The Absinthe Earl Read online

  “So help me, Edward,” shouted Duncan O’Malley, “if Izzy hadn’t ordered me not to kill you, I’d have done it already!”

  The reply came in Irish: “This is not a fight you want to start, bog crawler.” Lord Meath. Or, more likely, his Danaan ancestor. “Out of my way.”

  “She did not, on the other hand, place any prohibition on shooting you in the leg.”

  I sprang to my feet, running to the door and yanking it open.

  “Stay inside, Miss Q!” barked O’Malley, who stood in front of the door, with his back to me.

  Opposite O’Malley, I could see the earl, eyes glittering, watching me like a cat. I shivered to see the stranger staring at me out of his eyes.

  “Diarmuid?” I said, just to be sure.

  O’Malley’s head jerked in my direction, and the earl, possessed by his ancestor, nodded. “You remember.”

  “Duncan,” I said, stepping closer and gripping his arm. “Give the pistol to me.”

  O’Malley shook his head. “Let me handle this. I don’t trust his look. Something’s wrong with him.”

  “I know,” I replied. “I’ve seen it before. I’ll be fine.” Or I wouldn’t. But I wasn’t going to stand there and let him shoot Lord Meath, which he would certainly have to do before long if I didn’t intervene. “I need to speak to him in private, Duncan.”

  Blowing out a sigh of disapproval, O’Malley backed toward the door, and I made room for him to pass. Once he was behind me, his arm still extended into the corridor and pointing the pistol at the earl, he took hold of my right hand with his free hand and raised it to the weapon.

  “It’s ready to fire. Just pull the trigger.”

  I gripped it in my palm.

  “You’ll shout if you need me, agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  “And if he doesn’t behave like a gentleman, you’ll shoot him?”

  “I will.”

  He stepped around me again and moved away from the door.

  “Come inside,” I said to the Danaan warrior as I backed away from the door. “Slowly.”

  Duncan and I watched as Lord Meath strode toward me. He was half dressed, wearing only trousers and boots, and a loose nightshirt that left most of his chest bare. In the lamplight, I noticed a number of pale-pink scars marking his flesh. He clutched the hilt of Great Fury in both hands, and just as in the fairy mound, the flash of light along the blade made it seem a living thing in his hands.

  I continued backing into the room until my legs brushed the edge of the fainting couch. The earl entered my chamber and closed the door behind him. With one hand, he picked up a chair beside the door and propped it under the knob before starting toward me again.

  “Stop,” I warned. “Leave your sword by the door.”

  He complied with the second request but then took another slow step toward me.

  “I don’t know if you understand,” I said, “but this weapon can kill you. Actually, it can kill your descendant, Edward Donoghue, Earl of Meath, whose body you are inhabiting. If he dies, you have no gateway to our world.”

  I did not know whether this was true, but I had to find a way to reason with him, for Edward’s sake. And it seemed to work, for he did at last stop.

  “He and I are not separate,” said Diarmuid.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Immortals and mortals,” he replied. “Our life cycles are different. Through my children, I have passed down to him.”

  I frowned. “You mean that you’re … part of Edward? Tangled up with him somehow?” Poor Lord Meath. No wonder he thought he was going mad!

  He nodded. “So if you love him, you also love me.”

  My mouth went dry, and I tried to swallow. “I am not sure I believe that. Neither have I said that I love him.”

  His gaze ranged around the room, settling finally on the bed. “And yet I know it.” Again he looked at me, eyes rising to the top of my head. “You are the very image of her. And the first to bear the mark.”

  Mrs. Doyle’s voice echoed: You bear the mark of attention from their kind. Captain O’Malley, too, had spoken of it: She’s been claimed by the gentlefolk, and they’ll have her in the end. I recalled the absinthe vision of the woman sleeping in the meadow.

  “What is it you want?” I asked. “I know that Queen Isolde has agreed to fight with you. She’s persuaded Edward as well. Why have you come to me? I’m an Englishwoman, and a quiet and unimportant one, at that.”

  “I have waited centuries for you,” he said, taking another step. “I have dreamed of you, the mortal woman who stands with the Danaan, and I wrought ancient blood magic to be here with you.”

  I shivered. Blood magic was sometimes associated with druids, though it did not necessarily require a death.

  “My people have watched you watching them,” he continued, his intensity softening. “Fey runs in families, and it was your blood that led you here. Your blood that led you to him.” He glanced at himself in the mirror above the dressing table. “To me.”

  I closed my eyes. More riddles. I jumped only a little when his hands enfolded mine and then took the pistol from me. I wasn’t going to shoot Edward; he knew that very well. He laid the weapon aside on a table.

  He stepped close to me, and his voice was a low rumble near my ear as he said, “He keeps his distance, does he not?” His fingers grazed my jaw, and I sucked a breath through my parted lips. I was unprepared for this gentleness—his behavior was much more Edward-like now than it had been in the fairy mound. Since that night, I had longed to feel Edward this close. His heat and proximity, the brightness of passion in his eyes.

  “I do not understand this age of manners,” Diarmuid said, his breath a caress. “This age of politeness and unspoken passion. There is no shame in passion. Yet he would send you away rather than acknowledge it.”

  He drew back to meet my gaze, and I was again confronted with his otherworldly beauty. His face was inches from mine.

  “Women were warriors in your time, I know,” I said, a tremor in my voice. “We’ve done away with all that now. He would send me away to protect me.”

  “From me, yes. But you refused to go. Why?”

  My body was responding to his proximity and his gentle touch in ways that confused and frightened me. I could not organize my thoughts well enough to answer him. Why, indeed?

  Then I felt a strangling sensation in my throat and realized that it was happening again. Words were being dragged out of me even as my body fought to hold on to them. Fey though I might be, I was no match for an immortal.

  “Because I love him,” I choked out. A tear trickled down my cheek, and I glowered at him. “If you want this discussion to continue, you won’t do that again.”

  “All I want is for you to remember what you know. So many years I have waited to be with you here. Please, Cliona.”

  Cliona! I stared at him and shook my head slowly. “Is that who you think I am? You are mistaken, my lord, I assure you!” I stepped away from him and turned. “What, may I ask, is your connection to her?”

  His brow furrowed. “My connection to her is everything. I breathed immortality into her. I cast all Faery out of Ireland for the love of her.”

  Immortality. I recalled that Cliona had been brought, lifeless, to Brú na Bóinne. Had Edward’s parchment been only the beginning of her story? Before I could further question him, he closed his eyes, then stumbled and fell.

  “My lord!” I cried, moving quickly to kneel at his side.

  He panted from some unseen strain, and his hand pressed mine to his forearm.

  I bent and studied his face. “Lord Meath?”

  He righted himself and lifted me to my feet. “Are you well?” he asked.

  “Yes, my lord, perfectly. But are you?”

  He nodded. “But I grow weary of these transgressio
ns.”

  “How is it that you have returned?” I asked.

  “I did not like the way he was … thinking of you,” he replied, eyeing me darkly. “He believes you belong to him.”

  I swallowed thickly.

  “Why, Ada? Why did you allow him into your chamber? Why did you let him put his hands on you?”

  I turned from him, uncomfortable under the intensity of his gaze. “I allowed him in for your sake, my lord. I wanted to try to understand him.”

  Had he heard the words the Danaan warrior forced from my lips? If he had, it did not appear to have softened him toward me.

  “And why did you not use the weapon at your disposal, as you did the last time, to require him to keep his distance?”

  I flushed, hot with shame. Confused and dismayed, I blurted the truth: “It was too difficult, my lord. He was so like you that I—”

  I broke off, shaking my head, my throat tightening from conflicting emotions—tenderness, frustration, fear … longing.

  I felt him moving behind me.

  “Shh,” he whispered. His hands came to my shoulders, and he gently turned me. “Ada, look at me.”

  Trembling, I raised my eyes to his face.

  “I had no right to ask you such a question.” He raised his hand to cradle my cheek. “Can you forgive me?”

  I could not trust my voice, so I nodded.

  “He tried to shut me out, to draw a curtain between us.” Edward moved closer, and the noise of my heart threatened to interfere with my hearing. “I couldn’t stand that he might steal something I myself had worked so hard to resist stealing.”

  My breath caught in my throat, and his gaze descended to my parted lips. I felt his other hand, warm against my waist, and then his chest pressing against mine.

  I lifted my lips, unable to hold back any longer.

  He bent his head, and his mouth brushed softly against mine—once, then twice. I had initiated the kiss, but the earl took possession of it, silken lips moving, exploring this new territory. I felt a shudder go through him.

  His mouth grew firm, insistent, as it covered mine, though his lips were full and soft. I raised my hand, slipping my fingers into the hair at the back of his neck, and his tongue pushed gently between my lips, deepening the kiss.

  His arms came around me, and the heat in the full press of our bodies shortened my breath. As the flames licked between us, he broke from the kiss, lips trailing down my chin to my throat. His hand glided up my corset, coming to rest beside my breast.

  Then he froze. “You must agree to marry me, Ada,” he said breathlessly, raising his head to meet my gaze. “Else I must go before this … progresses.”

  Here was the passion I had found wanting in his proposal. His fingers pressed against my ribs as he drew me against him. I could hear the blood pulsing in my head. It made me dizzy and hot, and I was grateful for the support of his arms.

  “I shan’t, my lord,” I said firmly. “Not now. If we survive what is to come, perhaps there will be a time for that.”

  He closed his eyes, nodding, and I felt his grip loosen. “Then I must go.”

  “You must not,” I said. “We have not seen the last of Diarmuid. You know we have not. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, he considers me to be his. You are the reason he muddies my thinking and weakens my resolve. Will you not fortify me against his coming?”

  He stared at me and muttered, “God help me.” His lips crashed against mine like waves on the rocks of Keem Strand. He tasted me again, deeper and deeper, until I felt myself prostrate on the sand, opening to the saltwater caress that worked rhythmically against my body.

  He broke free, slipping behind me without ever completely letting me go. He swept my hair over my shoulder, and his lips came to the back of my neck. My limbs loosened again at the rush of warm sensation, and I sagged against him. Then I felt his fingers moving along my spine—he was unhooking my corset.

  His hands slipped inside the back of my dress, peeling it away from me until it dropped and hung loose at my waist. He unfastened the stiff petticoat with its complicated bustle and pushed my skirts past my hips until they fell and pooled at my feet. I stood close against him in nothing but lace drawers and stockings and a silk shirt that scooped low over my breasts.

  My body ached deliciously. My breasts felt swollen, and the cleft between my legs had begun to throb.

  His lips brushed the back of my ear, and his hands came to my shoulders, sliding down my arms. As his fingertips grazed the bare skin above my nipples, my heart pounded and I could feel my own hot breath.

  Suddenly, he lifted me in his arms. He carried me to the bed, laying me across the parted white sheets before covering my body with his. I felt the press of his stiff wool trousers between my legs, and I felt him trembling.

  Hunger darkened his countenance, and he moved closer, curls falling softly around his face. He lowered his mouth to mine, hard and hot, lips parting instantly. His tongue pushed into my mouth, sliding against mine, and he groaned. I arched, pressing my body against his.

  Dipping his head, he used his teeth to pull back the neck of my shirt, baring one breast. Groaning, he took the nipple in his mouth. With the hot, moist pressure of his tongue, I felt a deepening ache, like the shore longing for the tide’s return.

  “I don’t know that we will be able to stop this,” he warned. “You were so beautiful tonight, Ada. You shattered me.”

  His words so inflamed and engulfed me that I was almost senseless with desire, but I whispered urgently, “I don’t wish to stop, my lord.”

  He took my mouth again, showing me his hunger. His legs pressed against mine, spreading them farther apart.

  Rising to his knees, he pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it to the floor. I lifted the hem of my own shirt, and he helped me to remove and discard it. Then he bent to grasp the last layer of modesty between us, tugging the soft fabric down past my hips and over my thighs, his gaze lingering on the part of me that, in this moment, felt most alive.

  As his eyes moved slowly over me, mine feasted on his flesh. On the strength of him, taut muscles that formed graceful flowing lines. His body wove a powerful spell.

  He reached down, touching gently between my legs, and I gave out a tremulous little moan.

  My flesh was wet and slick, and his fingers tickled between the folds. The aching of the cleft just beyond suddenly became more than I could bear. When his fingers finally ventured within, my back arched, raising my hips toward his hand.

  Unfastening his trousers with one hand, he moved closer, and I had only a moment to assess that part of him that sought, above all else, to lose itself in another. I held my breath as he pushed slowly inside me, then let it out with a moan. I could recall no sensation like this—no sensation that at once satisfied and stoked a desperate need.

  “Edward,” I breathed, the muscles inside me clenching over him, my body welcoming that hot, hungry tide.

  Raising himself on his arms, he began a rhythmic thrusting. I followed the sinuous motion of his body and then wrapped my legs around his waist to keep him from driving me into the headboard. I dug my heels into his back, seating him deeper, and worked my hips against him, rolling with his rhythm, reveling in this new sense of fullness. Little cries escaped my throat as beads of perspiration dripped from him and trickled down my breasts.

  One of his hands slid across me, rolling my breasts. He bent, hungrily tasting my mouth and driving his tongue between my lips. Both our bodies went rigid.

  Our sharp cries broke the tension. My release was a burning star that burst from me, throwing light over the walls of the darkened room. Again I heard the voices I’d heard inside the fairy mound when Diarmuid stole his first kiss—the war cries and wails, now mingled with the cries of souls lost to ecstasy. I knew that Edward’s ancestor was with us, and I deemed it a small price
to pay for feeling the earl’s body against mine at last.

  Edward

  You are the reason he muddies my thinking and weakens my resolve.

  With these words, she had undone every gentlemanly impulse. She had encouraged every wrongheaded, proprietary feeling. She wanted me. She cared nothing for my title or for any honor conferred by my proposal. She wanted me.

  But as the embers of passion cooled, uncertainty returned.

  Feeling the rise and fall of her chest beneath me, I came to myself and lifted my weight off her. “Forgive me. I’m suffocating you.”

  The room had gone chill, and I drew the counterpane over her before fastening my trousers and pulling on my nightshirt. Then I went to the fireplace and added turf to the fire. I felt her eyes on my back and knew that I should not have left her so quickly. Should not have moved away from the bed without so much as a glance at her face. The atmosphere of the room felt thin, as if the act we shared had sucked away all the air.

  Had we married before this act, I would have known how to be with her now. It would have been proper to kiss and caress and perhaps even indulge my appetite for her again.

  The thought of it set my blood afire. But I did not know how to manage a woman who had rejected me almost in the same breath that she had asked me to make love to her.

  Before I had marshaled the courage to face her, three knocks sounded on the chamber door. Turning, I saw her take a dressing gown from the chest at the foot of the bed. After covering herself, she rose and went to the door, removing a chair that someone had propped there, before opening it a few inches.

  “How do you fare, Miss Quicksilver?” Duncan. Had he been outside in the corridor all along? I squeezed my eyes closed. In asking him to protect her from me, I had put her squarely in this awkward position. There was nothing I could do to help without exposing her further.

  “I’m well, Duncan, thank you,” she said in a low, earnest tone. “And safe.”

  Her use of his Christian name caused a pang. I thought of all that had passed between us before she used mine.