Black Falcon's Lady (Celtic Rogues Book 1) (18 page)

"He will be here. He will," she had told herself a hundred times. But with every rustle of underbrush, every snap of twigs, every breath of wind that failed to bring with it Tade's laughing face, the doubt within her unsheathed its velvet claws.

And as twilight dripped jeweled colors across the glen, the very breeze seemed to whisper of the dangers lurking in the hills that had seemed touched only with beauty when graced by Tade's smile.

Maryssa shivered, remembering the horror in the stable boy's peaked face when she had ordered him to saddle a horse. "Ye—ye can't be mane-in' t' go ridin' off alone, miss," he had stammered. " 'Tis lucky ye are that ye weren't carried off or murdered or worse the last time ye went gallivantin' off, what with the rabble that roams here'bouts. Why, it hasn't been but a bit past a week since the Black Falcon was a-raidin'."

Maryssa twisted her fingers together, remembering the night at the foul-smelling inn, when eyes as green as Tade Kilcannon's had glared at her from slits in the night, but those eyes had been cold and dangerous, reflecting none of Tade's easy warmth and tenderness, and none of the devilment that sparkled from within him. She bit her lip, dread rippling through her that had nothing to do with the stable lad's babbling.

No, it was impossible, she told herself, quelling the niggling thought. The Falcon had stalked into the inn full of menace, as sharply honed and as lethal as an infidel's blade, while Tade . . . She pictured the mischief in his grin, the delight he took in the smallest of pleasures. Yet instead of comforting her, the image tightened the unease that gripped her, casting across her mind the memory of an instant—an instant when a certain odd tenderness had shone in the brigand Falcon's eyes. She glanced apprehensively at the liver-colored mare that stood cropping grass at the lakeside, then back to the waning sun. Perhaps it would be best if she returned to Nightwylde.

Suddenly she started, instinctively scrambling to her feet at the sound of something passing through the brush behind her. Tade? Or . . . Hope, dread, and fear roiled inside her as she whirled around, half expecting to see a black silk hood and a sable cocked hat with plumes red as blood.

But instead of the Black Falcon's sinister countenance or the ruggedly masculine visage of Tade, it was Deirdre Kilcannon who flounced into view. Her freckled nose was crinkled in disdain and grains of sparkling sugar clung to her lips as she munched on what looked to be a delicate scalloped wing.

"D-Deirdre?" Maryssa stammered. "What are you doing here?"

The girl licked one sugary finger. "Tade couldn't quite manage to keep your little tryst this afternoon, so . . ." She shrugged, letting her voice trail off.

"Deirdre, is Tade well? Safe?"

"He's well, most certainly. But safe?" Deirdre smirked, then took another bite of the confection. "When last I left him he seemed in the gravest of danger.''

"Danger?" A sharp, sick feeling stirred in Maryssa's stomach.

Deirdre's laugh tinkled on the air. "Aye, he and Sheena O'Toole were roving off on horseback, but I vow they were in more of a mind to tumble in the grass than race over it."

Pain and betrayal crushed Maryssa's chest; then a sudden fierce spark of denial flared up. "I don't believe it."

"And just where do you suppose I got this?" Deirdre held up the delicate piece of sugar, smacking her lips. "Tade brought it from Derry, and when he gave it to Sheena, why, I vow, she could scarce wait to carry him off somewhere private to, uh, thank him."

Maryssa stared at the confection, then raised her eyes slowly to Deirdre's face. Satisfaction glinted in the girl's green eyes, and her mouth was pursed into sharp lines of smugness.

Maryssa lifted her chin. "You must be mistaken. Tade told me to meet him.”

"Here? Oh, aye, I know. That did make things a bit awkward. I mean, what with you lingering about at their favorite spot. But I'm certain they found somewhere to . . ."

A wave of nausea gripped Maryssa. Her gaze darted to the flower-spangled bit of glen upon which the coverlet had lain weeks before.
Their favorite spot.
Had Tade truly tumbled Sheena back into this sweet meadow grass? Kissed her, loved her, here where he had given Maryssa a glimpse of heaven?

Nay! Yet how could Deirdre have found this glen? How could she have known that Maryssa waited here, unless it was true?

Much as she fought against it, an image seared itself into Marisa’s mind with sickening clarity: honey-haired Sheena running her fingernails over Tade's chest, kissing him with a practiced skill that made Maryssa’s own untutored fumbling seem all the more clumsy.

“Come, now, Miss Wylder, you mustn't look so distressed."

Maryssa's eyes leaped to Deirdre's face, the girl's smile, so like Tade's tearing at her heart.

"Even you must agree it is only right Tade should first take a gift to the girl he is bound to marry," Deirdre chided innocently. "And I am most certain that he brought some little trinket back from Derry for you as well. No doubt he'll dash it off to you as soon as he's able."

Maryssa clenched her teeth against the pain welling up inside her. She wanted to scream, to drown out the sound of Deirdre's voice, but her throat was blocked by tears.

"Of course you must be patient," Deirdre rushed on. "It may be quite some time before he can reach you, considering all the other deliveries he has to make. My da claims Tade needs a dray to haul home all the trinkets he buys to satisfy his mistresses—I mean, ladies."

Maryssa spun toward the lake, forcing her quavering voice through the sobs constricting her chest. "Well, you may tell your brother he need not trouble himself delivering anything to me. I wouldn't want—"

"Oh, it will hardly be any trouble." Deirdre waved a slender hand in dismissal. "After all, an English heiress is quite a grand conquest, even for Tade, and since you allowed him access to your charms a fortnight past, why, I am certain Tade is fairly chafing to be with you."

Maryssa wheeled to face Deirdre, and even through the white-hot shards of torment exploding within her, she could see the girl falter beneath her stricken stare. "Tade told you?"

Deirdre started to speak, then stopped, her face paling a tinge beneath her freckles. "About the afternoon here on the lakeshore?" she asked, stooping to swoop up a small twig and examine it as though it held the answer to some mystic riddle. "Why, of course Tade told me. I've been privy to his confidences since I wore short skirts. And . . . well, I must confess, it is ever so much more entertaining to hear about grand passions than about boyhood pranks."

Maryssa felt betrayal twist deep in her stomach. Humiliation drowned out the memory she had cherished, grinding to ashes the images of blossom-starred meadows and hot, hungry kisses. She raised her gaze to Deirdre's face, but the girl swung away.

"You-you needn't be dismayed. I mean about my knowing your secret," Deirdre faltered, busily snapping off bits of the twig. "Tade has told me of so many
affaires de coeur
, that, I vow, by All Hallows Eve, I'll most likely forget I ever heard this one. After all, it is not as if there is much to remember, what with Tade halting before he—"

"Nay!”

Deirdre winced at the strangled cry, the torment in Maryssa's features burning into her memory as Maryssa wheeled and stumbled toward the horse tethered nearby. Deirdre watched, guilt and vague horror at what she had done stirring inside her, as the English girl flung herself astride the beast and pressed her heels into its sides with a clumsy recklessness that threatened to pitch her onto the jagged stones below. The horse plunged up the hill, nostrils flared, eyes wide as it tore up the slope toward the treacherous and wild lands beyond.

“That will be the last we see of that English witch," Deirdre whispered to herself. "I'm glad. Glad." Yet the feeling of triumph she had expected to soar within her rang hollow as she remembered Maryssa's waxen face. The girl loved Tade. Her love was carved in every line of her face. And Tade . . . Deirdre tried to swallow but couldn't, the image of his face before he had run to the byre flashing before her eyes. He had looked so solemn, serious, yet oddly touched with greater joy than ever before. If he discovered what she had done . . .

Nay. Deirdre's fists knotted, her nails digging into the soft flesh of her palms. It did not matter whether Maryssa Wylder loved her brother or if he cherished some budding tenderness for her. She could bring him nothing but danger and death.

Closing her eyes, Deirdre struggled to conjure in her mind the image that had haunted her for hours. Yet as the ancient stone of Nightwylde's turrets rose in her mind, the silhouette of a body dangling from their peak, it was not Tade's face she saw contorted in death throes, but the delicate features of Maryssa Wylder whose eyes screamed their pain in a dozen shattered hues.

T
ade narrowed
his eyes against the half-light of dawn, his mouth a hard line as he hauled himself up the rungs of the loft ladder. The first waking birds twittered from their perches on the thatch, the banked peat fire gilding the room with the glow of its tiny embers. Yet within his stiff, sore body roiled a barely leashed anger that threatened to rage like wildfire.

Deirdre. For five miles he had ridden like a madman, anticipating the bliss of wringing her spoiled little throat with his own two hands. Bloody hell, when he thought of what her foolishness had almost caused this time...

Tade vaulted through the loft opening and stamped across the darkened room to the small window at one end. With a muffled curse, he grasped the shutter handles and threw the heavy wooden panels open with a force that sent them slamming against the walls. Dim light spilled across the worn rag rug and tumbled in pearly rays across the rumpled pallet beneath the eaves.

"Deirdre!" Tade snapped the name, spinning around to yank the mound of coverlets from the narrow bed in which she lay. Yet instead of sleep-blurred features beneath her tousled hair, he saw red-rimmed eyes peering up at him with the watchful gaze of a cornered mouse.

She struggled upright, a too-bright smile pasted on her lips. "Tade! You needn't rouse the whole house. I—I was waiting for you."

"Aye, and I'll just wager you were. After all, you'd not want to miss the pleasure of seeing the fruits of your little plot, would you?" Tade blazed.

"P-plot?" He saw Deirdre flinch, a guilty flush staining her cheeks. "I don't know what you mean.”

"Don't play the innocent. I've spent the whole night tearing through the mountains like the very devil was on my heels, and I have no stomach for your lies. Just tell me, do I look worn enough, filthy enough, angry enough, for you to feel as though you've reaped full justice for my horrible sin of daring to return from Derry without a cartful of baubles for you? Or can I look forward to a like performance in the future?"

"What do you mean? I only gave you Fagan's message! He said the babe was in danger, and—"

"Blast it, don't cram untruths into someone else's mouth! I saw the O'Donal babe with my own eyes. A girl it is, weighing a full nine pounds, hale as a well-born filly. But you know that, don't you, Deirdre? You knew it from the moment Fagan reined in his horse."

"Nay!"

"Just like you knew that Dev was nowhere near the Fitzpatricks’s or the O'Cahans’s,” Tade accused. "The whole time I was riding, nearly driving Curran to his death, Devin was just three miles from home, at Liam Scanlon's, helping to arrange a way to smuggle young Jamie off to school in Bordeaux."

"Scanlon's?" The feigned shock in the girl's face made Tade want to slap her.

"Devin told me he left word with you as to exactly where he could be found, in case old Patrick Mahoney took a turn for the worse. You knew.”

"Nay, Tade, I—"

"Damn it, Dee, quit lying!" Tade cut the denial off with a snarl. "This time your little game nearly ended with consequences too great for even you to bear. A mile from O'Donal's, Dev and I ran afoul of a contingent of Rath's guard dogs."

"R-Rath?” Deirdre blanched, her freckles standing out in stark relief against her pallid skin.

"Aye, Rath. By the time I found Devin, I'd been tearing about the countryside half the night, thinking a babe lay dying, maybe dead. And when Dev heard how long I'd been seeking him—" A muscle in Tade's jaw knotted at the memory of Devin's face, a mask of solemn desperation as they rode toward Fagan O'Donal's cottage. "The way we were racing across the mountain, it was a miracle I saw the soldiers at all, let alone managed to ride Curran into Penderleigh Cave before the bastards spied us. You lied, and—“

"I don't care!" Deirdre's chin quivered, her eyes spitting defiance. "I'd do it again!"

"Again? You'd risk Devin's life because I failed to bring you a damned dress?"

"It wasn't the dress!"

"Then why? Why the bloody hell did you do it?” Tade froze, the look in Deirdre's eyes—anger, betrayal and resentment—striking him like a fist in his belly. "Maryssa," Tade rasped the name, knowing . . . somehow knowing. "Dee, what have you done?"

"I fixed it so that Sassenach witch will never see you again!"

"You what?" Tade's hands shot out, crushing Deirdre's arms in a bruising grip.

"I told her you were with Sheena," Deirdre flung back. "That you'd no doubt get to Nightwylde after you'd finished with your other mistresses. But is seems the high-and-mighty Miss Wylder is not wont to be just another in your string of women, because she—"

Rage coiled within him as he imagined the Maryssa's pain. "Deirdre, I trusted you.”

"I did it for you!" Deirdre clutched at his shirtfront. "A score of girls in Donegal would forfeit all they own to wed you—Irish girls, Catholic girls, prettier by a thousandfold than that Wylder chit."

"I don't want them. I don't love them."

The defiance that had burned in Deirdre's face faded into desperation as a ragged sob was torn from her throat. "Tade, she's not worth dying for!"

"Aye, Dee. She is."

Gripping her wrists, Tade pulled her fingers free of him, then strode to the opening of the loft.

"She'll not see you, Tade!" Deirdre shrieked, stumbling after him as he climbed down the ladder. "She'll never forgive you!"

"Tade! Deirdre!" Tade caught a fleeting glimpse of night rail as the lank white-robed form of Rachel threw open the door to her bedchamber. Barefoot, she rushed across the room to catch the sobbing girl in thin, gentle arms.

Deirdre clutched at her mother, childlike tears flooding her frightened eyes. "Mama! Mama, don't let him go!"

The piteous cries tore at Tade's heart, but he could not go to her. He felt the pull of Maryssa like that of the moon, wooing the tide onto jagged cliffs at the gray sea's edge.

Tade paused at the door, unable to sever his gaze from the terror in Deirdre's face, the silent pain in Rachel's soft brown eyes. Then he turned away from all he had loved and walked alone into the dawn.

T
he walnut
-paneled dining room of Marlow Hall was stifling with the heat of three dozen candles, their waxy fragrance blending in a sickening mixture with the stench of heavily perfumed bodies and the aroma of rich food. Maryssa pricked at a bit of roast duckling with the tines of her fork, unable to imagine how she would ever be able to swallow with Quentin Rath slurping and guzzling bare inches from her elbow.

The odious colonel had all but shoved Reeve Marlow into the punch table in his effort to gain Maryssa's arm when the footman announced that dinner was to be served. And in spite of Christabel and Reeve's valiant efforts to maneuver her out of his grasp, Rath had brazenly plopped his broad buttocks into the chair beside Maryssa and barked for the liveried footman to spoon dizzying portions of meat and gravy onto his delicate china plate.

Maryssa hazarded a glance at him from the corner of her eye. His sloppily powdered bag wig sat askew on his florid sweat-dappled brow, while great rings of dampness seeped through his flowered velvet coat in malodorous half-circles.

Maryssa felt her stomach churn as he shoveled half of a baked capon into his sauce-stained mouth. Her eyes leaped away from his smacking lips. But as her gaze skittered across the table, it snagged on Christabel's blue eyes, which were fastened upon her in loving concern.

Maryssa managed a smile and hastily popped a piece of roast duck between her lips. The succulent meat tasted like wet cotton as she struggled to force it past the knot in her throat. She wished for the thousandth time since alighting from her father's carriage that she had been able to hold true to her plan.

She had arrived the night before, wounded by Deirdre's words, weary, and without so much as a valise in her hand. Maryssa had fully intended to explain to the Marlows that she could not bear to be introduced into Donegal society the next evening and would even be poor company for the fortnight's visit Christa had cozened Bainbridge into allowing Maryssa to accept. But when the footman had ushered her into the salon, Christabel had fairly flown over to clasp her in a joyous embrace.

"I vow I could cheerfully murder Tade Kilcannon for declining my invitation for tomorrow evening!" Christabel had bubbled. "Reeve's been wearing the carpets to shreds, pacing about in a fury to give him the news, and I thought it would be forever before you arrived!"

The pain in Maryssa's chest had wrenched tighter at the mention of Tade's name and the knowledge that he must be, in truth, avoiding her. But Christabel had merely tightened her silk-clad arms about her, saying, "Now we have two things to celebrate tomorrow evening, Maryssa. My finding a best friend and—" The shy blush that tinted Christabel's beautiful face set her aglow with happiness. "And," she continued breathlessly, "well, it seems that Reeve's penchant for breeding has finally brought results."

"Breeding?" Maryssa had echoed numbly.

“Aye. Reeve and I are going to have a baby."

Despite the pain of yet another proof of Tade's rejection, Maryssa had not let her unhappiness rob any of the Marlows’s joy. She had forced a smile and explained that her new maid had neglected to see her trunk loaded into the coach.

Maryssa's throat constricted, the bit of meat finally squeezing its way through the tightness as she gazed miserably past the heaping platters of food to where Christabel crowned the head of the table like a sparkling goddess. The joy that had lit her friend's delicate features the day before had deepened during the night, leaving her smile softer, gentler, her eyes brimful with a completeness that jabbed Maryssa with sharp pricks of envy.

How many times in her lonely childhood had Maryssa vowed that she would have a babe of her own someday? A girl, tiny and dewy-soft like the one Jenny, the scullery maid, carried with her in a split-oak basket as she went about her chores. Maryssa could almost hear herself sobbing into the pillow of her narrow bed at Carradown that she would love her baby just as Jenny did, even if it always cried, even if it was awkward and had strange eyes and ugly dark brown hair.

Maryssa closed her eyes, the face of the babe she had always imagined rising in her mind, but the golden curls and sky-colored eyes of her childhood dreams shifted, changing to hair the color of polished rosewood and a gaze as bright green as the Irish hills. Tade. The thought of him, of his child, struck her like a hidden dagger to the heart.

Suddenly the vision shattered, something hard and damp slamming into her back with a force that nearly pitched her bosom-first into her plate. She turned her gaze to where Quentin Rath bent over her.

"Miss Wylder, are you all right?" he asked, his palm still flattened against the ivory damask of her gown. "Stake me, but I thought you were about to strangle yourself on that bit of meat you ate, your face got so pasty."

“I-I’m fine, Colonel Rath. It was just the heat.”

"Well, if you'd take yourself bites of size to chew on, perhaps you'd not be so overcome. It is little wonder you look so frail, the way you pick at morsels scarce large enough to tempt a linnet. Take this advice from one who has dwelt on this infernal island nearly all his life," he chided, eyeing her breasts as greedily as he had eyed the capon bare moments before. "Eat hearty. You'll need your strength to battle this crude land and its witless inhabitants."

"Oooo, Miss Wylder, do mind the colonel, here," a voice edged with a constant whine crooned at her shoulder. Maryssa turned to where the close-set eyes of a girl Christabel had introduced as Jacinth Levander blinked up at Rath adoringly from above her decidedly hooked nose. "Colonel Rath has had no end of heroic exploits, protecting us from these barbaric Irish." Jacinth's skinny fingers reached up to pluck at the gravy-splotched sleeve of Rath's coat. "Why, he was off pursuing that devil the Black Falcon but a week since."

"The heroic Colonel Rath has been off pursuing the 'witless' Falcon nearly two years now without success," Reeve Marlow observed dryly, lifting his wine goblet to his lips. His words pierced a lull in the buzz of voices about the table, and a sudden quiet fell over the room.

Rath's fingers went stiff on her back, and Maryssa feared his buttons would burst as his chest swelled out in indignation. "True, in the past the rogue has eluded me," Rath grudgingly admitted. "But I wager the Falcon will not be soaring for a while this time."

Maryssa saw Reeve's face go suddenly still. "Not soaring? What do you mean?''

"A ball from my pistol struck his left arm. Saw him jerk, I did, and the blood. But even wounded, the bast—I mean, blackguard—can ride like the devil himself."

Maryssa felt an odd squeezing in her chest at the thought of the Falcon falling beneath Quentin Rath's bullet, the rebel's swirling black mantle marred with blood, the piercing green of his eyes . . .

Sudden dizzying waves of fear swept over her as Tade's face rose in her mind, his gaze so incredibly green it shone like polished emerald. She bit her lip, seeing his grin as he tossed his baby sister high in the air, his lean body cutting naked through the cold blue waters of the lake, his long legs hurtling him across the meadow in pursuit of the horsehide covered ball. No, lightsome Tade, with his laughter and his teasing, could never change into the implacable hooded rebel known as the Black Falcon. Why, then, did the thought torment her so? She shoved the thought away and turned her eyes to Reeve's taut features.

"He did escape, then?" Reeve stifled a yawn, but Maryssa could detect lines of tension about his lips.

"Aye. Fled like a coward into the mountains. But most likely the bullet I buried in his flesh will clip his wings long enough to keep him holed up in his nest until his new adversary arrives."

"You're bringing in a new man?" Reeve asked.

"Aye." The hair at the nape of Maryssa's neck prickled at the eagerness that slackened Rath's thick lips. "The finest huntsman of human quarry in all of England. He will arrive in Lononderry upon All Hallows Eve and has vowed that within the month he and his hounds will ferret out every brigand and papist priest who lurks within these hills."