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By the time she’d returned with Morgan and Ruan, she’d been convinced the others had truly not known what Conor had planned. Either that or the entire family should have gone on the stage. She’d stood by as Jamys had apologized and Mikhal had explained. She’d not resisted when Niamh and Lowenna had hustled her into a hot bath and a linen nightgown. She’d even nodded as they comforted and sympathized, and accepted their tea with steady hands. But the words passed through her, barely registering above the din of her own screaming thoughts. Only the worry and fear in their eyes cracked the wall of numb she’d built around herself to keep the hurt at bay.
Conor’s mother left after a time, perhaps sensing that all Ellery wanted was to be alone for a long fit of weeping and self-pity. But his grandmother wasn’t so perceptive. Or perhaps she didn’t care.
She sat at the edge of Ellery’s bed, her gaze as impenetrable as the fog had been. “What Conor did was done out of fear, not malice.”
Ellery drew her knees up, wrapped her arms around them as she looked to the window. “Fear that I would run, you mean.”
“No,” Lowenna snapped. “Fear of falling in love with you.” There was that word again. How could Lowenna equate Conor’s actions with anything close to love? Deception. Betrayal. These were better suited. She blinked to hold back tears desperate to flow. “He sought me out, lied to me. All for one purpose.” Swiping a hand across her face, she forced the pain back below the surface. “He would have killed me,” she murmured.
Lowenna gave a slow nod
of her head. “As he was, he might well have done so and excused it as necessary.” She smoothed a hand over the blankets. Caught Ellery’s wrist, making her meet her gaze. Silver gray and stern as winter, it was impossible to look away. “All that has changed since his return home. Being Other is a treacherous road, and few know the temptations of the fey as well as I. Conor was gifted at birth with great abilities and promise, but only one person truly held his heart. Ysbel’s murder unlocked his viciousness and a ruthless power. It forced him to acknowledge the ease with which he could become Asher’s equal in both magic—and cruelty. He struggles still.” The brilliance of Lowenna’s eyes, the gravity of her words pierced Ellery to her core, that small part of her that yearned for Conor even when the rest of her wanted him drawn and quartered.
“What has that to do with me?” she grudged.
Conor’s grandmother offered her a warm smile and a motherly pat on the cheek. “You can do what all of us here cannot. You can keep Conor from following that path into a darkness that will consume him in the end.” Her wrinkled cheeks dimpled. “You must hold his heart now, dear.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Glynnis’s funeral lasted only the time it took to place her in the family crypt, an aged priest performing the ceremony in a high, wheezy voice that set Ellery’s teeth on edge. Low clouds threatened rain, and a damp, foul wind blew steadily from the south, hissing through the loose stones of the tomb, whipping the priest’s black cassock into bat’s wings. Next to her, Morgan straightened her hat, muttering something under her breath about spriggan mischief.
Ellery stood between Morgan and Lowenna, hands locked together in prayer and her gaze centered on the patch of grass at her feet. Not due to any spiritual reverence. She’d decided long ago that if God did exist, he spent little time worried over the problems of men. But because that way, she didn’t have to look in Conor’s direction or acknowledge his existence. It was petty, but she couldn’t trust herself. She was still mad as hell.
Back at the house, Ellery started up the stairs, hoping to hide in her room for the rest of the day. Perhaps for the rest of the week. Until she could leave here and never look back. But Morgan stopped her, challenged her.
“I thought you braver than that.” She stood hands on hips, her face grave. “Hiding from Con isn’t going to solve anything between you.”
“No, but at least I don’t have to fight my urge to rip him to shreds.” Ellery sighed, shoulders slumped. “It’s better if I just stay out of the way. I’ll be gone soon, and your family can forget I even exist.”
Morgan frowned. “You don’t understand,” Ellery added, then choked off the rest of her words. She sounded whiny, and she hated whiny. That was Conor’s fault too. She’d never been whiny before he came along. Or needy. Or weepy. Or dizzy with a joy that skimmed under her skin and flashed through her insides until she buzzed with it.
She scowled. That kind of thinking got her nowhere. Morgan followed Ellery up the stairs. “I understand plenty. But if you’re half the fighter I think you are, you won’t let Con chase you away.” She took her by the wrist. “What he did was wrong. Gods, that’s not saying the half of it. And I’m not making excuses. But if you’d seen him in the weeks after Ysbel’s death. If you’d watched the changes wrought in him by her murder.” Ellery remained stone-faced. “I’m not telling you to forgive him, but sometimes…” She shrugged.
“I turned the other cheek once, and got slapped again for my trouble.”
Morgan laughed. “Come down. It won’t be as bad as you think. He’s under siege by Mrs. Bushy and her daughters. She’s a friend of Gram’s and out to snare husbands for her four girls. The hunter’s become the prey.”
Conor did look caught—and miserable. He stood, drink in hand, a head taller than any other man there. He scanned the room for rescue, his eyes alighting on her, a haunted need in them that twisted at her resistance. Frightened at her reaction, she ignored his silent plea and looked away.
She couldn’t have made it through the next hour without Morgan’s help. She took charge, introducing Ellery to the handful of guests who’d come out of obligation or curiosity, explaining her presence at Daggerfell, easing Ellery’s way through the longest day of her life.
She knew Conor watched. The weight of his stare pressed upon her, keeping her edgy and tense, sending her pulse racketing out of control, her throat dry. It was anger. Nothing more. Her first instincts had been right. He was trouble. And his trouble had turned her upside down and inside out. She hated him. But she loathed herself for wanting more. For wanting him—still.
Tight, uncomfortable silences punctuated the hush-voiced conversations. Glynnis haunted them all, and her death, though ruled accidental, remained a mystery. Only the determined Mrs. Bushy seemed oblivious as she moved her girls from Conor to Ruan to Jamys, extolling their virtues in a loud unruly voice as if she hawked vegetables at market.
Glancing around, Ellery’s heart jumped. Conor bore down on her, his gaze ominous and single-minded. Did she stay and confront him? The coward in her screamed panic, and Ellery excused herself in a rush of apology as she fled toward the hall. She couldn’t speak with him. Not now. Not when she didn’t know what words might flow, what emotions would rise to the surface first. Retreat. Regroup. Then attack.
Stupidly not watching her steps, she careened into a gentleman just outside the salon doors.
He steadied her, his hand like a vise. “Pardon me, miss. No fire, I hope.” One hand gripped her, a muff cap tucked beneath his other arm.
“None, thank you,” she answered. Her eyes swam with frustrated tears, but she had the hazy impression of a sword-belt crossing a silver braided chest, white facings, silver buttons. If only he’d let her go before Conor cornered her.
“Excuse me. Please.”
She drew away, staring up into a square-jawed face, glacial blue eyes, and hair guinea-gold, knotted into a tight soldier’s queue. Not the heart-stopping magnificence of the Bligh men, but a ruggedness that made you look twice. Or three times. Too bad, she was in no mood for handsome men. She offered him a defiant flip of her chin and an arrogant glare that brought a thin smile to his lips. “A whole family of hell-cats,” he murmured under his breath.
The servant accompanying the officer beckoned him forward. He nodded her a dismissive salute, his attention already centered on the room’s occupants.
