“I will, of course.”
“It’ll be no small task as they’re spread out over the world. I don’t keep a great many eggs in one basket. There are passports and other identification papers in the New York apartment, and in safety deposit boxes here and there. If any are useful to you, you’re welcome to them.”
“Thanks for that.”
Cian swirled the whiskey in his glass, kept his eyes on it. “There are some things I’d like Moira to have, if you can get them here.”
“I’ll get them here.”
“I thought to leave the club and the apartment in New York to Blair—and to Larkin. I think they’d suit them better than you.”
“They would. They’ll be grateful, I’m sure.”
Annoyance rose up at his brother’s easy and practical tone. “Well, don’t let sentiment choke you, as it’s more likely I’ll be holding a wake for you than you for me.”
Hoyt angled his head. “Do you think so?”
“I damn well do. You haven’t had three decades and I’ve had near a hundred. And you never were as good in a fight as me when we were both alive, however many tricks you have up your sleeve.”
“But then again, as you said, we aren’t what we were, are we?” Hoyt smiled pleasantly. “I’m determined we’ll both come through this, but if you fall, well…I’ll lift a glass to you.”
Cian let out a half laugh as Hoyt did just that.
“And would you be wanting pipes and drums as well?”
“Oh, bugger it.” Now a wicked gleam came into Cian’s eyes. “I’ll toss in some fifes for yours, then console your grieving widow.”
“At least I won’t have to dig a hole for you, seeing as you’ll just be dust, but I’ll show you the honor of having a stone carved. ‘Here doesn’t lie Cian, for he’s blown off with the wind. He lived and he died, then stayed on like the last annoying guest to leave the ball.’ Does that suit you?”
“I’m thinking I’ll go back and change some of those bequests, for principle only, seeing as I’ll be singing ‘Danny Boy’ over your grave.”
“What’s ‘Danny Boy’?”
“A cliche.” Cian picked up the bottle he’d set on the floor and poured more whiskey into the cups. “I saw Nola.”
“What?” Hoyt lowered the cup he’d just lifted. “What did you say?”
“In my room. I saw Nola, spoke with her.”
“You dreamed of Nola?”
“Is that what I said?” Cian snapped. “I said I saw her, spoke with her. As awake then as I am now, looking and speaking to you. She was still a child. Jesus, there isn’t enough whiskey in the world for this.”
“She came to you,” Hoyt murmured. “Our Nola. What did she say?”
“She loved me, and you. She missed us. She’d waited for us to come home. Damn it. Goddamn it.” He pushed up to pace. “She was a child, exactly as she’d been the last I saw her. It was a lie, of course. She’d grown up, grown old. She’d died and gone to dust.”
“And why would she come to you as a grown woman, or an old one?” Hoyt demanded. “She came to you as you remembered her, as you think of her. She gave you a gift. Why are you angry?”
It was fury in him now, fury to wrap tight around the pain. “How can you know what it is to feel this, to
have it ripping inside you? She looked the same, and I’m not. She talked of how I’d swing her up on my horse and take her riding. And it was like it was yesterday. I can’t have those yesterdays in my head and stay sane.”
He turned back. “At the end of this, you’ll know you did what you could, what was asked of you—for her, for all of them. If you live, whatever pang you feel at leaving them behind will be balanced out by that knowing, and by the life you make with Glenna. I have to go back where I was. I have to. I can’t take this with me and survive it.”
Hoyt was quiet a moment. “Was she in pain, afraid, grieving?”
“No.”