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Lines bit deep into either side of his mouth, his hair damped against his skull, face ashen. Straightening, he drew a deep, ragged breath. Cocked an embarrassed and disgusted look in her direction. “Do I look all right to you?”
The aggrieved-little-boy tone drew the sting from his words. Cat rocked back on her heels. Smothered a smile. “No, actually you look completely awful.”
“Thank you.” He staggered to his feet. Held out a hand to her.
She slipped her fingers into his grasp. Met his eyes, and this time the charged rush of sensation had naught to do with magic. Everything to do with the warm, callused grip of the man holding her. She swallowed. Pulled away. She’d burned that bridge. There’d be no going back. “What were you doing?”
The color slowly returned to his face, though he held his side stiffly. “Practicing.”
“To kill yourself?”
“No. To protect you,” he snapped, jolting both of them into an awkward silence. Aidan quickly sought to mend the fence. “And the diary. When—not if—Lazarus returns, I need to be ready for him.”
“But just then, you—”
He went rigid, the nobleman’s arrogance in full view from the darkling light in his eye to the grim jaw. “Failed? Is that what you’re trying to say? Don’t bother pointing out the obvious. It’s not the first time I’ve bolloxed up a spell. It’s just a wonder I haven’t incinerated myself yet.”
This bitterness carried the weight of years. A lifetime’s shortcomings in the acid tones and harsh admission of defeat. How did she combat a statement like that? Should she even try? Perhaps it would be best to simply walk away. Leave him to his self-pity without a backward glance. She took a few dragging steps before reluctantly turning back, her words pulled from some hidden corner of her soul. “We all have flaws, Aidan. That doesn’t make us any less worthy.”
“Or any less treasured,” he murmured in agreement, his stare trapping her in place.
Was this his way of telling her he didn’t hold Jeremy against her? Didn’t despise her? Or think any less of her? She focused on a bird perched on a branch beyond his right shoulder. It kept her from having to look him in the eye. Experience the pull of that scorching bronze gaze. Succumb to the growing ridiculous need to carve herself some small place in his life that didn’t revolve around the diary.
“I’ll leave you to it then.” She swept past him, her body alive to his presence, her skin prickling and gooseflesh springing up her arms.
“Perhaps I should have done as Jack suggested and let the Amhas-draoi have the diary. At least they don’t suffer from ridiculous seizures every time they use their powers.”
She turned, catching the rueful twist of his mouth. Bit her lip as she sought to find words to soothe, knowing she’d never been good at conciliatory speeches. “The Amhas-draoi are the best of the best. Warriors and mages of the highest order. That’s what they do. Who they are. You can’t compare yourself to them.”
Aidan limped to a log. Sank down on it, kneading his thigh, wincing as he worked. “Brendan could have been one. He even asked Father once to send him to Skye to train with Scathach. Father refused. Brendan sulked for a month.”
She leaned back against a tree. Used the rough dig of the bark to counteract the dangerous quicksand feeling his candidness elicited. This was suddenly Aidan and Catriona speaking. Not the Earl of Kilronan and Cat the thief.
“Did you ever want to go to join them?” she asked, knowing she’d waded in over her head. Risked being dragged under by emotions that didn’t make sense. Could never be allowed to emerge.
“Join the brotherhood? Me?” Surprise flitted across his face. “No. As the heir to the earldom, I knew my future. And thankfully my awkward reaction to mage energy didn’t alter that inheritance.”
His easy answer emboldened her—that and a desire to seize this brief intimacy. Be the one asking the questions for a change. “Have you always been affected this way?”
He shrugged. Snapped off a dead branch. Swiped at the shrubbery. “More or less. Father declared it was all in my head. Assured me training would correct it. I just wasn’t working hard enough. It was always a bone of contention between us.”
A well-traveled argument. Familiar to her, though in a different form. Her mother had used it whenever Cat and her stepfather argued. She was imagining things. Mr. Weston was a good and respectable gentleman. Cat was being difficult. Stubborn. Not trying.
“It wasn’t in your head though, was it?” A cloud crossed the sun, throwing the glade into shadow. Cat hugged her arms to her body. Gritted her teeth against the ache of betrayal. Why hadn’t her mother believed her? Why hadn’t she listened? Why hadn’t she cared?
Had she truly loved her new husband so much? Or had it been that she loved Cat so little?
And then Aidan was there. His body warm and solid, the beat of his heart steady beneath her ear. She tensed, but only for a moment before accepting the embrace. Relaxed into the feel of him pressed against her, the hard-muscled strength of him cradling her.
“No, Cat,” he answered, the rumble of his baritone rippling along nerves raw with an overload of emotions. “What I feel is not all in my head.”
“Oh, excuse me. I didn’t know anyone was in here.”
Cat began to back out of the room, but Daz Ahern stopped her with a raised hand. A watery smile from behind thick spectacles. “No one but me, Miss O’Connell. Come in, come in.”
In a moth-nibbled coat with elaborate gold-trimmed cuffs, breakfast-stained silk knee breeches, and his hair pulled back neatly with a velvet ribbon, he almost looked presentable. Just so long as you didn’t notice the high-heeled yellow pump paired with a black leather dancing slipper. “Actually, I’ve been hoping to have a word with you.”
That sounded ominous.
