Chapter Twenty-Six
Brandt plowed through the half-dozen ragtag Scotsmen surrounding him with nonlethal strikes. He did not wish to murder his countrymen because they’d fallen for Malvern’s gilded promises. Still, he recognized that they were mercenaries, hired to fight for coin. Malvern’s men, who were hardened killers, were a different story. They did not deserve one iota of mercy. Neither did their leader. Though there was no sign of him. Or Coxley. Or Rodric, who Brandt had expected would have returned to Montgomery swaggering at the marquess’s side. A grim feeling of foreboding filled him.
One that was suddenly compounded by his sister, racing down the hill in a billowing blue shirt and screaming his name.
What the devil was she doing out of the hall? And where was Sorcha?
His eyes scanned the courtyard behind Aisla, but there was no sign of his wife. Swamped with a coldness that dug into his bones, he rushed to meet her, leaving bodies strewn in his wake. He was so focused on getting to his sister that he almost lifted his sword against his brother and halted just in time.
“Where are ye going?” Patrick asked, kicking a Scot in the stomach and plunging his sword into one of Malvern’s soldiers. He, Feagan, and Callan were single-handedly fending off the small portion of Malvern’s army that had managed to breach the pass and the men defending on the front fields. They were the last line of defense before the keep.
“It’s Aisla,” Brandt said, not breaking his stride. “She’s not in the keep, which means something has happened.”
“We’ll take care of the rest of these,” his brother said. “Ye go and make sure they’re safe.”
Nodding, Brandt sprinted up the hill behind his brothers, knocking Aisla to the ground just as a rogue arrow whizzed past where she’d been standing. Belatedly, Brandt noticed that Aisla’s clothing was damp, and it suddenly registered that the dark fabric was drenched in blood.
“What’s this? Are you hurt?” His heart shrunk, even as his eyes searched her for signs of injury. Sorcha would have protected Aisla and Catriona with her life, and the understanding made his breath hitch painfully in his lungs.
“’Tis no’ mine,” she gasped, fighting to catch her breath from the tumble they’d both taken to avoid the arrow. “’Tis the blood of a man named Coxley. Shoved my dagger between his ribs just like yer wife showed me.”
Brandt grabbed his sister by the arms and drew her upward. “Sorcha, is she alive?”
“Aye, I think so,” Aisla said, her eyes widening. “But she was fighting a tall man with pale blond hair and a cruel face when I ran to find you.”
Malvern. The very thought of his wife in that sadist’s clutches made every hair on his body vibrate in rage. This time, he vowed, when Brandt saw the man he would not hesitate to put him down like the dog he was—if his wife hadn’t already finished him off. He did not doubt Sorcha’s skill to defend herself, but she was on her own, and Malvern was a seasoned man of war.
“Is he alone? The marquess?” Brandt asked, belatedly grasping that Coxley was no longer a threat. Because of his sister. The small lass he was interrogating had taken down one of the most repugnant men Brandt had ever met. How the hell had he gotten so close to her?
“He’s with Rodric and some other soldiers,” Aisla said. “They came through the tunnels.”
“Tunnels?” Brandt asked with a frown, pulling her toward him before he decided to make a wild dash for the keep.
“The ones that lead to the loch. Usually, they’re filled with marsh water this time of year, but somehow, they managed to crawl through.”
Malvern and his men must have killed the men Brandt had ordered to be placed on watch and had found some way down the quarry to use the tunnels Aisla spoke of. No wonder they hadn’t been at the front leading the army—they’d been sneaking in from the rear. And with Rodric’s help, they had managed to brave the keep. If they held the women and children hostage there, the battle would be over. The men would not risk the lives of their families. Nor would he, for that matter. Sorcha and Catriona were still in there.
A part of him raged that he hadn’t been told of the bloody tunnels in the first place, but like Aisla had, Patrick and Feagan would have likely assumed them to be blocked and impenetrable. He dimly recalled Seamus saying as much. A scream from the keep had him bolting toward it. Aisla kept pace with him.
“Go to the stables,” he shouted over his shoulder. “You’ll be safe there.”
She shook her head. “I want to help.”
“Aisla,” he began, slowing to face her.
She cut him off with a resolute scowl. “I killed Coxley, ye ken.”
Brandt faltered. She did have a point. He couldn’t fathom that his slight baby sister had felled a man who was notoriously hard to kill. Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time a man had underestimated a woman and paid the price for it. She’d done Sorcha’s marks proud.
Grudgingly, he nodded and handed her a dirk from his boot. “Stay behind me.”
Brandt crept up the stairs to the keep entrance with his sister on his heels. He glanced over his shoulder and was surprised to see his dirk held in her confident grip, a fierce look on her face. He almost smiled at the effect of what was certainly Sorcha’s influence. He hoped to God that she was still alive, or Malvern would pay with his last drop of blood. Quelling his roiling emotions, Brandt placed a finger to his lips and eased the door open.
Light as a wraith, Aisla followed. They inched through the shadows until they were near the rounded arches that led into the great hall. The push of voices reached them, wrapped in the soft sobs of children and louder jeers. Peering around the edge, he scanned the hall. There was no sign of Malvern. Or Sorcha.
Children and women sat against the walls, their faces wreathed in terror. But pride swept through him as he took in that they hadn’t gone down without a fight. A few soldiers lay prone on the floor, groaning and holding injured limbs. Brandt risked another quick look. Rodric stood upon the dais with Catriona. Brandt counted seven men with him. Two standing over the women and children, and the other five at his uncle’s back.
“How many?” Aisla asked in a low tone, handing him back his dirk. She had retrieved a fallen crossbow and now held that along with two bolts in her grip.
“Seven,” he whispered. “Eight counting your father.”
“He’s no kin of mine,” she hissed.
“And he has Catriona.”
Brandt grasped his sword and bent his head over the hilt. The odds were not terrible. He had taken on a dozen men and lived to tell the tale. But he’d never fought while someone he loved was so exposed, and Brandt had no doubt that Rodric would use Catriona, and the rest of the women and children, however he saw fit to gain the upper hand. He thought of the way Rodric had branded her and felt fury envelop him. It didn’t matter if he had to take down a hundred men, he would do what needed to be done. Exhaling slowly, he turned to where Aisla squatted beside him to tell her to go for help. But she wasn’t there.
All he saw was the back of her blue shirt and the flick of Montgomery plaid as she rounded the corner, into the hall.
Bloody hell.
“Father, happy to see me?” he heard her say in a loud clear voice, and then the unmistakable twang of the crossbow. That was his cue. He lurched to his feet and flung the dagger Aisla had returned to him, sending it straight into the neck of the man on the other side of the room. A second dirk from his belt lodged itself into the chest of the man on the right. The man Aisla had shot crumpled, and she’d loaded the extra bolt and taken out a second man before the other two at the dais rushed her.
Brandt leaped in front of her, his sword raised.
“Stop!” Rodric’s barked command echoed throughout the hall, and the two soldiers charging him and Aisla skidded to a halt. Rodric got to his feet, hefting Catriona up with him. The lazy, insouciant motion of it clawed down Brandt’s spine like a warning. A glint of something in the overthrown laird’s hand confirmed the premonition. Rodric gripped a wickedly curved knife, the blade of which was pressed into Catriona’s side. Brandt lowered his sword.
“If anyone is going to kill this interloper, ’tis going to be me,” Rodric said, to which Brandt’s mother protested with an attempt to pull away and kick at her husband. She whimpered and winced as the tip of the dirk pressed deeper into her flesh.
“Is this what you think a powerful duke and laird is, Rodric?” Brandt asked, his breathing coming short at the sight of that dirk and his mother’s pain. She was masking half of it, he knew. The stain of blood blooming through her dress proved it, and the sight made Brandt’s heart stutter. “A man who turns traitor on his own clan? Holds women and children hostage? Funny. I thought the word for those things was ‘coward.’”
Rodric gnashed his teeth and pushed on a false smile at the same time. The effect was blood-chilling, but Brandt wasn’t about to let him know that. He kept his eyes steady, his grip on his sword’s hilt firm.
“I’m simply flushing the vermin from my home and lands, Mr. Pierce,” he replied. “With the help of some like-minded men, ye ken. Lord Malvern is already seeing to yer widow.”
He had Sorcha, then. Where Malvern had taken her, and what he was currently doing to her, nearly rendered him blind with rage and fear.
“Release my mother,” Aisla grit out from where she stood just behind Brandt’s right arm. He prayed she didn’t do anything brash again, like raise her crossbow and shoot. He didn’t know how true her aim was, but Rodric would not hesitate to use Catriona as a human shield should he see a deadly bolt flying at his head.
“With pleasure,” Rodric said smoothly, another macabre grin splitting his mouth. “Though first, I’ll have this man surrender his title as duke and laird to me, or I’ll carve her open from hip to breast.”
Despite his chilling words, Brandt was the one to let out a mirthless laugh this time. “Too afraid to challenge me for it, Rodric?” The man’s ice-flecked eyes snapped, and Brandt realized he’d touched a nerve. He pushed on. “You haven’t had enough time to recover from the wounds I left you with, I wager. Maybe you should have one of your men here champion you. I’d suggest Malvern’s best soldier, Coxley, but it seems your daughter already killed him.”
Rodric’s lips were tight with rage, his knuckles white from his savage grip on Catriona’s arm and the dirk with which he’d already drawn her blood. The suggestion that he required another man to fight in his stead, and that his own daughter was more effective in a fight than he, had caused him to shake off his smooth, foreboding exterior and wear his true one: callous and cruel and utterly incensed that his dead brother’s son had stolen his title from him.
“I willnae just kill ye,” Rodric said, flinging Catriona to the side so harshly that she landed on the dais, knocking over a chair as she fell. He sheathed his dirk and drew out his broadsword. “I’m going to gut ye and hang yer innards over the ramparts. Then I’m going to do the same to my conniving wife. I should have killed her while she still had ye in her womb.”
“You like to talk,” Brandt said, only pretending that the man’s crazed words hadn’t made him sick. “I wonder if that’s because talking is the only thing you’re good at.”
Rodric charged at him, his sword raised and a guttural cry ripping from his throat. His two soldiers had scattered, and Brandt spared only one moment to be sure Aisla had backed away before meeting Rodric’s sword with his own. The initial blow shivered through his arms and bones, straight to his spine, but he kept his grip, thrusting Rodric’s sword away and slicing into his leather breastplate with the same stroke.
Brandt parried Rodric’s sword as he attempted to flay Brandt’s thigh, then warded off a second blow as his enemy’s broadsword jabbed at his gut. Rodric clenched his teeth, lunging and slicing at Brandt as if he were possessed by the devil himself. Unhinged. That was the word to describe him, and as their swords clashed, again and again, their circle of battle widening out, Brandt began to wonder if he’d misjudged Rodric this time. If perhaps he was crazed enough not to tire as he had during their earlier battle in the courtyard. Madness sometimes gave men impossible strength.
They spun toward the alcove where the children and women were huddled, Brandt’s shoulders and back beginning to burn from the stalwart bite of Rodric’s blade. The children and women screamed and fled in all directions, the commotion distracting Brandt, especially as one young child ran within striking distance of Brandt’s swinging sword. He eased the momentum just enough to let the boy pass, unharmed—but as he did, a searing pressure in his calf sent his leg collapsing beneath him.
“No!” He recognized his mother’s anguished scream as he reached for his calf and felt the long shaft of an arrow.
Someone had shot him from behind. One of Rodric’s men, no doubt, though Brandt didn’t have time to see who. He’d expected Rodric to fight dishonorably, though he had not expected to be shot from the back. He raised his sword to fend off a downward blow from Rodric and tried to stand up, when a second glaring pain tore into the back of his shoulder. This time, the shooter was knocked down in a barrage of pots, pans, and garden tools as the women in the hall fought back, but it was too late. The damage had been done—Brandt crumpled to his knees. His weapon clattered to the stone floor and, though he managed to duck and swerve out of the path of Rodric’s sword, in that moment, he knew the turning point in their battle had come.
And he was not on the winning side.
“I dunnae ken what I’ll like more,” Rodric said, as Brandt pushed up onto one knee, gripping his calf and unable to reach the shaft of the arrow lodged in his shoulder. “To hear ye beg for yer worthless hide, or to watch ye bleed out when my sword sinks into yer gut.”
“I’d sooner die than beg you for anything.” Brandt spat at his uncle’s boots before breaking off the feathered end of the arrow lodged in his leg. He fought through the agony as he pulled the arrow from his flesh. “But if I’m going to die, I’d rather take you with me like my father should have done.”
With a burst of inhuman strength, he rose and lunged toward his uncle with the bloody arrow in hand. Rodric didn’t have time to leap back as Brandt raised one arm to deflect his sword and stabbed his right fist forward. He’d meant to bury the arrow into Rodric’s side, but his injured leg buckled, limiting the force of his strike. Slippery with blood, the arrow slipped and lodged into his uncle’s thigh instead.
Rodric howled and lifted his sword, his face contorted with rage, and Brandt braced himself for the oncoming stroke. His body was on fire with agony, but he wasn’t dead yet. If he could time it just right, he could roll his body into Rodric’s legs and throw him off-balance. It was a long shot, but he would fight to his last gasping breath.
Time slowed as he counted down the seconds. He’d been close to death before, many times. But no other time had he seen his life and those who had filled it with such stunning clarity—Sorcha, Monty, Archer, Catriona, Aisla, Patrick, Callan—his family. His world. And his wife, his beautiful fearless wife. God, it had taken him so long to find her, but it had been worth it. She had saved him in so many ways. If there were anything he wished for, it would be to see her face…to know she was safe.
And then he felt it. Nothing more than a whisper of sensation across the back of his neck, but every bone in his body knew her presence. Sorcha. Out of the corner of his eye, he sensed motion, heard something hiss through the air, and then a shaft caught Rodric squarely in the chest. Brandt didn’t care if his uncle’s falling sword sheared his arm from his body. Greedily, he turned to see a mud-covered apparition at the entrance of a corridor holding a bow.
He blinked. Perhaps he’d lost far too much blood. It felt like her. His wife. But perhaps he’d only imagined it.
“Brandt,” a voice said. It sounded like her, too.
He blinked again as the voice’s owner knelt over him. “Diah, he’s bleeding heavily.” Gentle hands cradled his head. “Mo gràidh,” she whispered.
It was his wife, Brandt realized dully. She was covered in muck and sludge, but he could never not know those deep blue eyes that filled him with so much hope and love and joy. “You’re alive,” he murmured, touching her dirt-caked cheek.
Sorcha smiled through her tears as she bent her lips close to his ear. “Of course I am. I believe you mentioned something about thoroughly seducing your Gaelic teacher. Wild horses could not have dragged me to Hades.”
“You’re insatiable,” he whispered.
“For you, always.”
A loud groan broke the moment between them, and Brandt looked up to see Rodric lying on his side. His glance also took in the forms of his sister and his mother standing close by before it fell back to his uncle. The wound Sorcha had inflicted had not been fatal. It would be, if left untended. His wife was an exceptional shot, which meant she had done it on purpose. Her eyes held his and she nodded. “His life is yours to take.”
But before Brandt could move, his mother sank to her knees beside her blubbering husband. She grasped the arrow, and for a moment, Brandt thought she was going to break it and pull it out as he’d done with his leg. Rodric deserved to die, but if she wanted him to live, he would leave it to her. She was the one who had suffered at his hands for so many years. Rodric’s life wasn’t his; it was hers.
Hazel eyes—twin to his own—met his. And then Brandt knew.
Rodric would not live.
With an anguished cry, ripped from the depths of her soul, his mother twisted the arrow and shoved it toward her husband’s heart. “’Tis for Robert,” she said. Blood gurgled from Rodric’s mouth as he fought the press of her hands, but she held steadfast, leaning over him with all her strength. “And for yer children. And for me.”
A commotion arose from the end of the hall as Rodric’s head dropped back onto the stone floor and his gurgles ceased. Catriona released the arrow, her hands bloodied, and Brandt reached for her. The rising clamor seemed to envelope them as his mother took his hand and let him pull her into an embrace. She was breathing heavily, but her sobs had stopped.
“It’s over,” Brandt said to her. He felt a hand on his shoulder—the one with the arrow in it—and sucked back a groan of pain as the arrow was ripped from his flesh.
“Didnae think yer expecting the pain would make it any better,” Callan said. Brandt opened his eyes, practically seeing stars, and twisted to see his brother crouched behind him, the arrow in his hand. More men wearing Montgomery plaid, including Patrick, had filled the great hall, as well. Most were bloodied and dirty, and as they gathered around Rodric’s body, Brandt saw somber looks on every last weary face.
“Malvern’s men are scattering,” Callan said, rising to his feet and tossing the arrow down as he looked upon his father’s corpse. Aisla inched her way forward, gripping the back of Callan’s arm. Brandt wanted to flop back onto the stone floor in relief. They’d done it. They had won.
“Patrick, Callan,” their mother said, dabbing at her eyes as she rose to her feet. “Aisla.” She took them each into an embrace, as she had with Brandt. And, though they didn’t speak any words, Brandt knew what was being said. This was their new beginning—a life finally out of the shadow of Rodric’s tyranny.
Brandt winced as Sorcha prodded at the rapidly swelling tissue of his lower leg. She tore a strip from the end of her plaid and bound it about his calf before tending to the inflamed gouge in his shoulder.
“It wasn’t too deep,” she told him, pressing the heel of her palm to it over another strip of plaid that she deftly wrapped over his shoulder and under his arm. “But both will need my mother’s salve. You’ll live, my brave laird.”
Sorcha helped Brandt stand, his calf and shoulder hot points of throbbing misery, but his wife’s fingers as she clung to him helped to dull it. He took her chin in his hand and angled her face, wiping it clean with a corner of his own plaid. New bruises and welts marred her forehead, including several others around her throat that had the unmistakable look of fingerprints. His incisors bit the inside of his cheek. “Where is Malvern?”
The man had strangled his wife. If he wasn’t already a corpse, Brandt would see it done in short order. But Sorcha only shook her head.
“He is no longer our concern,” she said.
“What does that mean? Is he dead?”
“The Maclarens have arrived,” Patrick put in, and Brandt’s eyes jumped from his bruised, yet beautiful, wife to his brother. “They’re helping us to drive out the last of Malvern’s army.”
Brandt tested his leg and tried to stand on his own. If he was to meet the Maclarens, he wanted to do so without looking like he was ready to faint dead away.
“And Malvern?” he asked again.
“My father and brothers have him,” Sorcha answered.
“They had him,” one of the Montgomery men said from behind Patrick. The dark-haired one named Fergus. The one who’d put his arm across Sorcha’s shoulders and flirted with her during training. Those weren’t the only reasons Brandt scowled at him now.
“What the hell do you mean, they had him?” He limped to where his sword lay and stooped to pick it up. A newfound purpose gave him strength, and that was to see Malvern in irons or dead.
Fergus frowned. “He’s a slippery snake, that one. One minute he was there at the edge of the woods, and the next he wasnae. He cannae have gone far on foot. We’ll find him.”
“Stay with our mother and sister,” Brandt said to his brothers. “There are women here who were wounded by Rodric’s men. I’ll deal with the marquess.” He eyed the tall Scot who had spoken. “Fergus, you and your men, with me.” He glanced over his shoulder to his wife. “Stay with your family.”
Brandt’s scowl deepened as he limped to the bailey as best as he was able. Wounded or not, he’d find the bounder himself and run him through. He pushed open the doors and came to a dead stop. Montgomerys and Maclarens alike thronged the courtyard. Several of Malvern’s soldiers were clad in irons at the center, including his very own target—the marquess was moaning on the ground beside his father-in-law. Though Brandt had never met the laird, he could see where Sorcha got her eyes and her fierce demeanor, and where Ronan, who stood at his side, got his brawn.
“Wee bastard tried to flee,” the Duke of Dunrannoch boomed. “My boy, Ronan, caught up to him right quick.”
“He broke my bloody leg,” Malvern whined.
Ronan shrugged his big shoulders, mouth twitching. “He tripped.”
“He’s lucky he broke his leg instead of his worthless neck,” Brandt snarled as he made his way down the stairs. Sorcha appeared behind him, and he hesitated. “What are you doing here? I told you to stay back with your family.”
“Ye’re my family, ye oaf,” she hissed. Brandt only laughed. God, he loved her temper; even her insults felt like passionate promises whispered in his ear.
“Just so,” he said, reaching back to grab hold of her fingers as they came to the bottom where her father and brother were standing. Ronan smiled but waited out of respect for his father to speak.
“I led my men here expecting to find my daughter married to a Sassenach stableboy,” Sorcha’s father drawled, a pair of assessing blue eyes measuring him from head to toe.
“Stable master, Your Grace,” Brandt corrected.
Sorcha’s fingers tightened around his in chastisement, but he could still somehow sense the smile she held in check.
“Though now I’ve kenned ye’re the Duke of Glenross, Laird Montgomery,” the old Scot went on, his eyes falling to their joined hands. Something hopeful flashed in them. “I cannae say ’tis not a vast improvement of circumstances, Yer Grace. Even if ye did steal my daughter from beneath my nose.”
“She was worth stealing,” Brandt said, breathing easier now that her father’s fierce glare held a bit of levity. “As far as the former, I couldn’t agree more.” He made a clipped bow. “Duke of Dunrannoch, Laird Maclaren, I welcome you to Montgomery, and thank you for your timely assistance.”
“Call me William,” the duke said, clasping Brandt by his uninjured shoulder. “And no thanks needed. We always love a bit o’ sport, dunnae we, lads?”
A victorious cheer went up from the Maclarens that was immediately taken up by the Montgomerys. The relief Brandt felt was palpable. His family was safe from Rodric. And Sorcha was safe, at last, from the despicable man sniveling at her father’s feet. “Escort the marquess to the dungeons until we can decide what’s to be done with him.”
The last of Malvern’s army was rounded up, and shortly after, the sound of hoofbeats reached them, the horn once again sounding. In the distance, a huge regiment of horses was cantering up the road through the training fields, followed by several carriages. Men around him reached for arms but paused when Brandt raised one hand. He felt his heart expand as he recognized the flag and the noble face of the man riding at the helm of the contingent.
“Who is that?” Sorcha asked.
“That, my love, is the Duke of Bradburne.” He laughed at the sight of the beautiful woman riding beside him. “Along with his wife, the duchess, if I’m not mistaken.”
The men in the courtyard cleared to make room for the new arrivals as they rode up. Archer dismounted, his proud face scanning the men and falling to Malvern, who kept his head downcast, his shoulders quaking. He had every right to tremble—the Duke of Bradburne was a powerful peer and one who had the influence to strip Malvern of everything he held dear.
Archer assisted his wife to the ground and they approached together. Quick introductions were made to the Maclaren laird and his son, who stepped back to give them some privacy.
“I daresay Brynn and I missed all the fun,” Archer said, clasping Brandt by the arm. Brandt groaned as the embrace pulled his weight onto his injured leg. The duke gave him a cursory glance, quicksilver eyes pausing at his bloody shoulder and narrowing. “Glad to see you’re relatively in one piece, my brother.”
“Honestly, Brandt,” the Duchess of Bradburne, Lady Briannon Croft, admonished with a smile as he kissed her knuckles. “Are you ever not injured?”
“I like to keep things exciting.”
Briannon smirked as her eyes jumped to Sorcha, still wildly mud-splattered from her fight in the tunnels. “I see that.”
Brandt tightened his fingers on his wife’s, drawing her forward. “Allow me to present my wife, Lady Sorcha Montgomery, the Duchess of Glenross.” He turned to her, allowing the depth of his esteem for his unequaled, battle-weary wife to ooze out of every pore. Brandt didn’t care if he looked infatuated. He wanted the whole world to know she was his. “This is His Grace, the Duke of Bradburne, and Her Grace, the Duchess of Bradburne, my dearest friends.”
Sorcha curtsied to the duke and duchess, looking every inch the warrior goddess she was, her face held high. “It’s an honor, Your Graces.”
“A pleasure,” the duchess said, her smile growing warm. If she’d taken notice of Sorcha’s scars, she gave no indication of it. “Please call me Briannon.”
“And you must call me Sorcha.”
The duchess linked arms with his wife, uncaring of the mud caking her clothing, and they walked back into the keep together. Sorcha shot him a perplexed look as they went, but Brandt could only smile. Archer shrugged, seeing the exchange. “You know Brynn,” he said with a resigned shake of his head.
Brandt did. The duchess was stronghearted and stubborn. She and Sorcha would get along well…or pummel each other to pieces. He had a feeling that it was going to be the former. He hoped.
“So did I hear you say your wife is Lady Glenross?” Archer asked, the question of the last name clear as they turned to follow their wives. “And a duchess? What have you gotten yourself mixed up in this time?”
“Alas, no diverting fake identities, I’m afraid,” Brandt said after a moment. “Apparently, I’m laird here and rightful heir to a dukedom. As it so happens, Monty wasn’t my father, after all. It’s a long story. I’ll tell it to you over a pint, shall I?”
Archer had never looked so utterly confounded. “Are you telling me you’re a bloody duke?”
“Ah-ah, don’t forget ‘Your Grace,’” Brandt said, wagging a finger. “It’s only proper.”
Archer vaulted an amused brow. “Don’t get cocky.”
“I learned from the best.” He grinned at the man who’d been like a brother to him his entire life. “Not bad for a stableboy from Essex, eh?”
“You were never just a stableboy, Brandt,” Archer said quietly, his teasing turning serious. “You were always a Croft to me, a true brother. When your messenger reached me in London telling of your troubles with Malvern, I dropped everything and mounted a company immediately. Brynn insisted on coming to your aid as well, despite her recent confinement and my foot being well and truly down.”
Brandt’s voice was choked with emotion. “Thank you.”
“You would have done the same for me. You have done the same for me. You saved my neck too many times to count, Brandt.” They both knew he was speaking of his risky exploits as the Masked Marauder before he married Briannon. Archer shrugged. “You led us a merry chase, but we managed to track you all over Scotland. Though as it turns out, you had everything well in hand.” His eyes flicked to Malvern, who was being led away in irons toward the dungeons. “The marquess is wanted for extorting hundreds of thousands of pounds from the Crown in false land and tenant fees. I’ve been tasked with seeing him back to London to be tried for his crimes, if that’s well and good by you. He’ll likely be hanged.”
“I’ll be happy to see the last of him.” Brandt suspected Sorcha and her family would as well. He would do everything in his power to make sure that Tarben Castle and its holdings would be returned to the Maclaren.
Archer paused at the top of the stairs, his gray eyes twinkling. “Despite your wounds, it pleases me to see you well and content.” The duke’s tone grew grave. “When I learned who you’d taken to wife, I’ll admit I had my doubts. She has somewhat of a…reputation across Scotland. It has a lot to do with how we tracked you so easily, in fact. The Beast of Maclaren is quite a moniker. But you are, aren’t you? Happy?”
There was no malice in his friend’s tone, and the truth was, Sorcha wore the nickname proudly. Beast or not, he wouldn’t change one hair on her head, or even a single scar. Brandt heard his wife’s low laughter echo through the open doors of the keep, and he smiled. Happy seemed too mediocre a word to describe what he felt, but even he couldn’t find another that could do his feelings justice. There was no simple word to describe Sorcha and their relationship, or to encompass the enormity of what he felt for her.
With a nod, he looked his best friend in the eye. “She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”