The White Spell (Nine Kingdoms #10)(39)
He was following her because he was—and he could hardly believe he was admitting it—worried about her.
But what else could he have done? Doghail had filled his ears full of all manner of tales about Fuadain’s treatment of her, told him in even more detail of Léirsinn’s interviews with her uncle at the end of every month, and then left him to consider what he could do about it. Short of turning the lord of the manor into a mushroom—he was seriously revisiting his need for a Cothromaichian spell of essence changing to make that sort of change permanent—he feared he was unfortunately quite powerless to aid her. That didn’t set well with him at all.
Concern. He shuddered delicately. Even his mother might have approved of the sentiment, which he knew should have made him very nervous indeed.
He rolled his shoulders as carefully as possible to ease the stiffness there. Whatever else that damned spot on the ground had done to him, it had left a lasting impression on his form. He didn’t dare hope that protecting Léirsinn and doing a robust bit of snooping would provide him with any answers as to what those shadows were, but stranger things had happened. He knew, because he had been the instigator of stranger things happening to others. That the like was coming back to bite him in the arse was rather unpleasant.
A year. He could hardly believe he’d agreed to a year in his current locale, a year without the basic necessities of life his magic could provide him. ’Twas utter madness, but there was a spell slinking along behind him doing its own impression of a burglar that told him the madness was going to be his to enjoy for quite some time to come.
Oh, the retribution he would exact . . .
He forced his attentions back to the mischief at hand. No one ventured forth from any of the chambers he knew were occupied, which was something of a frustration. His disembodied companion didn’t offer any suggestions, which left him, as usual, the only one in the area with any decent ideas. He leaned back against the wall and suppressed a sigh. Reduced to putting his ear against a door. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d stooped so low.
He paused. Very well, he could remember with perfect clarity the last time he’d donned black, slid tools for the picking of locks into his pocket, and scaled the outer walls of an impenetrable fortress in an utterly magickless fashion in order not to set off any alarms put in place for just such a lad as he, but perhaps that was a memory better left unexamined at present. In the end, he’d managed to get himself inside the place, had an unfortunate encounter with the lord of the hall in that lord’s private study, then barely escaped—eventually—with his life. Again, a rumination better left for a more comfortable locale.
At present, he was safely inside another man’s domain and that man was nothing more than an annoying gnat compared to what he’d faced in the past. There was mischief afoot and the pretentions of a minor lord in a backwater hellhole weren’t going to keep him from finding out what he wanted to know.
He glanced at the butler he’d left sitting, quite senseless, in a comfortable-looking window seat. He’d appropriated the man’s jacket without compunction, a jacket which of course didn’t fit his fine form as it would have if he’d been able to do a bit of altering on the fly, as it were. At least he’d done the old fellow the courtesy of clipping him under the chin before he pilfered his coat instead of simply ripping it off him and daring him to do anything about it. Acair suspected the man would wake with something of a headache, which was likely less than he deserved. Perhaps he would think twice before he was rude again to a stable lass who didn’t deserve that sort of treatment.
He sighed at his seemingly uncontrollable instinct to display chivalry where Léirsinn was concerned, then took up a tray topped by a decanter of port and a trio of crystal glasses. He considered the possibilities, then turned and headed down the passageway as if he knew where he was going.
His first stop was the room Léirsinn had first exited. He knocked, waited, then decided perhaps the libations were more desperately needed than he might have thought. He opened the door, then peeked inside the chamber.
He almost dropped his tray in surprise.
Very well, so the very quiet conversation he’d utterly failed at making out between Léirsinn and the chamber’s occupant had been rather one-sided. He was sure he’d distinctly heard her call the man grandfather. It wasn’t possible that man lying there before the fire was the man she’d been talking to, was it?
He moved inside the chamber, set his tray down on a handy side table, then closed the door behind him. He found himself quite at a loss for words, which was alarming in and of itself. What he was seeing was the last thing he’d expected.
Léirsinn’s grandsire, if that’s who that was, was completely incapacitated.
Acair glanced about the chamber and was genuinely surprised by how shabby it was. These were servants’ quarters, surely not worthy of use by the lord of the hall’s father. He frowned thoughtfully as he walked across the threadbare carpet to have a closer look at the lone occupant.
The old man was lying on a chaise in front of the fire, wrapped in blankets, scarce breathing. He seemingly couldn’t even move his eyes, though he did occasionally blink. Acair thought it best to offer some sort of assurance.
“I mean you no harm—”
Ah, hell and damnation. He leapt back across the chamber and had his tray back up in his hands before the door finished opening. It was Léirsinn’s uncle, Lord Fuadain. The man looked at him with a surprise that wasn’t of a pleased sort.