Rake Most Likely to Sin

by Bronwyn Scott

  A shadow merged into her vision and took form. Of course she wasn’t alone. Castor stood there just beyond the candlelight, arms folded, watching her with those dark eyes. ‘You’re awake. I was beginning to think you weren’t going to wake up.’ He gestured to the table. ‘Come, eat. You need your strength.’

  Eat? It seemed like a herculean feat at the moment. No matter how alive her mind was, her body was weak. Simply sitting here had taken extraordinary effort. ‘I’m not hungry, I don’t think my stomach could take anything.’

  ‘Patra, you must try.’ His voice was silky, full of concern, as he pleaded with her. She thought she saw the whisper of a patient smile on his cruel mouth. ‘You and I have been down this path before. And I’m sorry for it. I would not wish such sadness on you, certainly not twice. But I will help you through, just as I did before. I will be here for you in your grief. You know you have to eat. You don’t want to become ill like you did the last time.’

  He picked up the tin plate and advanced towards her, holding it out like a peace offering. It might have been the most terrifying thing he’d ever done in front of her. Involuntarily, she shuffled away until her back was pressed against the stone wall of the cave. How did he have the utter gall to act as her friend, her caregiver, when he had murdered the two men she’d loved?

  He sat beside her and she had no place to go. Her skin started to crawl. How had she ever thought him handsome? Gallant? He was none of those things. He was a man corrupted by power, a man who would use that power to get the one thing he didn’t have.

  He speared a piece of meat with a fork and held it out to her. ‘At least this time, you aren’t breeding.’ He paused. ‘You’re not, are you?’

  ‘No. Of course not. We were careful,’ Patra said with wary conviction. This had happened before, this offering of food, this concern over her fertility with another man. But this time, she knew the depths of Castor’s evil. Under no circumstances would she, could she, eat any food he offered her. She brought her hand up under the plate with a forceful slap that sent its contents into his face. She dashed off the ledge, acutely aware that she moved too slowly. She couldn’t dash at all.

  Castor was too fast. He was on her, taking her to the ground with a rough thud. She broke her fall with her hands and knees. Castor had her about the waist, on her like a dog. She wished she could see him. If they were face to face, she could slap him, spit at him. ‘You bastard!’ Patra shrieked and struggled, but she couldn’t dislodge the iron grip of him about her waist, the strong press of his body. She could feel his arousal against her buttocks.

  The man was vile. How could he even think she’d consent to anything with him after what he’d done? ‘We will never come together. I will never be yours!’ But he was so heavy against her. She swallowed her fear, it was threatening to overtake her anger. What could she do? She was starting to feel helpless. Struggles only weakened her, yet not to struggle would be worse. He would make her pay most intimately this time for provoking him. His free hand moved between his thighs and her bottom. Trousers worked loose.

  ‘I don’t think there’s anything you can do about it.’ His mouth was at her ear, his body entirely over her now, his hand beneath her skirt, pushing it up.

  Could she beg? She would, anything to stop this. He’d already taken Brennan from her, her pride was expendable at this point. ‘Please, Castor. Don’t do this. You don’t want me like this...like a dog in an alley.’ She choked the words out. Her throat started to close with tears.

  She didn’t want to remember sex this way, disgraced and shamed. This was not intimacy. To Castor this was about power and domination, proof he could force even her to his will. She wanted to remember it the way it had been with Brennan, laughter and heat as they struggled together for that final release.

  ‘I must have you immediately,’ he grunted at her ear. ‘You can never really be sure, Patra, if the Englishman’s seed has survived. We can at least muddy the waters a bit should you be wrong.’ His hand slipped between her legs, wet and sticky where it touched her. ‘We’ll help you along, my dear. In time, you won’t need it. You’ll rouse to me on your own.’

  ‘No, no, please, no.’ It was a pitiful, mewling litany of a protest. She hadn’t the strength left for more. All she could do was scream. If she was lucky, he would be mercifully fast. It would be over quickly and she could get to the business of trying to forget. Whatever he did to her only had the power she gave it. She closed her eyes, her arms tensing. Nothing came but words from a voice she thought she’d never hear again.

  ‘Get your unholy body off of her.’

  Patra’s eyes flew open, her physical sense more sure than her brain’s rationale of what it registered. As illogical as it seemed, Brennan was here and he had a gun. No, wait. He had two.

  He was going to kill the rutting bastard. Brennan advanced on the lurid scene in front of him with a cold clarity he’d only felt a few times in his life, such as the time he’d leapt the horse off the Dover dock. Failure was not an option. But unlike that leap in Dover, he had a plan this time and he knew what he was doing. He also had reinforcements. Half the village waited outside the cave, armed and ready to deliver justice if he could not. But Castor was his first. He’d had a day and a half of hard tracking to think it through, to imagine this moment, to walk himself through every aspect of it, to steel himself against the horror of it. And yet, despite his mental preparations, the reality exceeded the horror.

  To hear her screams as he approached the cave had been bone chilling. Was he too late? He’d regretted every rest he and the men had taken, every moment they hadn’t been moving towards her. He’d told himself he was here now, that was all that mattered. To see Castor on her like a dog, to see her sobbing and without choice, had nearly destroyed him. He held on to cool detachment by the slimmest of threads.

  He was gambling on the element of surprise with his first shot, not a mortal wound. A fatal shot would not be possible yet, not with Patra so close to Apollonius. ‘Patra! Get ready to move!’ he barked, giving neither of them time to think before he fired the first pistol, and kept moving forward, tossing the empty weapon aside as he came.

  The bullet passed close to Apollonius’s shoulder. He jerked backwards as the bullet breezed past, a natural reflex in even the most battle hardened of men. His defensive reflex provided an opening for Patra. She struggled out of his loosened grip, rolling away. Apollonius reached for her, but Brennan was faster, pushing his body between them. ‘Stay behind me, Patra!’ This was going to be over fast. It wouldn’t even be a fight. It was not intended to be. It was intended to be revenge.

  ‘You are supposed to be dead.’ Apollonius staggered to his feet, his immaculate clothing askew, his dark hair in his face. For the first time, his appearance matched the part, his derangement obvious. The mad man was exposed.

  ‘You broke your word.’ Brennan kept the pistol on Apollonius. He had Patra and the exit behind him, and beyond that another surprise. The men of Kardamyli waited to bring Apollonius down if he didn’t make it out, but Patra would make it. She would be safe. He could ensure it with his own life if necessary. Brennan took a step backwards, feeling Patra move with him. How far did they have to go? Ten steps before they could turn and run? ‘You promised the lady you’d let me live if she made me leave.’

  ‘Well, she didn’t make you leave. You are, regretfully, still here.’ Apollonius gave a dry laugh, his eyes slanting towards the gun. ‘I don’t think you’ll do it, by the way.’ Then his mouth turned up in a hard smile. ‘You’ll have to, though, you know that, don’t you? You can’t possibly think to outrun me or the brotherhood on the road. I will hunt you down, Englishman.’ He flicked his eyes towards Patra. ‘Do you love her enough to kill for her? I do.’

  ‘You’re a sick man, Apollonius.’ Brennan swallowed hard and took another step backwards. He had been thinking just that, adjusting his plan
now that he had Patra behind him. Maybe they could run.

  ‘I am the liberator of the peninsula. I drove the Turks from our land. I’m a hero in these parts.’ Apollonius was starting to move now, to step closer for every step he took backwards. Brennan’s hand clenched around the pistol. Patra was four or five steps behind him, closer to the exit, safer. His mind reached for cool detachment. He didn’t want to think about what he was doing. Thinking had never been much help.

  ‘Did you ever think you’d got this wrong? That this isn’t about you or me having her? What did you call it last night? The fallacy of dichotomous reasoning? The idea that we convince ourselves there’s only two options. One or the other. You think it’s about me killing you or you killing me. You’re thinking only one of us walks out of here.’ Evil fire lit in Apollonius’s eyes. He made a lightning-quick move, something silver flashing in his hand, a blade. ‘There’s a third option, Carr. No one has her.’

  Brennan didn’t think. He just fired, the bullet taking Apollonius in the chest. The man was dead before he hit the ground, but the blade had left his hand a moment before the bullet hit its target and had taken on a life of its own. It flew towards Brennan’s shoulder, its trajectory too high to hit him, but not too high to hit Patra at a distance behind him. God. No.

  He had to stop that knife! He had no weapon, no shield, only his body. He threw up his arm, his hand closing around the hilt of the knife in a miraculous, perfectly timed grab. He would never be able to duplicate that grab again in his entire life. He hoped he’d never have need to.

  ‘Brennan!’ Patra staggered towards him, reaching for the hand that held the knife, eyes searching for blood. Her hands were all over him, looking for injury. ‘Are you all right?’

  He gathered her to him, fearing she’d fall. ‘I’m alive.’

  ‘You’re not supposed to be.’ Her voice was a whisper of disbelief as he guided her out of the cave. He didn’t want to stay there a moment longer, didn’t want to subject her to its foul reminders.

  ‘I am here and I’ve brought reinforcements.’ He was glad for those reinforcements when they reached the outside, glad for Kon’s strong arm about him, glad for the canteen of water someone held out to Patra. He was starting to shake, his body going crazy with adrenaline.

  The air was cooler out here, the stars were bright. The moon had risen. The night centered him. He found a group of rocks where he and Patra could sit privately away from the men, where he could hold her and they could let the shock and the joy take them. There was so much to absorb if they let their minds open to the events of the last two days. It was hard to take in, but he had to try because it could not be ignored. He couldn’t pretend a man hadn’t tried to kill him, hadn’t tried to rape his wife—his almost-wife by legal standards, though in his heart the marriage was already done—that he’d had to take a life to protect her.

  Patra laced her fingers through his. ‘What were you thinking, to catch that knife? You could have lost a hand, a finger.’ She was trembling beneath the blanket draped over her shoulders.

  ‘I was thinking I could have lost you.’ Brennan smoothed her hair back from her face. ‘That would have been far worse than a finger. I’d still have had nine others. And I’d still have had one hand if it had come to that. But there is no other you, Patra. I could have lost you.’ The enormity of what Apollonius had put them through was starting to creep up on him. It was harder to hold the events at bay when they came attached with emotion.

  ‘I did lose you.’ Patra’s eyes began to brim with tears. She covered her mouth with a shaking hand. ‘Oh, God, Brennan, I don’t think I would have survived it.’ Her eyes widened, reliving the horror of those early moments.

  ‘Don’t think about it, Patra. You didn’t lose me.’ Brennan squeezed the hand that held his. ‘I’m here.’

  ‘But you shouldn’t be. I don’t understand. I saw the boat.’ She took a gasping breath. ‘Kon! He was on the boat, too. Is he...?’ Her voice trailed off, unable to make the word.

  ‘He’s fine.’ Brennan held her gaze, letting his own gaze steady her. ‘We were not on the boat, Patra.’

  ‘There was a body. I saw it in the spyglass,’ she argued.

  ‘It was in one of the barrels that were loaded on the boat and when the boat exploded, it did, too. As you know, Konstantine was supposed to make a cargo run.’ It had been part of their plan, that after the quarrel he would go out with Konstantine on the cargo delivery. He just wouldn’t come back. ‘Well, that morning Apollonius had some items he needed taken to one of our stops. He brought them down while we were loading. Rather, his men did. I was immediately suspicious. When I told Kon, he was willing to test my hypothesis.’

  ‘But I saw you leave, I saw the two of you sail away.’

  ‘When we were far enough out, we lowered the rowboat over the far side and rowed away. We watched from a distance. If the boat was harmless, we’d row back and complete the deliveries. I’d go on to meet you in secret as planned. If it wasn’t, then we’d have our proof Apollonius was indeed a villain.’

  ‘You took a huge chance. What if the boat had blown up before you were safely away?’

  ‘Don’t worry over it, it didn’t happen.’

  ‘But for a while it did. It happened to me. I lost you,’ Patra said fiercely.

  Brennan nodded. ‘I know.’ He understood what she was feeling. For a while, he’d lost her, too. ‘I came back as quickly as I could. Kon and I reached the village by afternoon, determined to string Apollonius up. But he was already gone and you with him.’ Brennan shook his head. ‘I can’t put into words how I felt in those moments. I’d been so sure Apollonius’s influence in our lives, in your life, was nearly over after we’d made our plan, only to learn that it was not. In fact, it was more powerful than ever. He had you. The man you hated the most had you.’ The woman he loved was in the clutches of the man she’d fought, resisted, for years. If he had ever doubted his affections, that realisation had cleared them right up.

  His confession touched her. Her fingertips stroked his face. ‘But you came for me.’ Her voice was soft, her steady strength returning to her because she thought he needed her strength, his beautiful, selfless Patra, lending her strength to others. To him. ‘We are fine. We are both fine and Castor can’t haunt us any more.’ Something powerful flickered in her eyes. ‘I am free.’ She smiled and raised her head to the night sky, exulting in the realisation, and Brennan celebrated, too. She wasn’t the only one who was free. Because of her. He was free from the past. He was free now to be the man he wanted to be, her man, a man with purpose and direction because he was with her.

  ‘Where do we go from here?’ he asked. He nodded towards the men milling about their campsite. It occurred to him that if Castor was dead, she needn’t refashion a brand-new life away from all she knew. ‘We can go back to Kardamyli.’

  ‘I think England is still our destination,’ Patra said softly. ‘Castor has connections.’

  ‘We could stay. I think the village would protect us if anyone came looking.’ Brennan was almost certain of it.

  ‘Not yet,’ Patra conceded. ‘We need to let things die down here and you need to go to England. We’ve already discussed this.’ He knew in his heart that Patra was right. It would be best if he disappeared for a while. England would be far safer. But there was reassurance, too. He would be back. They would be back and, in time, they would make the life here that he dreamed of.

  ‘England it is.’ Brennan smiled. He was going home. For the first time in two years, the thought did not fill him with dread. He understood his father better now even if he couldn’t condone his father’s choices. The love of a good woman was a powerful love indeed. He hoped when the time came, he’d be a better father because of it.

  Patra placed a soft kiss on his mouth. ‘England tomorrow, but tonight, I need you to do something for me.’
r />   ‘Anything,’ he breathed against her lips. The campsite was far away.

  ‘Make love to me under the stars.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ His body was primed and bursting with the need to release the adrenaline of the fight, but he’d suspected after Castor’s treatment of her, she would not welcome it. Maybe not for a while.

  ‘There are things I need to tell you about Castor, about Dimitri, later, some day. But tonight, I need you, just you.’ It was all she had to say. He knew the rest. She needed him tonight to be the lover that erased the fear and horror of Castor’s assault. It had been an incomplete action, but that didn’t make it any less horrifying.

  ‘I thought you’d never ask.’ He grinned against her mouth, their foreheads pressing together. Tonight he would be that man for her and every night hereafter.

  Brennan retrieved a blanket and shook it out. Patra laughed, a throaty sound that warmed the night. Two days had been too long without it. ‘Do you go everywhere with a blanket?’

  ‘It always seems to come in handy.’ Brennan held out his hand. ‘Come join me.’

  ‘Not yet.’ Patra loosened the string on her blouse, flirting boldly with him. She pulled the blouse over her head, her breasts dusky in the moonlight. Brennan’s breath hitched as he watched her undress, slowly, deliberately, for him alone. ‘I have it on good authority it’s easier naked.’

  He put his hand on the buckle of his belt and the foustanella dropped. ‘Show me,’ Brennan murmured.She moved into him then, kissing him hard on the mouth, her hands anchoring in his hair and, to his everlasting pleasure, she did. Tonight had been his last escape. God willing, he’d never need an escape plan again.

  * * *

  Three days later, he made certain of it. Brennan Carr married Patra Tspiras on the beach in Kardamyli, surrounded by the village, dressed in a foustanella, his bare feet sinking into the sand. Beside him, her hand in his, Patra wore an overdress with an embroidered bodice and a white shift beneath, her hair loose beneath a linen veil. She looked stunning, she looked happy, like a bride should, like his bride should. He’d never dared to dream he might be such a lucky man, that someone might love him so thoroughly.