Earl of Darkness

by Alix Rickloff

  And heard the death rattle click of a key in the lock.

  She froze, knowing no amount of shouting or banging would bring Kilronan back to let her out.

  She was well and truly caught.

  A flare of light and a stage whisper punctuated by muffled laughter dragged him back to consciousness. Had Jack returned already? Or had Aidan slept longer than he’d thought? It felt like mere minutes since his head had touched the pillow.

  “Are you awake, coz?” The sour, claret-coated question turned Aidan’s empty stomach.

  He thought about feigning sleep in hopes his tormentor would give up and shuffle off to bed. But the space behind his eyelids burned bright red, followed by heat enough to scorch his nose hairs as the lit candle wavered inches from his face. If he didn’t respond, he’d not put it past the drunken fool to set him on fire.

  He opened his eyes. “I am now. What do you want?”

  Jack’s hovering countenance broke into a snozzled smile. “Missed you tonight. Barbara Osborne attended. Asked after you.”

  “Did she?”

  “If you’re not careful, Aido, old man, you’ll lose your chance at her. Not to mention that enticing marriage portion.”

  Aidan drew the covers over his head. Jack sober and nagging was bad enough. Jack drunk and nagging was more than he could bear. “It won’t matter if Sir Humphrey doesn’t give his consent. He thinks I’m only after her money.”

  “And aren’t you?” Jack’s voice came muffled, but come it did. “With a bit of the old Aidan Douglas persuasion, her father’s objections could be a thing of the past.”

  “Ruin her, you mean?”

  “I prefer to call it introducing her to the joys that await.”

  Aidan snorted into the quilts, almost suffocating beneath the heavy layers. “Why are we having this conversation again?” he mumbled, emerging long enough to send his cousin a dirty look.

  Jack shrugged. “Not tired yet.” Changing tack, he continued, “Heard you’ve had a bit of excitement here tonight. Sorry I missed it.” He beamed down at Aidan with glazed eyes and a stupid smile. “A woman. I heard she’s still here.” As if Cat might be hiding beneath the covers, he made a quick scan of the bed.

  Aidan squirmed with the memory of his last and very vivid dream, blinking away a pair of inviting green eyes and a taut, quicksilver body.

  Dragging himself up against the headboard, he plowed a hand through his hair, knowing he’d never rid himself of his drunken cousin if he didn’t come clean. “Miss O’Connell has been hired to do some translation work for me. I’ve decided it’s best if she remain here for the time being.”

  “Translation work. Good one.” Jack’s brows waggled in appreciation. “I’ll have to remember that.”

  It was like talking to a rambunctious sheepdog. Aidan wished for the thousandth time he’d not given in to a moment’s madness and invited his cousin to visit Kilronan House. That had been two years ago, Jack managing to turn a fortnight’s stay into a permanent posting.

  He straightened. “Right. Well, see you in the morning, coz.” He started for the door, far too easily satisfied with the bullshit story for Aidan’s peace of mind. He’d expected quizzing. A cousinly interrogation peppered with snide innuendo. Even a drunken harangue. This instant acceptance was completely out of character.

  The reason struck him with the force of a backhand. He kicked himself out of his covers. Lurched across the room. Shoulder slammed the door closed before Jack could depart. “Miss O’Connell’s under my protection. Off limits. End of story. Do you understand?”

  Jack glowered, holding his fingers, the tips of which had come close to being crushed by the heavy door. “I just wanted to introduce myself. She probably doesn’t realize she’s staying with two of the most sought-after bachelors in Dublin.”

  “Oh? Invited guests in, have you?” Aidan couldn’t resist.

  “Touché.” A smile quirked Jack’s lips, but the bullish jut of his chin told Aidan he wouldn’t be put off. “Heard you caught the chit trying to make off with Douglas heirlooms. Not exactly a Trinity scholar in languages. Come, Aidan. I’m not stupid.”

  “She’s Other.” There. Let him chew on that one. “And as I said before, off limits.”

  Jack scraped his knuckles over his chin as he digested this bit of news. “Well, that changes the outlook slightly. So she’s an Other chit. Really, Aidan what are you trying to do? Have us murdered in our beds?”

  “She’s a thief, not a murderess. And right now she’s neither. She’s in my employ.”

  “You sure she didn’t land you a crack to the skull?” Jack asked, worry beginning to cloud his otherwise glassy gaze.

  Aidan started to defend himself, but arguing would only prolong the conversation. And right now, he needed sleep more than understanding. “Let me worry about her. You just forget she’s even here.”

  Jack shot him a doubtful look, but his offhand nod seemed genuine. “Right. Well, I’ll leave you to her then.” He headed down the corridor with the hangdog air of someone losing his buzz, pausing only to focus his thoughtful gaze back on Aidan. “She must be something, to drag you out of your shell.”

  Aidan closed the door, his hand white knuckling the knob, his bowed head pressed against the wood. Not a shell.

  A prison.

  But if he’d judged correctly, Cat O’Connell held the key.

  Shoving aside the hated accounts ledger, Aidan took a swallow of tea and grimaced. Stone cold.

  Out of habit, he’d risen at dawn. Spent the past hours bent over the labyrinthine convolutions of his financial picture. Only in the last year had his parsimony paid off. His revenues finally eclipsing the pile of inherited debt. But he still didn’t take anything for granted. As surely as the wealth accumulated, it could drain away.

  An advantageous marriage to a woman of birth and fortune would put the final stamp on six years of hard-fought struggle. Barbara Osborne fit very nicely into that category. Sir Humphrey blustered at his only daughter tossing away her chances on an impoverished earl whose family had for generations possessed a reputation for being not quite bon ton. But a title, no matter how tarnished, was still a title, and a baron couldn’t be too picky where a countess’s coronet stood in play.

  On the other hand, Aidan couldn’t assume her partiality. A note and flowers sent with his regrets at being otherwise occupied the previous evening would go a long way to assuring his continued place in her affections. Women loved that sort of thing. Coming to a decision, he pulled a piece of stationery out of his top drawer. Chewed the tip of his pen as he pondered what to write.

  A discreet cough broke into his reflections.

  Cat O’Connell wavered upon the threshold like a flame. Her skin shone pale as marble, smooth black hair framing her narrow face and a waif-thin slenderness masking what he knew from painful experience was a wiry tenacity.

  In a borrowed gown whose bodice had been hastily pinned, Cat looked like a child playing dress up in her mother’s clothes. But not like any child he’d ever known. Hauteur sparked along her limbs. Flashed in her lightning-sharded green eyes like a challenge.

  He pushed aside the unfinished note as if he could push away his uncomfortable reaction to her appearance. Hid his momentary discomfort in another swift glance at the clock. “I’d wondered if you’d thought better of our agreement.”

  She saw the track of his gaze. “I overslept,” she offered in a grudging tone that dared him to argue.

  He noted the faint smudging beneath her wide, doelike eyes, the chalky undertone to her milky flesh. Did she think he scolded over a few minutes? He’d not begrudge anyone a dreamless night. He’d had too few of them himself over the years. But perhaps with Cat’s help he’d find an answer to the questions that had long plagued his sleep.

  He glanced at his father’s diary brooding at the edge of his desk. What had his father worked so hard to keep hidden? Clearly something of import. Why else would Cat have been sent here to steal it? Two rea
sons. Someone wanted to read it for himself. Or didn’t want it read at all. “Have you eaten?” he asked.

  “A bite in the kitchen.” A mischievous glint lit her eyes. “The servants watched every clack of my jaw. I think they expected me to swipe the silver if they so much as blinked.”

  He laughed, the sound loud in the solemn tomb of a room. “And did you?”

  A shutter came down over her face, the light doused. “I don’t double-cross, Kilronan. Nor do I go back on my word.”

  Was that an accusation? A veiled response to her locked door? He’d caught her in the act of theft. She could hardly complain if his trust was lacking. “You only vowed to stay and help me with the book. Robbing me blind while you did so was never part of our bargain.”

  She blinked, chewing on her bottom lip. A mannerism he’d grown to know in just the few hours they’d spent in each other’s company. Then, with movements unconsciously provocative, she reached into the gaping bodice of her green muslin. Pulled forth one teaspoon. Placed it on the desk before him. Squared it up so its bowl pointed at him like an arrow.

  “Anything else residing in there? The rest of the set? The pot, perhaps?”

  Downswept lashes hid her eyes, giving him no hint of her thoughts. “I’ve room for it, I suppose. But no. There’s naught but me left in here.”

  Had he been the youthful scoundrel who’d played London like a game he’d have teased her with flirtatious innuendo. Had he been the undisciplined rogue who’d hopped from scrape to scrape and bed to bed with a youthful exuberance his older self both scorned and envied, he’d have asked her with sly gallantry to prove her innocence.

  His skin prickled as if too tight for his bones and a sudden heat raised a sheen of sweat across his shoulders. The knotted muscles of his leg throbbed with every push of blood from his heart.

  He did neither of those things. Feeling as ancient as the volumes surrounding him, he rose. Dusted the breakfast crumbs from his breeches. Ushered Cat to a chair. And handed her the diary.

  Cat tried not to dwell on the humiliating withdrawal of the pilfered teaspoon from her bodice. Nor on the inexplicable urge that had her confessing to the crime almost before she’d been accused. What had she been thinking to rummage about in there as if panning for gold? Had she been testing his honor? Had he been testing hers? And who’d come out the winner?

  It had been such a minuscule event, but for some reason, it solidified the arrangement between them like a contract.

  “Why is knowing what’s in this book so important?” she asked. That you would stoop to bartering with a thief, hanging unspoken between them.

  Kilronan plowed a hand through his thatch of auburn hair, and Cat found herself transfixed by the tanned face beneath the arching brows, the austere, angular features. He held himself with all the bearing of one born to privilege and power. Confident. At ease in his own skin. Shoulders erect. Eyes piercing.

  Something that even with all his wealth Jeremy had never been able to achieve.

  Only Kilronan’s plain coat and leather breeches, the smell of cheroot smoke clinging to the folds of his clothes, and the shrewdness in his keen gaze gave a hint there might be more to this earl than the typical wastrel playboy who spent his days in extravagant, aristocratic boredom. His nights between the legs of his latest mistress.

  A frisson of excitement or foreboding danced across her flesh, and she felt as if she’d stumbled from danger into catastrophe.

  “Why? The book belonged to my father,” he answered. “I found it among his things after—” He crossed to the window, twitching the curtain aside to scan the street. Turned back. “My father was murdered, Cat. Six years ago by members of the Amhas-draoi. You’ve heard of them?”

  “Warriors of Scathach. Guardians of the divide.” Cat had even seen one once, albeit from a distance. A giant of a man with the dense muscles of a fighter and a gaze like a razor. He’d radiated violence and magic in equal measure. “What did the last earl do to have the Amhas-draoi after him?”

  Kilronan paced the room with a strange, half-halting gait as if an invisible wire stretched from his spine down his leg. But at her question, he pulled up short. “Do?” He paused as if deciding how best to answer her.

  She tilted her head in question, but he didn’t finish his thought. Instead, pulling a cheroot from his pocket, he lit it from the hearth fire. Inhaled on a long, slow drag before tossing the whole into the grate. Straightening, he lost the stony implacability, but a grim light still crouched in the corners of his eyes. “I lost everything the night my father was murdered.”

  “Except a title. Property. Rents—”

  “Cold comfort while I watched my family splinter before my eyes,” he snarled, though his anger seemed directed inward rather than at her.

  Did he notice the nervous tapping of his fingers against his thigh? Or was it habit? Was his limp due to an old injury or a recent accident? She wished she dared ask, but the hard-edged lines of his face forestalled questions. He may have used the carrot up to now, but she didn’t doubt he’d apply the stick if needed.

  She’d decided in the long, empty hours of last night to play along until she found an opportunity to run. So far, despite Kilronan’s assurances to the contrary, she’d been well watched if not outright guarded. But she’d be ready when the time came. And if she didn’t return to Geordie’s with the diary, at least she’d have her freedom.

  “Your attempted theft only confirms what I’ve suspected all along. The diary is the key to unraveling what happened. And why,” he continued.

  He leaned against the desk, arms crossed over his chest. His gaze settled on her with a look that could curdle milk. The ruthless nobleman of last night. Imposing. No-nonsense. All together too much in control. She felt the sharpness of his gaze straight to her center. And again, that same jolt of electricity jumped through her. Roused long-dormant sensations she’d thought buried in the same grave as her infant son.

  “Someone hired you, Cat. He’ll wonder what’s happened when you don’t show up. And likely come looking for answers. Is he someone I should fear?”

  She hunched her shoulders, pinpricks of nervousness needling her skin.

  Kilronan bore the toughness of a fighter in his lean, muscled height. His rangy, rough-shouldered arrogance. His capable, work-scarred hands. But the light of humanity still danced in his brown eyes. The same could not be said of the heavy-jowled arch rogue she’d seen talking to Geordie. What would he do when he came to collect his prize and found Geordie laid up with a bad sprain and no diary?

  She shivered, for the first time afraid of what freedom might mean. “I’d fear him if I were you.”

  The man slopped into the breakfast parlor in a loose banyan and trousers, the glow of bare chest glinting from his open collar. Under normal circumstances, she supposed he’d be handsome in a sleek, practiced way. But not this afternoon. Chin peppered with stubble, face hangover gray.

  A smile broke over his carved features. “So I wasn’t dreaming.”

  She self-consciously straightened in her chair, wishing Kilronan was here to intercede. And wasn’t that ironic? The man had held a gun on her, locked her in a cellar, threatened her with prison, and now she saw him as a protector.

  “You must be Aidan’s”—he raked her with an appraising stare from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, the smile never leaving his face—“translator.” Dropping into a chair, he poured a cup of tea. Held it in both hands, inhaling the steam as if it were the elixir of life. “Though if Miss Osborne hears . . .” He shook his head in some private regret. “You don’t look like a resident of the Liberties. What’s your story?”

  “I could be asking you the same question.”

  Again the flash of white teeth in a smile that could boil water. He pulled himself to his feet. Sketched her a ballroom bow. “Mr. Jack O’Gara. I live here on my good cousin’s sufferance. So what’s Aidan got you translating? Some moldy tome unearthed out of his father’s library?”
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  Cat couldn’t be sure about O’Gara. A cousin to the earl, it stood to reason he shared his bloodlines and his power. But if he didn’t, and Cat let a long-held secret out of the bag—

  She picked her words carefully. “You mock the earl’s scholarly endeavors?”

  “No, I despair of his sanity.” His benign expression hardened. From lapdog to wolf in the blink of an eye. She’d have to be careful around him. He might act the part of jester, but if she wasn’t mistaken, that was exactly what it was. An act.

  “Aidan’s relentless,” he continued. “He searches for answers, but I’ve found answers always come with strings attached. And even the ones you think you want aren’t always the best for your health.”

  Cat twisted her napkin through her fingers before catching O’Gara’s eye upon her. With deliberate slowness, she placed the napkin on the table. Smoothed it out. “I’m only a translator. Not Kilronan’s conscience. Mayhap you should be talking to him.”

  He bared his teeth in a grim smile that never reached his eyes. “What makes you think I haven’t?”

  Pushing a curl behind her ear, Cat bent her attention to the diary. Opened it to the flyleaf where the cover’s same crescent and broken arrow swooped across the spotted vellum. Tips of bold writing smudged the bottom edge, but there was no telling what it said. Someone had ripped out half of the page. She thumbed to the next.

  “Well?” Kilronan’s excitement churned the air like an ill wind.

  She fought to ignore his eyes fixed upon her. The blunt-fingered, callused hands clenching the back of a chair. The strength of his lean, muscled body as it hovered, waiting on her words as if anticipating an oracular event.

  Instead she forced her concentration back on the strange swirl and slice of the language before her.

  Cat knew Latin. Read Greek. French. Spanish. Italian. German. It had always been this way. Her father had been proud his Other blood flowed in his offspring. Her mother, less enthusiastic. And after her father’s death, Cat had been charged never to flaunt her abilities for fear of what people might say.