Beguiled (26 page)

“Eileen!”

The whisper came again and she chewed at her bottom lip. Who could be in there? Everyone but Culhane was in the yard. Maybe it was Mab, she thought with a stab of fear so sharp she sucked in a gulp of air and it got caught in her lungs. No, not Mab, she assured herself. Claire’s spell kept out anyone who meant harm, so it couldn’t be the former queen.

Eileen’s brain was moving so fast, all of these thoughts took only a second or two. Quickly, she shifted another look at the ground below the tree house.

Aunt Maggie was swinging the sword, looking pretty cool. Mac and Claire were still talking on the porch, Jasic standing unnoticed beneath them, and Eileen’s mom was headed for the kitchen, probably going to make more cookies. Quinn was watching Bezel and Maggie, and Sheba was asleep under the tree.

So who . . .

“Eileen, it’s me.”

Fear fell away as she smiled and excited bubbles filled up her tummy. Turning around completely now, she peered into the darkness, trying to see. “How did you get here?”

“Come inside,” the voice urged. “I’ll show you.”

With one last look at her family, Eileen grinned, and eagerly crawled through the open door of the tree house and into the shadows.

Chapter Thirteen

Jasic moved closer to the back porch, where Claire and the warrior McCulloch were having a heated discussion.

“If you take Eileen to the Conclave,” Claire was saying, “she’ll be too easy to find.”

“Do you not think we’ve considered that?” Mac countered. “Culhane has it all worked out. Eileen will be safe in our care and it’s an insult for you to suggest otherwise.”

“You hardheaded Faery, I’m not saying that at all.”

Jasic chuckled to himself at the outrage in the witch’s voice, then listened more carefully as she continued.

“I only think you should consider somewhere else to hide the girl. And Maggie agrees with me. Don’t you think Mab will figure out to look at the Warriors’ home?”

Jasic sidled a bit closer as their voices hushed into strained whispers.

“Mab cannot enter the Conclave. No one can enter the Conclave uninvited. But we’ve no intention of keeping her precisely there, anyway.”

“Then where?
Precisely
.”

There was a long pause as if Mac were trying to decide whether or not to tell her. Finally, he spoke again. “There’s a small alcove, at the edge of the training field.

If you didn’t know it was there, you wouldn’t even
see
the blasted thing. The chamber is used for official ceremonies. Mab couldn’t know of it and so won’t find Eileen. Tomorrow we tuck her away there and she’s safe as can be.”

“Jasic?” Nora had spotted him on her way to the kitchen. He jumped, surprised at her call, and as soon as he did, Mac and Claire turned to glare at him.

“How long have you been there, Fae?” Mac demanded.

Jasic straightened to his full height and tugged at his lapels with the tips of his fingers. “Long enough to know that you shouldn’t be spilling secrets. Lucky for you, I’m family. Imagine what might have happened if an enemy had happened to overhear your conversation.”

“An enemy wouldn’t be here. The wards,” Mac reminded him.

“Aye, well, that’s true then. No harm done.” Jasic smiled, gave Claire a courtly half bow, then turned back to Nora. Taking her arm, he steered her into the kitchen. “Now, my darling girl, would you be brewing me some of your fine tea again? What was it we had just yesterday? Orange Zinger?”

Inside the kitchen, Nora filled the teakettle and set it on the stove to heat.

“Jasic,” she asked, turning to face him at the kitchen table, “why were you really eavesdropping?”

“Why, to be sure all is being done to protect my family, of course.” He gave her a sorrowful look. “I am the head of the family, Nora. It’s my duty to look out for all of you.”

Nora nodded and moved to take down two teacups. While her back was turned, Jasic reached for a brownie, bit into it and smiled to himself in satisfaction.

A couple hours later, the house was quiet for a change. Sheba was, of course, asleep under the kitchen table. Bezel was out in his tree house. Eileen was on the computer in her room doing more Fae research. Claire was talking long-distance to her mother in Scotland and who the hell knew where Nora and Quinn were. Though wherever they were, Maggie was pretty sure she knew what they were doing.

Lucky bastards.

She scowled as she carried her coffee out of the kitchen and into the dimly lit living room. This was all Culhane’s fault. He’d taught her about Faery sex, made her want it—and him—and then poof. He was gone. Off in Otherworld doing who knew what instead of being here with her.

So, with no hope of sex, because she absolutely
refused
to go to Culhane, she was going to wait him out and make him come to her. And since no one was bugging her to fight or train or make royal decisions, she had decided to do something for herself.

Maggie was headed for her bedroom and the easel she’d tucked under the window. She hadn’t had a chance to paint in days and since Nora had moved back into the main house, she’d lost her “artist studio” room. But that was fine. She could work in her cluttered bedroom. And right now, losing herself in the magic of putting paint to canvas sounded like a vacation in Fae heaven.

The scent of pine welcomed her into the living room and her gaze went straight to the multicolored strings of lights on the tree. She smiled. Nora always wanted too many lights, but now that the work was done, Maggie had to admit, it looked gorgeous.

“I’ve never understood the human need to drag foliage into their homes.”

Maggie jumped, slapped one hand to her chest and steadied her mug full of coffee. Her gaze shot to the man comfortably seated on the couch, with his feet kicked up and crossed atop the coffee table. “Jasic. I didn’t know you were still here.”

“Ah, a sad state of affairs to be sure,” he said, patting the couch beside him in a silent invitation for her to join him. “The grandFae, already forgotten by his loved ones.”

Loved ones? Well, they were family, at any rate. And Bezel hadn’t found any dirt on him yet—at least he hadn’t reported anything back to her. Maybe it was time Maggie took a minute to simply talk to the grandfather she’d never known. Nora and Eileen liked him, she knew. He’d charmed them both, which Maggie couldn’t really fault him for. Why wouldn’t he want his family to care for him? So maybe, she thought, bidding a silent good-bye to the painting she’d been about to indulge in, it was high time she tried to get to know him herself.

After all, he seemed to spend a lot of his time here lately. Whenever she turned around he was there, smiling.

Maybe that was the problem, she thought. People who smiled constantly made her nervous.

It was more normal to have a bad day once in a while. To be crabby. Grumpy. Fight the urge to shriek in frustration and yank at your own hair. Or maybe that was just her.

Maggie sat down in a nearby chair, passing up the chance to sit on the couch beside him, thanks very much, anyway. She curled her legs up under her and took a good long look at the man—Fae—who had begun their family line.

He was gorgeous, no two ways about it. And she supposed he did have plenty of charm as well. So looking back, it was easy to see how her grandmother, at the tender age of seventeen, had been swept off her feet and seduced by him.

She had been hardly more than a kid. On a family vacation to Ireland. He had been a centuries-old Faery looking for an easy mark. No way had Gran had the experience to deal with someone like him. It couldn’t have been too difficult for him to smooth talk a young human girl into going to Otherworld with him.

Some of what Maggie felt must have been written on her face, because when he spoke again, he asked a pointed question.

“You don’t like me much, do you?”

Instantly, Maggie felt guilty. Why, she wasn’t sure, but it seemed impolite at the least to make your ambiguous feelings toward someone so easy to read.

“I didn’t say that, Jasic,” she told him. “I don’t even know you.”

“A wise queen,” he mused. “Reserve judgment until all the facts are in?”

She lifted her mug in a silent toast. “Something like that.”

“You’ve a suspicious mind, Maggie,” he said, wagging a finger at her as if admonishing a child.

“No, just a curious one,” she said, pausing for a sip of coffee. “For example, a curious mind wonders why a grandfather who’s known about his family for
years
waits until one of his grandchildren is the new Queen to drop in and say howdy.”

He laughed a little and the sound was musical, if a bit off-key. “I would never say ‘howdy,’ ” he told her, giving her a brilliant smile aimed to disarm and reassure.

“No, I suppose not.” He was too elegant for that. Too . . . emotionally distant. At that moment, she wondered if he had ever really been touched by anything deeply enough to shatter the shallow facade he showed to everyone.

Nora and Eileen both had embraced this newest member of their family and Maggie really wished she could, too. But the niggling little doubts tugging at the corners of her mind prevented it. What would Gran have to say about him now? she wondered.

It was eerie how he seemed to know just what she was thinking.

“Your grandmother knew exactly what she was getting into, you know,” he said, his voice soft and smooth. He lifted his wineglass and stared at the Christmas tree lights through the veil of the straw-colored wine. “I made her no promises. I simply offered to take her to Otherworld for a holiday.” He sighed in fond memory. “She was more than eager to go, I assure you.”

“Uh-huh.” Why wouldn’t she have been, Maggie thought. Jasic must have looked like a rock star to Gran. Tall, gorgeous, worldly and exciting. Someone so far from her ordinary world that she’d been unable to resist.

Which, Maggie was willing to bet, Jasic had counted on.

“Your grandmother was a lovely girl,” he was saying. “A delight, as I recall. We spent some delicious times together in Otherworld. She was a boon companion, as we used to say.”

“Uh-huh,” Maggie said as irritation began to rise inside her. “Until the holiday was over. Let’s not forget you deserted Gran and ran like a bunny the minute you found out she was pregnant.”

He touched one finger to his forehead as if tipping a hat he wasn’t wearing; then he smiled benevolently. “You’re more than welcome.”

Her irritation mounted. Okay, clearly she wasn’t going to be charmed into welcoming her grandFae into her life. He was conceited, and not in a sexy way, like Culhane. Arrogant and not because he’d earned the right, like the warriors. And just a little on the snide side, which was supremely annoying all on its own. He behaved as though Maggie owed him a favor for seducing and abandoning her grandmother.

At the moment, he was watching her expectantly, as if waiting for applause.

“I should thank you?” she asked, just a little dumbfounded. “For what?”

He clucked his tongue in disapproval. “For what you are. What you will be. For the world that is opening to you and serving itself up on a jeweled platter.” His mouth tightened and his eyes didn’t look quite as congenial as they had a few minutes ago. “It’s thanks to me, Maggie my love, that you are now Queen of the Fae. All-powerful, poised to rule for eons in an eternally youthful body. Great power. Immortality. Wealth beyond anything your poor human imagination might be willing to construct. And all because I dallied with your grandmother, giving you, my descendants, the blessings of Faery blood.”

The twinkling Christmas lights, the scent of pine and the hush of the house did nothing to soothe Maggie’s rapidly fraying temper. That he could sit there and act as though everything that had happened to her in the last few weeks had been some kind of gift, like an unlimited credit card to Macy’s, absolutely amazed her.

Maggie’s fingers tightened around the handle of her coffee mug until she was surprised she hadn’t snapped it clean off. She wouldn’t have even needed her new Fae strength to achieve it, either. Just good old human indignation. But a cautious voice in her mind warned her not to show him just how much she didn’t like him.