Cates, Kimberly (3 page)

What did it matter if he screamed for an eternity? No one would hear him. No one would care.

Fool, he derided himself in disgust. Don't be a fool. Whatever lies beyond this mist, face it like a man. If it's hell you're in, you deserve it. You've earned it.

If they kept a tally of sins in the Dark One's kingdom, Lionel Redmayne's must be long indeed.

With fierce determination, he tried to force his eyes open, the lids so heavy they seemed nailed to his cheekbones. Spears of light screwed relentlessly into the center of his skull, his stomach threatening revolt as he struggled to focus.

What the blazes? The thought streaked through his beleaguered brain. In his famed
Inferno,
Dante had neglected to mention this garish form of torture—hell was decorated in colors that would make any rational man seasick. Bright blue blotched with gold. Sour-apple green and bile yellow with something like red snakes writhing about.

Most alarming of all, bare inches from his nose a single green eye in a distorted, hirsute face peered down at him, unblinking. Instinctively he tried to shift away from it, but it moved with him, inescapable.

Suddenly something swept it out of the way, a voice, a low, scolding murmur, drifting through the haze. Another figure appeared in its place. A soft, pale oval swam before him—large, troubled green-gold eyes, spice-brown hair. A mouth carved with generosity and sweetness. An angel? He marveled. Was it possible?

"Whist, now, lie still." An Irish angel, her voice filled with winsome music, her brow creasing in concern. Heaven... was he in heaven? He swallowed hard. There must be some sort of mistake. God knew, when they found it, he'd be hurled down into the abyss. He had to lie still, quiet, not betray the truth about himself.

She leaned closer, her bosom brushing against him, the kind shaped to pillow a man's weary head, soft and inviting and... askew. Her lace collar was half turned under one ear, a button had popped off, wisps of hair tumbling in a most troubling disarray. An untidy angel? He couldn't remember any such in the pictures he'd seen as a lad. Every wing feather had been in place with military precision, every golden tress expertly curled. She evidenced a most appalling lack of heavenly discipline.

He tried to speak through parched lips. "Wh-who are... Wh-where..."

"I'm going to take care of you. I promise," the angel vowed gravely. "It will all be over in a moment."

"Over? Wh-what?"

She drew something from behind her. Redmayne shrank back as he stared at the fire poker, glowing white-hot, coming nearer, nearer.

This must be hell after all!

Her hand was quivering so hard it would be a wonder if she didn't set the whole place on fire—as if the devil needed any assistance. "Forgive my shaking," she apologized, polite demon that she was. "I've done this to several dogs, but never to a man. It must work about the same, don't you think?"

"Torture... dogs in... hell? What for? Biting masters? Stealing old women's parcels?"

"Hell? What are you talking about? You've been shot. I just mean to cauterize your wounds. It's the only way to make certain they don't putrefy."

He struggled partially upright, his head cracking into something hanging above him. "Cauterize my wounds? That means I'm... still alive." He felt no particular pleasure in the realization.

Those green eyes widened with astonishment beneath ridiculously thick lashes. "Of course you're still alive!"

"I prefer to stay that way. Give me... that."

"Wh-what?"

"The poker. I'll do it myself."

Horror flooded a face far too tender for such a cynical world. "You can't possibly—"

"I'm afraid I must... insist. You're shaking so hard you'll never hit the wound. I prefer only... one attempt."

She still didn't look ready to surrender her mission, but he grasped her hand where it was curled around the poker. Warm, soft, capable, her skin shielding him from the hardness of the metal. He steeled himself; then ruthlessly he glared down at the wound in his leg and shoved the hot end of the poker onto the ragged flesh.

Agony seared through every pore in his body, sweat breaking out, but the only cry came from the woman—miserable, soft. He made not a sound, fighting back the sickness from the stench of burning flesh.

Twice more he applied the hot iron to his own wounds before the agony took him to blessed blackness, an abyss of silence. Peace.

Yet even as he let go of consciousness, something pried its way into his mind. Something warm, wet, splashing onto his skin. Tears. The woman bending over him had tears streaking her face. Perhaps she was an angel after all, Redmayne marveled. For only an angel would cry over him.

CHAPTER 2

Rhiannon hurled the iron poker out the rear door of the caravan, the instrument clattering to the dirt. Horror reverberated in the pit of her stomach. She gripped one of the roof braces to keep her knees from buckling, despising herself for her own weakness.

What right did
she
have to be so shaken? She hadn't had her flesh seared, hadn't felt the piercing of a bullet or the crushing hopelessness as her blood had ebbed into the dirt beneath where she lay. She hadn't waited, alone, for death, like the man whose inert body overwhelmed her small bed.

And yet her nerves were as raw as if she'd suffered that, and more. Her whole body ached from the herculean effort of dragging the wounded officer to the caravan, her nerves frayed by the desperate ride away from the ring of standing stones, her eyes searching the wild lands for any hint of his attackers returning to make certain their quarry was dead.

But most disturbing of all was the memory that had seared itself into her mind—the officer's features when he'd grasped her wrist and forced the glowing point of iron into the raw mouth of his own wound.

If eyes were said to be windows into the soul, the view beyond his was a frightening vista. Terrifyingly cool, his mouth white-lipped, yet curled in something akin to amusement, his voice pain-racked, and yet so—so cynical: "You're shaking so hard you'll never hit the wound. I prefer only one attempt."

What kind of man could be so completely untouched by his own agony? A dangerous man. One completely unpredictable.

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and turned back to look at him, so still, so seemingly vulnerable, helpless. But he wouldn't be thus forever. Her fingers stole up to the place where her lace collar sagged open, her throat bare. There she touched the fading scars that marred the smooth skin, a tracery of teeth marks that might have ended her life.

She closed her eyes, remembering the wolf she'd once found, so weak it couldn't lift its great head. She'd tended it, trusted it. But the instant it was strong enough, she'd opened its cage, only to have the beast try to tear out her throat. If she hadn't managed to grasp the broom handle, strike the creature in its wounded side, God alone knew what might have happened.

Yet even as Papa had tended the gashes left by the fangs, Rhiannon hadn't blamed the animal. The fault had been her own. She'd known what he was when she took him in.

The wolf she'd been able to lock away in a cage, but she couldn't handle this English officer so simply. The one thing she was certain of was that he was a man wreathed in violence—his very life's work was bound up in hurting instead of healing, imposing the will of a mightier country on a weaker one. And that was not the least of her worries.

One of the first lessons she and her father had learned on the road was that a traveler depended on the goodwill of the settled people to survive. Even the villagers Rhiannon had come to trust might now become foes because of this Englishman.

She shivered. The wounds from the rebellion were still raw years later. There could be little doubt that she had crossed an invisible line the moment she took the Englishman in. Many in Ireland would see that as treason.

Even once he got well, she could hardly just open the caravan door and set him free the way she did her creatures. God above, what had she gotten herself into?

"Whatever it is, you're in it neck deep," she told herself. "You can hardly dump him in the middle of the road now. Best to do your utmost to make him well and hope that he doesn't leave any teeth marks before he goes."

If that was to be her plan, there was a great deal to do before he awakened again. She had to make him as comfortable as possible now that the first stage of his ordeal was over—after all, an uncomfortable wolf had a tendency to bite.

Steadying herself, she moved toward the bed. She needed to get him out of those bloody clothes, wash them in the stream, bathe the grime and blood from his skin. Poultices to help soothe the cruel burns. And gruel... he would need some hearty gruel when he awakened, to help him regain his strength.

More than any of that, she needed a name to call him as she tended him. She doubted he'd appreciate her christening him after some long dead poet or philosopher.

Yet despite all the things she needed to tend to, she hesitated, her fingers gripping the crossbar of wood as she stared down into the officer's face, uncertain as if... as if what? He'd snap off her fingers with his teeth?

"This is absurd," she muttered to herself. "Do you want him to awaken and have to endure being shifted around, having his wounds jarred because you were a coward?" Besides, this was a military man. He'd understand her need to discover his identity. It wasn't as if she meant to rifle through his pockets to steal his watch!

But there were things far more precious and sacred than mere bits of gold, private dreamings, tender secrets of the soul. Even English officers had to possess a few of those, she believed, although there were plenty in Ireland who would insist there was nothing but a yawning black cavern where their hearts were supposed to be.

Decidedly uncomfortable, she felt his uniform jacket, hearing the crinkling of paper beneath her hand. Withdrawing an official-looking document, she read the name penned on it so precisely: Captain L. Redmayne.

L. Redmayne. What did the I stand for? She wondered. Linus? Lovett? More likely Lucifer?

Lucifer... that most beautiful of all angels, fallen from heaven itself to carve out his own kingdom below. A dark place. A tragic one. She shivered, sensing that this man would have the power to tempt any woman to sin.

She knew nothing of him, only his name, which she'd stolen from the smooth surface of the letter. Knew nothing about the enemies he'd faced in the looming shadows of the standing stones. That information might prove crucial if she tried to protect him during the journey back to wherever he belonged. She glanced down again at the letter she held. Might this missive hold some vital bit of intelligence that would help save both their lives?

She nibbled at one ragged fingernail, uneasy at the prospect of prying into an unconscious man's correspondence. For all she knew, it might be a love letter from a sweetheart or wife far away. Yet wouldn't it be crumpled then? Edges frayed from reading it over and over? This was crisp, the seal new-broken.

In any case, she might need whatever information the letter held if she was to navigate them through the next few days. There was no telling how long Captain Redmayne would be incapacitated by the wounds he'd suffered.

Pricklings of guilt stinging her cheeks, Rhiannon slipped her thumb beneath the broken seal, opening the missive. Holding it to the light, she read: "The most dangerous serpent is the one who sleeps beneath your own roof."

Chill fingers seemed to skate down her spine. She shuddered. A warning—vivid enough. A traitor coiled somewhere within his very garrison, waiting to poison this man with its venom. She read on: "Would you know your enemy's name? Meet me at the town well in the village of Ballyaroon Wednesday next. I will find you among the crowd."

Among the crowd at Ballyaroon? Her brow wrinkled. No one walked there but ghosts. It was nothing but rubble in the middle of nowhere, the town utterly destroyed by the English during the rebellion of 1798. Why would anyone write such a thing? Because he didn't intend a meeting with Captain Redmayne at all—except at the deadly end of a pistol barrel.

She swallowed hard. That had to be it. Ballyaroon might no longer be a village, but it was completely deserted, miles from anywhere, anyone. No one dared stray near it, haunted as it was by screams of those too newly dead. It was the perfect place to lure someone you intended to murder.

God above, had this man been mad to come here? As if treachery among his own ranks wasn't danger enough, he'd be loathed like a rabid wolf by every Irish-born crofter who crossed his path.

Hatred of the English had been a chronic fever in Irish blood for six hundred years. It surged into violence and then, battered back by British swords, sank beneath the surface again to simmer in the veins until it broke into yet another rebellion. An officer accidentally separated from the rest of his men might easily become a target. Captain Redmayne must have known how dangerous it was when he found himself alone.

She folded up the letter again, her fingers plucking nervously at the seal. The good news was that his assailants must know how deserted this place was. Perhaps they hadn't searched for him at all after he was shot. Once wounded, they would believe there was no chance that their quarry could escape alive.

In all likelihood they'd ridden away, certain of their triumph. If not dead already, Redmayne would bleed to death in but little time. No one who knew the isolated reaches around Ballyaroon would guess that any living soul would trek up into this fiercely lonely wild place.

He'd been hunted, left for dead. And for some reason fate had seen fit to cast him into her path. But Rhiannon was Irish enough to know that fate could be malevolent as well as kind, cruel as well as kissed by magic. Time alone would tell which spirits had been responsible for the outcome of this day.

Returning the letter to Captain Redmayne's pocket, she turned to an equally disturbing task, getting him out of his soiled clothes.

Grasping the heel, she worked the polished boot from his uninjured leg, then attempted to strip away the other. A low groan tore from the officer's throat. She winced. Only one thing to do. Cut it away, so it wouldn't hurt quite so much. She grasped heavy shears and carefully slid one blade inside the expensive leather. A sheen of perspiration dotted her brow as she wrestled with the recalcitrant leather, even the officer's boot seeming to object to suffering the indignation of such clumsy handling.