SIX
Diarmid
Diarmid was brushing a lovely mare named Erin, whispering in her ear as he did so, Gaelic words, sounds like music, when he heard the light tap of a boot. He paused to see Lucy Devlin come into the stable and tried to ignore his sudden surge of loneliness. It didn’t matter, did it? He had a duty, and Lucy Devlin was part of it.
She was the reason he was in the Devlins’ stable to begin with. He’d met her three days ago, after deliberately searching her out. Finn’s orders were clear: Cannel had said the veleda was surrounded by a club of some kind, and logic said it was the club that had called them. The Fianna were Ireland’s heroes, so it made sense that they should look for Irish clubs in the city.
There were many: The Clan na Gael, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Fenian Brotherhood, and a dozen other charity and church groups. The Fianna had split up for efficiency, and Finn had assigned Diarmid the Fenians. “Infiltrate their leadership. And quickly. We haven’t much time. Use any means necessary”—here a quick and meaningful glance at Diarmid’s forehead. “Find their chiefs and the rest will follow.” Orders not much different from those they’d routinely followed in battle. Disarm the leaders first; the rest will fold.
Diarmid’s instincts told him it was either the Brotherhood or the Gael that had need of them. He’d heard rumors: men who spoke of Irish independence, Irish rebellion. Britain ruled Ireland now. He hadn’t believed it when he’d heard it, and he hated the idea of it. He was more than willing to fight for whoever wanted to change that.
It hadn’t taken him long to determine who was important among the Fenian Brotherhood. A few men: Rory Nolan, Simon MacRonan, and young Patrick Devlin. Of them, Devlin interested him most, and not only because he’d just returned from Ireland.
Patrick Devlin also had the easiest way in. Pretty Lucy Devlin, his sister.
Infiltrate.
Diarmid had watched her for days. Golden hair and big blue eyes and a flouncy, flirty way about her. A restless gaze and a heart that wouldn’t settle. She was the type of girl he understood. Fickle and vain, a bit ruthless. She reminded him of Grainne, which was the best assurance he knew that he could keep his distance.
Infiltrate.
There was a path through the park behind her house, one she used often, and almost every afternoon at five o’clock, she paid a visit to the confectioner’s at the end of it. She liked ice cream, which he’d never tasted, though it looked and smelled delicious. Sometimes she’d eat it in the shop, sometimes she would walk out with one of her friends and eat from a paper dish as they talked, dipping a tiny wooden paddle into the mound of cream, licking at it with a darting pink tongue.
All he needed was for her to see him, to really look at him. So he leaned against the wrought-iron lace of the gazebo and crossed his arms over his chest and waited for her to be alone. He needed a few moments to talk with her without anyone else noticing.
Two days he’d waited, and each time she had been with other girls. Then, the third day, he’d watched her emerge from the mass of climbing roses at her gate. She wore a yellow gown trimmed in pink and a hat with ribbons tied in a bow at her chin.
It was time.
She’d walked slowly, as if she were in a dream, and he’d wondered what she was thinking about. Some other boy perhaps, and he felt a tug of shame, of reluctance that faded the next moment when he heard Finn’s voice in his head: Use any means necessary. She was closer now, only a few yards away, then a few feet. He’d raised his hand to get her attention. When she glanced at him, he’d shaken back his hair.
She’d gone still, dropping the handkerchief she’d been patting delicately to her throat. Her gaze riveted to his forehead, her lips parted prettily, a rush of breath. He had her. It had worked.
Again. There had been a part of him that hoped the power of it was gone, that it was a relic of another world. But no, of course it still worked, a gift and a curse as always. He had to fight his exhaustion and the urge to walk away. He thought of what was at stake, and he gave her the best smile he could muster—it wouldn’t matter how false it was; she was bespelled. She would see only what she wanted to see.
“I believe you dropped this.” He bent to retrieve the handkerchief.
“Oh.” She’d taken the handkerchief, her cheeks pink. She leaned forward as if to touch his forehead. “Oh, are you hurt? That burn—”
The same reaction always. How tired he was of that look in their eyes, that shining, feverish love that was as unreal as a dream. “An old scar,” he’d told her, backing away from her touch. “I’ve seen you before. You walk here nearly every day.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve been watching you,” he admitted.
“You’ve been watching me?”
“Aye. Do you mind it?”
“N-no,” she’d said, and then “No” again. “Not in the least, in fact.”
Infiltrate.
She was so easily led he hardly had to think. Within the hour, she’d gone to her brother to ask him to hire a new stableboy. If there was one thing that hadn’t changed in all the time that had passed, it was stables. They reminded Diarmid of his old life, of a horse he’d loved—a beautiful bay named Siofra. The Devlins had four horses, matched chestnuts, and the stable was better furnished than any building in the slums where Diarmid lived. Walls wainscotted in walnut. Straw sweeter and fresher than that he slept on. But the smells were the same stable smells: hay and the musk of horses and manure and the dry dust of oats. The sounds were sounds he’d lived with most of his life: soft nickers, the swish of a tail, the buzz of flies. He felt comfortable there; he was glad to be around horses again.
Now he suppressed his resentment at the sight of Lucy and what he had to do and said, “Over here, milis.”
She hurried over. Strands of fair hair straggled from her pins. Her eyes sparkled when she saw him. “I love it when you speak Gaelic to me. Milis. What does it mean?”
He was surprised. “You don’t understand it?”
“No one I know speaks it anymore. Well, my father did a bit. Only what he knew from my grandfather. No one can even read it any longer except for Patrick.”
“Your brother reads Gaelic?” Something interesting, though Diarmid wasn’t certain exactly what to make of it.
She tilted her head at him flirtatiously. “He loves these Irish poets. It’s all he talks about. ‘Kincora,’ ‘Dark Rosaleen.’” She made a face. “He read one of them to us the other night. I hardly understood it.”
He smiled and kept brushing the mare. “Really? They sound interesting.”
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re obsessed with rebellion too?”
“I don’t suppose you could bring me one of your brother’s books—just to borrow for a bit.” Finn believed Cannel could divine whether Patrick had called them, and for that they needed something of his. A book would do.
Lucy pouted. “I don’t know. He’d notice it was gone, I think. And you still haven’t told me what milis means.”
“Sweet. Like candy. Or ice cream.” He flashed her a teasing look.
“Mmmm. I like ice cream.”
“I know.”
“I’ll bring you some the next time I go. Though I don’t know how I can get it here without it melting.”
“I’ve no need of it,” he said. “You’re sweet enough for me.”
She smiled, looking at him from beneath her lashes. He wondered if she knew how alluring that look was, and decided she probably did. “Come out,” she said. So imperious.
He said, “One moment,” and gave the final brush to the mare. When he put aside the brush and stepped from the stall, Lucy threw herself into his arms so hard he stumbled back.
“Kiss me,” she demanded.
He obliged. She was sweet and willing—more willing than she should have been. Bespelled. Don’t think of it. Do what you must. He kissed her pouting lower lip, then kissed her more fully, once and then again before she sighed and drew away, laying her head against his chest. “I can’t bear to be away from you.”
“You weren’t about yesterday,” he said—a question, as subtle as he could make it. His goal wasn’t just to get something of Patrick’s but to discover what he could about him, and so far he hadn’t been that successful. Lucy didn’t like to talk about Patrick. What she’d told him already today was the most she’d said since he’d met her. She claimed her brother and his politics didn’t interest her in the least. All Lucy cared about were the latest fashions—and him, but he’d known that would happen the moment he showed her the lovespot.
“I had to be at a tea.” She made a face again. “With my brother and the girl he intends to marry.”
It was the first Diarmid had heard of it. “He means to marry?”
She nodded. “Grace Knox. He’s loved her for . . . oh, I don’t know. A hundred years at least.”
He raised a brow.
“Well, not a hundred years. But he used to moon about her, and she hardly looked at him. She was too busy with her poetry.”
“Poor Patrick.”
“Yes. But now she suddenly finds him riveting. I don’t wish to be uncharitable, but I’m not the only one who’s noticed that she finally sees Patrick just when her family’s fallen on hard times.”
No, not uncharitable at all, he thought wryly. “I thought your brother had been gone a good while.”
“Three years.”
“Then it’s been three years she can’t have looked at him.”
She flushed. “I’m sorry. I know it’s unfair of me. Grace is perfectly lovely, it’s only . . .”
“What?”
She met his gaze, though her cheeks grew even rosier. “She can have who she wants, while I can’t.”
He felt guilty. Too softhearted, Oscar would say, and that was true. But he couldn’t look at a girl without wanting to protect her in some measure. Lucy was no different, even if it was himself he wanted to protect her from.
It was just a spell. This wasn’t real. Infiltrate. He sighed and whispered, “Come now, lass, let’s not think of that, shall we? Tomorrow’s a long time away. What’s to keep us from having a little fun right now?”
He kissed her again. She pressed against him, pulling on his shirt, jerking it from his trousers so she could touch his skin. He let her do it, though he would stop it soon enough. There was no point in hurting her more than he had to. Just so far and no further.
Because as soon as he learned what he needed about her brother, he’d be gone.