The Falcon's Bride (34 page)

“You knew,” he said. “You knew, and you kept it from me.”

She knew exactly what he meant. There was only one thing that could have put such a look upon his face.

“You had no right,” he raved.

“There was nothing to be done. Revenging yourself against Cosgrove could not have brought your mother back, my lord. You are not thinking clearly. If you had gone . . . and died, what would have become of me . . . in a strange land—in a strange
time?
Have you no care for that?”

He ignored the question. “What else have you kept from me?”

“N-nothing,” she murmured, thinking of the new life growing inside her. This was not the time to break that news. How could she bear it if he rejected the prospect?

“You never told me what occurred between you and Cosgrove when he captured you.”

Thea hesitated. “He was castaway and he tried to force himself upon me. . . .” She wouldn’t go into detail. She would not fuel his rage. “The bird . . . it saved me—lured him away, lured him over the gallery railing at Falcon’s Lair. I thought the fall had killed him . . . until I heard him screaming for someone to stop me from escaping.”

Drumcondra gave a crisp nod. “He broke both legs in that fall,” he said.

Thea gasped. “How do you know that?” she breathed.

“Never mind. You know the history . . . you’ve said it. How does it say Cian Cosgrove died?”

“You’ve killed him!” She knew.

“I never laid a hand upon him.”

Thea gasped again. “The bird!” she cried. “The blood! My God . . .”

“Be still! The others will hear. This is between us. You are my wife, and you have betrayed me. I will not be shamed before the others.” He threw wild arms into the air. “Am I never to have a woman I can trust?” he cried. Upending their pallet bed with one sweep of his muscled arm, he scattered the bedding and everything near it helter-skelter. “Cuckolded by my first wife! Nearly burned alive by my whore! And now
you!
”

Tears welled in Thea’s eyes. She flinched as if he’d struck her. No, he would never forgive her. This virile tower of a man would never stand betrayal after all that had gone before. The cold fingers of a chill crawled along
her spine. He was right. She never should have kept the truth from him. He had the right to know. She had gone too far.

“D-don’t,” she sobbed. “I beg you . . . don’t. It was selfish of me, I will allow. I knew you would go back . . . do something foolish. I wanted you safe . . . with me. I wanted our life together—”

“The history,” he pronounced through clenched teeth and lips drained white with rage. “How is it recorded? Speak!”

“It is recorded that Cian Cosgrove . . . hemorrhaged to death, an old man in his bed after a fall from his horse. . . .”

Drumcondra gave a deep nod. “That is how it is recorded, eh?” he snarled. “He saves face even in death. Bastard!” He leaned close in her face, his wild eyes blind with passion. “I’ll tell you how and
why
he died, madam,” he seethed. “He has at least one son—an heir—to carry on the benighted name of Cosgrove.”

“You knew that, my lord,” Thea interrupted. “How else would Nigel exist?”

“Silence!” he roared. “Do not speak. You would hear this. Be still and listen. He did fall from his horse. He was dying when I arrived. His son and heir had gone to bring the surgeon, but if we were to go there now, you would not find that surgeon. I would stake my life upon it. Unless I miss my guess, his heir meant to dally long enough for Cosgrove to die, so that he could take control. That, madam, is the murderous stock that spawned your Nigel.”

“A-and . . . did he die as the records say?” Thea asked.

Drumcondra shook his head. “Nooo, madam,” he said. “He saw death coming—looked it in the eye. My familiar tore his throat out. Oh, he bled to death, but it was Isor who bled him, not the fall. They would not put
that
in the
family history, would they? The mighty Cian brought low by a handful of sinew and feathers. No! They gave him a nobler death for the world to see.”

Vertigo starred Thea’s vision.
Please, God, do not let me swoon!
She prayed, gripping the bedstead.

“How did you come here?” he said through a dangerous tremor. Gripping her upper arms, he shook her. “Are you a witch? What sorcery brought you here—brought
me
here?”

“You know it was the corridor, my lord,” she defended. “Do you know where you were when I came to you among these that have taken us in?”

Drumcondra stared. It was as if an icy fist gripped Thea’s heart meeting those tarnished green eyes. He never was wholly given over to the concept of a corridor that spanned time; neither was James, though they were all living proof that one did exist. Was it easier for this enigmatic Gypsy she had wed to believe she was a witch than to live with the knowledge that he might have prevented his mother’s death if he had believed? Had her betrayal coming after all the others driven a wedge between them that could never be mended?

“You were on the other side of the forest south of Falcon’s Lair, where that bird led me to find you,” she said. Should she tell him his mother’s ghost had a hand in reuniting them? No. He had already accused his wife of witchcraft. He would never believe it—never. She swallowed hard and held her peace.

“Who are you, Thea?” he said. “I knew naught of a ‘corridor’ until you appeared. You have bewitched me! From the first moment I clapped eyes upon you, hanging half naked in the passage tomb chamber, my soul was no longer my own. What have you done to me?”

“That bird returned hours ago,” Thea shrilled, in a desperate
attempt to change the subject. “You could not have been that long at the castle. Is this my punishment, then? You sent it home bloodied to frighten me out of my wits thinking you dead, my lord? Can you be that hateful?”

“I went to Si An Bhru,” he said, “in search of your damned corridor—in search of my mother.”

Thea’s hands flew to her mouth, though he still gripped her arms. “Oh, my lord,” she sobbed, “you will not find her there. She is dead.” Was he addled? It seemed so. His eyes were wild with passion, the veins standing out in bold relief in his thick reddened neck. She seized his forearms, straining against his grip. Every sinew in him seemed stretched to its limit, like steel bands about to snap.

“I know that, woman!” he cried. “I sought the damned corridor to see if I could find her before—”

“You would have gone back and
left me here?
” she breathed. She was incredulous.

“Only until I put it to rights.”

“You cannot ‘put it to rights,’ my lord. You cannot change history. We are where we must be in order to preserve it. This is the only way we can be together.”

“Then I cannot live with it,” he said. “If I were not with you in your time when Cosgrove killed her, I could have prevented it.” An epiphany blazed in his dilated eyes. “
You
lured me away from that fire!” he cried.

“If I had not, you would have died there—we both would have. It was your mother, my lord, who set me on that course. She saved our lives—”

“And died to do it!” he concluded for her. “You expect me to live with that—celebrate my life at the expense of hers? You dream, madam!”

Thea searched his hard stare for some glimmer of redemption, some hope of forgiveness, but there was none. She saw again his mother’s weary shape plowing through
the snow that blanketed the castle courtyard, heard again the words that would haunt her for the rest of her days: “
Ye are the Falcon’s bride
. . .” It mattered not to her enraged husband that Jeta had engineered their union from the very start, that Jeta had saved them from certain death, and sacrificed herself to do it. Her eyes brimming over with tears, she pried Ros’s white-knuckled hands from her arms, snatched her mantle up from the floor where his rage had flung it with the bedding, and fled into the misty night.

Ros tossed the bedding back in place, albeit in disarray, and sank down on the edge of the pallet, head in hands. Cosgrove was dead, but it gave him no satisfaction. If his archrival died a hundred times it wouldn’t be enough to purge the bloodlust in his heart. Recorded history had cheated him of his triumph. Ros Drumcondra, the Black Falcon, lived on in the persona of a renegade named Drummond, who would lead his people to safety, free them from the yoke of oppression brought to bear by prejudice and fear in another time, another place. Whatever sorcery it was that had brought it all about seemed not to matter. It was fact. He had revenged himself anonymously, and that was a shallow victory. He could almost hear Cian Cosgrove mocking him from the grave. He was on the verge of madness.

Heaving a ragged sigh, he raked his damp hair back with both hands. Where had she gone? His rage was such he scarcely realized his wife had quit the wagon. Sorceress or saint, he loved her. There was no question. But could he forgive her sin of omission? Whether he could or he couldn’t, the fact remained that it wasn’t safe for her to wander about these parts alone. This was a dangerous place, a dangerous time for Gypsies—evidently more dangerous
than he had ever known. Suppose she were to blunder into that deuced corridor and travel back or forward in time? Access was tenuous through these parts. It could happen in a blink—
had
happened in a blink. That aside, they’d rode through many towns hostile to Gypsies along the way. They’d dodged stones thrown by adults—even children—dodged brimming chamber pots, had dogs set upon them, and been fired upon. Though there wasn’t a drop of Gypsy blood in Thea’s veins, she could be fullblooded Romany for the dark, wild look of her, especially clothed as she was now, in Gypsy garb.

Drumcondra staggered to his feet and climbed out of the wagon. The rain had stopped, and Finn, the camp dog, crawled out from underneath the wagon, padded close, and nudged his hand for nuzzling. He stroked the hound absently, meanwhile glancing about. There was no sign of his falcon. The horses were all accounted for. All was still. Nothing stirred. At least they hadn’t roused the whole camp with their argument.

A pale three-quarter moon poked through the fleeting clouds. In its light, Drumcondra’s sharp eyes picked out Thea’s tiny footprint in the muddy track leading away from the camp. He started to follow on foot, but thought better of that once he’d gone some distance, and stalked back to the camp for Cabochon.

Drumcondra didn’t bother with a saddle. Slipping on the bit and bridle, he mounted the animal bareback and walked him down the lane following Thea’s footprints, clearly visible, the impression of her leather ankle boots well defined in the mud. He read her demeanor in them easily. They started out deep and wide, evidence of an angry stride. She had run here. Then, the footprints drew closer together. She had slowed her pace. She was dragging her feet now, suggesting that she had tired. These
were the ragged steps of a weary traveler, or one borne down under a heavy burden, mental or physical. They almost looked like the footprints of an elbow bender for the way they reeled back and forth across the lane then stopped beside a stile alongside a low stacked stone fence, where she’d evidently taken a rest before moving on. He glanced about. Nothing moved ahead, though he couldn’t see beyond a bend in the path, and he nudged the horse on. He had nearly come abreast of the meadow south of the castle. It loomed in the distance, black in silhouette against the scudding clouds, lit eerily in the moonlight. An uneasy feeling raised Ros’s hackles, and made his heart race. He quickened Cabochon’s pace from a walk to a trot, his eyes peeled for any nuance in the pattern of the tracks he followed.

She had come quite a distance. Where could she be going? Surely not to Si An Bhru. Nevertheless, the trail was leading off in that direction when he reached the crossroads. The forest thinned there on the south side of the road, and soon diminished altogether. Still, her footprints showed clearly in the mud of the road, though her strength was clearly flagging from the way she dragged her feet. And then, the footprints stopped abruptly.
Stopped
—right there, in the middle of the lane. The muddy stretch ahead was undisturbed.

Drumcondra reined his horse in, and Cabochon reared back on his hind legs, spinning in circles, forefeet pawing the damp air. Ros’s keen eyes darted in all directions: before, behind, from side to side. Nothing. The land was open rolling green. He was an excellent tracker, but how could he track what didn’t exist?

His heart pounding against his ribs, Drumcondra begged the inky darkness to give up Thea’s slender shapely image. But no, his eyes had not deceived him. The footprints
simply ceased right there in the middle of the lane. Searching the sky for some sign of his falcon, he raised his fingers to his lips and whistled—an ear-splitting sound that flushed birds from the trees in the forest behind. They soared skyward, all manner of sparrow, lark, lapwing, and thrush voicing their complaints at having been awakened so suddenly. Isor was not among them.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Thea stood at the crossroads. She had strayed quite a distance from the caravan without realizing it in her distraught state. She glanced about to get her bearings. Behind, to the south, a copse stretched down to the river. Cashel Cosgrove stood on a hillock to the north, standing out in bold relief against the dark night sky in the moonlight. She took a ragged breath. She hadn’t meant to stray this far from the wagon. She certainly wasn’t running away. She needed some time to sort out her thoughts. She had faced that she’d been wrong to keep the circumstances of Jeta’s death from her husband. He’d had a right to know. But it wasn’t a malicious omission; it was a selfish one. She knew when she made the decision that it would put him in a blind rage if he found out. But who save herself was there to tell? It had never occurred to her that Cian Cosgrove, of all people, would be the one to tell.

Thea started back the way she’d come. Ros hadn’t followed her, which meant he was still angry. She couldn’t
spend the night in the wood. There was nothing for it but to return and try to make him understand why she hadn’t told him. He also needed to know that she was with child, before he could accuse her of withholding that as well.