The Absinthe Earl Read online

  “Miss Quicksilver is a specialist in Irish history and mythology,” I explained. “I’ve brought her along to help evaluate the cultural significance of the ruin. I assure you, she won’t disturb your work.”

  Deane sized up Miss Q in a way that suggested he was not as susceptible to her considerable charms as I.

  “Perhaps you might wait until the morrow, my lord?”

  “I’m afraid we have only this evening and the morning until we must continue west to make our report to Queen Isolde. We’d like to perform a brief inspection tonight. Before we do, perhaps your men can share with us any discoveries they’ve made.”

  “May I ask if anything was found inside, sir?” asked Miss Q.

  Deane shook his head. “Nothing but the bones of small mammals and birds. But we weren’t the first inside. Once excavations get under way, I’m sure we’ll find more. What was carried away already by the farmer, the archaeologists have classified as ‘grave goods.’”

  Miss Q looked a little stricken at the word “excavations,” but she made no comment. “Meaning items that would have been buried with any human remains interred here?” she asked.

  Deane nodded, and I saw a flicker of keener interest in his gaze. “Exactly so,” he replied. “We assume ceremonial burials took place here, though we’ve yet to confirm it.”

  “I see.” She glanced again at the entry. “How large is the ruin, Mr. Deane?”

  “The main passage goes back about sixty feet. At the end is a large chamber with three smaller chambers adjoining. We’ve found large stone slabs throughout, and our geologist says they came from nowhere around here. Which has confounded us a good deal, considering that the people who built this structure must have had only rudimentary tools.”

  The disapproving Mr. Deane was warming up nicely. It was a special talent of my Miss Q.

  “The passage runs straight?” she asked.

  “It does, miss.”

  “Hmm.” She continued to study the entryway. “Do you mind if we have a look inside now, before the light’s completely gone? I give you my word we’ll not disturb anything.”

  “All right, then,” he said, with graciousness, even. “To tell the truth, we were all going for a pint, anyway. Perhaps my lord and yourself would like to join us?”

  “We would indeed,” I replied, stepping in. “But with our time so short, we’d better go about our business. Don’t let us stop you, though, Mr. Deane. Perhaps Miss Q can ask the rest of her questions in the morning?”

  Deane nodded. “Certainly, my lord. Take the lamp, and you’ll find plenty of candles inside. Without them, you’d not see anything but shadows. And once the daylight is gone, it’s black as pitch. Hope you don’t frighten easy, miss.” Deane smiled at her. “It fairly makes my skin crawl. You’re sure you won’t reconsider? A pub’s a cozier spot to sit out the darkest night of the year.”

  She returned his smile. “We thank you for the invitation, sir, but you go on. I assure you I’m not easily frightened.”

  My heart swelled with something like pride. How ridiculous, Meath, was my head’s answer.

  “Good eve, then, miss. Good eve, my lord.” He’d removed his hat on our arrival, and he replaced it now. “If you would, put out the lights when you leave.”

  “Good eve, Mr. Deane,” I replied. “You have my word.”

  Miss Q met my gaze as he left us. “After you, Lord Meath.”

  “After you, Miss Q. I insist.”

  With a grin of anticipation, she turned and lifted an oil lantern from a hook by the entrance.

  We had a bit of a squeeze just inside, where the passage narrowed. As it opened out again and the light from our lantern and others filled the space, I was surprised by how square the passage was. And not earthen at all—stone slabs lined the whole length of it. It was hard to imagine so many of them being transported here by modern man, much less by a primitive people.

  “It’s close, isn’t it?” she said, voice echoing in the chamber. I felt an inexplicable surge of dread and increased my pace to close the distance between us, my head suddenly filling with visions of ancient monsters. But then I realized she was talking about the closeness of the walls. Steady on, Meath.

  “So it is,” I replied.

  “It appears not much more than a man-made cave,” she observed sedately, but I felt the energy she was suppressing. Was it fear? Excitement? Perhaps both? I confess that to me, it was a large hole in the ground, made interesting by the fair maiden lighting my way. “Whoever ordered the construction left very little evidence for us to follow and understand the why of it,” she continued.

  “So far as we know now,” I replied. “Who knows what they may find when they begin to dig?”

  At the end of the passage were the chambers described by Mr. Deane—the one larger chamber and the three smaller adjoining ones.

  “I’m wondering whether they should,” she said, holding up the lantern to examine a spiral design that ran floor to ceiling. It was similar to the one outside, carved on a wall facing the entrance. “Dig, I mean. I’m eager to know more about it, of course. But whoever built it—would they like us digging it up, do you think? Perhaps it’s no accident that it has been buried for two thousand years.”

  I moved closer to take the lantern for her, but instead of continuing her observation of the spiral, she looked up at me. I understood vaguely that she’d asked me a question and seemed to be expecting an answer. For the life of me, I couldn’t recall anything she’d just said, not with her attention so fixed upon me.

  So I smiled and said, “Perhaps,” and hoped for the best.

  Seeming to accept this, she set down her satchel. Then she unbuttoned and removed her cloak, for the earth over our heads had apparently insulated the chamber against the cold. I watched her, frozen, as she also removed her jacket. She stood before me in her skirt and a simple white blouse, and I could see the outline of her corset beneath. The blouse sleeves ended just below her elbows, and I found I couldn’t tear my gaze away from her exposed forearm and wrist.

  “Do you mind if I make a few sketches tonight, my lord? It will look different by daylight, and I’d like to compare.”

  “By all means, Miss Q.”

  Smiling, she retrieved a drawing pad and pencil from her satchel. Finding no place else to sit, she sank primly on the edge of a slab that held a large stone basin.

  “I hope it’s not sacrilege,” she murmured.

  I sat down a respectable distance away from her and replied, “Now we’re both guilty.”

  But as she scratched away on her pad, I found I could not sit still. I believe I could have watched her for hours without her noticing, so absorbed was she in her work. The small movements of her hands and wrists. The shallow breaths, shortened by excitement, that caused her breasts to rise and fall. The pulse point in her neck that I could just see by the light of the lantern. And that heart-shaped mouth, mauve lips parting as she concentrated …

  Breathing deeply to clear these thoughts, I rose and took a turn about the chamber. Finding a box of matches, I made another circuit and lit fat candles that stood in a series of pie tins. I distracted myself by studying the slabs with their rounded edges, and the spiral carvings that had caught her eye. But none of it was any use. I was fascinated, indeed, but not with these cold stones.

  God help me.

  She had placed herself in my power. Trusted me completely. And I’d believed myself trustworthy. Believed that I could protect her from whatever the banshee had seen. I asked myself for the thousandth time, What if it is I? What if I was the shadow cast over her short life? The one who would bring her to ruin and destruction?

  “Lord Meath?”

  I started and turned.

  “Are you well?” she asked. “Have you … Have you seen something?”

  I forced a smile. “I am well. Perhaps a li
ttle fatigued from the journey.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, rising. “I’ve been inconsiderate.”

  “No, please, finish your sketches. I’ll move to one of the other chambers so I won’t disturb you further.”

  “It’s not necessary, my lord. You aren’t disturbing me.”

  The disturbing, of course, ran the other direction, but I could hardly tell her so. “You are kind to say so. Nonetheless, I’ll leave you to it. Please call me if you need anything.”

  Ada

  As I watched him retire to the adjacent chamber, I knew he was hiding something from me. Perhaps another vision, something worse than before. I noticed he hadn’t yet donned the tinted spectacles, so he had no protection from the green visitations.

  Selfishly, I had not missed the spectacles. His eyes were bright and alive, something easy to miss when he wore them. He was full of charm and humor, and I couldn’t help feeling that the side of him I was seeing now, until the past few moments, was his true self. That the brooding lord was just a projection of his suffering—the nightwalking and the drinking, and the visions that resulted from the cure he took.

  Dear fellow, I thought. Then I wondered how long I’d been thinking of him thus.

  I let my eyes drift from my sketch to find him again in the other room. The furrows had returned to his brow, but even like this he was … I know no better word than “beautiful.” It was more than the dark sensuality, the Irish blue eyes, or the sailor’s growth about his cheeks and chin. More than the power in his build, hinted at by the fit of his clothing.

  He has a beautiful soul.

  Yet how could I know such a thing, having been acquainted with him for only two days? I was developing a schoolgirl crush.

  He ran a hand through his dark curls and removed his coat and jacket, draping them over the chamber’s stone slab. Then he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and bent to light and lift another of the numerous candles. I studied the musculature of his forearms with each small movement, finding it inexplicably compelling. I imagined how his arms might look were his fingers gripping my waist, and the blood rushed to my cheeks.

  Pulling my gaze back to my sketch pad, heart racing, I thought back over the day’s events. All the little moments that had tugged at something more than my heart. The way he had refrained from pushing me when I experienced that moment of doubt. The man who had tried to take his seat beside me on the tram, and how he’d refused to allow it. The way he rushed to my aid when Mr. Deane came to scold me as if I were a child. The way his gaze had rested on me as the sun slanted across us in the road, and then again inside the coach. Even just a moment ago, as I’d hurriedly made my sketches, hoping to finish before he grew bored.

  I closed my eyes and shook my head, collaring these thoughts like disobedient children. Then I continued with my work, shutting out the small sounds the earl made as he moved about the other chamber.

  I don’t know how much time had passed when I started up from the stone at some new sound. I do know I’d become absorbed again in my work, and it might easily have been an hour or more.

  As I glanced about the chamber, the sound came again, and I realized it had come from Lord Meath. He was seated on the stone slab, back resting against the wall. What I’d heard was the heavier breathing that often came with sleep.

  The poor man had been so exhausted, he hadn’t even needed his sleeping draught.

  SOLSTICE

  Ada

  Next, I heard a strange sound like breath blown into the mouth of a bottle—but before I could move about the chamber to investigate, the lamp and candles all went out at once.

  It was true that I didn’t frighten easily, but it was also true, as Mr. Deane had said, that it was black as pitch inside the fairy mound once the lights were extinguished. I let out a startled cry.

  The cry met with silence, and I called into the void, “Lord Meath?”

  There came a scraping sound like metal on stone.

  “My lord?” I called again, a tremor in my voice now. “Are you there?”

  Don’t be a fool. But I couldn’t help it. Certainly, the wind had caused some change in the atmosphere in the chamber and snuffed out the lamps and candles. And Lord Meath had simply fallen into a deep sleep due to mental exhaustion. But the grinding sound … I couldn’t account for it. It could hardly be for no reason that the entire Celtic race had a superstitious dread of these fairy mounds. Had I not based my career on such premises?

  I circled around the stone basin to the side opposite the direction of the sound. I thought to call out again until I’d woken the earl, but I found myself afraid to give away my location.

  The scraping sound came again, and I clamped my jaws closed, breathing shallowly so I’d not make a sound. If it was Lord Meath, he’d speak soon, surely. He would light a match.

  Who else would it be? I gripped my precious silver propelling pencil, brandishing it like a dagger.

  I felt a movement of air in the chamber, and I turned my head to feel it against my cheek, hoping to identify the direction.

  The next thing I knew, my pencil-wielding hand had been gripped at the wrist.

  “Lord Meath!” I shouted. “I need you!”

  Long fingers squeezed, and I reached to pry them loose, but to no avail.

  “Please,” I squeaked, breathless both from fear and from struggling with my unknown assailant.

  At last, my strength gave out and the pencil dropped to the floor.

  Strong arms closed around me, and I felt a hand at the base of my spine. My body was tugged forward, and the length of me fell hard against the intruder.

  “Let go! Please—Lord Meath!” I called “Edward, awaken!”

  A growling voice tickled my ear. I could not understand the words. They were certainly not English, nor did I think they were Irish, though I was not fluent enough to be sure.

  “I don’t understand you,” I protested, still fighting him.

  He continued speaking, his voice taking on more of a soothing quality now. I interrupted him, demanding, “Who are you?”

  “Diarmuid.”

  Now came a word I understood, and I froze from the shock of it. I recalled that according to legend, the warrior’s body had been brought to Brú na Bóinne. I recalled the earl’s talk of ghosts. But there was nothing incorporeal about this stranger. He must have taken the cessation of my struggling as a sign of resignation—or, at least, recognition—for the next thing he did was coil his arms tighter around me. I felt his hand move into my hair and then gently tug my head back by the bun I’d pinned at the nape of my neck.

  I gasped as I felt lips against my throat.

  “Stop!” I cried, desperate. “At least let me see who you are!”

  He drew back then, and I could hear his labored breathing. I felt its heat on my face. That’s when I noticed the familiar smell. Anise.

  A cold draft raised goose bumps on my flesh, and the candles suddenly flickered to life.

  I cried out in shock when I saw it—the face of the man I was beginning to know and yet now could hardly recognize.

  “My lord,” I croaked.

  Nightwalking, and absinthe was its cure. Only, he hadn’t taken his cure this evening, I was almost certain of it. The anise smell came from his clothing, not his breath. From his skin. From his being.

  His blue eyes were bright in the shadow, shimmering like moonlit pools. His whole countenance was altered—fierce, and hungry. My gaze flickered behind him briefly, where candlelight glinted off metal a few feet away.

  A sword. I understood the metallic grating sound I’d heard earlier.

  “Moralltach,” he muttered. When I looked at him, his nod redirected my gaze to the sword. As he repeated the word, its meaning came to me—Moralltach was a fabled sword associated with the Danaan heroes Angus and Diarmuid. It was an Irish word that meant �
��great fury.” But where had the weapon come from? Deane’s men would never have missed such an important artifact.

  The earl’s fingers pressed at the base of my neck as he tried to draw me closer.

  “Lord Meath,” I said in a loud but steady voice, angling my body away from him. “Awake, my lord. You must.”

  He murmured a few more words, his face bending close to mine. My attempts to pull away were foiled decisively by his hand at the base of my neck, and his arm around my waist. His gaze held mine prisoner, and for a moment, I could almost see the earl behind his eyes—gentleness overtaking fierceness. A softness, even, that was almost like reverence.

  His expression resembled those in the fantasies my traitorous thoughts had played out in unguarded moments these past two days. So much so that for the space of a heartbeat, I did not fight him, and he pressed his lips to mine.

  Suddenly, the howl of an ocean tempest was in my ears. The fury of a fire raging. I heard voices crying out in unison—an opera of violence, blending warlike masculine cries and the keening of a thousand women. A sob rose in my throat as his fierce melody threatened to pull me under.

  “My lord!” I protested.

  And then he was speaking again. I heard the foreign syllables dropping from his lips, but the sense of it now, somehow, came into my mind. “Your lord,” he murmured against my cheek. “And thee, my own love, whom I both know and know not.”

  I shivered. “I am not, my lord,” I said. “You are not yourself, and this is a thing we both shall regret.”

  He drew back to look at me then, my face between his hands. “We have been dreaming until now,” he told me, his eyes pleading. “We need only awaken.”

  These puzzling words made me hesitate, and his thumb came to trace my lips. “Let me taste,” he said. “Again, and yet for the first time.”

  Let me taste. This was a phrase he had spoken in his first moments in the chamber, though I hadn’t then understood. Now that I did, heat rushed to my cheeks.