The Shadows

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The Shadows Page 24

by Chance, Megan


  “No chaste kiss.”

  It seemed an eternity before he reached the stables, hauling a semiconscious Aidan inside and maneuvering him over slippery straw and sawdust to the tack room, where Jerry was snoring away. Diarmid got Aidan to the cot and let him fall there. Aidan hit his head against the wall on the way down, moaning.

  “Quiet,” Diarmid whispered.

  Aidan grabbed his shirt, pulling him close. “’Preciate this.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Aidan said, “Broken up.”

  “Pardon?”

  “We’re all . . . broken up.” A half-uttered sob. Aidan was crying. “Everythin’ ruined.”

  Drunken blathering. He wished Aidan would shut up and go to sleep. Diarmid pulled away, and Aidan let him go.

  “Grace too,” Aidan said. “But there’s somethin’ ’bout you. You look like . . .” His head lolled to the side. He said with amazement, “Screamin’s . . . stopped.” And then he was unconscious.

  Diarmid sighed. No wonder Grace was so worried. All that talk about curses and screaming. Diarmid sat against the wall, bringing up his knees and leaning his head back to look at the ceiling.

  “She’ll say yes.”

  But she hadn’t yet, had she?

  He closed his eyes as exhaustion washed over him. Before he knew it, he was lost in dreams where he was kissing her, and she lifted her pale throat to him, and he pressed his mouth to her pulse and felt the beat of her heart in his blood. Then a knife flashed in his raised hand, and there was a terrible scream, and his arms were empty and he was alone and waiting in darkness. He heard thunder and the roar of a cyclone wind, and she was there again, her hair alive in lightning, the air pulsing blue and violet and red, her dark eyes dancing as she swept everything in her path away.

  He woke to an unfamiliar voice saying in irritation, “Do I pay you to sleep? And what the hell is Aidan Knox doing here?”

  Diarmid opened his eyes, staring into a pair of expensive boots, slowly becoming aware that his neck had a crick in it and his shoulder hurt from being jammed up next to a bootjack and his bruises from the gang fight were sorer than ever. He blinked and rolled—he was on the floor, he realized—and rose to his elbows, peering up at a young man with hair just this side of blond who was staring at him with a mixture of concern and annoyance.

  “We haven’t met,” the young man said. “But I’m your employer. Patrick Devlin. Jerry tells me you’re Derry.”

  Diarmid winced both at the silly rhyme and the pain, and struggled to his feet. “Aye. One of your twin dogs, at your service.” The moment he got a good look at Patrick Devlin, he knew what Grace saw in him. Don’t think of that. Diarmid rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry. Late night.”

  Devlin glanced to where Aidan was sprawled on the cot. “Aidan was involved, I take it.”

  Diarmid nodded. “Though mostly it was me trying to save him from himself.”

  “I see.” Devlin frowned.

  Too late, Diarmid remembered that Aidan’s condition wouldn’t do much to help Grace. “I don’t know that it’s a common thing—”

  “I need to talk to you,” Devlin interrupted.

  Diarmid was blurry with sleep, but even so he knew how odd it was that Patrick Devlin would want to have any kind of conversation with his stableboy. Lucy, he thought first. And then, the ogham stick—but no, Grace had promised not to tell.

  But that was before he’d lied to her and tricked her. Before he’d kissed her, and she’d slapped him.

  “About what?” Derry said, then realized no stableboy would speak to a master that way.

  Devlin didn’t bat an eye. He was looking at Aidan. He murmured to himself, “I suppose I should get him home first. Grace will be worried.” To Diarmid he said, “Come to the house in an hour. Could you do that?”

  Devlin’s manner was unusual. Asking, not demanding, as was his right. Warily, Diarmid said, “Aye.”

  “Miss Knox has told me some interesting things,” Devlin said casually. “Very interesting things. About you.”

  Now Diarmid went cold. Grace had told Devlin something about him, but what? And why? She’d been angry. She couldn’t have said anything good. But then again, she didn’t know anything. Not who they really were. Not what the ogham stick meant. Not that they suspected Devlin was involved, nor that they believed it was the Brotherhood who had called them here.

  Devlin gestured to Aidan. “Help me get him on a horse.”

  Diarmid shook Aidan awake. Grace’s brother looked around blearily, moaning and grabbing his head.

  “God,” Aidan said, and then he noticed Devlin. “Patrick. What the hell’re you doin’ here?”

  “You’re in my stables,” Devlin pointed out.

  Aidan laughed—he was still a little drunk, Diarmid realized as he helped Grace’s brother to his feet. Which was also odd. He must have had even more whiskey than Diarmid had thought. He had to help Aidan into the saddle. Devlin jumped in front, and Aidan made some derisive comment about riding like a girl, and they started toward the stable doors.

  Diarmid was halfway to the water barrel when Devlin said, “One hour, Diarmid Ua Duibhne. Don’t be late.”

  Diarmid froze. For a moment he didn’t think he’d heard correctly. His name. His name, which no one but the other Fianna knew. Grace didn’t know it. She could not have told Devlin. How does Devlin know it?

  But by the time Diarmid had gathered himself enough to look back, Patrick Devlin was already riding out into another sweltering, thundering day.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Grace

  Everything went from bad to worse when I opened the front door to find Patrick supporting a disheveled and still-stumbling Aidan.

  Mama put her hand to her mouth, and the only sound that came from her was a high little eek.

  “For God’s sake, don’ bring me here,” Aidan slurred.

  Patrick gave my mother a reassuring smile and glanced past her to me. “I thought I’d deliver your brother to you, as he seems in no state to get himself home.”

  “Oh, Aidan.” I wanted to cry.

  My brother raised his eyes to me. “Grace, don’.”

  “It’s all right,” Patrick said softly. “Might we come inside?”

  My mother stirred to life, standing back to let them in. Patrick released Aidan, who stumbled over the doorjamb. Patrick grabbed him again. “Shall I help him to his room?” he asked me.

  I nodded numbly.

  “I c’n make it on my own,” Aidan said, but he fell over the first step. I followed as Patrick and Aidan made their slow way up, Aidan crashing against the wall, the banister, Patrick. Patrick took Aidan to his room, releasing my brother to fall upon his bed. Aidan hit the mattress with a garbled groan, as limp as a rag doll, his hair tumbling into his face.

  Patrick was breathing hard as he turned to face me. He took my hands, pulling me to him, wrapping his arms around me while I buried my face in his shirt. A fresh, clean scent, no dust or sweat or blood. I felt his kiss on my hair.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s all right, Grace, truly. I’m only glad I could bring him home to you again.”

  I felt the rumble of his voice against my cheek. I didn’t want to pull away. In Patrick’s arms, everything seemed all right. But it wasn’t. Nothing was going to be all right again. I heard my mother’s step and drew back. “Thank you,” I whispered.

  He nodded. Then my mother was there, saying, “Patrick, you’ve been so kind. Will you stay for tea? I do wish we had some way to thank you.”

  Patrick shook his head. His gaze lingered on me. “I’m afraid I can’t stay. I have a meeting. But I wanted to be certain Aidan got home safely.”

  “Grace,” Aidan murmured from the bed. “You don’ know . . .”

  “I suppose you’d best tend to him. I won’t keep you,” Patrick said.

  “Let me show you out,” Mama offered.

  Once they were gone, I turned on A
idan with fury. “What’s wrong with you? How could you let Patrick see you like this?”

  He ducked his head as if he thought I meant to hit him—which didn’t seem such a bad idea. “It wasn’t my fault.”

  “You couldn’t have picked some club where he was unlikely to go?”

  “Wasn’t at a club. He came to the stable.”

  “The stable? What stable?”

  “Where I was sleepin’.”

  My head felt filled with static. That damned thunder! “Why would you be sleeping in a stable?”

  “Derry took me there.”

  “Derry?”

  Aidan nodded, covering his eyes. “’E was at the club.”

  “Derry was at a club with you?”

  “Gamblin’ hell. Nasty place.”

  Nothing about this could be good. “Why were you with Derry at a gambling hell?”

  “’E found me there.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “’E was there,” said my brother. “Made me come to the stable with him.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  Aidan shrugged and then grimaced. “Made me stop drinkin’ an’ leave. I didn’ want to come home, so ’e took me with ’im.”

  I stared down at my brother. It was Derry, not Patrick, who had found and taken care of Aidan. The static in my head grew louder—a buzzing, but muffled and foggy. “But why?”

  “I think it was for you. The way ’e looks at you . . . Thought ’e was with Lucy?”

  “He is. He was, I mean. Not anymore, I imagine. I told Patrick about them.”

  My brother winced again. “Wha’ for? That was mean.”

  Yes, it had been. But it was best for Lucy, and for me. It was best.

  “Iss all broken, Grace.” He clutched his head. “God, that thunder! It hurts. . . . Don’ it hurt you too?”

  “The thunder isn’t what hurts you, Aidan.”

  “Patrick called Derry somethin’ strange . . . Diarmid. ’E called him Diarmid. Like the legend. You ’member? Diarmid and Grainne. Like you. Funny.” Aidan’s laughter turned hysterical. I waited until he calmed again, until he grabbed my hand, and I saw his love for me burning in eyes that looked too bright, feverish. “Don’ run off with him, Grace. Not like the story. Promise me. I can’t keep you safe then. Don’ go. Don’ go.”

  The same words from my dreams, said the same way. The buzzing in my head stopped, just like that. “What? What did you say?”

  “’E’ll change things.” Aidan flung his arm over his eyes. “Change everythin’.”

  Aidan was just drunk. As always. “I think you should sleep.”

  “All right,” he said agreeably. “Close th’ curtains.”

  I ignored that. Let him sleep in the light. It was nearly noon. I stepped away from the bed, leaving him lying there, fully clad, filthy boots streaking the coverlet.

  I had my hand on the door when Aidan said, “Somethin’ strange about Derry, though, don’ you think?”

  I paused and turned to look at him. “What do you mean?”

  “In the right light, you know . . .” Aidan’s voice was barely there. “He rather . . . glows.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Diarmid

  Diarmid went to the back door, the servants’ entrance, and waited tensely for the maid to fetch Patrick Devlin.

  The maid came back, surveying him with a frank—and appreciative—gaze as she said with obvious surprise, “He wants to see you in his study.”

  He followed her down the hallway where Grace had come upon him the night he’d stolen the ogham stick. The study was bright, daylight coming through the windows and gas flames wavering in their polished sconces.

  “Here he is, sir,” said the maid, closing the door carefully behind her when she left.

  Patrick Devlin sat at his desk, looking rather like a boy playing with his father’s things until he glanced up, and Diarmid saw that Devlin was as tense as he was.

  Devlin stood. He came around the desk slowly and then leaned back against it, crossing his arms over his chest. “Thank you for coming.”

  “I didn’t know I had a choice, Mr. Devlin,” Diarmid said.

  “Oh, I think you know that you do.” Devlin smiled thinly. “And please, call me Patrick. I think you’ll find that we have common interests, and I’d like for us to be friends. Shall I tell you what I know of you?”

  Diarmid nodded.

  “Miss Knox tells me that my sister is in love with you.”

  Diarmid said nothing, but he felt Grace’s vengeance with a little shock. He hadn’t thought she would do this—he’d underestimated her. Or at least underestimated how shaken she’d been by the fight with the Black Hands and perhaps . . . the kiss too. No, definitely the kiss. She had slapped him and run from him.

  “She’ll say yes.”

  Suddenly Diarmid realized how hard she was trying to keep him away. And when he realized that, he knew she’d told Patrick everything.

  “She also tells me that you belong to a gang. And she believes you have the ogham stick that was stolen from this room.”

  In a way, Diarmid admired the completeness of it, how willing she was to destroy him.

  She might have succeeded, too, if Patrick Devlin hadn’t been a member of the Fenian Brotherhood. If there hadn’t been more—much more—that she didn’t know.

  “Finn’s Warriors,” Patrick said thoughtfully. “Do you know what I find interesting?”

  “No idea,” Diarmid said.

  “That it’s what the Fianna might call themselves today. Finn’s Warriors.”

  Say nothing, Diarmid cautioned himself. Listen.

  “Two months ago, just after I returned from Ireland, a man came to me with something to sell. He knew of my interest in Celtic antiquities. He had a horn he’d won in a wager. It was a horn that looked very like drawings I’d seen—except there was an inscribed silver band. It had been cracked, you see, in battle, and they’d stripped away the ruined bronze and repaired it with silver.”

  “I used to have a horn,” she’d said. “Aidan lost it in a faro game.” But the silver she’d mentioned had confused him. He hadn’t considered that it might have changed over the years. Stupid.

  “A friend of mine can read ogham. He’s descended from Druids, and many of these relics still hold the old magic.” Patrick’s eyes were very green in the light. “But you know that already, don’t you?”

  “The dord fiann,” Diarmid murmured.

  Patrick nodded. “The Brotherhood has been studying the old spells for some time. So did my father, and he passed the interest down to me. I knew there must be a veleda to use the horn correctly, but my father had said we were descended from her. That her blood runs in our veins, and . . . I hoped. We performed the ritual and blew the horn. But no Fianna appeared.”

  Patrick met Diarmid’s gaze. “I don’t know if you can imagine my disappointment. All these years . . . trying everything we could to save our homeland. We were desperate, and I’d believed at last we had some way to win. For days we waited, and then we realized no Fianna were coming. You must understand . . . no one thought the horn had worked. But it had. It had. Just . . . not in the way I’d imagined.”

  “What way was that?” Diarmid asked.

  Patrick laughed. “I’d thought you would appear in my parlor. The blood, the incantation, and three blows of the dord fiann, and—voilà!—there you would be.”

  “That’s the way it should have worked. I don’t know why it didn’t.”

  “I see.” Patrick hesitated. “Where did you wake?”

  “In a tenement near Mulberry Street. We’ve been looking for who called us ever since.”

  Patrick’s voice turned reverent. “Finn’s here. Finn MacCool. And you . . . Diarmid Ua Duibhne. That’s who you are, isn’t it? I knew it when Grace said Lucy had fallen in love with you overnight. My sister is prone to lovesickness, but when she begged me to hire you, she seemed oddly intent. I didn’t realize . . . I thought she was t
urning her attention to charity work, something worthwhile at last.” He laughed at himself. “But you used the ball seirce on Lucy, didn’t you?”

  “We were looking for who called us,” Diarmid said again. “It occurred to us to look at Irish clubs. Those who might have an interest. The Fenian Brotherhood was one. I needed a way to get close to its leaders. You. Lucy was a way in. I’m sorry for it.”

  “I hardly believe it.”

  Diarmid asked, “What did you intend for us to do?”

  “Ireland’s greatest need—isn’t that what the prophecy says? And she does need you. The Irish are leaving in droves to come here. Britain is destroying them. If this continues, Ireland will be no more. We’ve organized rebellions, but we aren’t strong enough. We need Ireland’s greatest warriors. Her heroes. We called you to go to war against the British. To win self-rule for Ireland.”

  Diarmid felt a rush of relief and excitement. Already the battle lust came upon him, the need to protect and revive his homeland. He wanted the fight, and the others would want it as well. Diarmid hadn’t known until that moment how afraid he’d been that the task would not be an honorable one.

  “So is it a worthy fight?” Patrick asked.

  Diarmid hesitated. “Aye, it seems so. But ’tisn’t my place to decide. If you know the prophecy, you know that as well.”

  Patrick smiled. “Well, Lucy can be fickle, but I think we needn’t worry. She’ll choose as I tell her, especially now that she’s in love with you.”

  “Lucy?”

  “It was her blood on the horn. I admit I’d begun to doubt that any Druid blood ran in our veins, no matter what my father had said.”

  Diarmid shook his head. “Lucy’s not the veleda.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The horn belonged to Grace. Aidan lost it in a bet.”

  Patrick looked blank for a moment. “Grace? You don’t mean—Grace is the veleda?”

  Diarmid said bluntly, “She’s the one who has to choose. She’s not so manageable as Lucy, I’m guessing, but her brother says that you mean to take her to wife. If that’s true, she’s got a reason to want to choose our fight. Of course, once it’s done, and the sacrifice is made—”

 

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