Demon's Curse (Imnada Brotherhood) (5 page)

A corner of his mouth twitched. “It could have been worse. I’ve been told my father considered Blath-mach Ercc.”

“The man sounds positively sadistic.”

“How did you guess?” For a moment his eyes grew diamond-hard.

“Not holding a grudge over that atrocious name, are you?”

He gave a gruff snort that might have been laughter. “Goes a bit deeper.”

“Did you seduce the neighbor’s daughter? Gamble away your inheritance?”

“Those crimes might have been forgiven,” he said, his expression thunderous.

Had the man simply come to glower at her? If that was the case, she’d had quite enough. “This conversation has been wonderfully scintillating, Captain, and I’m grateful for your assistance with His Lordship, but I’ve had an exhausting afternoon and really need to prepare for the theater.”

She started to pass him on her way out the door.

“Wait.” She gazed at his hand gripping her upper arm as if it had sprouted there. “I need to speak with you.”

So here it was. She couldn’t say she was completely surprised. The man dripped sensuality and self-confidence in bucketloads. “Let me guess.” Her voice sharpened to a cutting edge. “You’ve come to tell me how much you adored me as Rosalind or as Cordelia in last spring’s pageant. That I’m the most—insert ‘fabulous,’ ‘talented,’ or ‘ravishing’ here—actress you’ve ever seen. You can’t sleep or eat due to the mad throes of this wild infatuation, and you’ll do anything to make me yours.”

Rather than cringing with embarrassment, the barest twitch of a smile lifted the corner of Captain Flannery’s mouth. The tiniest hint of laughter lit his eyes. “Men say those things?”

“Some. Then there are those, like Lord Braemer, who believe expensive gifts are the way to a woman’s heart. Fans, books, jewelry, flowers. You name it. I’ve had it sent round by some goggle-eyed fanatic with tented breeches and a pea brain. They think I can be bought for their thirty pieces of silver.”

By now his eyes danced with laughter, and she was questioning how she’d managed to fall into a conversation with the man when she’d meant to freeze him with a haughty silence.

“I am not for sale, by the way,” she added, trying to regain her footing and her upper hand. “So what’s your lure, Captain?”

“Pardon?”

“How do you intend to try to sweep me off my feet? Are you here to read me a poem in honor of my eyes, or have you an expensive bauble that would perfectly grace my swan-like throat?”

The humor died as if someone had doused a light, and he was once more grim and implacable. “I came to speak to you about Lieutenant Kinloch.”

All her righteous indignation drained away as if she’d been stuck with a pin. Grief blossomed like a physical pain under her ribs. “Adam’s dead. What more do you need to know?”

“I need to know who killed him and why.”

*   *   *

She sat upon a stone bench beneath a willow, its long, leafless skeins drifting like a curtain around her. She’d led him here after motioning meaningfully toward the drawing room door, where doubtless her maid crouched listening. He’d capitulated, following the slow sway of her hips, spine straight as a spear, as they made their way to her garden. This late in the season, few flowers bloomed in the tidy beds and the north wind carried hints of colder weather to come, but it was surprisingly tranquil even with the city’s bustle a wall away.

Despite the ghostly pallor of her face and the tension tightening her mouth, she fairly glowed from the top of her perfectly coiffed head to the tips of her silver slippers. He almost waited for the trumpets and the celebratory cannonade. He’d never seen anyone as absolutely, iridescently radiant. So perfectly sleek and controlled. And yet, he’d witnessed for himself the bloodied Lord Braemer. This rose hid some vicious thorns.

“I still can’t accept that he’s gone.”

Mac leaned against the garden wall, arms folded over his chest. Recalling David’s smarmier insinuations,
he asked, “Was Adam one of those who wrote odes to your eyes and brought you gifts?”

Her eyes spat blue fire.

“Gossip says the two of you were lovers.”

“Then it must be true.”

He winced but did not back down. “His home was broken into the night following his murder. The constable on duty was knocked over the head and came around to find the place completely ransacked, as if someone had been searching for something.”

“The papers said it was footpads that killed him. A robbery gone wrong,” she answered.

“I served with Adam for five years. Knew him for longer. It would take more than a thug with a knife to get the better of a seasoned soldier. He wasn’t killed over a few coins for gin. The constable said his attacker was a big chap. Reddish hair.”

A pensive line formed between her brows.

“Adam’s house was searched. I want to know why, Mrs. Parrino.”

“Do you think I can help you? Or are you hoping I’ll confess?”

“Did you kill him?” he asked bluntly.

If she spat fire before, this time it was as if an entire fusillade had been leveled in his direction. “I won’t even dignify that with an answer, Captain.”

“The gossips claim you were the last person to see him alive.”

“According to those same gossips, I’ve either made the Prince Regent weep with heartbreak or borne his secret love child. One of the reasons I pay little heed to what people say about me anymore.”

“Then tell me about the last time you saw Adam,”
Mac said, ignoring her anger. “Convince me of your innocence.”

“Why should I? You’re not a magistrate, and like everyone else you’ll believe what you want whether it’s complete and utter hogwash or not. Besides, what’s your opinion one way or the other?”

“Speculation has a way of growing. A dead man in St. James’s Park nearly at the gates of Buckingham House is no small matter. People will be on the hunt for an answer.”

“And you believe a man’s whore is an easy scapegoat.”

He shrugged. “A crime of passion is a momentary lapse, not likely to be repeated. Makes everybody feel better.”

“Except me.”

“So, tell me what I want to know and I’m an ally if things get sticky.”

She snapped off a long willow tendril. It lay across her lap as she picked it apart. “Fine. You want to know what happened the last night I saw Adam? Absolutely nothing. He arrived at the theater just before I was due to go on and proceeded to pace around my dressing room like a caged bear while I finished applying my makeup.”

He latched onto one word. Dragged it free, turning it round and round in his head. It couldn’t be. She must be mistaken. “Night? Not earlier during the afternoon?”

“No, it was half past six or close to it. I remember because my dresser was complaining about Adam interrupting just as the bell rang announcing the half-hour warning. The performance was due to begin at
seven. By the time I came back down to change between the first and second acts, he had left.”

Mac’s pulse thundered in his ears. “Did you see Adam often at night?”

Her gaze grew shuttered, no emotions marring the impenetrable mask of her face. “As our schedules allowed. He had his life. I had mine.”

Mac barely heard her answer. His earlier fears of exposure to an out-clan drowned beneath the avalanche of a new discovery. One that could spell an end to the living death of an
emnil
. A return to the clans.

His stomach tightened, nerves jumping beneath his skin, the same burn along his veins that accompanied his shift. The same wild exhilaration. “But that night? Are you certain it was after sunset?”

Now she was beginning to look on him as if he was mad. And maybe he was. But if she’d seen Adam after dark . . . If she was certain . . . If . . . if . . . if . . .

“As I’ve said more than once, yes, Captain Flannery, the sun was down when Adam arrived. It was dark when he left. The night usually is.”

Mac fought the urge to shout his elation. To confess his excitement. To swing Bianca Parrino into his arms and kiss her as she ought to be kissed. But he couldn’t fight the stupid grin he knew had plastered itself all over his face. Because if Bianca spoke the truth . . . if Adam had come to her that night . . . if Adam had been seen after sundown . . .

. . . then Adam had found a way to break the curse.

3

“ ‘Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of; and would . . . and would . . .’ ” Bianca shook her head. “ ‘Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of; and . . .’ ” Took a deep breath. “ ‘Unless you could teach me to forget a banished father, you’ . . . Drat!”

She should be able to recite Rosalind in her sleep. It was one of her favorite roles and one for which she was becoming known. She should not be stumbling over her opening line. She refocused with a rolling of her shoulders and a crack of her neck.

“ ‘Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of; and would . . .’ ”

Concentrate, Bianca. Captain Flannery with his impertinent questions and keen, searching gaze was long gone. And while Adam’s murder and the whispers surrounding it proved all too sickeningly familiar, there was nothing they could do to her. She was innocent—this time.

“ ‘Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress—’ ”

She flung her script away.

Loss ached in her bones like cold weather. Did she believe the captain’s theory that more lay behind the murder than a random attack on a dark garden path? That Adam might have known his killer? That she might be blamed for his death?

Her mind snapped back to the horrible, humiliating night she interrupted him entertaining that . . . that man.

Flannery had described an intruder with reddish hair. Tall. Dangerous. The pieces fit, but the picture they made only begat new questions.

Could she reveal what she knew without divulging Adam’s secret? Would she allow her best friend’s murder to go unpunished at the price of his reputation? Would she risk her own standing by keeping silent? Much as she hated to admit it, perhaps Captain Flannery had a valid point. Perhaps she did need to worry over the vicious rumors beginning to circulate if Adam’s killer remained unfound.

“Toodles!” A voice interrupted her thoughts, followed by an explosion of rapping. “Bianca, sweeting. Are you there?”

Bianca swung around from the mirror. “Sarah! I didn’t know you were in London. Weren’t you supposed to be spending the autumn at Coldham with Sebastian’s family?”

Brazen and beautiful in scarlet and gold, the new Countess of Deane flittered in like a frenetic butterfly. “He’s decided to delay the trip until after the new year. He wants to wait for the worst of the scandal to die down before we beard the lioness in her den.”

Bianca had known Sarah long enough to sense the disappointment behind her care-for-nothing attitude.
The shocking marriage of the powerful and wealthy Earl of Deane to a common actress had set the cat among the pigeons, and while outwardly Sarah disdained those who shunned her as an interloper, Bianca recognized her insecurities.

“Sebastian knows his mother better than anyone,” Bianca soothed. “Besides, do you really want to spend the winter stuck in the country with the dowager and be cut to ribbons for your trouble?”

“Hmph. I’ve always wanted to play the lady bountiful role,” Sarah challenged, the glimmer back in her eyes. “Visiting the poor, judging flower shows, sitting in the front pew at the village church. That sort of thing.”

“And you’ll be perfect when the time is right.”

“But what if I let him down? What if he’s disappointed in me?” Sarah prowled the cluttered dressing room, arms windmilling with dramatic flair. “Maybe he’s already regretting the marriage. Maybe that’s why he’s delayed our trip.”

“Stop it. Seb loves you. Anyone with eyes in their head can see that. He’s head-over-heels smitten and no spiteful talk or nasty gossip will change his mind.”

“I know you’re right. I just never knew it would be so hard to live happily ever after.”

“Is he here with you tonight?”

“I left him talking horses with Lord Grenville and Mr. Dunnett. It was that or slit my throat from sheer boredom.” Sarah rolled her eyes. “He sends his good wishes. He wanted me to tell you how much he enjoyed that book you sent for his birthday. The man pored over it for two straight weeks with barely a break.”

“It was Adam’s idea,” Bianca confessed. Grief robbed her of breath, and she fumbled with the edge of her shawl.

Sarah leapt from her seat to envelop Bianca in a flower-scented hug. “My darling, I’m so sorry. I read about it. Such a horror. It’s gotten so one can’t walk about the streets of London without an armed guard.” She offered Bianca a handkerchief. “No tears, sweeting, you’ll smear your makeup.”

“Ever the practical one.”

“Speaking of practicality, Mr. Hayworth’s come again tonight.”

Bianca’s shoulders sagged, but what did she expect? She’d allowed Society to believe her one man’s mistress. It was only natural others would try their luck now that Adam was gone.

“He’s the heir to his uncle’s viscountcy, you know,” Sarah chided. “If you play your cards right, you can—”

“Win the heart of my lord as you did yours?” Bianca bought time in a refreshment of her hair, a check of her flounce in the mirror. “Neither Mr. Hayworth nor any of the flirtatious sprigs of fashion camped upon my doorstep are interested in matrimony. Besides, I’ve lived that charade already. I have no wish to repeat the performance.”