Heir of Danger

by Alix Rickloff

  “Actually I was going to say before he ran off for parts unknown, but—”

  Madame Arana continued blithely on. “Terrible times, those were. Terrible for the Other.”

  Other. The Nine. Amhas-draoi. It was nothing to do with her.

  “Kilronan led them.”

  That got her attention. “Lord Kilronan?”

  Helena’s grandmother smiled with an I-knew-I’d-pique-your-interest-sooner-or-later look. “Oui, the last earl was smart. Clever. A born leader. But the Nine’s greatest hopes lay with the boy. The son of Kilronan. His heir.”

  “Aidan was Lord Kilronan’s heir. Not Brendan.”

  “In lands and titles, the eldest inherited. In power and skills, young Douglas was all his father hoped he’d be.” Despite her frail appearance, she stooped to poke at the fire. Toss a new log among the embers, her hands roped and tough with hard work. She straightened, lifting her gaze to Elisabeth, a gemstone sharpness in her topaz eyes. “He’s back. Let’s hope he’s not too late. And that he’s no longer the true son of his father.”

  “What do you mean by telling me all this?”

  “You can’t fight what you don’t understand.”

  “I’m not fighting anyone. I’m going back to Dun Eyre as soon as I can.”

  Madame Arana shuffled toward the door, glancing back over her shoulder with an ominous glint in her bright eyes. “Are you so certain of that?”

  eleven

  The whiskey appeared unsolicited at Brendan’s elbow.

  “You look as if you could use a drink.” Rogan poured one for himself before plopping into the chair opposite.

  Brendan roused himself from his contemplation of the fire long enough to stretch. “That bad?”

  “Actually, you look as if you could use three or four, but we’ll start slowly and work our way up to complete inebriation.”

  “You sound a lot like a cousin of mine. You don’t know Jack O’Gara by any chance?”

  Rogan paused, giving Brendan an odd look over the top of his glass. “Why?”

  “No reason.”

  He ignored the whiskey with great difficulty. To sleep without dreams was always hardest. His usual remedy was exhaustion. Any activity that would deaden his mind and body to a collapsing point. That outlet had been denied him. So he sat. Brooded. Avoided his bed as long as he could. The steady throb in his shoulder helped. Gave him something on which to concentrate besides the gritty, sandy burn of tired eyes or the intermittent flushes of heat followed by a wash of icy cold that left him wrung like a sponge.

  At least he had Rogan for company. The harper had done much to break the glacial tension between him and Miss Roseingrave. As well as being easy company. Knew when to talk and when to keep silent.

  “You and Miss Roseingrave are close.” As sterling repartee it lacked, but Brendan wasn’t up to maintaining appearances.

  “You could say that.” Rogan sipped at his whiskey, his long shanks stretched toward the fire. He scratched his knuckles over the salt-and-pepper stubble of his narrow face. “I’ve known Helena since she wasn’t two hands higher than a duck. Second cousins on her mother’s side.” Leaned in closer. “I’m from the disreputable branch of the family.”

  “I knew there was a reason you and I got on so well. So, has she always been such an amiable creature?”

  Rogan laughed. “She does come off all teeth and claws, doesn’t she? Suppose it comes from being Amhas-draoi. Not exactly known for their soft, nurturing side, are they? Guess you’d know that better than anyone.” He flushed an uncomfortable shade of red. “Sorry, lad. Didn’t mean it to sound so callous.”

  “Can’t quibble with the truth.”

  Rogan toyed with his glass, still looking sheepish. “An ugly episode, from all I’ve heard. How did you . . . that is . . . they’re not known for leaving loose ends.”

  “It’s amazing how fast a man can run when his life’s on the line.” Had he said easy company? This line of inquiry was definitely not helping his mood. He leaned his head back, shutting his eyes.

  “Forgot you said you don’t drink.”

  He opened his eyes to see Rogan reaching across to retrieve the whiskey. Brendan’s gaze locked on the glass. Mellow gold as a late summer sun. The scent stinging his nose, burning his lungs. Inhaling, he tasted its essence soft and smooth on his tongue. One glass. Surely he could have one glass. Just to sleep. To hold the dreams away. To stop remembering. To stop thinking.

  He turned away. “Easier to run sober.”

  Silence fell over the room, but for the snap of the fire, a breeze beyond the window.

  Rogan stood to retrieve his harp. Settled back into his chair, the instrument resting in his lap. He strummed a run of scales, breaking the spring ice tension growing between them. “Since we’re exchanging confidences, that Miss Fitzgerald of yours is a spirited lass. Facing you and Helena down as she did tonight”—he gave a low whistle—“the looks on your faces were priceless.”

  Brendan gave a soft, smiling shake of his head. “Couldn’t fault her logic. A body would be a deuced hard thing to keep from the staff.” He smothered a laugh. “She may look soft and sweet, but rile her and she’s a force of nature. Have to say it was a relief to see her sinking her claws into someone else for a change.”

  “She spoke once of her betrothed. . . .”

  Brendan grimaced. “Mr. Gordon Shaw. A young man of impeccable character and mediocre disposition. Bloody sod.”

  The harper chuckled, the tune arranging itself into a haunting lament. “Is that how it is?”

  “Is what how it is? Lissa? And me? Not likely.”

  The music eased the whiskey’s lingering temptation. Filling the empty parts of him with something other than alcohol. He’d forgotten the feeling of simple peace such moments brought. It had been long since he’d the leisure to listen. Longer since he’d enjoyed playing himself. It had once been his favorite amusement. A way to forget Father’s mounting expectations. Aidan’s guarded envy. Even Sabrina and Mother in their own quieter ways required something from him, whether it be love or duty.

  He could always put that aside as he focused on the complicated twining melody and harmony of left hand and right. Lay aside the burdens of filial responsibility and the weight of fraternal confidence. No one counted on him. No one needed him. He could simply exist.

  His final evening at Dun Eyre had been the first time he’d attempted the Mozart. Elisabeth’s arrival in the music room had surprised him. Her questions dragging his old desire for freedom from shadow into light. But with it came something else. A remembrance of the girl who’d been the only one not to see him as either prodigy or threat. She’d never wanted anything from him other than friendship. Never offered him anything but quick laughter and a sure smile. The only one to see him as he saw himself in those brief naked moments while playing.

  He’d hidden his shock at such a revelation well. Hell, he’d buried that split second’s sentimentality beneath a ton of earth and sarcasm. She’d never guessed. Gone away assured of his patent bastardy. The earth remained turning upon an axis he understood.

  Until tonight.

  Tonight he’d looked on her and seen not the Lissa of his memories but a woman completely unknown to him and utterly fascinating. Composed. Self-assured. And attractive as hell.

  He leaned his head back against the chair. Closed his eyes. “Elisabeth hates me, and I can’t say I blame her. I tore her away from said husband-to-be. Not sure how to put that one to rights, but I’ll think of something. I usually do.”

  Rogan chuckled. “You care for her. It comes through in your voice. The way you drink her in whenever she’s near.”

  “I’ve known her since she was dragging round a one-eyed doll and pestering me to let her play cricket with the boys. She’s like a little sister.”

  Elisabeth’s face swam before his scratchy, tired eyes. A wreath of wild red hair. Eyes dark and sweet. His heart turned over in his chest with a sharp, stabbing pain, grief
finally pulling him under like one of the riptides off Belfoyle’s coast.

  A vision of past or future?

  Or merely one more misdeed for which punishment still waited?

  Shrugging out of his jacket, Brendan hissed at the jawclenching stab to the bone accompanying the simple gesture. Damned shoulder. He couldn’t afford an injury now. Not with the hunters beating him toward the guns. It would take two good arms to escape the encircling net. A head clear of the fever fog. Perhaps let Roseingrave’s grandmother have a look at it after all.

  He sank onto the bed, unknotting his cravat. Unbuttoning his waistcoat. Trying not to jar his shoulder more than he had to. Pulling his shirt over his head brought tears to his eyes. Bending to remove his boots left him woozy as the pain in his shoulder moved up into his brain. He barely heard the knock upon his door—the faintest tapping followed by a whisper.

  He rose to answer, taking care to plaster himself in the easy, roguish confidence Elisabeth expected. Anything less and she’d begin to doubt. Or worry. If he was to keep her safe, he needed her trust in him to remain secure and unshakable.

  He wouldn’t explore too closely why he desired her faith.

  She stood in the doorway in a dressing gown of sheerest linen, collar and cuffs of lemon silk. Her plaited hair shining vivid red and burnished gold. Wisps and curls of deep mahogany and bright chestnut escaping to halo her head. A lock lying just behind her ear. Another across her forehead.

  The dressing gown emphasized the rise and fall of her generous breasts, slid invitingly over her hips, the shadows in every fold following the long curves of her legs. “I’m up here,” she said tartly.

  Brendan let his eyes drift reluctantly upward.

  He desired her faith, not her body, though that was a claim harder to deny.

  And if she chose to come to his bedchamber clothed for seduction, he’d have to be a eunuch not to imagine.

  He caught her gaze wandering over his chest and his blasted tattoo. Clearly her curiosity was damn near killing her, but she said nothing, and he gritted his teeth and allowed her to look her fill.

  “Should I be flattered or concerned?” he asked lazily, laying a casual hand upon a bedpost. To her, it would look like the practiced move of a rake. She’d never know it was the only thing holding him upright.

  She blinked, gathering her lost aplomb. “Let’s try honest. What does Helena want, Brendan? She must have told you.”

  “She did, but it’s naught to worry you.” He gripped the bedpost more tightly. The pain in his shoulder came and went, but the fever clung. Hot and then cold. A sheen of sweat spreading across his back as his teeth chattered. If she didn’t leave soon, she’d be treated to his spectacular collapse. Not a sight to inspire confidence.

  “This is a prison for you, isn’t it?” she asked, a steel gleam in her dark eyes. “Pleasant enough, but you’re as trapped as if you were locked in a cell. Am I right?”

  “I’ve known prisons, Elisabeth. I’ll take Miss Roseingrave’s hospitality, however grudgingly it’s given, any day.”

  “That’s not answering my question. Madame Arana spoke of the Nine. She said your father led them and that the brotherhood seeks to destroy them.”

  “Madame Arana needs to keep her mouth shut.”

  “It’s true, then?”

  “The Nine died with my father, Elisabeth. All but for Máelodor.”

  “He knew your father?”

  He closed his eyes for a brief moment. The voices, the faces, the memories pounding in his brain with each throb of his shoulder. “Once upon a time, they were close as brothers. The two of them shared a great pride in their Fey heritage and the powers borne with that blood legacy.”

  “And then?” Her eyes shone black in the candlelight, deep midnight wells he could drown in. She shifted impatiently, the collar of her robe gaping to reveal the slope of her shoulder and the deep curve of one breast.

  He needed to end this conversation and get her out of here before either he spoke of things best left unsaid or acted on urges best left unacted upon. “Father was murdered. Máelodor fled. The Nine were no more.”

  “And the Sh’vad Tual?”

  His mouth curved in a suggestive smile. “Rested in the perfect curve of the perfect breasts of a beautiful lady for seven years.”

  He could almost feel the daggers shooting from her eyes. Exactly what he looked for. Yet instead of turning tail, she pressed further. A damned dog with a bone. “If both of you are out to destroy Máelodor, perhaps you and Helena could come to an understanding.”

  “Who said anything about destroying Máelodor? I’m out to stay alive long enough to deliver the stone to safety. Destroying Máelodor I’ll leave to the professionals.”

  “But—”

  “If we’re going to exchange pillow talk”—his gaze drifted over her before traveling to the thick colorful blankets, the bevy of pillows—“I’m not up to outrageous gymnastics, but I could manage in a pinch.”

  Her face flooded with scarlet, full lips squashing to a prim line, chin lifting in a belligerent tilt. “I’m going to assume you’re delirious with fever. That, or it’s as I suspected all along, and you’re raving bonkers.”

  His gaze slid over the ripe curvature of hip, torso, and breasts. The trace of girlish freckles almost swallowed by a scarlet flush. He gritted his teeth as parts of him went rock-hard. “Merely curious. Had things worked out differently you and I—”

  “Would have murdered each other by now.” She cleared her throat. “Can we please concentrate on the topic at hand? Helena Roseingrave? The stone? A way to untangle ourselves from this mess?”

  “So we’re still a ‘we,’ Lissa?” he asked softly. Invitingly.

  Her eyes shone dark and luminous, the candle’s reflection flickering in their velvet depths. Or did he imagine that ever-so-slight glimmer? That shuttered gaze trailing over his bare chest to linger for a moment upon the tattoo trailing over his shoulder? That taut pause lasting a beat too long?

  He wanted to touch her. To feel that skin beneath his hands. To trace a path with his lips over the body he could imagine lay beneath the virginal white of her chemise.

  He couldn’t help himself. He risked releasing his grip on the bedpost to step toward her, clenching his teeth in what, to her, must have looked like a particularly wolfish smile, since she scurried back as if she thought he was about to fling himself on her.

  “Stop it.”

  He leaned closer, his lips inches from hers, the scent of her skin filling his nostrils. She smelled of lemons and lavender and very faintly of desire and temptation. “Lissa?”

  “Why do you ruin everything?” She shuddered, her voice almost a mew of pain. “Why are you such a beast?”

  She threw open the door to escape, her robe dragging behind her like a train, her plait twitching like an angry cat’s tail.

  He fell wobbly legged into a chair, shoulder throbbing at the same rapid tempo as his heart. Leaning his head back, he squeezed his eyes shut, the imprint of that luscious hourglass figure burned into his eyelids. The sweep of heat washing up from his groin to his brain not completely fever-related.

  Why indeed?

  Elisabeth retraced her steps, angry with herself and furious at Brendan.

  He was a horrid, annoying beast.

  Couldn’t he be serious for five minutes? Five bloody minutes! That’s all she asked.

  Are we still a “we”?

  The way he’d said it as if he meant it. The way his stare torched a path over her body. The slide of silken muscles as he reached for her, the sensual curve of his lips as he smiled.

  Why couldn’t he return from the dead fat, bald, and wrinkled? Why did he have to explode his way back into her life like some fallen angel: all fire and ice and brutal good looks? On top of that, did he truly expect her to swoon at his feet just as if he’d never left? Never abandoned her all those years ago?

  Fool that she was, that’s exactly what she’d been about to do. One
more second in his dangerous presence and she’d have crumbled.

  She descended the steps to the second floor. Tiptoed down the corridor to her bedchamber.

  “Douglas has agreed, Grand-mère.”

  Miss Roseingrave. Madame Arana. Their voices coming from the chamber beside hers, the door ajar.

  Dismissing her ill manners as necessary, Elisabeth crept closer. If Brendan wouldn’t tell her what was going on, she’d find another way to gain the information. Besides, if they’d not wanted eavesdroppers, they should have made sure the door was shut properly.

  “And Mademoiselle Fitzgerald?” Madame Arana asked.

  “As it stands, Douglas has ruined her. Among her kind, such a scandal will be all but impossible to overcome.”

  Not that she hadn’t known it before, but to hear it spoken so casually sent panic fluttering up from Elisabeth’s stomach into her throat. Inhaling deeply, she pushed the fear away. She would deal with the aftermath . . . after.

  “That may be, ma minette, but I begin to believe there is a purpose behind her presence.”

  “She’s Duinedon, Grand-mère. What possible help could she give?”

  “In this fight, we do not know what will be the most useful bow in our quiver.”

  There was that word again—fight. What on earth could she do in a battle where magic gained and lost all? Helena was right. Elisabeth was just Duinedon, though for the first time the realization didn’t comfort her as it had in the past.

  “You said yourself the visions are unclear and cast all in riddles,” Helena challenged. “Could it be it’s not the Sight guiding you but your enjoyment of a houseful of guests?”

  A raspy chuckle followed. “You do not go out as you used to. The invitations. The calling cards. I see them come, Helena, yet you shut yourself away. It has been a year, ma minette. Grieve, yes, but do you think he would have wanted you to stop living?”

  Holding her breath, Elisabeth leaned closer in anticipation of the answer.

  Below her, a door closed, steps crossed the corridor.

  Someone was coming.