Lifting her chin, Eithne wiped invisible grime from her deep burgundy cloak. “Why, Lady Aveen. What a surprise meeting you here,” she tittered. “I didn’t know Dame Meranda carried farm equipment.”
“Oh, Lady Eithne, you are too funny.” She needed some new insults. That one was getting old. “My sister’s birthday is next week. I came to check on her new dress.” Not that it was any of her business.
“Can you afford such luxuries? The shop down the road has less of a selection, but their prices are far more reasonable.”
Was she implying my family had no money? We may not be as rich as she was now that she’d married a living corpse, but we were still well off.
I wanted to shove her off the top step and watch her land in one of the many puddles, ruining her diamond-encrusted slippers. Instead, I smiled and said, “Thank you. I’ll bear that in mind next time.”
Her thin eyebrows arched toward her peaked hairline. “How is your darling sister? I hear Robert Trench has been calling to your manor quite often of late.” The fan at her wrist banged against her forearm as she tapped her chin with a gloved hand. “Does she mind that the two of you have a history?”
When I stiffened, her lips lifted, revealing slightly crooked bottom teeth. “Oh, this is delightful! Keelynn doesn’t know, does she?”
I caught her by the wrist, prepared to beg. My mouth opened, the plea on my tongue . . .
And yet no words emerged. I just . . . I couldn’t. If she had been anyone else, I would’ve grovelled. But not with her. She knew of my past mistakes, that the life I pretended to live was a lie.
I refused to give her the satisfaction of holding this over my head when I had something in my own arsenal to keep her quiet. “Does your husband knowyoursecret?” I said under my breath.
Eithne’s eyes flashed. “Darling, would you mind if I took a turn with Lady Aveen?” she threw over her shoulder to her husband. “We haven’t seen one another in ages, and it would be nice to catch up.”
“Of course, pet. Take all the time you need.” He gave a nod before limping toward the pub four buildings over.
Eithne’s nails dug into my arm as she steered me into the alley between Dame Meranda’s and a brick townhouse. Broken glass crunched beneath my boots. The stench of stale alcohol burned my nostrils.
“How dare you speak to me like that in front of my husband,” Eithne hissed. “I don’t know what secret you think you know, but you’d do well to mind your tongue—and your own bloody business.”
I had been minding my own bloody business. She had been the one to antagonize me. “And you’d do well to not plan trysts with strange men in sheds.”
Beneath her makeup, her cheeks paled. She flicked her fan, bringing it up to cover the lower half of her face. “You spoke to Oisin, didn’t you?”
I smiled. “I did.”
Cursing under her breath, she fanned harder, the curls at her temples swaying. “And what did he tell you?”
I dragged my gaze from her too-tight chignon to the heavy pink purse at her tiny waist and the sparkling slippers on her feet, leaving the silence to do my work for me. “What do you think?”
The fan snapped closed. “How do you plan on using this information?”
All I wanted was for her to keep her mouth shut about Robert and me.
She jabbed me with her fan. Hard. “Are you truly so desperate for funds that you would blackmail me? I’ll have you know I only receive a small allowance every week.”
A small allowance? The purse at her waist had to be at least twice as full as my own.
“Oh, please. I’m hardly going to blackmail you,” I snorted, rolling my eyes for good measure. Still, while I had her there, I may as well use her to quench my thirst for answers. “I simply want to know more about yourgood friendOisin.”
She poked me again. “And why is that, pious Aveen? Did the handsome fae catch your eye?”
The man was fae? That couldn’t be right. I’d read that the fae of Airren had pointed ears. The man’s ears had been rounded like mine.
“Don’t be absurd.” He’d done more than catch my eye. He’d wheedled himself into my brain like an enchanted weevil.
“Someone is lying,” she said in singsong,jab-jab-jabbingmy shoulder with her fan. “He is rather dazzling, isn’t he? And you should see what he can do with that tongue. He is quite wicked, indeed.”
Imagining the two of them together left my stomach in knots. How would she feel if I slapped the smirk from her face?
She looked down her nose at me as if I were beneath her, a queen to a peasant. “Although I doubt he’d be interested in a woman with the passion of an icicle.”