wench is as dangerous as you say, you’ll need another set of eyes watching her.”
“Thank you. I welcome your company, then.” Brodie rubbed wearily at his eyes. “I canna stay awake. The laudanum keeps trying to pull me down.”
“Not to worry. I’ll handle everything. Rest.”
Brodie closed his eyes, and Lydia relaxed for a brief moment, until she noticed that Rafe was watching her with a frightening intensity.
“It seems someone has swung a very large stick at a very angry Scottish bear,” Rafe said.
Lydia knew pleading would not help. She was at the mercy of two dangerous men who thought she was her scheming younger sister.
What a bloody rotten mess.
Brodie was trapped—cornered in the hallway as his father bore down on him in a rage.
“You think your mother would have cared about you?” Montgomery Kincade snarled. “You spineless brat!”
Brodie covered his head with his hands, waiting for the blows to rain down on him.
“Or perhaps I’ll give your sister the thrashing you are too cowardly to take,” his father taunted. This drew Brodie up from his crouched position.
“Do not harm her!” he shouted at his father.
“You can’t stop me!” Montgomery turned toward Rosalind’s bedchamber. Brodie rushed him, leaping onto the older man’s back. The man howled in rage and swung around, throwing Brodie into the stone wall of the corridor like a rag doll.
Brodie woke with a start, his hands balled into fists as he instinctively prepared for an attack, but his father was not there. He wasn’t a child anymore. He was a grown man in a crowded coach, which had just stopped moving.
It took him a moment to orient himself, and he was relieved to see Rafe. For a moment he was puzzled by the sight of the pretty lass bound and gagged sitting across from him, her eyes full of fear yet defiant. That was when the night’s awful events came back to him.
“Ah, good, you’re awake,” Rafe said.
“Where are we?” Brodie asked.
“My townhouse. We still need to prepare before we head off. You’ll be able to carry the kitten inside?”
“Aye.” Brodie still felt weak, but not nearly so much as he had before.
“Good. Carry her inside if you must. I’ll tell Mr. Chase to have a bedchamber prepared.”
“Aye. I have no intention of bedding her. I also have no intention of letting her out of my sight.”
“Very well. I recommend you sleep off the laudanum before you woo her. We’ll leave at first light.”
Brodie reached for her hand. “Come without a fight and I willna carry you. If I must carry you, I willna be gentle about it.”
The girl nodded in agreement, so he let her stand as he exited the coach first. When she started to step out, he grasped her waist and lifted her down. She was lovely, but not quite the same as he remembered from the previous night. Of course, the first time they’d met he’d been deep in his cups, and the second he’d been out of his mind on laudanum.
She was a pleasant enough weight and felt bloody good in his arms, which only blackened his mood. He did not want to enjoy holding or touching her. Yet having the manipulative lass under his control seemed to have heightened his arousal. He had never been one for controlling women in sensual situations, but the thought of this woman under his control made his body burn with hunger. Or perhaps it was more a matter of satisfaction. He gripped her bound wrists and led her up to Rafe’s townhouse.
“My good man,” Rafe said to the driver. “A hundred pounds for your silence on where you took us this night. If asked, tell your master that we headed to the docks.”
“But I did take you to the docks,” the man said with a wink as he took the money. “Dropped you there myself.”
“That’s a good man.” Rafe jogged up the steps to join Brodie and his quiet, wide-eyed abductee as they entered the townhouse.
“A hundred pounds? That’s a bit much, isn’t it?” Brodie asked.
“For his silence? Not at all, but I daresay a devilishly handsome highwayman will relieve him of half of it sooner or later.”
“Good evening, sir,” Mr. Chase greeted them, but when he saw the woman Brodie pulled into the house behind him, still gagged with a handkerchief and her wrists bound, the butler paled.
“Not again, sir. You know his lordship doesn’t approve of this sort of activity.”