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That meant deciphering the diary.
For all that her presence disturbed him. For all that those vibrant green eyes and sexy sweet body sparked an attraction harder and harder to ignore. For all that every encounter left him seeking out cold baths and a stiff drink—that meant Cat.
He absently pitched a pebble into the fountain. Then another.
After playing host to Miss Osborne and her mother for a good hour, he’d shown them out to their carriage. Miss Osborne’s lips curled in a seductive pout as she sought to coax him into joining them at the Rimshaws’ card party later. Her mother beaming her agreement. At least he had one parent’s approval for his courtship.
He made his regrets, pleading the lingering effects of his attack, which seemed to satisfy her for the moment. But it was clear he would need to act soon or risk losing her interest.
He tossed another pebble.
His eyes followed the contours and curves of the statue as if drinking in the flesh and fire of the real thing. But whereas Leda remained cold and untouchable, the arc of her spine, the hollow at the base of her throat, the moment of ecstasy all rendered in endurable marble, Cat’s thunder-cloud personality and mercurial temperament made every moment fraught with cliff-scaling thrills. A pulse-pounding sensation he’d not experienced for longer than he liked to admit.
He flicked a last pebble into the water.
But excitement didn’t feed the bulldog creditors hounding one’s door. Money did. And that remained the purview of Miss Osborne and her well-heeled father.
Rising from the bench, Aidan dusted off his breeches. Wiped his hands. Took a deep, careful breath. And deliberately turned his back on a statue built in honor of love.
A last sparkling shaft of evening sun streamed through the tall library windows. Fell across the page Cat read, picking out one single sentence near the bottom.
Her gaze dropped to the swirling clash of letters, forcing her mind to pick apart the strange pairings of vowels and consonants. Unstressed. Stressed. Long. Short. The diary resisted her translation, seeming to squirm and writhe against her grasping for its meaning. Every word fraught with a double dose of illness and a headache like a drill to her brain.
But in the end, sense came from the foreign gibberish inked upon the paper.
She read it. And again. And even a third time. Disbelief giving way to shock. Then finally—
Horror.
“Oh gods,” she gasped. “He couldn’t. Not his own son.”
“You read it wrong. It’s a mistake. It must be.”
Aidan fought his panic with a long, slow drag on his cheroot. It didn’t help. He tossed it in the fire, unable to even look at the paper Cat had shoved into his hands.
“I translated it twice more. No mistake.”
Aidan forced himself to read the words Cat had carefully written out for him. His stomach rolled, cold sweat breaking out upon his skin, and he looked away. “Father would never have gone through with such a plan.”
“That’s not what it says here.” Cat tore the paper from his limp fingers. Read it out loud. “It’s decided we need a blood sacrifice. Brendan has been suggested as one with the required power.” She scowled, eyes flashing. Her shoulders tight, motions jerky and quick-tempered. “Not even a spark of outrage, Aidan. What kind of man blithely agrees to murder his child in the name of . . . of . . . what? We don’t even know. It doesn’t say.”
“It must.” He strode to the diary, lying open upon the desk. Scanned the pages as if through sheer willpower he could decipher the crazy slant and jump of his father’s writing. Immediately, his stomach rose into his throat and he bent double, clutching his gut.
Cat was there. Slamming the book closed. Shoving him into a chair until the worst passed. Giving him time to recover before she slid into the seat opposite, features brittle with determination. “I looked already. I read ahead a dozen pages and more. There’s no reference to a sacrifice other than these few passages. If it’s in there, I haven’t found it. Or he hid it in meanings inside of meanings. It certainly wouldn’t be the first riddle I’ve uncovered.”
“Damn it, Cat. What’s the point of translating the damn thing if I end with more questions than when I began?” Tightness banded his chest, whirling nausea dragging him like an anchor.
“Could that account for your brother’s disappearance?” Her voice came low and uneasy. “Could your father have—”
“No.” He flinched, coming up hard against the edge of the desk. “And don’t even suggest it.”
Her brows rose in unvoiced cynicism. “If your brother were still alive, wouldn’t he have gotten in touch with you after your father’s death? Six years is a long time to stay away without any word whatsoever.”
An argument he’d held with himself many times. If Brendan lived, why no letters? Visits? Why had he cut himself off so completely from his family? There had to be an explanation, but he refused to consider Cat’s. That Father had—no. Impossible.
Closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers, he tried gathering his scattered thoughts. Shifting the few puzzle pieces they had, but no picture emerged beyond the one Cat had produced with her outrageous suggestions.
“My father couldn’t have done it. He loved Brendan.”
