Stealing Midnight. Tracy MacNishЧитать онлайн книгу.
all, you only inquired as to whom I render my worship, the Lord or the Devil. I assure you, sir, the only spirits I consort with are of the distilled variety, though ’tis rare, and always in secret.”
Aidan nearly laughed, and though it came in response to his speaking so out of turn, he appreciated her ready wit.
“Truly, I am sorry,” he said, and shrugged his shoulders. “Forgive me, but I have awoken in a most unusual circumstance, naked, wounded, weak, and without an idea where I am and how I got here. To be told ’twas the work of gravediggers isn’t exactly easing to the mind, aye? I cannot help but wonder why men are bringing you corpses, and why you brought me here.”
Aidan watched those fair cheeks of hers turn pink, her gray eyes flinty, and knew that he was touching on a subject as tender as a bruise. He avoided asking all but the most pointed question plaguing him, for his legs were sapped of strength and his heart pounded with the exertion of being upright. “Please, Olwyn, forgive all my many impertinences and tell me this: what year is it?”
Her soft mouth turned up slightly on one side. The witch faded, and in her place stood a young woman, tender with concern. “Have you lost memory, Lóchrann?”
“Aye. No. Not exactly, I don’t think.” Aidan scrubbed his face with his hand and shrugged his shoulders again. The wintry air made him shiver, but it cleared his head.
He liked the way she called him by his name, and not by formal address. It was unpretentious, uncomplicated. Intimate.
Olwyn approached him. She reached out, as if she would touch him, as if touching him had become natural to her, but then seemed to think better of it. She dropped her hand. “You are cold.”
“I am.”
“You should go inside, lie down in front of the fire.”
“Tell me first.”
A slight crease formed between her brows. “’Tis 1806. Now, please, go lie down and get warm.”
Regret and relief swamped him in strange emotions. Yes, he would see his family again, and no, he was not lost in a different world where he knew no one. He was still betrothed to Mira, would wed, and give his parents grandchildren.
But the regrets were just as strong. He was Aidan Mullen, and not Lóchrann. He was not going to disappear into a new life with this woman. He would go home and resume his business, his courtship, and see to his future.
Why, he wondered, should that seem disappointing?
“Is that not what you expected?” she asked, studying his expression intently. “What year did you think it to be?”
“Your garb. This shelter. I thought perhaps…” he trailed off, unwilling to admit to something so impossibly absurd.
“My garb?” Her cheeks flushed.
“I have not seen its like, is all. I meant no offense. Perhaps ’tis the fashion in Wales?” he said lamely, hating himself for sounding so insipid. He added, “You look lovely in it. It suits you.”
Olwyn ran her hands over her gown, and her face reflected her emotions, shame, sadness, and weary dignity. “I make my own garments. I am not a skilled enough seamstress to manage anything more intricate than these. I copied their lines from old gowns found in the back of my mother’s wardrobe, and altered the gowns that were still serviceable to fit my frame.” She lifted her chin in an age-old expression of defiance. “I am far too poor to concern myself with what is fashionable, and I’ve done my best to outfit myself with what meager talents and fabrics I possess.”
An awkward silence filled the space between them.
“If you are so much a fool that you do not know better than to take shelter from the cold, I can see how you’re so easily confused by outmoded garments,” she said finally, her tone betraying her wounded feminine pride.
Olwyn brushed past him and went indoors. She busied herself with tending the fire, leaving Aidan to stand there in the doorway.
He was a fool. The cold had him shivering, his skin pebbled with gooseflesh. He ignored the physical discomfort, immersed as he was in a welter of confounding feelings. He realized he was fascinated and uncomfortable and intrigued. Out of his element, out of his depth.
Following that notion, he discovered that for all the odd circumstance, unanswered questions, and his own physical weakness, he’d never felt more alive.
Chapter Seven
Chester, England
A slow, soft rain fell over the people who huddled before a stone crypt, pattering on the slate roof and dribbling down into little gullies that formed tiny muddy moats amid tussocks of grass. The earth smelled fertile and freshly turned, and the gray sky felt closely oppressive. Above them, perched on the bare, knotted arm of a tree, was a huge black buzzard, its volant wings extended in the manner of a raptor mantling its kill. The great bird watched the group as if waiting for them to open the door and reveal the bounty of carrion within.
Padraig Mullen stood without an umbrella or hat, ignoring the wetness. “Open it.”
The officials who’d accompanied him hunched underneath their umbrellas, and the one who bore the key to the crypt put up one final fight. “My lord, it is like to be ghastly by now. He’s many days dead, and will not bear the look of himself. I warn you once more—this is a sight best unseen by loved ones, and the stench is likely to make you lose your belly.”
“I’m likely to lose my temper.” Padraig turned a hard stare on the man. “I’ll see my brother, and if ’tis him, I’ll take him home for a proper burial.”
The man fumbled for the key, and as he inserted it and turned the lock, he muttered, “Seal’s been broken again, John.”
He pulled the heavy, creaking iron door open, and out rolled a wave of musty, putrid smells, mold and dust and rotted skin all together. A few of the men coughed.
Padraig stepped inside. Small motes of dusty light fell over two empty slabs, and a pile of garments were piled haphazardly between them. Bending to inspect the clothes, he saw they were torn in places. As he lifted a shirt that was finely crafted enough to have been Aidan’s, a few buttons fell to the slate floor, and a thin gold chain slithered from the bottom, landing on Padraig’s shoe.
He picked it up, turned, and faced the men who sheepishly stood in the doorway. Violence seethed in Padraig’s blood, and he wished for a sword in his hand, a pistol in the other. But holding to the control that had been as ingrained in them as their honor, Padraig remained calm. He held the gleaming gold chain up for their inspection. “I wear the match to this. ’Twas a gift from our parents.”
“The resurrection men,” one of the officials spluttered. “They are a scourge! A blight!”
Padraig noticed that the night watchman hung back, his eyes turned away from the accusingly empty slabs.
He tightened his hand on the shirt, wringing it the way he wanted to wring the necks of the men who goggled at him.
“You there,” Padraig said to the watchman, hearing the snarl in his own voice. He didn’t care. “You have three seconds to tell me who took my brother’s body.”
The watchman made a sound in his throat that burbled like a croaking groan. His eyes darted wildly. “I didna see nothing! I was ill that night, shittin’ in the privy!”
“Two seconds left.”
The man’s gaze slid up and down Padraig’s form, and he seemed to suddenly notice that the officials had stepped away from him, leaving him to his own defenses. He held up his hands. “I’ve got a family, me lord.”
“One.” Padraig’s lips flattened and he closed the gap between them. Looking down on the watchman, he could smell the stingingly sharp scent of his sweat. The man’s pupils dilated, and his breath left him with an odorous whoosh.
Padraig