Page 75 of Claiming His Scottish Duchess
She met Richard’s eye. A blink. A nod.
She moved.
With every ounce of strength left in her, she lunged at Mortridge like a creature possessed. Her fingers sank into his wrist—hard—nails digging deep like claws. He roared in surprise.
“You wench?—!”
She yanked downward with all her weight, dragging him off-balance. The pistol tumbled from his hand, clattering uselessly to the ground.
Before she could blink, Richard was on him.
“Get away from them!” he bellowed, crashing into Mortridge with such force that the two men hit the earth like felled timber.
Then came the fury—relentless, brutal.
“You killed my brother!” Richard roared, slamming his fist into Mortridge’s face.
Another blow—sickeningly loud.
“Youmurderedhim and his wife!”
Catriona pulled Lydia behind her, shielding the girl’s eyes, though her own were fixed in horrified awe. Richard was gone. Not absent—transformed. No longer the careful, composed duke. He was wrath incarnate, grief sharpened to a blade.
Mortridge sputtered, hands flailing. “He was going to ruin everyth?—”
“He was trying toprotect us,” Richard growled. “And you silenced him.”
He hit him again. Mortridge’s lip split, and blood sprayed the leaf-littered earth.
“You dared to threaten them—threaten myfamily—” Another punch, straight to the ribs.
Mortridge wheezed.
Catriona’s breath caught. He wasn’t just fighting for justice. He was fighting for her. For Lydia. For everything he had almost lost.
Mortridge curled in on himself, whimpering. “Please—enough?—”
Richard froze, his chest heaving. For one terrible moment, Catriona wasn’t sure if he’d stop.
“Uncle, stop!”
Lydia’s small voice cut through the haze of his fury like a tempest. He froze in place in an instant, his fist hovering inches above Lord Mortridge’s bloodied face as he came back to the present.
He looked at his niece, her bright blue eyes wide with fear. It was a familiar fear. In fact, she looked at him with the same expression she held in Lord Mortridge’s presence.
What am I doing?
Had he been so blinded by rage?
He was beating a man senseless before his niece’s eyes. If he continued, he’d become just another monster in her impressionable young mind.
No, that would not do.
This would be the last time Lydia would see violence.
The fight drained out of him as quickly as it had surged. With a shuddering breath, he released Lord Mortridge, whose eyes rolled back into his head.
Unconscious, incapacitated. Not dead.
