TWENTY-FOUR
Diarmid
It should have been easy enough. He would go to her house. When she answered the door, he would just shake back his hair and show her the lovespot. If he did it quickly enough, she wouldn’t have time to remember she hated him, or to do any of the things she’d warned him she would do if he came near her again. Diarmid spent the entire day imagining it. The flash of anger in her dark eyes when she saw him at the door and then the way the anger would melt away. The way she would gasp prettily and say, “Oh! Does it hurt?” and reach to touch it the way they all did. He would take her in his arms and kiss her, and she would whisper against his mouth that she loved him, and—
And the whole vision made him sick.
Just do it, he told himself. It was as Finn said: women chose with their hearts. “Then she won’t hesitate to bare her throat to your knife when the time comes.”
Diarmid was bruised and sore from yesterday’s fight; it felt as if he were imprisoned in a steam room, the air wet and hot and that wretched, constant thunder that raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Where was it coming from? It felt unnatural, like those storms the Druids used to raise during battles. Thunder and lightning, and the air turning violet and blue and black. The crackle of electricity. He’d never liked them. Those storms were terrifying, meant to instill horror, and combined with the Morrigan’s ravens, that was exactly what they did. It had been only through sheer practice that he hadn’t succumbed to the same frenzy, a mental game he used to play with himself through the chaos of battle—to convince himself that he had brought the storm, that he was in control of it, that it could not touch him.
But this thunder hadn’t yet reached that intensity. It stayed distant and nagging, shortening everyone’s temper. Leonard had kicked the carriage this morning after he’d scraped his hand against the brake lever. Jerry had cursed and thrown a hoof pick when a fly tormented him. Diarmid had to fight the thought: Do it now. Do it now. Go to her.
When he was done mucking the stalls, he plunged his head into the barrel of lukewarm water out back, not bothering to dry himself off, just shaking his hair like a dog until droplets flew everywhere and his shirt was soaked. It was the only thing that had felt good the entire day, but it didn’t improve his mood. Night fell and he still hadn’t made himself go to her. Another day gone. Finn would expect this to be quick; he couldn’t delay long. But one day, perhaps two, he could do.
His mood was made worse by the fact that he wanted to see her. He couldn’t get the kiss out of his head. Not the way she’d lifted her face or her soft sigh when she’d realized what he was going to do. Not the hunger in the way she’d kissed him back. Hunger that wasn’t compelled, that had nothing to do with any lovespot.
All he wanted to do was forget it. But he couldn’t go back to the others at the tenement—he couldn’t bear their watchful eyes, Finn’s questioning of his loyalty, and Oscar’s puzzling over his hesitation. Tonight he just wanted to be alone.
When Leonard told him and Jerry to turn in, that neither the carriage nor the horses would be needed, Diarmid set off instead. He wandered down to the Bowery, taking in the clustered colored globes of the lamps and illuminated signs that lit the darkness with a false daylight, the organ grinders with their silly monkeys that made him laugh, street vendors selling ginger cakes and oranges, and the German bands playing waltzes on the street corners. He walked past dime museums and theaters, dance halls and saloons. There was a feeling in the air tonight, a sort of desperate gaiety raised by the strangeness of the thunder, as if everyone on the crowded streets felt the need to have fun while there was still time to have it. He heard it in laughter that seemed overly boisterous and saw it in the almost frenzied way boys dashed from saloon to saloon, the brightly yearning stares of the girls he passed.
Diarmid stayed there for a long time. Long enough that the theaters let out, their melodramas and minstrel shows over. He didn’t go in anywhere but only walked, and sometimes stood watching. It was pointless, he knew, and he was tired and not good company for anyone; and being here hadn’t eased his own yearning or his apprehension but had only brought them both into sharper focus. He was turning to head back to the stables, and bed, when he saw Aidan Knox.
Grace’s brother was staggering, clearly drunk, wearing no hat and with his tie undone and crumpled. He looked pasty pale, a ghost beneath a shock of dark hair, as he went to the door of a gambling hell, and not a respectable one either. Aidan paused. Diarmid could almost see him thinking Yes? Or no?
And then Aidan seemed to set his shoulders in determination. He grabbed the door handle, nearly falling into it before he got it open and went inside.
“Can you cure Aidan of his drunkenness and turn him into the brother who once cared about his family?”
Diarmid stared at the door. Aidan’s pause puzzled him. The way he’d considered and then chosen, as if he was deliberately courting destruction.
Diarmid had known men like that. Men trying to forget the horror of battle, or sadnesses too great to bear. Drowning their sorrows and their memories in mead or ale. Intentional oblivion, and if it led to death, so much the better.
And now Diarmid wondered: What was Aidan Knox trying to forget?
He thought of the way Grace had watched her brother with love and despair. Diarmid knew he couldn’t cure Aidan—there wasn’t a man on earth who could save another from his own destruction if that was truly what was wanted. But perhaps he could watch over Aidan tonight. It was something Diarmid could do for her, even if she didn’t know he was doing it. Some way to make up for what he had done. What he was going to do.
Diarmid went to the door Aidan had disappeared through and stepped into clouds of smoke and talk. The place was small and ill-lit—a few sputtering oil lamps set about the tables and the gas sconces on the walls black with soot. At one side was a bar, at the other a faro table with a bright and badly painted tiger on the wall behind; men crowded around both. At other tables they bent over cards or dice. Most were dressed as he was—laborers and immigrants. And among them, with his moneyed bearing and loosened tie, stood Aidan Knox.
He was at the far end of the room, drinking whiskey as he waited for a place to open at a table. Aidan was swaying. Diarmid remembered the way Grace had swooned at the fair—the glow, yes, but he knew, too, that she had been hungry. And here was Aidan buying whiskey when he should have been buying bread for his family, and Diarmid thought, Leave him. Let him destroy himself.
But Diarmid crossed the room. He went up to Aidan, who glanced at him once, vaguely, and then again, his gaze sharpening. “I know you,” he slurred. “Lucy’s stableboy.”
Diarmid winced. “Aye. Derry O’Shea.”
Aidan raised his glass. “You’re to be congrat—gradulated. I been tryin’ to kiss Lucy Devlin for five years.”
“I don’t think she likes the taste of whiskey,” Diarmid said.
Aidan laughed. “Don’ she? Have you done more than kiss ’er yet?”
Diarmid ignored that. “Come sit with me. There’s a table over there.” He pointed to a corner where two men were leaving.
Aidan squinted at him. “All right. What game are we playin’?”
“I’ll tell you when we get there.”
Aidan stumbled so badly that Diarmid grabbed his arm to keep him upright, and when he let go, Aidan fell into the chair, dropping the whiskey. The heavy shot glass bounced off the table. Whiskey went flying.
Aidan watched it go with a sort of dumb fascination, and then he raised his hand, motioning to the bar. “Another whiskey, please!”
Diarmid made a motion, too, one that told the bartender no. “It’s getting late. Don’t you think you should go home to bed?”
“Home?” Aidan grunted. “No.”
“You look like you could use a good night’s sleep.”
“Can’t stand it there.”
“Why is that?”
“There are thin’s—” Aidan sprawled over the table, his dark hair falling into his face, once again squinting as if the light was too bright. There was something odd about him tonight. Diarmid couldn’t put his finger on it.
“There are things?” Diarmid prompted, seeing the struggle in Aidan’s eyes as he tried to remember what he’d been saying.
“Thin’s,” Aidan said finally. He sat up again. “You wouldn’t believe me if I tol’ you.”
“Maybe I would.”
Aidan put his hand to his forehead. “I got a headache. Somethin’ screamin’. D’you hear it?”
“Only thunder,” Diarmid said.
“Not thunder.” Aidan shook his head, closed his eyes. “Ah. God. I can’t stand it. How c’n you stand it?”
“It’s just too much drink. You’ll sleep it off. You’ll be fine.”
“I’m never fine. And it’s the whiskey makes it go away.” Aidan opened his eyes, and the depth of misery in them startled Diarmid. There was nothing in Aidan Knox that Diarmid respected, but that despair was something he understood. It made him want to help Aidan for his own sake.
Aidan went on. “That screamin’ . . . I don’ know how she stands it either.”
“Who?”
“M’sister. Where’s the whiskey?”
“What do you mean about Grace?”
Aidan smiled crookedly and wagged his finger. “I see how you look at her, y’know. Lucy in one hand, and you want m’sister in the other.”
Diarmid felt hot. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Well, you can’t have ’er. She’s in love with Patrick Devlin, y’know. She’s goin’ to marry him.” Again that misery in his eyes. “Save us all.”
“Maybe not,” Diarmid managed.
“Oh, she is. He’s going to propose, and she’ll say yes. Should’ve seen ’im kissin’ ’er today.”
The floor seemed to give way beneath Diarmid. “What?”
“No chaste kiss either. Grace’ll say yes, and we’ll all live happily ever after.” Aidan laughed bitterly. “But he don’ know, does he? We’ll brin’ the curse on ’im too. But no one says anythin’ about it. They all preten’ they don’ know.”
“She’ll say yes.” It took Diarmid a moment to hear what Aidan was now saying. “Don’t know what? What curse?”
“The curse,” Aidan said, squinting again. “There’s somethin’ wrong with you, isn’t there?”
Impatiently, Diarmid demanded, “What curse?”
The thunder rumbled. Aidan squeezed his eyes shut. “I can’t stand the screamin’. Make it stop. C’n you make it stop?”
Enough of this! Diarmid stood. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Not home.”
“You’ll only make her worry if you don’t go there.”
Aidan put his hand to his head. “I wish she wouldn’. She don’t know, not yet; but she will, won’t she? You know she will.”
“What will she know?”
“I can’t go home. Don’ take me home.”
Just nonsense after all, Diarmid told himself. Nothing to worry about. “Fine, you can spend the night with me.”
Aidan didn’t protest when Diarmid pulled him up, but he stumbled and sagged, boneless. Finally, Diarmid put Aidan’s arm around his shoulders, bearing the man’s weight as he dragged him from the gambling hell and back into the street. Aidan mumbled more about the screaming in his head as Diarmid took him out of the Bowery, wishing all the time that he hadn’t bothered to follow Aidan, that he hadn’t thought to do a good deed for her, because she wouldn’t know it anyway, and she wouldn’t care.
“No chaste kiss.”
It seemed an eternity before he reached the stables, hauling a semiconscious Aidan inside and maneuvering him over slippery straw and sawdust to the tack room, where Jerry was snoring away. Diarmid got Aidan to the cot and let him fall there. Aidan hit his head against the wall on the way down, moaning.
“Quiet,” Diarmid whispered.
Aidan grabbed his shirt, pulling him close. “’Preciate this.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Aidan said, “Broken up.”
“Pardon?”
“We’re all . . . broken up.” A half-uttered sob. Aidan was crying. “Everythin’ ruined.”
Drunken blathering. He wished Aidan would shut up and go to sleep. Diarmid pulled away, and Aidan let him go.
“Grace too,” Aidan said. “But there’s somethin’ ’bout you. You look like . . .” His head lolled to the side. He said with amazement, “Screamin’s . . . stopped.” And then he was unconscious.
Diarmid sighed. No wonder Grace was so worried. All that talk about curses and screaming. Diarmid sat against the wall, bringing up his knees and leaning his head back to look at the ceiling.
“She’ll say yes.”
But she hadn’t yet, had she?
He closed his eyes as exhaustion washed over him. Before he knew it, he was lost in dreams where he was kissing her, and she lifted her pale throat to him, and he pressed his mouth to her pulse and felt the beat of her heart in his blood. Then a knife flashed in his raised hand, and there was a terrible scream, and his arms were empty and he was alone and waiting in darkness. He heard thunder and the roar of a cyclone wind, and she was there again, her hair alive in lightning, the air pulsing blue and violet and red, her dark eyes dancing as she swept everything in her path away.
He woke to an unfamiliar voice saying in irritation, “Do I pay you to sleep? And what the hell is Aidan Knox doing here?”
Diarmid opened his eyes, staring into a pair of expensive boots, slowly becoming aware that his neck had a crick in it and his shoulder hurt from being jammed up next to a bootjack and his bruises from the gang fight were sorer than ever. He blinked and rolled—he was on the floor, he realized—and rose to his elbows, peering up at a young man with hair just this side of blond who was staring at him with a mixture of concern and annoyance.
“We haven’t met,” the young man said. “But I’m your employer. Patrick Devlin. Jerry tells me you’re Derry.”
Diarmid winced both at the silly rhyme and the pain, and struggled to his feet. “Aye. One of your twin dogs, at your service.” The moment he got a good look at Patrick Devlin, he knew what Grace saw in him. Don’t think of that. Diarmid rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry. Late night.”
Devlin glanced to where Aidan was sprawled on the cot. “Aidan was involved, I take it.”
Diarmid nodded. “Though mostly it was me trying to save him from himself.”
“I see.” Devlin frowned.
Too late, Diarmid remembered that Aidan’s condition wouldn’t do much to help Grace. “I don’t know that it’s a common thing—”
“I need to talk to you,” Devlin interrupted.
Diarmid was blurry with sleep, but even so he knew how odd it was that Patrick Devlin would want to have any kind of conversation with his stableboy. Lucy, he thought first. And then, the ogham stick—but no, Grace had promised not to tell.
But that was before he’d lied to her and tricked her. Before he’d kissed her, and she’d slapped him.
“About what?” Derry said, then realized no stableboy would speak to a master that way.
Devlin didn’t bat an eye. He was looking at Aidan. He murmured to himself, “I suppose I should get him home first. Grace will be worried.” To Diarmid he said, “Come to the house in an hour. Could you do that?”
Devlin’s manner was unusual. Asking, not demanding, as was his right. Warily, Diarmid said, “Aye.”
“Miss Knox has told me some interesting things,” Devlin said casually. “Very interesting things. About you.”
Now Diarmid went cold. Grace had told Devlin something about him, but what? And why? She’d been angry. She couldn’t have said anything good. But then again, she didn’t know anything. Not who they really were. Not what the ogham stick meant. Not that they suspected Devlin was involved, nor that they believed it was the Brotherhood who had called them here.
Devlin gestured to Aidan. “Help me get him on a horse.”
Diarmid shook Aidan awake. Grace’s brother looked around blearily, moaning and grabbing his head.
“God,” Aidan said, and then he noticed Devlin. “Patrick. What the hell’re you doin’ here?”
“You’re in my stables,” Devlin pointed out.
Aidan laughed—he was still a little drunk, Diarmid realized as he helped Grace’s brother to his feet. Which was also odd. He must have had even more whiskey than Diarmid had thought. He had to help Aidan into the saddle. Devlin jumped in front, and Aidan made some derisive comment about riding like a girl, and they started toward the stable doors.
Diarmid was halfway to the water barrel when Devlin said, “One hour, Diarmid Ua Duibhne. Don’t be late.”
Diarmid froze. For a moment he didn’t think he’d heard correctly. His name. His name, which no one but the other Fianna knew. Grace didn’t know it. She could not have told Devlin. How does Devlin know it?
But by the time Diarmid had gathered himself enough to look back, Patrick Devlin was already riding out into another sweltering, thundering day.