Wild Jasmine (63 page)

“M’lord! Yer back, then. That’s a fine mare yer riding!” The boy reached out and ran an appreciative hand over the mare’s neck.

“Indeed, and I’m back, Brian lad. Is everyone just where I told them to go? I’ve brought the new English landlord with me.” He gave an amused chuckle. “ ’Tis a fine lady, my lad. What do ye think of that?”

“
A lady?
” The boy’s mouth fell open and then he said, “Naaah! Yer jesting with me, m’lord! ’Tis no lady!”

“Aye, Brian, it is. Lady Jasmine Lindley, the Marchioness of Westleigh. She’s a rare one, I can tell ye, even on our short acquaintance. She’s sent that Belfast man packing already. He’s to go at first light, she says.”

They moved deeper into the woods until finally they came to a clearing within which was the half-camouflaged mouth of a large cave. All about them, suddenly, people appeared, calling out to Rory Maguire, nodding and smiling. He dismounted the mare and tied it to a tree. Then he gathered the people together within the mouth of the cave and spoke to them.

“I want ye to all go home now,” he said. “ ’Tis safe, I promise ye. I should not tell ye otherwise.”

“Have the English gone then, m’lord?” a voice in the crowd asked him. “Are we safe from the English, and are the earls back, then?”

“Nay, Fergus, the English are not gone. I’ve brought the new landlord of Maguire’s Ford to Erne Rock myself this day.”

“ ’Tis a lady, he says,” Brian burst out, unable to contain such important news.

There were murmurs of discontent among the Irish gathered before Rory Maguire, but he held up his hand and said to them, “It is indeed a lady who has been given these lands. A beautiful young woman whose grandmother was an O’Malley. She says she will be fair to all who give her their loyalty, and I believe her. She will return a priest to the church, and she has sent that Belfast man on his way.”

“Maguire’s Ford belongs to the Maguires,” the man called Fergus protested. “How can ye, the lord of Erne Rock, give it over so easily? When the earls return—”

“They will not return,” Rory Maguire said bleakly.

A low keening began among the women.

“Do not say it, my lord,” Fergus begged, tears in his eyes.

“O’Neill is in Rome and the others are with him,” Rory Maguire said quietly. “O’Donnell has died of a broken heart, they say. I heard it at Dundalk from a ship’s captain just in from Spain. They will not return. I knew it the day I rode to Lough Swilly with my kinsman and overlord, Conor Maguire, to bid him farewell. I could see it in his eyes that he knew it too. O’Neill and his wife Catherine, their sons; O’Donnell, his brothers, and his sister Nuala; my cousin Conor. They knew as they set foot on that French ship and gazed out over the waters
at our blessed hills that they would never see Ireland again. They will not return, my lads.
Not ever.
”

Many in the crowd surrounding Rory Maguire wept openly and unashamedly at his words, and then Fergus said, “We can still fight the English, my lord. We can still fight them!”

“To what purpose?” Rory Maguire asked him.

Fergus and many of the other men looked astounded at their lord’s words. This was Rory Maguire, as fierce a fighter as any man would want for a son. What was the matter with him? What was he saying?

He saw their puzzlement and told them, “We have been fighting the English for over four hundred years or more, my lads. O’Neill, O’Donnell, Conor Maguire, and their ilk have left us in a grand gesture of defiance, but we must remain. Do we remain to live or to die? If we attempt to fight the English as we have always fought them, then we die. If ye would die, Fergus, then drown yerself in the lough and save yer family further misery. If ye would live, however, then listen to me.

“My branch of the Maguire family have held this land and Erne Rock for the Maguire chieftains since the beginning. I will not leave ye, nor will I leave my lands. The English landlord says she will not mistreat ye. I truly believe her. If ye do not return to the village, she will be forced to repopulate it with Scots or English. She has brought a stallion and several mares as fine as this one I rode. She means to raise horses on my lands, and she means to stay. I mean to stay as well.”

“Does she know who you are, my lord?” a voice inquired.

“Nay, but she probably suspects. I know her husband does,” he told them with a small smile. “The man is no foppish courtier, but I believe he will let me be as long as I do not challenge his authority and I continue to be useful to him. I could almost like him, lads, if he were not so damned English.”

There was a great deal of murmuring among the crowd, and then one of the women spoke up. “I’m going home now,” she said loudly in firm tones. “I’ve lived at Maguire’s Ford my entire life, and my family before me for so many generations we cannot count. I’ll not be kept from my home any longer, and that’s an end to it. Children!”

“I’ll not have it,” Fergus answered his wife angrily. “I’ll not have my children raised in a heretical faith, woman!”

“Did I not mention that there will be a priest in the church?” Rory Maguire said slyly. “I know I did, but ye were not listening.”

“
A priest?
” Fergus was disbelieving.

“I told ye that our new landlord has an O’Malley for a grandmother. She says her great-uncle is Michael O’Malley himself, the Bishop of Mid-Connaught, and that she’ll request a priest of him for our church. If she does this for us, then she proves her good faith, doesn’t she?”

“Wellll,” Fergus considered.

“And when have I ever lied to ye, lads?” Rory Maguire demanded.

“
He never has!
” Fergus’s wife, who was called Bride, spoke up and, hands on ample hips, looked around her. “Can any of you deny it?”

“Nay!” came the collective reply from the crowd.

Bride gathered her children about her and, with a toss of her head, walked from the clearing. “I’m going home,” she repeated, and to no one’s surprise the other women, with their children, began to follow after her. Bride had always been a leader in the village.

“Put out the fires in the cave, lads,” Rory Maguire said quietly, “and let’s all go home. Fergus? Ye’ll come?”

“Ye, my lord, I’ll come, but if there’s any trouble from this new English landlord, I’ll be cutting a few English throats and not have a moment’s guilt over it, I tell ye.”

Watching from the windows of the master’s bedchamber, Jasmine de Marisco Lindley was not in the least surprised to see the villagers begin streaming forth from the woods.

Chapter 16

R
ory Maguire returned to Erne Rock in the twilight. Behind him lights were already twinkling in the cottages and smoke rose from their stone chimneys. Beside him walked an enormous gray dog who was obviously as familiar with the territory he trod as was his tall, flame-haired master.

“Good evening, m’lord,” the newly restored guard at the gate said pleasantly as man and beast passed him, crossing the drawbridge into the courtyard.

Rory Maguire nodded affably, and climbing the flight of steps that led into the castle itself, he headed for the Great Hall. There he found the Marquess and Marchioness of Westleigh, seated at the high board eating their supper. The servants stood attentively, watchful of the new owners’ every need. The dog, moving away from his master, stretched its great length before one of the two fireplaces, and, with a sigh, closed his eyes in utter and rapt contentment.

“Come and join us,” Rowan Lindley said, “though it seems strange to ask a man to sit at his own table, Maguire.”

“This place belongs to Conor Maguire, my lord,” was the reply.

“But held by your family for him for how many generations?” Rowan Lindley replied. “Do not fence with me, man. I am not stupid.”

“Why did you not go with your kinsman?” Jasmine asked him as he seated himself at her right side.

“If it were your holding, m’lady, would you have deserted it, and its people?” he responded. “I can fight with the best of them, but I’m tired of fighting. I have done little else my whole life. When my cousin decided to leave Ireland it was because he, too, was sick and weary of the battles. His action will be seen by history as noble and magnificent. Mine will not be remembered at all. That will suit me well. I am no high and mighty nobleman, m’lord. I am a simple Maguire chieftain. If I must humble myself before you, then I will, if you will but
let me remain with my land, and treat my people with kindness.”

“But can you live with the unassailable fact that you no longer
possess
this land, Maguire?” Rowan Lindley asked him, leaning across Jasmine to make eye contact with the other man. “Can you accept my wife’s rule, for that is what you must do if you would remain? I do not know if I could, were I in your place, Maguire.” His gold eyes carefully scanned the Irishman’s face for answers.

“Let me manage the estate for you, m’lord, m’lady,” Rory Maguire asked them. “The people will listen to me and give no difficulty, I promise you. They are good folk, but change will come hard for them. Everything they knew is gone, and they must begin afresh.”

“And if we say no, Maguire? What will you do then? I do not know if it is wise to allow the former lord of Erne Rock to remain. You could undermine my wife’s and my authority here,” the marquess said.

“If you would have me go, m’lord, then I will go,” Rory Maguire told them quietly, “and I will instruct the people to give you their loyalty and their respect. They will obey me as long as you treat them fairly. ’Tis little to ask. We are not enemies, you and I. We are simply three people caught up in something not of our own making.”

“I want him to stay,” Jasmine said suddenly, and she put a beseeching hand on her husband’s arm, looking into his face. “I know far better than you, Rowan, my love, the pain of exile. I will not send this man from here. But be warned, Rory Maguire,” Jasmine told him, her gaze now moving from Rowan Lindley’s to meet the Irishman’s, “if you betray me in any manner, I, and not my husband, will seek you out and destroy you. I am a king’s daughter, Rory Maguire. I have been taught when and how to be hard. Do not be misled into believing because I am a beautiful woman that I am not capable of being fierce. It would certainly be the biggest and the last mistake you ever made.” Then her tone softened. “What is the dog’s name? I’ve never seen one so big.”

“Finn, m’lady. He is a wolfhound. I swear before God that I will never betray you,” Rory Maguire answered her solemnly, thinking as he gave her his fealty that he did indeed believe her. Her magnificent turquoise-blue eyes had grown hard as flint as she spoke to him.
A king’s daughter, was she?
What king? And what land? It would be interesting to learn more
about this king’s daughter with the O’Malley grandmother. “Ye’ll not forget the priest, m’lady, will ye?” he asked.

“Nay, I’ll not. Is the gatehouse habitable, Rory Maguire?” she demanded of him, and when he nodded, she said, “Then make it your own. That is where I want you to live. If there is anything within Erne Rock of particular sentimental value to you, you may take it. I had to leave so much behind,” she mused softly.

It was settled, and so quickly, he thought, amazed. “What would ye have me do as my first duty to ye, m’lady?” he asked her.

“In the morning,” she said gravely, “you will escort Master Feeny from my lands, Rory Maguire. I somehow think you will enjoy it,” and her eyes twinkled.

“Yes, m’lady,” he told her with equal seriousness, but his lips were twitching with suppressed amusement. ’Twould be a fine start to a new day to hustle the irritating little Belfast man from the place.

The encounter, however, proved to be far more unpleasant than he had anticipated. Feeny, after a night in the stables contemplating the abuse he believed himself subject to, was filled to the brim with vitriol. He did not hesitate to vent his anger at Rory Maguire.

“Think yer clever, Maguire, don’t ye?” he snarled. “Think ye’ve got yer new English masters wrapped around yer finger with yer oily charm. Ye’d best toe the mark, or they’ll turn on ye as quickly as they did on me. Then where will you be?”

“I find Lord and Lady Lindley pleasant and reasonable people,” Rory Maguire responded stiffly. “Come on, Feeny, and get on yer pony.”

Feeny clambered onto his mount and grinned nastily at the younger man. “Especially the woman, eh, Maguire? Well, ye’d best watch yer step there! She’s trouble, I can tell ye. If it weren’t for her, I’d still have my position. I know her kind. Uses a man, and takes all he has, then discards him. Look at her poor husband, enchanted with her he is, and doesn’t see her evil, but I do.”

“Begone!” Rory Maguire said impatiently, and smacked the rump of Eamon Feeny’s pony. Feeny grabbed his reins tightly as the beast bolted off. “And don’t let me catch ye on this plantation again, Feeny. Yer not welcome here!” Maguire watched with relief as the Belfast man disappeared down the road.

* * *

T
he summer passed while the mares that the Lindleys had brought to Ireland grew fat on the lush grass growing on the plantation and four of the six swelled with new life. Nighthawk was proving a good stud. Little India and her baby brother were sent for, and came with Adali, Rohana, and their wet nurses in attendance. India was soon toddling on fat little legs among the children of Maguire’s Ford, while her brother rolled over in his cot for the first time and grinned, drooling, every time he spied his mother. Fergus Duffy was dispatched to the Bishop of Mid-Connaught, and returned several weeks later with Cullen Butler in tow.