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What a fool she was. Twice now she’d been deceived by a man she’d stupidly trusted. Who’d been as false as his word.
Apparently she had quite a talent for seeing a good in someone that just wasn’t there.
She shuddered off her daydreams of her lost home by the sea.
She wasn’t going back to Belfoyle. Aidan’s pleas notwithstanding, she remained committed to the bandraoi. Even if that life seemed empty after the upheaval of the last days.
And as for Daigh’s betrayal? She’d recover. Thoughts of him would fade in time. Her infatuation naught but cause for future teasing.
“Sabrina? Did you mean what you said the other night? I mean about Daigh MacLir?”
Jane asked this now? Sabrina peered closely at her reflection in the glass. There must be a message tattooed on her forehead. Moonstruck. Approach with caution. Or had every priestess suddenly grown adept at reading minds?
She did her best to look breezily vague. “You’ll have to be more specific. Which night? And more important, what did I say?”
Jane continued arranging and rearranging the tiny pile of unused hairpins as if afraid to look Sabrina in the eye. “About feeling as if you and Daigh had known each other before? Seeing things?”
Good heavens, talk about sounding like a blathering idiot. She put the finishing touches on the carefully reconstructed chignon. Tried to keep up the appearance of detached disinterest. “It does sound ridiculous when you say it out loud like that, doesn’t it?”
Jane flashed her a sympathetic smile. “At first hearing, perhaps. But do you still believe it?”
The memory of the parting in the woods. The gnawing ache of a past separation pressing even now upon her heart. Daigh’s fierce certainty they knew each other. His claim he’d come back for her. But back from where? And why for her?
She bought time. Stood back, admiring her handiwork. Touching up here. A stray wisp there. Not bad. If she failed at High Danu priestess she could always get a position as lady’s maid.
“You’re avoiding me.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. You’ve rearranged that same curl three times already. If you don’t want to—”
“I don’t really know what I believe anymore,” Sabrina answered in a rush. “But Sister Ainnir is right. The order—and I—need to forget he was ever here. His arrival brought nothing but trouble.”
She leaned across Jane’s shoulder. Took up the kerchief. Draped it over the dark red brilliance of her hair. Pinned it neatly in place. Sighed. All that hard work, and no one would see it.
“I watched him watching you, Sabrina.” Jane craned her neck around, her smile wistful and envious and dreamy all at the same time. But—for now, at least—not haunted. “And you watched him just as avidly. Good luck forgetting that.”
Sabrina studied her reflection. Narrow, pinched face. Dark circles. Pursed line of her mouth.
And she worried over Jane? Physician, heal thyself.
A sharp rap on the door, and they turned together to face Sister Brigh’s wrinkled scowl. But not her usual world-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket glare. This held a gleam of suppressed ex
citement. A hint of victory. Not a good sign. Any victory of Sister Brigh’s usually meant torment for some unsuspecting novice.
“Sabrina. You’re wanted in Ard-siúr’s office. Immediately.”
And then she was gone.
No tirade about their lazy duty-shirking? No questioning of the hows, whys, and wherefores that allowed them to be in their bedchamber when honest hardworking priestesses were occupied in the business of the order? Not even a disapproving sniff?
Not good. Not good at all.
Jane’s hand found Sabrina’s. Her look one of encouragement.
But all Sabrina could think was, this had impending disaster written all over it.
She studied the messenger from beneath properly downcast lashes. Heavy coat and muffler, a hat he ran nervously through sausage fingers leaking water over Ard-siúr’s rugs, and a red nose equally damp and runny. But it was his stature that held Sabrina’s attention. No taller than a half-grown child, though the crags in his face and the silver-threaded hair spoke of late middle years. What manner of servants was Aidan hiring these days? Probably taken on by that woman he married.
