Page 52 of The Beastly Earl

With a sharp twist of his head, he stared down at the woman beside him in stunned in amazement. For the first time since being carried off the battlefield he hadn't been woken up by a nightmare. It had been the quiet sound of a clock, not a horrific dream or the terrible memory of waking up in a medical tent no longer a whole man.

Beside him, Louisa murmured something incoherent before she turned over in her sleep with her body still pressed into his. It was the first time since he'd gone to the Sudan that he'd slept peacefully. If nightmares had haunted his sleep, he couldn't remember them. Still in disbelief, his gaze slid over the soft curve of Louisa's back and bottom pressed snugly against him. In the space of only a few weeks, she'd changed his life in ways he'd never dreamed possible.

He reached over and pulled a lock of silky brown hair off her cheek and traced a light path across her soft skin with his fingers. Another soft murmur drifted out of her as she shifted her position again. The warmth of her lush curves pressing even deeper into his side created a tidal wave of emotion crashing over him. It was a revelation that he immediately and viciously rejected as truth.

Despite his effort, the strength of the emotion became an invisible vise that wrapped its way around his chest and constricted his breathing. Ewan slowly laid back into his pillow to stare up at the ceiling. He would never be able to express his feelings aloud. Louisa deserved better than a man as damaged and broken as he was.

In the back of his head a voice shouted a reminder as to how she'd gently forced him to bare his body and soul to her a short time ago. A wild cackle followed the reminder as another voice jeered at him for refusing to admit the real reason he would never confess his feelings for Louisa to her or anyone else. The taunt made his jaw harden as the word coward echoed in his head.

He wasn't afraid to confront anything. Fear was a companion he'd lived with closely for years. He'd faced the horrors of battle and being maimed. He would survive when Louisa was gone, just as he'd survived his childhood. The voice mocked him again, but he ignored it. The sound of the clock chiming alerted him to the fact that it was almost time for the household staff to rise.

Even despite the emotional war waging inside him, he was still loathe to leave Louisa's side. She was like an oasis in the desert, but if he delayed any longer he'd endanger her reputation. It would also give his mother the ability to humiliate Louisa with scathing disapproval. Ewan winced at the thought, and carefully slid away from Louisa to search for his clothes. Although low on fuel, the oil lamp's light combined with that of the fire in the hearth made it easy to find his clothes.

He strapped on his mechanical arm first and released a soft grunt of irritation as he struggled into his shirt. As usual, he found the artificial appendage more of a hindrance than help. With his shirt finally in place, he picked his kilt up from the floor and secured it between his metal fingers. It was relatively easy to wrap the garment around his waist, but the leather tabs and buckles that held the plaid in place was a different matter altogether.

Pushing a leather tab through a slit and into its buckle would not be a challenge if he had both his hands, but every time the kilt moved in his metal fingers, he had to adjust the material and begin anew. Frustration surged inside him as he fumbled with the kilt fasteners for several minutes before he pushed the last leather tab into its buckle.

The moment the tab was secured, he grunted softly with relief. It took him almost another half hour longer to finish dressing himself, and when he was dressed, he released a harsh breath of satisfaction at the accomplishment. A soft sound whispered through the air, and he jerked his head toward the bed to see Louisa was still sleeping soundly. With a twist of his lips, he dismissed the noise and took a step toward the bedroom door when he heard the hushed sound again.

Ewan jerked his head toward the secret door Robert the Bruce had supposedly escaped through. For a brief moment, he frowned in puzzlement at the bulky chest blocking the door. It hadn't been there when he was caring for Louisa the night he'd found her on the moors. A second later he saw the furniture move slightly as someone in the hidden passageway pushed on the secret door.

Deep inside he knew who was on the other side of the door, but he prayed it was one of the boys. Quickly crossing the floor, his heart slammed into his chest as he saw short, stubby fingers wrapped around the edge of the door as Gilbert tried to leverage his weight against the secret panel.

"Go back to your room, Gilbert," he growled softly as he gave his brother's fingers a vicious slap.

A soft howl of pain and frustration escaped the man on the other side of the panel, but after a few seconds, Ewan heard his brother shuffling away. Worried the incident might have awoken Louisa, he glanced over his shoulder. Relief swept through him at the sight of her curled up beneath the covers he'd tucked around her.

Quietly closing the panel leading into the hidden passageway, he repositioned the chest so it blocked the secret door. Louisa had clearly moved the heavy furniture into place herself. If anyone else had moved it, or even assisted her, McCallum would have mentioned it. As much as he wanted to deny his suspicions, he could think of only one reason why Louisa had blocked the door. Gilbert had tried to enter her room once before.

He should have told Louisa about his brother, but had deemed it unnecessary as he'd believed Gilbert was well-supervised and restricted from roaming the keep. Although his brother's presence in the Keep wasn't a closely guarded secret, his mother and aunt had kept Gilbert hidden away from prying eyes for so long, people had forgotten about him.

Longtime retainers, such as McCallum knew about Gilbert, but newcomers to the household had only heard tales. Even Ross seemed to be unaware of Gilbert's existence, or at least the boy hadn't mentioned him to anyone. The Scots were a superstitious people, and if any of the staff ran into Gilbert, they would declare his brother a monster or the devil incarnate. Wild tales, not to mention hysterical maidservants, had been incentive enough to continue the practice of keeping his brother in isolation as his mother and aunt had done for years.

He blew out a harsh noise of regret and self-disgust. Louisa was relatively fearless, and for her to block the Bruce's secret door indicated she'd been frightened. The knowledge troubled him deeply. Why the devil hadn't she come to him? He could have explained things and instructed McCallum to seal the Bruce's panel to keep her safe.

While McCallum and Finn had closed off all the entrances to the corridors they could find in Gilbert's suites of rooms, it didn't surprise Ewan that one had been missed. It wasn't unusual for a structure as old and large as the Keep to have numerous secret entrances to the dark passages hidden behind it's walls. As the structure had been rebuilt and expanded over generations, new entrances and passages would have been built and old ones forgotten.

He needed to be certain they'd not missed an entrance. If all the entrances in Gilbert's room had been sealed off only two other possibilities could explain his brother's presence in the hidden corridors. Either Brown had failed to confine his brother tonight, or Gilbert had found a key to open his door.

Brown had proven a reliable nurse for Gilbert, and he knew the man locked his brother in his room nightly to prevent exactly what had happened a few moments ago. While Brown wasn't infallible, Ewan found it highly unlikely the man had failed in performing the most critical of all his duties. If the man hadn't failed, that meant Gilbert had found another key to open his door. Aside from himself, Brown and his mother were the only ones who had a key to his brother's rooms.

Ewan's mouth tightened with anger. If his brother hadn't stolen his mother's key, Ewan wouldn't put it past the dowager countess to release Gilbert herself. She'd never been happy at his orders to lock Gilbert up at night, and she took pleasure in thwarting his orders whenever possible.

If she had been allowing his brother to roam the keep and it's hidden passages at night it would explain the dead, mutilated mice and rats found in recent weeks. He'd never actually caught Gilbert in the act of torturing an animal, but several months ago, his aunt had summoned him to see the horrific remains results of his brother's handiwork. The memory made his stomach knot as he recalled the terrible sight of two mutilated rats.

In the next instant, ice flowed through his body until his skin was as cold as if he'd spent a winter's night out on the moor. Christ Jesus, had Gilbert had found a door that opened onto the Keep's grounds as well?

The memory of his mother's pallor when Iain had mentioned the murders at dinner filled his head. At the time, he'd attributed her distraught look as her concern a killer was stalking the moors. His muscles tightened painfully with dread as a new explanation slithered through his mind. Like puzzle pieces falling into place, memories of things his mother had said or done merged with the memory of minor disturbances inside the walls of Argaty Keep over the past year to form a picture that made his blood run cold.

Up until this precise moment he'd thought his brother a harmless simpleton who mutilated small animals without any real understanding of what he was doing. But if he'd found a way out of the Keep, was it possible that he'd found a much larger prey to attack? If Gilbert was responsible for the deaths of two women, he needed to be locked up permanently. Even if his brother was innocent of murder, his mother had allowed Gilbert to roam the Keep without supervision. The dowager countess had ignored his orders, and a wave of fury fired his blood and warmed his cold skin.

A soft murmur floated through the air, and he turned his head to see Louisa had shifted position in bed with one arm wrapped around one of the bed pillows. God knows what might have happened if Gilbert had gained access to her room. If he'd not been here—he refused to consider what might have happened. The one thing he knew for certain was that his brother needed to be watched around the clock.

Determined to settle the matter with his mother once and for all, he moved quickly toward the door. Tension snaked its way through him as he cautiously ensured the hall was empty before he left Louisa's room. Fury fueled his pace as he strode angrily toward the dowager countess's suite of rooms. Today his mother would discover she'd pushed him one step too far.

When he reached the dowager countess's door, he pounded his fist against the wood. He didn't care if the woman was still in bed, he had no intention of letting Gilbert roam the Keep anymore. The door to his mother's suite squeaked open to reveal his aunt.

It surprised him to find Wallis fully dressed, but in all likelihood, his aunt was up and ready for another day of slavery to his mother. It never ceased to amaze him as to what would make his aunt serve her sister with such devotion. Wallis's face brightened with pleasure as she stared at him before she winced with misgiving.