Page 7 of The Duke's Only Desire

“Don’t worry, pet,” he promised, although she now struck at him with her open palm for him to release her. “Once I’m backfrom my wedding trip, we’ll have plenty of opportunity to enjoy ourselves, including the rough stuff.”

He abruptly released her. She dropped to the ground and stumbled back, barely missing a pile of old manure. Shoving down her skirt with one hand and pulling up her bodice with the other, she scurried from the stall as fast as she could and out of the barn. She didn’t look back.

Shay clenched his jaw so hard the muscle in his neck jumped.

“Don’t worry.” John yanked up his breeches and set to shoving the tail of his shirt inside the waistband. “I didn’t mean that last part.” He grinned, revealing how drunk he truly was when he swayed off-balance as he buttoned his fall. “I never plan to see that used bit again. Once I’m married, I’ll take a mistress. You know what they say about mistresses.” He laughed. “More blunt but better cunt!”

Fury pulsed hot through Shay’s veins, and his hands drew into fists.

John slapped his hand on Shay’s shoulder as he turned to leave the stall. “If you’re going to play nursemaid, then next time at least let me finish in peace. I could’ve had a second plow for the same price.”

He slammed his shoulder into Shay’s chest as he walked past him into the aisle.

Something snapped inside Shay. Without warning, he grabbed John by the throat and threw him against the stall door. John’s eyes widened, and in his drunkenness, he was too slow and too numb to react. Shay pinned him there, his hand wrapped tightly around John’s throat.

“If you harm Sophie in any way, you will regret it,” Shay ground out through gritted teeth. He had never physically attacked his brother before, but it was all he could do not to pummel him into oblivion. “I will make you suffer for it. Understand?”

John nodded, his eyes wide as his hands clawed at Shay’s forearm to make him ease his grip.

Shay slowly loosened his hold. A deep, harsh gasp came from John as he sucked in the breath Shay had knocked from him, then collapsed against the wall.

Shay spat onto the hay at his feet and muttered, “You don’t deserve her.”

“But I’m the one who gets her,” John countered darkly. A murderous light gleamed in his bloodshot eyes. “Not you.”

A sickening realization filled Shay’s gut. Somehow, John had learned about the letters and his visits to Sophie, and he planned to use that knowledge against them.

“That little bit’s going to be my property, to use as I wish, to sully and dirty however I please with whatever twisted debaucheries I can imagine.” He swiped the back of his hand across his lips. “Remember that, Seamus, when you return to England on your next leave and find her bred with the sonIput inside her.”

Rage flamed through Shay, and all he could think about in that moment…murder.He wanted John dead to protect Sophie. More—he wanted Sophie for himself. “If you harm her,” Shay repeated deliberately, cold promise lacing every word, “I will kill you.”

He easily could, too. They both knew it. His training with Anthony Titus at Eton, followed by fighting the French, had taught him the skills to kill with abandon and the ruthlessness not to give a damn if he did. Including his own brother.

Shay turned to walk away, afraid of what he might do if he stayed.

A hard fist caught him on the side of the head. He staggered forward from the cowardly blow and spun around to face the attack. Another fist caught him on the chin.

Instinctively, he lowered his shoulder and plowed forward, ramming into John’s soft belly.

They crashed against the wall. Arms swinging and punches flying, they grappled back and forth across the aisle, pushing open doors and knocking over the buckets and barrels sitting in their way.

In his drunkenness, John was unable to react quickly enough to dodge Shay’s fists. He leaned over with a groan as one landed in his gut, then snapped back as the last punch hit him in the jaw. He spun around, then toppled to the floor.

When John tried to rise, he tripped over his own feet and fell again. This time, he stayed down.

Shay spat out a trickle of blood from the cut on his lip. Then he stormed out of the stable and back toward the house before he could kick John while he was down. Or truly kill him.

His hand shook uncontrollably as he raked his fingers through his hair and tried to suck in deep breaths to calm himself.Control,he repeated inside his head. The old mantra Anthony Titus had taught him…Find control.

God only knew how close he’d just come to killing his own brother.Jesus, how much he had wanted to do exactly that!

Stopping halfway to the house, he stared down at his hands. Still shaking, with bloodied and bruised knuckles, they might be the hands of a fighter. Even a killer during war.

But they weren’t the hands of a murderer.

“Not yet,” he muttered, thinking of Sophie and the things John had promised to do to her.

Shay couldn’t protect her once they were wed. So he had to stop the marriage before it happened.Hadto find a way to save her—