“Ye sent her to me,” Liam snarled, letting go of the bedpost to advance on his criminal half brother. “Ye knew who she was, what she’d done, and ye sent her to look after my children. Do ye have any idea—” Liam’s teeth clenched together with the force of his tumultuous emotion.
Dorian Blackwell had lied to him. But in doing so, he’d sent Mena, the only woman who could have possibly defeated the Demon Highlander. For a man who was used to charging entire battalions, he’d not been prepared for her to come at him sideways. “I’ll make ye answer for that,” he vowed, stepping up to Dorian.
Though Liam did have a slight height and width advantage, Dorian stood his ground, unperturbed. He was leaner in that feral, hungry way predators were lean, and it lent him a cruel grace.
“I had my reasons, brother, and you’ll want to hear them.”
Brother.
There was no denying Dorian Blackwell was a Mackenzie. He bore the same broad angles to his forehead and jaw, the same sharp lines etched below his cheekbones. His ebony hair and onyx eyes were an exact replica of Liam’s own.
Of their father’s.
They’d inherited the same capacity for violence and domination, and it vibrated through the air between them now, underscored by many more painful things.
“Fuck yer reasons,” Liam seethed. “Ye only do something if it benefits yer own purposes.”
“Not this time,” Dorian replied. “Argent and I intervened at the behest of our ladies, and let me assure you that it was more a nuisance than a benefit.”
Liam stepped around the Blackheart of Ben More and made for the auburn-haired giant at the door. “I doona have time for yer excuses. I have greater wrath to inflict before I get to any business between us.”
“You’ve arrived at my very reason for being here, Liam,” Dorian remarked. “If I’ve mastered anything in this lifetime, it’s the art of settling a score.”
There were precious few men tall enough to look Liam in the eye. Christopher Argent was one of them, and they stared each other down with all the menace of two ruling stags about to connect antlers.
“I’ve defeated entire armies who had a mind to stand between me and where I intended to go,” Liam warned from low in his throat. “I suggest ye step aside.”
If Liam was fire, Argent was ice, and though his chilly blue gaze sharpened, he made no move to advance or retreat.
“I owe the vicountess,” Argent said in a voice devoid of anger or defense. “She helped to save my fiancée’s life, and because of her bravery, she suffered. Terribly.”
Liam blinked as that information permeated the anger and the haze of his head wound. “What do ye mean?” he demanded, hating all these secrets and yet dreading any more revelations.
“Lady Philomena spoke out against one of the St. Vincents who’d threatened Millie and her child,” Argent said. “And once the debacle had been dealt with, the vicountess had vanished.”
Liam was unused to Mena being referred to by a title, but it made such sense. She’d been a ceaselessly gentle lady, so proper and erudite. The perfect tutor to prepare Rhianna to become a noblewoman.
Because she’d been one herself.
Argent’s ice-blue eyes narrowed with distaste, though Liam thought it had more to do with a memory than him. “We found her months later half starved and beaten in Belle Glen Asylum. The treatments were equally heinous. We arrived just in time to snap the neck of the orderly who was attempting to rape her.”
“His were the bruises she wore when we sent her to you, Liam,” Dorian said gently from behind him. “But prior to her incarceration there, we’d witnessed the evidence of her husband’s violence.”
Liam’s stomach knotted and he felt as though he might be sick. His estimation of Argent rose exponentially at the news that he’d killed Mena’s attacker, though he wished to bring the bastard back to life so he could kill him again.
Slowly this time.
Liam turned on his brother. “Ye should have told me,” he said. “I would have protected her had I known.”
“Her family had her declared criminally insane through the high court,” Dorian stated evenly. “You being such an esteemed agent of Her Majesty’s, and our father’s legitimate heir, I couldn’t be sure that you wouldn’t turn her over to the crown before I could clear her name. Though we are blood, I know nothing other than that, unlike our own father, you love your children. If the Demon Highlander would do anything to protect them, then the safest place for her was at their side. Besides, who better to teach my niece to be a lady than a viscountess?”
“I need to see them.” Liam lurched for the door again.
“They’re safe.” Dorian put a hand on his shoulder. “And they know that you are, as well.”
But Mena wasn’t.
Dorian assessed him with an eerily astute gaze. “I never imagined that you’d even pay her any mind, let alone…” He let the insinuation drift unspoken into the air between them.
Let alone fall in love with her.
“How long have I been out?” Liam asked, looking to the window. No light rimmed the drawn heavy drapes, telling him it was night.
“A few hours,” Dorian answered. “They kept you sedated while they stitched your wounds. Luckily for you, the bullet passed clean through you, and lodged into a column.”
Hours? That gave Lord Benchley all that time to exact his punishment on Mena. The possibilities set his blood on fire with rage.
He brought his face close to Argent’s. “Either ye help me, or get the fuck out of my way.”
A cruel mask settled over his Viking features as he glared at Liam. “That’s why we’ve come.” Argent stepped aside and swept his hand at the hallway. “To settle a debt.”
Dorian fell into step with Liam as he surged forward and in the direction of the hospital exit.
“First,” the Blackheart of Ben More suggested, “let’s find you a bloody shirt and those goddamned boots you were bellowing for.”
* * *
The hour approached midnight when Ravencroft, Argent, and Blackwell advanced through the terrace like reapers in search of the damned.
The house still belonged to Gordon St. Vincent’s father, some earl or other. The Viscount Benchley resided like a bachelor in a handsome town house in Knightsbridge, though it was set back from Hyde Park in a less fashionable neighborhood. A slight but telling concession to the St. Vincent family’s dwindling circumstances.
Blessed little household staff slumbered below stairs where they’d picked the service door lock, lurked through the kitchens, and crept up to the main floor. What was once a handsome and stately home had fallen into shocking disrepair. All was dark but for a faint glow of lantern light creeping from a grand room at the front of the house.
Liam found himself alone in the hall as the once-plush rugs muffled the sound of his heavy footfalls. Soft masculine conversation drifted to him, followed by a feminine reply. It took a moment for Liam to process the false, high pitch of the woman’s tone and recognize that it was not Mena’s. His shoulder burned like the very devil, and his head still ached, but he’d lived through more dire circumstances than this … he’d killed through them, as well.