A Rose in Splendor (28 page)

Deirdre smiled up at him. “If you think to frighten me away you will not. I do not need fancy gowns and extravagant furnishings. As for meals, I’ll have you know we ate nothing but porridge and potatoes that last year in Ireland, and I will happily do so again if Liscarrol is my home.”

“Liscarrol?” Killian questioned with a frown.

“Aye. It has been promised me from childhood as my dowry,” she answered. “So, you see, you need not worry about where we shall live. We, my love, shall live in a castle.”

Killian shook his head in wonder. A castle in Ireland and marriage to a lord’s daughter; her proposed future sounded like the stuff of fairytales. “We’ll see,” he grumbled and lowered his head to kiss her.

Deirdre gripped him tightly between her thighs when he tried to pull away. “Not yet,” she begged. “Can you—will you not love me again with your body?”

She felt him stir inside her even before he kissed her and knew that he would.

*

Pain was the only definable sensation within him as Killian opened his eyes to the darkness. The dark tide of agony washing over him did not surprise or frighten him. It would pass as it always did.

Yet, even as he gave up to the bloodred tide of pain, his body resisted, coughing to eject fluid from his lungs.

“Shh! You mustn’t make a sound!”

The cool small hand that touched his cheek and then pressed against his mouth stilled the spasm of his coughing as it always did. With a smile, Killian opened his eyes. Looking down at him, her childish face awash in a sea of crisp golden waves, were a pair of serious gray-green eyes.

She smiled at him and petted his sweaty cheek. “You must hide yourself. The English have come.”

Through the mist of pain her words struck a rational chord in him: Aye, the English soldiers were after him.

The child stood up as the clatter of boots was heard beyond the hidden door. She grabbed his sleeve and pointed. “Up there! You must climb up the shaft.”

“I cannot,” Killian answered, too weak to rise from his knees.

“Aye! You can! You must save yourself. I’m a friend of the wee folk,” she exclaimed and began unfastening her bodice. She leaned over until the red birthmark on her shoulder was exposed. “You see? I’ve been kissed by the fairies.”

Killian held his breath. He knew what would happen next. The face of the child before him wavered in the torchlight, blurring and then redefining itself into the mature features of a young woman. The face that had haunted him for so long was Deirdre’s.

Killian caught his breath sharply as she leaned toward
him, beckoning a kiss with moist, parted lips, her bodice slipping down to bare the full globes of her breasts. The swift jolt of desire in his loins overrode the pain of his wounds. He had never dared touch her before, had always awakened himself with the guilty knowledge of his lust. This time he reached for her and brought his mouth down on hers.

He did not hear the heavy pounding that broke through the door. He was lost, drugged to all sensation but that of her kisses and the undulations of her warm velvet skin under his hands. She was snatched from him without warning. For an instant, her face remained before him.

“Save yourself! Save yourself!” she shouted at him. “You must go away or we will die!” Her cries became piercing screams of terror as she was dragged away by red-coated soldiers.

With a roar of rage, Killian tried to rise, but his body would not obey his command. The more he fought, the heavier his body became, until he lay sprawled helplessly on the floor with her cries ringing in his ears.

*

Sweat oozing from every pore, Killian sat up with a start. The stillness of the night surrounded him, but the galloping of his heart filled his head with sound. Where was he? Instinctively he reached for the skean he always kept by his side, but his hand met instead the soft flesh of a woman’s thigh.

He turned his head sharply to find Deirdre lying on the floor beside him, her naked body sprawled invitingly in sleep. He touched her, half-fearing that she was not real. The warmth of her skin made him sigh with relief.

He rested his head in his hands and was amazed to discover that his fingers trembled. The dream. The dream had changed. Always before he had awakened with the frustration of thwarted desire. Never had he awakened to the sickening anxiety of loss that now roiled in his belly.

She is gone from me forever
.

The dream was gone and it would never return. He
could not say why or how but the feeling was unshakable. It was over.

Killian raised his head and turned to gaze down into Deirdre’s sleeping face. How to tell her? Could he tell her?

He stood and began dressing. He did not think of what he should say or how he could make her understand that he must leave. He would not even try. For a single night, he had believed that he had attained his heart’s desire. Now he understood that the circle of fate that had had its beginning at Liscarrol eleven years ago was complete this night with their union. In time, Deirdre would realize it herself, but he could not remain until then. If he did, he might not ever leave her. The woman-child of his dreams had beguiled him with the promise of a real love. Yet, the dream was gone and the reality was that Deirdre was not for him. He was an impoverished mercenary, a man who lived by his sword and wits. If he swept her away now, with the ecstasy of their lovemaking blinding her to the realities that lay ahead, he would be no better than a thief stealing his bride. Deirdre deserved better than he could offer. Let her remember this night of his love, for he had nothing else to give her.

*

Fey waited impatiently in the shadow of the hunting lodge until gray fingers of light stretched across the sky. MacShane had lain the night with Lady Deirdre. She had heard their sighs, their whispers and moans of joy, and had finally stopped her ears with her hands as jealousy raked her. She knew something of the ways of gentry and that marriage was expected to follow coupling. MacShane was bound to marry the lady. And, when he did, he would have no further use for her.

Fey sniffed back a tear. She was done with crying. Yet, it seemed wholly unfair for a lady who had so much to take from her the one benefactor who could have made her life easier.

The sight of MacShane in the doorway surprised her, for
she had heard no one stir inside. Yet there he was, fully clothed. He stood staring at the dawn, his head lifted to catch the breeze, and Fey felt a stirring deep inside her unlike any she had ever before experienced. It was more an ache than a pleasure, and she wondered fleetingly if she was sickening. But then he glanced back into the darkened interior, and the ache inside her twisted, sharpening the pain, and she realized that the source of her ailing was MacShane.

She thought he would go back in or that the lady would come to him but neither thing happened. After a long pause, MacShane walked out into the dawn, his stride long, rapid, and purposeful.

Fey waited until she was certain of his direction and then she rose from her hiding place and hurried after him.

She was surprised to see him enter the Fitzgerald house through the front door. After what had occurred during the night, she expected him to sneak back inside. She smirked as she thought of Lady Deirdre still sleeping in the lodge, unaware that her lover had deserted her. So, MacShane was not so different from the other men Fey had observed over the years. Once lust was satisfied, they all sought their own company above the woman’s.

She hesitated to go in after him. There had been much movement in the house the night before. The strange incident in Lady Deirdre’s room when Brigid had succumbed to a fit had almost made her feel sorry for the old thing, almost. They had completely forgotten that Fey had been given a bed in the alcove behind the dressing screen. They did not know that she had heard their strange conversation of dreams and fairies and magic.

Lady Deirdre did not know that she had been followed, that there were others, too, abroad, and that Fey was not the only one to spy on the lovers in the rose garden.

When she had realized that Lady Deirdre’s brothers had followed the pair, she had nearly cried out in warning to MacShane. But, curiously, the men had not challenged MacShane, nor had they intervened when the two kissed. They had simply disappeared back the way they had come,
and she would swear she had heard their laughter on the breeze.

Fey gazed at the second-story window of the room that belonged to MacShane and was rewarded with the flicker of light that signaled he was inside. Her eyes moved down the line of windows but all the other rooms were in darkness. After a moment’s thought, she grabbed two handfuls of the tangled vines that cleaved to the house and began to climb.

The knock at his window surprised MacShane until he turned and spied the shadow dancing upon the window panes. When the window was opened, he reached out and grabbed Fey by the arm and lifted her into the room. “What do you think you’re doing hanging about like a monkey on my windowsill? God’s death! You’re naked!”

Fey pushed down the hem of her nightgown, which she had tied about her waist to aid her climb, and then fixed him with a withering glare. “I came to say goodbye.”

“Now?” Killian asked in faint annoyance. “
Geersha
,
I’m too weary for games.”

“Aye, and so ye should be, with no sleep and plenty o’ night’s work behind ye.”

MacShane slanted a sharp gaze at the lass. Her dark hair was slick and damp, her bare feet muddy. Her face was lightly crisscrossed with scratches like the ones she might have received had she crawled through thorned bushes…
rose bushes
.
“You followed me. Damn your eyes, you little sneak!”

Fey held her ground but her knees trembled as his anger rolled over her. “I do nae care what ye done, ye could have swived and buggered the lot of Fitzgeralds and I’d nae care.” She paused to sniff back a suspicious sob. “Ye once offered me money. I’ll be taking it now.”

MacShane had had little experience with women, children in particular, but he did recognize jealousy. That emotion played over the lass’s face, giving away the source of her animosity. That she had followed them and knew what had occurred did not bother him as much as what she had overheard. “Why did you follow us?”

Fey shrugged, an obstinate look filling her eyes. “I did
nae follow the lady. I followed ye. I won’t stay here. I’m going away.” She looked about and noticed for the first time that MacShane’s saddlebags were lying open on the bed and that they were full. “Ye were going away! And ye weren’t going to tell me, were ye?”

MacShane debated lying and thought better of it. “Aye. I am going as I told the lady I would.”

“She knows ye’re going and she will nae stop ye?” Fey asked in frank disbelief.

Killian was silent.

A quick grin split Fey’s face. “Then I’m going, too. ’Twill nae take me a minute to dress.”

“No.” Killian grabbed Fey’s arm as she hurried toward the doorway and spun her effortlessly about to face him. “No, lass, you cannot come with me.”

“Why?” Fey demanded. “Because of her?”

“No, because it would not be right. You don’t understand and I don’t expect you to, but some things cannot be, no matter how badly you may want them. When that happens, you must learn to accept it.”

“Would she nae agree to wed ye?” Fey’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “She wanted ye badly enough. I heard her mewling for ye, panting like a bitch in heat. She wanted ye then, and I cannot believe ye did not service her until she had her fill.”

“You’ve a gutter tongue, lass. ’Tis none of your business what passed between the lady and me.”

Killian reached out and caught her lightly about the neck, but the pressure of his fingers at her throat made Fey go utterly still. “You’re not to tell a soul what you heard or saw or suspected of the night’s events. Is that very clear?”

Fey had thought this man capable of violence but not cold-blooded murder. Now as she stared up into his eyes silvered by violence, she knew that she had misjudged him. Unlike Darce, who had bullied and struck out in indiscriminate rage, MacShane’s anger was a very real and specific threat. He would snap her neck if he thought it necessary to protect the lady, and in that, Fey read the
beginning of the end to her own hopes and plans. MacShane loved the lady.

“If she means that much to ye, I’d nae harm her,” she choked out.

The words brought the beginnings of a smile to Killian’s lips. “You mean that, do you?” Fey nodded reluctantly. “Then you can be of help to me, if a help it is you want to be.”

“Anything!” Fey said too quickly, for she saw the flash of amusement in his eyes, a flash that changed the silver back to blue.

“You must overcome your inclination to offer a man ‘anything,’ lass.” He reached into his coat and withdrew Fey’s skean. “Lady Deirdre will not be pleased when she learns I’ve gone. I would not have her do anything foolish like try to follow me. If you’re as clever as you’d like me to believe, you should be able to keep her from doing just that.”

“I could tie her up, or hide her away for a few days,” Fey suggested with a sly smile.

“And have that pair of Irishmen brothers of hers on your heels? No, lass. You must be more clever and subtle than that.”