When I reached Ailish and Seamus, my mouth twitched into what felt like a deranged smile in a poor attempt to cover my true feelings. “Shall we go?” I asked, much sharper than intended.
They presented a bizarre picture. Ailish was flushed a deep red, while Seamus looked pale as a corpse beneath a smattering of beard stubble. Their expressions were nearly identical though, much like I had sprouted another head in the short time we’d been apart.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, peering first at Ailish. “You’re red as a tomato.”
A fleeting revulsion crossed her face. “There be too much o’ Brigid’s blood about for me comfort. Makes it intolerable hot, like I’m standing with me toes in the coals.” She peeked around me. “What about Henry? Do you plan to leave him there so?”
My smile pulled even tighter. “I rather hoped he’d go to the devil.”
“But he’s your true love. You can’t just walk away from him like—”
“Trust me,” I interrupted. “It’s for the best.” Distance was a good thing until my temper cooled to something below molten, and I no longer felt capable of murder.
Ailish gave a curt nod, though I had no idea what she understood other than the frantic tone of my voice.
My finger shook as I pointed at a two-story inn farther down the road. “Is that our destination?”
Seamus cleared his throat. His lips were pressed together and perspiration dotted his ashen skin.
“You look pale, Mr. MacCabe. Are you unwell?”
He shook his head, and a deep groove formed between his brows. “That man...” he stammered. “The dark-haired one Henry be fighting against...” His Adam’s apple bobbed violently over a gulp.
“Ah, yes, that would be my brother, whom I’ve thought dead these past three years.” I leaned a bit closer. “What about him?”
Seamus shifted his gaze to the other side of the road, no more conspicuous than Ailish had been a minute before. “It...it looked to me like he lost a hand during the scuffle.”
“How very odd.” My face twitched over the pain that rippled through my chest. “Unless my eyes deceived me, I’m certain he was in possession of both a moment ago.”
Seamus gulped again. “So it would seem.”
“Well, I’m glad that’s settled. Shall we go to the inn then? I’ve developed an awful thirst for a cup of wine.” Turning, I rose onto my toes to survey the best route through the throng of carts and people that had returned to the road now the fighting was over.
“There you go, sir,” Ailish said from behind me. “Nothing to worry about.”
“I know what I saw,” Seamus persisted. “I swear it on me grandmam’s grave, so help me God.”
“It’s bad luck to swear on graves.”
“That don’t change the truth, and the truth be I saw a hand still attached to the sword when it flew under the ale cart. Somehow that hand found its way back to the man she’s calling her brother.”
“Trick o’ the eye is all, sir...”
Their voices grew softer as I threaded my way forward, too overwhelmed with other thoughts to refute Seamus’s claim.
Sean doesn’t want me... Henry cut off his hand... I don’t have a brother... Henry purposefully maimed him...
Less than an hour ago, I would have thought myself the luckiest person in the world to be reunited with both my brother and my betrothed. Now a veritable war waged inside of me, and it was all I could do to keep from screaming into the overcast sky.
Having arrived at a temporary dead end in my search for Nora, a single purpose drove me forward when I reached the inn.
“Where is the proprietor,” I asked the first serving maid to cross my path.
She stopped midstride, a tray balanced precariously on one arm, and pointed toward a portly gentleman near the back of the room. “That be him.”
I crossed at once to where he stood beside a doorway that led to the kitchens judging by the cooking smells. Head tilted down, he studied a pocket watch cupped in his palm while speaking to a young chambermaid.
“Excuse me, do you offer baths?” I asked without the slightest preamble.
The man looked at me over the rims of his wire-rimmed spectacles, the watch momentarily forgotten. “I’ve got a bathing closet. Three shillings and thirty minutes to fill the tub.”
“What about milk and fragrant oil? Do you have those as well?”
He stiffened noticeably. “This is a respectable inn, miss, not some Persian bawdyhouse.”
“Two crowns then. Will that get me a treated bath? And a cup of spiced wine?”
The man brushed a finger along his chin in thought. “I may be able to do something for a sovereign.”
I gave him a curt nod.
“In that case, me wife has some oil for special occasions if you’re not opposed to the scent o’ honeysuckle.”
My face felt set in stone. “I adore honeysuckle,” I said, without the least bit of inflection.