Heir of Danger (26 page)

As dinner progressed around her, she sank into a pensive silence. She’d risen this morning to an empty bed. Brendan gone. She’d have almost doubted her own memories had she not smelled the musky foreign spice of him in her sheets and on her skin. Seen the marks of their marriage upon the flesh of her breasts, her stomach. A love bruise high upon her thigh. She hid her blush behind her wineglass, sipping slowly of the fine French claret.

“You look like a woman in love,
ma puce
. Marriage with young Douglas agrees with you.”

Madame Arana’s knowing grin deepened Elisabeth’s flush. Heat flamed her face.

“You’ve been waiting for him many years, I’m thinking.”

“Since I was ten and put a toad down his shirt,” Elisabeth admitted. From the corner of her eye, she caught Helena shaking her head, mouth pulled into a disgusted frown.

She’d been this way ever since the wedding. Locked in her own thoughts. Surlier than usual.

Madame Arana didn’t seem to notice her granddaughter’s dark mood. Either that or she was used to it. She beamed as she buttered her bread. “Ah, a young girl’s first love. And now you have him. No more waiting at the altar. It is done.
Tout de suite
. Just like that.”

Elisabeth had him, all right. A tiger by the tail.

But had marrying Brendan been less about saving face and more a drastic last-ditch effort to hold on to him? A desperate measure meant to force a pledge made out of duty by a callow twenty-year-old? If so, she was a simpleton.

Oh, he’d given her all she asked for. Had awakened a wicked craving within her and then sated it with delicious thoroughness. He’d even allowed her a glimpse of more than his usual icy cynicism. But what did it mean if duty still drove him and nothing else? Fulfilling the letter if not the spirit of their vows? Could she live with that?

Was she insane to want to dare the deep waters when sense told her to remain satisfied with the shallows?

Did it matter when all hung upon such a precarious knife edge?

“You mustn’t fret. Helena knows what she is doing. She would not ask it of young Douglas if she did not think their bargain would work out.”

“Grand-mère!” Helena snapped again.

Nerves fluttered Elisabeth’s stomach, making her relieved she’d not taken that helping. “Didn’t think what bargain would work out? What have you asked of Brendan?”

Helena put down her wineglass. Crossed her arms in front of her, her gaze steady and inscrutable. “Douglas is Máelodor’s only hope of finding the Sh’vad Tual. We’re using this to our advantage. Luring Máelodor out from the shadows where he’s hidden for so many years. Once he’s exposed, the brotherhood can no longer dismiss his existence. We can move against him in force.”

“You’re using Brendan? He’s spent the last seven years running from Máelodor, and now you want him to stake himself out like human bait?”

Helena’s lips pursed, her body shifting ominously in her chair. “And why shouldn’t he? It began with him. It’s only fitting he should end it.”

A sliver of fear seeped in to join Elisabeth’s stomach’s nervous dance. “What began with him?”

“Douglas has told you nothing of his past?”

Helena sounded surprised.

Feeling herself on the defensive, Elisabeth met bold gaze with bolder. “He’s told me enough.” She didn’t like where this was headed. “I know Brendan’s powerful among his race. That he was a source of great pride for the old earl, much to the chagrin of Brendan’s older brother, Aidan.”

“But not what havoc he wrought with that great gift.” Contempt riddled Helena’s tone. She pushed back from the table to stand, leaning her arms menacingly upon the table. “Did Douglas tell you he was part of the Nine like his father? Like Máelodor? That’s why he ran. That’s why he hid. And that’s why he agreed to our bargain. Because if he didn’t, he knew I wouldn’t have hesitated to fulfill my duty and execute him for the cold-blooded, ruthless murderer he is.”

The word hit Elisabeth like a punch to the stomach.

Murderer? Was it true?

I can’t go home. Not ever.

Now she knew why.

“I want the truth, Brendan. All of it—not just the bits and pieces round the edges, but the whole stinking heap.”

“And good evening to you too.” Hair still damp from a bath, Brendan looked up from pulling on his boots, his cravat hanging loose against the open collar of his shirt. His jacket lying on the bed beside his waistcoat. A dab of paper stuck to his chin where he’d nicked himself shaving.

Ridiculous as it sounded, it wasn’t the glittering, lynx-gold stare he fixed upon her that sent heat flooding her cheeks. Nor the sudden bunch of his muscles that made her stomach tingle. Not even the slow, dangerous smile creasing
the tiny sun lines at the corners of his eyes that set her heart galloping.

No, it was that dratted bit of sticking plaster on his jaw.

Evidence of his vulnerability. His humanity.

Her stupid, self-destructive, jelly-kneed infatuation.

“Answer my question,” she snapped. “For once.”

He dropped the boot to the carpet with a thud, creases deepening either side of his mouth, a guarded look instantly entering his gaze.

“I thought this was just about keeping that stone of yours safe, but it goes far and away beyond that, doesn’t it?” she demanded. “No evasions. No snappy repartee. Clear, simple answers.”

He bent to pull on his other boot before straightening slowly, spreading his hands palms up as if to show he had nothing to hide.

“Helena says you’re going to set yourself up as a decoy to lure Máelodor out,” she said.

His body tensed, a chill descending like a knife between them as he resumed dressing.

She’d pushed too far to surrender now. She’d never get a better chance. Brendan would not allow himself to be cornered again. “You said your father and Máelodor were part of the Nine. That the
Amhas-draoi
executed the members of the group. You never said why. What did they do, Brendan?” She swallowed. “What did
you
do?”

The sticking plaster had fallen off. And whatever she’d taken for vulnerability had vanished in the grim-edged contours of a face carved in stone. His mouth ringed in white, furrows in his brow. Eyes ablaze.

A man who frightened her with such a concentration of intensity, he seemed to radiate like sun off sand, yet despite
everything made her feel and yearn as the Brendan she knew had always done.

“Lissa—” He spoke hoarsely, as if holding himself together by the barest of threads.

“Don’t call me that.” She drew in a shaky breath. “Tell me Helena lied and I’ll believe you, but I want the truth.”

As if she’d touched a nerve, the blaze in his eyes flared like oil thrown upon a fire.

“Shit.” He lurched away with a sickened groan. “Isn’t it obvious? The truth has been staring you in the face for weeks. Father spent his life searching for the relics, but to him they were merely artifacts. Pieces for a museum. It was me. I devised the damned plan. To use the Sh’vad Tual to break the wards shielding Arthur’s tomb. I unraveled the spell that would resurrect the king as one of the
Domnuathi
. And when the violence escalated and the deaths began, I didn’t care. As long as I could dig as deep as I wanted into the forbidden
Unseelie
magics, it didn’t matter who was hurt along the way. I turned a blind eye to all of it. Now do you see?”

She shook her head, hearing the disgust in his voice. She would deny his words. It wasn’t Brendan. No matter how many sins he’d committed, this was not the man who’d carried her home through the rain. Who’d allowed her to tag after him from the time she was old enough to escape her nurses. Who’d agreed to marry her when it would have been easier to walk away. And whose kisses seared a blast of heat straight to her dazed brain and whose touch melted her to sweet liquid ecstasy.

“You’d have done better to hold to your ignorance,” Brendan said. “Knowledge is dangerous. It can blow up in your face.”

She couldn’t fit these pieces together into any puzzle
that made sense. “If your goal is the same as Máelodor’s, why didn’t you give him the stone years ago and be done with it?”

He didn’t answer.

She latched onto his silence as a brief hope within the maze of her confusion. “Could it be because you’re not the criminal they think you? It’s been seven years. People change in seven years.”

“People may change. They may wish with all their heart they could undo the things they’ve done, but the crimes remain. The stain of that legacy never leaves.”

“You spoke once of your part in the murder of your father. What did you do, Brendan? What happened to him?”

Again he did not answer.

“That’s why you came back to Dun Eyre. That’s why you’ve agreed to this insane scheme of Helena’s. To make amends.” Terror fluttered up from her stomach into her chest. “Don’t do it, Brendan. It’s too dangerous. You said yourself Máelodor wants you—”

“Alive.” His expression softened to one of sorrow. “And he’ll keep me that way as long as I know where the stone is. And as long as I keep scream—” A shudder of his body. “As long as I entertain him.”

She grabbed him as if she might hold him back. Keep him here with her in this room where they were warm and safe and where
Other
and
Duinedon
didn’t matter. Where evil couldn’t touch them. “Tell Helena you won’t do it. Tell her to come up with some other way.”

“There is no other way.”

“You can’t do this alone.”

He shook her off. “I like alone.”

“Then why did you marry me?”

Hand on the knob, he turned back, face graven with scorn. “Why indeed, Lissa?”

Brendan descended to the parlor. Voices rose and fell and silverware clinked from the dining room across the hall, but, thank the gods, this room was empty. He couldn’t face any witnesses to his dance so close to the razor’s edge.

He eyed the piano in the corner, deliberately turning his back on the instrument. Music wouldn’t be enough to drive the devils from his mind tonight.

His temples throbbed as he lifted the decanter. His hands shook as he poured, whiskey sloshing over his fingers. He sucked it off, the bite of the alcohol lying sharp on his tongue. Falling into a chair, he clutched the glass before him, rolling the smoky gold whiskey around and around. Unable to drink, though he shivered uncontrollably, his gut in knots.

His body craved a different temptation. A tall, voluptuous figure filling a gown to distracting perfection. A wild riot of red hair meant for a man to run his fingers through. And dark, velvety eyes hinting at secrets a man would want to tease from a pair of full, pouty lips.

He shook his head, cursing his folly. He’d spoken the vows, signed the license, but his marriage with Elisabeth was as much a sham as ever. And now that she knew his criminal past, there was less than a blizzard’s chance in the Sahara for the two of them. And that was a good thing. He’d only cause her grief. He excelled at hurting those closest to him.

But had he confessed his guilt in order to frighten her away, or had it been more a desperate bid to test the strength of her faith?

A question he couldn’t answer that only showed him
how pathetic he’d become since returning to Ireland. The only thing he knew for certain: Lissa Fitzgerald couldn’t be trusted to do what any normal, sane, levelheaded female would do—run like hell. No, she analyzed, scrutinized, rearranged him into the hero of her wild imaginings.

He rose to toss the whiskey on the smoldering parlor fire, flames leaping high and bright in the grate, then dying back.

Shadows banished for the blink of an eye before crowding closer and thicker than ever.

“Killer, where are you, you naughty animal?”

Elisabeth peeked in and out of rooms in her search for the dog. If she didn’t find him before Helena did, he’d be mincemeat. “I know you’re hiding somewhere. I saw that gnawed table leg in the drawing room. How could you?”

No sign of him yet, and she’d hunted through every room from the ground floor up. Only the attics left to explore. The temperature dropped as she climbed the stairs, a whisper of a breeze scented with a woody sweet tang like cedar or patchouli lifting her shawl about her shoulders. “Killer?”

She’d expected the barren mustiness of a servant’s garret. Instead, she stood in a long, slope-ceilinged chamber. North-facing windows along the back tossed clear afternoon sun in great puddles over a floor strewn with carpets and rugs like an Oriental bazaar. Furniture cluttered the far end of the room. Sofas and chairs, long buffet tables and delicate side tables—even a bed—stood crammed into a
corner beneath the eaves, all as if someone’s entire house had been packed into a few square feet.

The rest of the space resembled an apothecary’s shop. Books stacked upon a desk. Others crammed willy-nilly into a tall case. Rows of tiny drawers lined one wall, neatly labeled, the contents alphabetized. Shelves containing jars of dried herbs, aromatic oils, spices, and scents. She picked one up, half expecting eye of newt or tongue of dog. Perhaps even a good dose or two of dragon venom.

Whale oil. Smelly, but hardly the stuff of witchcraft.