Harry woke to the sound of children outside his window. It had been a late, fruitless night, with everybody they could gather scouring the grounds in an effort to locate the bloody diamond. They’d had no better luck than Harry had had out in the gardens. In fact, the only thing Harry had collected had been a massive headache and an even bigger erection.
He’d had the dream again, over and over, until he’d tried to sit up the rest of the night to avoid it. And it wasn’t the violence of the dream that frightened him this time—although it did frighten him and the more often he had the damn thing, the worse it got. But this time, the woman he’d stalked, the woman he’d tied down and taken over and over until he’d fallen exhausted over her damp, limp torso, had been Sorcha.
He couldn’t get the image out of his head. Her full, ripe breasts laid bare with the ripping of her fairy costume, her golden hair sweat-soaked and tangled. Her lips red and moist and parted, her eyes wide and dark, her arousal turning inexorably to fear as the dream wore on to its inevitable conclusion.
And his own satisfaction at the results.
He wondered if his grandmother had any sleeping pills. If she did, he was damn well going to ensure a quiet night tonight. He simply couldn’t bear much more of this.
And now he had to get up and start the search again for that bloody diamond or have to face his grandmother with his failure. Harry was well acquainted with failure. It didn’t mean it got any more pleasant.
At least Phyl was back. He could use her good sense right now. He could use a buffer between him and that fairy child he’d stumbled over.
More images assaulted him: her twirling in her mad dance in the fairy grove; her wrapped around him as if trying to climb right inside him, as he’d fallen with her onto the bed he’d sneaked out there. Him pawing at her as if he needed nothing more than the feel of her skin to survive.
He didn’t need to tell her that he was the one who kept up that little hall in the fairy glade, that some days it was the only place where he could sleep—especially lately. She would only read something more into it than the fact that in that little hall he was away from all the pressures of the great house. She would think it meant something.
After grabbing a quick shower, he dressed and headed down for breakfast and a report from Sims on their progress. Blessedly, Phyl was there before him.
“Why do I miss all the fun?” she demanded when she saw him.
Clad in her ubiquitous riding pants, boots and worn-out sweater, Phyl was everything his grandmother wasn’t. Tall, lithe, athletic and just a bit horse-faced, hers was the body that went with his grandmother’s commanding voice. Phyl had been cursed with a funny, whispery soprano that he sometimes swore only horses and her children could hear.
He bent to buss her cheek and give her a swat on the arse. “Can I help it if all the fairy children like me best?”
Phyl’s long face lit with delight. “She’s a pip, isn’t she?”
“So you’ve met her already?”
Phyl laughed, and Harry thought of leaves rustling in the wind, which just made him shake his head. Poetry now. Damn that girl…
“I walked in to find her twirling around the main salon singing something in Gaelic,” Phyl said. “When I asked her what she was doing, she said she was celebrating her people. She seems to find our murals familiar. Something about her world but not her home, whatever that means. Bea and Theo are introducing her to the horses.”
Harry groaned. “Great. I was hoping I could avoid that.”
Phyl raised a wry eyebrow. “You think she’s a horse thief?”
“I think she’ll convince your children that she’s a fairy, and they’ll want to keep her. Like a pet.”
“She is a pet, Harry. I can’t wait for Lilly to meet her. She’ll adopt her.”
“Lilly adopts everyone.”
As if called, a piping voice echoed down the stairwells. “Ha-a-a-a-r-r-r-y!”
Harry spun around to see Phyl’s nurse descending the steps with a pudgy, blond four-year-old in her arms. His heart melted into a gooey puddle, just as it did every time he saw his niece.
“Hello, my piglet!” he called out to her as he walked to meet them. “Where’ve you been?”
“Harry, Harry, Harry!” she crooned, proud of her ability to pronounce R’s. Her flat little hands were out to him, her round face radiant with delight.
Harry caught her up in his arms and buried his face in her baby-soft neck. “Lilly, Lilly, Lilly,” he sang back, just to hear her chortle.
She yanked on his hair so he would look at her. Then she gave him a smacking kiss on his cheek. “’Lo, Harry.”
“’Lo, Lilly.”
“What about the diamond, Harry?” Phyl asked, as they walked toward the kitchen. “Any luck?”
“The only luck we’ve had so far is that the press hasn’t found out about it. Be a tough go opening the house to visitors without the main attraction, now, wouldn’t it?”
“And if you don’t find it?”
He shrugged. “I’ll find some way to duplicate it. Not one person’s going to know the difference.”
“Until some real fairy shows up and shouts fraud.”
Harry snorted. “I’d love to see the charges. ‘My lord, this hunk of quartz doesn’t hum.’”
They’d just made it into the big kitchen when the outside door slammed open and two more towheads careened in, followed at a slower pace by Sorcha.
“You’re in your bare feet again,” Harry accused.
She beamed at him. “Ah, well, I can’t tolerate those hard things on my feet, Harry.”
Clad in more of Phyl’s rolled-up castoffs, she looked worse than she had yesterday. Her hair hung limp and dull, and there were definite circles under her eyes. And her skin…
But that wasn’t something he needed to notice or comment on, especially since she was trying so hard to appear unchanged.
“You should see her ride bareback!” Theo cried, grabbing an apple from the counter and chomping into it. “She just jumped on Moonsilver and pranced around like a circus performer.”
Harry moaned. Excellent. She had his nine-year-old nephew in her pocket already. And undoubtedly his five-year-old niece, as well. Bea was nodding and bouncing on her feet.
“She was brilliant, Uncle Harry!”
“That’s wonderful, Bea. You pirates didn’t tie Tommie to the mast, did you?”
“She went into town to shop,” Theo said, tossing the apple core into the trash.
“’Lo!” Lilly called, leaning toward Sorcha. “’Lo! ’Lo!”
Harry stiffened. Sorcha caught sight of the little girl in his arms and her eyes went soft.
“Well, and what a great honor this is,” she said, stepping closer. “Would you greet this unworthy soul?”
Fury hit Harry like a blast. “Don’t you dare,” he snapped. “Lilly isn’t up to your nonsense.”
“Ah, you think I’m after insulting your kin again, don you, Harry Wyatt?” she asked, reaching out her arms for Lilly.
Lilly, of course, went right into them.
“Lilly has—”
“You call it Down syndrome,” Sorcha said softly, wrapping her arms around Lilly. “I know. And you think I would hurt a child who is so precious to the fair folk?”
“Precious?” Phyl asked, her voice small.
Sorcha’s smile was pure sunlight. “Sure, what do we of the fair folk revere more than pure joy? And where could you find another mortal who could never lose their joy? These cherished ones are the only children who will never grow too old to see us. And they are welcome as revered friends in the land of faerie.”
Harry opened his mouth, certain he had something scathing to say. He couldn’t get it past the sudden inexplicable lump in his throat. Alongside him, Phyl actually had tears in her eyes. As for Lilly, she’d caught Sorcha’s face between her pudgy little hands and kissed her on her nose.
“’Lo, fairy!” she cried.
Harry’s heart damn near stopped beating entirely.
“Hello, my cherished friend,” Sorcha said, returning the kiss for another bright laugh from Lilly. “And what is your name?”
“Lilly!” she crowed, although no one but the family could interpret it, because of all the L’s she still had trouble with.
No one except Sorcha, evidently. “Lilly,” she repeated, nodding. “Ah, that’s brilliant, isn’t it? A lovely flower in a beautiful garden. Are you a flower, my Lilly?”
Lilly preened like a debutante. “Flow-er! Mama, I’m a flower!”
“But of course you are, my love,” Phyl said. “Haven’t I told you all along?”
Lilly thought about that. “Harry says I…a pig-let.”
It was Harry’s turn to clear his throat. “A very beautiful piglet, Lilly. And fine smelling, as well.”
Lilly’s laughter was pure and sweet as daybreak. And she kept patting Sorcha’s face, as if she’d just made a great discovery. Harry couldn’t bear it.
Never turning away from where her daughter was suddenly singing silly songs with Harry’s fairy child, Phyl patted his arm. “You caught a real gem this time, Harry.”
“I didn’t catch anything,” he groused. “She tumbled down the hill right into me.”
All legs and fine breasts and glistening green eyes, laughter like birdsong and a spirit that couldn’t seem to be quenched.
He deliberately turned away. “Well, Phyl,” he said, stalking over to pull the skillet onto the stove. “Any ideas?”
“Not a one,” she said, stopping by the fridge to pull out eggs. “I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to look over any of the other estate business since you’ve been here, have you?”
Turning on the burner, he snorted. “Hardly. I was taking my first walk when Peasblossom here fell into my lap.”
“And Gran said you think there’s another one of them wandering around?”
He shrugged, trying to focus on his eggs, rather than two very sweet, mostly off-key voices singing behind him. “Gwyneth spotted him as she came up the drive.”
“Gwyneth,” Phyl mused, looking around. “Isn’t she here?”
Well, evidently Gran hadn’t told her everything. He cleared his throat, trying like hell not to sound uncomfortable. “She was. She had an appointment with a futures trading firm in York. They’re looking to offer her a job.”
Phyl nodded as she handed over the makings for Harry’s first breakfast and her second. Phyl ate like a trencherman. “That would be perfect after you’re married. What about you? You going to try and get away from London?”
“There’s nothing locally in investment banking that’s big enough.”
“And you couldn’t work online?”
“Absolutely not. Half of what I do is handshaking. I make matches, just like Gran keeps trying to do.”
Phyl grinned. “Worked for me.”
“You’ve been in love with Ned since you were ten. Speaking of which, didn’t he come back with you?”
Phyl waved off the question. “Oh, he’s at a seminar till Thursday on how to promote the new project. I’m happy to let him do it. Leaves me more time for my horses.”
“Horse!” Lilly cried out. “Ride! Harry, ride!”
“Later, Lil. I’m not dressed for it.”
“’Lone, Harry. Ride ’lone.”
Harry looked over to see the bright tears swell in his niece’s eyes. “Now, piglet, you know I’d cry if I couldn’t ride with you.”
One fat tear slid down her round cheek. “’Lone.” Could any word sound more mournful? It hurt every time he saw Lilly standing outside the paddock fence watching her siblings race around on their mounts, hurt even more than it did to see his gran watch them all out her window, alone in that blasted chair. He knew Lilly would never understand how dangerous it was for her to ride. But he knew….
“Harry, I can—”
Harry snapped to attention. “Don’t,” he said to the fairy girl, pointing a spatula like a weapon. “Just…don’t.”
She looked confused and a little hurt, but she kept her silence.
“This afternoon, Lilly,” he said. “With me.”
Lilly laid her head down on Sorcha’s shoulder and stayed silent. Sorcha walked her to the window, where she pointed out birds.
Harry cracked a couple of eggs into the skillet. “Horses and fairies,” he said to Phyl. “It fair reeks of a Disney movie. We need to find the diamond and figure out what to do with the fairy queen here.”
“Not to mention all her friends who followed her over. Has anybody seen this man since Gwyneth?”
“No. Although Sorcha said she felt him. Whatever the hell that means.”
“We saw him,” Theo piped up.
Phyl and Harry turned to him. “When?” Phyl asked.
“Where?” Harry echoed.
Theo shrugged. “By the deer park. He was sneaking through the woods. Wasn’t he, Bea?”
Looking up from where she was buttering a slice of bread, Bea nodded enthusiastically. “He looked like a fairy.”
“And how does a fairy look?” Harry asked, striving for patience.
She actually seemed to consider it. “He was dressed like the fairies in my book. And he was pretty.”
“So Darragh is still about,” Sorcha said softly, still rocking Lilly in her arms. “Ah, I wish he’d go home.”
“And when did you see him?” Harry asked his nephew.
“’Bout an hour ago,” Theo said. “Bea and I were out hunting the foxes.”
“Leave the foxes alone, young man,” Phyl warned.
“Leave the fairy alone,” Harry amended. “We don’t know who he really is.”
He did know that for some reason the new sighting unsettled him, which made no sense. After all, he’d had hundreds of sightings since that damn movie had upended his life, every one of them convinced they were fairies, too. This, one, though…
He looked over at Sorcha. “Well?”
She shook her head. “Darragh might be confused,” she said, “but he would never hurt the children. It’s against every code of the Tuatha.”
“Yeah, well, you said he tried to steal power once before.”
“Certain things are inviolate, Harry Wyatt,” she said. “Even in my world.”
Lilly gave her a big kiss, as if in punctuation.
“Even so, I’m putting out an alert.” He shook his own head. “I can’t wait to see how the police will respond to ‘Be on the lookout for a white, blond male with dark brown eyes, dressed like a gray Robin Hood, who leaps Jaguars like Superman.’”
“Gray?” Theo echoed, then looked at Bea, who shook her head. “He wasn’t wearing gray. And he wasn’t blond.”
Now everybody went still.
“Explain,” Harry demanded.
“He was tall and thin, and had really dark hair. And he was dressed in black.”
Sorcha sucked in a breath. “Black?”
Harry felt the dread grow in his chest. She’d just gone measurably paler. “Obviously that means something.”
“Black,” she repeated, crouching down before Theo, Lilly still in her arms. “You’re sure, now?”
“Yes, ma’am. He kinda blended into the shadows, like a ninja.”
She actually closed her eyes. “Ah, Goddess,” she muttered, standing. “I should have known. Oh, I should have known.”
“What should you have known?” Harry demanded.
Sorcha looked to each face before answering, and Harry suddenly saw a darkness in her, a slump to her shoulders, as if she’d accepted a new and terrible weight. “It means that it isn’t Darragh the children saw,” she said, sounding stricken.
Harry scowled. “You mean I have somebody else trespassing on my land?”
“Darragh would never appear in black. No Tuatha would. Isn’t it the color of chaos, after all?”
“Then who the hell is it?”
Again she shook her head. Then she turned to the children. “If you see him again,” she said, absolutely serious, “stay away. Call for us. Get help. But don’t go near him. Do you promise?”
“Is he dangerous?” Theo asked.
“Oh, aye,” she said. “I think he is. I think you must stay with your sisters and protect each other, while your Uncle Harry and I see to him.”
“How?” Theo asked.
She looked almost grief-stricken. “I don’t know. But we’ll do our very best, now, Theo. You must believe that.”
“Well, who the hell is he?” Harry demanded.
“I think,” she said, drawing a steadying breath, “he might be one of the Dubhlainn Sidhe.”
Phyl looked over at Harry, who waved her off. “You know him, too?” he demanded of Sorcha.
She lifted desolate eyes to him. “No,” she said. “I only know of him. Of them.” She shook her head. “I should have known. The Dubhlainn Sidhe are bringers of chaos and darkness, sowers of madness, the moan on the wind.”
“Stop it,” Phyl demanded. “You’re scaring the children.”
Sorcha lifted her hands. “I’m sorry. I can say it no other way.”
“We need the Fairy Diamond,” little Theo said, his face grave.
“No, Theo,” Bea protested.
He turned on her, hands on hips. “We all need to be protected, Bea.”
Harry completely forgot the eggs that were sizzling in his skillet. “Theo? Do you know something?”
Both children flinched. Both looked away. In Sorcha’s arms, Lilly lifted her little arms. “Di-mond!” she shrieked. “My di-mond!”
Harry looked at the little girl, so happy, then at Theo and Bea, who were both looking absolutely guilty. “Theo?”
The little boy drew a long breath. Then he squared himself, as if preparing to take a battering. “I had to,” he said.
“Had to what?”
“Give it to Lilly. I had to protect her.”
“Protect her?” Phyl asked, dropping to her haunches in front of her solemn son. “From what, Theo?”
But Theo didn’t look at his mother. He looked at Sorcha. “I’ve been having bad dreams. I had to protect Lilly.”
Harry could have sworn his heart stopped beating. His nephew looked at him now, begging him to understand. His nephew who had his eyes. His green eyes. Why hadn’t he really noticed before?
No! That was absurd. There was nothing more to this than delusional fans infecting the minds of small children.
Even so, he went down on his knees right next to Phyl. “And in your dreams, Lilly is hurt?”
Theo’s eyes filled with tears. “I hurt her.”
Before Phyl could even react, Harry pulled Theo into his arms, holding him so tightly there could be no question of his meaning. “I understand,” he said to the little boy. “It’s a terrible dream. But it’s not true, Theo. It’s not true at all.”
Theo pulled back just a bit to look hard at his uncle. “You’re sure?”
“I’m positive. You could never hurt Lilly. You know that perfectly well when you’re awake, no matter how terrible the dreams are.”
“You’ve had dreams, too,” Theo said, his voice very small.
Harry smelled the eggs burning. It was an excuse. “Phyl, pull the eggs off, please.”
She stood, so that Harry had a bit of room to face Theo with what Phyl didn’t need to hear. “I’ve had them, too. They can’t hurt us, though, now that we both know. Okay?”
“How long have you been having the dreams?” Sorcha asked Theo.
Harry actually flinched. Somehow he’d forgotten that of course she would be listening.
Theo didn’t seem hesitant at all in confiding in this perfect stranger. “The last week, maybe.”
“And they got worse last night,” she said, her voice quiet.
Harry looked over to see the same horror he felt reflected in her eyes. She’d handed off Lilly sometime in the last moments. Phyl was rocking her back by the stove, where Lilly couldn’t be touched by what they said. Bea stood with one hand clutching the hem of her mother’s sweater, her bread forgotten in the other.
“How do you know?” he asked Sorcha.
“The Dubhlainn Sidhe are the infectors of dreams,” she said. “It is how they sow their madness. They’ve recently gained a great power, a darkness that would touch any who share their blood, which I think you two do. And now, if that is indeed one of the Dubhlainn Sidhe stalking your grounds, they have brought it here, through the gates. I’m so sorry, Harry. I’m so sorry.”
Harry shut his eyes. He just couldn’t bear to look at her right now. Not when the echoes of his own dreams still resonated in his head. Not when he could still hear her panic-stricken screams.
It was all so absurd. Coincidence and conspiracy theory all woven into a chapter of The Lord of the Rings. Well, he wasn’t going to succumb to this kind of madness. He was not.
“Apology accepted,” he said, opening his eyes.
Let them think what they wanted. As soon as Theo put the Stone back, he would stop having the dreams. If he didn’t, they would get him counseling or change his diet or something. Something that didn’t involve this maddening woman who knelt next to him smelling like summer and spouting the most ludicrous nonsense he’d ever heard in his life.
“Where’s the Fairy Diamond, Theo?” he asked, struggling to sound pragmatic and reasonable. “Surely you know by now that it needs to go back where it belongs. If nothing else, you’ve seriously distressed Gran.”
“It’s in Lilly’s travel kit,” the boy said, his voice very quiet.
“It’s all right,” Harry reassured him with one final hard hug. “You were trying to protect your sister. That is what the very best big brothers do. But now we need to put it back and see what happens. All right?”
Theo still looked frightened. Harry didn’t blame him, especially if the little boy’s dreams had been half as terrifying as his had.
“All right.”
Harry and Sorcha got to their feet, and Harry held out his hand for Theo. It was time to put this whole business to rest. “All right, then, Theo. Let’s be at it.”
“It’s up in the nursery,” Theo said. “I wanted it to be close to her.”
“Then let’s go to the nursery and get it.”
They trooped through the halls of his great house like a scene from the Pied Piper, Lilly singing again, and Bea dancing around her mother. Harry and Theo and Sorcha brought up the rear, all three solemn and nervous. Harry even saw Sorcha wipe her hands against her jeans. Past the halls where fairy horses pranced and up the stairwell ringed in a fairy wood, they walked. Past the memories of a mad old man who’d thought he’d been crowned prince of the fairies, so they could reclaim the hunk of quartz the old man had convinced the rest of the world wasn’t worthless and common, in an effort to protect Harry’s nephew’s fragile heart.
Harry’s own heart was beating hard, and he hated it. He didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to reinforce the delusions that had ruled this household for the last hundred years. But delusions had power, so he would use that power as he needed and then walk away.
The old nursery had lain dormant for years before Theo’s birth. During her nesting period beforehand, Phyl had corralled Harry and Ned and Gran into helping her turn it into a wonderland for her children, since she spent so much time at the great house. And like a true Wyatt, she decorated the whole thing in murals, these from The Wind in the Willows. Lilly’s travel kit was tucked away in Mr. Toad’s Hole, just past the physical therapy equipment that helped Lilly overcome her physical deficits.
“No nap,” Lilly challenged from her mother’s arms. “No nap now, Mama.”
“No, my piglet,” Phyl assured her. “You’re not visiting Mr. Toad just yet. You have far too much playing to do before then. And a monstrous lunch to eat later, isn’t that right?”
Lilly nodded enthusiastically. “Monstrus,” she sang. Then she caught sight of what Theo was doing and frowned. “Mine, Theo. Mine, mine, mine!”
“I know, imp,” he said, pulling out the bright pink backpack that was Lilly’s travel kit. “But we have to give the diamond back.”
“No!” Lilly shrilled struggling to get down. “My di-mond! Mine!”
Theo pulled the cricket ball-sized hunk of quartz from Lilly’s backpack and held it up, and nothing happened. No crack of doom or flash of lightning. It caught the morning light coming in from the big windows, but other than that, it looked pretty unimpressive.
“Mine,” Lilly whimpered, collapsing against Phyl’s chest.
Sorcha stepped forward and bowed her head. Harry damn near snorted. No question now. She was a fake. She was acting as if she were in the presence of a deity, and it was nothing but a hunk of quartz. She reached out with both hands to accept the Stone from Theo and stood in reverent silence.
“Well?” Harry demanded. “Now what?”
She turned to him, and everything changed all over again. “I don’t know,” she admitted, looking back at the Stone in her hands with anxiety.
“You don’t?” he retorted, about out of patience. “Why not?”
She faced him, and the ground seemed to shift.
“Because this isn’t the Fairy Diamond.”