THIRTY
Grace
I saw the hope and fear in Patrick’s eyes when I said, “I’ve a great deal to think about. I need to talk to my mother—”
“She’ll tell you marrying me is the best thing.”
“—and my grandmother.”
“Your grandmother?”
“She’s the one who told me all the stories, Patrick. She knew details I’ve never heard anyone else tell. And I think she might know something about the veleda too. Perhaps she might know a way—”
“To save you?” If I had ever doubted Patrick’s love for me, his look now told me it was true and real.
“I hope so.”
“Then you must go to her. But only her, Grace. And your mother. And then you must come right back here. I’ll have Leonard drive you there. Don’t go anywhere without him. Promise me.”
“Yes, I—”
“Right there and right back. I’ll tell Leonard to watch for Diarmid. If you see him”—his voice broke—“don’t look at him, for God’s sake. It would only take a moment.”
“I won’t.” How could I say to him that it was already too late for that?
Together we went out of the study. We were nearly to the front door when Mrs. Devlin came rushing out of the parlor. “You aren’t going so soon, Grace? What about tea?”
Patrick said, “Not now, Mama. We’ll have it later. Grace will be right back.”
Mrs. Devlin looked distraught. I didn’t think she’d even heard him. “Oh, Grace, Lucy would so love to see you.”
Which was never true, but Lucy had been sobbing when I’d arrived. Your fault. My guilt barreled back. “Perhaps just a moment—”
“There’s no time,” Patrick said roughly.
But Mrs. Devlin had seen my hesitation. “Just have a few words with her. Just to reassure her that the world isn’t falling apart.”
I couldn’t tell her that it was.
“All right,” I agreed with a pleading look at Patrick, and he let me go.
“Don’t take too long, Grace.”
Lucy was on the settee in the parlor, as bedraggled as I’d ever seen her. Her eyes and her nose were red from weeping. Her hair was falling from its pins. There were no gay flowers at her décolletage, none of her usual jewelry.
“He was here,” she said as I came in. “He was here yesterday, and he ran out without stopping to say good-bye. I don’t know what’s wrong! I haven’t seen him in forever, and I’ve sent notes. . . .”
I sat down beside her. “Patrick dismissed him. He can’t have received them.”
“I know. But this was before that. Days ago.”
“It’s not as if you could have had him, Lucy. He’s a gang boy.” My words were tougher than I meant them to be.
Her chin jerked up; her eyes narrowed. “How do you know that?”
“Patrick told me.”
“Why was he talking to you about Derry?”
“He was worried about you.”
She sighed and dabbed at her eyes with an already sodden handkerchief. “I don’t care what Derry is. I love him. I think I’ll love him forever. I want him. When he kissed me . . . I’ve never felt that way. Oh, I know you can’t understand. Patrick’s far too much a gentleman to kiss you that way.”
Again, I felt the rough brick at my back. The way the world had seemed to open with his kiss and devour me.
The lovespot. It’s all a lie.
I said, “If he really does love you, Lucy, he’ll come for you. If he doesn’t, it’s better that he’s gone.”
She went into fresh peals of sobbing. “It’s not b-better.”
I grabbed her hand, threading my fingers through hers, leaning close to say in a low voice, “You think you can like that life, but you won’t. You’ll be dodging bill collectors and never have enough to eat. You’d hate where he lives now: in a tenement with blood on the walls—”
“You know where he lives?”
“It’s . . . it’s what I imagine.”
Lucy pulled her hand from mine. “I see.”
“All you have to do is read the papers to know what that life is like there.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Grace, who reads the newspaper? And Derry’s said nothing of it.”
“Why would he? He’s after a rich girl. Have you thought he might only want your money?”
“He loves me,” she insisted.
I wanted to slap her into sense. I wanted to commiserate, to say I know how you feel. I dream of him.
Instead, I said, “He’s a handsome boy, Lucy, but there are a hundred handsome boys in New York City. You’ll find another one; I know it.”
“I don’t want another one. I want him.”
“Grace,” Patrick said from the doorway. “There really is so very little time.”
I nodded and rose, saying to Lucy, “I must go.”
She glanced toward the doorway and made a face. “Yes, by all means go with the man you love while I sit here and die of a broken heart.”
It was all I could do not to tell her that her love for him was only a spell that would wear off eventually—I hoped—and that he had bewitched the both of us but that I was the one who might die from it.
I had to talk to Grandma. I told Lucy I would see her later and left her to sniff into her handkerchief. Mrs. Devlin gave me a grateful smile. “Thank you so much, my dear. I’m certain she’ll feel better now.”
Patrick took me to the carriage. When I was seated, he leaned in. “I should go with you.”
“I need to do this alone.”
“You’ll come back? You promise you will?”
“You can tell Leonard to drag me back if I hesitate.”
Patrick’s grin was small. “If it comes to that, I will. Grace, you’ll give me an answer when you return? To my proposal?”
I nodded.
He let me go with a sad and anxious smile, one I couldn’t get out of my head as the carriage started off.
When we arrived at my house, Leonard followed me up the stoop with an apologetic “He told me to stand here and wait, miss.”
There was no point in arguing with him. In fact, it was reassuring to know he was there.
The house was dim and sweltering. Mama was nowhere to be seen. I headed for the stairs, then stopped when I heard a sound behind me, a footstep. I turned.
Derry was standing at the kitchen door.
My heart leaped and then fell, a plunging, sickening drop, and I was against that brick wall again, looking at the glow flaming to life in his eyes before he bent to kiss me.
No. No! He wasn’t Derry. He was Diarmid. Everything he’d said and done was a lie. He means to kill you on Samhain.
I turned and ran for the stairs.
He caught up with me before I made the first step. “Grace. Listen to me. That’s all I ask.”
That deep voice was as alluring as ever. “Get away from me.”
“You’ve spoken to Devlin.”
“He’s told me everything.”
We both stilled at a noise from upstairs. Derry touched my arm, which brought a little thrill I tried not to feel. “I need to speak with you, lass. Somewhere private.”
“You’re mad if you think I’ll go anywhere alone with you again.”
“Just to the kitchen,” he said. “There are a hundred weapons there you could use if you want. You could beat me to death with a wooden spoon.”
“Don’t tempt me. I’d like nothing more than to bruise your pretty face.”
“All right. If that’s what it takes to get you to talk to me.” He held out his hand. “You’ve never let me explain.”
“I gave you plenty of opportunities to explain.”
He sighed. “’Tis complicated.”
“Try uncomplicating it.”
“I will. I will. Just . . . not here.”
I needed to know the truth, but I didn’t want to be alone with him. It’s a lie. A spell. Remember it.
“Very well,” I said.
He gave me a grateful look, those deep-blue, enchanting eyes—which you can barely see through his hair, you idiot. I turned, leading the way to the kitchen.
“Explain,” I said as the door swung shut behind us. “And quickly. Patrick’s waiting for me.”
“What exactly has he told you?”
“More than you have. And he hasn’t lied either.”
“Don’t be so sure of that.”
“Oh really? You knew the whole time, didn’t you, what I am?”
“I suspected it,” he said uncomfortably. “But I didn’t know for sure until the night I took you to Finn.”
The night he’d used the lovespot on me. Or no . . . he must have used it before then. All those dreams I had of touching him, mesmerized by his laughter.
I said, “You’ve done nothing but lie to me and trick me. You’ve never once told me the truth about anything.”
“Because I wasn’t sure. There was no point in telling you anything until I was. I meant to protect you.”
“From what?” I asked. “From who? Finn? Yourself? Diarmid Ua Duibhne. That’s who you really are. The Diarmid who ran off with Grainne and saved Finn and the others from the House of Death. The Diarmid who slew six hundred men in the battle with Lochlann’s son.”
“How do you know all that?” he asked, looking startled.
“Is it all true?”
“Well, I probably didn’t kill six hundred that day. Though I suppose if you counted over a few months . . .”
His humor only enraged me further. “I’ve believed enough of your lies. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done to me, I won’t believe you again.” I tried to push past him to the door.
He grabbed my arm, in the same moment pulling me closer, until we were toe-to-toe, only inches between us, his fingers searing through my sleeve. “What I’ve done to you? I’ve kept you safe. And I’ll keep on doing it, Grace. Did Devlin tell you he’s called the Fomori? They’re on their way now. That thunder you hear is Tethra. Have you heard of him?”
He was too close. It was hard to get out a single word. “Yes.”
“Then you’ll know what a monster he is. You don’t want to be in their hands, Grace, and that’s exactly where Patrick Devlin means to put you.”
“Patrick’s promised to protect me.”
“He can promise all he wants. They’re the Children of Domnu. Gods of chaos and darkness. You can’t trust them.”
I heard the dread in his voice, but I couldn’t admit to him that I was frightened of the Fomori, that I was afraid Patrick might be wrong. But Patrick had spoken to them, and he knew the legends as well as I did, if not better. “What if you’re wrong? It’s been two thousand years.”
“It’s in their nature to lie to you and trick you. And in the end they’ll take what they want whether or not you wish to give it.”
“Nothing like you,” I said.
His fingers tightened on my arm, pulling me up against him, and I could not bring myself to move away. His gaze held me as he whispered, “No, nothing like me. You know that, Grace. You know me. Don’t tell me you don’t feel what’s between us.”
His voice raised a pure longing I could not let myself feel. “I don’t know you,” I whispered back. “How can I, when everything you’ve told me is a lie?”
“Not everything.”
“No? Which part of it is true? That you’re a stableboy? That you are Derry O’Shea, an immigrant boy? A gang boy?”
“How could I tell you? You would never have believed me.”
The warmth of him against me was distracting, tempting. I forced myself to continue. “What about when you told me you didn’t take Patrick’s book? Or that we were going to visit your friend in the hospital instead of a tenement in the worst part of town, where I was nearly assaulted—”
“That was your own doing. I told you not to run.”
“Kissing me when you were courting Lucy! You were lying to her too! And she’s in a terrible state, by the way, not that you care.”
“That couldn’t be helped. But she’ll get over it.”
“When the lovespot wears off, you mean? How long does that take, exactly? How long does she have to suffer?”
“Do you care so much?”
“I want to know. How. Long?” I hit his chest with my free hand, punctuating each word. He caught my wrist before I could swing back to hit him again.
“Careful, lass. I’m a bit too familiar with your hands.”
Both of which he now had in a tight hold. We were so close. He had me imprisoned. “Let go of me. I don’t want you to touch me.”
“Who’s the liar now?” His mouth was nearly against mine. I felt myself sinking, unraveling, yearning.
“I want to kiss you again,” he whispered. “And maybe ’twould show you that you belong with me. With the Fianna.”
I recalled what Rose had said about Derry being a game. But the tables had turned, and now I was the game, and he was playing me. He means to seduce you and kill you. That was the truth I had to remember.
As carefully and clearly as I could, I said, “Don’t you dare. I don’t want you, whatever you think. That kiss was a mistake. It will never happen again. I want you to leave me alone.”
“Ah lass, I wish I could.” There was such real sorrow and regret in his voice. He said, “I’m sorry, Grace,” just as he released me and started to push his hair from his eyes—at last—and at the same moment I heard my mother calling, “Grace? Grace, is that you?” and I thought of my grandmother, my questions, everything at stake, and I wrenched away, taking advantage of Derry’s surprise to shout, “I’m here! I’ll be right up, Mama!”
I began to push through the doorway. He put up his arm to bar the way.
I glared at him. “Let me pass.”
“This isn’t over, Grace. Don’t you see? It can’t be over.”
But I pushed again, and this time he dropped his arm and I lurched through the doorway, into the hall, trembling as I hurried to the stairs.
“It can’t be over.” There was still the ritual, the role he must play in my fate—something else he hadn’t told me.
“You know me. . . . You belong with me.” Never once the truth. I have to kill you.
But I was free of him now. And I meant to stay that way.