Page 52 of Savage Blooms (Unearthly Delights #1)
CHAPTER THIRTY
Eileen
Eileen poured herself a snifter of brandy to warm her bones and her disposition while the other three chatted.
Finley was considerably more pleasant since his conversation with Adam; now he was lingering close to where Nicola was sitting in an armchair and saying something soft near her ear.
Nicola smiled at him, a sunshiny smile without a hint of malice.
Eileen swallowed the last of her generous pour, shifting from foot to foot on the parlor rug. She wanted to integrate herself somehow into their private world of gentleness, but she didn’t understand how to. She never had.
Eileen knew she wasn’t easy to live with, and that she was harder to love. She couldn’t blame Finley for taking his comfort where he could find it.
“So,” Adam said, swirling the brandy around in his glass. He was sitting cross-legged on the parlor couch, looking boyish in his stockinged feet. “Faeries. The way I see it, continuing to deny the possibility is actually the least rational thing to do.”
“Oh, thank God,” Nicola said. “I was getting tired of watching you hem and haw about it.”
“A near-death experience will put the fear of the fae in a man,” Finley muttered.
“If these things are after me, I’d like to understand them better,” Adam said. “And I’d like to better understand how I fit into Eileen’s family’s story.”
“That sounds sensible,” Finley offered. He sat down on the rug at Nicola’s feet, and she raked her fingers idly through his curls. Eileen couldn’t fathom Finley bending so easily for her, handing over control without a fight.
“Let’s take it from the top,” Adam said. “What do we know?”
“Faeries are real, and they aren’t very nice,” Nicola said, propping her dimpled chin in her free hand.
“Nothing groundbreaking there. They’re locked in some kind of blood feud with Eileen’s family, which also includes Adam, since Adam’s grandfather was Eileen’s grandmother’s adopted brother.
Jury’s out on the why and the when of that. ”
“I’m still trying to figure out why they went after me,” Adam said. “Eileen and I aren’t related by blood. Doesn’t that matter?”
“What you’ve got to understand is that those creatures are ancient,” Eileen replied, finally breaking her silence.
“They’ve been alive since the time when a man’s name was one of the only things he had in the world.
And trust me, they give those who are adopted into the family just as much hell as they give those who are born into it.
DNA doesn’t matter to them. You’re a Kirkfoyle. ”
“That doesn’t sound as romantic as it did a few days ago,” Adam muttered. “So I’m walking around with a target on my back, is that it?”
“For the time being, yes. It’s probably safest for you not to stray too far from the house, at least not unaccompanied.”
Adam tensed, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “But I can’t just stay here under house arrest for ever. What if I want to go into town? What if I want to leave? What if…?” He trailed off, gnawing his lower lip until it was cherry-red.
Eileen didn’t know Adam as well as she ought to, but she knew that he had spent most of his adult life flitting from country to country, never staying in one place long enough to become bored or panicked by the feeling of being tied down.
He was a wanderer by nature, which made the Kirkfoyle name branded on his skin no better than a death sentence.
He would waste away if she kept him here, just like the Kirkfoyles before him who had gone mad from their confinement.
Eileen wished there was any other way. For one fleeting moment, she almost felt like she could be good enough to let him go, if she acted very quickly. But then the reality of her situation settled back in again, heavy and dark as a stormcloud, and she resigned herself to their shared fate.
“In the old stories, there’s always a way out of a faery bargain,” Nicola said.
“It might not be very comfortable, and it might require cunning or even deceit, but it’s possible.
You’ve been living under this curse your whole life, Eileen.
Surely there’s some kind of loophole in the treaty we could exploit so Adam could leave safely? ”
Eileen opened her mouth and closed it again. The truth was welling up inside her, gathering in the back of her throat like bile. Her stomach churned. She hadn’t been very hungry for days now, and it was getting harder to deny that it was because she, on some level, felt convicted of her sins.
There was a loophole, she knew damn well.
The only one she ever had been able to find in all her years of searching, the one she may never have found if she hadn’t stumbled across it pressed between the pages of the journal stored in the floorboards beneath her bed.
But if she told Adam now, everything would shatter. She had to wait.
Soon. She would tell him soon, and she would deal with the consequences then. But not yet.
“Adam, you’re free to go wherever you please,” Eileen lied.
No need to use force to keep him here unless it was absolutely necessary.
The illusion of freedom would work just as well.
“As long as there’s one Kirkfoyle living in this house, Craigmar is safe.
They haven’t been able to kill me yet. This is my cross to carry, cousin. Not yours.”
“You can’t just say that,” Adam replied. “I’ve seen things here that I can never forget, we all have. I can’t just go back to freelancing out of my studio in Michigan, not after I’ve finally found proof of all my grandfather’s stories, and I found you, and…”
Adam’s voice trailed off, betraying the tender sentiment that had taken root in his heart like an invasive plant, and Eileen stared at him in horror.
No one could care for her that quickly. Not even when she was wearing her friendliest mask and offering herself up in every sexual scenario imaginable and pretending to be good, to be kind.
No one who got close to her could love her that quickly, not even Finley, who had become inoculated to her poison over time just as she had learned to work around his thorns.
Adam gathered himself, soldiering forward.
“I’ve been waiting my whole life to make it out here and, to be perfectly honest, I care about everyone in this room, maybe more than I should. I can’t just leave.”
When this whole affair had started, she had done a very good job of constantly reminding herself that Adam was here for a purpose, and that he didn’t have to like her, and that she didn’t have to like him either.
But something about his earnestness had worn away at the defenses she had built so carefully around her humanity, and now the guilt was starting to bleed in.
She did like Adam Lancaster. She liked his easy smile and the way he talked with his hands and the way he somehow had enough room in his heart for her and Nicola both.
She liked his ferocious curiosity, and how he approached the world with a mixture of hardline reason and awe.
She liked him, goddamnit, and that was never supposed to happen.
“Then you’re just as doomed as I am,” she said, swallowing down the softness that was threatening to burst from within her. Softness had never served her, and it wasn’t about to start now.
“Have you considered a more aggressive approach?” he asked. “What about walling up the cave with rocks?”
“We tried that in the eighteenth century,” Eileen said. “The boulders mysteriously came loose during the night and rolled down the hill towards the house, damaging the east wing.”
“What about negotiating the contract?” Nicola asked. “Has anyone ever tried that?”
“Yes, a Kirkfoyle tried in the 1920s. He went out to the cave with every mind to make peace and was never heard from again.”
“Nobody inside that cave has any interest in peace,” Finley said.
“Why should they?” Eileen scoffed. “Legend has it they live for centuries. Why lift a finger to make amends when they can just wait my family out while we drop like flies?”
A somber atmosphere settled over the room, and Eileen glowered down at her hands. Suddenly, Adam slapped his thighs and shot to his feet, as though he couldn’t bear to sit for a moment longer.
“I need air, and I need to think. I’m going into town.”
“Not alone you aren’t,” Eileen said. “Finley, you’re with him.”
“I don’t need a chaperone,” Adam replied.
“Regardless, it’s too dangerous for you to wander around alone. Do you really want to face whatever bit you out at the cave, or whatever grabbed you in the loch, again, alone? They can cause you plenty of distress without touching you, iron ring or no.”
Adam fell silent at that.
“I need to stretch my legs anyway,” Finley said, pulling himself to his feet. “And I won’t say no to a porter from the pub. Adam, mind some company?”
“Not if you buy the first round,” Adam said, arching a playful eyebrow. Finley smiled back, and Eileen once again noticed the way the air between them sometimes warmed, heated by barely hidden flirtation.
“Godspeed,” she said, surrendering herself to whatever the night may hold. “And good luck.”