Susan Krinard - Lord of Sin

“We met in the park less than a fortnight ago.” She moved a little closer to Erskine, as if he might somehow quiet her distress. “He seemed quite put out when Mr. Melbyrne left with Lady Orwell.”

“He guards his friends’ virtue as savagely as Cerberus guards Hades.” Erskine’s cheeks took on a hint of color. “I beg your pardon.”

“Not at all. I believe you meant that the earl is determined to see that his friends avoid the snares of marriage as assiduously as he does.”

“Exactly,” Erskine said, looking relieved. “And Melbyrne is still vulnerable, young as he is. Perhaps not entirely convinced that he wishes to remain unattached for another two decades. Nevertheless, I hope that Lady Orwell…”

“Lady Orwell has a great deal of sense for her age,” Nuala said, hoping it was true. “She knows with whom Mr. Melbyrne associates and what that entails.”

“I am relieved.” Erskine glanced toward the tent that sheltered the refreshments. “May I fetch you a glass of lemonade?”

“I will come with you, Mr. Erskine.”

They proceeded to the tent, and Nuala contrived to speak as if not a thing in the world could discompose her. She genuinely liked Erskine and thought they might have become good friends under other circumstances, now that she was in a position to make friends of a more permanent sort. But she had the strong suspicion that Sinjin would object to her association with Erskine as much as he obviously did Melbyrne’s with Deborah.

He has no control over whom I wish to see , she thought. Nor has he any power over Deborah. I shall see to that .

She enjoyed a glass of lemonade with Erskine, excused herself to speak with Lillian and Tameri, and had fallen into conversation with Lady Oxenham when Sinjin reappeared, quite alone.

“We meet again,” he said very pleasantly.

“How did you find your tour of the conservatory, Lord Donnington?” Nuala asked, feeling her skin begin to warm with the beginnings of anxiety.

“Most illuminating. A very fine collection.”

He said nothing about Miss Eccleston, but it would not have been polite for him to do so, even had he anything good to say about her. He glanced at Mr. Erskine.

“Mr. Erskine, you will have no objection if I claim Lady Charles for a few minutes. That is, of course, if the lady is willing.”

It was much more a command than a request, and Nuala’s annoyance almost submerged her concern about what was to come. Still, she had wanted to speak to Sinjin, and here was her chance.

“Of course, Lord Donnington,” she said.

He touched her shoulder, steering her toward the house. The contact was electric, sending currents of awareness through that now-empty part of her that had always been the source of her magic. She stepped out of his reach and continued on through the French doors and into the reception room.

“I believe we will have more privacy here,” she said, gesturing toward a door leading off the reception room. The door led into a cloak room, hardly more than a closet. Nuala made certain that the door was left partly ajar after Sinjin entered. She moved to the small window looking out over the garden and faced him again.

For a moment they simply stared at each other. “I know you have many questions for me, Lord Donnington,” she began, unable to bear the silence.

“Do you?” he asked. His gaze swept from her shoes to her hat. “Strange to be calling you Lady Charles. I should never have thought to see you in London. How quickly you’ve risen…Nola.”

“That name was a temporary one,” she said, refusing to be intimidated by his deceptively casual manner. “My true name is Nuala.”

“I remember.” He looked over her shoulder at the window, as if the view beyond it held some great fascination for him. “You left Donbridge very suddenly.”

“Yes.”

“I wonder why? What were you afraid of, Nuala?”

“My work at Donbridge was finished.”

“Your work.” His lips curved in a chilling smile. “The work that led you to deceive all of us. The work that resulted in my brother’s death.”

There would be no beating around the bush, no benefit of the doubt. Nuala closed her eyes, remembering how it had all begun—when her powers had called upon her to aid a young bride, Mariah Marron, wife of Sinjin’s elder brother Giles, the Earl of Donnington. A wife who had been left a virgin on her wedding night, for Giles had plans for her that few mortals could comprehend: he intended to deliver her to Cairbre, a lord of the Fane, the unearthly denizens of the Faerie realm Tir-na-Nog. Cairbre had intended to use Mariah, unknowingly part Fane herself, as a means of taking power from the rightful king of Tir-na-Nog.

In return for Mariah, Cairbre had promised to give the avid hunter Lord Donnington the greatest prize of all: the unicorn king known as Arion. But Cairbre quickly learned that Mariah could not be forced through the gate to Tir-na-Nog by one she did not love.

Arion, exiled to earth in human form, had been deceived into believing that he would be permitted to return to Tir-na-Nog only if he could win Mariah’s love and lead her through the gate. Lord Donnington had left his estate, Donbridge, immediately after his unconsummated wedding, intending to throw Mariah into Arion’s path and simultaneously removing any obstacle to their love.

But his plans had not gone as expected. Mariah had not only fallen in love with Arion, he—called Ash in the human world—had fallen in love with her. Nuala, who had posed as the maid Nola in hopes of helping them defeat the evil plans of Giles and Cairbre, had not foreseen the complications that would ensue. Giles’s mother, the dowager countess, had wished to break up her son’s marriage to Mariah. She had conspired with beautiful, blond Pamela, Lady Westlake—Sinjin’s mistress—who loved Lord Donnington and thought only of destroying Mariah. Pamela had used Sinjin, while setting out to ruin Mariah’s reputation in Society.

But no one, least of all Nuala, had anticipated that Giles would unexpectedly return to England, confront Ash and break his deal with Cairbre by claiming Mariah for himself. Or that, in the chaos that followed, Arion would prepare to sacrifice his life, Mariah would give up her freedom, and both Giles and Pamela would meet tragic ends because of their own hatred, jealousy and betrayal.

The guilt that surged in Nuala’s chest nearly choked her.

“I did not kill your brother,” she whispered.

“No. But his death could have been prevented. You could have stopped it.”

“I…” She paused to whisper an instinctive and surely useless spell meant to quiet her racing heart. Naturally it had no effect, neither on her profound discomfort nor on her physical awareness of Sinjin’s masculine power. “I did not have the ability to control or anticipate everything that happened,” she said. “My purpose was to—”

“Save Ash and Mariah. ‘They are destined to be together,’ you told me. What happened to anyone else was of no concern to you.”

Her fingers trembled. She hid them in her skirts. “That is not true, Lord Donnington. I merely observed for nearly the entire time Ash and Mariah were together. My powers—”

“Your powers.” His eyes were dark with unspoken pain. “You claimed they were fading. Yet you maintained your illusion for months. You traveled to Tir-na-Nog twice on Ash’s behalf…oh, yes, Mariah told me. You helped heal Ash when he was dying.”

“Nevertheless, I—”

“You instructed me to ride after Giles, to stop him from hunting Ash. You knew that Pamela had helped my brother and was willing to do anything to protect him, yet it never occurred to you to consider that she was mad.”