Heir of Danger (29 page)

Would the
Amhas-draoi
still be searching for him? Would they track him here? Was their refuge fast becoming their trap? What if Máelodor’s men took this moment to attack?

Elisabeth forced her mind off problems for which she had no solutions. Instead she watched as Brendan fought a sickness Madame Arana said was cured only by time. Another facet to a man she once thought she knew.

Only now was she finally coming to realize that man had never existed. He’d been a mirage. Smoke and mirrors. A
Fey
-glittery delusion she’d clung to long after she should have known better.

But what about the Brendan who fought tooth and nail to make up for his crimes? Who risked his very life to undo the horror he’d unleashed as part of the Nine? Who wept for a lost family and a home he feared he’d never see again?

No fantasies shaped her knowledge of this man. She saw him for what he was. Desperate. Lonely and alone.
And as real as the warm muscled flesh beneath her fingers, the wicked gleam in his eyes, the spicy foreign scent of him that clung to her hair and her clothes and her skin as he pleasured her senseless.

Daylight faded, leaving the room gray and cold and colorless. His hand flattened out upon the blankets. His breath became a sigh, his eyes fluttered open. Dazed at first before sharpening hard as diamonds.

Throwing himself up against the wall, he let the sheet slither to his waist. His gaze sliced over the room as if searching for something, landing on Elisabeth, confusion slowly replacing his wild-eyed trapped look. He settled back, wary but calmer. “Where am I?” His voice came cool and brittle as glass.

“In rooms above a tavern off Bridgefoot Street.”

Understanding dawned as his gaze cleared. “How long?”

“Three days.”

“Shit,” he muttered, kicking free of his blankets as he tried to rise. “A damned sitting duck.” His glance slanted toward her, the cautious light still blazing in his eyes as he swayed dizzily. “I’m surprised to see you here. Come to finally make good on your threat? Poison in my soup, I believe it was.”

She flinched, remembering that long-ago confrontation. It seemed like another Elisabeth Fitzgerald who’d sparred with him over his shocking return to Dun Eyre. She’d changed. Become a different person since then. Or perhaps she’d simply reverted to the woman she’d been before he vanished, taking her dreams with him.

“If murder’s your goal, you’ll have to take a number,” he grumbled. “The line of people who want my head on a pike is growing longer by the bloody hour.”

Could any man drive her more insane? Elisabeth returned his glare, the urge to throw her arms around him warring with an equally strong urge to beat him over the head. “That’s gratitude for you. If you must know, I’ve spent the last days making sure you didn’t turn up your toes. Fat lot of thanks I get.”

His eyes widened as he staggered against a wall, throwing out a hand to steady himself. Shook his head as if trying to clear it. “We didn’t exactly part on the best of terms.”

“I had a right to know, Brendan.”

He grimaced. “And now you do. Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” she shot back. Men!

He dragged a hand through his shaggy hair as he padded over to the table and the pitcher set there. He lifted an eyebrow in question. She answered with a nod.

With a weary sigh, he upended the pitcher over his head, gasping as the water spilled out over him. He heaved a sigh, slapping the hair off his face. “Much better. I feel almost human,” he said with a wry twist of his lips

She swallowed around her caught breath, trying not to stare at his muscled chest or the way the water tracked over the sculpted elegance of his face, slid down over the ridges of his stomach into the waistband of his breeches. He certainly didn’t look like any convalescent she’d ever seen.

His eyes flicked toward her, a strange glimmer in their depths as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. “You were here throughout?”

She blushed an uncomfortable scarlet, hating herself for doing so. What on earth did she have to blush about? They were married. They’d seen every embarrassing inch of each other. So why, then, did she feel as if a new and
impenetrable wall had risen between them? “Since Rogan came to Duke Street with word of the attack.”

Sagging onto the pallet, he dropped his head in his hands. “Gods, that must have been pleasant.”

“I can think of more suitable adjectives.”

He lifted his eyes, his expression unyielding. “As can I. Let’s try ‘foolhardy’ for starters. ‘Cork-brained.’ ‘Utterly and completely out of your pretty little head.’ If they’d found me here—” His jaw jumped, his mouth set in a grim line. “How could Helena let you stay, knowing the danger?”

Elisabeth folded her arms across her chest. “Helena doesn’t
let
me do anything, and I don’t have to ask her permission. I stayed with you because I wanted to and because you’re my husband.”

He gave a disgusted snort. “You know, I almost thought we could—” He shook his head. “Too late now for that.”

Too late for what? She wanted to shake him by the shoulders and force him to explain himself. But the space between them seemed strewn with obstacles. Until Brendan stepped out from the shadow of his past, there could be no future for them. Not for all her wishing.

He opened his eyes, casting a rueful look up at her. “Have you ever wished you could turn back time? Wake up one morning and know you’ve your whole life ahead of you, clear of any mistakes?”

Was she one of his mistakes? She didn’t ask. The answer would be too demoralizing. Instead she said, “You were barely more than a boy, Brendan. Your father never should have brought you into his schemes.”

“Don’t make excuses for me, Elisabeth. They were my schemes. The Nine never would have grown so powerful without my wholehearted involvement.”

“So what changed?”

“Freddie Atwood.”

She sucked in a quick, sharp breath. Of course, the nagging question tickling the back of her mind. “What has Freddie to do with any of this?” She asked the question, yet a spreading ill feeling told her she already knew the answer.

“He was
Other
. Did you know? His whole family possessed
Fey
blood, but in Freddie it flowered to a strength that brought him to our attention.”

She hadn’t known, but then, why would she have? Freddie Atwood had simply been one of the neighborhood boys: a bruising rider, a good-natured partner at dances, a laughing, jolly fellow with a twinkle in his blue eyes. Never a hint there was more to him than that.

“I recruited him into the network. And for a time, he and I worked well together, but he soured on the group. Decided to get out.” Brendan paused, his body rigid, his breathing coming faster, his gaze focused on his linked hands.

Elisabeth felt her own tension increase, a throbbing at her temples.

“There was too much at stake by then. We couldn’t allow deserters. They gave me the task of persuading him to remain.”

Her mouth had gone bone-dry. She wished Brendan hadn’t used all the water. She could really use a drink right now. “The fire was blamed on the peasants as retaliation for an increase in rents. You were there, you never said—”

He eyed her as if she were daft. “That the deaths of Freddie and his family were my fault? Of course not. But after that, it was never the same between my father and me. I saw the truth of what we were doing. How it couldn’t
possibly succeed without the deaths of thousands like Freddie—innocents caught up in our madness.” He gave a grim quirk of his mouth. “Here’s where you tell me I’m a heartless murdering bastard. That I deserve the death Máelodor wants to mete out, and that you hate me and wish you’d never married me.”

She flinched. “I don’t wish that.”

His laugh was rough and cruel and like a nail through her heart. “Though you don’t deny the rest.”

Brendan’s stomach remained fragile, his nerves raw and jumping, but the worst had passed. The hell of gape-mouthed, eyeless dead had faded. Their grasping hands receded into the twisted strangulation of soaked sheets. The hiss and snarl of their curses no more than rain against the window.

In the early days of his withdrawal from the opium, he’d spent weeks pacing the floor as images crashed through a brain afire with insatiable need. Pausing only to take a few drops of water or a foul piece of bread before heaving it up, his stomach unable to handle nourishment.

That had been years ago. His body no longer craved the poison. His mind had been freed from the constant hunger. Or so he thought until he woke from sleep with violent cramps, sweat bathing him, the bittersweet aftertaste of opium upon his tongue.

Had the ministering been purposeful?

None knew of his affliction. None but Jack and those who’d dragged him free of the drug the first time in a grimy set of rooms over a Turkish souk.

A mistake then. But it only underscored how little it would take to bring him to his knees. How easily he could
be pulled from his current path. How close to the surface the demons drifted.

Yet something had changed. It had happened so gradually he couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment, but the certainty of the difference was tangible. He’d not spoken Freddie’s name aloud in years. Had done all he could to push the events of that day as far down within him as possible. Yet never was he able to eradicate completely the shame and the guilt of his crimes.

Until today. And Elisabeth.

Always a surprise. Always unpredictable. Never doing what he expected. Or what any rational female might do when confronted with her husband’s infamy.

Brendan had awakened to that light, citrusy floral perfume of hers, her scent tearing through the fog of his fever. Not truly believing until he’d opened his eyes to see her watching him, her gaze a troubled mix of worry, fear, and affection.

For an instant, he’d known pure happiness. A stab of hope and pride and desire and love so fierce his chest ached with it. He’d almost told her. Almost taken her hand in his and dragged her down beside him where he might show her; the need to wrap himself in these feelings had been almost undeniable. But cooler heads prevailed. Practicality had trumped sentimental dreams.

There was no future for him there. He knew that now. He had given her the dubious protection of his name and the benefits of his ragged honor. To offer anything more would only make the end that much harder. Best to sever this tie now before he changed his mind. Before he drowned in those deep brown eyes or tasted the ripe sweetness of those lips.

So Freddie became the weapon.

A lethal blade he’d mercilessly turned upon himself.

Only somehow it hadn’t been the killing stroke he anticipated. Instead, it had felt as if something had broken loose inside him. He closed his eyes and saw—nothing. No jagged pieces of anguished memory etched upon his brain. As if slicing open the old wound had finally cleansed it of its power.

“Like a cat with nine lives.” Helena Roseingrave stood within the doorway. No knock. No hesitation. She gave him her usual glacial stare, her gaze lingering upon his tattoo, a flicker of some lost emotion in her eyes. “I’ve seen that before.”

He pulled his shirt over his head. “The mark of a lost cause,” he growled.

She entered the room, closing the door behind her. “Your
bride
sent word you wanted to speak with me.”

The contempt in her tone sent an impossible fury lancing through him. “You can say what you want about me, but I don’t ever want to hear you say one goddamn word about Elisabeth. Do you hear me?”

The flicker became a flame. “Playing at the besotted bridegroom? How noble of you.” She stiffened. “What do you want, Douglas? I’m busy mopping up your mistakes, so excuse me if I don’t swoon like the rest of the female race at your feet. You’ll be relieved to know the fellow you knifed is recovering nicely.”

“Should I send him flowers and an apology?” Helena Roseingrave might be a coldhearted bitch, but she was exactly what he needed to drive Elisabeth from his head. Hard to mope while trading barbs with a woman who’d be more than happy to see him drawn and quartered. “That
was the second time one of the
Amhas-draoi
tried murdering me.”

“And that surprises you? I warned you there was a standing order to kill you on sight. Did you think I exaggerated? If Máelodor’s men have learned of your return, so have the
Amhas-draoi
. You should have followed orders and stayed close to Rogan.”

“I’m not a child who needs minding. I managed for years without the use of a mage-chaser to keep me out of danger.”

“Even the luckiest lose now and again,” she answered bitterly. “Listen and listen well, Douglas. Had you killed that
Amhas-draoi,
I’d have butchered you myself, plan or no plan. I may be stretching the rules for you, but if this blows up, you go down alone.”

“How noble of you,” he answered her scorn with his own. “Has the brotherhood discovered we’re working together?”

“Not so far as I can tell, but that could change. Just in case, you can’t return to Duke Street. You can come to gather your things, but then you’ll have to lay low somewhere in the city.” She opened the door, scanning the yard before turning back, jaw set. “It shouldn’t be much longer. I hear the bounty on your head has gone up. You’re quite a catch these days.”

“Máelodor’s growing desperate. The summoning of the
Domnuathi
nearly destroyed him. Soon he’ll be too ill to work the magic.”

“Alive, he remains a lethal threat. Dead, and any hope of clearing your name is gone. Quite a conundrum.”

“I’m glad you can call it such. I call it a devilish great nuisance.”

Her gaze passed over the squalid ruin of the chamber. “It still amazes me how far you’ve fallen. From the pampered son of an earl to this.”

“The location’s not much but the service is excellent.”

“Always the wit, Douglas, though I think after the last few days I’m in on your little secret.”

“I sleep in the buff?”

Her look shot daggers. “Your guilt almost killed you.”

“Fortunately shame isn’t fatal. It just plays havoc with your free will.” He offered a casual shrug and a flash of a gallows smile before sobering. “What will happen to Elisabeth once I leave the town house? You have to promise me she’ll be taken care of.”