“How are you?” Aubrey asked, brushing a lock of hair from her forehead with his free hand. “What happened? Have you taken ill?”
She wasn’t entirely sure herself what had happened. Only that she had been feeling sick to her stomach, and then the room had seemed to tip sideways, and her vision had gone black around the edges.
“I am well enough, I think,” she managed.
“Stop touching my sister,” Rhys growled, his voice taking on a lethal edge.
“I’m fine,” she reassured Aubrey, tugging her hand free of his grasp. “You should go.”
He shook his head. “I’m not going until this is over.”
“Until what is over?” she asked, frowning up at him. “I cannot marry you. I’m promised to Carnis.”
“To the devil with Carnis. You don’t love him.”
“Aubrey,” she protested, not certain of what to say.
Shedidn’tlove the earl, but he had entrapped her. Then there was the matter of her brother hovering over them. Rhys knew something of what had happened between the two of them, but hardly all of it.
But before she could say more, Rhys tackled Aubrey from behind. The two of them landed in an inglorious heap on the Axminster, her brother’s fists flying as they tussled. With a cry, she rose to a seated position.
“Stop it, Rhys!”
Aubrey wasn’t even bothering to defend himself. He was simply allowing her brother to pummel him. Rhys landed a punch to Aubrey’s jaw, the thud echoing sickly in the chamber.
“Rhys!” she cried out again.
But her brother was a man possessed, his fists flying.
“Aubrey, do something,” she tried.
“I—umph—deserve it,” he managed, wincing when Rhys landed a blow to his ribs. “Let him hit me.”
Men! What was wrong with them? She rose from her settee, looking frantically about the room for something she could use as a weapon. Her gaze lit on the fire poker, and she rushed for it, deciding it would have to do.
Rhiannon snatched it up, still feeling dizzied but too frantic to care. Someone had to put an end to this nonsense. She wasn’t going to primly sit there whilst Rhys thrashed Aubrey to death and Aubrey did nothing to stop him.
Grimly, she raised the fire poker and landed a blow on her brother’s right shoulder. He howled with pain and rolled off Aubrey, pinning her with an accusatory look.
“Rhiannon, why the devil would you hit me with the damned fire poker?”
“Because you were going to kill him if I didn’t do something to stop you,” she explained.
Aubrey sat up, bruises mottling his face, blood dripping down his nose. “I wouldn’t have allowed him to kill me, minx.”
Rhys snarled. “What did you call her?”
Aubrey calmly extracted a handkerchief from his coat and pressed it to his nose, absorbing the blood. “A term of endearment. The sort of thing one calls a lover.”
“How have you been bedding her, you faithless rogue?” Rhys demanded, moving toward Aubrey once more. “How did you get to her?”
Rhiannon held up her poker in warning. “No more attacking him, Rhys,” she warned. “I mean it.”
Rhys’s eyes narrowed on her. “I’m your brother. It is my duty to protect you from scoundrels like him.”
“He is your friend,” she reminded him.
“Hewasmy friend,” Rhys grumbled. “Until he ruined my innocent sister.”
