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“We spoke to Mr. Ahern, and I’m sorry to say received very little intelligible among the gibberish. Miss O’Connell could only relate to us assumptions based on her translation of the diary. A diary we find no longer in your possession.”
“A diary I nearly died to protect.” Anger licked at him. A bit of what he’d almost become in the heat blistering his body. The rage torching that hollow place he still carried.
He lifted his gaze back to the man. Saw Garrick’s flicker of recognition, then retreat, though he clamored to bolster his superior stance.
“A diary that, had you handed it over when the chance was offered, would even now be secure. Your wounds, as well as your cousin’s death, were no more than your own fault.”
“My cousin’s death!” he sputtered. “Do you want to know about my cousin’s death? I sent men to search for his body. They came back with nothing. Not one bone to bury.”
“Unfortunate, I’m sure.”
The man was a massive, self-important prick. Locking his knees against a sudden case of dizziness, Aidan pointed toward the door. “Out. This conversation is over. Get off my land, and get the hell out of my sight!”
Garrick merely offered a thin chilly smile. “If your brother contacts you, send word immediately.” His gaze traveled over Aidan with a despairing lift of his shoulders. “You’ve been fortunate once, Lord Kilronan. You may not fare so well a second time.”
Fortunate? Did they call having his insides stirred with a sword fortunate? He called it a bloody damned pain in the thrice-cursed ass. Had he an ounce of strength he’d have kicked the man to the courtyard and tossed his compatriots after.
Garrick propped a white calling card upon a long rosewood table. Bowed his way out, his flunkies trailing.
Aidan grabbed up a heavy bookend. Drew it back to throw, chest heaving. Anger narrowing his gaze to a pinpoint. “Here’s what you can bloody do with your damned card,” he seethed before dropping his arm to his side. Slapping his hair out of his eyes. Falling back into his seat to fish for a cheroot. Lighting it with shaking hands.
They hunted Brendan. How long could his brother hide? They were relentless. Dogged. A pack of damned scent hounds hot on a trail.
Killed, the man had claimed. The body burned.
The blond man’s voice rose to haunt him.
Would that be Brendan’s fate? Could one misstep or one betrayal send him into the same trap that had been laid for their father? Aidan found himself trained on an inner vision where his brother fought for his life. For his honor. For his innocence.
He ground out the cheroot untasted. If the Amhas-draoi could hunt the lost Kilronan heir, so could he. Brendan would not fight alone.
Cat watched from a window as the men swung their horses around in the cobbled courtyard, cantered back through Belfoyle’s arched tower. She remained long minutes after, content to rest here unnoticed. Unobserved. Alone.
She’d had few chances for such solitude during Aidan’s recovery. Too much of her energy had been spent nursing him through the worst of his injuries. Watching him progress from fevered delirium where every second he lived they claimed as a gift. Through infinitesimal improvements as wounds closed. Fresh scars overlaying the old. A slash of puckered red severing the silver Unseelie brand. An angry welt across his ribs. A fainter mark drawing the eye to his upper arm. His shoulders. And a new flinty hardness chilling the warmth of his gaze.
He’d spoken no more of his desire for her to stay. And she’d not brought it up again. That time felt more like a dream every day. One she’d conjured to carry her through the horrors. Even the memory of his touch, his kisses, the feel of him thrusting deep within her took on the misty glow of unreality.
She unfolded the missive and read it again just to be sure she’d not imagined it. But no, the words remained unchanging. A heavy black scrawl. The slanted loops of letters. The information lifting a hidden burden from her shoulders.
Geordie lived.
He was in Dublin. Well. And wishing her home.
A choice lay before her. Could she truly find happiness as Aidan’s mistress, knowing he left her bed for another’s arms? That any children she bore would carry their father’s blood but not his name? That she must continue always in the corners of his life?
She bit her lip. Traced once more the words upon a window—“I love you.”
But this glass held no coating of dust. Her pledge disappeared as if it had never been.
Sweat stung his eyes. Slicked his bare back. Dampened his hands where they gripped the rock face. The harness chafed his legs, straining muscles st
ill weak from months of inertia.
Squinting into the overcast, he measured the distance to the top. Another fifty yards. May as well be five hundred. He’d never make it. He closed his eyes, but the burn of the wide cloud-flattened sky remained upon the backs of his lids. The distant roll of an ebb tide and the squawks of flustered puffins echoed in his ears.
Opening his eyes, he steeled his body for the next move. Adjusted his grip. Picked out the next handhold. Judged the distance. Climbed.
Tendons screamed. Bones grated against one another in movements difficult when healthy. Damn near impossible when not. But he’d needed this challenge. A focus for the gnawing rage. A way to assuage the Unseelie fury to a manageable whisper. Already he felt the attack easing. Sloughing off him with the drenching sweat.
