“Aye, it is with you, dear brother. You want to lock me away.”
“You’ve hurt enough innocents. You can’t be allowed to hurt anyone else.”
“What of me? I was innocent when that bastard violated me.”
Kell felt the familiar anguish rise up in him. “I know.”
“You know?” The word was bitter. “You don’t know a bloody thing, Kell. You can’t understand what it was like to bear his touch, to have him pushing inside me… He brought me here, did you know that? He would make me strip for him, and then he would mount me… I puked at first. Once I cast up my guts all over him when he came in my mouth. He struck me so hard, he knocked me senseless. After that I learned to stomach his perversions. To conceal my shame. Even though I wanted to kill him.”
Sean’s mouth twisted in a sad smile. “I did kill him in the end. I made the bastard pay for what he did to me.” His voice lowered, turning troubled. “I killed O’Malley, too, even though I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t stop myself.”
A strangled sound of grief came from Raven’s throat, and Sean jerked her head back, pressing the blade harder against her skin.
Kell gritted his teeth till they ached. It was all he could do to refrain from leaping at his brother.
Sean’s voice dropped even further, to a hoarse whisper. “I thought I wanted you to pay as well, Kell. You were my brother. You should have saved me from him. I hated you for that.”
Kell felt the accusation like a knife thrust. Sean’s resentment had festered all these years, and now, like some pestilent wound, was pouring forth. “Sean, you don’t know how much I hated myself.”
The younger man shook his head. “No, I was wrong. You could not have saved me. Not then,” he whispered brokenly. “But you can now. You have to help me, Kell.”
“Of course I will help you.”
His green eyes turned desolate. “How? By having me thrown in prison?”
“I thought an asylum would be more humane.”
Sean shook his head, his eyes bleak. “I cannot live the rest of my life locked away.”
“I can’t allow you to remain free to kill again.”
“There is only one way to stop me, Kell. You know it.” With his head Sean gestured toward the second rapier lying on the bench. “Do you recognize these? These are Uncle’s dueling foils.”
“You’re asking me to duel with you? You have little skill with a rapier. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You have no choice.” Sean glanced down at his hostage. “If you don’t want me to slit her throat, you will have to fight me, brother.”
Kell hesitated, dread roiling inside him at what Sean was implying. But he couldn’t allow Raven to be hurt any further. “Very well.”
Sean bent down to retrieve the other foil, leaving the slightest opening for Kell to act.
Yet Raven moved before he could. Raising her bound hands, she struck Sean’s shoulder, evidently hoping to throw him off balance. But all it did was earn her a vicious clout. Sean swung his arm and connected with her head, knocking her to the wooden floor.
Kell had started forward, filled with rage and fear, but he halted abruptly when he saw Sean holding the point of his foil at Raven’s nape.
“Pick up your weapon,” he ordered in a hoarse tone.
Kell’s gaze riveted on his brother’s blade, so perilously close to piercing Raven’s flesh. “It doesn’t have to be this way, Sean.”
“You know it does. You have to end it.” His mouth curved in a bleak smile. “You always tried to take care of me. Please…do it one last time. Pick up the rapier.”
Grimly Kell complied, scooping up the foil. “En garde, then.”
Sean raised his own weapon and moved forward.
From her painful position on the floor, Raven watched with her heart in her throat as the two brothers engaged in what could be mortal combat. From the first it was clear that Kell’s skill was much greater than his brother’s. Sean’s movements were clumsy, slow, as if he were deliberately exposing his defenses. It was only moments before Kell caught his brother’s blade and, with a powerful twist of his wrist, sent it flying across the gazebo.
The light in Sean’s eyes was almost triumphant, Raven thought. He wanted to lose this fight, wanted to die, wanted Kell to kill him.