Page 10 of Crown of Wings and Whispers

Griffon’s hand tightened around mine again. “If we’re to have a proper wake,” he said, “Mother will have a bit of baking ahead of her. I’m sure she’d appreciate any help you can give. Besides, didn’t you work at a restaurant?”

Ah. So he wasn’t going to explain why he was leaving. I really would be on my own with my enemy, with only an aging mortal to use as a shield.

“I have a talent for pouring coffee, and like I said, I can follow a recipe or follow orders, whichever you like.”

“That’ll be grand,” Bridie said, and her face wrinkled into a smile.

I felt like the termAmericanhad cost me any brownie points I might have earned by being Griffon’s guest. But I was determined to earn them back.

Griffon stood and picked up his plate. “I’ll be off then. Now’s as good a time as any. Would you like me to drop the dishes in the bay?”

Bridie rolled her eyes. “The sink will do, son.”

He hurried toward the kitchen like a kid trying to escape without doing his chores.

“I guess I’ll see you later,” I called after him, hoping he’d take the hint and tell me what the hell was going on.

He didn’t turn but hollered over his shoulder. “I’ll be back before ye can learn Donald, Where’s Yer Trousers!” A few seconds later, a screen door slammed shut.

“Donald, where’s your trousers?”

Archer shook his head, unwilling to explain. He didn’t look any happier to be stuck with his enemy than I was.

I stood and picked up my plate, then offered to take Bridie and Archer’s with me. I stacked the hand-painted things carefully and carried them into the kitchen. Griffon’s sweater hung on a peg by the back door, and I couldn’t resist pressing it against my face to inhale the smell of him. When I realized Archer and his mother were speaking quietly in the dining room, I froze and strained to hear.

Bridie whispered loudly,“It’s so pressing, is it? Goin’ to visit those others?”

“Ye’ve always complained he never gave his heart away, and now he has. Ye might have been wise to specify how many he should love at the same time.”

* * *

Those others.

The words rang in my head for hours. Each time I completed an assignment—mixing, measuring, washing bowls and pulling things in and out of cabinets—they’d come back again.

Griffon had left me alone so he could go shirtless to “visit those others.”

I was grateful when Bridie gave me a bag of walnuts to take outside and crack open with a hammer. It helped me vent, and in no time, I was back at the small kitchen table with a bowl of nuts and broken shells to sort through.

Later, with nothing but two cakes left in the oven, she demanded my promise that I would remove them on time, then begged off to take a nap. “After all, I havenae worked this hard in ages. And there’ll be more to do on the morrow, so there will.”

I swore she could count on me. She smiled and patted me on the head before shuffling off down the hall.

I wasn’t familiar with wakes, but I’d seen enough on TV to know that a body was usually involved. The only thing that kept me from freaking out was the fact that Daphne’s remains weren’t available. So hopefully, the locals would just be stopping by for drinks and snacks. Maybe a dirge or two.

Or did they only sing dirges in Ireland?

I was hoping Archer might follow his mother’s lead and slink off for a nap somewhere, but I wasn’t that lucky. He leaned back against the old Formica counter and watched Bridie disappear down the hall. The second we heard her bedroom door click shut, I knew I was in trouble.

He’d avoided direct eye contact with me since the moment he’d arrived. Now, he glared. His gaze focused across the seven feet that separated us and bored into my brain like he was hoping his hate could set me on fire.

This time, however, I wasn’t locked in a cell, at his mercy, fearing what he might do to me. In fact, I could walk out the door and never come back if I wanted to. I didn’t have to put up with his bullying. But then I remembered what Griffon had said.If you can’t trust him, trust me.

So I glared back. “Look,” I said. “I had no idea your brother was bringing me here. I didn’t know about the wake, obviously, or that you’d be here—”

“Haud yer wheesht,” he said quietly, and held up his hands. “No apologizin’.”

“Uh, I’m not apologizing. I’m explaining why you shouldn’t kill me—”

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