Lord of Shadows (28 page)

Aidan looked in danger of exploding. His face purple. His eyes burning with a dark intensity she’d never seen before. Almost as if the shadow of another crouched waiting in the ruthless gaze. He brought the pistol up to level it at Daigh’s chest. The shadow overtaking him. His stare as soulless and empty as if someone else controlled him. Inhabited him.

Daigh never faltered. “That will avail you nothing.”

“You forget, Lazarus, I carry within me a little piece of my own monster. My own hell, thanks to you.”

“And would you summon it here? Risk losing yourself to the evil of the
Unseelie
?”

“A risk worth taking,” Aidan snarled.

“Stop! Stop it now!” Sabrina stepped between them as if she could fend off the inevitable. “Do you hear yourself, Aidan? Is this even about me?”

“What do you think, Sabrina? Or did you think at all when you took up with this thrice damned savage fiend? He’s a freak of nature. A cursed, hellish experiment.”

“Careful, my lord. I’ve killed men for less.”

“I’m well aware of the men you’ve killed.”

Like two curs circling, teeth bared. Did they even hear her over their chest-thumping brinksmanship?

She grabbed Daigh’s arm. Dragged him around long enough to focus on her. “What’s this about?” A question she seemed to ask with maddening regularity. But confusion
had become her permanent state of mind. And she tired of it. “Why are you ready to tear each other apart?”

Daigh offered her a mad dog stare, a feverish, implacable rage burning in his jet-black eyes. Emotion flooded her senses, but instead of the unstoppable rush of memory, she came up against a wall, stark and impassable. She read nothing of his thoughts. Saw nothing of his past. Only a black, dizzying emptiness like a razored maw. An unblinking serpent’s eye. She shuddered under that malevolent, unyielding gaze. Fell back with a startled cry.

“You once said I was given a second chance, Sabrina. But that chance came with strings. The diary I dreamt about? The visions of death and destruction?”

“What about them?”

“Your brother. His wife. Your cousin. Your house. I destroyed them all. Or tried to at my master’s bidding. I am a creature in thrall to a madman.”

Aidan’s injuries in the spring. They’d told her he’d had an accident climbing the cliffs below Belfoyle. Jack dead at the hands of highwaymen. Kilronan House burnt to the ground from a dropped candle on a carpet. All of these had been caused by Daigh? No. It couldn’t be. She would have known. Would have seen. Would have sensed it.

But she had. She did. And she’d refused to give any of her concerns credence. Too caught up in her girlish fantasy of Daigh riding to her rescue. Her black-eyed paladin swooping in to save her. It had been just that—fantasy.

Her body went cold then hot. She hugged herself against the shudders wracking her body.

Aidan grabbed her arm. “Come, Sabrina.”

“I don’t believe you,” she whispered, praying for a denial.

“Believe me. It is so,” Daigh answered.

Aidan’s grip tightened as he pulled her away.

“You wouldn’t hurt me. You couldn’t.” She reached for Daigh, but he shrugged her off with a quick, angry gesture.

“You’re a silly child,” he snarled, averting his gaze. Refusing to look her in the eye. “A fool.”

His insults struck her with the force of blows, but she was already numb and barely staggered beneath them. “And what I saw of us? The images of you and me?”

He lifted his head, raking her with a greasy, ugly stare. “A virgin’s infatuation.” His lips curled in a scoundrel’s smile. “But we took care of that, didn’t we, pet?”

Aidan went rigid, his expression thunderous. “Lazarus, you son of a whore’s rotten—” Jerked his hand up, squeezing off a shot.

“No!” Sabrina screamed.

The windows rattled, smoke stinging her nose, making her eyes water.

Squinting through the blur of tears, she dropped to her knees and the man crumpled on the floor, bloody hands clutching his stomach.

“Daigh! By the gods, Aidan. Why?”

He loomed over them, white-faced and shaking. “It may not kill him as he deserves, but it sure as hell makes me feel better.”

Daigh’s chest rose and fell with shallow, painful breaths. Each inhalation pushing fresh blood between his fingers. His lips curved in a faint grimace. “Glad to be of service, my lord.”

“Come, Sabrina.” Aidan dragged her to her feet. “If I so much as catch a whiff of your stench again, Lazarus, I’ll risk any damnation to see you suffer.”

In shock, Sabrina shook her head, unable to voice any of the tangle of thoughts beating against her except the inane, “His name is Daigh, not Lazarus.”

A stony remoteness entered Daigh’s expression as if his humanity had been obliterated. And she knew at last how and why he’d ended in the sea. The lengths he would go to gain what he saw as his only peace.

“No, Sabrina. Not Daigh. Nor Lazarus. My true name is lost. As am I.”

“May I come in?”

Sabrina looked up from the hearth where she knelt before one of Aunt Delia’s floral scented fires, feeding journal pages to the purple flames. Lady Kilronan’s pixie face peered at her around the corner of the bedchamber door. Her first visitor since Jane had darted in long enough to give her a fearful and slightly awed look, grasp both her hands, and murmur, “Don’t blame yourself . . . you couldn’t have known, Sabrina. And if he ever comes near you . . .” She drew herself up like Joan facing the English army before slinking away at fresh shouting downstairs.

That had been around noon. It was now—quick check of the clock—eight in the evening. She’d been sequestered for over a day while her fate was argued below in loud, carrying tones.

“Have you been sent up to speak to me about the error of my ways?” she grumbled. “A life lesson from one experienced in these matters?”

A shadow passed over the other woman’s features, giving Sabrina a twinge of guilty conscience. It wasn’t Aidan’s wife’s fault Sabrina’s world had once again come toppling down around her ears. Tears caught in the back of her
throat, and she stood in a rush of skirts and apologies. “I’m so sorry. That was ill said, and I didn’t mean it. Really. Come in, my lady.”

She beckoned her sister-in-law into the room with a watery smile.

“It’s Cat. ‘My lady’ sounds horribly stiff. As if we were strangers.”

“Aren’t we?”

“For now. But I hope that one day we may count each other as the best of friends.” She smiled warmly despite Sabrina’s lack of manners. “You’ll be pleased to learn we’ve convinced Aunt Delia you went on a long walk with your maid and two heavyset footmen and lost track of time.” She cocked a glance at Sabrina’s dismembered journal. “Are you certain you want to do that?”

Sabrina fingered the wreckage. Tossed the rest onto the fire. Watched the book blacken and wither. Wished she could erase the events as easily.

“It was a mistake to keep such a diary,” she answered through clenched teeth. “It left me exposed to the worst sort of snooping.”

She dusted off her hands. Ignoring the twinge of pain at losing what had been, until this morning, her truest sanctuary. Not even Jane privy to all that lay within her heart.

She made a conscious effort to take a chair facing away from the fire. Arranged herself carefully. Skirts. Limbs. Fussing over shawl or no shawl. Rearranging the pillow. The candle at her elbow. Anything to forget the journal and the ordeal of having to talk to—of all people—her brother’s wife about it.

“May I sit?” Cat motioned to the chair opposite.

Sabrina shrugged her acceptance. It took effort to fight.
“If it’s a choice between you or Aidan ringing a peal over my head, I choose you.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Cat pulled a face. “He does have a knack for making one’s fists itch, doesn’t he?” She laughed, and for just a moment, Sabrina had a glimmer of what it might be like to have a sister. Someone besides Jane who, while a bosom friend, wasn’t a part of Sabrina’s family and couldn’t understand the horrible aftermath still rippling outward from that long-ago November day.

She eyed the new Lady Kilronan through downcast lashes. Not the arrogant, dark-eyed frostiness of Helena Roseingrave. Nor the simpering malice of Aunt Delia. Cat had an approachable elegance, a kindness in her face that made Sabrina blush with shame at her earlier unkind opinions. She should have known Aidan wouldn’t marry a title-seeking conniver. He’d far too much sense—and cynicism—for that.

And Sabrina had far too little.

“Forgive me for behaving so badly . . . Cat.” She liked the familiar name upon her lips. “I’ve been an absolute shrew. None of this is your fault. You don’t deserve my vitriol. It’s Aidan who spied on me.”

She fumed just thinking about his violation of her most private thoughts.

“He worried over you,” Cat supplied matter-of-factly. “He didn’t know where you’d gone. Neither Miss Fletcher nor your aunt could offer him any suggestions. Your journal was his last hope.”

“That’s no reason for his trespass.”

Cat sighed. “No, it’s an excuse, and not a very good one. But the only one I have. Aidan loves you. He feels responsible for you. A duty to the only family he has left.
And to that end he’d justify almost any action. To him, family is strength. He’s come to see the heirs of Kilronan as a bulwark against the world.”

“Against Máelodor, you mean.”

Cat brushed the charge aside. “Against any hurt. You mayn’t believe it, but Aidan was as rocked by your family’s disintegration as you. He was left alone to pick up the pieces as best he could. Just as you were.”

“He didn’t do too badly. He ended with you.”

Cat grinned. “I was merely serendipity.”

A question hovered. One Sabrina needed to ask. Not out of spite or any wish to wound, but because she and Cat had more in common now than just Aidan. Still, how to ask without sounding like a mean gossip. Direct was best.

Soonest asked. Soonest answered.

She squared her shoulders. Exhaled her words in a gasp of breath. “Do you regret what you did with . . .? When . . .? I mean they say—not that I care what a bunch of tattle-merchants say, but—that is . . . do you regret what you did?”

Embarrassed heat shot straight to her toes. Especially when Cat’s smile faded. Her stare turning inward, body stiffening, hands clasped palm down in her lap.

“No regrets. Not any longer. Aidan’s love brought me to this blessed point.” Cat reached across and took Sabrina’s hand in hers. The gold and garnet Kilronan wedding band winking on her ring finger. “He saw firsthand the pain giving my heart to someone unworthy of it caused me.”

Sorrow lodged deep within Sabrina’s chest. Is this what people meant when they spoke of being heartbroken? This hard, cold rock that seemed to expand until all of her felt weighted and achy? She pulled a shawl up over her
shoulders, even though the room was overwarm and stuffy from the fire. Gazed for a moment at the rainy night beyond her window where the stifling press of the city seemed to add to her already throbbing head. “Daigh said he tried to kill you. Is that true?”

“Is that what he’s calling himself these days?” Cat focused on the fire as if the past could be seen within the dancing flames. “I wish I could tell you differently. If it weren’t for Miss Roseingrave, Aidan and I wouldn’t have survived.”

Sabrina went rigid. “Miss Roseingrave? That she-viper?”

A hint of amusement touched Cat’s sad eyes. “Aye. She and your cousin Jack prevented Laz—Daigh from gaining the diary. I miss Jack. I believe she does too.”

“Jack wasn’t set on by robbers, was he? He was another victim.”

“Jack sought to protect me and died for his bravery.” She paused, her face drawn and pale. Worry carved the corners of her mouth. Between her brows. “In the end, Daigh could have killed Aidan and me. He was a sword stroke away from ending our lives.” She bit her bottom lip. “But he didn’t. Something stopped him. Perhaps it’s the same something that caused you to love him.”

Sabrina stiffened, eyes wide, brain racing. Did she love Daigh? She had once. Long centuries ago. And though he sought to dismiss her visions as a virgin’s foolishness, they were more than that. Much more. She tucked her arms beneath her breasts against the squeeze of pain. An all-too-familiar grief. A loss she seemed doomed to repeat again and again.

“You think I was mad to care for him. I see it in your face.”

Cat shook her head. “You stumbled in over your head. But take it from someone who’s been there, the heart mends. It may be impossible to believe now, but the fall into love isn’t fatal.” She twisted her wedding ring round and round, the ghost of an old grief hovering beneath her pale skin. “Not if there’s someone to catch you at the bottom.”

With a hand plowed into his thick auburn hair, Aidan bent over his library desk, pen scratching madly across the page, a grim set to his angular jaw, his expression forbidding in a way she’d never seen before. In fact her brother was as unfamiliar as a stranger. The Aidan of her childhood had been an irresponsible scoundrel. A brother revered as exciting and reckless. Certainly not this cynical, stern-featured autocrat.

Drawing in a fortifying breath, Sabrina tapped on the open door.

Without raising his head, he put up a hand. “Hold one moment, Cat, or I’ll lose my train of thought.”

“It’s not Cat. It’s Sabrina. We need to speak.”

His head shot up, brows contracting in a wary scowl. “I’m busy. We’ll talk later. Once I’ve calmed down. Right now I’m still ready to tear that bastard’s thrice-damned head off and shove it up his—” His pen snapped in two. He tossed it onto the desk with another muttered oath. “Didn’t I warn you? Now’s not the time.”

Ignoring his display of temper and his abrupt dismissal, she stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. “If you’re trying to scare me into leaving, it won’t work. And I don’t give a . . . a . . . damn for your temper,” she brazened. “We’ll talk now.”

He seemed as stunned as she by her outburst. But it worked. He gave her his attention. Rubbed his chin, eying her with an arrogant droop of his lids. “A foul mouth to match your easy virtue. What else can I thank the
bandraoi
for?”