“It was a kiss,” he said. “But don’t worry. It won’t happen again.”
Ellery hadn’t moved since the man sat her down with a mug of tea and ordered her to stay put. At first she’d been too humiliated at the dismissive way he’d looked her over as if once he’d kissed her, he’d decided she wasn’t worth his effort. Then belated fear had grabbed hold of her and she’d shivered, teeth chattering, until he’d shoved the tea in her hands. She hadn’t even noticed him brewing it.
She stared down into the milky liquid with a wrinkle of her nose. A good, strong whiskey would have gone a lot further to calming her.
One hand on the door, he glanced back. “I need to check the house and garden, and see if I can pick up their trail. Be the hunter and not the hunted for a change.”
She ought to be glad he was leaving. After all, those horrible hounds had been chasing him, not her. If he was gone, she was safe. But then, why did she feel as if she’d never be safe again?
She clutched the mug tighter. Had it been only hours ago she’d wished for someone to share her empty nights? She had someone now. A hunted man with the power in his broad frame to snap her like a twig. A man who attacked her, kissed her, and insulted her all in the space of five minutes. She burned again with embarrassment, remembering the kiss they shared. She’d accepted it and even returned it. She closed her eyes, mortified at her easy surrender. Like mother, like daughter?
Thinking of her parents made her remember the man’s explanation of his arrival. He said he knew her father from the Peninsula. But she’d lived with the army long enough to recognize that this man’s skills far outstripped the common soldier’s. In fact, she thought few could best him in battle. So if he wasn’t a fellow soldier, then what brought him to the Peninsula and how would he have cause to know her father? A reliquary, he said. A treasure that her father kept safe for him. More than likely it was this man’s own stolen loot. The French rout had made rich men out of more than one soldier that day.
“I’ve secured the house, but dawn’s near. They won’t be back tonight.”
Ellery looked up to find him standing in the hall. He must have come through the front door and explored the whole cottage in the time she sat here mooning.
He watched her. In the darkness, his amber-gold eyes shone bright against the hidden planes of his face. “Are you better?”
She struggled to throw off the weight that pressed upon her from all sides, resenting his sympathy. “The tea helped. Thank you.”
He reached to his scabbard, fingering the pommel of his sword. “I found this while I was looking around. I hope you trust me enough now to know I’m not planning on murdering you.”
That was the point, wasn’t it? What did she know? Not much. Since his arrival, she felt like a spectator in another person’s story. She needed answers, and she needed them now. “Mr…. Mr. Bligh. What’s your name again?”
He gave a hint of a smile, but his gaze remained cold. “Conor. And you’re right. You do need answers. I’ll tell you what I can, but some aren’t mine to give and some you won’t believe even if I do tell you.”
Her eyes widened. “You see? It’s things like that that make me feel like I’ve wandered into a nightmare. You pluck my thoughts from the air, you…you,” she waved her arms at him, “you walk about perfectly normal as if you never fell at my feet or were shot. And these Keun Marow hunt you. Death hounds out of a faery story.”
He drew up a chair and sat down across from her. “I pick up a stray thought or two. Only the most focused, the most forceful. It’s a gift, like my ability to heal, my ability to fight. I was born to it as were all of my kind.”
Trying to concentrate on his words, she found his nearness disturbing. She crossed her arms as if that would keep a safe distance between them. “What kind are you?”
“We’re known as Other. Those born holding both fey and human traits. Witches, healers, wise men,” he paused as if weighing his response, “the brotherhood of amhas-draoi.”
“But the fey world isn’t real. It’s legends and myths. Faery tales to pass away an evening by the fire. No one believes.”
His voice was firm. “It doesn’t take belief to make the fey world real. It just is. And you wanted answers.”
“And those creatures hunting you? Are they of the fey world as well?”
He leaned toward her, the line of his jaw hardening, his face inches from her own. “Yes, But they aren’t hunting me, Miss Reskeen. They’re hunting you—and the reliquary you’re holding.”
She shoved her chair back from the table, glaring across at him. “I’ve heard enough. I don’t know what you hope to gain by barging in here and trying to frighten me, but I’m not such a dupe as you imagine.”
He reached out and grabbed her arm. “I need that box. It’s about”—he spread his hands a little over a foot apart—“this big. Very old. Jeweled. Do you remember now?”
She closed her eyes. Tried to remember back to the days after her father’s death. The confusion. The grief. And then the excitement at finally escaping the camps for a normal life here in England. “I do remember something like that. But I haven’t seen it in ages. It must have been lost during the journey. Or stolen.” She offered him a pointed look. “It’s more than likely you stole the thing yourself.”
“It was looted. Twice. Once by the French and again by the English.”
“By you?”
He shrugged off her question. “After the fighting was over, it was every man for himself. Five million gold francs are hard to pass up when until then all you’ve had is the King’s shilling.”
Weary of arguing and seeing she wasn’t going to get any more straight answers, she shook him off. “I’m going to bed. You can sleep down here tonight, but I expect you gone by the time I wake.”
“You trust me?”
She thought about it. “If you wanted to harm me, you could have done it at least half a dozen times already. Trust you? No, not hardly. But I trust those things out there even less.” She gave a dry laugh. “Besides, after the welcome I gave you, a dry place to sleep is the least I can do to make amends.”
She started down the narrow hall to the stairs, but his voice drew her to a halt. “And the reliquary?”
She chose to ignore his question. “Good night, Mr. Bligh. And if I’m lucky, good-bye.”
A long silence followed. Ellery waited, listening for the stinging retort or the sarcastic comment, but none came. She climbed the stairs, slowing her steps as if she hoped for some word from him and annoyed with herself for doing so. She laid a hand on her bedchamber door.
His voice rose up the stairs, deep and calming after the disturbing events of the night. “Nos dha, Ellery Reskeen. Sleep well.”
And somehow deep in the corners of her heart, she knew that for the first time in months, she would.
Chapter Three
The man standing at the window, staring out on the dark London park, worked at his pose of indifference. What he really felt was a burning rage that curled through him like a nest of snakes. “You lost him?”
Asher Jevan was not a man who liked failure. The reptilian creatures behind him whimpered, sniveling their apologies. “We thought his grief would weaken him,” the leader of the two answered. “His sister’s death was a blow.” The words hissed through jagged-sharp teeth.
Asher had a moment’s satisfaction at that past success, but it was gone almost immediately. Conor Bligh was a much bigger problem. The eldest of the Jevan brothers spun on his heel to stand before the pair of cringing death hounds.
Hounds in name only, the fey hunters could follow scent or blood if called to. What set them apart was the ability to track the mage energy any fey gave off, and use that energy to grow stronger. More powerful. It’s what made them hated and feared by human and faery alike and why Asher relied upon them. They were perfect for his purpose.
“You had strict instructions to keep your distance,” he said.
“To track Bligh,
but not to hinder his search. ’Tis he who shall lead us to the reliquary.”
The leader of the Keun Marow bowed his head. “We did only as you ordered. Caught us following, he did and laid in wait for our passing. We’d no choice.”
“And the pack of you couldn’t subdue him?” As if expecting a blow, the fey hunter hunched over, the bones of his spine pressing against the skin of his back. His nose slits widened as his breath came loud and raspy with fear. “Weren’t at full strength. A scouting party broke off to follow another scent. Magic. Faint, but potent. Thought we could take him with a smaller number.”
“Some peasant’s get with a touch of the Other about him took you away from your task?”
“No, milord. The mage energy was unlike any we’ve scented. Wild, flowing in ways we’ve never seen. Magic beyond our kenning.”
Wild magic? New magic? Something that even as old as he was, he’d not felt or seen before? This interested him. Not enough to break off his hunt of Conor Bligh. That held a two-fold purpose that could not be postponed.
The amhas-draoi would find him the reliquary, and once the casket was discovered and the three Jevan brothers reunited, Bligh would serve as a feast for his growing pack of Keun Marow. The power of the greatest member of the legendary brotherhood would enrich and strengthen the death hounds ten-fold. Make them an army to be reckoned with.
“Very well. Keep your watch on Bligh, but instruct your followers to track this new scent as well.” He grabbed the creature by the neck, his fingers tightening around the beast’s throat. Its nose slits flared as it fought to breathe. “Don’t let me hear of a second failure. And don’t underestimate Bligh. He may be a half-breed, but the raw magic of the fey in him has been tempered to a keen edge under the schooling of Scathach. The ranks of the amhas-draoi haven’t seen his like in a thousand years. He has the power to strip you to bones if he chooses. Be grateful his foolish honor forbids it.”
A flash of light, then the stench of charred flesh and the leader of the Keun Marow was naught more than a pile of putrid ash. Asher wrinkled his nose as he dusted off his hands. “I work under no such restraints.”
He turned his gaze on the second creature cowering before him. “Bring me the reliquary and Conor Bligh. The first must be unharmed. My brothers’ lives are bound to it. The amhas-draoi can come to me in any form as long as he still lives. His meddling at San Salas postponed our return. His death will be slow.”
“And the second source of magic?” the Keun Marow’s new leader asked.
Asher’s mouth curled in a cruel mockery of a smile. “Bring this Other to me in one piece. I’d like to study it.”
Ellery came down in the morning, surprisingly refreshed and prepared to find the previous night had been a hallucination brought on by exhaustion and stress. Why her imagination would conjure watchers in the night and sword-wielding men, she didn’t know for certain. Mayhap her father’s fanciful camp tales had affected her more than she cared to admit.
The clock chimed seven as she left her room, but that was the only sound breaking the silence. She peered over the banister, but the parlor door was closed, and the dining room was empty.
“Mr. Bligh?” she called, her voice loud in the quiet cottage.
“Conor?”
No answer.
So she had imagined it. She squashed a twinge of disappointment. She couldn’t say she was upset to find that life was as uneventful as she expected. After all, that was how she liked it, wasn’t it? Tame, with no surprises. But there had been a tingle of excitement deep in the pit of her stomach when she woke this morning. A feeling that something was coming. For good or ill was unclear, but a change that would affect everything that came after. She descended the stairs, pushing those thoughts away. It was obvious her wild dreams had simply carried over into her waking.
The kitchen was empty, but folded neatly on a chair were a bundle of blankets. A basket of eggs sat upon the table with a note. She snatched it up, reading it through and then twice more, her stomach’s tingling back and growing.
Mr. Freethy brought them.
Conor
So it hadn’t been a dream. She had found a dying man on her doorstep. Conor Bligh was real and dangerous and—she clutched the note tighter—chatting with the biggest gossip in the village. In an instant, her excitement became anger, and she crushed the paper in her fist. Perfect. If Mr. Freethy knew there was a man staying under her roof, then the entire village of Carnebwen knew it. She’d spent two years trying to outrun her scandalous past. Mr. Bligh had ruined that in twelve hours.
Crossing the floor in a rush of frustration, she noticed a wink of gold caught between the stones of the hearth. Bending down, she discovered a ring carved in the shape of a wolf’s head, its tail caught between its teeth. She’d seen one similar on Conor Bligh’s hand last night. But this ring was far too small. Not his then, but obviously something he dropped and would miss. But would he know he lost it here? And would he come back for it? She wrapped it tightly in a handkerchief and placed it in her reticule. She would hold on to it for now.
She ate and washed up, focusing her worry on the more immediate problem to her mind—the overdue rent. Mysterious intruders scaring her with tales out of a faery book would have to wait. A tightness knotted her stomach. Her meeting with Mr. Porter hung above her like a cloud. She’d donned her best gown, hoping it gave her an air of respectability. Her landlord was a stickler for propriety, but she wondered if after last night she had any reputation left to protect. She tugged on her gloves. Mr. Porter knew her. He should know she didn’t entertain strange men in her home.
And Conor Bligh was as strange as they came.
Her cheeks grew hot remembering his kiss. After twenty-two years following the drum with her father, she knew men, how they thought and how they acted. Conor Bligh was a prime example of all the worst characteristics of the male species. The kind of man her father had always warned her about. After the heated kiss she and Conor had shared, she could understand why. It was far too easy to get lost in that swooping wild joining of lips and tongues. To be teased into thinking that heady pleasure signified something more.
The hazy blue sky and the twittering of larks in the hawthorn trees around the cottage had dispelled the last lingering shadows of the night before, but stepping out the front door, she was brought up short. The bushes and flowers beneath both front windows lay crushed and scattered. And in the lane and garden hundreds of footprints had churned the drying mud into ruts. A muddy handprint dirtied one windowsill, as if someone had stood and peered into the cottage. Waves of heat and then cold washed over her, and she swallowed over and over, trying to calm herself. Keun Marow, Conor had called them. Hunters from the faery world sent to find her.
Suddenly, the empty lane seemed ominous and the quiet morning felt oppressive. She needed normal. She needed people and the comforting surround of the village. She hurried down the harbor road toward Carnebwen, thinking even the dreaded company of Mr. Porter would be welcome now.
Chapter Four
By the time Ellery left the milliner’s, the day’s warm weather had given way to evening’s dirty gray clouds and a chill breeze. Disapproving stares and barbed comments followed her up the harbor road toward home, but she refused to feel ashamed. She’d lived her whole life in the shadow of such unjustified cruelty. At least it was her own supposed sin she was being scolded for this time and not the guilt of her parents.
A crowd of young women watched her pass, a flurry of whispers springing up in her wake. One girl, bolder than the others, spoke in a carrying voice. “Her brother, he says. I’m wishin’ I had a brother or two like him.”
The giggles that followed this jibe almost made Ellery whip around and answer the accusations. She was saved from doing so by the approach of a lanky, round-shouldered gentleman dressed in a fashionable coat of dark blue and a cravat tied up to his long jowls, a huge pearl nestled among the folds. “Haven’t you anything better to do, Miss Yeovil, than t
o mock your betters?” He shook a dismissive hand at the group. “Off with the lot of you!”
He eyed the women as if they had crawled from beneath a rock, his demeanor as well as his words scattering the group like a fox among hens. Shifting his attention to Ellery, he sketched her a bow. “Your pardon for that display of incivility, Miss Reskeen.”
Not sure whose incivility he was speaking to, she merely gave him a grateful smile while inwardly wishing him to the devil. “My thanks, Mr. Porter. I’m sure they meant no harm.”
“Low-born trollops, and no better than they should be,” he replied, adjusting his cuffs. “I heard you stopped by to see me earlier today. I was quite cast up when I found we’d missed one another, but I had ridden out early to collect the rents.”
Ellery wished her savior had been anyone but Mr. Porter. Her landlord had always been friendly, but since her cousin’s death, his kindliness had grown cloying, and his smile smarmier.
He made a show of flipping open an enameled snuffbox and inhaling a pinch from between his fingers. “I came to see you as soon as I heard about your…” He sneezed, then lowered his voice, “your problem. The talk in the village is quite salacious.” His eyes gleamed, and he stepped toward her, reaching for her hand. “I refused to believe it until I spoke to you directly.”
Feeling suddenly cornered on this lonely stretch of lane, Ellery backed up. “That’s gallant of you, but really it’s not what anyone thinks. A storm in a teacup.” She tried changing the conversation. “My reason for coming to see you was the matter of my rent on the cottage. I know I’ve been late—”
“I understand your plight, Miss Reskeen, and I sympathize. It must be hard to be a woman on your own with no family or connections of any kind.” He reached again for her hand and this time refused to let her elude him. His palms were sweaty and soft. “No one to lean on when times grow hard.” He squeezed her hand, his gaze resting on the neckline of her gown. “No one to offer comfort when you need it most.”
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