughter, and a friend, a soon-to-be-mother.
A hand clamped on his shoulder, and Maxim gave a violent cry, wrenching away. For a moment, he was trapped between two worlds, the past and the present. He could smell the burning fires, the scorched earth, the unmistakable scents of blood and death.
“Maxim, brother.”
Nando’s voice. Calming. Soothing. Emerging from the fiery hells that had engulfed his mind.
Maxim choked in a breath, his chest as tight as if he had just run a great distance.
“We’ll march together,” Nando added.
