The Highwayman (11 page)

Alex made a tentative slash, his thick, coarse hair like raw silk against her fingers. It came away in her hand like a sheaf of wheat. She thought it was almost a shame to cut it.

He sat up straight as she gained confidence while she worked and the hair fell about their feet like a shower of burnt gold. After a time she walked around to face him and said, “Just a bit more.”

“Oh, hack it off and get it done,” he said impatiently.

Alex finished as quickly as she could, admiring the effect, and then began to brush the loose hair from his shoulders. He stiffened when she touched him.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Just cleaning you up. Be still.”

She trailed her fingers slowly, tentatively, down the back of his neck, and he jerked away.

“Stop,” he said, trying to rise. Still weak, he put a hand back to steady himself on the stone.

“We’re not finished yet,” she said, moving to face him.

“Yes, we are.”

Alex knelt in front of him, putting a restraining hand on his arm. “Why don’t you want me to touch you? I’ve been touching you every day that you’ve been ill.”

He looked away.

Alex let the knife fall to the grass and inched closer to him. She moved as one hypnotized; she knew what she was doing but was powerless to stop herself.

“Answer me,” she said softly.

He closed his eyes.

Alex seized the opportunity, leaning in to grip his shoulders, the skin smooth and taut under her hands. She kissed his collarbone a few inches from his wound.

“I was so afraid when you were brought so fearfully low by this injury,” she whispered, her mouth still against his skin.

He pushed her away from him, grabbed her wrists, and held them up before her face.

“Go back to the camp,” he said, clenching his jaw.

“Don’t put me off. I’ve been days waiting and working up the courage to try.”

“You don’t need courage, girl, that’s never something you could lack,” Burke said, releasing her. “Go along ahead of me, I’ll be just fine on my own.”

But she stood her ground and faced him. She was looking down at him from a slight advantage, a strange perspective, since he normally dwarfed her. How could she make him admit what she felt so strongly to be true?

He waited, looking intensely uncomfortable, and almost afraid, if that were possible. Alex had seen Burke display many emotions, but never fear.

“Can you imagine,” she began slowly, “what it was like for me to stand by and watch you so ill, thinking that you might die, that I might never have the chance to show you ...”

“Show me what?”

“How I feel,” she said, losing her nerve at last and looking at the ground.

“I know how you feel,” he said, deliberately misunderstanding her. “You have discharged yourself on that subject many times in my hearing.”

Alex knew instinctively that talking was not the way to break through his armor, but she was almost too intimidated to try again. Almost.

She took a step closer and hooked her arms around his neck. He sat rigidly, staring straight ahead, not resisting but not inclining toward her touch.

“I love you,” she blurted out, edging closer to him.

“You do not,” he replied as if he’d been expecting her to say it. His voice sounded strained.

She drew back to look at him. “Why not?”

“You’ve been sheltered, Alexandra. Too much so for your good, I think. Carberry had a daughter who was sent to live in England and died there of the plague. We were of an age. She lived at the castle when young, and I saw how an English girl of the moneyed class is raised. You’ve never been away from your home or close confined with a man before, and you’re confusing that with...”

He stopped at Alex’s entreating look, her eyes wider than ever. “Once back with your uncle you’ll forget me in a fortnight,” he concluded. The whole speech sounded rehearsed.

“Never,” she said.

“You will marry a suitable man chosen for you by him.”

“Never,” she repeated. “I will marry where my heart lies, and nowhere else.”

He sighed. “Heed me well, Alex. I know you saved my life, and I’m grateful. But...”

Just then, Alex bent and pressed her lips to his.

He turned his head abruptly. “Alex, leave off this or I’ll not be responsible ...”

“Don’t be responsible,” she said against his mouth. “Don’t be. Forget how we came together. I have.” She licked his lips, her movements inexperienced but urgent, her lack of sophistication conveying a raw longing that only made her more difficult for him to resist. With a low, helpless sound, almost a groan, he leaned forward and scooped her into his lap.

His full strength had nearly returned, and for just a moment Alex was frightened of him, as she had been in the beginning. Then she forgot her fear in the delicious sensation of being enclosed in his arms, being engulfed by his warm mouth.

He
does
want me, she thought in triumph. He does!

He certainly did. He kissed her deeply, his mouth soft and vulnerable, his lean body hard. She clung to him, winding her arms around his waist, feeling the muscles there contract beneath her fingers. He bent his head, and she arched her back as his lips trailed over the tender skin of her throat. She pulled aside the neck of her tunic to bare the way for him. She could feel the overwhelming need building in him, a need reflected in her own reckless desire to do whatever he wanted.

The next instant she was on her feet, dumped from Burke’s lap like a fractious child. She looked up into his flushed face and saw that he was staring intently over her shoulder.

She followed his gaze to Rory, who was standing in the clearing, watching them.

Chapter 5

Her hips were white as foam, long, slender, soft as wool... he desired her as he had no other.

—The Competition for Etain,
fifth-century Irish saga

Burke greeted Rory in Gaelic,
and his tone was not friendly. Alex wasn’t exactly sure what they were saying, but she had picked up enough of the language through daily exposure to know that they were discussing her.

Burke said something that sounded like the end of the conversation. Rory, refusing to be dismissed, stood glaring at him. Burke repeated the phrase, and Rory, with a final, mutinous look, turned abruptly and went back into the woods from which he had emerged.

Burke stood up, a little bit unsteadily, but when Alex rushed to his side he shook her off.

“I can walk on my own,” he said gruffly, not looking at her.

She stood staring after him as he set off in the direction Rory had taken, leaving her no choice but to follow.

It was a grim, silent trip back to the camp. Alex felt like a chastised child who had been caught stealing honeycomb from the kitchens. Was it so wrong to demonstrate her love? And was it not reciprocated? Burke was acting as if she had forced herself on him.

“Go along inside,” he told her when they reached his tent. It was the first thing he’d said to her since they’d left the glade.

“Aren’t you going to tie me up again?” she said, unable to resist taunting him. “If left unbound, I might throw myself at Rory or some other poor fellow unable to defend himself.”

Burke had the good grace to flush at that, and his eyes met hers briefly. Then he stalked off, leaving her quite alone.

Rory saw his opportunity and followed Burke to the edge of the camp. The other men glanced at them curiously but gave them privacy.

“Well?” Burke said, turning to face him, resigned to completing their aborted conversation.

“You have to ask?”

“Stay well out of it, Rory.”

“Kevin, I mean to have my say. You know what we have at stake here. What in the name of old King Conchubor are you doing?”

Their conversation, conducted in the ancient language, proceeded in staccato bursts.

“This is an English girl!” Rory said. “A rich, privileged English girl whose uncle is a counselor to the queen,
and
her kinsman! Kevin, are you mad? This is no lay-up in the long grass with Deirdre or her like; you risk more than a by-blow if you bed this one.”

“I know all that!” Burke said impatiently. “You tell me nothing I’ve not told myself a hundred times. But I have a care for her.”

Rory sighed. “Cousin, listen to me,” he said. “I know I was wrong about her. I don’t want her treated badly either, she’s a good girl.” He used the encompassing phrase,
pastheen finn,
to indicate a young woman held in affectionate regard.

Burke nodded slowly.

“Then what’s amiss?”

“Tha miannaich mi,
” Burke said simply. I want her.

Rory was flabbergasted. “You want her! What do you mean, you want her?”

Burke merely looked at him. He thought his meaning was clear enough.

“Then perhaps for once in your life you should not get what you want.”

Burke shook his head impatiently. “You mistake me. I want to keep her with me.”

“Keep her longer than we had planned?” Rory asked him, puzzled. “Why?”

“Keep her,” Burke repeated. There was no misunderstanding the note of finality in his voice.

Rory stared at him, comprehending at last. “You
are
mad,” he said. “And what about your brother?”

“We’ve had no response at all from the uncle. He doesn’t want a trade.”

“So we just let Aidan rot in the Inverary dungeon while you go bathing with the niece?” Rory demanded, incredulous.

“I did not say that.”

“Then what’s your plan?”

“I have no plan,” Burke admitted. “I know nothing for to do,” he added in English, reverting to the Gaelic construction as he sometimes did when troubled.

Rory surveyed his cousin, more worried than he would have admitted. He had never seen Burke indecisive; until now, that trait had not seemed part of his nature. “Will you really go to war over this woman?” he finally asked, straining for a calm tone.

“We’re at war now,” Burke replied. “This respite cannot last.” He rubbed his sore shoulder absently, his expression distant. “I’ve had a summons from Tyrone. I go north tonight to the border, to settle up with Scanlon and discuss future plans. Word is that the Essex campaign goes badly, and Tyrone thinks the time to strike will be soon.”

Rory listened intently, his heart beating faster.

“How long have you known this?”

“The rider came last night, while you slept.”

Rory waited.

“Will you have a care for her while I am gone?”

“As you wish.”

“I mean only, handle her gently. Nothing more should be required. She’s in no danger now from the men, and she won’t run....”

“Because she wants to be with you,” Rory finished for him. “She’ll wait for your return.”

Burke looked past him at the line of trees. “At times I wish to all the Druids who once ruled this isle I’d never seen her face,” he said quietly, and then walked away.

* * * *

The spring rains began the day Burke left. It was usually raining in Ireland, drifting mists and sudden showers alternating with bright intervals, but this was a drumming downpour that turned the camp into a mud wallow and drove everyone inside the tents.

Alex waited tensely, bored and restless, her spirits as damp as the weather. Rory would say only that Burke had gone to Ulster for a conference and should return in ten days.

Time passed so slowly that it seemed an eternity before a runner came into the camp to announce Burke’s arrival. It had finally stopped raining an hour earlier, but the ground was spotted with puddles, and the trees dripped so steadily that it still seemed to be drizzling. Alex was waiting just inside the open flap of the tent when she saw Burke’s sorrel horse. Her pulses began to pound. She was about to run out to greet him when she noticed that he was not alone.

A man and two women were riding behind him. They dismounted as he did, and Alex saw that one of the women was young. When she drew back the shawl she’d worn over her head to keep off the rain, her shining black hair cascaded to her waist.

Alex watched as the girl walked to Burke’s side and put her head on his shoulder. When he turned away, she trailed her hand along his neck and then walked on alone.

Alex stared at her, unseen, as the woman passed. She was wearing an ankle-length dress of plain muslin, cut low at the neck to expose swelling breasts above a tiny waist cinched by a belt of linked metal circlets. Alex touched her own cropped hair ruefully as the girl lifted her heavy mane off her neck and then let it fall again.

Alex turned away and went deeper inside the tent, her thoughts in turmoil. She had her back turned when Burke swept inside and stopped short at the sight of her.

She whirled to look at him. “Who is that woman?”

They eyed one another, both restraining the urge to run forward. Was it possible that he had forgotten how pretty she was? The impact of her presence was like a blow: the pale skin tinged pink now with emotion, the tendrils of her cropped hair curling around her face in the dampness, making her look like a Flemish doll.