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Mr. Porter flicked an imaginary speck of dirt from his sleeve and smoothed a hand down his chest, fondling the jeweled pin. “I can see now why she chose you as a protector. Money always attracts her sort.”
“Enough.” Conor’s voice cut like a blade. “You’ll get what’s owed, but be careful. You’ve felt Miss Reskeen’s fist. You don’t want to feel mine.”
Conor’s words carried a danger not lost on Mr. Porter. He glowered. “The back-rent. By tonight. Don’t be too late.”
Instead of challenging her landlord, Conor looked up at the few stars bright enough to be seen through the haze of clouds. Down in the village, a dog barked and was hushed with a shouted curse.
“I pray I won’t be,” he said.
Chapter Five
“I told you to leave,” Ellery paced in front of the parlor fire, her expression thunderous.
Conor felt her anger. It shimmered in the air around her like a heat mirage. He braced himself for the argument he knew would come. He’d searched the cottage while she was gone. Any weapons had been safely disposed of. She wouldn’t catch him with that trick again. He twisted his lips in a cold smile. “Did you imagine you’d driven me away? I don’t frighten easily, Miss Reskeen.”
She shot him a dagger-glance. “If you hadn’t shown yourself to Mr. Freethy, none of this would have happened.”
Conor had known only one other woman brave enough to speak to him so bluntly, and she was dead. His heart constricted with a familiar ache, but he crushed it, concentrating instead on watching the slide of Ellery’s gown over every tempting curve. With her dressed in such a way, it was no wonder that miserable lecher had thought he could make advances. Her sudden stop broke him from his wandering thoughts. His attention back, he met her stony gaze. “I won’t leave without the reliquary.”
She cr
ossed her arms, a wall of disbelief shutting him out. “There you go again with that blather about a reliquary. I don’t have it. It’s gone. Lost. Probably fenced a hundred times over by now.”
“No. It’s here. I know it. I can feel it.”
“You’re not making sense.”
Conor had to be careful. The truth sounded outrageous even to his own ears. And why waste words? Would understanding the strength and brutality of the Triad and their desire to realize a new beginning for the fey world make her more pliant? The Triad would make the world believe, but with that belief would come a terror, greater even than anything Napoleon’s armies had unleashed. If Asher alone could succeed in bringing down four amhas-draoi, how much more power would be unleashed with the brothers reunited?
He couldn’t take the time to explain, but he also couldn’t risk alienating this woman further. He needed her as much as he needed the reliquary.
“It has to be here. Your father had it at the time of the ambush. In his hands. I saw it.”
She spun to face him. But instead of the fight he expected, she dropped into a chair as if she’d had the air punched out of her. Her fingers twisted together in her lap, and for the first time she seemed vulnerable and lonely. “You were there? With Father?”
Conor’s hand went to his shoulder, memories of the battle in the Chapel of San Salas bringing with them a licking burn deep within tissue that had never completely healed. How could he answer her question and yet not answer it? He took a deep breath. “I was. It was in a small abandoned chapel in the hills north of Subjiana de Alava and well off the road.”
“I know the spot. When the orders came to march, we couldn’t find him. We searched everywhere. I went back with some of Father’s men. Do you remember the blood?”
Her voice shook, her gaze turned inward on images seared into her brain. Images no innocent should witness.
“I remember.” And he did. It was one of the few things he did remember from his last encounter with Asher.
“I try not to,” she said, her voice, empty of emotion. “But I’ll always see that chapel. Three of them lay just inside the door, another farther inside by the chancel. Multilated. Torn apart, really. Lt. Cordry and Ensign Hall tried to hold me back, but I’ve always been stubborn.” Her eyes flickered with the warmth of memory. “Too smart for my own good, Father would tell me. He lay in front of the altar as if prepared for sacrifice. His body…”
Her neck muscles worked as she fought to control her voice. Her eyes shone, but no tears fell. Damn, she had courage. He stepped in, unable to let her continue. “They were no match for what happened.”
She cleared her throat, wiping her eyes with the back of one hand. “You didn’t say we.”
“What?”
“You didn’t say we were no match. You said they. But you said you were there in the chapel.” Her voice strengthened, and she sat straighter in the chair. “You said you saw Father with the reliquary. So where were you?” By now she was almost shouting. “Why didn’t you die with the others?”
How the hell had he walked into that one? He knew. He’d been weak, distracted by Ellery’s beauty, the supple strength of her body, the flash of her crystal blue eyes, the way the expressions raced across her face, so clear he had no need to read her mind to know her thoughts.
He reined himself in, gaining time by pouring himself a glass of claret from a decanter on the buffet. She was beautiful, but that didn’t make her special. A lot of women were beautiful.
The only thing that marked her as exceptional was her blood. And once he’d spilled it for the sacrifice, she’d be one more corpse. And what was unique in that?
