Patrick had just about, by the gods, had enough of the spoiled cur’s pouting.
“No,” Eric repeated. “She says he’ll no be bothered to come out until he’s treated with the respect he deserves.”
“The respect he deserves?” The insanity of that statement brought Patrick to his feet. “I’ll show that damned, spoiled—wait.Shesays? She who?”
“The strumpet what guards his door.” If possible, Eric’s grin widened. “It would seem yer wee brother has chosen to work through his sorrows in the eager arms of a busty willing lass.”
Little wonder Malcolm continually thought of their brother as being a child. He behaved as one.
“And what does he say?”
“Nothing.” Eric shrugged. “He does all his talking through the lass. In his temper, he’s apparently no speaking to any of us.”
“No a word himself? No one single word in these five days past?”
Eric shook his head, his brow wrinkling as he apparently considered the direction of their conversation.
While the pouting and hiding in his room might well be typical of what Patrick had come to expect of his youngest brother, the idea that he’d not spoken a single word rang false.
“Dermid has no the ability to bridle his tongue. No for five minutes and certainly no for five days.” Patrick strode to the door and past his captain. “I’d see this for myself.”
He should have checked for himself five days ago.
Up the stairs and through the hallways, his suspicions built until at last he reached his brother’s chamber.
“Open up, Dermid,” he called, pounding on the door. “Dermid!”
The door opened a thin crack, allowing a young woman wearing what appeared to be nothing more than a blanket wrapped around her body and a long, neat yellow braid, to peer out.
“What do you want?” She braced one leg behind the door, allowing no more than a few inches of open space.
“Remove yerself, lass. I’d have a word with my brother.”
She was a head shorter than Patrick and he made full use of that advantage, scanning the room over the top of her head. A large lump occupied one side of the bed. His brother?
“Master Dermid has already said he dinna want to be bothered. He said yer to go away.”
“No, sweetling, my brother has said nothing. No a word from the lad in five days.Yousaid he dinna want to be bothered.Yousaid we should go away.”
He leaned his weight against the door, watching her eyes widen as she struggled to hold it in place. Through the wider opening he noted a chair that had been pulled in front of the fireplace. And next to that, a basket of needlework lay at the ready, as if its owner had just been interrupted in her work.
She shifted her weight to put more force into holding the door in place.
“He told me to tell you and yer men to leave us be. He . . . he wants an apology, and until he gets it, he’s staying right here. In bed with me. You should go now.”
Two red blotches bloomed on her cheeks even as she continued to stare at him.
A failing, that, the inability to hide true emotion. A disadvantage of fair-skinned peoples.
“I can see I’ve been settled too long at Castle MacGahan, Eric.”
“And why might that be, Master Patrick?” Eric responded, following Patrick’s lead as he had so many times in the past.
“Because the ways of the world appear to have changed muchly since I was out and about. I was unaware that whores carried their needlework along with them.”
“I’m no a—,” she began to protest before clamping her mouth shut. A deep breath and she started again. “Master Dermid says yer to leave us alone. He says . . .”
Patrick had had enough of this little game.
