That’s what he thought. And why not? He’d seen the damage inflicted. Damage no normal human could withstand. Not even a human like Lazarus. But he had withstood it. Could be on his way back here already. And this time what would Aidan do? The first attempt had almost killed him.
He crossed toward her, an arm out as if to comfort, but she stepped beyond his reach. Stiffened and turned away. It was the only way to save the refuge she’d built around herself over the last weeks. One touch and all her good intentions might shatter like glass. Aidan was off limits. He didn’t belong to her world. And she’d turned her back on his. They’d tested the waters. Found them treacherous and shark infested. Best to remain on shore and dream of the sea.
“I want to leave, Aidan.” She hugged the shawl to herself. Cast a desperate glance in his direction. “Tonight. Right now.”
A frown appeared between his dark, slanting brows. “Leave? Just like that?”
“Why not?
He opened his hands in a gesture of resignation. “The diary isn’t”—his gaze narrowed in thought—“unless you’re through with the diary. I suppose I don’t blame you. It’s been a curse from start to finish.”
She shook him off. “That’s not it. I gave you my word I’d help you with the diary. And for better or worse, I’ll stand by our agreement. But Maude and Daz aren’t safe as long as we remain.”
“It could be weeks before Máelodor realizes his resurrected killer has returned to the grave. We’ve time.”
“No, we don’t,” she urged, hoping he’d take the hint. “Time is definitely not on our side.”
His frown deepened. “What are you trying to say, Cat?”
She threw up her hands. Strode away from him to gaze out the window, imagining again the Domnuathi’s solemn, endless stare. “I’m saying Lazarus is alive. He’s out there. I’ve seen him.”
“Dreams can be powerful.”
She pounded a fist against the casement. “Not a dream.” Spun to face him. “I found him out in the hills. He’s hurt. Badly. But not fatally. He’ll recover. And when he does, I don’t want to be here.”
The frown became a scowl. A stormy, dangerous scowl. “You didn’t say anything? Not to Daz? Not to me?”
“And you would have done what?” Exasperation and her own guilt sharpened her words. “He can’t be killed, Aidan. Not by me. Not by you. You nearly died once trying to vanquish him.”
“So that makes your silence acceptable?”
She pursed her lips. How could she defend herself against the truth?
“Damn it, Cat. What the hell game are you playing?”
Stung, she shot back with the first thought that came to mind. “Perhaps I’ve just found confessions and you aren’t my cup of tea.”
That drew him up short but didn’t stop the irritation from blossoming to full-fledged anger. The transformation obvious in the taut muscles of his face. The furious tapping of his hand against his thigh. “So you would jeopardize everything because I . . . because I might find it a bit troublesome you had not only bedded a man but bore his bastard child?”
She reeled as if struck. Froze him with as glacial a stare as she could muster under the chest-tightening ache of his hurled accusation. Had she really thought anything but disaster could climb out of the wreckage of their tumbled bed? Here was her answer, glaring at her in thunderous outrage. “Damn you!”
He crossed his arms over his chest, arrogance rising off him like smoke. “Don’t act surprised, Cat. It’s exactly what you knew I was going to say.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’ve got this scene all worked out in your mind. How I’m going to react. How you’ll respond to my reaction. All neat and tidy. Makes it easy for you to hide behind your outrage. Push everyone away. Push me away.”
How had their quarrel swerved so off course? How had they gone from Lazarus’s survival and the need to flee to a rehash of the same tired argument? But not quite the same. Aidan was treading onto dangerous ground. Turning her words back on her. Ripping into wounds never truly healed.
Her hands trembled, a rapid pounding rising from her chest into her head as she defended against this unwanted intrusion into what he could never possibly understand. “I saw the contempt in your face,” she fired back. “Heard your stumbling justifications. That wasn’t feigned.”
“Was I shocked? Of course. A babe was the last thing on my mind. But you saw only what you assumed would be there. Answer me this. Are you more furious over what I might think of you, or what you truly think of yourself?”
The first blow struck him on the chin. The follow-up doubled him over. “Agreement or no, I’m done here,” she snarled. “I’m leaving tomorrow for Dublin. Translate your own damned diary.”
“Can’t,” he gasped from his knees, his arm pressed over his stomach. “Need you still.”
“Get used to disappointment. I have.”
“You’re insane,” she spat. “Stark staring mad.”
Aidan peered at her over the top of his paper. “Needs must when the devil drives. And my personal devil may already be on our trail. You said yourself we had to leave immediately.”
“And this?” She offered him her wrists, bound with thin cord.
He winced, knowing he was killing any hope of a reconciliation with Cat, but seeing no alternative. “I need you.”
The whys of that need remained so twisted within his mind that he couldn’t separate the individual reasons any longer. It was easier to say it and let it end there.
She worked the cord at her wrists before slumping back against the seat of the coach. Gazing on him with that same injured expression he’d seen on her face the night he’d caught her in his library. He hardened the cracked and bleeding pieces of his heart against the familiar pulling-the-wings-from-a-butterfly feeling. She’d learn to understand.
That or take a dagger to him in his sleep.
First item of business upon reaching Belfoyle—hide all daggers.
He flipped back to his month-old Dublin paper. Pretended he didn’t feel her viper glare right through the newsprint.
“And Ahern?” she asked after a silence so laden with guilt and accusation he could barely breathe. “Maude? Has your callous behavior extended to leaving them to their deaths? You owe them after all they did to save you.”
His grip on the paper tightened. “Daz and Maude are safe enough. As for what I owe,” he paused. “Daz stole my brother’s life. He gave me mine. Our debts are clear.”
No reply. Hopefully he’d forestalled any further comments long enough to ease his jangled nerves. Swallow the very bad feeling he’d given up the promise of a future before he’d gotten a chance to see what that future held. What might have been between him and Cat would remain just that—what might have been.
Casting away useless regrets as one more victim in this undeclared war, he focused on the immediate—the next days. The next destination.
Belfoyle. His home. The origin of this spider’s web and the last line of defense in a struggle that would gain him the truth or lose him his life.
“We’re almost there. It’s just past this turnoff.”
His impatience was infectious. Cat found herself glancing out the coach window despite her resolve to ignore any and all conversations with the odious person seated across from her.
“There now. Just around this bend.”
She craned her neck as the coach slowed to make a turn past a vacant and overgrown gatehouse and rumbled through iron gates mounted with the Kilronan spread-winged bird and crooked sword.
The avenue wound past long stone walls covered in ivy, heavy stands of ash and oak, a park dotted with grazing cows. In the distance she caught the blue and silver flash of a river.
“Give me your hands,” he said.
She held out her wrists, the flesh red and bruised beneath the cords. A few sharp tugs, a slip of the knots, and she was free.
She forced herself not to rub them, though they hurt like
the devil. “And if the first thing I do is scream bloody murder? Tell everyone I’m your prisoner?”
“They’ll think the same thing the coachman thought when you tried that with him—that you suffer from a nervous condition. A pity, I’ll say, but we’re doing all we can to keep you comfortable while you recover.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “This is my demesne, Cat. Here, I’m master, and they do what I tell them to do. Believe what I tell them to believe.”
“I don’t doubt your father thought the same thing,” she sneered.
The thrust hit home. He paled and looked away.
The coach slowed as they climbed a hill. And she caught her first glimpse of the house, though house hardly seemed a fitting description for Belfoyle.
Castle. Keep. Stronghold.
Terms more suitable to the monstrosity confronting her.
Beyond the arch, huge towers of gray stone rose straight up into the sky, topped by steeply pitched roofs and crenellated battlements. Upon cresting the hill, they drove beneath the gateway into a courtyard where additions and wings moved in every available direction. Tudor warred with Jacobean led into Baroque until the whole place was a hodgepodge of styles and periods.
Cat steeled herself for the few moments of freedom she’d get as the doors were opened. She didn’t care what Aidan said. She had to try to escape. She didn’t belong here. Not with him. Not now. If she could get even one person to doubt his story, she could work her way to freedom. She knew she could.
The coach crunched to a halt upon the gravel.
Stiffening in anticipation, she slid her hand out to grasp the door handle.
Distracted by voices raised in excitement and welcome, Aidan’s attention was elsewhere. This was the moment. She’d not get another such.
Holding her breath, she threw open the door. Scrambled from the coach with a cry of distress, awaiting the clamp of a restraining hand upon her shoulder. Catching her back.
But no hand stopped her. No alarm was raised. And panic flooding her, she flung herself straight into the shocked arms of Jack O’Gara.
“I’ve heard Miss O’Connell’s explanation,” Jack said. “Now I’m interested in hearing yours.”
Aidan looked up from the sideboard. The brandy he’d already drunk had done little to warm the cold, gnawing cramp in his bowels. Instead, nausea squirreled his insides, his balance was off-kilter, and darkness crouched at the corners of his vision. “I can guess what villainy she recounted into your waiting ears.” He poured himself another.
Jack flopped into a chair, stretching his legs out in front of him. Offered a wry smile. “No, coz. I don’t think you can.” He shook his head. “It was quite a tale. A few cogent details conspicuously missing, but my own prurient imagination filled them in. So much for keeping your hands off the help.”
Aidan’s fist came down with a crash that rattled the decanters. Shook a tray of glasses. “If you value our friendship, Jack, shut your mouth. Cat’s a guest. A valued and very precious guest.”
Jack remained unfazed. “That’s not how she tells it. ‘Prisoner’ is how she termed her stay here. Begged me to help her escape. What the hell happened between Dublin and here? Did you actually try summoning one of them?” Gravity hardened the playboy perfection of his face.
“I did,” he answered. “And bear the scars to prove it.”
He turned from the sideboard to stiffly pace the length of the salon, raking the room with a possessive eye. Breathing deeply, he inhaled Belfoyle’s freedom like a drug. Surprised at how just being within his own house upon his own land cleansed the lingering feverish tension from a brain scraped thin from sickness.
“Why don’t we skip the account of how I’ve managed to bungle, fail, and otherwise make a mess of this entire debacle, and focus on you?” He tossed back the brandy. Waited. Nothing. Not even a glimmer of heat to tease him back to life. “What are you doing here, Jack? Dublin get too hot for even your Fey-given luck?”
His cousin straightened in his chair. “Funny you should use that particular term. Hot was just what it was.” He cleared his throat. Shifted uneasily before rising and pouring his own restorative brandy. Tossing it back. “Aidan? How . . . uh . . . how attached were you to Kilronan House?”
Now there was a loaded question if he’d ever heard one. “Why?”
Jack shifted again. Ran a hand over his face. Huffed an uneasy breath. “Well . . . because it’s not there anymore.”
Aidan didn’t explode. Didn’t collapse. Barely inhaled on a quick, shocked gasp. Placing the glass on the mantel with exquisite care, he adjusted it until it caught and refracted light from an arched window nearby. Any action, no matter how small, while his mind wrapped itself around Jack’s outrageous statement.
Catching his cousin’s worried gaze, he nodded. “Explain.”
“It happened three days after you left. Started in the library, suspiciously enough.”
“What started in the library? You’re talking in riddles. And I’m up to my ass in bloody riddles.”
“A fire, Aidan. No one knows how it started, though I have my guesses. Guesses I thought it best to keep to myself when people started asking questions. The place went up like a damned box of tinder. Destroyed everything. There’s a bit of one wall left standing. A few charred chimneys. That’s about it.”
Aidan swallowed back the choking knot of rage. “How many perished?”
“None, thank the gods. They all got out. I’d been caught up in a night of gaming with some friends. Won more than I lost so I stayed later than usual. Didn’t make it home until almost four. Arrived to find the place engulfed in smoke and the fire spreading fast. If I hadn’t—” he let that thought trail off into awkward silence.
“The uncanny O’Gara luck at play?”
Jack shrugged. “Not so lucky for you.”
He thought of the drain on his bank accounts to maintain a town house he rarely visited, the stifling atmosphere of Dublin society where the name Kilronan had become synonymous with bizarre and outrageous half-believed tales of murder, sedition, and financial ruin. By now even Miss Osborne must have decamped for greener pastures.
It was his turn to shrug.
“No one knew where you’d hared off to,” Jack continued. “I started a story about an unplanned trip to visit your Lancashire estates. Then we hired a chaise and headed here. Figured you’d show up sooner or later. We’ve been kicking our heels for weeks, unsure whether you were alive or if that creature Lazarus had tracked you down after torching your house.”
“We?”
Jack cleared his throat. “Yes, well, I was concerned, you see. And she’d been such a help already.”
Aidan didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. “You didn’t. Please tell me you didn’t bring her here.”
“Don’t get your breeches in a twist, Miss Roseingrave’s not here anymore.”
The long face accompanying this statement revealed more about the relationship between Jack and his Amhas-draoi paramour than Aidan cared to know.
“She’s been called away. A messenger arrived a few days ago with a letter and off she went with nary a backward glance.”
“Poor Jack, his lady bird’s flown the coop. Was it you or the diary she decided wasn’t worth the effort?”
“Very funny, but if it’s as Cat said, you may be thankful of Helena’s help. Tell me the gods’ honest truth. Did you really”—Jack shook his head in disbelief—“summon—”
“Yes, Jack. Yes. I summoned an Unseelie. Let it take me over. Almost died. Still feel a jagged piece of it within me.” He pulled a cheroot from his pocket. Lit it with an unsteady hand, singeing his fingers on the candle flame. Inhaled, the smoke filling his lungs. Easing the cramps within a chest squeezed beneath a stoning weight. “And what did I accomplish with this selfless act of heroism? Not a damned bloody thing!”
Disgusted, he tossed the cheroot on the fire. “Cat informs me that she’s seen the monster. Seen him and allowed him to creep away with hi
s tail between his legs. And what happens when he returns, because he will return? Do I summon another Unseelie? Perhaps this one will succeed where the last failed. Do I hand over the diary and pray Lazarus doesn’t rip my head off just for fun?” His hand drummed frantically against his thigh as he stalked the room. His mind a torrent. “What the hell would you have me do?” Falling into a chair, he raised his gaze heavenward. “What the hell does she want from me, Jack?”
A long pause followed before Jack answered, “Did we change conversations?” His voice sounded on a confused note. “I thought we were speaking of the Domnuathi and your continued survival. What’s Miss O’Connell got to do with it?”
Aidan shut his eyes against the remembered glare of loathing in Cat’s eyes, her expression like a punch to his gut. “I’ve lost her, Jack.”
“Why do I feel as if I’ve come to the play after the intermission and left my damned program in the retiring room?” His cousin’s response was typical Jack and almost brought a smile to Aidan’s lips.
Almost.
Cat measured the perimeter of her chamber. Thirty steps by forty-four. The same as when she’d calculated it an hour ago. And the hour before that.
Sunlight moved across the floor in wavering lines. Climbed the papered walls. Slid over the needlepoint coverlet. Shone against the dark woodwork.
She plotted. Pistols? Too dispassionate.
Clouds moved in from the west. Rain followed. A slow, drizzly mist adding a moldy dankness to the chilly air. Depressing an already depressed mood.
She planned. Knives? Too messy.
She’d refused the meals offered to her on the road. Turned her nose up at the suggestion she dine before she retired to her rooms. And paid for it now with a growling stomach and a headache throbbing against her temples.
Poison? Too impractical.
She gave up. Murder took too much energy.
Crying might help to ease the pain in her chest and the tight knot in her throat, but she couldn’t do it. Her eyes burned dry and hot, her cheeks flamed, her hands shook with futile self-condemnation. Yet no tears fell.
She’d wept upon hearing of Jeremy’s abandonment. She’d shrieked curses to the gods upon the death of her son. The source of that emotion had dried up. She had nothing left for Aidan. She was simply numb.
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