Page 52

Marjorie’s bedchamber.

He pressed an ear to the door, almost certain he’d hear Lorne’s grating voice. He was as certain his cousin—brother—had acted alone.

“You’re…mad…I…” The heavy walnut muffled Marjorie’s speech, yet he detected fear and rage in her tenor.

“Mama…help…,” Cora sniffled. At the sound of her wee frightened, tear-laden voice, Keane erupted into action.

Half-expecting the door to be locked, he slammed his hand down upon the handle even as he kicked with all of his might. The door flew inward, crashing against the wall, causing a stifled yelp from Marjorie and a frightened screech from Cora.

He stopped in his tracks at the macabre tableau before him.

Relaxed and indolent, Lorne sat in a chair beside the fire, an ankle casually hitched on his knee. With one arm, he held Cora’s fragile little body next to the chair. He nonchalantly fiddled with a dagger with his other hand, swinging it back and forth, then hitching the blade up and down with his middle finger.

The firelight cast a sinister glint on the red-tinged steel with every upward swing.

“I’ve been expectin’ ye,” Lorne said almost conversationally.

Fat tears rolled down Cora’s sweet cheeks. Absolute trust he’d save her in her blueberry eyes, she imploringly held her little arms out to him, her lower lip trembling as she whimpered, “Keane.”

Not Your Grace or duke or laird. Keane.

Lorne shook her roughly, causing another flood of tears.

“He canna help ye, ye stupid brat.” He brandished the blade before her terrified face, snarling, “Hold still, or I’ll use this knife to carve patterns on yer face or take out an eye.”

Her waxen features riddled with terror, the child clamped both tiny hands across her mouth, trying to mute her sobs.

Keane shifted his focus to Marjorie standing at the end of her bed, hands tied behind her to the bedpost. Her hair cascaded to her shoulders as if she’d been roughly handled or shaken. Or as if she’d struggled with Lorne, which, given the sounds Keane had heard a few minutes ago, he’d wager was the case.

Hadn’t he witnessed her mother’s fierceness himself?

Her lips bloodied and a welt suspiciously in the shape of a hand on her left cheek, Marjorie’s attention never wavered from her daughter.

Silently vowing vengeance, Keane clamped his jaw until it ached to subdue the curses kicking at his teeth.

Brother or not, he’d kill Lorne. Leisurely. Inflicting as much physical and mental pain on the sod as he had on Marjorie and her daughter.

He dragged in a steadying breath, pushing aside his personal feelings. Ordering his pulse back to a normal rhythm, he mustered his control while deciding on the best strategy to disarm Lorne.

Keane was between the hammer and the anvil, and that devil’s spawn knew it. He didn’t dare charge Lorne. Not with a dirk so close to Cora’s throat.

Without a jot of remorse, Lorne would harm her.

“I presume ye’ve been makin’ good use of the secret passages these many years?” Keane asked nonchalantly. “I confess, I dinna suspect ye.”

He hoped to stall Lorne and distract him from menacing the wee lass.

A boastful thrust of Lorne’s chin and his mockingly skewed eyebrows revealed how much Keane’s confession delighted him.

“Indeed. Since Father showed them to me when I was sixteen.” He turned his sullen mouth down, peevishness lining his features. “For years, I was at his beck and call, sneakin’ in and out of Trentwick. He always thought he had me under his thumb. Fool.” His lip curled in contempt.

“Where is Bothan?” Keane had half-expected Bothan to charge into this fray. To clean up Lorne’s mess, once again. Or was he truly good and done with his despicable offspring?

Instead of answering, a gradual, maniacal smile quirked Lorne’s mouth upward. He placed his foot on the floor, all the while twisting Cora’s bright red hair between his fingers and trailing the knife tip over the little girl’s face, neck, and chest.

Saints preserve us. He is mad.

“’Tis alright, pumpkin,” Marjorie crooned. “You’re being so brave.”