Swallowing
hard, she picked up the note and opened it with fingers that trembled.
Three
dangers has Rathcannon—
A
girl child, straying toward traps she cannot see,
A
lady whose heart a blackguard now possesses,
Three
wagers that shall draw them both into a
long-past hell.
You
failed to heed my warning last time. Do not
be so foolhardy again. Do not
let the girl out of your
sight this night.
Norah
stared at the words, the warning, feeling as if the floor were shifting beneath
her feet. Was it possible that this missive had been on the dressing table
before the ball? That when Cassandra and her maid had bustled in to help Norah
prepare, they had tossed the accoutrements they had brought on the table,
burying the message beneath them?
If
that were so, it meant that someone had crept into Norah's room and attempted
to warn her that some plot was afoot before the ball. Someone had known... had
known the danger....
Perhaps
if Aidan could find this person, he could discover who was responsible for what
had happened in the garden.
Quickly,
she slipped the lid off the silver box, retrieving the missive she had hidden
there the first night she'd arrived at Aidan's home. Then she hurried from the
room, winding through the corridors, searching for Aidan.
She
heard him first, his rough, impatient voice emanating from the study, in
counterpoint to Gibbon Cadagon's. Norah paused at the door and knocked.
"Who
the devil is it?" Aidan bellowed.
Norah
opened the door and stepped inside.
"Norah."
He attempted to gentle his voice, but nothing could soften the torment carved
in every line of his face. He was bending over a desktop littered with scrawled
papers and notes. She glanced down, seeing that they were accounts of what
different servants had seen throughout the night. It was a search for some tiny
clue in a labyrinth of information.
"I
told you to go to bed," he said, meeting her gaze with hard green eyes.
"I
tried. I was just starting to get undressed when I..." She cast a glance
at Gibbon, her cheeks heating. "Aidan, I need to speak with you.
Alone."
"I'm
damned busy right now tracking down whoever meant to hurt Cass. I don't have
time—"
"This
is about Cassandra. It's important. Please."
Aidan
cursed, low, then motioned the others from the room. When the door had shut
behind them, he turned, hands on hips. "Make it quick. What the blazes is
this about?"
"These."
Norah extended the notes. Aidan took them, his brow furrowing. "I found
the first one the night I arrived here. The second one was buried beneath some
flowers on the dressing table in my bedchamber. I just found it now, but I
think I was meant to discover it earlier, before the ball."
Aidan
stalked to where a branch of candles spilled over the papers littering his
desk. He shoved the first note toward the flame, his gaze scanning the script.
The planes of his face hardened, stilled. Murder... Even though he knew he was
innocent, what must it be like to see that epitaph scrawled above your name? He
gave a bitter laugh. "So someone designated themselves as your guardian
angel. I wondered from the first how long it would be before you heard the
rumors. I never suspected it would be the first night. No wonder you looked so
damned scared of me."
"Aidan,
the other one is far more frightening."
He
cast the first note onto the desk, then unfolded the other. She caught the
slightest tremor in the hands that clutched the bit of paper. "My God. Who
the devil—"
"I
don't know. I just found them propped on the table. I saw no one, heard
nothing."
"Someone
was in your bedchamber," he grated, "someone who knew what those
bastards were going to try to do to Cassandra. To you." His eyes glinted,
like a wolf hungering to tear out an adversary's throat. "There must be
someone in the house, someone at Rathcannon who knows where these came from. I
vow, I'll drag the truth from them if I have to."
"It
could have happened a hundred ways. The castle is so large. Someone could have
stolen in from outside, they could have entered the window, or—heaven only
knows what. But I don't think they're evil. Whoever wrote the notes was trying
to warn me."
"That
you were about to marry a murderer? That my daughter was about to be kidnapped?
Sonofabitch. Excuse me if I don't see them as some blasted benevolent spirit!
If they knew this much, they must know more."
At
that moment Rose entered, the maid carrying a hod with peat for the fire. She
hesitated, her gaze flicking to the notes. Norah saw the girl pale. "Your
pardon, sir, my lady. In all the fuss, I forgot to stir up the fires, but I'll
nip back later to tend to—"
"Stand
where you are, Rose," Aidan commanded.
The
girl swallowed hard, her white cap quivering. "Aye, sir."
"You
tend the fires in the bedchambers as well, don't you, girl?"
"Aye,
sir."
"I
suppose you've never seen these bits of paper Lady Kane has just brought
me?" He extended them toward her, catching a dart of fear in the girl's
eyes.
"N—Nay,
sir," she stammered. "What would I be doin' with such things? I can't
even read."
"But
if that is so, why do you look so pale?" Aidan demanded with silky menace.
"Why are your hands shaking?"
The
girl set down the hod, clasping work-roughened hands in her apron as if to hide
them. "Sir, I—"
"You
have a mam and five brothers and sisters to care for, don't you, Rose? They're
tucked away in the cottage near the Hill of Night Voices."
"Aye,
sir."
He
was aware of Norah's eyes on him, watching him. "If you were not employed
at Rathcannon, there would be most unpleasant consequences for your family,
would there not?"
"Please,
sir! I—I know nothing—"
"I've
made a fortune reading peoples' faces over a deck of cards, Rose. I know when
someone is lying. Tell me the truth, now, or I vow you'll be cast out of here
without a shilling."
The
girl's mouth trembled as tears crested in her eyes. "Oh, sir, nay! I
didn't mean no harm! It was just... he'd done such kindnesses for me mam and
the young ones, and it seemed such a simple thing he was askin'."
"Who
was asking? Damn it, who?"
"I
cannot tell you, or he'll... they'll... Horrible things happen to those that
betray him. None in the valley would dare—"
"Gilpatrick!"
Aidan rasped, his voice hoarse with disbelief.
The
girl let out a piercing wail. "I didn't tell ye! I never would! I—"
Stunned
by the truth evident in the girl's eyes, Aidan fought for balance. The nemesis
he'd thought he'd understood seemed to shape-change, like some Druid priest of
old, shedding the honor that had been a part of Gilpatrick despite his ragged
clothes and starveling body, the princely arrogance that a hundred years of
subjugation by Aidan's ancestors hadn't managed to beat from his features.
And
yet, difficult as it was for Aidan to believe the girl's words were true, he
could see it in her face: genuine terror of Gilpatrick's retribution, dismay
that she had betrayed this champion of her people, and anguish that she had not
been a better liar to shield the Irish rebel.
Something
snapped in Aidan, and he grabbed Rose by her plump arms, shaking her. "It
was Gilpatrick, wasn't it? He sent the notes, and you smuggled them into Lady
Kane's chamber!"
"Aidan!"
Norah cried, rushing over. "You're frightening her."
"If
she doesn't tell me the whole truth—all of it, damn you—she'll be worlds more
than frightened!" He was savage, savage with fear for his daughter and
with a strange, crippling sense of betrayal—betrayal by a man he'd known as an
enemy so long. They were absurd, ridiculous, these twisted emotions that drove
the breath from his lungs. And yet the memory assailed him of the night he had
encountered the English troop, the night he led them away from Gilpatrick and
the rebel's wounded comrade. Had he, by his rash interference in English
"justice," allowed the man responsible for Cassandra's terror to go
free? The soldiers had claimed Gilpatrick was planning some sort of
skulduggery, some dark mission. Was it possible that that mission could have
been kidnapping Aidan's daughter? Yet the notes had held warning, not a threat.
"Why?"
he blazed. "Why would Gilpatrick write these notes? It makes no damn
sense."
"Donal
feared for the lady," Rose cried. "He only wanted to warn her."
"That
I was a murderer? That she should refuse to wed me?"
"Aye!
It was that."
"But
the note was in the chamber the night she arrived," Aidan raged, trying to
piece together the madness that was this crazed tangle. "How did
Gilpatrick know she was coming here? And to be my bride, no less? Even I had no
idea."
"I
don't know, sir! I don't know!"
"And
tonight—the bastard knew what was afoot. What was this damned note supposed to
be about? A sinister game, to pleasure himself before he stole my
daughter?"
"Donal
wouldn't hurt a child!"
There
had been a time Aidan would have believed that, deep in his gut, despite the
enmity he and the heir of the Gilpatricks had borne each other for so long. And
yet how could he doubt it now, with the evidence staring him in the face? The
attempted abduction must be related to Gilpatrick somehow.
"If
Gilpatrick wouldn't hurt a child, then who came into the garden tonight? Who
terrified Cassandra? Who put that pistol ball in Calvy's leg?" Aidan was
shaking the girl, his fingers bruising her arms, primitive fury rending him
with images of what might have happened—stark tragedy he couldn't even
comprehend.
The
maid was crying, great, hiccoughing sobs. "Please, sir—I don't know... I
only put the notes in the chamber."
"Aidan,
you're hurting her!"
He
felt Norah's hand on the rigid muscles of his arm, her voice urgent, rippling
through him like cool water over a blazing fire.
"Look
at her face, Aidan. She knows nothing!"
"Then
I'll find out the truth from Gilpatrick himself," Aidan snarled.
"Rose, you tell me where to find him."
The
maid's eyes rounded with horror. "Nay. If I betray him—"
"Tell
me where to find him, or your services at Rathcannon are no longer
required." He watched his threat wash over the girl's features, and what
he saw sickened him, but he was too desperate to let her see his flicker of
weakness.
"But
me earnings are the only money we have, the lot of us. Without it, the wee ones
would starve."
Aidan's
face felt cast in stone, his gut afire with thirst for vengeance. "Some
sonofabitch put a pistol in my daughter's face tonight. I'm not over-full of
mercy. Tell me."
A
war waged in the girl's face, but in the end, she sobbed out, "There's to
be a gatherin' at the standing stones on the Hill of Night Voices."
The
standing stones. It was strangely fitting that Donal Gilpatrick would choose
that site for his rebel meetings, a location filled with dark powers and mystic
secrets. A place most crofters would shun in superstitious fear once night
fell.
"When
is this meeting to take place?" Aidan saw the slightest flicker in the
maid's eyes, as if she were torn with indecision, plotting to find some lie to
save not only her employment at Rathcannon but the rebel Gilpatrick's skin.
"Lie
to me, and it will be the last lie you tell at Castle Rathcannon."
The
girl stared at him, with the fascinated horror of a mouse caught in the gaze of
a hunting peregrine. In the end, her fear of Aidan overawed her loyalty to
Gilpatrick.
"When?"
Aidan demanded.
"Tonight.
At the rising of the moon."
The
moon.
Aidan
gritted his teeth, thoughts of his blood enemy fading in the memory of the
silvery beauty of its rays melting down upon Caislean Alainn, Norah making love
to him in a world of such magic he had forgotten all else—dark legacies of
hatred, his vulnerable daughter, the lies that tripped so easily from a woman's
tongue. Norah had never told him about the note, the warning, never told him
that someone had come into her chamber, whispering of murder.
If
he had known that, wouldn't he have been more wary, more watchful? Wouldn't he
have guarded his daughter with more care?
He
shook himself as betrayal sluiced through him, anger building, surging in to
fill spaces where helplessness and guilt had churned inside him. He glared down
into Rose's round, frightened face.
"If
you're lying to me, I will make certain every person in your family, down to
the tiniest babe, will suffer for it."