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ELEVEN
Stan woke up choking, no, drowning, just like that time Grant had thought it was a good idea to teach him to swim by tossing him over the side of the boat. Water filled his mouth, his throat, blocking out all air...
But the pain in his shoulder was gone. Stan relaxed, no longer fighting the liquid so that it could flow down the proper channels to where it would do him good instead of harm.
"Good boy," a feminine voice purred.
So that was what her voice sounded like, for it could belong to no one other than Carline. Who was now dressing his wounds, whatever they were. Her hands were unbelievably soft as she stroked his chest. Putting some healing salve on him, perhaps? Must be. He'd heard silly tales, back in Scotland, about her being a witch, but he'd known they were lies. Perhaps she had some skill with herbs, as was expected of the lady of the house, and she could practice her herbcraft on him for as long as she liked.
A stab of pain bit into his chest, right between his ribs. God, but it hurt. Like being stabbed in the heart, which could not be, for he was still living, breathing.
"Carline...what...what are you doing?"
That was William Steel's voice, shaking in a manner Stan had never heard before. A wild sort of satisfaction came over him. If Carline could frighten her brother so, then it was a good thing.
Another stab to his heart, followed by a third cut, deeper than the first two. It was all Stan could do not to scream.
"It's not what you think, William. These men attacked the mill. I had no choice but to shoot them. They were armed with axes, look."
Stan wanted to sit up so he might look, too. How dare anyone attack Carline? He'd come here to protect her. To protect her always. From mad axe men and her mercenary brother and any other man who dared to even look at her with lust in his eyes. She was his to protect!
"Help me dig graves for them, William. Around the walls of the mill."
What a strange place for graves. Didn't dead men belong in the burial ground, just outside Perth? Or the one in Fremantle. Then again, not everyone could be buried so close to town. Peel's ill-fated settlers who died on the beach in Clarence had been laid to rest not far from their squalid tents. Stan and several other strong men had been asked to dig graves in the sand dunes behind the camp, to bury the bodies. He suspected that's why Peel had headed south, instead of building a proper town in Clarence, like he'd originally planned. Didn't want to be haunted by the ghosts of the families who'd died, believing in the promises he'd never fulfilled.
"What have you done?" William hissed. "This is Grant Steel, our cousin."
The axe men had killed Grant? Oh, no. Poor Grant. So full of life. Stan couldn't bear the thought that his cousin was dead.
"And that's Stanley Steel, another cousin! Carline, you've killed family!"
No she hadn't! He was still alive, Stan wanted to shout, but he couldn't seem to move. The strangest lassitude spread through his body, like he'd drunk a bottle of the finest whisky and it was flowing all the way down to his toes.
Except whisky would have burned and this felt cold. Cold and dark. Almost like death.
Stan tried to shout a protest, but he was too late. The darkness had him now.
