Court's jaw clenched, and he gave him the look his comment deserved.
Llorente appeared surprised. "I apologize if I offended, but you are a mercenary."
The man wasn't going to give up until Court hit him again, which he could no longer do. He would give his explanation, and if Llorente scoffed, then he'd have tried.
"See this book? This is why I will no' marry her." He opened it to the last page and stabbed his finger against it.
Llorente advanced to the table, skimmed over the lines, then faced him with an expression of astonishment. "You believe you're cursed?"
Court sank back in his chair. "The things it says have all come to pass."
"Like what?" he asked, his tone almost amused.
"It says that none of us will have children and none of us ever have."
"Your brothers believe this, too?"
"Aye."
"Then it's a bloody good thing you can't have children, because lunacy obviously runs in your family. My God, my Andorran grandmother wasn't this superstitious."
He looked disgusted and Court couldn't blame him. Court had looked the same way until they'd found their father dead.
"And your father? I suppose his thread was cut?"
"Within a day of our reading the lines."
But Llorente was hardly listening to him. "This is why you didn't marry her before we arrived?" He snatched up the book, as if to hurl it. He froze, slowly turning his face to his outstretched hand. He placed the book down as though it were as delicate as eggshell. Then crossed himself. "Return to the page."
When Court leaned forward and did, Llorente read again, his expression growing more furious. "There's blood there."
"A warring clan stole the book hoping to cripple us. There was a battle to get it back."
"You don't know what it says? Have you tried to wash it - ?"
"The blood will no' be lifted."
Llorente shook his head. "But what it says could be heartening."
Court let out a breath. "Or it could be worse."
Llorente's eyes narrowed. "Yesterday. Do you think that was...?"
"Do I believe Anna was crawling through an assassin's blood in the gutter last night because of my fate? Maybe, maybe no'. But I will no' risk the scarcest chance." Whenever that image of Anna arose in his mind, he struggled to replace it with an image of the future he would ensure she had. He saw her safe in warm Spain, among her own people, with golden-skinned children playing about her skirts. "She will be free of them and free of me."
Llorente glared at the book, read it again. His face was tight when he turned to him. "Then you must swear it."
Court hesitated, then finally nodded. "Aye, my word. Let me finish my tasks first, and I'll never have to see her again."
Chapter Thirty-four
"These are eggs?" Olivia asked Annalía again as she poked at them on her plate. Eggs shouldn't move as these did. She leaned down to peer at them at eye level. "They don't look like eggs."
Olivia glanced up to see the chit put her hand over her mouth. Her face was turning green again. If Annalía didn't eat something soon and keep it down, Olivia might have to do something drastic.
She could just see herself confessing to Aleix that Annalía grew ill on her watch. For some reason before he'd gone, Aleix had taken Olivia aside - not Ethan, not Erskine, not a stranger from the street - and asked her to take care of Annalía. She'd stared at him for long moments, wondering what he really was asking her, wondering if he was jesting, then realized he actually expected her to protect his sister. "How have you been living off this stuff?" Olivia pushed her breakfast tray away. "I haven't tasted a single spice since we got to Britain."
Annalía sat at the headboard of her bed, still in her dressing gown, knees drawn to her chest. "MacCarrick often sent out for food for me. He always knew what I liked." And there went the bottom lip trembling.
Olivia smiled pleasantly. "After I marry your brother, I will have the kitchen stocked with spices. Expensive ones." She picked up a book from the stack she'd plundered from the library downstairs, licked her thumb, and flipped through with desultory flicks of her wrist. "And we'll get a Spanish chef who knows how to use them. And who will sing opera."
Annalía's eyes narrowed. "I know what you're doing. Even as my mind refuses to believe it. Every time I want to cry you say something to provoke me."
Yes, Olivia had been doing that among other things. For Aleix, she was keeping his little sister from going mad or getting sick. When Annalía had woken that first morning and run downstairs, searching frantically for MacCarrick and her brother, Olivia had patiently explained that they'd left early, ready to get this fight won.
"Did MacCarrick leave me a message?" Annalía asked.
"He told me to tell you that they would be through in a few weeks. And that Ethan would see us down when it is safe," Olivia had answered, veering from the truth. Llorente had told her that; MacCarrick had given no such assurance or message. When Olivia had asked MacCarrick if there was anything he'd like to relate - and yes, she'd asked - he'd only grated, "Olivia, if you are unkind to her in any way..."
So ever since they'd gone, Olivia had hedged the truth - and met every sign of tears with snide comments and crude observations. Yet she could only stem the tide for so long, and even now Annalía's eyes watered.
Olivia slammed the book flat on the table. "That is one thing I'm not looking forward to - a watering pot for a sister. The embarrassment of it!"
"How would you feel?" Annalía demanded. "The man I love was letting me go, though I thought we would be together. I'd just found out he'd given Aleix to Pascal. I was nearly murdered. Then MacCarrick left me without saying good-bye!"
"One more time - your brother would be dead right now if MacCarrick hadn't put him away, and MacCarrick never lied to you about that. He merely omitted, a tactic I know well and use whenever I feel that I'm getting just shy of hellbound. Say good-bye? He was with you the entire night before he left. I'm sure he said quite a few things" - she raised her eyebrows accusingly at Annalía - "yet it's his fault you weren't awake to hear them?"
"He could have left me a letter."
"Now you're just being silly. He's a mercenary - he's not going to go about penning love letters, and really, what would he write? 'Anna...love you...grrr?'"
Annalía ignored the last. "I just wish I could remember that night! It's all so confusing. And I feel awful - I never feel awful." She clasped her forehead. "How can you stand the bloody worry?"
Olivia slid her nail file across the tabletop to drop it in her palm, then leisurely filed. "Oh, I'm not worried about your brother."
"What?" Annalía swung her head around, her undone hair whipping to the side.
"MacCarrick will look out for him. To please you." Olivia wasn't fearful for Llorente in the least. MacCarrick? She gave him a one in two chance. "I'm confident he'll be safe."
"MacCarrick would do that, wouldn't he?..." She sniffed.
"Annalía, don't you dare - "
"You would cry in my position!"
"No, I emphatically would not. I'd scrounge something to eat in this blasted British house, and I'd take care of myself so that when I saw him again I wouldn't be skin and bones with eyes red from crying. And if I had questions about MacCarrick that couldn't wait, and I was stuck in a house rife with answers, I'd find them."
"What do you mean?"
"The servants. Servants know everything."
"I tried! Courtland often said a Gaelic phrase to me, and it signified something important - I know it - but when I repeated it to Erskine and the cook and the maids and the footmen no one would translate it for me."
Olivia snorted. "I wouldn't have taken 'no' for an answer."
Annalía glared. "Should I have held them down and poured boiling water over them until they talked? Really, I'd like your expert advice."
Olivia rolled her eyes. "Of course not. You would use boiling oil."
In a sighing voice, Annalía asked, "Why are you being so nice to me?"
Take it back, Olivia almost sputtered. "I'm not being nice to you, I'm acting nice to you. Your brother seems to think I can behave appropriately to certain people." She began filing her nails again. Annalía had told her that they'd be more attractive if she didn't file them so sharply, and she'd cast her a long-suffering look. A woman's nails had nothing to do with attraction. "I'm merely testing Llorente's theory."