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“It’s not important,” she pleaded.
His questing gaze searched her out as the tip of his finger skimmed her cheek. Pushed a tendril of hair behind her ear.
She fought back the shiver answering that gentle caress. Knew he’d not been fooled.
“Are you certain?” he whispered. “Because, for some reason, I find it very important.”
After sending Cat to their room, Aidan strolled back to Danvers, now seated with a bottle of claret and a plate of boiled beef and potatoes.
Of all the thrice-damned things to have happen. To come across someone they knew when he’d worked so hard to remain invisible. At least he might gain something from the debacle. A window to the woman who intrigued him more and more with every passing moment. Much to his growing consternation.
And the detriment of his clothing.
Upon seeing Aidan’s grim-faced approach, the man rose to his feet. Offered a chair. “I hope you weren’t too hard on the girl. I’m sure she didn’t mean to uh, hurl her chocolate at you.”
Aidan accepted the invitation, still dabbing at his waistcoat. “Carlotta is new to the country,” he lied. “She’s a trifle excitable.” He peered over at Danvers. “You made her nervous.”
Danvers adjusted the cuffs of his bottle green coat, rubbed at an invisible spot on his buckskin breeches, clearly both ill at ease in Aidan’s company and eager to push himself into the earl’s good graces. It would be almost too easy to pull information out of this unctuous jackanapes.
“I apologize for approaching her in such a forward way, my lord. For a moment I was certain . . . you see, she was so very like . . .” he broke off. Took a hearty swallow of his wine.
“She was so very like who, Mr. Danvers? I’m curious. Who did you mistake Carlotta for?”
Hesitation passed over Danvers’s features. But only for a moment before his obvious desire to please won out. He leaned forward. “I knew a young woman a few years ago.”
Aidan kept his gaze as bland as milk.
Danvers hurried on. “Our fathers served together in the Mediterranean, you see, and she and I spent much time together growing up. For just a second, I thought your”—he stopped, apparently unsure of what to label Aidan’s companion and not wanting to get it wrong—“but I was mistaken.”
Aidan leaned back. Steepled his fingers beneath his chin, regarding the man with his most supercilious stare. “And just out of curiosity, what happened to the young woman in question?”
Danvers’s gaze went flat, his face pulled to a taut mask of disappointment. “I can only pray she has died, my lord.”
Aidan’s brows shot up. “A remarkable statement.”
“I mean it only in the most sympathetic way, Lord Kilronan.” He rushed to clarify. “Miss O’Connell and I were close once upon a time. But there was a scandal with a young man. Her disgrace humiliated her family and shocked her friends. She disappeared shortly after it became known. None have had word from her since.”
“That’s quite a story.” Aidan masked his surprise in bored cynicism before forestalling the queasy stomach churn of questions by lighting a cheroot on the candle flame. Inhaling on a nerve-calming drag. Grinding the remainder out.
“And what happened to the gentleman involved?” His tone held a whiplash violence that had Danvers cringing, the wrinkled nose and disapproving glare at the unfashionable cheroot wiped from a startled face.
“No one knows, my lord.”
“You mean he disappeared too?” Aidan growled.
“I mean Miss O’Connell refused to reveal his identity. It’s still a mystery.”
A muscle jumped in Aidan’s clenched jaw. Not quite a mystery. Aidan had a name.
Jeremy.
Lazarus prowled the town house from attics to cellars, knowing he’d arrived too late. Kilronan had fled, no doubt taking the diary with him. The only inhabitants remaining, a handful of terrified servants who’d scattered like chickens upon his assault.
He searched anyway. Tearing through rooms. Upending furniture. Emptying drawers and chests and cupboards in a smash of splintered wood and shattered china. Using the pretext of his hunt to ease the roaring fury howling through him like a northern gale wind.
Chest heaving, muscles jumping, he dropped into a chair. Hung his head until the worst passed.
The Amhas-draoi’s attack had weakened him more than he would admit. Even now, he sensed the lingering damage from the magic unleashed upon him. A slowing of his reaction time. A grating shift of tendon against bone as if she’d knocked his entire skeleton off balance. But not even that catastrophic force of mage energy had been enough to stop him completely. He’d suffered. Felt the chill of mortality slide like needles through his veins. Hovered in the white light of eternity for hours or days or weeks. But in the end, it hadn’t been enough to send him back. Send him home.
