Heir of Danger

by Alix Rickloff

  His gaze flicked to the stone nestled between her breasts.

  “Enjoying the view?” she asked tartly.

  His attention snapped back to her face, which now wore an expression of resignation, as if she were used to men speaking to her chest. Something deep in his gut tightened at the thought of other men eying Elisabeth in such a bold manner.

  “Perhaps like young Lochinvar, I came back when I heard you meant to wed another.”

  “If that was meant to be a joke, you’ll have to do better,” she answered breezily. “As you explained when you asked for my hand all those years ago, our marriage was one of convenience at the behest of your mother.”

  Had he said that? Damned rude of him. It’s a wonder she’d agreed to have him if he’d carried on that way. More a wonder she hadn’t smashed something heavy over his head for such impertinence.

  He fought off a momentary stab of guilt, focusing his thoughts on the men hunting him, hardening himself against faltering resolve. “I’m here for one simple reason. Dun Eyre is the last place anyone will look for me.”

  The stubborn square of her chin pushed forward, her gaze narrowed in new speculation.

  “Which is why I’ll reiterate, the name is John Martin,” he said.

  She twisted her broken fan until the sticks splintered. “You’re a right bastard, Brendan Douglas.”

  He grinned at the base language coming from that pretty mouth. She’d always been a contradiction of femininity and ferocity. “But you love me anyway.”

  “Once, maybe. But you’ve spent that coin.” She closed her eyes for a moment as if trying to adjust to this new reality, and when she opened them, surrender dulled the heat of her gaze. It was almost worse than her fury had been. That he’d prepared for. This was different entirely.

  “How could you come back like this and expect me to act as if nothing had happened?” she asked. “You left me, Brendan. No note. No explanation, though all and sundry were willing to supply one.”

  He turned to study the fire as if he might find answers written upon the flames.

  “I didn’t mind that so much,” she continued. “I mean it was mortifying with Aunt Pheeney spouting proverbs like water and Aunt Fitz stalking the house, muttering threats on your person. But then afterward, your father’s murder . . . that was so much more horrible. What was I supposed to believe after that?”

  He swung around, a hand gripping the mantel. He noted the bloodless fingers as if they belonged to someone else. “What everyone did, I suppose. That I was guilty.”

  “There were some who refused to believe,” she said softly. “Even then, they had faith in your innocence.”

  “I’m sure you soon set them straight.” This was not a conversation he wanted to have. Being here cut too close to the bone for comfort. He hadn’t thought it would. He’d thought those ghosts had long been exorcised. More fool he. Time had done little to salve that wound. “Take heart,” he bluffed. “I won’t inconvenience you for long, and you and your Mr. Shaw can gallop up the aisle with my blessing.”

  She too seemed to have shaken off her momentary confusion. She rose, adjusting her skirts in a show of indifference. “I’m relieved. I should have been heartbroken to know the man who threw me over didn’t approve of the man honorable enough to hang about for his own wedding breakfast.”

  “Speaking of Shaw, where did you meet him? Last I heard, you were in London.”

  “Keeping an eye on me?”

  “A year-old London Times. What’s his background?”

  “Are you my guardian now?”

  “An interested party. I may not have married you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see you happy.”

  Folding her arms over her chest, she huffed, “Fine. Not that it’s any of your business, but Gordon has a decent fortune of his own. A solid position within the current government. And isn’t you. All quality traits in a husband.”

  “Ouch. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were sorry to see me.”

  “Ughh!” She threw up her hands. “You’re incorrigible. Go away, Brendan. Crawl back into whatever hole you’ve been hiding in, and stay there this time. You ruined my last wedding. You are not going to ruin this one. Do you hear me?”

  “If you’re not careful, the whole house will hear you.”

  Her dark eyes burned a hole right through him.

  “Don’t worry, Lissa. I’ll not upset your apple cart. You and the respectable Mr. Shaw will wed and have respectable babies and lead a respectable life.”

  Instead of spearing him with a suitable scathing response, she lifted her chin, squared her shoulders, and swept past him to the doors. Throwing them open, she sailed back into the crowd as proud as any queen.

  He let out the breath he’d been holding with an audible sigh. He’d jumped the first fence cleanly. He was in.

  Brendan wandered the Dun Eyre gardens, reacquainting himself with the extensive grounds. Assessing terrain. Studying the landscape. Seeing the parkland not as the masterpiece of tidy parterres and man-made wilderness, but as a means to hide, escape, or fight, depending upon circumstance. These skills had been the first things he’d learned while in exile. And had kept him alive more than once in the intervening years. By now, it had become second nature.

  This should have been easy. Growing up close by, he’d spent countless hours running wild over this ground and knew Dun Eyre like the back of his hand. Coming upon a high hedge that ought not to have been there, he had to admit the back of his hand hadn’t looked the same since being crushed beneath a boot heel last November.

  He curled his fingers into an awkward, aching fist. The grinding of rough-healed bones a memento of those dangerous days when it looked as if his crimes had finally caught up with him.

  The gods had smiled on that occasion. It remained to be seen if he’d be so fortunate again.

  He backtracked, hoping to loop around the thorny barrier and come upon the house from the west. The cold penetrated his coat while the bones of his hand throbbed. A weather sense he could do without. It had been too long since he’d experienced Ireland’s cold, damp spring. He’d grown used to sun and bleached blue skies and dry desert breezes.

  The longer he remained close to his childhood home, the more memories surfaced like unearthed corpses. Every familiar landmark and well-known face brought those last horrible days back in vivid nightmare. Father’s reproachful gaze piercing him with shame and guilt. Father’s death playing out in eternal bloody violence until even waking there was no respite from the images.

  Had it been quick and painless, or had the Amhas-draoi spent their vengeance in excruciating butchery? Had Father known in the end Brendan had been his betrayer? Or had he gone to his death ignorant of his beloved son’s treachery?

  He blinked, pulling himself back into the present. He could drown his sorrows at the bottom of a bottle for the rest of his pathetic life if he wanted. Now he needed to be cool, confident. Focus on his goal.

  Retrieve the Sh’vad Tual.

  Take it to Scathach for safekeeping.

  And grovel as he’d never groveled before to save his sorry life.

  Simple.

  Hunching his shoulders against the chill, he trained his eyes on the path ahead, ears tuned to any hint of fellow wanderers. In the thick shadows away from the house, he’d shed the fith-fath. He was sorely out of practice, and the concentration it took to maintain the spell left little energy for aught else. Best to use his powers sparingly.

  The hedge folded back upon itself, the path spilling out in a shallow set of stone stairs. Below him, the house stretched wing to wing from its foursquare central block. The ball had ended, guests leaving in a line of carriages or retiring to their quarters for the night. A few lights glittered from windows, but the blaze of candleshine and torchères lighting the entrances had been doused, night closing thick against the buildings.

  He counted third-floor windows. Seven in from the right. Elisabeth’s bedchamber. Light still
shone behind the curtains. She would be undressing. Slowly untying her garters. Seductively rolling down the stockings on her long legs. Her luscious curves held tightly captive by stays and petticoats freed to fill the thin muslin chemise she wore to bed. The pins holding her chignon in place would be removed, letting that spill of dark red hair slide deliciously over her back to her hips. And last but not least, she’d lift her hands behind her neck. Unclasp the necklace that lay in the valley of her sweet, full breasts, and place it back in its box.

  A wry chuckle escaped him. Gods, he must need it bad to be fantasizing about Elisabeth. She’d been close as a sister. A little sister. She amused him. She was smart, funny, daring, and rode a horse as if she’d been born in the saddle. But never had she been fantasy material. And yet now? If she’d been struck by the changes wrought in him, he’d been equally surprised.

  He remembered Elisabeth as a little plump. A lot freckled. Hair a wild riot of dark red curls. And an impish gleam in her big brown eyes. Then he’d looked up and, instead of the girl of his memories, he’d fastened his gaze on a voluptuous woman tempting as chocolate with a body that made his blood rush faster. Seeing her made him light-headed and stupid with thoughts he never should think and ideas he daren’t let take shape.

  He should have joined Jack their last night in Ennis. His cousin had that scoundrel’s knack for finding the perfect woman to scratch any itch. Brendan shifted uncomfortably, dousing his lust-filled imagination with more somber thoughts—the consequences if Máelodor gained possession of the Sh’vad Tual.

  War between the Fey-born race of Other and their un-magical Duinedon neighbors. And the cataclysm for both sides should this come to pass.

  “. . . a king’s ransom . . . what does she wear . . .”

  “. . . doesn’t matter, Marcus . . . let it go . . .”

  Men’s voices rose up from the bottom of the stairs. Automatically, Brendan went still, his breath barely stirring in his lungs. No shoes scuffed the stone steps. They must have taken shelter in one of the numerous benched alcoves.

  He delayed conjuring the fith-fath. Instead, he bent closer, letting the shadows glide up and over him until nothing moved to alert the men they had an audience.

  “I’m going mad with boredom, Gordon. What the blazes do people do around here?”

  “It’s not London, certainly, but it has its own simple charms. I’m quite enjoying the escape from the mad crush.”

  Gordon Shaw. His brother, Marcus. Brendan’s knees stiffened, his shoulders tightened, but he dared not move now.

  “Charms aside, you can’t convince me you’re truly happy kicking your heels in this backwater while the London Season progresses at full swing. And what does Lord Prosefoot say about your absence during the session?”

  “He was most agreeable. And it’s not as if I didn’t bring work with me. I’ve gotten quite a bit done too. Don’t fret. A week more and we’ll be on the packet for Holyhead. In London by the end of the month”

  A dramatic groan. “I don’t think I can survive another week tethered to this provincial idea of entertainment. I never told you, but yesterday at dinner I was caught by Miss Fitzgerald’s cousin, Mrs. Tolliver of Bedfordshire. I had to sit through an interminable recitation of family connections between the Shaws and the Tollivers stretching back to the Conquest. Filial duty only goes so far.”

  “Yes, but at that same dinner I was in conversation with Elisabeth’s guardian, Lord Taverner. He’s offered to have a word about an ambassadorial posting with Stuart in France. From there, who knows how far I might rise. I knew this Fitzgerald alliance would be the making of me,” Shaw announced proudly.

  “I’m not sure which you’re more excited about—the wife or the political connection.”

  “Do you know? Neither am I.”

  Cynical brotherly laughter followed.

  Poor bloody Lissa. She had horrible luck in picking husbands.

  Elisabeth brushed her hair long after every tangle had been ferociously removed. Usually the steady even strokes soothed her. Tonight the jumbled tumult of her thoughts overpowered every attempt at relaxation. Why had Brendan come back from the dead? Who was he hiding from? Was he in trouble? Why did she care?

  Placing the brush back upon her dressing table, she noted with a frown the slight tremble of her fingers, the riot of nerves jumping in her stomach. Wedding jitters. That was all. Excitement. Anxiety. A little fear. All of it normal. Expected.

  Her anxiety had nothing to do with the return of a man she’d thought dead and buried.

  She should have known better. He was far too clever to end unmourned in a pauper’s grave.

  Her fear was in no way connected to the surprising presence of a man rumored to have conspired in the death of his own father.

  She’d never believed those stories. Brendan might be a lot of things, but not a murderer.

  And her excitement was definitely not a surge of girlhood crush.

  She cared for Gordon. Gordon cared for her. In an adult, mature, respectable way.

  Carelessly, she reached up to finger the stone at her throat, resting dark and cool against her skin. Brendan cared for no one but Brendan. Never had. Never would.

  Yet, when she slipped beneath the sheets and blew out her candle, it remained his gift about her neck. And his face imprinted upon her mind.

  She didn’t know who she hated more at that moment. Brendan for coming. Or herself for being excited by it.

  Elisabeth’s dressing-room door opened on silent hinges. Thick rugs muffled his every footfall. Thank heavens for the luxury of wealth. It made breaking and entering so much easier.

  Her bedchamber door was closed, allowing him the freedom to light the stub of a candle. He sat at the dainty rosewood dressing table, her jewelry case conveniently at hand. Rummaging through the contents, he pulled free a heart-shaped locket containing miniatures of her parents, a small amber cross, two lavish strands of pearls, a topaz choker, and a dazzling necklace containing a rajah’s ransom of sapphires. Earrings and bracelets. Gold and silver combs. Rings and brooches.

  But no pendant.

  Rifled drawers revealed jars of cosmetics and lotions, bottles of scent, packets of pins and ribbons. Handkerchiefs and boot laces and a broken embroidery hoop.

  But no pendant.

  He huffed an exasperated sigh. Where the hell had she put it?

  He began again. Searching more carefully. Reaching back into the corners of each drawer. Pulling piece by piece out of her jewelry case, then returning it in what he hoped was the correct place.

  The room held a million places a woman could hide a necklace. Cabinets, tables, a desk. He searched each piece thoroughly. He even shoved his hand beneath the chair cushions and pushed against fireplace tiles, seeking a hidden panel.

  If you didn’t count two chewed-on pencil nubs, four missing buttons, a crumpled laundry list, and a handful of hairpins, he found absolutely nothing.

  A faint thump from the bedchamber brought him up short. Blowing out the candle, he went still. Barely breathed. And surrendered the field.

  For now.

  three

  The buffet table groaned with platters of eggs, sausages, thick slices of ham, cold tongue, and baskets of rolls and toast. Tea and coffee filled silver urns upon a sideboard. Brendan counted heads. Five other occupants still seated. He should have taken breakfast early when most were still foggy from last night’s wine.

  At one end of the table sat Miss Sara Fitzgerald, nose buried in the day’s post. Across from her, Mrs. Pheeney eyed the sausage with heartfelt longing and heavy sighs. Between them, Elisabeth’s great-aunt Charity, a woman Brendan had met once long ago and not on the best of terms. If he remembered correctly, he’d been holding a frog. She’d been screeching.

  At the far end of the table, Shaw’s and Elisabeth’s chairs were pulled close together in apparent amity. Brendan’s jaw tightened on a grimace of distaste that he transformed into a smile when Elisabeth spotted him. She wasn’t a
s adept an actress. Her face flamed red, her fingers gripping her butter knife as if she might stab him with it.

  And there was the stone, taunting him from amid the folds of her lace fichu. Brendan restrained the impulse to cross the room, rip it from her throat, and run like hell. Unfortunately, he’d not get twenty paces before someone brought him down. More than likely Shaw, who possessed the brawn to snap him in two.

  “Mr. Martin, how nice of you to join us this”—Elisabeth made a great show of checking the mantel clock, which read half eleven—“why, it is still morning.”

  He pulled his watch from its pocket, snapping it open to confirm the time against the clock. “The same to the very minute.” Shoved it back into his pocket with a smile and a nod toward Miss Sara Fitzgerald, who eyed him speculatively from the far end of the table.

  “I’m afraid everyone else came and went ages ago.” Elisabeth’s smile stretched from ear to ear. More manic than cheerful.

  “Good. I detest being jostled while I drink my tea.” He drifted to the plates, heaping his high before dropping into a seat across from them, reaching for a clean cup and saucer, asking her to pass the salt. “Fabulous eggs. But then, your cook always had a knack. Do you remember when I visited in aught-three? Coddled to perfection, they were. Never had better.”

  Shaw regarded him with curiosity. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure, Mr.—”

  “Martin,” Brendan answered around a mouthful. “John Martin. Second cousin. Or is it third? Can’t keep us all straight. There’s more of us than a dog has fleas. Isn’t that right, Lissa?”

  Shaw offered him a placid nod while Elisabeth’s stiff smile faltered around the edges.

  “A little bird tells me you’re moving to London soon. Be careful, Mr. Shaw. Elisabeth may bankrupt you once she’s released on the big-city mantua makers and ribbon merchants.”

  “I never—” Elisabeth spluttered.

  “I trust we won’t need to worry overmuch about expenses,” Shaw replied.