Heir of Danger

by Alix Rickloff

  Instead, she regarded him steadily, tiny creases between her brows, her mouth pursed in the slightest of frowns. Long seconds ticked away, the weight of her stare an increasing burden.

  What the hell. He’d risk it. He reached for her hand, nerves jumping. Tension banding his shoulders. Terrified of how easy it was to tell her things he’d never revealed to anyone else. Of how much he’d come to rely on her for that.

  Of losing her so soon.

  And just like that, her fingers slid against his, her palm cool and soft upon his own. She took a step closer, lifting her face to his. Her kiss as gentle as her words had been harsh. Her scent filling his head.

  He returned her kiss, probing delicately until she opened to him, the flick of his tongue deep within her heat igniting a reckless hunger. A need to mark her as his own. To brand her with his touch. To set his stamp upon her soul.

  Máelodor’s men closed in. He sensed their coming as a weight deep in his bones, a sizzle along his nerves, a questing whisper in his head.

  But until then, Lissa was his.

  He would taste that honey flesh. Cup those round, firm breasts. Kiss his way down the length of that soft throat. Bury his face in the wild tangle of that hair. It might only be for a few hours; still, he would leave her remembering him.

  Before she was widowed, she would be very, very married.

  Twining her arms around his neck, Elisabeth answered Brendan’s impatience, hoping to lose herself in the luscious thrill of his lovemaking. Hoping to forget for a few precious moments the reality behind his terrible admission. He was leaving. And, without a miracle of epic proportions, would not return.

  He’d tried to make her understand. He’d done everything but spell the truth out for her in big red letters, but in her desperation she’d ignored him. Taken his dire warnings as a last attempt to escape the fetters of an onerous marriage.

  Nothing with Brendan was ever that simple.

  Faced with his implacable determination to confront Máelodor, she’d been too shocked to respond at first, and then too numb. Arguing would be pointless. Brendan might call her stubborn, but a more mule-headed man did not exist, and she knew that bullish jut to the jaw all too well.

  “Aren’t you going to tell me I’m a fool?” he murmured, his warm breath against her neck sending shivers fluttering down her spine and into her belly. “Or mad? Or both?”

  “Would doing so change your mind?”

  His gaze grew dagger sharp, his hands tightening around her waist. “No.”

  “Then love me, Brendan,” she whispered. “That will have to be enough.”

  His lips brushed her forehead, her temple. Behind her ear. Down her throat. Everywhere he touched, her skin tingled. Every kiss sent sharp jolts of heat straight to her center until she burned with wanting him. His hands fumbled with the buttons at her back until her gown slid free to her waist, her breasts bared. Nipples puckering at the first blast of cool air.

  Palming their soft weight, his thumb skimming over the taut pink buds, he lowered his head to take one in his mouth, the swirl of his tongue delicious agony against her tender flesh. She threw her head back, a low purr escaping her throat as she dragged free the tail of his shirt to slide her hands over the sinewy hardness of his packed muscles. She rubbed against him, inflamed by the hard length of his arousal nestled in the junction of her legs.

  Dropping to his knees, Brendan slid his hands beneath her skirts, dragging the fabric around her hips, exposing her stockings, garters, and quaking legs. A wash of embarrassment stung Elisabeth’s cheeks, but only for a moment before recklessness and a wanton craving overpowered all lesser emotions. Her stomach clenched, her heart thrashing against her ribs as he climbed with mouth and fingers toward the throbbing, wet heat between her thighs. The slow march of his seduction pulling her into a whirlpool of sinful desire until she gritted her teeth to keep from begging him to never stop.

  His hands skimmed and stroked her swollen, aching flesh. She jerked, choking back a cry as he licked and sucked the sensitive nub hidden there. Her legs buckling as she melted into the lightning shock of pleasure generated by each expert flick of his tongue. Her nails dug into his shoulders, and without his arms about her waist, she’d have melted into a puddle onto the floor.

  Pressure built low across her stomach, an insatiable longing expanding with each swirling thrust of his tongue. Tremors vibrated her limbs until she pulsed with a brutal, painful need, her breathing ragged as he assaulted her senses. As the riot of mind-stopping ecstasy exploded through her like fireworks, she bucked and cried out. Her inner muscles contracting in wave after wave of crashing, shuddering bliss.

  Brendan drew himself up, the pulse in his neck throbbing as rapidly as the space between her legs. And as easily as if she were naught but featherlight, he tossed her onto the old four-poster, the scents of camphor and dust rising from the lumpy mattress. It could have been a granite slab for all she cared.

  He raked her with a look, his glittering eyes as dangerous and full of desire as she’d ever seen them. This was no gentle lover. This was a man ready to devour. A predator. A conqueror. Shucking himself free of his breeches, dragging his shirt over his head, he kneeled above her, his greedy gaze searing a path over her body until sweat damped her skin, and she quivered with renewed anticipation.

  She kissed him, licking her taste from him even as she wrapped her hands around his shaft, guiding him into her, rocking upward until he groaned against her lips.

  They stayed this way for a long delicate moment, neither one willing to end the fiery, devastating torture. Finally, he drew out before plunging deep into her again. She wrapped her legs around him, meeting each thrust, their coupling frenzied and ardent and stormy with loss and grief and a love struck down before it ever had a chance to bloom.

  Movement caught Elisabeth’s eye, and she turned to catch a glimpse of their joining reflected in the dark of Madame Arana’s mirror. Elisabeth’s hair falling loose across her shoulders in a scarlet ribbon, Brendan’s sleek, muscled body driving into her in a raw, urgent assault. Watching him pleasure her awakened a new sexual thrill. She smiled, feeling her passion coiling tighter and tighter until she peaked, writhing against him as scalding rivers of volcanic heat slid through her veins, drawing a shout of exhilaration from her kiss-swollen lips.

  He gasped her name like a prayer, his neck muscles taut, back slick with sweat as he thrust once more, shuddering his climax, spilling his seed inside her. He lay unmoving, still sheathed within her, as he pressed a kiss upon her cheek and each eyelid. “If that’s your idea of a farewell, I should leave more often.”

  He joked, but there was no humor in his tone and shadows crouched dark at the corners of his gaze.

  Elisabeth closed her eyes as twists and eddies of lingering pleasure pooled and swirled through her. “You should see what I do for a homecoming.”

  A chuckle rumbled low in Brendan’s throat. “I’d like that, sweet Lissa.”

  She swallowed back bitter tears, refusing to send him away with weeping. Cradled his face in her hands to stare deep within the Fey-born beauty of his eyes and smiled through her heartbreak. “So, my love, would I.”

  “Mon dieu! There you are. I have been looking everywhere for the two of you.”

  Brendan and Elisabeth broke apart like guilty children as Madame Arana caught them on the landing outside Brendan’s door, her crinkled, wizened face pulled into frightened lines, alarm edging her tone.

  Brendan’s transformation happened in an instant. From desirous to deadly between one beat of her heart and the next.

  “Downstairs. The Amhas-draoi. Helena’s out, but they have said they will wait for her return.”

  “Shit.” Brendan positively vibrated, the air charged with an invisible current. It prickled Elisabeth’s skin, lifted the hairs at the back of her neck, slid shivering along her bones. “If they discover me here—” he growled.

  “Go.” Elisabeth pushed him away, her heart pounding in he
r chest, panic knifing up through her stomach. “Grab what you need. Madame Arana can take you down the back stairs. You’ll be able to slip out through the kitchen into the yard and down the alley. I’ll see to the Amhas-draoi.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No, but it’s that or allow all my nursing to go for naught.”

  Brendan pressed a kiss to the palm of her hand. “Careful, Lissa. Helena’s a pussycat compared to most of them.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she assured him, putting on a brave face. “After all, I’m a simpleminded Duinedon; what could I possibly know?”

  His bad-little-boy smile did crazy fluttery things to her insides. Or perhaps that was a residue of mad panic. Difficult to tell. “I’ll take your Duinedon brains over any amount of Other magic any day.”

  “Which just goes to show you’re still not feeling well,” she scoffed. “Right now I’d pay ready money for the ability to fly like a bird to the Outer Hebrides for a very long, very peaceful holiday.”

  “You really do have an odd idea of Other abilities,” he said, amusement and excitement glittering in his eyes.

  Good heavens, was he was actually enjoying himself? With both arms, she shoved him away. “Stop gabbling at me and go already!”

  He crushed her in an embrace that drove the breath from her lungs and left her dizzy and reeling. “You’ll be fabulous. Five minutes is all I need. You can keep them busy for five minutes. I know you can.”

  She squared her shoulders. “Five? I’ll give you a good half hour. It’s amazing how chatty I can get if I put my mind to it. As Beaumont would say, ‘Women should talk an hour after supper. ’Tis their exercise.’”

  “You sound frighteningly like your aunt.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “You would.” He laughed.

  And then Brendan was gone, leaving her to face the indomitable ferocity of Scathach’s brotherhood alone. Her last sight of him as the door closed, his bent head, back arrow-straight, fists clenched at his sides.

  She would not break down. She would not dwell. And she would most definitely not snivel.

  Descending the stairway to the drawing room, Elisabeth channeled a century and a half of Fitzgerald hauteur. She flung open the drawing room doors, gliding into the room on a frigid wind. The pampered heiress on full display.

  Her visitor stood at the hearth with his back to her. He bore a wide-legged stance and broad shoulders, his auburn hair barely brushing his collar. As she watched, he took a shaky drag on a lit cheroot before tossing the whole into the fire.

  “Miss Roseingrave is out at present, sir. Perhaps I may assist you?” she asked, hoping the wobble in her voice didn’t betray her.

  He spun round, bronze eyes wide, the color draining from his face. “Elisabeth?”

  Her head spun as a roaring filled her ears, her heart crashing against her ribs. She sagged against a chair, one hand strangling her skirts as she fought to understand. “Lord Kilronan? Aidan? God in heaven, is it really you?”

  twenty

  Elisabeth gripped her hands tightly in her lap, willing a cool, elegant pose as if the events she’d just related were not the outrageous stuff of fantastical nightmare. Magical stones. Máelodor’s bounty hunters. Amhas-draoi attacks. Arthur’s summoning. And, oh, by the way, her marriage to a man everyone thought was dead.

  Completely humdrum and not worth getting into a pucker over.

  “He’s been carrying that guilt around with him like a damned great anchor all this time? The stupid sod, he should know I’d never think . . .” Lord Kilronan’s words trailed off. “If I’d only come an hour sooner.”

  I see his death in my head.

  Brendan’s words repeated in her mind, but was the vision of Aidan’s fall a future that must come to pass? Surely not, if Brendan continued to fight to prevent it. Or was his growing desperation born of knowing the fate he feared was a fate inescapable?

  Lord Kilronan closed his eyes, uttered a very ungentlemanly “Thrice-damned son of a bitch,” before stalking the length of the room, hand beating a rapid pulse against his lame leg. “The last I heard, he was in the north. Why the hell would he . . .”

  “Aidan?”

  “Gods, if the Amhas-draoi find him . . . or Máelodor. Bloody sod all. He’s mad to even contemplate such a scheme.”

  “Aidan!”

  Startled, he spun on his heel.

  “You knew he wasn’t dead. You knew and never said.”

  A corner of his mouth turned up in a dry smile, for a moment the family resemblance between the golden Lord Kilronan and his dark-featured brother more than obvious. “Thought you’d be the last person in the world to want to hear of Brendan Douglas’s continued existence.”

  “It would have been nice to have a bit of warning.”

  “Can’t say his turning up at Dun Eyre ever crossed my mind, though had I known that blasted stone was there—” A dumbfounded expression clouded his face. “Hell and the devil, what a bloody great mess.”

  “Did you know Brendan was alive all this time?”

  Aidan dropped heavily into a chair. “No. Like you, I’d long ago assumed his death. It was only last spring I learned of his return to Ireland.” He drummed his fingers upon the chair’s arm. “I’ve spent the past year searching for him. Hoping to find him before the Amhas-draoi.”

  “How did you know to come to Helena’s?”

  “I didn’t.” He pulled a much-folded letter from his coat pocket. “This arrived at Belfoyle from an old friend of my father’s. Mr. Ahern said he’d irrefutable evidence that Brendan was in Dublin. I left immediately, hoping to speak to Miss Roseingrave. I thought she might have knowledge of Brendan’s whereabouts.” He shook his head, a rough bark of grim laughter. “Apparently she did, though I can see why she kept the knowledge to herself. She knows I’d have tossed a spanner into any plan that involved using Brendan as the lure to catch Máelodor.”

  “But Madame Arana said you were Amhas-draoi. Why did you lie?”

  He dropped his head, rubbing the back of his neck. “Miss Roseingrave and I aren’t on the best of terms. I thought I’d have more luck seeing her if I introduced myself as one of the brotherhood than as the accursed Lord Kilronan. Had I known Brendan was here . . .” He pulled a cheroot from a case. Bent to light it off a candle, inhaling a long, steadying drag. “Where’s he gone, Elisabeth?”

  Her hands shook. “I don’t know, but, Aidan”—she paused, trying to swallow back the lump in her throat—“I don’t think he plans on coming back. I think Brendan believes this can only end in his death.”

  His brows drew into a frown, a shocked stillness descending over him.

  “I think he knew even before he married me he’d not much time left.”

  Every word she uttered drew Aidan tighter, hardening his already austere features. Her own body tensed, shoulders up near her ears, an arm across her stomach to hold the sickening ache in check.

  Then, just at the moment she thought she might run screaming from the room, Aidan snapped. Leaping to his feet, an awkward smile brightening his somber expression. “What am I thinking? I should be offering you my felicitations on your marriage. Brendan couldn’t have chosen better.”

  He embraced her in an enormous brotherly hug, his jacket scratchy against her cheek and smelling of smoke and brandy and dust and man.

  Not precisely the reaction she’d been expecting. It took the wind from her sails, leaving her confused and empty and dazed; and yet, in a tiny way, she wanted to throw her arms around Aidan for seeming to understand how desperately she wanted to be a normal bride with a normal husband and a normal life.

  He took her by the shoulders, stepping back to gaze down at her. “This is the best news I’ve had in ages.” Exhaustion smudged the skin below his eyes, frustration tensing his square jaw. “Your aunts will be ecstatic. They’ve been seeking word of you everywhere; actually, part of my business in town was to see what I could find out abou
t you.”

  A cannonball dropped into the pit of her stomach. Her aunts. How on earth was she going to face them after this? Somehow in the mounting chaos of her days in Dublin, that question had gotten lost in the shuffle. Aidan’s arrival drove it front and center. “Are they all right?”

  He released her to once more prowl like some great hunting cat, his hand tapping at his thigh. “Mrs. Pheeney has taken to her bed with hartshorn for her nerves and magnesia for her upset stomach, but Miss Sara has been stalwart in containing the scandal. In fact, she was the only one unsurprised by your elopement.”

  Elisabeth took a seat upon the edge of a settee, her queasiness resuming double force. “She knew Brendan had returned. She recognized him, you see.” Elisabeth rubbed her temples as if trying to keep her brains from oozing out her ears. “And I think somehow . . . some way . . . she sensed what would happen.”

  “Did she?” He grunted. “Fancy that. Don’t doubt it. Your grandmother carried the blood.” He scraped a knuckle along his chin. A gesture she’d seen Brendan make a million times. The cannonball moved up into her chest.

  “Was it . . . as bad as I imagine?” she ventured.

  “I wasn’t there during the ruckus, but Lady Kilronan told me the place was pandemonium, with everyone accusing everyone else. One group wanted to charge out after you and drag you back by the hair. The other faction washed their hands of the debacle.”

  “I can imagine which side Gordon came down on.”

  “Apparently Mr. Shaw and his brother left Dun Eyre three days after you did following an argument between the pair of them and Lord Taverner. Your guardian was quite the bulldog, I’m told.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “Not to fear. I believe your great-aunt came ably to your defense with a raking that had the entire household in an uproar and both Mr. Shaws resembling a pair of startled codfish. My wife’s opinion, not mine.”

  Bless Great-aunt Charity. Elisabeth well knew what sort of tongue-lashing might issue from that plain-speaking mouth. But poor Gordon. It hadn’t been his fault, though it was a relief to know his heart had been as little touched as hers. He would find his glittering political hostess just as she had found the man she needed. Who turned her legs to jelly and her blood to fire. Who’d dragged her into the deepest, most treacherous currents and then left her to sink or swim on her own.