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A question hovered. One Sabrina needed to ask. Not out of spite or any wish to wound, but because she and Cat had more in common now than just Aidan. Still, how to ask without sounding like a mean gossip. Direct was best.
Soonest asked. Soonest answered.
She squared her shoulders. Exhaled her words in a gasp of breath. “Do you regret what you did with . . .? When . . .? I mean they say—not that I care what a bunch of tattle-merchants say, but—that is . . . do you regret what you did?”
Embarrassed heat shot straight to her toes. Especially when Cat’s smile faded. Her stare turning inward, body stiffening, hands clasped palm down in her lap.
“No regrets. Not any longer. Aidan’s love brought me to this blessed point.” Cat reached across and took Sabrina’s hand in hers. The gold and garnet Kilronan wedding band winking on her ring finger. “He saw firsthand the pain giving my heart to someone unworthy of it caused me.”
Sorrow lodged deep within Sabrina’s chest. Is this what people meant when they spoke of being heartbroken? This hard, cold rock that seemed to expand until all of her felt weighted and a
chy? She pulled a shawl up over her shoulders, even though the room was overwarm and stuffy from the fire. Gazed for a moment at the rainy night beyond her window where the stifling press of the city seemed to add to her already throbbing head. “Daigh said he tried to kill you. Is that true?”
“Is that what he’s calling himself these days?” Cat focused on the fire as if the past could be seen within the dancing flames. “I wish I could tell you differently. If it weren’t for Miss Roseingrave, Aidan and I wouldn’t have survived.”
Sabrina went rigid. “Miss Roseingrave? That she-viper?”
A hint of amusement touched Cat’s sad eyes. “Aye. She and your cousin Jack prevented Laz—Daigh from gaining the diary. I miss Jack. I believe she does too.”
“Jack wasn’t set on by robbers, was he? He was another victim.”
“Jack sought to protect me and died for his bravery.” She paused, her face drawn and pale. Worry carved the corners of her mouth. Between her brows. “In the end, Daigh could have killed Aidan and me. He was a sword stroke away from ending our lives.” She bit her bottom lip. “But he didn’t. Something stopped him. Perhaps it’s the same something that caused you to love him.”
Sabrina stiffened, eyes wide, brain racing. Did she love Daigh? She had once. Long centuries ago. And though he sought to dismiss her visions as a virgin’s foolishness, they were more than that. Much more. She tucked her arms beneath her breasts against the squeeze of pain. An all-too-familiar grief. A loss she seemed doomed to repeat again and again.
“You think I was mad to care for him. I see it in your face.”
Cat shook her head. “You stumbled in over your head. But take it from someone who’s been there, the heart mends. It may be impossible to believe now, but the fall into love isn’t fatal.” She twisted her wedding ring round and round, the ghost of an old grief hovering beneath her pale skin. “Not if there’s someone to catch you at the bottom.”
With a hand plowed into his thick auburn hair, Aidan bent over his library desk, pen scratching madly across the page, a grim set to his angular jaw, his expression forbidding in a way she’d never seen before. In fact her brother was as unfamiliar as a stranger. The Aidan of her childhood had been an irresponsible scoundrel. A brother revered as exciting and reckless. Certainly not this cynical, stern-featured autocrat.
Drawing in a fortifying breath, Sabrina tapped on the open door.
Without raising his head, he put up a hand. “Hold one moment, Cat, or I’ll lose my train of thought.”
“It’s not Cat. It’s Sabrina. We need to speak.”
His head shot up, brows contracting in a wary scowl. “I’m busy. We’ll talk later. Once I’ve calmed down. Right now I’m still ready to tear that bastard’s thrice-damned head off and shove it up his—” His pen snapped in two. He tossed it onto the desk with another muttered oath. “Didn’t I warn you? Now’s not the time.”
Ignoring his display of temper and his abrupt dismissal, she stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. “If you’re trying to scare me into leaving, it won’t work. And I don’t give a . . . a . . . damn for your temper,” she brazened. “We’ll talk now.”
He seemed as stunned as she by her outburst. But it worked. He gave her his attention. Rubbed his chin, eying her with an arrogant droop of his lids. “A foul mouth to match your easy virtue. What else can I thank the bandraoi for?”
She gritted her teeth until she thought they might crack. “Do you really want to go down that path, Aidan? Because I’m certain your wife would be interested in hearing your opinions on a woman’s virtue.”
His jaw clenched, contrition instantly flaring in his bronze brown gaze. “Did you ever think it might be because of Cat that I’m as furious with you as I am? One misstep. One hint of scandal and they’ll pounce. Shred you to bits with their gossip and their barbs and their hypocritical outrage. Tear you down until there’s nothing left. I don’t want you to suffer what she has.”
He scrubbed his hands through his hair in an impatient and frustrated gesture, and for the first time, she noticed the gleaming silver strands among the gold. The worry lines creasing the corners of his eyes. The tension thickening the very air around him. Much had happened to her oldest brother while she remained oblivious within the sanctuary of the order. Desolation. Suffering And horrible pain. Hints of them plagued him still. In the darkness of his gaze. The solemn austerity of his expression.
“Is that why you and Cat avoid Dublin?” she asked.
He shrugged. “In part. Cat’s memories of the city are painful ones. And for myself, I lost interest in the gilded dog pit that is the beau monde years ago. The loss of Kilronan House offered a good excuse for our exile.” He shook his head. Sighed again as he toyed with the jagged pieces of the broken pen. “Sabrina . . . how . . . what would ever make you . . . knowing what he is . . . that’s what I don’t understand.”
His troubled gaze wandered over her as if he didn’t recognize her. Perhaps he shared her sense of confronting a stranger. She sank slowly into a seat, exhaustion rushing in to replace her earlier hostility. “He cared for me, Aidan. I know it’s hard to believe, but he did. I would have detected deceit or treachery.”
But would she? Or had he hidden his true intentions behind the blast furnace of emotion that scoured her brain with such frequency? Had his mind’s churning turbulence obscured the real purpose behind his attentions?
Aidan leapt to his feet. Hand tapping nervously against his bad thigh. His limp hampering his angry strides back and forth across the carpet. “Lazarus cares for nothing. He’s guided by Máelodor in all things. And if he made you believe he cared then it was only because his master bid him do so.”
