Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed (32 page)

“You fucking bastard, how dare you set foot in my house?” William gasped, pulling back to slam a punch into Jonas’s face. Jonas straightened against his pain and with a groan, heaved his cousin away. As William staggered, Jonas’s fist connected with William’s chin so hard that the man’s head jerked back.

William stumbled but landed a savage blow to Jonas’s belly that had him bending and gagging. Taking advantage, William stepped in and pummeled Jonas in the kidneys. Jonas’s breath emerged in agonized gasps as he sank beneath William’s fists. Sidonie’s heart cramped with terror; she waited for William to land the killing blow. But unbelievably Jonas recovered to strike at William. Blood burst from the older man’s nose and sprayed everywhere.

Sidonie scuttled out of the way, casting a glance to
where Roberta crouched beneath the window. She realized she was praying in idiot fragments. Over and over.
Let Jonas win. Let Jonas win. Let Jonas win.

For what felt like forever, the two big men grappled with each other. Stumbling on debris. Dodging punches. Occasionally striking vulnerable flesh. There was little science and no civilization in the combat. It was like watching wild animals fight to the death.

Sidonie swallowed her gorge and checked Roberta, who watched the vicious struggle with wide, frightened eyes. For the moment, she was safe enough. Sidonie looked away, desperate to find a weapon just in case, God forbid, William prevailed. She snatched two skittles from the top of a bag. Sidonie straightened, her sweaty palms slick on the wooden clubs, to see Jonas break free of William’s assault and at last begin to press his cousin. The sickening thud of fist against muscle and bone set Sidonie’s belly roiling. The concentrated hatred on each man’s face promised murder. She didn’t want to watch, but she couldn’t stop.

William was hulking and powerful, but Jonas was younger and fitter. Sidonie sucked in her first full breath in what felt like hours when she noticed the bigger man tiring. His blows came less swiftly and often went wild. Sidonie drew another shuddering breath and tightened her grip on the skittles, wanting to attack William but fearing she’d fatally distract Jonas if she entered the fray.

Inch by inch, William retreated under the barrage of punches. His defense was increasingly ineffectual and his eyes were glazed. He lumbered over the floor, smashing against walls and shelves, drunk on hatred and pain. Jonas’s face hardened until he was a stranger. His very
lack of expression as he beat his cousin into a bloody mess terrified Sidonie more than mere rage could.

William fell into a corner, trapped under his cousin’s attack. Jonas shot a sharp upper cut to William’s chin and he went down in a confusion of arms and legs. The impact of his landing shook the floor. Jonas stepped forward to stand over his fallen enemy, his shoulders heaving, a trickle of blood marking one temple. Faint bruising shadowed one cheekbone.

“Get up,” he gasped. “Get up, you scurvy maggot, so I can finish the job.”

On a sob, Sidonie dropped the skittles and rushed forward to grab the bruised hand Jonas opened and shut at his side. His muscles were hard as rock and he vibrated with fury that had festered, she knew, for years.

“Jonas, don’t,” she said unsteadily.

Jonas didn’t look at her. His focus was all on William, who groggily propped himself against the shelf behind him. One of William’s eyes was swollen shut and gore smeared his face. “I want to kill the toad.”

“I know, but you can’t.” She had no great wish to extend William’s miserable life, but she couldn’t let Jonas murder him. “He’s not worth it. Even after what he did to you all those years ago.”

“Hell, I don’t care about that.” At last he glanced at her, his eyes flaring with barely contained aggression. “Nobody hits you while I’ve got breath in my body.”

Shock sent her heart crashing against her ribs. Jonas had fought William not because of what happened at Eton but because he wouldn’t see her hurt. He’d been her champion, not avenger of his own wrongs. An astonishing surge of emotion that extended far beyond mere gratitude
left her reeling. Roberta had been her protector when she’d been a little girl but since then, she’d fought every battle alone.

“Thank you,” she whispered, the words utterly inadequate. Briefly forgetting their audience, she lifted his fist and pressed a reverent kiss to his broken knuckles. “But you can’t kill him.”

With her kiss, the inhuman chill slowly drained from Jonas’s expression. Thank heaven. Once more he looked like the man she knew. He sucked in a choked breath and she felt his coiled tension ease. “As you wish.”

Her stomach dipped with giddy relief. With a shaking hand, she reached up to dab the thin ribbon of blood from his face. Then reluctantly she drew away and limped to where Roberta huddled under the window, quietly sobbing. She crouched at her sister’s side and put an arm around her heaving shoulders. “It will be all right, Roberta.”

Jonas addressed William in an authoritative tone. “I want you to leave this house—”

William scowled up at Jonas and released a scornful bark of laughter. Roughly he rubbed his sleeve over his face to soak up the welling blood. “It’s my house, you little shit. Much as you wish it otherwise.”

Jonas’s beautiful mouth stretched into a wolfish smile conveying equal measures dismissal and contempt. “You’re welcome to your gewgaws, cuz. With creditors howling on your tail, you won’t keep them long. You won’t lose the houses—they’re entailed as we both know. But you’ll lose everything else, including Lady Hillbrook.”

“Like hell I will!” William struggled to his feet, using the shelves to haul his bulk upright. He glowered at Jonas
and his hands curled at his sides in futile rage. “Roberta’s my bloody wife.”

“Bloody is the accurate description, I gather.” Jonas’s voice was frigid.

“You’re very brave with a gun in your hand, my bully boy,” William sneered. Only then did Sidonie notice that Jonas now held a small pearl-handled pistol.

“No braver than you with an army of thugs to back you against a ten-year-old boy. Hardly surprising you’ve progressed to terrifying women. You always chose opponents who couldn’t fight back.” He looked past William to where Roberta and Sidonie clung together. “Lady Hillbrook, will you come with me? I’m taking Miss Forsythe to Ferney.”

“If you go with this swine, you’re never welcome in this house again, you filthy whore,” William snarled at Sidonie.

“Keep a civil tongue in your head.” Jonas lifted the pistol with a deadly grace that made Sidonie’s heart stutter with alarm. Icy foreboding flooded her when she recalled the rage in Jonas’s eyes as he stood over William. It would take little encouragement to make Jonas pull the trigger.

Keeping the pistol aimed at William, he stepped toward Roberta and extended his hand. “Lady Hillbrook?”

Roberta gained her feet with Jonas’s help before snatching her hand away. Eyes huge and glistening with panic, she watched William like a mouse watched a snake. Dear God, had William cowed Roberta to a point where she wouldn’t seize this opportunity to escape, even now? Sidonie’s irritation with her sister faded, as so often, to helpless pity.

Jonas held out his hand to Sidonie. “Miss Forsythe?”

“We can’t leave her.” Sidonie rose with his aid and angled her head in Roberta’s direction. “He’ll kill her.”

“I want you off this estate, you baseborn mongrel,” William insisted from the other side of the room.

“By all means show us out,” Jonas said.

William’s lip curled with futile derision. “I’ll show you to hell first.”

“For shame, cuz, there are ladies present.” Jonas gestured toward the door with the gun. “Step ahead, if you please.”

William’s face flushed so red, an apoplexy looked likely. A purple vein throbbed in his temple and his uninjured, pig-like eye narrowed with hatred. Grudgingly he limped toward the door.

“Come, sister,” Sidonie said softly. “You’ll be safe with us.”

“I’m not sure.” Roberta’s glassy gaze fixed on her husband’s broad back as he crossed the threshold.

Sidonie left Jonas’s side to take Roberta’s trembling hand. “You can’t stay. You know what he’ll do.”

Her sister stared at her as if the words made no sense. Then she nodded and followed docilely as they left the nursery. Down two flights of stairs to the landing above the flagstoned hall.

At the top of the last flight of stairs, William turned with a superior grin on his bruised face. As the beating’s effects ebbed, his native arrogance revived. “Enjoy your moment in the sun, bastard. You’re welcome to the slut, but no court in the land will keep my wife from me. Even better, when I reveal poor dear Lady Hillbrook’s addiction to the card tables, I’ll have cause for locking her up as a lunatic.”

Horror made Sidonie falter. Every time she thought
she’d measured the depths of William’s villainy, he plumbed a lower level. He spoke of condemning Roberta to a living death in the same tone as she’d heard him order an unwanted litter of puppies drowned in the brook.

“We’ll see who wins that particular battle,” Jonas said grimly, his gun raised in unconcealed threat. “Overconfidence was always your failing.”

“What a fitting end to the beautiful Forsythe sisters.” William’s eyes glittered with spite as his gaze swept Roberta and Sidonie. “One a bastard’s whore, the other raving in her own filth in Bedlam.”

White-faced, Roberta snatched her hand from Sidonie’s and stood quivering under her husband’s jibes. Sidonie turned to speak to her in a low, steady voice. How she hated to see the quivering coward eight years as William’s wife had made her sister. “He can’t do it, Roberta. He only wants to score points against you, against Jonas. He’s a toothless tiger.”

William laughed, rocking on his heels in a threatening manner. “A toothless tiger, am I? We’ll see. We’ll see.”

“I’m not mad,” Roberta insisted in a shrill voice, wrapping her arms around herself. Her gaze remained fixed on William. “You can’t lock me up.”

“Yes, I can, my greedy little dove.”

“Lady Hillbrook, don’t listen. He knows he’s lost,” Jonas said gently. Sidonie cast him a grateful glance, but Roberta didn’t seem to hear.

“Lost, have I?” William blustered, edging away from Jonas’s gun. He rested his hands on his hips in a domineering manner.

“I won’t let you lock me up,” Roberta said more strongly, daring a step toward her husband. Her fists clenched at her
sides and her chin lifted with a defiance Sidonie hadn’t seen in her for years.

William’s lips curved in a smile of such patronizing sweetness that it made Sidonie’s stomach heave. On his bloodstained face, the expression was ghoulish. “You’ll have no choice, my darling.”

Roberta took another uncertain step closer. “Yes, I will, you foul bully.”

William laughed again, the braying sound harsh. “Good God, does the worm turn? Who would have thought? Mind you, if my viper of a cousin wasn’t sporting a pistol, you wouldn’t be so brave, would you, my beauty?”

The reckless light in Roberta’s eyes made Sidonie tense with apprehension. If she ventured too near, would her husband hit her? “I haven’t been brave, William,” Roberta admitted in a reedy voice, her cheeks flushing with humiliation. “I was once but you beat it out of me.”

“You were more fun to clout than to poke. Which isn’t saying much. What a pity you still lack discipline. When I get you back, we’ll remedy that. Before I shut you away forever.”

Roberta inhaled on an audible gasp. Then quick as lightning, she rushed ahead and shoved William square in his chest. “Roast in hell forever!”

“You little bitch…” William flailed to catch his wife as he teetered on the lip of the stair. He’d backed recklessly close to the edge. He snatched at her filmy skirts, tearing the fine muslin.

Roberta jerked away from his clawing hands. For a sickening second, William tottered between safety and disaster. His hands slid uselessly, seeking purchase against the banister.

Horror kept Sidonie frozen. Even as Jonas dove to prevent the unfolding disaster, a feline sound of fury escaped Roberta and she pushed William again.

This time, her husband lost his footing on an ungainly stumble. With a choked scream, he tumbled backward down the stairs.

F
or what felt like forever, Sidonie listened to the horrible
thud, thud, thud
of William’s cumbersome body slamming against every step. When he finally crashed to the base of the staircase, the sound echoed like a scream.

Jonas dashed downstairs several at a time, shoving the gun into his pocket. He bent over his cousin, checking the man’s throat for a pulse. Roberta hovered on the landing, her gaze glued to the man sprawled below.

“Jonas?” Sidonie called over the balustrade.

Jonas looked up, his face austere. The light from the tall windows lay stark on his scars. “He’s dead.”

Sidonie had known William was dead from the moment she saw the unnatural angle of his neck. The fall needn’t have killed him, but he’d gone down awkwardly. The impact of his weight must have crushed the fragile bones at the top of his spine. Jonas’s enemy was no more. William would never again strike Roberta or terrify his sons into sobbing night terrors. Surely Sidonie should
feel more than numbness. But staring down at William’s motionless body, she felt nothing. Apart from a bleak premonition that their troubles had just started.