Iron streetlamps illuminated intervals of the footpath. Darkness. Light. Darkness. Light. Darkness.
The closer we got to Gaul, the heavier my heart became. Robert had been my future, my goal, for so long, I wasn’t sure what I was meant to do now. Once Aveen returned, we couldn’t go back to Graystones. There was no guarantee our father would take her back after what had happened. What if he tried to marry her off? What if he expected her to marry Robert since they had been betrothed? I couldn’t let that happen. No one deserved that fate.
Perhaps we could find a cottage somewhere and live out the rest of our lives together. But how would we support ourselves? I had no skills to speak of, and the funds I had from Edward wouldn’t last forever. I had won the wager with Tadhg, so I didn’t owe him any of that money, but it still wouldn’t be enough.
I glanced at Tadhg from beneath my lashes. He conquered the distance with long, confident strides, like he was the master of his own fate, even though it wasn’t true. If anyone was the master of Tadhg’s fate, it was me.
Staying married to him would solve so many problems. I felt something for Tadhg, and those feelings grew stronger every day. Could they eventually blossom into love? I’d thought I knew what love was, but now I wasn’t so sure.
The rows of houses on either side of the cobblestone road grew narrower and taller as we descended into Gaul. We passed the blue-and-white teahouse where I sat and dreamed only a few days ago, a naïve fool who believed herself in love. The river rushed toward the sea, and we followed it until we reached a large building decorated with dry-stacked stone.
The ground floor windows in the Arches pub were dark; light leaked from between cracks in the curtains on the first floor.
“We’re staying here?” I asked.
Tadhg pounded on the front door, rattling the brass knob. “The owner has a few spare rooms, and I know he won’t mind.”
A few moments later, footsteps sounded from within. Locks scraped from the other side, and the door opened. The black-haired bartender I’d met earlier peered through the gap. When he saw us, his yellow eyes widened.
“I apologize for calling this late, Lorcan, but would it be possible for us to sleep here tonight?” Tadhg asked, looking pointedly at me.
“Of course.” The man opened the door wider and waved us inside. “Come in, come in. Hello again, pretty human. I see you found your Tadhg.”
My Tadhg. “Please, call me Keelynn.”
The foyer had a set of massive double doors that would lead into the pub. There was a second smaller door to the right.
“Lovely to meet you officially, Princess Keelynn.” The man opened the smaller door, which led to a curved wrought iron staircase that creaked as we climbed.
“I’m not a princess.” I was no one.
Lorcan glanced at me from over his shoulder, his brow furrowed. “I thought the two of you were married.” He stopped when we reached a small landing.
I darted a look at Tadhg. He waited and watched, giving no indication of whether or not I should answer honestly. He was the one who had said he didn’t want others knowing his business. Did this man count? He’d called me a princess, so he must know something.
“Yes,” I said. “We are.”
If Tadhg got upset, it was his own fault for not speaking up.
Lorcan’s eyes bounced between the two of us. Then he shrugged and opened the door to a candlelit living room with mustard-colored walls and a welcoming fire blazing in the fireplace. Piles of colorful cushions spread over a thick Aubusson carpet in front of the hearth, looking plush and inviting.
A familiar figure sat on the arm of one of the sofas. His yellow eyes widened, and his fangs appeared when he grinned. “Hello, human.”
“Ruairi!” I ran toward him and threw my arms around his broad shoulders. His long hair tickled my cheek, and his shirt smelled faintly of pine sap and alcohol. He was alive. Not that I hadn’t believed Tadhg, but there was a rush of relief in seeing him for myself.
“And ye thought I was messin’ when I said she’d rather marry me.” His laugh rumbled as he gave me an awkward pat on the back.
Remembering my manners, I promptly let go and pressed a hand to my quivering stomach. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
“I have that effect on most women. Don’t worry. I won’t tell Tadhg ye secretly fancy me,” Ruairi said with a wink.
Tadhg snorted and dropped onto the floor, propping himself up with two of the wide cushions. He undid the buckles at the top of his boots and tossed them in front of the fire.
A woman came into the room from the hallway, wearing a simple blue dress with a black corset and apron. When she saw me, she froze. “Is this who I think it is?”
Tadhg nodded, and the woman dropped into an awkward curtsy. “It’s such a pleasure to finally meet you, Princess Keelynn. Tadhg has told us such wonderful things.”
“Has he?” I glanced over to find Tadhg staring intently at the fire.
“Don’t listen to Deirdre,” he muttered. “She lies.”
“Never mind him.” The woman, Deirdre, waved a hand in his direction. “He’s been in a foul mood all day. Would you like some food, princess? Or a drink, perhaps?”
After everything that had happened, I should want a drink. I should want to drown my sorrows into tomorrow. Instead, I wanted to remember this night and the way it felt to be betrayed by Robert so that it didn’t happen a third time.
“A bit to eat would be lovely, thank you. And please, just call me Keelynn.” I was no more a princess than the cushion I sat on beside Tadhg. I removed my slippers and set them beside Tadhg’s boots. Ruairi fell backward onto the turquoise sofa, and Lorcan went with Deirdre into what I assumed was the kitchen.
“Is Deirdre a witch?” I whispered to Tadhg.
He shook his head. “She’s human.”
“Oh. Right.” A human who was friendly with the Danú. “And she and Lorcan are . . . ?”
“Married,” he said with a soft chuckle. He flexed the fingers on his left hand, and I couldn’t help but stare at the black band around his ring finger.
“And Lorcan is a . . . ?”
“A thieving bastard who stole my feckin’ woman,” Ruairi grumbled from the sofa, bouncing his heels off the arm.
“I was never your woman,” Deirdre said on her way out of the kitchen, pushing a cart laden with tea cakes and a porcelain tea set. “And to answer your question, Keelynn, my husband is a pooka.”
“Like hell he is,” Ruairi said. “He’s a rutting half-breed who wishes he was one of us.”
Lorcan came out laughing, two wine bottles in hand. “You’re just jealous because I’m prettier than you.”
Ruari shot upright and glared at Lorcan’s grinning face. “Ye are not.”
“Am too. Ask Keelynn.” Lorcan gestured toward me with a bottle. “She can’t lie.”
Four sets of eyes locked on me.
If Tadhg had let that little detail slip as well, he must trust these people. And if Tadhg trusted them, then I was determined to do the same. “Sorry, Ruairi. Lorcan is prettier because he doesn’t have scary fangs.”
Lorcan gave a victorious bow. “Thank you, milady.” He pulled a wine key from his breast pocket and started removing the cork from one of the bottles.
“Ah, come on. These little things?” Ruairi flicked his tongue over the tips of his canines. “They wouldn’t hurt ye—unless yer into a bit of pain with your pleasure.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
“Has that line ever worked for you?” Deirdre asked with a laugh, offering me the tray of cakes. I chose a sticky cherry tart dusted with icing sugar.
“Ye’d be surprised what some humans like. Just last month, I met a woman who wanted me to—”
Tadhg cleared his throat, and Ruairi stopped. He looked confused at first, then his gaze found mine. “Let’s just say she didn’t mind my fangs one bit,” he finished with a wink.
The exchange brought me back to another conversatio
n I’d had with Tadhg, back when I’d asked about humans and creatures together. No wonder he’d called me ignorant. It was obvious now that they mixed all the time. And they intermarried—at least, they did this close to Tearmann.
But he had also said that his people wouldn’t accept me as his bride. Was that because he was a prince?
Tadhg snagged a pear tart and took a massive bite. Crumbs and icing sugar fell to his lap.
“Must you eat like you were raised in a feckin’ field?” Deirdre snatched a serviette from the cart and tossed it at Tadhg. “Use that or you’ll get crumbs all over my new cushions.”
Tadhg mumbled an apology and slipped the serviette beneath the tart. His next bite was more civilized.
Deirdre nodded and asked what I wanted to drink. “We have faerie wine, witch’s brew, puitín, and stout.”
“I’ll just have tea, please.”
“Tadhg?”
He glanced at me, then back to the tart. “I’ll have the same.”
“Wine for me, Lorcan.” Ruairi threw an arm over the back of the sofa and propped his ankle on his knee, watching Lorcan retrieve wine glasses from a hutch behind the dining table.
Deirdre set out three cups and filled them with dark, fragrant tea. To the first, she added one cube of sugar and a dash of milk, then offered it to me. I thanked her and set the tart on my lap to let the hot cup thaw my frigid fingers. For the next cup, she dropped in five sugar cubes. There was no need to ask whose it was.
“You eat far too much sugar,” I said, watching Tadhg sip and settle deeper into the cushions.
“Sickening, isn’t it?” Deirdre brought her cup to the other sofa. “These bastards could live on custard and cakes and not put on a feckin’ pound. And if I so much as look at sweets, my stay feels too tight.”
“I see nothing wrong with your stays, love,” Lorcan said, pouring greenish yellow liquid into the wine glasses. He handed one glass to Ruairi and brought the other to the sofa beside his wife.
“That’s because you get distracted by what they’re holding in.” She gave him a saucy smile. His grin turned sheepish, and a slight blush painted his cheeks.
“Someone stab me, please,” Ruairi groaned. “I refuse to watch the couples in the room make moon eyes at each other all feckin’ night.”
“You’re just jealous.” Deirdre grabbed a cushion and launched it at Ruairi’s head.
Ruairi spilled some of his drink dodging it. “You mean relieved. What’s love ever done but make folks miserable?”
I had to agree with him there.
Ruairi knocked my foot with his boot. “Take this human here. She’s in love, and she looks proper miserable.”
“I’m not in love. I’m not sure I ever was.”
His dark eyebrows came together. Deirdre and Lorcan exchanged confused looks. Tadhg just sat and fiddled with the buttons at his wrists.
“So you’re not marrying your childhood sweetheart?” Deirdre asked carefully, casting a furtive glance at Tadhg.
Had he given them every detail of my entire life? “I’d rather not marry a man who’s been screwing the maid.”
“Oh, you poor dear.” Deirdre leaned forward to pat my shoulder, her ample chest testing the strength of the laces on her stay. “Did you kill him? I would’ve stabbed the bastard straight in the heart. Isn’t that right, Lorcan?”
He rolled his eyes heavenward. “That’s right, love.”
“I’ve him well warned,” she whispered with a conspiratorial nudge.
“No, I didn’t stab him. But I should have.”
Everyone nodded in agreement, especially Tadhg.
I sat and listened to the friendly banter go back and forth between everyone. Lorcan’s mother was human—hence the lack of fangs—and he and Deirdre had been married for two years.
The conversation ebbed and flowed, and the brief moments of silence were comfortable, with no one hurrying to fill them. Eventually, Ruairi brought up the events from earlier in the evening, when he and Tadhg had gone to Marina’s house on the coast.
“Ye should’ve seen him,” Ruairi said through his laughter, clutching his stomach and wiping tears from his eyes. “Fell on his arse in the middle of a pile of shite chasing a feckin’ pig around a sty.”
Tadhg’s grin was infectious. “Like you could’ve done any better. You had the easy part.”
“Easy? The little one bit me.” Ruairi shoved up his sleeves and pointed to a non-existent mark on his forearm.
“Says the pooka with big, scary fangs,” Lorcan teased.
I could only imagine the chaos of the two of them trying to convince three scared children and a squealing pig to leave their home. “I would’ve loved to have seen it.”
“Tell you what.” Tadhg’s hand fell to my knee. “Next time we decide to go kidnapping, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
The heat from his palm scorched through the layers of fabric to the skin beneath, leaving the muscles in my stomach clenching.
His gaze dropped to his hand, and his smile faltered. When he went to move, I covered his hand with mine. Now that I felt his touch, I didn’t want to be without it.
“Oh, would you look at the time? We’re off to bed.” Deirdre shot to her feet and dragged her husband to his. She kicked Ruairi’s boot on the way past and nodded toward the hallway.
“Oh. Right.” He groaned as he sat upright. “I suppose I should retire as well. Night, Tadhg. Night, human.”
The three of them disappeared down the hallway. There was a distinctive click from one door closing, then a second.
Tadhg’s gaze shifted between my eyes and my mouth. “Sorry they kept you up so late. You must be wrecked.”
“I should be.” But at the moment, sleep was the last thing on my mind, as his callused thumb scraped idle circles over my knuckles.
His eyes met mine, and I could feel my stomach tighten and my breath catch. Leaning forward, I brushed my lips over Tadhg’s, inhaling his sigh. This was what I wanted. This was what I needed. This was what I had been searching for.
When I went to deepen the kiss, his hands came around my hips and pulled me on top of him.
“This is a terrible idea,” he groaned, adjusting his grip on my hips, urging me to move against him.
He felt so good beneath me, and I rolled my hips forward, craving more of him. This. Us. What if we stayed married? What if we tried to make this work? Bloody hell. This was definitely working for me.
“It would seem your body disagrees,” I said with a smile.
His hips bucked, grinding into mine. “Yes, well, my body and I are rarely in agreement.”
Realization set in, and I stopped moving.
The curse. How could I forget that he couldn’t say no to me? I’d been so consumed by what I wanted, I hadn’t made sure this was what he wanted as well.
“I’m sorry. I thought you wanted to—”
“I did. I do.” He lifted his hips and groaned.
“Shit. I really do . . .” His eyes fell closed, and he inhaled a ragged breath. “I just . . . I don’t think . . .” He winced. “After everything that’s happened today, I’m not sure it’s what either of us need.”
My body screamed when I rolled off of him and collapsed onto the cushions. I didn’t want him to be right, but he was. Until a few hours ago, I had believed myself in love with another man. It wasn’t fair to toy with Tadhg’s emotions like this. He loved me and wanted to stay married to me, and I honestly didn’t know what I wanted.
Tadhg adjusted his breeches and scrubbed a hand down his face.
That wasn’t entirely true. I knew I wanted him. Staying married was the easiest choice, but was it the right one?
Tadhg watched me through clear eyes, a wrinkle forming as his eyebrows slowly drew together. “You look troubled,” he said, his voice husky and thick.
“I don’t know what to do,” I confessed, feeling like a fool.
“About what?”
“Anything.”
Tad
hg chuckled and shook his head. “I know what you need.”
“Do you now? What’s that?”
He settled himself onto the pillows and patted his chest. “Head here.”
My heart swelled as I laid my head over his heart and snuggled into his warm embrace. When he started playing with my hair, tears welled in my eyes. Instead of wiping them away, I let them seep into the soft linen of his shirt as I cried.
For my sister.
For the future I had lost.
And for the future that could still be.
28
A faded green dome crowned the great cathedral in Gaul. I half expected Tadhg to burst into flames the moment we passed the vat of holy water at the threshold.
Two people knelt in front of the pews, facing the grandiose altar below a rosette window. I had expected him to ask Ruairi to bring us to Tearmann, but Tadhg had said he had some business to attend to in the city. Instead of leaving me behind, he asked if I wanted to join him. I wasn’t sure what sort of business took place in a cathedral, but I supposed I was about to find out.
Sunlight streamed through panel after panel of stained glass, casting rainbows across the floor. The only noise in the breathtaking space was the sound of our boots clicking on the marble tiles. Tadhg stopped when he reached the purple curtains of the confessional and told me to wait for him.
He hadn’t said much since we’d woken in each other’s arms. Lorcan and Deirdre had been bustling around the apartments getting ready to open the pub downstairs, so we hadn’t had time to talk. After he finished whatever business he had here, we would be on our way to Tearmann. In a few days, I would get to see my sister.
If only there were a way to bring her back without having to wait for the curse to end. I could really use her advice about the tangled mess that had become my life.
There were low murmurs from within the confessional, but I couldn’t see the person with whom Tadhg spoke. Was it a priest or someone else? A few minutes later, Tadhg emerged clutching a golden key.
Instead of going to the exit, Tadhg brought me to an arched doorway at the back, concealing two sets of stairs: one curving upward toward the belltower, the other twisting down to the crypts.
A Cursed Kiss (Myths of Airren Book 1) Page 27