Boyett-Compo, Charlotte - Wyndmaster 1 (24 page)

Lord James snaked out a hand and grabbed Sierran's neck, pulling the younger man closer to him to

glare down into Sierran's face.

"Hurt that woman and I will take a horsewhip to you," Lord James growled from between tightly

clenched teeth. "Do you understand?"

"Have my wife ready when I come down from servicing that bawd," Sierran said, meeting his father's

steely gaze. "I'll not sign the papers to Patterly until Celeste is at my side."

"It will be my pleasure to be rid of you and that slut you call wife," Lord James snarled and let go of his

son's neck, turning away from the younger man.

One final look at his mother's composed face and a sweeping look across his brothers' and sisters'

triumphant stares, Sierran headed for the stairs. He could feel the burden of his family's eyes weighing him

down.

"Go fetch that little tart," Lord James told Dyllon. "And pray do not attempt to manhandle her again!"

Dyllon had the grace to blush and quickly glanced down at the scratches that had been gouged into the

back of his hand.

* * *

Celeste looked up from her perch atop a crate as the lock to the door of the pantry in which she had

been rudely thrust snicked open and the man who had shoved her inside the claustrophobic room stood

framed in the doorway.

"He's here," Dyllon Morgan snapped. His upper lip twisted. "Fucking the widow even as we speak."

Though she had managed to rake her fingernails down the man's hand earlier when he had dared to take

liberties with her, she ached to drag them down his smug face and peel off the top layer of his skin. He

looked too much like Sierran for her comfort. When he had groped her, she had attacked him like a

snarling she-wolf and he was staying well back from her now, not trusting her to behave.

Dyllon stepped well back from the door as Celeste got to her feet. He could not help but admire her

shapely figure in the soft gray wool of the gown his mother had loaned her, but he knew better than to try

to lay hands to her again.

"The family is in the library," he mumbled. "I am to take you there to wait for Sierran."

With her head held high, Celeste left the pantry, flicking a hateful glance down Dyllon Morgan as she

passed. She wanted nothing more than to jump on him and shred him to ribbons but vengeance would

have to wait until she and Sierran were free of the Morgan family fetters.

They were all there, except for the fat slob that Sierran was being forced to service, when Celeste was

escorted to the library. No one spoke to her or acknowledged her entrance into their midst. She was

being pointedly ignored as though she were of no worth to the Morgan family. Speaking amongst

themselves no one even glanced her way.

"He grew up to be quite handsome," Lady Harriet, Fallon's wife was heard to comment to her

sister-in-law Lady Danica.

"Handsome is as handsome does," Danica snapped. "He is a pig as evidenced by his vulgarity."

Celeste could well imagine what her husband might have said to put his middle sister's nose out of joint.

"But he is, nevertheless, Danni, a very striking man," Lady Leticia, Peyton's wife, commented. "I would

not mind being in Bea's garters right now."

"As if he'd tup you," Celeste muttered under her breath but her mother-in-law appeared to have heard

her. She nodded at Celeste as though in agreement.

The clock in the library was striking the tenth hour when Lady Beatrice came back down the stairs.

Every hair was in place and her gown had not the slightest wrinkle in it. She cast Lord James a nasty

look then flounced to a seat near him, her bottom lip thrust out in a pout. "That man," she said in a grating

voice, "is no gentleman."

Lord James leaned toward her, taking her hand to soothe her. "Did he hurt you, milady?"

"He insulted me with every thrust, Jamie," she said, tears gathering in her eyes. "He took me like a

common streetwalker."

"Surely he did not bend you over the bed as he threatened…" Lord James began with a pained

expression on his face.

"Worse!" Beatrice said, her mouth trembling. "He pushed me up against the wall and did it there with no

regard to dignity or comfort or anything else!"

Celeste's heart thudded hard against her rib cage. She didn't like the look on Lord James' face nor the

gleeful expectancy hovering on the faces of the other men in the room. She stepped forward just as

Sierran entered the room. "Sierran…" she began but it was Edward Gillespie, Jillian's husband who

reached out to take her arms.

"Milady, be still," he warned her, pulling her back against him though she tried to stomp on his instep.

Lord James released Beatrice's hand and stood up. He stepped forward and took a paper from the

pocket of his coat, slapping it against Sierran's chest. "Sign this and be done with it!"

Sierran didn't even look at the paper but took it from his father, strode over to a table, bent over and

scrawled his name across it. He left the paper on the desk.

"James," Beatrice said. "He hit me."

"I did not!" Sierran denied.

"Pervert!" Lord James said. He looked to his sons. "I believe your brother needs to be taught some

manners!"

Sierran did not stand a chance against the six men who fell upon him to drag him from the library.

Though he struggled, he could not break free of Dyllon's and Peyton's firm hold on his arms and when he

kicked out at Vaughn, found his ankles grabbed as Danica's husband Lord Morris and Madeline's

husband Lord Levon hefted him up between them.

"Sierran!" Celeste yelled but she was held securely in Edward's grip. Twisting and bucking in his hold,

she cursed him but that only seemed to strengthen his hold on her.

The other members of the Morgan clan were hurrying from the room, following those who had hold of

Sierran.

"Let her see what becomes of defying our family!" Madeline suggested. She didn't wait for her

brother-in-law to do as she ordered but practically ran from the room.

Celeste bucked against Edward—especially when he gripped both her wrists behind her with one of his

hands while he fumbled at her side with the other.

"Behave, wench!" Edward said. He drew her out into the main hall and toward a large room where the

others were gathered.

It was not something Sierran would have wanted his lady to see, and had he been aware of her presence

in the room set aside for his father's physical workouts, he would no doubt have struggled even harder to

get loose. As it was, his back was to Celeste as she was forced into the room to the sounds of the

beating his brothers were giving him.

She knew better than to cry out for fear they would hurt him more. Tears running down her cheeks,

Celeste sagged against Edward as fists were slammed into her husband's belly, his face, and his kidneys.

Her keening was so low only Edward and Lady Judith heard it but neither paid any attention to her.

Held securely in Dyllon and Peyton's hands, Sierran's head swiveled beneath the savage hits that

bloodied and broke his nose, blackened his eyes, split open his lips and cheekbones. He grunted with

each hard shot to his body that doubled him over. He was barely standing when Lord James strode

arrogantly forward with a hand held up to stay the punishment.

"Take him to the coach," Lord James ordered. "I've no desire to have him bleeding on my floor."

Celeste got a good look at her husband's battered face as he was dragged past her and she cried out,

trying her best to break free of Edward's hold to get to Sierran.

"Be still," Edward insisted, speaking low in her ear. "You are not a fishmonger's daughter. Remember

who you are, Anna Celeste!"

It was at that moment Celeste knew that Lady Beatrice’s husband, this man who was Sierran’s

brother-in-law, was aware of her connection to the Justonian throne. She twisted her head around and

looked back at him with surprise.

"Avenge him," was all Edward said as he began walking her behind Sierran's departure.

Sierran had been dragged down the steps of Eagle Grove and his entire family—a few children included

now—stood on the portico and watched as his brothers unceremoniously dumped him on the ground,

dusted off their hands, and climbed the steps to stand with the rest of the Morgan clan.

Celeste broke free of Edward and rushed to her husband, going to her knees in the gravel beside him,

her hand trembling as she reached out to touch his bruised and bleeding face. He was barely conscious

and every breath he took cost him. With fury lashing her lovely face, Celeste swung her head around.

"You craven cowards!" she yelled at the Morgan men and their brothers-in-law. "You bloody bastards

couldn't take him on man to man. You had to gang up on him." She turned her head and spat on the

ground. "Cowards. Each and every one of you is nothing but a coward!"

Sierran heard the laughter of his family that accompanied his wife's insults. Though he could barely see,

he watched as each of them turned their backs on him and left him to lie there on the ground—broken

and in nearly unbearable pain—going into the mansion and shutting the door on him as though he was

nothing but an afterthought.

The coachman and the man who had frisked Sierran earlier came over to him and lifted him up to take

him to the coach.

"Be careful!" Celeste cried out, seeing the agony registering on Sierran's face.

"We are being as careful as we can, milady," one of the men said. He gave her a stern look. "Get in and

let us lay his head on your lap."

Celeste didn't question that order. She hiked up her skirt and climbed into the coach's interior, sliding

well over to her husband could be laid on the seat beside her.

As gently as they could, the two men took Sierran into the coach and gingerly laid his head in his lady's

lap. His back was arched against the bench's seat and his knees bent. His arms extended off the edge of

the bench but as soon as the men had shut the door and the coach started rolling, he wrapped his arms

under his wife's right leg.

"It'll be all right," Celeste said, smoothing his hair back from his bruised forehead. "We're going home."

He was barely hanging onto consciousness as the coach bumped over the archway. Every muscle in his

body hurt. Every bone felt to be broken. With every breath he took, his ribs grated against one another.

One eye was completely swollen shut while the other had only a small slit through which to see. His

entire face felt out of proportion and he couldn't seem to get his lips to move so he could tell Celeste not

to worry.

But it wasn't the physical pain that troubled Sierran Morgan the most. It was the emotional agony of

hearing his family laugh at his pain, at having them turn their backs on him—again?and to know he meant

so little to them that they could do such terrible things to him and not even care.

Celeste heard the first hitching sob that came from her husband's throat and she looked down, away

from the men riding beside the coach as though guarding it. She saw the first tear ease down Sierran's

battered face and knew a moment of such wild hatred and unremitting fury, she was almost tempted to

tell the coachman to turn the landau around so she could go back and stomp the Morgan family into the

dust.

"Dearling, don't," she said, smoothing her hand on his shoulder. "They're not worth it."

The one sob became a torrent that had been building up since Sierran Morgan was a child. He let loose

the flood that had been bottled up inside him all those years, releasing the hurt that had been festering. His

crying was like that of a lost little boy and it tore at his wife's heart, made her all that more determined to

make his family pay for having caused him this much grief. Wrapping her arms around him, she held him

as best she could as he cried out his sorrow until he fell asleep, his cheeks wet with tears.

By the time the coach rolled to a stop on the dock, Vargas and two of the sailors from
Akinos
were

there to escort Sierran and his lady to the ship. As soon as Vargas saw the condition of his unconscious

commander, he threw his head back and bellowed with rage.

"Get him on the ship!" Brent yelled. "Now!"

It was Vargas who slipped his arms under Sierran's body and lifted him up, carrying him carefully from

the coach.

"Hurry, Vargas!" Brent shouted. He was staring at a cloud of dust that was boiling toward the seaside

town, figuring—and rightly so—that it was Sierran's family coming after him.

Running behind Vargas as the soldier carried Sierran up the gangplank, Celeste turned to see what had

garnered the lawgiver's attention. Her heart turned as hard as iron and when Mac ordered the cannon's

primed, she stayed up on deck, even as her battered husband was taken below.

"You'd best get down to your cabin, milady," Mac warned.

"I'm not going anywhere," Celeste spat.

"Get underway, Captain!" Brent ordered.

The ship began moving backward out of the slip even as a thundering group of horsemen came galloping

into Edgeville.

With muskets leveled on them, the men standing atop the warehouses had no idea whether to fire or not.

No order had been given to do so but they tracked in their sights the pilot of the ship and the four or so

men standing at the railing. One musket was trained on the lone woman though the man wielding the gun