AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Shit.” Brendan positively vibrated, the air charged with an invisible current. It prickled Elisabeth’s skin, lifted the hairs at the back of her neck, slid shivering along her bones. “If they discover me here—” he growled.
“Go.” Elisabeth pushed him away, her heart pounding in he
r chest, panic knifing up through her stomach. “Grab what you need. Madame Arana can take you down the back stairs. You’ll be able to slip out through the kitchen into the yard and down the alley. I’ll see to the Amhas-draoi.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, but it’s that or allow all my nursing to go for naught.”
Brendan pressed a kiss to the palm of her hand. “Careful, Lissa. Helena’s a pussycat compared to most of them.”
“I’ll be fine,” she assured him, putting on a brave face. “After all, I’m a simpleminded Duinedon; what could I possibly know?”
His bad-little-boy smile did crazy fluttery things to her insides. Or perhaps that was a residue of mad panic. Difficult to tell. “I’ll take your Duinedon brains over any amount of Other magic any day.”
“Which just goes to show you’re still not feeling well,” she scoffed. “Right now I’d pay ready money for the ability to fly like a bird to the Outer Hebrides for a very long, very peaceful holiday.”
“You really do have an odd idea of Other abilities,” he said, amusement and excitement glittering in his eyes.
Good heavens, was he was actually enjoying himself? With both arms, she shoved him away. “Stop gabbling at me and go already!”
He crushed her in an embrace that drove the breath from her lungs and left her dizzy and reeling. “You’ll be fabulous. Five minutes is all I need. You can keep them busy for five minutes. I know you can.”
She squared her shoulders. “Five? I’ll give you a good half hour. It’s amazing how chatty I can get if I put my mind to it. As Beaumont would say, ‘Women should talk an hour after supper. ’Tis their exercise.’”
“You sound frighteningly like your aunt.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You would.” He laughed.
And then Brendan was gone, leaving her to face the indomitable ferocity of Scathach’s brotherhood alone. Her last sight of him as the door closed, his bent head, back arrow-straight, fists clenched at his sides.
She would not break down. She would not dwell. And she would most definitely not snivel.
Descending the stairway to the drawing room, Elisabeth channeled a century and a half of Fitzgerald hauteur. She flung open the drawing room doors, gliding into the room on a frigid wind. The pampered heiress on full display.
Her visitor stood at the hearth with his back to her. He bore a wide-legged stance and broad shoulders, his auburn hair barely brushing his collar. As she watched, he took a shaky drag on a lit cheroot before tossing the whole into the fire.
“Miss Roseingrave is out at present, sir. Perhaps I may assist you?” she asked, hoping the wobble in her voice didn’t betray her.
He spun round, bronze eyes wide, the color draining from his face. “Elisabeth?”
Her head spun as a roaring filled her ears, her heart crashing against her ribs. She sagged against a chair, one hand strangling her skirts as she fought to understand. “Lord Kilronan? Aidan? God in heaven, is it really you?”
twenty
Elisabeth gripped her hands tightly in her lap, willing a cool, elegant pose as if the events she’d just related were not the outrageous stuff of fantastical nightmare. Magical stones. Máelodor’s bounty hunters. Amhas-draoi attacks. Arthur’s summoning. And, oh, by the way, her marriage to a man everyone thought was dead.
Completely humdrum and not worth getting into a pucker over.
“He’s been carrying that guilt around with him like a damned great anchor all this time? The stupid sod, he should know I’d never think . . .” Lord Kilronan’s words trailed off. “If I’d only come an hour sooner.”
I see his death in my head.
Brendan’s words repeated in her mind, but was the vision of Aidan’s fall a future that must come to pass? Surely not, if Brendan continued to fight to prevent it. Or was his growing desperation born of knowing the fate he feared was a fate inescapable?
Lord Kilronan closed his eyes, uttered a very ungentlemanly “Thrice-damned son of a bitch,” before stalking the length of the room, hand beating a rapid pulse against his lame leg. “The last I heard, he was in the north. Why the hell would he . . .”
