One word summed it all:álainn. Beautiful.
Bridget wished she could say she was not impressed, but it would be a lie. She did, however, know a deep and abiding guilt at her surroundings when Cullen was clapped in gaol, enduring Lord knew what manner of conditions.
A gentle knock sounded on the door then, shaking her from her reverie. The duke never knocked, which meant she had a different guest altogether.
“Enter,” she called, as if she were required to give permission as a prisoner, which she knew she was not.
The sound of a key being fitted into the lock reached her, one more reminder she was at the mercy of the Duke of Carlisle, a man who—if John was to be believed—possessed none. But the person on the other side of the door when it opened was the furthest one could reasonably get from the duke. A petite, golden-haired beauty came barreling over the threshold in a magnificent violet silk gown. Her face and her midsection appeared fuller than the last time Bridget had seen her.
Her American half sister, Daisy.
“Bridget!” Daisy’s arms opened.
And though Bridget had never been the sort for shows of affection, having received so little of it herself all her life, she found herself in need of an embrace. She met Daisy halfway across the chamber, returning her embrace as best she could with her healing wound. It had been a year or more since they had last crossed paths in London, and that meeting had not been a pleasant one.
Daisy had come to inform her of her imminent wedding to the Duke of Trent. Bridget had panicked. She had returned to Ireland, only to regret her decision. For all too soon, Cullen had become implicated in the plots against the Chief Secretary for Ireland.
Much had happened to both Daisy and Bridget, it seemed, in that time. The reason for her sister’s rounder cheeks and midsection made itself known to her as a full belly bumped against hers.
“Daisy.” She jerked back, searching Daisy’s gaze. “You are having a babe?”
Her sister smiled, tears glistening in her eyes. “Yes, and I will soon be as large as a milk cow. But that is neither here nor there. What does matter is you, Bridget. Where have you been? I was so very worried about you.”
Bridget attempted a smile and failed. “I have been in Dublin and London and Oxfordshire and everywhere in between. But how did you know to find me here, and why have you come?”
“The Duke of Carlisle sent for me.” Daisy’s gaze scoured her face, as if hardly daring to believe she was real. “I thought it was a dream. You have no idea how hard we looked for you, how terrified I was that something ill had befallen you.”
“I am sorry for worrying you,” she said truthfully, shame filling her heart. Though she did not know her half sister very well, she wondered not for the first time if she had misjudged her.
Though they shared a father, they had precious little else in common. Daisy was the legitimate product of their father’s marriage to an American woman, and had been raised accordingly in the home of one of the wealthiest men in America. A princess in her castle.
None of that wealth had been offered to aid Bridget, his illegitimate child. Bridget’s mother had worked in a tavern, sometimes selling her body for bread, until she had found Sean O’Malley, a man who had used his fists far more than his brain or his heart. He had given Bridget his last name and more bruises than she cared to count over the years. But he had also given her Cullen, the brother she adored.
“I amstillworried for you,” Daisy said then, her tone serious. “Carlisle has been typically guarded with the information he would provide, but he was clear you have been abetting the Fenians. Tell me it isn’t true, Bridget.”
Bridget wanted to deny it, but she stared at her sister’s big, bright eyes so like her own. And for the first time since she had last laid eyes on Cullen, she felt as if she were in the presence of someone who cared for her. Truly cared for her. Someone who cared was more rare and difficult to procure than gold.
So instead, she asked the question that had been eating her alive. “Did he say what is to become of me?”
“What is yournext move?”
Leo sat opposite Sebastian, the Duke of Trent, in his study.
“Hell if I know, Trent.” And then he picked up the tumbler of whisky he had told himself he would not drink and drained it to the dregs in three burning gulps. With great effort, he controlled his features, keeping himself from coughing.Damnation, this bottle of spirits had more bite than he had recalled.
Trent had once been one of Leo’s most trusted men. Until he had fallen in love with the American heiress he had been assigned to watch for Fenian connections and had withdrawn himself from service. That lady was currently on the floor above, entrusted with the keys to Miss Bridget O’Malley’s chamber.
It had gone against the grain for Leo, particularly since he had at one time suspected the duchess of colluding with the Fenians herself. Her innocence had been proven, but Leo thrived on control, that which could be given and that which could be taken away. The dichotomy never failed to stir him, both in ways it should, and in ways it should not.
“You are keeping Miss O’Malley in the duchess’s chamber,” Trent pointed out unnecessarily, taking a slow, gentlemanly sip of his own whisky.
Yes. He was.
Was it wrong?
Yes.
Did he need to keep the troublesome banshee in a location near to him so he could monitor her?
