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“Aidan?”
“Gods, if the Amhas-draoi find him . . . or Máelodor. Bloody sod all. He’s mad to even contemplate such a scheme.”
“Aidan!”
Startled, he spun on his heel.
“You knew he wasn’t dead. You knew and never said.”
A corner of his mouth turned up in a dry smile, for a moment the family resemblance between the golden Lord Kilronan and his dark-featured brother more than obvious. “Thought you’d be the last person in the world to want to hear of Brendan Douglas’s continued existence.”
“It would have been nice to have a bit of warning.”
“Can’t say his turning up at Dun Eyre ever crossed my mind, though had I known that blasted stone was there—” A dumbfounded expression clouded his face. “Hell and the devil, what a bloody great mess.”
“Did you know Brendan was alive all this time?”
Aidan dropped heavily into a chair. “No. Like you, I’d long ago assumed his death. It was only last spring I learned of his return to Ireland.” He drummed his fingers upon the chair’s arm. “I’ve spent the past year searching for him. Hoping to find him before the Amhas-draoi.”
“How did you know to come to Helena’s?”
“I didn’t.” He pulled a much-folded letter from his coat pocket. “This arrived at Belfoyle from an old friend of my father’s. Mr. Ahern said he’d irrefutable evidence that Brendan was in Dublin. I left immediately, hoping to speak to Miss Roseingrave. I thought she might have knowledge of Brendan’s whereabouts.” He shook his head, a rough bark of grim laughter. “Apparently she did, though I can see why she kept the knowledge to herself. She knows I’d have tossed a spanner into any plan that involved using Brendan as the lure to catch Máelodor.”
“But Madame Arana said you were Amhas-draoi. Why did you lie?”
He dropped his head, rubbing the back of his neck. “Miss Roseingrave and I aren’t on the best of terms. I thought I’d have more luck seeing her if I introduced myself as one of the brotherhood than as the accursed Lord Kilronan. Had I known Brendan was here . . .” He pulled a cheroot from a case. Bent to light it off a candle, inhaling a long, steadying drag. “Where’s he gone, Elisabeth?”
Her hands shook. “I don’t know, but, Aidan”—she paused, trying to swallow back the lump in her throat—“I don’t think he plans on coming back. I think Brendan believes this can only end in his death.”
His brows drew into a frown, a shocked stillness descending over him.
“I think he knew even before he married me he’d not much time left.”
Every word she uttered drew Aidan tighter, hardening his already austere features. Her own body tensed, shoulders up near her ears, an arm across her stomach to hold the sickening ache in check.
Then, just at the moment she thought she might run screaming from the room, Aidan snapped. Leaping to his feet, an awkward smile brightening his somber expression. “What am I thinking? I should be offering you my felicitations on your marriage. Brendan couldn’t have chosen better.”
He embraced her in an enormous brotherly hug, his jacket scratchy against her cheek and smelling of smoke and brandy and dust and man.
Not precisely the reaction she’d been expecting. It took the wind from her sails, leaving her confused and empty and dazed; and yet, in a tiny way, she wanted to throw her arms around Aidan for seeming to understand how desperately she wanted to be a normal bride with a normal husband and a normal life.
He took her by the shoulders, stepping back to gaze down at her. “This is the best news I’ve had in ages.” Exhaustion smudged the skin below his eyes, frustration tensing his square jaw. “Your aunts will be ecstatic. They’ve been seeking word of you everywhere; actually, part of my business in town was to see what I could find out abou
t you.”
A cannonball dropped into the pit of her stomach. Her aunts. How on earth was she going to face them after this? Somehow in the mounting chaos of her days in Dublin, that question had gotten lost in the shuffle. Aidan’s arrival drove it front and center. “Are they all right?”
He released her to once more prowl like some great hunting cat, his hand tapping at his thigh. “Mrs. Pheeney has taken to her bed with hartshorn for her nerves and magnesia for her upset stomach, but Miss Sara has been stalwart in containing the scandal. In fact, she was the only one unsurprised by your elopement.”
Elisabeth took a seat upon the edge of a settee, her queasiness resuming double force. “She knew Brendan had returned. She recognized him, you see.” Elisabeth rubbed her temples as if trying to keep her brains from oozing out her ears. “And I think somehow . . . some way . . . she sensed what would happen.”
“Did she?” He grunted. “Fancy that. Don’t doubt it. Your grandmother carried the blood.” He scraped a knuckle along his chin. A gesture she’d seen Brendan make a million times. The cannonball moved up into her chest.
“Was it . . . as bad as I imagine?” she ventured.
“I wasn’t there during the ruckus, but Lady Kilronan told me the place was pandemonium, with everyone accusing everyone else. One group wanted to charge out after you and drag you back by the hair. The other faction washed their hands of the debacle.”
“I can imagine which side Gordon came down on.”
