* * *
When Killiney and James rode out the next day, Elizabeth asked to go with them. ’Twas part of her scheme, the one she’d designed to speed things forward, and she didn’t mind at all when James refused her. At least he’d seen Elizabeth’s face. She’d gazed longingly at her love, obviously pining for his attention and making plain their intimate relations with nothing so much as the strength of her stare.
Not surprisingly, Killiney ignored her.
She waited until evening to confront him. In the very late hours she heard his music, and stealing downstairs, she meant to tell him of how the potion had arrived, for it had, just that night; it’d been brought in at supper whilst Killiney and James had been plotting and scheming.
Thus she stood against the music room wall, aching inside for the memory of his touch, when Killiney happened to glance up. His hands stilled at the keys. A mask of annoyance settled over his features. “Must you always be like a mouse, Lady Elizabeth?”
She wondered if she dared risk his anger, and yet, with his attention so shrewdly upon her, she’d no choice but to say something in reply. “I came to ask if James has given us his consent.”
Killiney’s eyes fell to the sheet music. “You assume I’ve asked for it.” As if he’d no thoughts for anything save music, he shuffled those pages attentively.
It took several seconds for his words to sink in. “So you’ve no intentions of marrying me?” She glared at him, letting the anger gather inside her. “You’d use me for…for bringing your precious angel and satisfying your base, bestial stupid needs as if I were your personal whore?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head, “No, I’ve treated you better than that. We were friends, you and I; Broughton need never have known as much.”
“So you did tell him? James knows about our intrigue?”
“Is that the word you use?” Taking up the notes again, he chuckled. “I’d say sex would be a more accurate term; or perhaps copulation, for the benefit of us both and in the interest of pleasure.”
Pleasure. The word stung her ears, cut into her heart like a well-worn knife. Playing the lightest of melodies, Killiney appeared not to notice as much, but this only enraged her further. “Does it not take love to feel such pleasure?” she asked, edging closer to the piano. “Didn’t you say that you loved me, my lord?”
Touching the highest notes in a flutter, he played on. “I did not,” he said quietly. “That I would remember.”
She couldn’t bear it then. Between his hands and the keys, she threw herself toward him, found courage enough in her agony to force his fingers away from his music. “But I saw it!” she cried. “I saw love in your eyes, you can’t deny that?”
“You saw respect, my Mary. You shan’t see it again.”
“Liar!” she shouted, and with the kisses he’d stolen raging in her heart, she lost all control. She attacked him, clawed at his face, screamed curses as foul as she’d ever heard. “Damnable Hibernian rake, you loved me! Forget the ruins, for I’ll never give you that potion now, and to hell with your angel—”
Killiney’s hands stilled. His jaw set into a dangerous line. His eyes, the colour of winter frost, narrowed upon her, and in the midst of her yelling, whilst she pummeled his shoulders with fists of hatred, he slammed his own down hard on the piano.
“Enough!” he snarled. Before she could step back, he’d seized her arm. He yanked her around and pushed her down, toward the candles where they’d toppled. “You will gain me passage to my angel,” he said, holding her near the guttering flames. “We’ll go to the Swaneton ruins tomorrow and you’ll say nothing to your brother, do you understand?”
She nodded, frightened.
Yet even though he held her so brutally, his voice betraying nothing of the whispers they’d shared, Elizabeth couldn’t help rejoicing when she realised what he’d said. He wanted the potion. He wanted her. They’d make love tomorrow, and whether in the ruins, for his angel or for any other reason, it could mean just one thing—that he cared for her still.
Eventually Killiney relented. He let her go, and when she fell wearily against his chest, felt his heart pounding next to hers, she knew the way he’d threatened her, the candles burning close, even the pain in her twisted arm, all of these things meant little in the end. There’s yet another chance, she thought, a second try to win him.
Raising a hand to steady her trembling, Killiney spoke softly. “You’re a wild creature, my Mary.” With a gentleness that shocked her, he stroked back the length of her raven-black hair. “Were things not as they are, indeed I might come to love you in time. I might.”