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“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I don’t care how you do it, but find me Brendan Douglas.”
“And St. John?”
“He arrived in Dublin last spring.”
“That’s it? I knew that much already. What of his movements before last spring? What of the brand on his arm?”
“I’ve seen no brand and I can’t exactly ask him to strip for me. As for his movements, bring me news of Douglas and we’ll talk.”
As much to keep his hands from around her neck as anything else, he plunged them into the icy water of his washbasin. Splashed himself awake. Cooled his growing temper.
“Do you want Scathach’s help or not?” she demanded.
When he turned back, she’d gone.
Both hands braced against the edge of the nightstand, he stared into the speckled, cracked mirror. Looked for some vestige of the man he’d once been in the stern angle of his jaw, the cruel set of his mouth, the empty hell-black of his eyes.
Dragging back his sleeve, he glared at the brand on his forearm. The crescent pierced by a broken arrow. Máelodor’s signature. His mark of ownership. As binding as any slave collar.
His mind made up, he turned the mirror inward. Rolled his sleeve back down.
Helena Roseingrave was right. Sabrina didn’t know anything about him.
Nothing at all.
Sabrina left the Ogilvie townhouse on St. Stephens Green with the same stunned exhaustion experienced by battle-sick soldiers. A sort of heavy torpor and a feeling as if her very brain had shaken loose from its moorings. The incessant questions. The hidden pitfalls. The constant search for imperfections. In her dress. Her speech. Her manners.
“That went well,” Aunt Delia chirped as they were shepherded into a closed carriage for the few short blocks to home. She huffed into her seat, wrapping a pink striped shawl over her shoulders. Fiddling with the string of pearls choking her double chin. “The Misses Ogilvie are always so pleasant. Though they have to be, don’t they? Miss Ogilvie with that horrible flat nose that makes her look like a toad. Miss Henrietta with that sallow skin and those dark circles. Their mother’s at her wit’s end, trying to secure proper marriages for them.”
“I thought their mother was your especial friend.”
“She is, darling. Letty Ogilvie and I were at school together. Had our come-out the same year. But really, she could have done so much better for herself.”
“And you told me you wanted me to take my cue from the Ogilvie girls.”
“Well, of course. They may have little in the looks department, but they’re well regarded. And it wouldn’t do your countenance any harm if you were seen in their company. You’d shine like a diamond between two coals, darling.”
What on earth did her aunt say about people she didn’t like? Sabrina shuddered to think.
Her shoulders quivering in silent laughter, Jane took a sudden unwavering interest in the doings of a man selling hot spiced gingerbread.
At least this trip to Dublin had achieved one thing: Jane no longer carried a haunted air, nor did she jump at shadows. Sabrina would cling to that positive. With white knuckles.
Arriving back at Upper Mount Street, Sabrina shed her pelisse and bonnet onto the waiting footman, frantic to escape Aunt Delia’s barbed comments and incessant pettiness.
The man gave a subtle clearing of his throat. “Excuse me, Lady Sabrina, but there’s a gentleman to see you. He’s waiting in the upstairs parlor.”
Daigh. Had to be. A wild fizz spread up from her belly until she buzzed with stupid excitement. Made more stupid by his embarrassing rebuff.
“Thank you. I’ll see him right away.”
Lifting her skirts, she took the stairs slowly, gathering herself together. She’d be dignified. Distant. Show him she didn’t care.
At the closed door, she drew up. Smoothed her skirts. Checked her hair. And grasping the knob firmly, opened the door.
To an empty room. An open window. And a card upon a table.
