Earl of Darkness

by Alix Rickloff

  “I was hired to find a book. A red cover. Funny picture on the front.” Her words came fast and shaky.

  “Who hired you? What was his name?” Aidan prodded.

  “Said his name was Smith. Said to steal the book. Leave it at Saint Patrick’s. That’s all I know. Honestly.”

  He tossed her back into the seat with a muttered oath. He’d two choices. Summon a constable and write the episode off as one more instance of Dublin’s pervasive crime. Or lock her in a windowless room until morning when daylight and a few snatched hours of sleep might make sense of a situation that hinted at more than simple housebreaking. A jangling unease tickled the base of his skull. Made the first choice untenable.

  “Come.” He yanked her back to her feet. Took grim pleasure in the bitten-off groan as she staggered against him. “I’ve got the perfect place to hold you for the night.”

  The two of them headed down into the kitchens, the passage growing narrower and dustier the farther they walked.

  “Here we are.” Aidan swung a creaking door wide.

  The woman ducked inside, studying her surroundings. A row of shelves, empty now but for a few mismatched pieces of crockery. No windows. One door.

  Still clutching her upper arm, she looked questioningly back at Aidan, those damn green eyes blinking back tears.

  “You’ll stay here tonight,” Aidan said, hating the heavy knot settling in his chest, as if he tortured a kitten or tore the wings from a butterfly. Pushing the thought aside, he growled, “Enjoy it. It’ll be the cleanest cell you’ll have for a good while I expect.”

  Before he could change his mind, Aidan slammed the door on his prisoner, turning the latch to lock it behind him. Made it halfway down the dark passage before an idea struck him with such force that his bad leg buckled beneath him. Sent him lurching for the door like a drunkard.

  A wild, stupid, ridiculous idea. It wouldn’t work. Couldn’t work. But once the thought had planted itself in his brain, it refused to be shaken.

  If this woman knew enough about her Other abilities to manipulate perception, who knew what else she might be capable of? Aidan had been sure he’d seen not only interest but comprehension in her eyes as she’d flipped the pages of his father’s diary. Something he would have thought impossible had he not witnessed it for himself. But there it was. A thief who could read the headache-inducing writing that had stymied all his attempts at translation for months.

  Once again Aidan dragged back the lock. Felt the grudging give of the ancient metal. Pushed wide the door. And stopped dead in his tracks, the air rushing from his lungs in a gasping string of curses. Great bloody goddamn. Womanus Exoticus had shed her plumage.

  If there was any mercy in the world, let the gods strike her to cinders right now.

  Cat fumbled with her shirt to cover her nudity, the gash in her arm throbbing with every pound of her heart. Prayed for the bolt that would end the humiliating torture of his shocked stare. His curses ringing in her ears like a death knell.

  Nothing. She was doomed.

  He recovered almost instantly, his gaze darting from her blood-soaked shirt, now draped near her lap, to the bloody score running across her upper arm where the pistol ball had raked her with the sting of a hornet.

  “You’re hurt.”

  His statement of the obvious snapped her out of her daze. She dragged her shirt over her head as if somehow he’d unsee what had been staring him in the face moments before. If she’d had her wits about her, she’d have made a dash for the open doorway while he stood gawking. That chance had vanished. He shouldered his way into the room, his tall, rangy frame effectively blocking escape. His bronze brown eyes pinning her where she crouched with the force of a spear point.

  “It’s naught but a scratch,” she argued.

  “I’ve seen men sicken from lesser wounds.” He knelt beside her, easing her clamped hand away from her arm. The combined scents of bay rum and cheroot smoke tickling her nose. “Let me take a look.”

  Was this his way of getting her to drop her guard? And once it was down, what then? She went rigid in his grasp. “I’m no man’s whore.”

  His dark eyes crackled. “Don’t add fool to your list of crimes.”

  Heat scalded her cheeks. Humiliation overriding her earlier sense of panic.

  “Do you have a name?” His manner held a gruff kindness.

  “Aye.”

  A long pause followed, punctuated by a rumble of laughter. “And that name would be . . . ?”

  She flushed again. Toyed with the idea of giving him a false name, but gave it up as being of little worth. “It’s Cat.” She skimmed her gaze over his stern profile. Heavy-lidded eyes. Long, narrow nose. Chiseled, stubborn jaw. The man couldn’t have looked more aristocratic if he’d been carved in marble on some Roman column. She bit her lip. Amended her answer. “Miss Catriona O’Connell.”

  A preoccupied grunt met her response as his hands probed the cut, sending flashes of pain radiating down her arm until even her fingers hurt. “It’s not deep. A good cleaning and you should be thieving again in no time, Miss O’Connell.”

  The cool amusement in his voice fired her like no harsh words could. How dare he? Who was he to hold her in contempt? Did he know what it was like to feel the press of desperation and futility always at your back? To spend every moment alert? On edge? Watchful for the one second when a dropped guard would spell disaster?

  This second came to mind.

  She lurched to her feet. Fury lending her courage. “What do you care whether I live or die?” she shot back. “What’s one less of my kind in the world to you?” Fear, embarrassment, and desperation passed like a knife through her stomach.

  He unfolded from the floor to tower over her, barely ruffled by her manner. Exhaled on a deep sigh.

  Cat noticed for the first time the shadows hovering beneath those impenetrable eyes and in the hollows of his cheeks, the stubble darkening his angular jaw, the ink stains purpling the fingers of his left hand.

  He rubbed the back of his neck as if pondering a weighty decision and the glint of a smile lit his dark eyes. Or was that the flicker of their guttering candle?

  “A fair reading of the situation thus far,” he said, “though if my hunch is right, your kind and mine might not be so different.”

  Lazarus leaned against the packet ship’s rail. Spray needled his face while the wind off the sea raked him like a claw. Left his lungs frozen, his skin flayed raw. Yet he remained topside. Spurned the claustrophobic, overcrowded hold. The suspicious and half-terrified glances from the other passengers. They sensed the truth about him, even if they didn’t understand that truth. Who in their right mind would? It was beyond comprehension.

  He flexed his hands. Curled them into fists.

  Beyond evil.

  A throat cleared behind him. “The cap’n says to tell ya if the winds keep up, we’ll be makin’ port with the dawn tide, sir.”

  So quickly? Lazarus had hazy memories of counting the crossing from Wales to Ireland in days not hours. But that had been another life. A different existence. He nodded without turning around. Heard the man’s muttered oath. His scuttled retreat. He’d be in Dublin tomorrow, retrieve the book from Quigley as ordered, and return to Máelodor within a fortnight.

  Scanning the horizon, a slice of midnight against the blood-water of the Irish Sea, he felt as if he could already see the tangled lanes and streets of the Irish capital, the curve of the Liffey. But it was a mirage. A memory. The Dublin he knew was long gone. Transformed through time from the hardscrabble fortress to a metropolis as grand and light-filled as any European city.

  The men he knew were gone too. Wilim. Grifid. His brothers in arms. His comrades. All dead. Naught left of them but a few dusty bones. Scraps of cloth. Bits of moldy armor.

  That had been all Máelodor needed.

  The library held little more than the desk, a sofa, a few comfortable chairs, and an avalanche of books. The combined remnants of the collections from B
elfoyle and Kilronan House. Refugees from countless auctions and private sales. Those volumes too esoteric or too unimportant to entice the steady stream of buyers who’d passed through his doors since his father’s death. Selling them off had been painful, his father’s lifelong passion computed in pounds and pence. But it had been that very blinkered passion that had put the family’s finances in this predicament. There had been no choice. Anything unentailed became fair game.

  Cat O’Connell’s intelligent gaze fell everywhere at once as she stepped lightly across the floor. Took in the blank walls where selected artwork had been sold off. The mantel cleared of its most expensive items, the spaces where prized family pieces once stood. The rest of Kilronan House was much the same. A sad witness to all that had been lost.

  Aidan motioned to a chair near the fire. “Have a seat, Miss O’Connell.”

  “Cat works well enough.”

  She was right. It did. She walked with a feline, sinuous grace only intensified by those damn trousers. He shook his head. Thank the gods women wore gowns. Men would be reduced to blabbering idiots if they spent every day subjected to the spectacle of women’s legs. The male species wasn’t up to that kind of continuous temptation.

  First thing on his to-do list. Something to cover those long legs and that sweet, round ass. A solution? Doubtful. She’d need a damn sack to completely disguise that lissome allure. But it would definitely help.

  “You don’t speak like any thief I’ve ever heard.”

  She stiffened, her chin jerking up in a thin show of defiance. “And how many thieves are you in the habit of speaking to, Lord Kilronan?”

  “Fair enough, yet you haven’t answered my question.”

  “You haven’t asked me one.”

  He handed her the victory with a flick of his fingers. “Let me correct that at once then. Who are you, Miss O’Connell? And what were you doing in my library?”

  Uncertainty flickered over her face before hardening to stubborn resolve. And from the porcelain elegance emerged the steely features of the thief who’d broken into his home and fought like a tigress. Two sides of a very interesting coin. “It’s not Miss O’Connell. Not anymore. It’s Cat now. And I’m whatever I have to be to survive.”

  “No angry father beating the streets looking for you? No brother with a blunderbuss and priest in tow?”

  Her lips compressed until white lines bit into the hollows of her cheeks. “No one.”

  “Fair enough.” He shrugged, reluctantly letting his curiosity go. A burglar who spoke and carried herself like a queen tantalized with possibilities, but he’d reached his quota of mysteries already.

  “As for your library,” she continued, “I was stealing.” She crossed her arms. “Now are you going to send for the Watch or not?”

  He bit back the retort on the tip of his tongue. Settled for, “Not.”

  She sat up, clearly confused, but also clearly relieved. “So if you don’t plan on sending me to Newgate, I can go?”

  “Not quite.”

  She slumped back in her chair.

  The answers he sought were in the diary. They had to be. Why else would it have been hidden away and not with Father’s other personal papers? And not just hidden away but warded and written in a language every scholar he’d contacted had labeled gibberish? The diary contained the keys to finally understanding the truth about his father’s death. Perhaps even clues to his brother’s disappearance.

  And he sat across from the only person he’d found who could decipher it. Newgate would wait. Cat belonged to him now.

  He drummed his fingers against his leg. Paced the rug in halting steps while he chose his words. “I’ve a deal to set before you.”

  She fidgeted with a raveled thread on her sleeve, her wary gaze never leaving his face. And just like that, jade green eyes faded to gray. Darkened to blue. Was her hair dark brown? Deep claret red? Did it curl at the nape or was that a trick of the light?

  He closed his eyes. Counted to ten. Sent his answering spell floating on a whispered breath. “Visousk distagesh.”

  As usual, his stomach shifted, moving into his throat as if he’d drunk too much wine. But when he opened his eyes, her fluid features had settled back into place, her mouth hanging on a startled oath.

  “How did you do that? No one’s ever been able to —” She clamped her lips shut, sullenness hardening her delicate features.

  “I used a nix to break through your charm. Crude but effective.” He allowed himself a cool, satisfied smile. That particular bit of magic had been the devil to learn. But he’d done it. Not that Father had been particularly impressed. It took more than mastering a minor spell to win his praise. “But I was right.” He perched on the edge of the desk, using the casual pose to mask the growing ache in his leg. “You and I have something in common.”

  Her mouth remained pursed in a surly line. She was going to make him fight for every inch. Very well. He’d been fighting for the last six years. Had perfected the art of banging his head against a wall. “You’ve heard of the Other?” he asked.

  She gave a jerk of her chin that could have signified anything.

  He continued, undaunted by her lack of response. “Men and women who bear the blood of both Fey and human. They range in power from the mightiest Amhas-draoi warrior to the fisherman whose nets are always full or the artist whose ability seems almost . . . magical. Or should I say we range in power. You’re one of them.” He let fall a pregnant pause. “As am I.”

  “So we’re both freaks,” she grumbled. “Good to know.”

  “Some might call us that,” he replied smoothly. “Others label us witches or devils. Creatures of the dark.”

  She gave a mocking bark of laughter. “Fools with straw for brains and those that wouldn’t know one of the Fey unless it tipped its hat to them and introduced itself.”

  He raised a brow. “So you do know what I’m talking about. Good. That makes things easier.” Leaning back, he plucked the diary from the desktop behind him. Opening it to a random page, he crossed to where she sat, hunched and waiting. Shoved the book into her hands. “Read it.”

  She jumped; her eyes passing over the writing. “I told you, I can’t.” She tried handing it back, but he’d already walked around to the other side of the desk.

  “And most people believe your story, don’t they?”

  She shrugged, the diary lying open in her lap.

  “I’m not most people, Miss O’Connell. I think you can read it. In fact, I bet you can read just about anything I put in front of you.” He motioned to the surrounding shelves. “Any book in any language.”

  She bit her lip, her gaze and her hands moving over the page as if she could pull the words out by touch. Her arched brows drew into a frown of concentration, her mouth silently forming each sound. She looked up. “It’s just an old children’s story. A fable. I heard it often at”—she swallowed whatever she’d been about to say—“at home. Growing up, I mean.”

  A rush of excitement cruised along his skin like a static charge. He exhaled slowly to calm the wild hope. “I’m prepared to forgive your crimes, and more than that, I’ll hire you. You’ll have a place to stay. Meals.” He eyed her outfit, trying not to envision what lay beneath. Hard to do since he’d seen what lay beneath. “Proper clothes.”

  She flushed. “And what would I have to do for this largesse? You’ve already said I’m not fit for your highbred self.” Her gaze remained fixed and unwavering.

  Noting the trim athlete’s body and the delicate oval of her face, he’d have revised his opinion if he didn’t think that would scare her faster than anything else. If he needed talents of a carnal nature—and by his disturbing reactions tonight, he did—he’d join Jack on one of his nightly romps. His cousin had a knack for collecting women of a certain sort. A devil-may-care style women found irresistible and men sought to copy.

  He’d possessed that same self-confident bravado once.

  A lifetime ago.

  He
ran a hand down his face, suddenly drained of energy. Frustrated. Despondent.

  “All you have to do is translate this one book. From beginning to end.”

  “I do this,” she spoke slowly as if mulling the idea over, “and you’ll not turn me in to the Watch for thieving?”

  “That’s right.”

  She traced the cover’s faded design with the tip of one finger. Looked up, suddenly all business. “And what’s to keep me from leaving any time I choose? Are you going to chain me to a desk in my room?”

  “No, you’ll be free to go where you will within the house or garden. I’ll trust to your honor to keep you here.”

  She gave a derisive snort as if he’d just confirmed her opinion of his gullibility. But really, what else could he do? He wasn’t a gaoler. He’d made the offer. Sweetened the deal. She’d either take him up on it. Or she wouldn’t.

  “Well, Cat?” He tried to keep the keenness from his voice. Best she not know his desperation. But since the idea had first struck, it had dug its roots deep into him. Her refusal would chop him off at the knees.

  She glanced down at the closed book and back up.

  No need for the nix this time. Her gaze met him square on and unflinching, jade green eyes slashed with shards of lightning. “I must be mad, but you’ve got yourself a deal, Kilronan.”

  Cat lay on top of the covers, watching the dance of the flames in the hearth. Fighting sleep as she waited until the only sounds she heard from beyond her door were the creak of a settling floorboard and the Watch calling the hour.

  If Kilronan thought she’d be bought by some paltry clothes and a warm fire, he’d been much mistaken. She was hardly a beggar off the street, accepting any scrap to fall her way. Between her and Geordie, they made a good living. And if it didn’t match the luxuries she’d lost, it wasn’t the workhouse squalor or the cheek-by-jowl tenement living of her first desperate months alone.

  And as for Geordie, he’d be worried at her continued absence. Best to get back and warn him the job was a bust. Swinging her legs to the floor, she tugged her jacket into place. Slid her feet into her boots. Chafed her hands in nervous anticipation before taking a deep, fortifying breath.