Lady of Conquest (22 page)

She swallowed. “I came to talk to you. I guess I fell asleep.”

“Were you going to reveal your identity before or after I ravished you?” He got to his feet, tucking the cloth around his waist, and strode to the ale flagon.

“You knew who I was,” she said, straightening her neck proudly.

He stared into his mug. “I did not. I thought you were Sheela.”

“You’re lying.” Her voice carried crystal clear in the silent room.

His eyes narrowed as he approached the bed, and Gelina fought the urge to flinch. He stared down at her and shook his head. “You just can’t seem to stay out of danger, can you?”

“I saw no danger in awaiting you here. You knew it was me.” She stared sadly at the coverlet and mumbled, “It wouldn’t be the first time you lied.”

“I did not know it was you,” he repeated. “I have no interest in bedding a child.”

She averted her eyes so he wouldn’t see how deeply his words cut her. “You’re angry, are you not?”

“You’re damned right I’m angry. I almost raped my foster daughter!” His hoarse words shot out at her like missiles.

She shook her head but didn’t dare voice her opinion that what had happened had little to do with rape. He scratched his head, studying her.

“Conn, please—”

“Hold your tongue, Gelina.” He cut off her words before she was even sure what they were going to be. “I am trying to decide what must be done with you.”

The finality in his quiet words frightened her more than all of his ranting. The cold eyes of a stranger assessed her. She felt a flush rise to her cheeks. She sat in the center
of the huge bed, looking very small with her
hair tousled and her face tightly drawn.

He turned to the window, refusing to meet her eyes. “I fear there is only one answer for you. You shall marry Sean Ó Finn before the week is over. I will grant a generous marriage portion, and he can take you away from Tara.”

“I do not love Sean. You cannot do that.” She leapt out of bed and ran to face him, placing one hand on his arm.

He shook her hand off. “I can do anything I bloody well please. I am the Ard-Righ.”

“Is that the attitude that earned you such an inflated reputation for fairness?”

“Do not scream at me. It annoys me,” he said through clenched teeth.

She made an elaborately exaggerated curtsy. “Forgive my rudeness, sire. It grates on my nerves when I am forced to marry a man I do not love.”

“Sean is quite fond of you. He told me so. Every woman desires a Fiannic soldier for a husband. Perhaps a passel of brats will keep you out of trouble.”

“It will take a hell of a lot more than a passel of brats to keep me out of trouble if you persist with this absurd idea!”

“It is no more absurd than you thinking I would care for you in my bed,” he said disparagingly.

Her hand rose in the air of its own volition, only to be caught in an iron vise as he said softly, “Don’t even think about it. Don’t let the thought cross your mind.” The threat was real. Darkness held his eyes, a darkness she had struggled to forget.

“Marrying me to Sean is not going to change the way you felt a few minutes ago, is it?” she whispered.

He didn’t speak but crossed to the door and opened it. She walked out, refusing to give way to the bitter tears until she reached the end of the corridor. She sank to the floor and cried like a baby. Hearing another door slam, she ducked into a muddy garden, stumbling over her own feet as tears blinded her.

Falling to her knees, Gelina faced a firelit window. The scene in the room was achingly clear, as if she herself stood within. Conn crossed the chamber in long strides. The question died on Sheela’s lips as Conn’s hand caught in her dark web of tangled curls, bending her backward. His lips captured hers with battering violence. Her arms rose to circle his neck, and they sank from view. Gelina’s fingers dug into the wet soil as if to grasp what was already out of her reach.

Having never dreamed that her heart was located so low in her stomach, the physical pain amazed her, doubling her over with its intensity. Her breath came in ragged gasps sucked in through clenched lips. She knelt in the garden for a lifetime. Her sobs grew infrequent and muffled. The cool mud beneath her knees soaked into her skirt. The tears on her face dried to grimy tracks. For the second morning in a row she watched the sky pinken in the east. Searing, white-hot anger began to replace the pain, and she could breathe with a semblance of normality. Morning was coming.

She darted along the corridors of the sleeping fortress until she found the bedchamber. Sean sprawled across the top of the coverlet, mouth open in sleep. She watched him fondly for a moment before rifling his clothes and producing a key.

The weaponry room was as she remembered, still lit with the eerie rows of torches reflected by the gleaming instruments of death. She returned to her chamber with the sword hidden in the long folds of her skirt. She stripped. The morning air from the open window caressed her skin before she slid the man’s jerkin over her head and the breeches up her legs. She cinched them with trembling fingers. Digging through the wooden chest, she tossed things right and left until she found the cap. She tucked her long hair into it, then stopped, catching her reflection in the mirror.

The dagger lay where she had hidden it. Her breath came unevenly as she lifted it. The curls fell limply to the floor like a dying dream, leaving her with short-cropped hair that refused to lie flat. The pendant went around her neck. She wrapped herself in a huge cloak with a hood, much like the one her brother had worn.

With the familiar weight of the sword clutched in her hand, she opened the door. A lone figure leaned against the wall at the top of the stairs, arms crossed and no trace of laughter in his eyes.

She froze as he spoke. “He’ll not let ye go.”

“He has no choice, Nimbus. I am going now.” Her voice held both a warning and a plea.

“Ye’re crazy to do this.” He moved toward her with arms outstretched.

“Yes, I’m crazy. He’s crazy. We have all gone a little bit crazy.” Her hissed whisper traveled to him on a note of desperation.

“Stay, Gelina. Marry me. I love ye, ye know.”

“Oh, Nimbus.” Tears welled up in her eyes as she took his small hand in hers. “I love you, too, but not that way. You’ve got to let me go.”

He nodded and looked away for a long moment. When he looked back, his eyes were clear and dry. “Do ye have somewhere to go?”

“I think so.”

They studied each other in silence, then Gelina knelt beside him and put her arms around him. It was Nimbus who reluctantly pushed away.

“Take care and hide yerself well. He’ll be coming after ye.”

She couldn’t resist a bitter laugh. “I doubt that. He’ll be glad enough to be shed of this foundling.” Nimbus , shook his head as she stood. “I must go. Daylight grows.”

She gave him a final sad smile, then turned and ran down the steps, her hand on the sword hilt, the cape billowing behind her. Nimbus stood for a moment after she disappeared, then slid to a sitting position, staring at nothing.

The stable was deserted without even a snoring stable boy to block her way. She examined each stall before pausing in front of the stall that held Conn’s stallion. A grim smile twisted her lips. She mounted the horse in one attempt, vaulting to its back. The bleary-eyed guards threw open the fortress gates without so much as a blink. They had seen her ride through at odder hours in the months of Conn’s absence. A battle cry caught in her throat. Silent Thunder galloped through the gates of the fortress and ran for the southern hills as the sun rose over the eastern horizon.

Conn awoke with a bitter taste in his mouth and a bad feeling deep in his gut. It took only seconds to remember why. The bitter taste was a reminder of the large amount of ale he had drunk after slamming into Sheela’s room last night. Sheela lay beside him with one arm thrown over his chest, snoring delicately. He moved her arm and slid out of bed, suppressing a groan as his knees hit the cold wooden floor. He dressed and stepped into the hall. The silence proclaimed the newness of the morning. He had to see Gelina. He cursed himself as their encounter came back to him in full force, complete with the bitter words spoken.

Her door opened with a creak. He stopped in his tracks as he faced the havoc of her chamber. The chest had been emptied, and dresses were scattered from one end of the room to the other. The bed was empty, untouched. The table had been cleared in a single swipe, ivory combs and earthenware bottles shattered on the floor. The scent of sandalwood overwhelmed him. He took a step backward, a horrible suspicion dawning in his numbed mind.

A few stragglers snored in the great hall around the dying fire. The kitchen was deserted as was the study. He paused at the chess set, something puzzling him. Drawing in a sharp breath, he realized that the white queen was gone, her space empty.

He ran to the weaponry room, opening it with his own key. His worst fears were confirmed. He touched the empty wall with icy fingertips, mouthing her name in silent prayer.

He flew to the stables, searching stall after stall until he stood before Silent Thunder’s stall. He flung the door open. A narrow strip of leather hung from a nail on the wall opposite him. He jerked it from the wall. It was a belt of the Fianna, engraved with his own name. He slammed it to the ground, cursing furiously.

“She’s gone.”

He whirled around. Nimbus leaned against the wall behind him.

“Where is she?” he roared.

“I told ye. She’s gone.”

Conn turned on him, lifting him off the ground by his collar until he could look him in the eye. “Where did she go?”

“Go on, Conn,” Nimbus yelled. “Bully me, too. Destroy something else today!”

Conn lowered him to the ground and turned away, fighting to control his breathing.

“Just what did ye do to her?” Nimbus demanded.

“I didn’t do anything to her.” Conn laughed bitterly. “I think that was the problem.”

“She loved ye, ye know.” Nimbus spat out the words.

“Of course she did. I was her fosterer.”

“Are ye blind?” Nimbus asked, eyebrows raised. “She loved ye like a woman loves a man. She loved ye before ye ever left for Rome.” The jester turned away, pacing the floor.

Conn slumped against the wall, all of the energy drained from his body. “She’s young enough to be my daughter.”

“Ye wouldn’t be the first king to raise a foster daughter to be his bride.”

“That is ludicrous, Nimbus. I told you. I’ve always thought of her as my daughter.”

“I’ll wager that ye have,” Nimbus said with a snort.

“Do you know where she went?” Conn asked softly.

“I thought maybe ye would since ye’re the only one who knows where she really came from.”

“I’ll find her.” Conn straightened his back, his eyes narrowed. Nimbus wasn’t sure he liked the look he saw there. Conn scooped up his belt from the ground where he had thrown it. Looping it around his waist, he repeated the words, “I’ll find her.”

Pity the woman loves a man,

When no love invites her,

Better for her to fly from love

If unloved, love bites her.

—Author unknown

9th century

Twilight descended around him, settling in with the eerie lavender stillness of summer. Darkness gathered on the horizon in the east. He galloped over the deepening emerald hills, the muffled crunch of the horse’s hooves in the long grass the only sound. His thoughts darted to and fro, steeped in the desperation and weariness of the long ride. Having felt despair in the hold of the Roman slave ship, Conn knew that what he felt now had been pushed beyond the brink of despair. In the distance he heard the howl of an animal and thought again of the jackal in his vision.

He had ridden forth from Tara each day, sometimes not returning in a night’s time. Villagers welcomed the forlorn figure who rode into their midst. At times he was accompanied by soldiers, but more often he was alone. They honored him, fed him, received him in their simple cottages, but they could not offer the one comfort he sought above all others—news of Gelina. She had vanished without a trace. When a week had crawled by, he had been forced to give up the notion that she had gone away to sulk, perhaps to return cold and hungry, prepared for reconciliation. When a month had passed, he had been forced to give up many other notions, too.

Always in the summer the Fianna were dispatched throughout the island to live under the stars, acting as a peace-keeping force and defending areas still threatened by the ever-annoying presence of Eoghan Mogh. Now they had been dispatched with another mission. Gelina must be found. Explaining her disappearance as just that, no one was certain whether she had been stolen or left of her own volition. No one who sat in the presence of Conn’s gaunt, tormented eyes dared to ask why or how she had gone.

Only Nimbus, the jester whose jokes became more bitter with each passing day, knew the guilt that Conn felt as he sat in the study, face buried in his hands after a night’s ride and futile day’s search. Nimbus sat with him often, both of them staring into the fire until it faded to ash. Nimbus tried to cheer him, offering to make use of the dusty chess set that sat deserted in the corner. Conn’s haunted eyes as he raised them were enough to make the jester pardon himself and leave the room.