Dangerous Joy (14 page)

Miles checked for a moment, unsure which target to follow.

Then Dunsmore ran toward his horse. Kicking Argonaut forward, Miles put himself between Dunsmore and Felicity, his unfired pistol in hand.

The four other men-Denzil, a servant of some kind, and two fishermen-seemed inclined to stay out of trouble.

Dunsmore charged after Felicity as if he would ride straight through Miles.

Miles raised the pistol, completely willing to shoot.

Perhaps Dunsmore realized it, for he pulled his horse to a rearing stop only feet away. "Such a conscientious guardian." But it was close to a snarl.

"Note that fact."

"You can't guard her day and night."

"I won't have to when you're out of Ireland."

Dunsmore calmed his horse and regained his superior manner. "I have no intention of leaving Ireland without my promised bride."

Miles raised the pistol. "I despise you and your actions, Dunsmore. My head feels cracked, and I am entirely out of patience. Board the boat or I'll shoot you."

"My men would kill you!" Dunsmore blustered.

"I doubt it, but at the moment it seems worth the risk."

Dunsmore stared at him, looking like nothing so much as a thwarted child. "You can't do this!"

Miles didn't dignify that with an answer. He nudged Argonaut forward a step or two. In lieu of shooting Dunsmore, beating him to a pulp was extremely attractive.

Perhaps Dunsmore read the intent, for he suddenly wheeled his horse and rode back to the wharf to dismount and shout, "I'll come straight back!" He sounded even more like a spoiled child.

Miles followed slowly. "Not to Barragan, you won't. You're on Clonnagh land; and once I put the word around, you'll not be welcome here. Ned Tooley, is that you?"

The stocky young fisherman rubbed his face uneasily. "It is, your honor, it is."

"I assume the gentleman hired you to take him to Scotland."

"Aye, your honor, he did. I saw no harm in it, God be my witness!"

"Nor was there. Take him to his destination. But," Miles added, "do not bring him back."

The man's eyes brightened, and he winked. "Right you are, sir, and a pleasure it will be."

Miles studied Dunsmore, wondering how Felicity could contemplate tying herself for life to such a specimen. "You won't marry Felicity before her majority, Dunsmore. That, at least, I can promise."

Despite his defeat, the man smirked. "I wouldn't lay odds on that, Cavanagh. Desperate women are capable of a great deal, as you have seen. And she is. Desperate."

Miles fired a pistol ball into the ground inches from the man's foot then, leaving Dunsmore still dancing and expostulating, headed off down the sand after Felicity.

His head still ached like the devil, but it appeared fury could overwhelm even pain.

His traitorous ward was nowhere in sight, but her horse had left hoofprints in the sand. Slowly, because of the uncertain moonlight, he tracked her up Hickey's Gully and back to the road to Kilgloch.

There he banged on a cottage door. "Open up, Molan! It's Cavanagh."

The door opened, and a gray-haired man peered out. "Is it truly you, your honor? Sure and there's devils out tonight!"

"Devils indeed. Has someone ridden past in the last few minutes?"

"Indeed they have, your honor. A lady pretty as Sinead, thrown up by the water and asking the way to Clonnagh."

Devil take it, was she going to ride on to his home as if nothing had happened?

"Thank you, Molan. Good night to you."

"And to you, your honor! But take care, for the Danaan are out tonight!"

Miles cantered off, knowing that, already, new myths were weaving. Did all magical tales have such sordid origins?

It was a risk to go at speed, for it was too dark now to see clearly, but he did it anyway. He hoped Felicity, on strange territory, would not be as rash. He was proved correct when he saw her ahead, riding at a slow walk.

She twisted to look back, but then turned forward again and resumed her steady pace.

His head throbbing and his jaw tight, Miles eased his pace until he came up with her. "Get off the horse."

"Why? So you can beat me?"

"Don't you deserve it?"

"I don't acknowledge your authority over me." Tears glinted on her face, though. Tears from losing Dunsmore, dammit?

He seized her reins and, when she didn't let go, rapped her knuckles sharply with the handle of his crop. With a hiss, she released her grip.

"This has little to do with authority," he said. "You attacked me, and I will retaliate."

"I never touched you!"

"And I'm not going to touch you. Get off."

She glared at him for a moment, then slid off the horse. "Now, what?"

"Now, you walk. It's only a bit over two miles."

"Oh, I'm quaking. Is this your punishment?"

"It'll do. I seem to remember your boots pinch."

"You bastard!"

"Being lied to, tricked, and knocked over the head brings out the worst in me."

With that, he set both horses in motion again and ignored her. He supposed if she absolutely refused to walk, he'd have to make some arrangement to get her to Clonnagh. She wasn't riding there, though, and one way or another she was going to hurt as much as he did.

Perhaps she realized that, for he heard footsteps behind.

A two-mile walk gave plenty of time to think. Too much time. Miles couldn't reconcile his admiration for Felicity's intelligence and courage with his disgust at her behavior today. The child was no excuse. She was intelligent enough to realize that the world was full of children and that, all in all, Kieran Dunsmore did not have the roughest track under his well-shod feet.

There was some piece of the puzzle missing.

He realized then that he was nursing a pain greater than the throb in his head. It was the pain of knowing that Felicity didn't trust him enough to tell him the whole truth.

He thought he heard an irregularity in her step and stopped to look back. She immediately froze, standing straight, as if unconcerned.

Damn the stubborn, pride-ridden jade.

He headed forward again. Yes, she was limping and there was at least half-a-mile to go.

Was that the key to it all-pride? Was she the type who'd ride to destruction rather than admit a foolishness?

He found it hard to believe.

After another furlong, he stopped again.

Again she froze.

Damnation. He turned in the saddle. "Get back on the horse."

"No."

"Hades, Felicity. For once, just do as I say!"

"No. I deserve to walk."

He dismounted, intending to throw her on if necessary, but moonlight glinted on fresh tears and showed a haunting sorrow in her eyes.

"Why, Felicity?" he asked gently. "Tell me all about this."

"It would do no good. I'm going to marry Rupert Dunsmore."

"No, you are not!"

"Once I'm twenty-one, you cannot stop me."

"Don't lay odds on it."

"How?" she asked, truly distressed.

Unable to help himself, he brushed a tear from her cheek with his thumb.

"Like thus," he said, and kissed her cold lips.

They surrendered to him, but it was the surrender of exhaustion and helplessness, with no desire in it at all. He kissed her anyway, trying to give her some awareness of her true worth.

"Felicity," he murmured against her chilled and dampened cheek. "You are a treasure. Many men will want you. Choose wisely."

"The choice is made," she whispered. "It was made long since and cannot be changed. Don't do this, Miles. It only makes it worse."

He kissed the dampness from her eyelashes. "I care for you. I cannot see you hurt."

She laughed unsteadily. "Then why am I walking on blistered feet?"

He laughed, too, in the same bittersweet way. "Because you're an infuriatingly willful creature and my head still aches like the devil."

She reached up and ran her fingers over the back of his head to the bump. "Oh dear."

"That's what happens when you bash someone on the head with a pistol butt."

"If only Denzil had tied you tighter..."

He pushed back and looked at her, to see that she was completely serious. Her regret was that he'd escaped and stopped her elopement. Without a word, he remounted and led the way to his home.

By the time they arrived at the Clonnagh stables, Felicity was limping badly, but Miles had heard no sound from her. When they stopped this time, however, she eased from foot to foot, clearly trying to find a comfortable spot and failing.

Miles did his best to ignore it.

A couple of grooms came out to welcome him home and take the horses, then Miles led the way up to the house, resisting the temptation to carry her.

He remembered their stop, when he'd swung her into his arms. For a fleeting moment magic had danced between them, magic that-as in most of the ancient tales-had only led to sorrow.

God, it made no sense to his poor aching head.

They entered by a side door which passed near to the aromatic kitchens. "We're late for dinner," he remarked. "I suppose you want to change."

"Yes, I suppose I do." But she said it numbly, as if she'd agree to walk off a cliff if invited.

He guided her into the spacious hall and toward the curving staircase, but at that moment, a door opened and his mother appeared.

"Miles! At last. We were concerned. And Felicity. Welcome to Clonnagh, my dear." Felicity accepted the embrace with good grace, but Lady Aideen did not miss her distress.

"Why, whatever has happened? You look exhausted. And Miles, you look none too clever yourself."

She'd been followed out by five dogs, two of them belonging to Miles. He returned their greetings as he said, "We had a little run-in with some ne'er-do-wells, Mother. They tried to kidnap Felicity. I think she'd be happy to eat in her room tonight and have a good rest."

"Kidnap! My gracious! Yes, of course you must rest, you poor child. Come along."

Felicity resisted the gentle urging, however, and turned back to Miles.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. He thought it was a general repentance, but then she drew something out of her capacious pocket.

One of the dogs whined.

Of course. He'd forgotten Gardeen.

She placed the small cat in Miles's hands, and only then did he realize it was a limp, cold form.

"He killed her," she said.

As a deadweight, the young cat weighed scarcely anything.

Miles looked at Felicity. "Why?" It encompassed more than the death, but that was all she answered.

"She scratched him."

Then she turned and limped up the stairs.

Likely as not, he thought, all the tears she'd shed had been for this little life snuffed out. He stroked the black fur, hardly able to believe that the cat wouldn't stir back to life again.

Poor Gardeen. And poor Dunsmore, for there would be vengeance for this senseless act.

Then his stepfather was there.

"A cat? Poor thing. What happened to it?"

"Like many guardians, she fell with honor in her task."

"A guardian of the guardian, eh? Plato would not have approved. Where did she come from?"

"She's one of Annie's brood."

Colum's eyes widened. "St. Bridget defend us, then, for she'll not be happy at this. And nor will the one who caused the death." He flapped the fine linen serviette in his hand and draped it over the corpse, then rang the silver bell on the table. When a footman appeared, he said, "I think your master would like the small creature buried."

Miles felt strangely reluctant to surrender the body, but he could hardly wander the house carrying her. He folded the serviette around the cat and handed her over. "See her laid softly, Gerald. By the sundial, I think. In the herb garden."

"Yes, sir." Gerald O'Farrell carried the corpse away with the respectful majesty only an Irishman could offer a dead cat. Miles let his stepfather steer him into the dining room.

"Kidnapping, did you say? In this area?"

"I think they were from elsewhere. Don't forget she-Felicity-is a considerable heiress."

"Even so. Terrible thing, terrible. And how did the little cat come to be involved?"

"She adopted me."

"And one of Annie's, you say? Oh dear, oh dear." And for once, Colum did seem struck to somberness by an event. "She will be in a state over it. And it's rare indeed that one of her little ones takes to a stranger. Oh dear, oh dear."

"I suppose I should write and tell her."

"Only if you want her ire directed upon the malefactor."

"I'd like nothing better." Unfortunately, Miles could not imagine Annie Monahan's ire amounting to much. His own could, however. He now had a personal grudge against Dunsmore, and began to contemplate a number of ways he could make the man's life thoroughly unpleasant. He'd start by checking out his creditors.