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“You’ve seen too much in your short life. It makes you cynical.”
Ellery frowned. “It makes me wise.”
Gram’s soft trill of laughter followed. “Trust to your own instincts. You tread a knife-edge in your attempt to avoid your mother’s mistakes. Other than bringing you into this world, your mother’s sins—if that is what you wish to label them—are no part of you.” She paused. “Don’t you agree, Conor?”
Caught, he slid smoothly into the room. “You knew I was there?”
His grandmother held out a hand to him. He took it, stunned at the fragility of her bones. Time passed too quickly. “You have talent,” mischief danced in her eyes, “but my experience goes back to the dawn of this age, my grandson.”
She stood, patted Ellery on the shoulder. Kissed Conor on the cheek. “And tonight I feel the weight of every century. Good night to both of you.”
Her departure left an awkward silence in its wake. Conor tried filling his memory with images and feelings. The scent of her, the way her dark curls exposed the tender nape of her neck, the flash in her blue eyes when she was angry or determined to have her way, her sharp-tempered sarcasm that she used to hold the world at bay, and the loving, hot-blooded woman beneath the prickles. But Aeval was right. He was amhas-draoi. He knew where his allegiance lay. And it wasn’t in Ellery’s arms.
Finally, she tossed her pillow aside and stood up, her shoulders square, her chin up.
“Listening at keyholes now?” she snapped.
How to answer her that wouldn’t get her more upset?
“Ruan was
out of line. He didn’t mean it.”
He needed tact, subtlety—and huge doses of exaggeration—if he was going to nudge Ellery toward Ruan. It was the ideal plan. She already liked him. Ruan was smart, funny, respectable—despite appearances otherwise—and altogether too handsome for his own good. Perfect. In all the ways that Conor wasn’t. He just wished the damn lunk-head had acted more like a besotted lover and less like an ass. It left it to Conor to talk up Ruan’s good points. Win Ellery to his way of thinking.
“I know he didn’t mean it,” she said, sagging as if all the air had been punched out of her. “He was just trying to liven things up. And it would have worked if we’d been in the mood to be cheered. I guess it’s all this waiting for the worst to happen. And then it does. And you know that even worse waits around the corner.”
“He’s a good man.”
She shot him a questioning look. “Who?”
“Ruan. He’s not as fly-by-night as he looks. And he likes you. A lot.”
Her mouth curved in a sad smile, her eyes searching his. Looking for something he refused to give her. “I like him too, Conor. But what has that to do with anything? I thought you…and I…was I wrong?”
“I should never have let it go as far as it did. That was my mistake.” She wheeled away from him, but he halted her escape with a firm hand on her arm. “There’s no future for us, Ellery. I’m not the marrying, settling, dandle-children-on-my-knee kind of person.”
“You should have thought of that before you fucked me. Or did you? And you decided to fuck me anyway. I’m no man’s whore. Not yours. Not Ruan’s.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” She broke his hold with a quick yank. Paced away. Returned to face him down. “I’ve scratched and fought and groveled to escape the fate that caught so many of my kind. Orphans. Bastards. With only one way to make ends meet. You saw Mr. Porter. I’ve fought that kind of prejudice my whole life.”
“I’m not the enemy, Ellery.”
She looked as if she wanted to hit him. Instead, she placed the palm of her hand flat on his chest. The clean scent of her filled his head, delicious and warm. Her cloudless blue eyes penetrated past every defense he threw up. She knew he wanted her. Knew that but one movement on her part would bring them both tumbling into bed. But she waited for him to make the first move. And that was her mistake.
He gently removed her hand. “I’m sorry. I can’t be the man you want.”
Without meeting her eyes, he backed up and retreated like the coward he was. It was only when he was at the end of the corridor that he heard her call after him.
“You know, you’ve never asked me what I want. You might be surprised.”
He didn’t look back.
Conor worked the sword edge with the whetstone, listening for the sing of rock on steel that told him his angle was constant. He’d come to the stables after leaving Ellery, praying she wouldn’t follow. Wishing she had. That had been hours ago, and though the sword had long since been honed to a keen edge, he kept at it.
It was full dark now, his predator’s eyesight cutting through the shadows as easily as his newly sharpened blade would cut flesh. He leaned back, wiped his forehead with a sleeve. Stared up at the house.
