Authors: Alix Rickloff
By the time Ellery left the milliner’s, the day’s warm weather had given way to evening’s dirty gray clouds and a chill breeze. Disapproving stares and barbed comments followed her up the harbor road toward home, but she refused to feel ashamed. She’d lived her whole life in the shadow of such unjustified cruelty. At least it was her own supposed sin she was being scolded for this time and not the guilt of her parents.
A crowd of young women watched her pass, a flurry of whispers springing up in her wake. One girl, bolder than the others, spoke in a carrying voice. “Her brother, he says. I’m wishin’ I had a brother or two like him.”
The giggles that followed this jibe almost made Ellery whip around and answer the accusations. She was saved from doing so by the approach of a lanky, round-shouldered gentleman dressed in a fashionable coat of dark blue and a cravat tied up to his long jowls, a huge pearl nestled among the folds. “Haven’t you anything better to do, Miss Yeovil, than to mock your betters?” He shook a dismissive hand at the group. “Off with the lot of you!”
He eyed the women as if they had crawled from beneath a rock, his demeanor as well as his words scattering the group like a fox among hens. Shifting his attention to Ellery, he sketched her a bow. “Your pardon for that display of incivility, Miss Reskeen.”
Not sure whose incivility he was speaking to, she merely gave him a grateful smile while inwardly wishing him to the devil. “My thanks, Mr. Porter. I’m sure they meant no harm.”
“Low-born trollops, and no better than they should be,” he replied, adjusting his cuffs. “I heard you stopped by to see me earlier today. I was quite cast up when I found we’d missed one another, but I had ridden out early to collect the rents.”
Ellery wished her savior had been anyone but Mr. Porter. Her landlord had always been friendly, but since her cousin’s death, his kindliness had grown cloying, and his smile smarmier.
He made a show of flipping open an enameled snuffbox and inhaling a pinch from between his fingers. “I came to see you as soon as I heard about your…” He sneezed, then lowered his voice, “your problem. The talk in the village is quite salacious.” His eyes gleamed, and he stepped toward her, reaching for her hand. “I refused to believe it until I spoke to you directly.”
Feeling suddenly cornered on this lonely stretch of lane, Ellery backed up. “That’s gallant of you, but really it’s not what anyone thinks. A storm in a teacup.” She tried changing the conversation. “My reason for coming to see you was the matter of my rent on the cottage. I know I’ve been late—”
“I understand your plight, Miss Reskeen, and I sympathize. It must be hard to be a woman on your own with no family or connections of any kind.” He reached again for her hand and this time refused to let her elude him. His palms were sweaty and soft. “No one to lean on when times grow hard.” He squeezed her hand, his gaze resting on the neckline of her gown. “No one to offer comfort when you need it most.”
Had she not owed him three months rent, Ellery would have wrestled out of his grip and boxed his ears. Instead, she tried easing away from him without his noticing. “I think you misunderstand, Mr. Porter, but if you give me a bit more time, I’m sure I can manage to pay it.”
But he would not be put off. He tightened his grip, his fingers crushing hers, his breath sour on her face.
“Miss Reskeen—Ellery, if I might be so bold. Your cousin told me of the unfortunate circumstances surrounding your birth and early years. From that moment, I only wanted to help you.” He was so close she saw the nicks his razor had left on his chin and the broken veins across his nose. “I can’t offer marriage—Mother would never approve of your lack of birth or breeding—but I would be pleased to ease your way if I could. Your rent would never again be an issue between us.”
Ellery tore her hand away. Anger knotted her throat, and her chest burned with fury. “My cousin overstepped her place when she spoke of such private matters. I was born just as you were, Mr. Porter, from between my mother’s legs, and though my childhood was harsh, I’m no man’s doxy to barter myself for rent money.”
He raked her with his gaze as if he already owned her, the tip of his tongue sliding across his lips. “Aren’t you? They say the apple never falls far from the tree. Whatever the man staying with you offered, I can top it.”
Ellery spun on her heel and began to walk on toward the cottage. She’d gone only a few yards when he caught her up and whipped her around. “We can make this difficult or we can make this easy. You owe me, Miss Reskeen.”
A deep voice, cool and impersonal, brought them both up short. “And what does she owe you, sir?”
Ellery looked up to find herself under Conor Bligh’s insolent gaze. Candlelight hadn’t done him justice. He was one of the most beautiful men she had ever seen. Dark hair cut short and choppy as if he’d hacked at it himself without aid of a mirror. On a lesser man, the style would have seemed ridiculous. With his strong, chiseled features and warrior’s body, it only made him seem harder, tougher. He leaned against a tree, his arms folded across his chest, arrogance rising from him like steam. In the half-light of dusk, his face fell in and out of shadow; only the sun-gold glow of his eyes remained steady and fixed upon her.
His lips curled in a thin, mocking smile. “One should always pay one’s debts, little sister.”
How had she not seen him approach? Mr. Porter had distracted her, but surely she would have seen or heard something. The lane was narrow, the hedges on either side sparse, yet there Conor Bligh stood as if he’d conjured himself out of the dark trees. She swallowed. Maybe he had.
Mr. Porter dropped his arm to his side. “You must be Miss Reskeen’s—guest.” He filled every syllable with venom.
Conor straightened, not so much stepping as melting out of the shadows. Dressed in unrelieved black, Ellery thought he might make a good pirate…he came closer…or highwayman…closer still…or predator. He stopped inches in front of them, his intense gaze never wavering from her face as if he were memorizing her stupefied expression. Then his eyes flicked up to meet Mr. Porter’s. “Not her guest, sir. Her brother.”
Mr. Porter’s brows snapped together in disbelief. Conor shot her a fierce glance, but instead of anger or resentment, Ellery only felt a coward’s relief at his arrival.
“Brother?” Mr. Porter said. “You’ll have to do better than that if you expect me to believe you.”
Conor shrugged. “Well, perhaps I stretch the truth slightly. Half-brother, but family nonetheless.”
Mr. Porter sniffed. “Another by-blow? Miss Reskeen’s mother was quite busy.”
Ellery’s face burned with shame. “You’ve no right to say those things.”
Conor Bligh forestalled her with a restraining hand upon her shoulder. “I never met Ellery’s mother so I wouldn’t know. Ellery and I share a father. Major Robert Galloway. I’ve followed him into the army, so I rarely get back to England, but when I do I like to check in on my sister and make sure she’s well.” His gaze narrowed. “A shoulder to lean on, you might say, Mr. Porter.”
Her landlord flushed pink, but he held his ground, staring down his long, sharp nose at them. “Your cousin was right about you, Miss Reskeen. A whore, she called you. Just like your mother. A soldier’s bastard playing at being the great lady.”
Ellery’s fist shot out, connecting with Mr. Porter’s jaw in a solid punch. He staggered and straightened, a line of blood oozing from his mouth. She started to advance on him when Conor’s hand caught her up short. “That was ill-done of you, little sister. You should never lead with your left.”
Mr. Porter wiped at the blood with a handkerchief, his face purple with rage. “You have until this time tomorrow, Miss Reskeen, to clear out the cottage and be gone from Carnebwen or I’ll draw up charges on you and your…your brother.”
“I’ve nowhere to go.”
“That’s not my concern,” Mr. Porter replied. Ellery rubbed the bruised knuckles of her hand. With one punch, she’d lost her first and only real home. She tried feeling remorse over her actions, but nothing could push aside the dull press of hurt and humiliation. Had Molly truly hated her so much?
“Give her three days, and she’ll be gone,” Conor said.
She glanced over her shoulder up at him. This morning’s zinging thrill seemed a lifetime ago. She should have known it would turn out to be a warning. Life didn’t hand you happiness without trouble hard on its heels.
In less than a day, Conor Bligh had turned her stable little world on its head. She needed to get away from him before his presence wreaked even more havoc. She opened her mouth to break in, but Mr. Porter spoke first.
“And why should I?”
“I’ll pay you everything she owes you, but only if you give her the three days.”
“I don’t believe you,” Mr. Porter answered, but greed narrowed his eyes.
Conor gave a casual shrug of his shoulders. “My offer stands. You’ll have her rent by tonight. If not, then you can evict tomorrow. You’ve nothing to lose.”
“Don’t pay. I’ll go.” Ellery ground her words through gritted teeth.
Mr. Porter flicked an imaginary speck of dirt from his sleeve and smoothed a hand down his chest, fondling the jeweled pin. “I can see now why she chose you as a protector. Money always attracts her sort.”
“Enough.” Conor’s voice cut like a blade. “You’ll get what’s owed, but be careful. You’ve felt Miss Reskeen’s fist. You don’t want to feel mine.”
Conor’s words carried a danger not lost on Mr. Porter. He glowered. “The back-rent. By tonight. Don’t be too late.”
Instead of challenging her landlord, Conor looked up at the few stars bright enough to be seen through the haze of clouds. Down in the village, a dog barked and was hushed with a shouted curse.
“I pray I won’t be,” he said.
“I told you to leave,” Ellery paced in front of the parlor fire, her expression thunderous.
Conor felt her anger. It shimmered in the air around her like a heat mirage. He braced himself for the argument he knew would come. He’d searched the cottage while she was gone. Any weapons had been safely disposed of. She wouldn’t catch him with that trick again. He twisted his lips in a cold smile. “Did you imagine you’d driven me away? I don’t frighten easily, Miss Reskeen.”
She shot him a dagger-glance. “If you hadn’t shown yourself to Mr. Freethy, none of this would have happened.”
Conor had known only one other woman brave enough to speak to him so bluntly, and she was dead. His heart constricted with a familiar ache, but he crushed it, concentrating instead on watching the slide of Ellery’s gown over every tempting curve. With her dressed in such a way, it was no wonder that miserable lecher had thought he could make advances. Her sudden stop broke him from his wandering thoughts. His attention back, he met her stony gaze. “I won’t leave without the reliquary.”
She crossed her arms, a wall of disbelief shutting him out. “There you go again with that blather about a reliquary. I don’t have it. It’s gone. Lost. Probably fenced a hundred times over by now.”
“No. It’s here. I know it. I can feel it.”
“You’re not making sense.”
Conor had to be careful. The truth sounded outrageous even to his own ears. And why waste words? Would understanding the strength and brutality of the Triad and their desire to realize a new beginning for the
fey
world make her more pliant? The Triad would make the world believe, but with that belief would come a terror, greater even than anything Napoleon’s armies had unleashed. If Asher alone could succeed in bringing down four
amhas-draoi
, how much more power would be unleashed with the brothers reunited?
He couldn’t take the time to explain, but he also couldn’t risk alienating this woman further. He needed her as much as he needed the reliquary.
“It has to be here. Your father had it at the time of the ambush. In his hands. I saw it.”
She spun to face him. But instead of the fight he expected, she dropped into a chair as if she’d had the air punched out of her. Her fingers twisted together in her lap, and for the first time she seemed vulnerable and lonely. “You were there? With Father?”
Conor’s hand went to his shoulder, memories of the battle in the Chapel of San Salas bringing with them a licking burn deep within tissue that had never completely healed. How could he answer her question and yet not answer it? He took a deep breath. “I was. It was in a small abandoned chapel in the hills north of Subjiana de Alava and well off the road.”
“I know the spot. When the orders came to march, we couldn’t find him. We searched everywhere. I went back with some of Father’s men. Do you remember the blood?”
Her voice shook, her gaze turned inward on images seared into her brain. Images no innocent should witness.
“I remember.” And he did. It was one of the few things he did remember from his last encounter with Asher.
“I try not to,” she said, her voice, empty of emotion. “But I’ll always see that chapel. Three of them lay just inside the door, another farther inside by the chancel. Multilated. Torn apart, really. Lt. Cordry and Ensign Hall tried to hold me back, but I’ve always been stubborn.” Her eyes flickered with the warmth of memory. “Too smart for my own good, Father would tell me. He lay in front of the altar as if prepared for sacrifice. His body…”
Her neck muscles worked as she fought to control her voice. Her eyes shone, but no tears fell. Damn, she had courage. He stepped in, unable to let her continue. “They were no match for what happened.”
She cleared her throat, wiping her eyes with the back of one hand. “You didn’t say we.”
“What?”
“You didn’t say we were no match. You said they. But you said you were there in the chapel.” Her voice strengthened, and she sat straighter in the chair. “You said you saw Father with the reliquary. So where were you?” By now she was almost shouting. “Why didn’t you die with the others?”
How the hell had he walked into that one? He knew. He’d been weak, distracted by Ellery’s beauty, the supple strength of her body, the flash of her crystal blue eyes, the way the expressions raced across her face, so clear he had no need to read her mind to know her thoughts.
He reined himself in, gaining time by pouring himself a glass of claret from a decanter on the buffet. She was beautiful, but that didn’t make her special. A lot of women were beautiful.
The only thing that marked her as exceptional was her blood. And once he’d spilled it for the sacrifice, she’d be one more corpse. And what was unique in that?
He tossed the wine back, wishing it were whiskey.
“Why didn’t you die?” she demanded.
She sounded as if she’d have been happier if he had. She wouldn’t be the only one.
“Why are you alive?”
“I almost died,” he spoke over her. “I came as close to it as one can and live to speak of it. But you’ve seen how rapidly I heal.”
“You weren’t in the chapel. We searched for survivors.” Her voice lowered. “There were none.”
“I know it sounds as if I’m an escapee from Bedlam, but trust me.”
She looked down and away. “How can I trust you? I don’t know anything about you.”
Though her body was stiff with tension, her voice was softer. She may not believe in his world, but she seemed ready to listen. He’d use that to his advantage. Her cooperation would make his final task easier.
He took the chair next to hers, hoping to seem less intimidating. Not that she had been all that intimidated by him up to this point. “What do you wish to know?”
She lifted her head, and he read surprise in her eyes. Surprise, but also a great curiosity.
“Ask me anything you like.”
She shifted in her seat, her fingers twisting her skirt as she thought. Finally, she looked up. “You say you’re an
Other
. That you hold both
fey
and Mortal traits. Why? How?”
He thought for a moment how to answer. “Think of the
Other
as mortals plus. We’re men and women. Just like anyone. But there’s something extra. Something that marks us as
fey,
too. It can be an innate talent like sensing or even controlling local weather patterns. Or a gift for premonition. Mayhap it’s as simple as the woman whose garden produces vegetables and flowers like mad when her neighbors can grow only weeds.”
“But how?” She remained skeptical. It was obvious in her crossed arms, the thin line of her mouth.
He had a vision of his mother trying to explain some ancient text to him in years past. Remembered his own doubt and cynicism. Now he wished for even a tenth of her patience.
He grit his teeth. Bit back the urge to say
because I said so
and be done with it. “The stories tell us that long ago, Faery and Mortal interbred. The walls hadn’t yet been created that separated them. That latent inheritance can emerge in any generation. Without warning.”
She only looked half-convinced. But prepared to let further explanation slide. “You told Mr. Porter you served in the army. Was that part of the same lie as your being my half-brother?”
All right. This one was tricky, but not impossible. And he sensed her relaxing. “Yes and no.”
She rolled her eyes as if to say,
here we go again
. “I’m a soldier, but not in the British Army. I belong to the brotherhood of
amhas-draoi
. Masters trained in weapons and magic. We’re charged by sacred oath to defend and protect both the
fey
and Mortal worlds. Most of the time from each other.”
He felt her summing him up with a long weighing glance before she asked, “Where are you from?”
Another fairly easy question. So far, so good. “The southern coast near Penzance. My family still live there.”
Her eyes widened as if the idea of him having a family shocked her. Did she think he’d sprung from the ground fully grown and sword in hand?
Apparently beginning to enjoy this game of twenty questions, she smiled. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
Damn her to hell. “No.”
Ellery flinched at the fury concentrated in that one word. She’d touched a nerve. His jaw hardened until she thought she could hear his teeth grinding. His eyes darkened to bronze, the pupils like slits.
“No, Miss Reskeen. I have no brothers or sisters.” She watched him struggle to regain his earlier composure. His hand went into his pocket, and he frowned. He fumbled, his hand searching deeper and then moving to the pocket on the other side. At last, his shoulders slumped, the heated glare of his gaze replaced with a dull resignation.
Hopelessness dimmed his eyes. For some reason, this was more frightening than his rage. She didn’t want to feel anything for this man who’d spent the last day doing his best to sabotage her life.
As if he’d quashed whatever memory her question had evoked, he pushed himself out of the chair. “Any other questions?”
Ellery needed to hold tight to her anger. Sympathy sapped at this hotter emotion, leaving her confused and more determined to keep her distance. If that meant letting him search the cottage for this ridiculous box of his, so be it. Let him find it or not and be gone. “Just one,” she said. “Will you help me look for the reliquary? If it’s here, it’s yours. But I wouldn’t get your hopes up. I told you I haven’t seen it since I left Spain.”
He straightened, and Ellery found herself staring. She imagined herself held protected in those hard, muscled arms while the worries of the world faded to less than nothing around her. A pretty thought. But not likely. Those arms didn’t gentle, they controlled. And those hands didn’t caress, they crushed.
She snapped her gaze back from his chest to his face. She wouldn’t make a fool of herself—again.
“I’ve searched the ground floor,” he said. “It must be in one of the upper chambers.”
Her lips thinned to a line. “You searched my home? When?”
“This afternoon. You were out.”
“It’s obvious this family of yours never taught you any manners. How dare you creep around my home?”
“I didn’t creep, and you just said I was free to look.”
“The point being that I just said it. I hadn’t said it this afternoon, and unless your powers include telling the future you didn’t know I’d let you.”
“I haven’t got time to argue. The
Keun Marow
were confused, but they’ll return.”
He glared at her, and Ellery’s gaze flicked back to his arms. How easy it would be for him to subdue her and take what he wished without her consent. But he hadn’t. He’d asked—almost politely. She thought back to the hundreds of tracks in the soft mud around the cottage and shivered. Not exactly paw prints, not exactly handprints, but something in between.
She met Conor’s whiskey-gold eyes. Not exactly human, not exactly
fey
.
Something in between.
She swallowed hard. “We’ll start upstairs.”
“How could Molly have kept such a secret from me?” Ellery looked up at him from where she knelt upon the floor, her feet tucked under her skirts, her dark curls cobwebbed and dusty from their thorough search. “I know she always envied me the money, but I shared all I had with her.”
Her expression held such bewildered sorrow Conor thought that if Cousin Molly stood alive in front of him, he might kill her all over again.
He cursed himself—not the first time—for his moment of weakness. He couldn’t begin to care for Ellery. He couldn’t begin to think of her in any way. She was a means to an end. Nothing else. “A family member’s treachery wounds more deeply than the mightiest sword thrust.” He ought to know.
She wiped the back of her hand across her eyes and sniffed. It was the closest she came to crying. “She was all the family I had. I thought…but I was wrong.”
“You’re right to grieve, but let it be a small grief. She doesn’t sound as if she was worth too many tears.”
Ellery’s gaze returned to her lap.
The reliquary lay there, pulled from the back of a clothespress in her cousin’s bedchamber. Wrapped in cloth and placed within a larger box, they’d almost passed it by. But Conor had felt the power pulling him forward as they searched the room, sensed the reliquary’s dark magic in his blood. He knew it was there.
It had taken one year, nine months, and sixteen days, but he’d found it again. The ancient silverwork was tarnished black, the jeweled lid warped and twisted as if a great energy had forced the metal open. These things Conor knew he’d find.
It had only been as Ellery pulled away the last scrap of fabric that they’d seen the recent damage and the reason her cousin had kept it hidden. Decorating the face of the casket was one great onyx, the black stone seeming to swallow the very light around it. On either side, nothing but two empty settings. One had held a ruby, the other a pearl. Both were gone. But this alone was not enough to cause such pain to shadow Ellery Reskeen’s face. It was the letter folded into a corner of the outer box. A scribbled note to Mr. Porter from Molly, requesting aid in selling the last stolen jewel and keeping the money safe from the “peasant whore’s whelp.”
It had never made it to Mr. Porter’s hand. Cousin Molly had died before she could pry the onyx from its resting place.
“Here. It’s yours,” she said, holding out the reliquary, her lip caught between her teeth.
“I’m sorry about the damage. I’ll pay you back if you give me the time. I promise.”
The mage energy surrounding the box sparked like lightning in the space between them. But it was a dark energy, a subtle drag on his own powers. He murmured an incantation, strengthening his wards of protection, hoping they’d be enough to hold the pull of the reliquary at bay. More sharply than he intended, he answered, “The jewels alone are worth more than you could make in ten lifetimes.”
She lifted her chin. A flash of the fighter glittered in her eye. “I said I’d pay you, and I will.”