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Leave the city? Travel alone in company with Kilronan and his magnetic gaze? His body-luring kisses? His sensually charged charisma working at her indifference with a sapper’s doggedness? Definitely a very, very bad idea.
Now she was on her feet. A finger jammed repeatedly into his unyielding chest. “And where would we go that’s safe?”
Had she said we? Had she actually agreed to this?
“West.” He ignored her finger. Admirable in someone who—now she looked closely—appeared as battle-scarred as she. The tiny fatigue lines gathering at the corners of his eyes, the pastiness underlying the bronze of his skin, the tension humming along jumpy muscles. He may have survived, but it had been a hard-won battle. “There’s someone I must speak with. Someone who knew my father.”
She flung herself away from him to stomp like a madwoman about the room. “I can’t just go haring off with you to some unknown destination on an insane hunch.”
“Social calendar full?” he responded wryly. “Of course you can go. Must go. Or have you forgotten Smith and his associate? They’re still out there. No doubt nursing a dangerous grudge. Your friend Geordie’s yet to turn up living or dead. You’ve no home. No work.” He ticked off his reasons one by one. Each like a nail in the coffin of her justifications. “There’s nothing left for you here, Cat. And everything to be gained by traveling to Knockniry. As I said before, we leave in three hours.”
“I can’t—” Stopped, consternation wiping away the last vestige of argument. She was vertical. Ambulatory. And in naught but her chemise with Aidan’s eyes burning a hole right through it. With a groan, she swept the quilt off the bed and around her shoulders.
“Miss Osborne won’t be pleased.”
His mouth thinned to an irritated line. “No, she won’t,” was all he answered.
A malicious spark pushed her into final agreement. “Fine. Three hours.”
Aidan crossed to the door. “I’ll send someone to assist you in dressing.”
He’d made it to the top of the stairs before Cat came to her senses. Shouted after him, “Who’s Lazarus anyway, and what has any of this got to do with the Amhas-draoi?”
“What’s to stop Lazarus from catching us out here?” Cat asked the back end of Aidan’s horse. “What makes you think we aren’t walking right into an ambush?”
She scanned the dripping trees as she asked the question. Peered through the tangled overgrowth lining the river of mud calling itself a road.
“We may well be.” Aidan swiveled in the saddle to answer, hat pulled low over his brow, a blue tinge to his lips. “But that was guaranteed if we hadn’t left the city. I’m banking on speed and secrecy to keep us safe until we reach Knockniry.”
She tensed as her own mount tossed its head at the crack of a twig, the squawk of a startled jay. “And then?” she persisted, wiping the rain from her eyes.
Aidan didn’t answer.
Or couldn’t.
After all, as he’d explained it to her, Lazarus couldn’t be killed. Or at least, no one had figured out how to do it yet. Brilliant.
She shrugged deeper into the heavy cloak he’d tossed her as they slipped up the area steps to be met near Henry Street by a groom leading two horses. It had been the last notice he’d taken of her before reverting to stone-faced reserve throughout the hours that followed. As they made their circuitous way out of the city and onto the road toward Edenderry. As they paused just long enough to rest the horses and snatch a hasty bite at a roadside tavern outside Kilcock. As the rain moved in, turning a merely interminable trip to one downright dismal. It had only been in the last miles that she’d ventured conversation. That or go stark star
ing mad with boredom.
“Jack was only acting out of concern for you, you know. Perhaps it would have been better to give the diary to the Amhas-draoi. They could protect it.” She peered over her shoulder into the veil of drizzly mist closing in behind them. “And us.”
Aidan’s whole body went stiff in the saddle. “Protect us? Is that what you think they’d do? Hardly. They’d feed us to the wolves if it suited them. They want to use my father’s diary as bait. Dangle it in front of Lazarus and his master to flush them out.”
“And is that wrong? I’ve met Lazarus. The Amhas-draoi are welcome to him. Dangle away, I say.”
Aidan never turned around. Instead, his voice carried back to her on a ribbon of silver cloud. “And the man who controls him? Lazarus’s master?”
She tightened her hands on the reins, a razor reminiscence slicing right through her. She choked down the momentary panic. “Anyone who can control that monster must be a monster in his own right. The Amhas-draoi can have them both, and good riddance.”
Aidan didn’t answer at once. Cat wondered if he would. But finally, he spoke. His words rough with confusion. “I won’t believe it. Lies. It has to be.”
And with that enigmatic comment, a fresh downpour sent her burrowing into the cloak like a turtle into its shell. The wool smelled like Aidan—a musky combination of scents sparking a tingling heat in her belly.
For a moment, she found herself back in the garden of Kilronan House. Aidan’s heartbeat steady beneath her palm, his lips moving against hers in a slow seduction, the track of his fingers upon her face loosening the hard core of her anger.
But this time, she did not step out of reach. This time, she did not allow Jeremy’s ghost to insinuate itself between them. This time, she gave in to the temptation of Aidan’s touch. Surrendered to the honey swell of sensation drugging her body. And found release in his arms upon the soft grass beneath the sheltering laburnums.
