Earl of Darkness

by Alix Rickloff

  “I don’t say what I don’t mean.”

  Firelight and the lavender scent of perfume, or blood loss and the beginning of fever—Aidan couldn’t be sure, but the result had him captured within the depths of Cat’s jade gaze. And while his brain still seethed, the rest of him responded with a sweep of heat and a bone-deep ache that had him shifting uncomfortably.

  “Very well . . . Aidan,” she said, her voice low and uncertain. She stepped forward, the air charged with all the potential of a summer storm. Just as he’d thought, the woman was a walking thundercloud. She held out a hand.

  “Whether you meant to or not, you saved my life. Thank you.”

  He didn’t want to be thanked. Not with a handshake. Not even with a chivalrous graze of her knuckles. Not now. His traitorous body craved more. His gaze raked the long slenderness of her, the coral pink of her lips, the graceful column of her throat where her pulse fluttered, begging to be kissed.

  Pocket Books

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2011 by Alix Rickloff

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  First Pocket Books paperback edition January 2011

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  Designed by Esther Paradelo

  Cover design by Lisa Litwack. Illustration by Gene Mollica.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ISBN 978-1-4391-7036-6

  ISBN 978-1-4391-7058-8 (ebook)

  To Georgia, who wanted one of her own

  To all those who helped this book find its way to completion, my greatest thanks.

  Those desperate writers out there and especially Maggie who, as usual, went above and beyond.

  Kevan Lyon and Megan McKeever, who took the final product and made it even better.

  Bethan Davies for coming to my rescue when I needed to know Welsh at a moment’s notice.

  Those wonderful members of the Beau Monde who were there to answer any and all questions about the

  Regency period. Any errors or anachronisms are mine alone.

  And finally, my eternally patient family for all their support.

  Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

  Deep in the Cambrian Mountains, Wales

  April 1815

  Kilronan’s diary had resurfaced.

  Máelodor tapped a gnarled finger against the edge of the letter as he considered the implications of this latest correspondence from his Dublin contact. For six years he’d assumed the diary had been destroyed. Confiscated during the same Amhas-draoi attack that left the old earl dead, his network broken and scattered.

  Of the Nine who’d formed the inner circle, only Máelodor remained. And he’d been forced into a life of hiding and running until time and rage were spent and the Amhas-draoi found new prey.

  He spat his loathing for those self-proclaimed guardians of the divide between Fey and Mortal. Interfering meddlers was more accurate. Did they think their misguided strike against the Nine could destroy an entire movement? They’d hacked the head from the Hydra. That was all. But resentments continued to smolder. Bitterness flared as each passing generation of Other was forced to deny its Fey blood in a superstitious world. So if it had become impossible to move forward among humanity’s current small-mindedness, perhaps the time had come to turn back the clocks.

  To the Lost Days. A disappeared world where magic reigned, and Fey and Other passed with ease between the mortal and faery realms.

  He glanced to the window, where the sun sank through dirty clouds to be clutched by the black, reaching trees, but his mind’s eye envisioned a far different scene. A golden-haired king, ambition stamped upon every chiseled feature. His Fey-forged sword beating the air as he rallied followers to his banner. Claimed his rightful place in a history that had relegated him to myth.

  A rare smile touched Máelodor’s lips. If the Amhas-draoi had overlooked the diary, then perhaps the brotherhood did not know everything. Perhaps there remained a chance to fulfill the Nine’s purpose. To bring to fruition the dream that had bound them together until murder had shattered it.

  Murder and treachery.

  His thoughts turned black with a hate unalleviated by the distance of years. One man had destroyed it all. One man had bought his life by betraying the Nine. An easy death would not be his if Máelodor ever found him.

  “Summon Lazarus.”

  A young page flinched under the crack of command, but his hesitation was momentary and then he sped off to find the man Máelodor trusted above all others to complete the task taking shape within his mind.

  Máelodor heaved himself up out of bed with the aid of the stick at his side. Maneuvered his wooden prosthetic into place before levering himself to stand. It wouldn’t do to give an impression of weakness. Authority rested as much in perception as reality.

  He shuffled toward the window. He would have his audience there, where the setting sun might wreathe him in an aura of brilliance. Where the light would be always in the other man’s eyes, while Máelodor’s own shattered features remained hidden in shadow.

  He’d just dropped into the thronelike chair when the door opened. No knock. No announcement. Máelodor would deal with the page later. Such a lapse would not happen again.

  “You sent for me?” Lazarus shouldered his way into the room with the stalking grace of a tiger. Everything about him speaking of prideful conceit, from his wide-legged stance to the set of his jaw as his sinister gaze passed over the room with the curve of one arrogant brow. His eyes settling finally on Máelodor.

  Máelodor couldn’t help the flush of satisfaction at this living proof of his magical skills. It had taken years of failure and had cost him his health, but he’d finally achieved the impossible. Created life from death. “I have a job for you, Lazarus. You will sail for Ireland to retrieve a book and return it to me.”

  “As you wish, Great One.” The man’s agreement came without argument, as it should; yet he rested a casual hand on the pommel of his sword in a bold pose of intimidation.

  Máelodor’s hand curved around his stick, though it would avail him nothing in a battle between them. Only mage energy held this ancient in bondage to him, as it would another far superior.

  This time, he would not be denied his victory. This time, if all went as planned, Máelodor would forge out of the bones of the Lost Days a new halcyon age of Other. And leading the charge—the legendary King Arthur.

  Kilronan House, Dublin

  May 1815

  Cat crouched in the bushes below the window. Branches poked her in places best left unpoked, and nervous butterflies queased her stomach, but she willed herself to relax just as Geordie had taught her. No use getting bothered. It would be the work of a minute to nip in and filch the goods. Nothing to it.

  Hoisting herself up onto the sill, she scrambled for purchase on the slick, mossy granite. Turned her attention to the window, sliding the thin me
tal of her betty between the casement and sash.

  She swallowed a contemptuous sniff as a jiggle and a twist of her wrist released what passed for a lock. Committing this sorry excuse for security to memory, she dropped soundlessly into the room. It might be worth her while to return another night. Not too soon. But if she needed a bit of something to pawn, it was good to know where a ready supply of pocketable trinkets might be found.

  She cast a quick glance around. In the dark, furniture stood humped and unrecognizable, though the desk was easy enough to spot—an enormous black shape at the far end of the room, facing the window she’d just come through. But it was the rows upon rows of shelves that caused her breath to catch in her throat, squashing her earlier optimism.

  Was she insane? What had she been thinking when she’d offered to come here in Geordie’s place? This was a job for a professional, not a novice with more bravado than skill. She’d never find one book among the hundreds rising from floor to ceiling on every wall.

  She gave a passing thought to returning home and explaining her failure. Discarded the idea almost immediately. Geordie needed her. He’d asked so little over the years they’d been together, the least she could do was complete this one small job.

  Plucking a candle from a low table nearby, she mumbled the words to set flame to wick. She’d learned over the last few years to hide even the small bits of household magic she’d been allowed at home. Survival meant being normal. Passing as one of the non-magical Duinedon in a world where to be Other meant persecution and worse. But she was in a hurry, with no time to waste searching for flint and steel. Not when she had a much bigger and more frustrating search ahead of her. Magic would have to serve.

  Yet the futility of her task was simply made more clear to her in the light of the tiny flame. Had she said hundreds of books? There must be thousands. And more spread out on tables. Heaped upon the desk. Some even stacked in corners for lack of other space. She’d never seen so many in one place. Not even in her stepfather’s library, the coveted symbol of his newfound wealth.

  Cat started at the shelves, browsing the titles and spines, hoping against hope the damned thing would jump out and holler, here I am! Found nothing even remotely resembling the diary’s description Geordie had given her.

  She moved to the tables. Plucking books up. Leafing through them. Putting them back disappointed. Scowling, hands on hips, she surveyed the bibliophilic excess. This was getting her nowhere. And time stood as her enemy. The longer she remained, the greater the chance she’d be caught. She needed a plan of action.

  So, if she had a diary, where would she keep it?

  Simple. Close at hand. Easily accessible. That meant the desk.

  She focused her attention on the volumes scattered there. A book did lie open. But a quick scan showed her columns and rows of tiny, carefully written numbers. Sheet upon sheet, with little to show for them at the end if she were any judge.

  Pushing it aside, she took up the next in the pile. And the next. A third followed. Then a fourth.

  She gave up. Started rifling through drawers. Ledger books, receipts, correspondence. She’d progressed as far as the bottom right-hand side when she encountered a lock. Out came the betty. With a practiced flick of her wrist, the lock gave way. And . . . success. A book lay at the bottom of the drawer. A drawer empty but for this one item.

  Carefully, she withdrew the book. Placed it on the desk, her breath coming jumpy with excitement.

  Old?

  Frayed at the edges. A cover of tooled leather, supple from handling. So far, so good.

  A crescent pierced by a broken arrow in gold leaf?

  She studied it in the weak light. Turned it one way, then the other.

  Here was a funny squiggle rubbed to a dull brown, but if she squinched her eyes almost shut, it sort of resembled the sketch Geordie had given her to memorize.

  The final test. The stamped personal crest of Kilronan.

  Cat smiled. That was easy to see. A spread-winged bird atop a crooked sword had been pressed into one corner. Fortuna ventus validus. Luck favors the strong.

  Latin. A straightforward language and one she’d learned the secret of long ago, despite Mother’s gimlet eye on her every moment she’d not been at her needlework or helping with her half sisters.

  This was it, then. She could taste success.

  Curiosity set her fingers leafing through the pages.

  Her heart beat sharp as a bird’s, her mouth going dry, her throat tightening. Not Latin this time. No language she’d ever seen.

  She lost herself in the hand-inked marks upon the vellum, in the swirl and slice of each faded letter. Strung together like beads upon a string. She studied their weight and shape. The emptiness between. They fell into her head like stones into a pool. Rippled and struck. Bounced back until they met their echo in the still center of her. And from the unintelligible came meaning.

  This was what she’d been sent for. She’d bet her only farthing on it.

  She smiled, shifting on the balls of her feet as success lit her insides. Clutched the diary to her chest as if embracing a baby.

  “Did you find what you were looking for?” A deep baritone voice punctuated by the snick of a cocked pistol.

  Cat froze.

  Aidan studied the woman as he might some rare new species.

  Womanus Exoticus.

  Black hair swept up and accentuating a delicate jawline, the pale slash of a scar down one cheek. Wide green eyes round with panic. And a body disturbingly contoured in a snug jacket and a pair of hip-hugging trousers.

  “Put the book down and step away from the desk,” he ordered.

  Her eyes flicked to the open window.

  “Don’t even think it.” Exhaustion edged Aidan’s words. His head hurt from a long day spent sparring with lawyers, bankers, and the occasional family member. And sleep beckoned with the arms of a lover. The only lover he’d had in more months than he could count.

  Something he needed to remedy soon if his reaction to this woman leaned more toward lust than rage.

  His eye fell upon the book she still clutched. Coincidence she chose this item instead of shinier, more tempting baubles? Aidan had long ago decided there was no such thing as coincidence. Even more disturbing, she’d actually seemed to be reading the impenetrable text, something no bookseller or scholar in Dublin had been able to do. And he should know. He’d been to them all.

  The woman stiffened, her gaze falling beyond Aidan’s shoulder to something or someone behind him. Her eyes widened, her mouth rounding into an “O” of astonishment.

  An accomplice? Servant?

  Aidan turned. A moment only for his concentration to stray, but all it took for chaos to break loose.

  A book came hurtling toward Aidan’s head, catching him in the arm; his pistol going off with a report to wake the dead. The recoil jarred his shoulder while smoke stung his eyes.

  The woman took that moment to bolt for the window, hitching herself up with a moan of desperation. Scrabbling at the latch with nimble fingers.

  Aidan sprang, catching her by the ankle. Dragging her, kicking and flailing, back into the room. “Neat little trick,” he hissed.

  “You fell for it, didn’t you?” she snarled. “Just shows what a stupid prat you are.”

  A knee caught Aidan in the groin, sending agony curdling along every nerve in his lower half. He resisted the urge to drop into a fetal curl, but the gloves came off. She may have been female, but she was dangerous.

  Ignoring the upbringing that taught him not to lay a hand on women, Aidan staggered her with a hard slap to the side of her head. Grabbed her by the arm, ignoring her cry of pain and white-lipped grimace. Twisted her other behind her back, all while avoiding the wriggling kicks and thwarting the clever maneuvers designed to slither out of even the tightest holds.

  “Careful how you toss the insults,” Aidan cautioned, guiding his captive toward a chair. Shoving her into it.

  “I was being c
areful,” she sulked, clutching her upper arm, lines grooved white in her already pale face.

  With no hope of escape, the woman seemed to shrink in on herself, and what features Aidan had been able to distinguish earlier blurred and faded. What he’d taken for green eyes were blue now in this light, but a flicker of the candle and golden hazel might be more accurate. And though at first she had appeared slender, hunched shoulders broadened her frame, her face coarsening so that Aidan questioned his first impression. That or—

  He blinked, and the woman’s image settled like sand in a glass.

  A fith-fath? Not exactly. This was a more subtle shifting—a clever manipulation of awareness leaving the victim doubting his own observations. An obvious asset in her chosen profession.

  Aidan grabbed her roughly by the collar. Dragged her close so they stood nose to nose, trying to avoid her all-too-obvious curves. Her lavender scent so at odds with her boyish costume.

  “Who are you? Answer me, or so help me god, I’ll have you in front of a magistrate by dawn.”

  She swallowed, eyes wide, bottom lip bit between her teeth as she struggled against Aidan’s grip. “Hired,” she gasped.

  “To do what?”

  She shook her head in denial.

  “I said, hired to do what?”

  Still nothing.

  “You leave me no choice.” He dragged her toward the door, her heels scrabbling against the carpet. “What I can’t get out of you, perhaps your gaolers will.”

  “Wait! Please!”

  He slowed his steps. “Changed your mind?”

  “I . . . that is . . . they might . . .”

  He kept his expression purposefully bland. “A definite risk. The keepers at Newgate aren’t known for their chivalry. A female on her own . . .” He shrugged.

  Her face blanched white.

  “So what’s it to be? Answer to me or answer to them?”

  If looks could kill, he’d be dead thrice over. “You,” she spat.

  Aidan eased his stranglehold. “I knew you’d come to see it my way. Well?”