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“Cold comfort while I watched my family splinter before my eyes,” he snarled, though his anger seemed directed inward rather than at her.
Did he notice the nervous tapping of his fingers against his thigh? Or was it habit? Was his limp due to an old injury or a recent accident? She wished she dared ask, but the hard-edged lines of his face forestalled questions. He may have used the carrot up to now, but she didn’t doubt he’d apply the stick if needed.
She’d decided in the long, empty hours of last night to play along until she found an opportunity to run. So far, despite Kilronan’s assurances to the contrary, she’d been well watched if not outright guarded. But she’d be ready when the time came. And if she didn’t return to Geordie’s with the diary, at least she’d have her freedom.
“Your attempted theft only confirms what I’ve suspected all along. The diary is the key to unraveling what happened. And why,” he continued.
He leaned against the desk, arms crossed over his chest. His gaze settled on her with a look that could curdle milk. The ruthless nobleman of last night. Imposing. No-nonsense. All together too much in control. She felt the sharpness of his gaze straight to her center. And again, that same jolt of electricity jumped through her. Roused long-dormant sensations she’d thought buried in the same grave as her infant son.
“Someone hired you, Cat. He’ll wonder what’s happened when you don’t show up. And likely come looking for answers. Is he someone I should fear?”
She hunched her shoulders, pinpricks of nervousness needling her skin.
Kilronan bore the toughness of a fighter in his lean, muscled height. His rangy, rough-shouldered arrogance. His capable, work-scarred hands. But the light of humanity still danced in his brown eyes. The same could not be said of the heavy-jowled arch rogue she’d seen talking to Geordie. What would he do when he came to collect his prize and found Geordie laid up with a bad sprain and no diary?
She shivered, for the first time afraid of what freedom might mean. “I’d fear him if I were you.”
The man slopped into the breakfast parlor in a loose banyan and trousers, the glow of bare chest glinting from his open collar. Under normal circumstances, she supposed he’d be handsome in a sleek, practiced way. But not this afternoon. Chin peppered with stubble, face hangover gray.
A smile broke over his carved features. “So I wasn’t dreaming.”
She self-consciously straightened in her chair, wishing Kilronan was here to intercede. And wasn’t that ironic? The man had held a gun on her, locked her in a cellar, threatened her with prison, and now she saw him as a protector.
“You must be Aidan’s”—he raked her with an appraising stare from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, the smile never leaving his face—“translator.” Dropping into a chair, he poured a cup of tea. Held it in both hands, inhaling the steam as if it were the elixir of life. “Though if Miss Osborne hears . . .” He shook his head in some private regret. “You don’t look like a resident of the Liberties. What’s your story?”
“I could be asking you the same question.”
Again the flash of white teeth in a smile that could boil water. He pulled himself to his feet. Sketched her a ballroom bow. “Mr. Jack O’Gara. I live here on my good cousin’s sufferance. So what’s Aidan got you translating? Some moldy tome unearthed out of his father’s library?”
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Cat couldn’t be sure about O’Gara. A cousin to the earl, it stood to reason he shared his bloodlines and his power. But if he didn’t, and Cat let a long-held secret out of the bag—
She picked her words carefully. “You mock the earl’s scholarly endeavors?”
“No, I despair of his sanity.” His benign expression hardened. From lapdog to wolf in the blink of an eye. She’d have to be careful around him. He might act the part of jester, but if she wasn’t mistaken, that was exactly what it was. An act.
“Aidan’s relentless,” he continued. “He searches for answers, but I’ve found answers always come with strings attached. And even the ones you think you want aren’t always the best for your health.”
Cat twisted her napkin through her fingers before catching O’Gara’s eye upon her. With deliberate slowness, she placed the napkin on the table. Smoothed it out. “I’m only a translator. Not Kilronan’s conscience. Mayhap you should be talking to him.”
He bared his teeth in a grim smile that never reached his eyes. “What makes you think I haven’t?”
Pushing a curl behind her ear, Cat bent her attention to the diary. Opened it to the flyleaf where the cover’s same crescent and broken arrow swooped across the spotted vellum. Tips of bold writing smudged the bottom edge, but there was no telling what it said. Someone had ripped out half of the page. She thumbed to the next.
“Well?” Kilronan’s excitement churned the air like an ill wind.
She fought to ignore his eyes fixed upon her. The blunt-fingered, callused hands clenching the back of a chair. The strength of his lean, muscled body as it hovered, waiting on her words as if anticipating an oracular event.
Instead she forced her concentration back on the strange swirl and slice of the language before her.
Cat knew Latin. Read Greek. French. Spanish. Italian. German. It had always been this way. Her father had been proud his Other blood flowed in his offspring. Her mother, less enthusiastic. And after her father’s death, Cat had been charged never to flaunt her abilities for fear of what people might say.
Still, this language wasn’t like any she’d ever seen. It moved and flowed like water, the bold writing like the chop of waves, a splash of ink from time to time drawing her eye away, the words curling and eddying into new images and new thoughts by the time she’d refocused.
She traced the line of the writer’s pen as a way to train her mind. One word at a time. One sentence at a time. Letting the language crystallize in her mind. Harden into meaning. Her head ached with the strain of translation, the muscles of her neck and shoulders snarling into angry knots. “The word of Ercaidu is like the tongue of the serpent. Forked and flickering. The seeker of his knowledge must bear its weight. Must put aside the life he has known and become one with Ercaidu. As like him as makes no difference to the pure bloods.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean? And who is Ercaidu?” Kilronan interrupted, jolting Cat out of the moment. She squinted, but the words curved and shifted. Ran like rain through a brain scratchy and tight.
