Wild Star (Star Quartet 3)

“He took me to an old shack, tied me down to the bed, and fell asleep because he was so drunk. I ripped out the bedpost and hit him when he woke up. He’s very sick, Brent, and needs a doctor.”

“What he needs, the filthy scum, is a visit to the devil.”

There was no mistaking the rage in his voice. Indeed, his entire body was vibrating with it.

“No,” she said very clearly. “Don’t kill him. He’s far too pitiful to kill.”

Brent looked down into his wife’s composed face. He said very slowly, very softly, “Where is this shack?”

She told him.

“Go inside and rest. I will come to you later.”

She watched as Brent, Drew, and Josh mounted and rode away. Each man was carrying a rifle.

“God, you’re just like a cat.”

Byrony turned to face Laurel. “You would have preferred that he raped me?”

“It looks like he did,” Laurel said. “You’re a mess.”

“Well, he didn’t, and a bath will take care of the rest.”

Why was she worried about Frank Paxton? Byrony wondered for the dozenth time as she paced the bedroom waiting for Brent to return. She realized that it wasn’t Paxton that worried her, but Brent. She didn’t want to be responsible for violence. She didn’t want him to commit murder. But she would have killed Paxton if she’d had to.

What a damnable coil.

“Byrony.”

She whipped about to see Brent in the doorway. She flew at him and flung her arms about his back. “I’ve been so worried,” she said, stroking her hands over his beloved face, over his shoulders, and down his arms.

“Are you all right, truly?”

“Yes,” she said, pressing herself close. He pushed her back.

“I didn’t kill Paxton,” he said.

She gave a sigh of relief.

“You were right. He was the most pitiful sight I’ve seen in a long time. Drew and Josh took him into Natchez to Doc Harrison. He’ll probably live.”

“Good,” Byrony said.

His eyes narrowed on her face. “Did he fondle you?”

“Just a bit when he had me over the saddle, but it was nothing too dreadful. I was too worried about the baby, you see.”

“Ah, yes,” he said, quickly recalling his anger at his wife after his worry was under control, “the baby. May I ask what you were doing riding out? And by yourself?”

“I wasn’t really riding, just walking Velvet. Paxton said he’d been waiting for days to get me. I think he was demented from all that awful whiskey.”

He loosed her arms and walked away from her. He was so bloody tired, the strain of the day making him feel like an old man. And here Byrony was acting like Frank Paxton was a pathetic victim. He turned to her and said coldly, “I find your excess of sympathy a bit nauseating.”

She stared at

him, mute.

“Would you still have begged me to spare his worthless life if he had raped you? What do you think he would have done if he hadn’t been drunk as a loon? Can you even begin to imagine? Damnation, woman, you could have lost the child.”