Cates, Kimberly (29 page)

"I will do everything in my power to help him," she promised Barton.

Grim determination tightened the young man's jaw. "So will I, even if he hates us both." With a bow, the youth opened the door, and Rhiannon stepped inside the rooms that held nothing of the spirit of the man she'd come to love. Secrets, closely held, as closely as his heart.

He'd left a candle burning for her, and she took it up as she started for her bedchamber. Not that she'd be able to get out of her gown—it had an army of buttons down the back, and she'd told her maid, Mrs. Webb, to enjoy the dance and not bother returning to help her before bed but to take pleasure in the evening with her husband. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. With wry humor, Rhiannon doubted it would seem quite so brilliant after she'd spent the night trussed up in corset and gown.

She crossed to her own door, put her hand on the knob. Then she heard it—the low, rasping, muffled sound of someone in pain.

Lion! Panic jolted through her, vivid images flashing in her memory—red blood, ugly tears in flesh, his life seeping out onto the hard ground. But she hadn't loved him then.

Casting a desperate glance around, she grabbed up the nearest weapon she could find—one of Lion's swords, lying across his desk. Hefting the heavy weapon before her, she shoved open the door to his bedchamber, ready to face a horde of assassins to save him.

"Lion!" she cried out, her gaze scanning the room, lit only by the hearth fire. The window was open wide, making the shadows dance on the walls with almost manic glee. Some force without substance, dark, heavy, terrifying seemed to press down on her chest so hard she couldn't breathe. But she couldn't see any menacing figure in the room. She rushed to the small stand by Lion's chair, scrabbling to light the candle.

Grabbing it up, the sword in her other hand, she swung around to where low, horrible cries sounded, stifled in the bed.

Still clad in breeches and shirt, Lion lay rigid on coverlets scarce disturbed, unimaginable agony etched on his face, the force of his pain all the more horrible because he fought, even in sleep, to hold it inside.

She should have been relieved, no bright red blood seeped from his body, and yet such wounds of the flesh would have been far easier to bear than these wounds of the spirit, untouchable, unreachable, no matter how desperately she wished to help him.

She put down the sword with trembling hands, tears searing her eyes.

"Please, no!" Lion cried out. "Grandfather, don't! Don't take it!"

She couldn't bear it, went to the side of the bed, knowing how much Lion would hate knowing what she'd seen, what she'd heard. And yet no matter what the cost, she couldn't bear to leave him all alone in his pain.

"Hush, no one is going to—to take it," she said fiercely, not knowing what "it" could possibly be. She laid her hand against his rigid, sweat-damp cheek.

Lion's fingers closed on hers, so tight the bones threatened to snap. She held on, not caring. "Papa's.

It was... Papa's," he choked out. "Let me play with it. It's the only thing... only thing left."

"I won't let him take it," she vowed, holding him, wanting so desperately to reach into his pain. But he wasn't soothed, wasn't calmed. She could feel the anguish cresting again, rising until it tore from him in another ragged groan.

"I promise I'll forget Papa. Just don't..." His voice rose, the desperation of the child he had been echoing through it. Then it ended, sharp, terrible silence dragging her deeper into his nightmare.

A soft voice, so rigid. "No. Can't... can't make me! Lock me in here forever... don't care! Won't ever do it."

Tears flowed down Rhiannon's cheeks at his broken sob. He lay there, curled up so tight, shaking, white-faced.

"Lion, wake up," she pleaded. "It's a dream, my love. Just a dream."

"No. Real. Come... come in the dark. Hear them... scratching, hungry like—like me." His fists knotted against his stomach, and he rolled away from her, shame contorting his features. "Sorry... Papa, sorry. So hungry... I had to..." Tears tracked down Lion's arrogant cheekbones, pooling in his white-blond hair. "Take me with you, Papa. Dead... I want be... dead... with you."

She couldn't bear it, leaving him lost, so broken, in his nightmare world. She shook him fiercely, loving him, aching for him. "Lion! Wake up!" she all but shouted, her voice harsh with her own pain. "It's a nightmare! Just a—"

If she lived to be a thousand, she knew she'd never forget his eyes the moment they opened—all defenses torn back, every vulnerability naked, exposed, more agony and desolation than she ever could have imagined.

She expected icy rage, his hands thrusting her away. Fearing that he would hate her forever for what she had seen, she stared into his tortured eyes, all but certain this was the last time she would ever be allowed to look into his beloved face.

But in that frozen instant, she saw something shatter.

"Rhiannon." Her name. Just her name. Her heart broke as Lion raised trembling arms and reached out to her. She bit her lip to suppress a broken cry, knowing it would distress him. She flung herself against him, holding him tight, so tight, knowing he would only let her do so for a tiny, precious fragment of time.

She stroked the damp strands of hair away from his cheeks, felt the warmth, the solidity of his chest. Whatever horrible thing had happened to him, leaving such a terrible scar, he'd found the strength to survive. She had to take comfort in that.

"Did I... Did anyone else hear me?" He sounded so uncertain, this man who had always been so confident in everything he said and did.

"No. I told Mrs. Webb to stay with her husband tonight." It hurt her to know that he had no concern for his pain, only for the fact that it had been revealed to someone else.

She felt his rigid muscles ease just a little, felt him suck in a shuddering breath. She felt the shifting in him, braced herself, knowing what would come. Gathering his strength, Lion drew away from her, straightened.

Rhiannon swallowed hard, attempted to explain. "I was afraid someone was trying to hurt you again." And someone had, Rhiannon realized with crushing grief. Perhaps no one had stolen into his chamber with knives or swords, but someone had hurt him far worse than any assassin could have.

He climbed out of the bed, stood at the open window, so stiff, so much alone. "Please accept my sincere apology for disturbing you."

The sudden formality infuriated her. She resolved that she wouldn't allow him to close her out. If he managed to do so now, it would be forever.

"Stop it, Lion!" she said sharply.

He turned, staring at her. "What?"

"You apologize to me as if I were some stranger you've imposed on. Don't you know I would suffer anything for you? If you would let me, I would hold your hand, walk with you into any nightmare you might name."

His eyes widened, pleading, desperate, almost hopeful for the tiniest second. Then his mouth hardened. "Thank you for the offer, but no. If there is one thing I detest it is an overcrowded nightmare."

Rhiannon couldn't stem the tears that stung her eyes. "Lion, don't. Don't try to make a jest out of it. I know how much you are hurting."

"Ah, yes." He gave a brittle laugh. "Fairy magic, wasn't it? The ability to read people's hearts. I'd just as soon you don't go prying about mine. I promise you, you wouldn't like what you find." Desolation shone in every line of his body.

He was trying so hard to pretend, to draw his defenses back into place. Rhiannon stood up and went to him, laid her hand upon the damp layer of cloth that clung to his back. His muscles jumped beneath her palm, but he didn't pull away.

She could feel so much through that little touch. Pain and longing, a desperate effort to hold himself back when he wanted what all creatures wished for when they were wounded, in pain. To have someone hold them, comfort them, heal them. But what had Lion said—that some wounds could never be healed? She couldn't believe that. To believe that might be to lose him forever in the dark wasteland where his nightmares lived.

In that instant Rhiannon took the greatest risk she'd ever dared take in her life. Slowly, she slid her arms about Lion's taut waist, laid her cheek against his back, feeling the dampness of his sweat, hearing the echoes of his terror still reverberating through him, and ever so faintly, perceiving the instinctive reaching-out of his wounded soul to her.

"Lion," she whispered against him, trembling, "whatever happened before, whatever hurt you so terribly, you're not alone anymore. I won't let you be."

"Rhiannon..." It was a groan, a plea. "Don't, angel. Even you can't save me."

"I can't believe that. Lion, I love you."

"No!" he snapped, wheeling around, grabbing her arms. His eyes burned with hopelessness. "How can you love me? You don't even know who I am. If you had any idea... you'd turn away, sickened, horrified."

"I don't believe that."

"You want to fashion me into some sort of wounded hero? Trust me, you'll only end up hurt, disillusioned. I'll destroy you, Rhiannon. Shatter the dreams in your eyes and leave you as barren as I am."

She shuddered, staring into eyes as dark as hell and twice as tormented. She didn't believe him. Couldn't. But that didn't change the fact that he
did.

"Have you wondered why it's been so difficult to even begin sorting out who attempted to kill me on that hillside? It's because I've done so many things to deserve people's hatred. I've trampled over their lives, destroying whatever I thought I was duty bound to destroy."

"Sometimes people have to make difficult choices. Do things that they regret."

"I've driven families out of their homes, Rhiannon. Shattered the walls so they couldn't crawl back into even that meager shelter. I've offered Judas silver to hungry peasants to tempt them to betray their fathers, brothers, neighbors."

Rhiannon's stomach hurt at the images he spun. Hadn't she seen with her own eyes the suffering the English army had brought to Ireland? Known of the cruelties, the injustice? Her heart had bled for her people. And yet her heart now broke for this man, who had no idea how many shadows those acts had left on his own face.

"Lion, when I found you on the hill, I almost left you there. For just a moment I was tempted. I knew the things you must have done in your king's name. I can't imagine what it must be like to be forced to do such things. To carry such regrets."

"I didn't regret a damned thing I'd done. I told myself it was necessary. The quickest way to eradicate the poison. I didn't realize then that the poison was inside me."

She stroked a lock of hair back from his brow. "How can anyone expect you to care about other people's pain when you can't even feel your own?"

"There is no excuse for what I've done, orders or no. There must have been other ways, gentler ways."

"You'll think of them now. Don't you see, Lion? If you were as hopelessly wicked as you claim, I could never love you."

"You don't. You can't."

"I didn't fall in love with the icy captain, handsome as you were. From the first, I was drawn to the tender places in your soul. The wounded places you hoped no one could see."

"Rhiannon—"

"Don't try to pretend them away. Not anymore. When you touched me, kissed me, when you danced with me, I could feel so much sadness in you, so much yearning. Loneliness. No, I couldn't have mistaken it, Lion. I've been lonely too long myself not to recognize that ache in someone else."

She swallowed hard, framed his face with her hands. "I know you didn't want me to love you. But I couldn't help myself. You kept trying to push me away. But every time you did, Lion, I heard something deep inside you calling me back. I couldn't help but hope that maybe—maybe you needed me as much as I needed you."

"Christ, Rhiannon, the last thing on earth an angel like you needs is a"—he winced, as if sickened—"a scoundrel like me."

"You're wrong. The fairies would never have led me to you if we weren't destined to—"

"The fairies? If they led you to me, sweetheart, they're a damned spiteful lot."

"To some. But never to me. Ever since I was a tiny girl, Lion, I've felt... something special, as if a ribbon were strung from my heart to the land of fairy magic. Every time I listened and followed the tug of that ribbon, I found something that healed the ugliness and anger within me."

"Healed you? You're the most perfect creature God ever saw fit to put on this accursed planet. There's never been anything ugly inside you, Rhiannon Fitzgerald. You have such unshakable faith, such courage, such goodness. Don't you see? That is why I could never, never be worthy of even a scrap of your love."

"Is that what you think, Lion? That I'm perfect? That I don't know anger? Hate? The night before we lost Primrose Cottage, I heard a noise. Crept downstairs."

She felt the familiar clenching in her stomach, tasted the bitter tang of regret. It had been such a long time since she'd probed that painful memory, felt the shame of it wash through her. But she would have suffered poring over it a hundred times over if it would wipe away some of the hopelessness in Lion's eyes.

"Papa sat at his desk, his face buried in his hands, crying. It was the only time I ever saw him cry. Over and over he kept sobbing, 'I'm sorry, Moira. So sorry.' The next day, I was going to lose the only home I'd ever had, everything I knew and loved. And there was Papa, crying over my mother. Eighteen years she'd been gone. Gone to the land of the fairies, Papa always claimed. But I'd heard other people whispering that it was all one of Kevin Fitzgerald's ridiculous stories. More likely she'd run off with a lover. Maybe she had another daughter and forgot all about me. Or maybe she was in her grave and Papa just couldn't face her death."

She drew in a shuddering breath, confessing it all for the first time—her own pain, her doubts, her grief, the mocking whispers that stalked her late at night. "The only thing I knew for certain was that she hadn't loved me enough to stay."

"Rhiannon, no one could look at you, even once, without loving you," Lion rasped. "I can't believe she left you behind."