“Ye could have refused,” Brodee said plainly.
“Laird, surely ye ken that to refuse would have angered my laird, and I would have put myself in grave peril.”
“Aye, I ken it perfectly.”
The priest practically sagged before Brodee, and Kinsey said, “See here, how fair and understanding our new laird is!”
Rousing cheers went up in the great hall from the Kincaides. Brodee’s men stood silent, knowing him as they did.
Once the cheering died down and everyone was looking at him expectantly, he turned to Patience. She stepped back, surprised, but he caught her by one slender wrist. “Ye must trust me.”
Her wary gaze met his, but as he pulled her to his side, she did not fight him. He brought her close and then swept his hand toward her. “Tell me, Father Bisby, how did ye cleanse Lady Patience’s soul?” The man’s beady eyes darted between Patience and Brodee. “Did ye pray for her?” Brodee asked.
“I, well, ye see, I deemed it necessary to use harsher measures,” the priest sputtered.
Harsher measures.Brodee could only imagine what that meant. He could not stop his fist from curling at his side, and he took grim pleasure in Father Bisby’s gaze going to Brodee’s clenched fist.
“And why did ye ‘deem it necessary’?” he asked. “Did she fight ye?”
“Nay, but—”
“Protest?” Brodee interrupted.
“Well, aye, but—”
“Without any real proof, did ye nae deem itnecessaryto be as restrained as ye could with the soul cleansing, perhaps consider yer laird was leading ye astray?” Brodee’s blood was boiling now. He could see the answer in the man’s eyes. He’d enjoyed punishing Patience, and he knew damn well she was no witch. “How did ye cleanse her soul?” he asked, repeating his earlier question.
“I, well, I—”
“He made me walk on smoldering wood,” Patience said, her voice very small. Brodee hissed in a breath.
When the priest opened his mouth to speak, Brodee said, “Dunnae ye even dare.”
The priest clamped his jaw shut, and Patience continued. “He held me underwater. Quite regularly. He seared me with the mark of the cross.”
Shock yielded to fury when Patience pulled up the right sleeve of her gown and showed him the brand on the tender skin of her right arm. The puckered red skin stood in stark contrast to the rest of her unblemished olive skin. She looked up at Brodee then, her gaze imploring and making his chest ache with the raw vulnerability he saw there.
“I dunnae wish to continue,” she whispered.
He went to place a hand on her shoulder, and she flinched away. He had to wonder, if the priest had done all this under the directive of her husband, what had that man done to her directly?
“Ye dunnae need to,” he assured her. He had heard more than enough to deal with the priest, and the Kincaides had seen that he’d listened and would judge accordingly. “Father Bisby, for yer crimes against the mistress of this castle, I punish ye to death.”
Buzzing immediately started in the hall once more, and the priest began to wail his protest.
“Nae, death,” Patience protested above the din.
Immediately, silence fell once more. “Ye argue for leniency for this man who has hurt ye?”
“Nay,” she said, her face setting like stone. “Death is too quick.”
Brodee’s eyes widened at her words. For a fragile-looking lass there was mettle hiding under that facade. “What do ye wish?”
“I wish him to endure every punishment he ever gave me, and then I wish him to be cast from this castle forever.”
“So be it,” Brodee pronounced, which set the great hall to buzzing once more. “Guards!” he called, and they came forth to grasp the priest by each of his arms. “Take him to the courtyard. Start a fire, bring water, and bring my branding iron.”
Patience gasped. “Ye have yer own branding iron?”
