Chapter Sixteen

Deirdre awakened gasping for breath, her heart pounding heavily in her chest. Danger! Danger! Danger! The word galloped through her thoughts in accompaniment to her pulse. Cold beads of sweat rolled down her forehead and others trickled down her spine, pasting her night rail to her back. Icy fingers of dread lingered as she gazed about frantically for the sight of familiar objects in the gloom. Still caught in the nightmare’s grip, she recognized nothing. This was not her bedroom in Nantes, nor was it the room in Paris which she had rented for the past four weeks. The tiny enclosed space had no windows or light.

The sudden pitch and roll of the mattress beneath her made her grab the side of the bed with a squeal of fright. The room righted itself immediately and settled back into the shallow rise and fall that she had not been aware of until now.

She was aboard ship.

Memory came flooding back as she reached for flint and struck a spark to light the lantern that hung at the bunk’s head. The ship was a Dutch merchant vessel bound for the Irish city of Cork. The golden flame of the lantern spread light before the retreating darkness and struck a warm gleam from the surface of the wide gold band on the third finger of her left hand.

Deirdre stared at her hand, happiness washing over her. That morning, she had stood before a priest and wed Killian Mainchin Aodh MacShane.

Unease wriggled across the surface of her new calm. How strange that when her happiness was at its peak, she should awake shuddering in the grip of a nightmare.

She gazed uneasily at the dark corners where shadows lay piled high. Was she being watched? The darkness seemed alive, alert to her very breath. She pulled the covers up over her and pressed herself back against the bulkhead.

The opening of the cabin portal made her heart skip a beat. When Killian emerged from behind it she scrambled from the bedding and launched herself into his arms.

“Mo cuishle!” Killian exclaimed as he reached out to steady her, “you’re shivering.” He bent to catch a glimpse of her face. “What is it, asthore? Did something frighten you?”

Deirdre lifted her head reluctantly but did not relax her grip upon his waist. She felt very foolish as she gazed up into his concerned face. Would he think her a child or, worse, unhappy, if she complained of nightmares? “Aye, something frightened me. You were not here.”

A frown of doubt furrowed Killian’s brow. “Truly? Nothing more?”

Deirdre hugged him closer until her cheek was once more against his shoulder. “Is that not enough? I am a bride but a day. Am I not to be skittish, even foolish, when it comes to the whereabouts of my husband?”

“Aye, asthore. ’Tis reason enough.” He was edgy himself, his mind full of the venture before them. In a few days, they would be docking in Ireland, where the future was far from certain.

Deirdre raised her head. “Why did you leave? Did I do wrong to fall asleep? After all, we did, we had…” She could not finish as a knowing look entered his eyes.

“Aye, we did and we had, lass, and never was a man more satisfied than I,” Killian finished for her, gentle laughter in his voice. His arms closed around her, lifting her feet from the floor. “But then there’s a madness in my blood that never stays satisfied for long. I daresay you’ll never be safe from me when there are quiet hours before us and you blush so rosily and look quite pleased by my lustful ways.”

Happily embraced in his arms, she said, “Aye, I’m pleased by your lustful ways, as long as that lustiness is for me alone.”

The laughter disappeared from Killian’s face. “I’ve sworn my fidelity to you before God and man. Never you doubt it, lass. You must trust me or we’re lost.”

Deirdre gazed at his serious face and regretted her words. Over and over again during the weeks before their marriage he had looked at her solemnly and asked her if she had changed her mind. “Then you must trust me,” he always had said when she answered that she would wed him.

There were secrets between them. He would not tell her whence came the money for this voyage, nor would he tell her what he planned to do once they reached Cork. She did not know by what means he intended to secure Liscarrol for her. Despite that, she did trust him.

“I am jealous, ’tis a sad failing of mine, but trust you with my life I do,” she said and reached up to capture his lips with her own.

She felt the familiar surge of desire run through his body, the tremor of tensing muscles, and marveled that she had the power to so affect this enigmatic man. In the weeks between their pledge to marry and the wedding, they had lived as chastely as any respectably betrothed couple. Fey had kept her company and shared her room until the morning of the wedding. And so this, their wedding night, had been as full of anticipation as any nuptial night, or perhaps more so.

As he carried her to the narrow bunk they shared, she savored the intensity of her own desire. It throbbed deep within her, pulsing in her breasts and loins, a longing to be soothed and assuaged by the touch of his hands and body.

When he laid her back onto the mattress he hovered a moment above her. “Is it too soon?” he asked. To her amazement he blushed, his skin darkening in the lantern light. “I do not mean to use you hard. We have made love once this night. Perhaps we should wait. It is late, you are—”

Deirdre cut short his apology with a fingertip against his lips. “It is late, mo cuishle. We have made love once but not, I think, enough.” She saw the hesitation in his eyes and reached for his hand curved on her waist and brought it up to cover the fullness of her breast. The heat of his palm upon her skin made her nipple tighten and it rose under his touch. “Do you not believe me?” she whispered, her voice husky with desire.

Killian stared down into the dark green depths of her eyes and felt the astonishment of her desire to his very soul. She wanted him—nae, she desired him with an intensity that matched his own!

There had been times in his life when he wondered if he was capable of this burning of the flesh for a woman that his comrades-in-arms had spoken of often and fondly. Never before had he experienced this tormented longing, this inescapable need to be with a woman, to see her, hear her voice, and know that she was well. Only in his dreams had he known ecstasy and fear—until now.

He smiled suddenly. How foolish he had been to doubt. Here, lying in trembling softness beneath him, was the very embodiment of that tangled skein of emotions called love.

“I believe, mo cuishle, that you are all that mortal man dreams of,” he whispered as he bent and touched his lips gently to hers. “I love you.”

Deirdre wrapped her arms about his neck, almost afraid that he would still pull away from her, but he did not. He stretched out beside her on the bed, rolling her toward him, and embraced her. They lay side by side for a long time, trading kisses and smiling at the desire that darkened their eyes and melted their inhibitions.

She had learned in a few short hours of lovemaking to follow his lead. When his tongue flickered lightly over her face she followed suit, tasting the saltiness of the sea on his cheeks, and knew that he had been walking on deck. She reveled in the sweetness of his breath upon her face, and when his mouth closed over hers again, she reached up and entwined her fingers in his hair. Her lips were no longer soft and pliant but swollen with desire.

Her body stirred under the firm, molding caress of his hand which moved leisurely back and forth from her waist to her neck. She moved to the movement of that hand, wanting it, needing it, letting it feed the blistering heat of desire that scalded her from shoulder to thigh. Her hand moved to the buttons of his shirt. She worked them awkwardly with one hand, whispering a curse when she could not loosen the third.

Killian rolled back onto his back, laughing. “Do not curse my garments, love. This is how ’tis done.” With a casual but ruthless pull, he ripped his shirt open as buttons scattered. “There, that is better,” he said as he brought her hand to his chest. “Touch me, mo cuishle, touch me where you will. It is pleasure at your hands.”

His chest was more pale than his face and hands, smooth and sleekly muscled. He was warm and hard, like the satiny flanks of a stallion. There was power, strength, and gentleness in him. Her hand trembled as it slid down into the concavity of his belly. Where his breeches gaped away, a sketch of black hair traveled downward in a widening path until it disappeared. Using both hands, she loosened the heavy belt buckle and rows of buttons that closed the placket of his breeches.

She had seen him in his nakedness before, briefly in the moonlight at the hunting lodge, but never before had he lay openly, swollen and ready, under her regard.

She stared at him a long silent time, so long that Killian finally overcame his reluctance to speak. “Am I so ugly then that you are struck dumb, acushla?”

She glanced up into his face, all the wonder and love of the moment in her eyes. “Nae, you are lovely to look at. I did not know that men were so lovely.”

“No one has ever called me lovely before, lass.” he said quietly with the wonder of it in his words.

She reached out to encompass him. “You’re the most lovely thing I’ve ever seen. And this, is it so with all men?”

“What?” he questioned between gritted teeth, for she stroked him with an incredible amount of enthusiasm.

“This, this pouting of the flesh. Are all men so, so big?” she asked with nervous laughter.

Killian shut his eyes, caught between amusement and desire. “I would not know much of other men, acushla. As long as I please you, does it matter?”

Deirdre shook her head. “’Tis only glad I am that I did not know before,” she admitted shyly.

“Know what?”

“That you were so big. I would not have believed that you’d fit.”

Killian gave up his effort to control his laughter and he wilted immediately in her hand.

“Och, look what’s happened!”

Killian wiped the mirth from his eyes to find Deirdre gazing down at him in utter disappointment. She looked up doubtfully. “’Tis ruined.”

He touched her face, his thumb pulling her lower lip free of her teeth. “You may easily mend the damage, lass, with a kiss or two…or three…or four.”

Later, when they still held each other as if the fruition of their desire had not yet been achieved, Deirdre stroked his face and smiled as her nails raked the blue-black stubble on his chin. “Man is a wondrous thing.”

“Aye, and woman.” Killian smiled down at her with all, his heart in his eyes. “I love you, Deirdre Fitzgerald. You are my heart’s desire. What is your desire, I shall get it for you.”

Joy suffused Deirdre. This man with secret corners and quicksilver moods loved her. Others saw him as a soldier, a dreaded man with a sword whose rage and relentlessness were legendary. None of them knew the man who shared her bed in these moments. They did not know his tenderness, his carefree laughter, his unguarded moments. It was there in his face now, a vulnerability exposed to her alone. He would do anything for her. If she asked him to turn around and take her back to France, he would. If she asked him for jewels and diamonds, no doubt he would find a method to produce them. The knowledge both pleased and appalled her. Out of love, he would do as she asked. Reason warned her that if she overburdened that love he would come to resent her. She must tread carefully in her desires. He was no horse to be put through his paces. He would get and hold Liscarrol for her. What more could she want of him than that?

“Simply love me.” Deirdre said it confidently but was no less amazed to hear his reply of “I do” because she knew that he did.

After a moment, he slid from her and a chill touched her where their bellies were wet with sweat. A moment later, he was asleep, his head resting upon her left breast.

*

Deirdre strained with mounting excitement for sight of the city of Cork as the ship sped up the misty waters of Cork Harbor. Behind them, off the starboard bow, Blackrock Castle sat on the south bank of the river Lee. An English flag flew from the main turret, holding sway over the dozens of others which flew from the masts of the British naval vessels plying the waters before it.

“Redcoats!” Deirdre muttered. “How dare they ply Irish waters—Ouch!”

“Speak Gaelic no more,” Killian commanded as he released her arm. “’Tis a French lass you are from now on.”

Deirdre scowled up at him, rubbing her pinched arm. “You gave me a bruise.”

“Let it be a reminder,” Killian replied unrepentently. “I will not be disobeyed in this.” He raised a questioning brow. “I am understood, n’est-ce pas?”

“Oui, mon mari! She smiled at him. “But may we not speak English also?”

Surprise brightened Killian’s face. “You speak English? Why did you not say so before?”

Deirdre shrugged. “You did not ask me, and it did not seem a talent you would prize.”

Beside them but a little apart, a youth dressed in the velvet coat and breeches of a gentleman’s ward watched as the handsomely dressed black-haired man bent closer to his bride to whisper words that made the lady’s face turn pink. The youth turned away, hurried across the deck to the opposite railing and, face hidden in an arm, burst furiously into tears.

“Bitch! The cheap doxy! And him, as randy as they come!” Fey mumbled between sobs. Even now, when she had been so close that they could touch her, they were too wrapped up in their own pleasures to realize that she had sneaked aboard ship before it had left France.

A long miserable month had passed since the night she had returned to that rented room in Paris and found MacShane in bed with Lady Deirdre. She had never learned what had occurred at the home of the Duchesse de Luneville, but it did not really matter. MacShane had chosen to wed Lady Deirdre.

They did not want her with them. MacShane had said it was because she was a child and they were embarking upon a dangerous, uncertain future. She did not believe him. MacShane’s interest in her had evaporated because he was besotted by love. Lady Deirdre’s solicitous inquiries about her and her gentle words of sorrow that they must part had not blunted the rage of her knowing that she had lost MacShane.

They had paid her passage back to Nantes, and Lady Deirdre had promised her a permanent place in the Fitzgerald household. They thought her in a coach bound for Nantes at this very moment. They did not know that she had cut her curls once more, dyed the remainder with boot black, and bought a suit of young gentlemen’s clothes and a ticket aboard the ship. It had been easy to avoid them on the short voyage. They had scarcely moved from their cabin.

“Ye may not pay attention to me now,” Fey muttered to herself as she squeezed her pocketful of coins, “but there’ll come a time when ye’ll wish ye had!”

In her pain she had discovered an ally. The Duchesse de Luneville, too, disapproved of the marriage. It gave them a common bond and a common interest in the fate of Liscarrol and MacShane.

The duchesse was very generous…and very clever. She expected loyalty in exchange for her money. She wanted to know MacShane’s every move, where he went and what he did and said. And if he should show signs of growing weary of his young bride, she wanted to know that, too.

Fey shrugged off the guilt of becoming an informer. MacShane had betrayed her. He deserved no more. She could look after herself. He must do the same.

Yet, as she gazed at the green and gray vista of the coast of Ireland, she could not help wondering what would become of them. Danger rode the soft wet breezes. The unease of the French crew in British waters was a near-tangible thing. This was a country in conflict, a land in subjugation. MacShane endangered himself by coming here. Perhaps she was not betraying him in spying on him. She might be saving his life by following him to Ireland.

That thought made her dry her eyes. If she was able to help MacShane, he would be grateful. He would not turn from her a second time. As for the duchesse, she was in France and they were in Ireland. What she did not know she could not prevent.

Fey smiled and wiped her nose on her velvet sleeve.

*

“What do you mean that I may not accompany you?” Deirdre questioned.

“Exactly what I say,” Killian answered impatiently. “I must speak with the customs officials and it will be easier not to have you present.”

“Why? Do you think I cannot speak for myself?”

“I know you will speak quite clearly for yourself,” he muttered, “and that, my love, is what worries me.” He reached for his tri-corner hat and set it on the golden-haired wig that covered his own hair.

“Why do you wear a wig?” Deirdre wrinkled her nose in distaste. “You never wore one before. And ruffles, what is this?”

“A different style of armor,” Killian answered obliquely as he adjusted the lace ruffles of his cuffs. “I am going ashore to secure our papers. Until then, keep yourself occupied by musing upon the fact that we have completed the first leg of our journey. Before nightfall you will have the sod of Ireland beneath your tread.”

He did not wait for her consent but turned and left the cabin. After assuring himself of the papers in his pocket, he strode down the gangway onto the quay.

When the whitewashed walls of the customs house loomed before him, Killian took a deep breath and expelled it. He had chosen a difficult masquerade to play before the English. To be successful he needed to seem a mountebank, a charmer, a man of much ambition and very few scruples. He had bought his crimson velvet habit with that part in mind. He meant to be a visible, easily recognizable figure about the city of Cork. It would make his role as an interloper more plausible. He only hoped that Deirdre would never learn of the method he would use to gain their admission into Ireland.

“For Deirdre!” he muttered to himself as he set his hand on the door latch.

Two hours later, the English naval officer looked up from the sheaf of papers spread before him. “You are Killian MacShane?”

“I am,” Killian answered in English with a heavy French accent. After lounging in the antechamber of the customs house while waiting his turn to be interviewed, he had become all he seemed: tired, bored, and eager to be gone from the place.

“And you are seeking to return to your home in Ireland?”

“No, monsieur.” Killian tapped the paper on top. “As you read, I am French by birth.”

“So it says,” the lieutenant answered dryly, exchanging a sly look with his young assistant who stood nearby. “Your name is Irish and you claim lands once owned by an Irishman by the name of Fitzgerald. Does that not make you Irish?”

“Irish by heritage, French by upbringing and persuasion,” Killian replied.

“That is no recommendation to me,” the officer said coolly. “The French are our enemies. They aided the impostor James in his pretensions to the English throne. They stir up the Irish with promises of guns and aid. Daily we are raided by smugglers and pirates, many of them flying the French flag.” He appraised Killian from head to toe and back, taking in his lavish attire and expensive wig. The distinct odor of rose water that emanated from him made the officer’s lips thin in distaste. He was a simple man and disliked the excesses of the French. “I am inclined to deny your entry.”

“Inclined but not determined,” Killian answered smoothly. “You must follow the letter of the law. To that end I am not to be denied.”

“You are a Catholic. That alone prohibits you from entrance into Ireland.”

Killian’s black brows arched in surprise. “Where does it say that I am Catholic?”

The lieutenant was not amused. “Do you tell me that you have renounced your faith?”

Killian seemed to appear embarrassed. “Must you word it that way? I would rather believe that the calling was never fully mine. A man of your experience must understand how the temptations of the flesh often hold sway over the pious psalms which would deny man his small vices.”

“You are aware that we have strict laws governing the conduct of Irish papists? As a Catholic you are forbidden to enter a profession, hold public office, engage in trade or commerce of any kind. You may not purchase land or lease land, nor may you accept a mortgage on land in security for a loan, nor may you receive or inherit land.”

“Your laws are quite strict, as you say. What, however, have they to do with me?”

The lieutenant’s eyes flickered. “You are educated, that much is clear. An Irishman who sends his son abroad to be educated forfeits all his property—as does his son.”

“I am educated, that is true. But my circumstances are not of the kind you describe. My mother went abroad after the death of my father—of cholera—in hopes of taking the veil. It was discovered there that she was with child. After I was born, she did become a nun and remained so until her death a few years later, when I was sent to be raised by monks. So you see, my father did not send me abroad, nor is it my intention to lay claim to whatever small holding he may once have held.”

“So you say. How do you propose to subsist here?”

“I have come to claim a small property inherited by my wife, which, as her legal husband, now belongs to me.”

“Papists may not inherit property.”

“That again,” Killian murmured, allowing his annoyance to show through. “Kindly show me whatever document you wish me to sign that I am not a traitorous villain bent upon spreading the papist cause throughout the land and I will sign it here and now.”

The lieutenant made a steeple of his fingers and pressed them lightly to his lips. “You are eager to be gone from here, Mister MacShane. I wonder why.”

Killian gave him a knowing smile. “I am wed but three days, monsieur. Were you to see my bride, you would know what spurs me.”

“Is she, your bride, Irish?”

“Yes.”

“Her father was a papist and a traitor loyal to James?”

“So it would seem,” Killian agreed cautiously. “But I own I did not know the man well. He had no liking for me, nor I he.”

“Why?”

Killian shrugged. “Our views of the world and politics were different. Our views of the practicalities of life were also.”

“You quarreled?”

“We did.”

“Over the daughter?”

“What else?” Killian smiled expansively. “What father enjoys losing his daughter to a young vigorous man? We would not be wed now but for Divine intervention. The father died.”

“And you have come to inherit his lands?”

“I have come to claim my bride’s dowry. I will not quibble with you, I am a, ah, how do you say un chevalier d’ industrie?”

“A sharper,” the lieutenant offered unhelpfully.

“Mais non! I am not a swindler. I live by my wits. In marrying, I hoped to extend my livelihood into that of gentleman and landowner.”

The lieutenant frowned. The man had as good as said that he had married his bride for her dowry alone. Well, it was no business of his. “You may not inherit unless you can prove that you are a man loyal to the English throne and a member in good standing of the established religion.”

“How may I do that?”

The lieutenant looked again at his assistant with a slight smile. “It is not so simple a task as you may imagine. We are serious in the method of accepting converts. Many papists would perjure themselves for a shilling. Any man who applies for admission into the established Church must first undergo a period of instruction. Afterward he must submit himself to an examination. If satisfied with his devotion and piety, he will be given a certificate guaranteeing him to be a fit subject for baptism. Only then is a man entitled to full ownership of the lands which he seeks to attain.”

Horror showed in Killian’s face. “So much? But I shall be old and buried before the inheritance is legally mine.”

The lieutenant’s smile widened. “’Tis up to you. If you should accept instruction, you will be given a temporary permit to reside in Ireland. If not, you must return whence you came.”

“If I accept these, ah, restrictions, I will be allowed to pursue my claims?”

The English officer nodded. He did not like this man but there was no reason to lie to him. Before admitting the man into his company, he had determined that Liscarrol was a small holding in the wilds of the west and of little interest to the Crown. “For the time it takes to assess your true feelings upon the matter of religion, you will be allowed to remain.”

Frowning, Killian stroked his chin. Then a smile lit his face and he nodded. “So be it. What must I do first?”

The lieutenant withdrew a paper from his desk drawer. “Fill this out and then fill out a separate one for your wife.”

Killian took the paper but his smile faltered. “My wife is not concerned with this.”

“Surely she intends to follow in your footsteps?”

Killian raised his eyes and they gleamed with guile. “I am not so ignorant of your laws as you would think me. As my wife, she has no claim to anything she owned before the ceremony. She is young, innocent, sweet, and delightful. She may remain in happy ignorance of my deed which, in the truest sense, benefits her. She may not attend Mass, I have apprised her of that fact. Why should she be bothered with details of state which do not affect her?”

“You fear losing her,” the lieutenant said baldly.

Killian nodded slightly. “Just so.”

“If you become a Protestant, she may seek an annulment.”

Killian shrugged. “What benefit could that be to her when it is I who own the land and your law permits me to retain it?”

The lieutenant looked away. He knew the man for what he was now, a cheat, a swindler, a rogue who had caught an innocent young girl in a fraudulant marriage for the sake of confiscating her property. The man was the lowest sort of creature and becoming a member of the established Church would not better him. The laws sometimes seemed greatly unfair, yet there was nothing he could do about it.

When Killian MacShane had signed the necessary papers and was gone, the lieutenant looked at his assistant. “I hope the land has gone to bog and the house has been razed!”

“Perhaps the smugglers will see to him,” the assistant offered helpfully. “There’s been trouble again in the west with the rebel O’Donovan.”

“Just so,” the lieutenant answered. “May the man make that devil’s acquaintance.”

Outside on the quay, Killian unwrapped his lace jabot and wiped his face.

Instruction in the established religion, how would he explain that to Deirdre? No, he would not explain it. She would not accept his deception as a condition of their remaining in Ireland, while he knew it was their only chance.

To his surprise, he realized that his hands were less than steady. He had won the right to remain in Ireland, but he had also placed his head in a noose which, if he slipped, would tighten and strangle him.

From the corner of his eye, he saw a small figure dart between the legs of a red-coated soldier. As he straightened, the child came hurtling toward him. The soldier yelled for the boy to stop and lifted his musket from his shoulder. Sensing the danger in which the boy stood, Killian reached out to grab him by the collar, but the boy twisted free and Killian was left holding a small velvet coat.

The blast of gunfire on the crowded quay sent startled passersby fleeing in every direction with cries of fright. The boy disappeared around a corner with the scattering crowd.

For a moment Killian stood staring after the soldiers who ran past him. He smiled. They would not find the boy, of that he was certain. The child had seemed familiar, and then he realized why: the boy’s antics reminded him of Fey as he had first seen her.

He looked down at the coat he held and his grin broadened. Perhaps in a year, if his plan succeeded, he would send for Fey. She was bright, courageous, and quite pretty, but she needed a heavy hand to keep her in line.

But first, he had other business to attend to.

The duchesse had hired him to pursue and eliminate from her cache of smugglers those who were disloyal to her. Before they had set sail from Nantes, he had made himself known to one of her sea captains by presenting a letter from the duchesse herself. The captain had given him the name of a man to contact when he arrived in Cork. This man would put him in touch with the smugglers who worked the coastline between Ballydehob and Bantry.

Killian smiled grimly. The duchesse’s spies were everywhere, it seemed. He was to be followed. He knew the contents of her letter because he had steamed it open ahead of time. She did not trust him. It was just as well. He did not trust her either.

Killian’s features hardened as he reached the gangway of the ship. He did not like the idea of setting Deirdre among smugglers, but he had accepted the job because it paid extremely well and he had nothing to offer Deirdre without it. When in time he put Liscarrol on its feet, he would loosen his ties to the duchesse. Until then, Deirdre was better kept in ignorance in yet another matter.

“’Tis a smugglers’ master, a swindler, and a groom I’ve become in the space of a week,” he murmured to himself. “What more will the season bring me?”