Chapter Nineteen

“Faith! That’s a fine ugly look to give a man what’s saved yer life!”

Killian sucked in a quick angry breath as the filthy blindfold and gag was ripped from his face. As he worked saliva into his dry mouth, he looked up at his captor. The man was huge and as shaggy as the native cattle which still roamed the countryside. Long hair, tufted eyebrows, mustache, and beard all flowed together in a wild matted tangle of fiery red. Tufts of orangy hair sprouted on the ridges of his shoulders, which were bared to the chill by a sleeveless leather waistcoat, and a heavier, darker mat of hair crested his chest and rode the curve of his gut where the waistcoat gaped open for lack of buttons. A wide leather belt kept a brace of pistols snug against his belly and held up breeches black with grease and wear. In his right hand was the skean with which he had cut Killian’s bindings.

Killian looked down and carefully spat to one side.

“There ye are, lads, a gentleman, this one!” the giant of a man declared. He thumped Killian hard on the shoulder. “What will ye be saying for yerself, gent?”

“I give my name freely to any man who asks it, but not to those who hold a dagger at my throat,” he replied in a voice that sought neither to antagonize nor to assuage.

“Ye show little fear for a lad within an arm’s length of losing his life.”

Killian looked about. He was in a stand of trees, probably the patch of forest he had seen from the minstrel gallery of Liscarrol. The man standing over him was the only one made visible by the small campfire but he could hear the breathing of others. His gaze swung back to the huge man. “Where’s the lass?”

“The lass? What lass?” the man asked and burst into laughter.

The giant moved his dagger until the point of it rested in the hollow of Killian’s throat and his eyes narrowed until they were nothing but silver slits of light. He pricked Killian’s skin but withdrew the point almost before Killian realized he had been cut.

“I keep it sharp so, for skinning rabbits,” the man explained as casually as though he talked to a bairn, and stuck the dagger in his belt. “Yer woman’s as safe as when ye left her side.”

Killian felt a warm trickle at his throat and knew it was blood. “Where is she?” he asked again.

The giant swung about, roaring a command into the darkness, and a man moved haltingly forward into the ring of firelight. “Tell him about the lass!” he demanded.

The slight man in black face said, “Yer lady’s well, for all she aims her knee more recklessly than ’tis right.”

Killian almost smiled as the reason for the man’s hobbling sank in. Deirdre had defended herself well. “You did not harm her?” he questioned.

“The lass kicked his balls back into his belly,” the giant answered and waved the man aside with a thick arm that nearly knocked him off his feet. “’Twill be some days afore he can harm any lass the way you mean.”

Killian turned to the leader. “Why have you brought me here?”

“Ye’re here because ye’ve come to claim lands that are now mine. I’m giving ye a chance to explain yerself, for I heard little that made sense from the pair of lickspittles ye had in tow.”

Killian now knew what had happened to his men. “What did you do to them?”

The giant shrugged.

“Would your name be O’Donovan?”

The man’s eyes widened an instant before his laughter boomed through the campsite once more. “I like ye, MacShane. Ye’ve courage.”

“My name’s MacShane,” Killian said, “but I’m certain that you learned more than that from my men. What should interest you is the reason I am here.”

“And so it does.”

“Your patroness is disturbed by certain rumors which have reached her ear.”

O’Donovan grinned. “Is she now? And would that patroness be the colleen dheas up at the old castle?”

“That lady is my wife.” Killian locked gazes with the taller man. “She is my business and no other’s.”

“More’s the pity,” O ‘Donovan answered. “Well. You’re here now, so speak.”

Killian shook his head. “Come to Liscarrol in three days’ time and I will welcome you as a guest.”

O’Donovan grinned. “Ye’ve a fine way with words for a man who has naught to say in how matters are settled. I may yet slit yer throat. I’ve been of a mind some little while that such as us owe nae allegiance to a French lady who profits more than we from our sweat.”

“You will always need ships to carry your contraband,” Killian answered casually. “Murder of a merchant’s employee will keep others from dealing with you. Even profit has its limitations to beguile. There are many smugglers, few ships. Merchants may easily find smugglers of more even temperament.”

O’Donovan scratched his belly. He liked MacShane better and better. He did not panic. “Mayhaps there’d be a place for ye with me. Ye’ve a glib tongue and manners that the English admire. Yer share of the profit could be handsome, if ye work out. Think on it before ye spurn O’Donovan’s offer.” He signaled to someone in the dark, roaring, “Where are ye, Teague? God’s Death! The man’s nae about when he’s needed.”

Killian stiffened at the name, and an instant later his disbelieving senses had proof of his suspicions as a slight, pale-haired young man with a sad narrow face stepped from the darkness.

“So ye’ll be knowing we’re nae all ignorant braggarts, here’s the schoolmaster among us. He’s a cousin who goes by the name of Teague. Talk to him, MacShane, and see the sense of throwing yer lot in with O’Donovan.”

Killian stood up, taking in at a single glance the painfully thin figure of his childhood friend.

*

“The men respect him,” Teague murmured as dawn turned the sky pink. Killian and Teague had talked for more than an hour, but nothing was settled. “His methods may not be mine, but a man cannot measure himself against another unless his accomplishments are as great. The people are behind him. They respect O’Donovan.”

“The people fear him, and you and I know that is not the same,” Killian answered and set aside the empty bowl that had contained cold porridge. With a fleeting pang of conscience, he remembered that Deirdre had spent a miserable night without food of any kind. “What you have told me, good Father, is that O’Donovan is rabid for the blood of the English; and when he cannot have it, he bleeds his own.”

“We are at war. These are hard times. Our people must protect their own.”

“But not the jackals that hide among them,” Killian countered, his voice dropping even lower. “Men like O’Donovan live only to fight. I’ve met their sort in every battle, fought both beside and against them. When they have no enemy, they invent some quarrel among themselves. How can you, gentle Teague, defend him?”

“You’ve been gone some while,” Teague answered softly. “The English are squeezing the life’s blood from the land. Ireland must be rid of the English. If we must kill, then so be it. We will kill and kill again until there are none of them left and the land belongs to us once more!”

Killian eyed his friend in astonishment mingled with pity. “You have changed, Father, or do O’Donovan’s men know you for a priest?”

“They do.”

“And do you pray for them and urge them on with vengeful sermons against the Pope’s enemies?”

Teague stiffened. “You come close to blasphemy in your tone, MacShane. Not so long ago I asked you to come here with me to do spiritual work and you would not. Now you are here. Allow me to advise you in this matter.”

“Be Deirdre’s friend, for ’tis certain you cannot be mine,” Killian answered. He had his own method for dealing with O’Donovan that no other man could be party to.

“I do not understand.”

Killian smiled suddenly. “I am wed since last we met. Aye. My wife lies alone in the roofless castle beyond this wood without food or blanket. If you would be a friend, go and help her.”

“’Tis little enough to ask, Killian, but I will promise.” Teague hesitated, his brow furrowing. “This lady of yours, is she pious?”

“She is not a woman of the streets, if that is what you mean, Father. She’s a Fitzgerald, daughter of a lord. Had I not a man’s view of the world, I would believe as she does that the work of the Sidhe brought us together.”

“The fairies, your lady believes in fairies?” Teague asked in shocked tones.

Amusement brightened Killian’s expression. “Were you to hear the full tale of our courtship, you might wonder at it yourself. But that’s a chat for another, happier evening by the hearth. Liscarrol belongs to her and she’ll fight the English or the devil himself to retain it.”

“There are those here who would help her fight the English,” Teague reminded him gently.

“Aye, and get her hanged in the bargain!” Killian rounded angrily. He eyed the priest hard. “Many a good man has come to a bad end for a good purpose.”

“O’Donovan has done good for the people.”

“Then you can be certain there’s a purpose in his generosity. A man who would allow his own child to hang in his place, well, what will that man not do to preserve his skin?”

The priest was still and white. “The village folk were frightened. They would blame any evil on O’Donovan to excuse their own weaknesses. O’Donovan encourages the stories because they gain him a certain amount of notoriety and respect wherever he goes.”

“And fear. Do not forget the power of fear, Father,” Killian answered.

“You have not been here long. You will understand in time.”

Killian looked at the priest’s flushed face and avid gaze. “You came to feed the Father’s flock, not raise rebellion.”

“To feed the flock here in Ireland, one must first throw off the oppressor’s yoke!”

“Do not feed my wife this brand of theology,” Killian said flatly. “I will not have her stirred by brave words that cannot be followed by equally brave deeds.”

“Of course,” the priest replied. “If she is gently bred, she would not understand in any case. It might do as well if you sent her back to Nantes immediately.”

“She is not so gently bred as that,” Killian answered with a chuckle. “Even if I were to threaten her with a beating, she would remain until she sees an end to Liscarrol.”

The priest blinked. “’Tis strange how you phrase that. Since I came I have heard talk of the return of the old guard, of the rising of Liscarrol. An old wives’ tale, to be sure, but one would hope it does not reach your lady’s ear.”

“What tale is that?”

Teague hesitated. “’Tis bound up in the old religion and best forgotten, but I will tell you. It began just before the Bastard Queen Elizabeth conquered the north. From the clan O’Neill there was to come a savior of her people, a beautiful lady with the mark of the otherworld emblazed on her skin. The first visitation is said to have taken place in Leinster a century and a half ago. I remember hearing the tale as a child. The lady was a Butler, but she was said to have been the natural child of Shane, the O’Neill of Ulster, and her mother was the daughter of a Fitzgerald chieftain. She became known as the Rose of Ulster.”

The priest’s cheeks reddened as he hurried on. “She was marked from birth with a bloodred mark on her cheek. Legend says she saved the Butlers in their quarrel with one of the Bastard Queen’s men. The Butlers now deny her existence; but tales have a life of their own, and so it has been handed down among the common folk.”

“What has this to do with Liscarrol?”

Teague smiled. “You were nae born here or you would not need to ask. A few years before the English victory at Kilkenny in ninety-one, the then Lord Fitzgerald took as his wife a lady from the house of Butler. ’Twas rumored she was a witch. I never saw her, but they said she was a black-haired beauty with strange eyes that changed color like a lough when cloud and sunlight play on it.”

Killian smiled at his friend’s wistful tone. The priest was still a man.

“She bore Lord Fitzgerald a child, and before it was born she proclaimed that her child would be the next fairy woman of the O’Neill line. A daughter was born. I know nothing of the child other than that she fled to the Continent with her family in ninety-one.”

“And…?” Killian urged when the priest fell silent. “And you fear that my wife’s return to the Liscarrol will stir old superstitions?”

“Perhaps. But then I fear too easily.” The ghost of a smile flitted across his features. “You’ve nothing to concern yourself with unless she bears a rose birthmark on her cheek.”

“Nae. ’Tis on her shoulder.”

The priest choked. “What did you say?”

“Deirdre has a lovely rosebud mark on her left shoulder,” Killian replied and then erupted in laughter. “Shame, priest! You should be above superstitions of the bog and Sidhe.”

The priest stood up. “You find humiliating me a pleasant pastime.”

“Nae. But go and see my lady for yourself. She is a lovely golden-haired lass with eyes that change color like the seasons reflected in a lough. You will find her charming, spirited, and loyal to both the true Church and Ireland.” Killian sat forward suddenly, his humor gone. “But do not tell her your tale of fairy women. She feels too strongly about Liscarrol for my tastes. I would not have you stir her head with fancy.”

“I will say nothing.”

“You will take her food and wine? She has gone these last two days without.”

“Aye, I will see to her good care, MacShane.”

“Tell her I love her.”

The priest looked down into MacShane’s strong face, the defiance for once in abeyance before the more tender emotions of love and concern.

Teague shook his head slightly. He could not imagine the joy that Killian found in a woman’s arms. The pleasure, yes, the release of urges he, too, had felt. But the rush of feelings that colored Killian’s words were reserved in him for the moments of ecstasy he felt in prayer. “So you have found your place at last. ’Tis glad I am for you.”

When Teague was gone, Killian sat staring at the fire. Teague’s final words had stirred the old unrest within him. Deirdre was his heart. Where she was, there he would be. But something of his own, that measure which a man must have in order to exist, where was that place to be found?

The answer came to him gradually, a feeling that he had long denied because it carried with it inherent dangers and great risks that he no longer found acceptable. But it was real, and as he allowed the thought to enter his mind, he knew that it had been waiting for his acknowledgment all along.

He was a part of Deirdre as she was a part of him, and Liscarrol was a part of them both. Liscarrol had brought them together. If it would keep them together, he must hold it. He would fight not because Deirdre wanted it but because it would be his home, something he had never had.

*

Deirdre paused in her work to lean against the handle of the wooden shovel. It was nearly noon of the second day and Killian had not returned. The knot of fear in her middle tightened painfully. Perhaps they were not coming back. Perhaps they had only said that to make her wait, remain inactive, until their tracks were securely covered. Perhaps Killian had resisted them, or had tried to escape, and been killed. How long would it be before she knew? How many days should she wait before going for help? And, if she did go for help, how would she know whom to trust? Cuan was one of the abductors. How many other people of the countryside would be his followers? If she made a mistake, she might find herself taken captive or murdered. And if Killian did return and she was gone, he would not know where to search for her. That fact alone had kept her from running away at first light.

Her hand moved to Killian’s pistol, which she had tucked in the jacket of her riding habit. She had learned as a child how to load and prime a pistol and the lesson had come back as she had checked the loaded weapon. Yet, she was alone, and two balls would not stop half a dozen men. She had no supplies, no food, and if Killian did not return soon she would have to go for help.

“No! No! I must not brood about it!” she said aloud. If he were dead, she would know it, feel it, and she did not sense his death. She must wait, and work while she waited.

She turned and viciously dug the shovel into the last of the pile of manure that had filled the small chapel and heaved it onto the makeshift litter she had fashioned from a scrap of drapery that had not burned. She had been working since the morning mists parted, taking with them the breath of moisture too fine to call rain. Her back ached, but at least the pain took her mind off the gnawing in her stomach as she dragged pile after pile of manure out into the yard and dumped it in what had once been the orchard.

Every new sight at Liscarrol made her heart ache. There was not a single piece of furniture undamaged, and seeing the once ornate plasterwork ceilings blackened by smoke and whitened with lichen filled her with sorrow. There was so much to be done that she began to doubt whether the task before her was one she could ever accomplish, yet she could not stop.

When the last of the dung was gone, she found still intact a stave-built piggin in which she could carry water from the river. She cast piggin after piggin of water onto the slate paving stones of the chapel until the room was flooded. Each trip was a goodly hike, but Deirdre did not dwell on that. She thought only of accomplishing something fine before Killian returned. She would not run away from Liscarrol. She had waited too long to return to give up so easily.

By noon, sweat rolled freely down her back and between her breasts, and her bodice stuck to her as she knelt on the chapel floor and scrubbed it with handfuls of plaited straw. She had long ago removed her riding jacket, skirts, and corset, working only in her shift and petticoats. She had no ribbon to tie her hair, and so it tumbled down her back and across her shoulders, sticking in curls against her damp arms and neck. She had become inured to the stench of dung, but the pain in her back had grown worse.

“Keep working, Dee, me lass,” she muttered to herself. “You may not have been accustomed to menial labor ere this, but Liscarrol needs strong backs and clever hands more than silk skirts and pretty faces.”

“Amen!”

Startled by the voice, Deirdre looked up sharply to see a tall but slight man standing in the chapel entrance. He stood with hands folded before him, but she glanced at the pistol on the far side of the room where she had laid it beside her clothing and muttered a French curse. She rose to her feet and reached for the shovel, which was nearby

“Who are you and what do you mean by entering my home without an invitation?”

Teague O’Donovan gazed at the young woman before him in rapt amazement. A mass of tumbling golden curls framed her face and shoulders. There was noble blood in her, he thought, though she was dressed as poorly as the lowliest bond-maid. Framed in the golden halo of sunlight pouring through the broken chapel window, she appeared a creature more of myth than reality, and he wondered fleetingly if Liscarrol was a favored place of the fairies.

He did not mean to think of it again. If not for Killian’s curious phrasing, he would not have remembered the tale of the fairy women of the Fitzgerald clan.

“You are Lady Fitzgerald,” he said without preamble.

Deirdre nodded slowly. “How do you know me?”

Teague dipped his head to shield himself from her gaze. Her eyes were too bright, too beautiful for a man such as he to look upon. But he understood now the look on Killian’s face as he had spoken of this woman. “You are the lady wife of Killian MacShane?”

The pretense of haughtiness dropped from Deirdre and she moved toward him, her shovel poised to strike. “You are one of them! You took my husband! Where is he?”

Teague shook his head. “Nae, lady. I am not one of the men who took your husband, but I have seen him. He is well.”

Deirdre bit back the angry words she had been about to speak, but she could not keep the scorn from her voice. “If you are not one of them, how is it you have seen my husband?”

Teague hesitated only a moment before producing the prayer book and rosary from his pocket. “I am a friend. I am one who is hunted with bloodhounds and who lives not in fear but in constant hiding from the Informers.”

“You are a priest!” Deirdre dropped the shovel. “Oh, Father, you must help me!”

Teague took the outstretched hands she thrust into his when she reached him. Blinded by the fierce blend of joy and fear on her lovely face, he looked down at her hands only to flinch as he saw the raw, oozing blisters that had broken open on her palms. “But you’re bleeding, dear lady!”

Embarrassed, Deirdre pulled her hands free. “Forgive me, Father. I will wash.”

“Nae, child. There’s no shame in the results of honest labor in the Lord’s service. I will help, and when we are done I will bless this place, making it as holy as it is clean.”

“Tell me first of Killian,” Deirdre replied, flushing under the priest’s gentle regard.

Teague nodded. “He worries that you are terrified at being left alone.”

“I was terrified that he might have been killed,” Deirdre answered. “For myself, I am well enough.” To give lie to her assertion, her stomach grumbled loudly.

“I have a cure for that,” Teague said, smiling shyly at her. “I have orders to feed you.”

“You have orders?” Deirdre echoed. “I do not understand. Why is Killian not with you? Are you truly his friend, or only a spokesman for the men who dragged him away?”

“I come in peace as a friend to you both.”

“That is not a definitive answer,” Deirdre replied. “As a man of God you cannot stand on the side of thieves and murderers.”

“You speak harshly of that which you do not understand.”

“I know what I have seen and what I have learned to believe is true.”

Teague turned away from her vibrant anger. Though he could admire her beauty as one did an exquisite sunset or flower, she was curiously lacking in sexual appeal for him. She was as headstrong and determined as a man, but neither her beauty nor her will unsettled him. Her gaze did. She snared him with her green eyes, pulled him toward her in a way that spoke of unnatural power. She had eyes that sought to see into a man’s soul.

The priest lifted his eyes, his gaze straying to the bared skin of the lady’s left shoulder.

A bright crimson mark lay on the pale skin, its convoluted configuration the shape of a perfect rose.

Teague shut his eyes tight, murmuring a prayer of protection against spirits, but when he opened his eyes again she was still before him, her sea-green gaze clouded with concern.

“Are you ill, Father?” Deirdre asked, surprised by the sudden pallor in his thin face. “You look as if you’d seen a ghost.”

“Your mark. How came it upon you?”

Deirdre turned to look at her shoulder and blushed a fiery shade as she realized that she stood before a priest in only her petticoats. With a belated sense of modesty, she snatched up her jacket. “Forgive me, Father. I expected no one.”

“Your mark,” he repeated. “How did it come about?”

“The mark on my shoulder? Why, I was born with it. ’Tis the kiss of the fairies to mark their own,” she said airily, repeating what Brigid had so often told her as a child.

To her amazement, the priest fell back a step and crossed himself. “What is it, Father? What have I done? You do not take me seriously? I am a good and faithful Catholic, I promise you.”

“I must go!” Teague cried, backing away from her. “I brought you food. And I will see that Killian is released, but you must leave here. Times are hard and men are desperate. Some will sell their souls to protect what little they have. You must leave before the word spreads.”

“Wait! Father!” But the priest was gone. She heard his canvas-wrapped feet pelting down the stairwell.

She paused when she reached the doorway of the house, for it was obvious that something had frightened him and he would not heed her pleas. What had she done that would scare off a priest?

Before she could further ponder his strange actions, she noticed the aroma of boiled beef wafting through the air, and she turned to find a reed basket set before the hearth. Inside it she found oatcakes, a slab of butter, and a few scraps of boiled meat.

She ate with her hands, and though the beef was almost too tough to chew, the oatcakes were damp, and the butter was sour, she ate with relish until the twist in her stomach eased.

*

Killian sat with his back to a tree. His arms had been stretched behind him, around the trunk, and bound. His feet were tied at the ankles, and a thick knot of cloth had been stuffed into his mouth, and a gag had been tied to keep it in place. He was alone in the forest. His captors had melted away just after dawn like shadows retreating before the blaze of the sun. It was mid-afternoon, and the wretchedness of his situation was borne in full upon him.

He turned his head as a bee buzzed past. Spring was beginning. Through the brown moldering leaves at his feet poked the tightly curled tips of fronds. A rare red squirrel darted around the corner of a nearby tree, its feathery tail flicking nervously before it disappeared. If not for the fact that he was bound to a tree, he might have enjoyed the idyll, Killian thought.

But he was bound. The blood had drained from his arms until they were numb, and his shoulders ached where his arms were wrenched in their sockets. O’Donovan had not said when he would return, only that he hoped his “guest” would prove more tractable when he did. It would be torture to be left for a few days. And, of course, that is what O’Donovan intended.

Killian swallowed his anger, gagged on the cloth in his mouth, and coughed, straining against his bindings until tears started in his eyes. He gagged, fighting to catch his breath, but he could not. His chest heaved, and blood pounded in his temples and behind his eyes until tears flowed onto his cheeks. He was choking to death.

The slipping free of his arms from the tree did not register with him at first. Instinct directed him to tear the gag from his mouth before he realized that he had been freed.

He gasped for breath several times before the pounding of his heart eased. “Teague, rot you, why do you not show yourself?”

“Mayhaps because ’tis not Teague who saves ye,” came the answer in a light boyish tone.

Killian whipped his head around, but no one stood beside the tree. He reached down to work the knots at his ankles, saying, “Show yourself or be damned!”

“Kind words for a savior,” came the teasing reply. “Shall I leave ye then?”

“Do as you like,” Killian answered grimly.

High feminine laughter filled the silence of the glade. “Ye looked a fine sight, trussed up like a swine to the slaughter.”

Killian stilled, the last knot momentarily forgotten. “Fey?”

Fey leaned around the tree trunk. “Well now, and here I’d thought ye had forgotten about wee sad Fey. And she, thinking ye would nae welcome her coming, nearly passed ye by.”

Killian took in at one full glance the thatch of dark hair once more sawed short by a dull blade, the boy’s jacket and breeches, and the distinctive smell of fish. “What are you doing here, lass?”

Fey grinned and pocketed her skean. “Do ye care, seeing as how ye were in need of a friendly face?” She gazed contemptuously about the unoccupied area. “Left ye quick as that, has she? Well, no matter. She weren’t worth the trouble ye took with her, and that’s a fact.”

Killian jerked the last knot free and rose to his feet, only to have the sting of returning blood to his lower limbs make him grab the tree for support.

“Ye’re growing slack and fat as a slug.” Fey observed in malicious delight. “If that’s what taking a wife does to a man, I’ll nae have one.”

“You’ll not have in any case, lass,” Killian reminded her.

Fey turned crimson beneath her mop of hair. “Ye know what I mean.”

Killian took a step and then another, testing his legs. “I won’t say I’m not glad to see you, but I wonder how it came about all the same.” Fey set her mouth in a familiar stubborn line. “So, keep your secret. You came when you did and that’s enough for now “

Fey shrugged. She owed him nothing and that was what she would give him. “Where are yer companions?”

Killian cocked a black brow. “How do you know that I had companions?”

Fey shrugged again. “Like as not, ye didn’t truss yerself up that way.” She grinned suddenly. “Did yer lady wife grow tired of yer simpering and leave ye as a gift for the wee folk?”

“Deirdre!” Killian set off at a run, calling over his shoulder, “Come with me!”

When she realized that Killian was leaving her behind, Fey ran after him cursing a blue streak. Always it was the same: he thought of no one but Lady Deirdre. “When ’tis I who saved yer bloody life, ye spalpeen!”

*

Deirdre saw him a moment before she recognized him. She had been resting, gazing out from the minstrel’s gallery at the patch of forest beyond the river, when a man suddenly appeared. He was shirtless, his black head an inky spot against the soft green grass as he sprinted across the valley toward the bridge which led to Liscarrol.

“Killian!” Deirdre dropped her makeshift broom and hurried down the narrow, worn stairwell to the main floor. She gained the front yard before she remembered the pistol she had left on the windowsill, but she cast the thought of protection aside as she continued her headlong flight.

The early-afternoon sun had broken through the clouds, lighting the day in a soft golden haze that deepened the greens and sharpened the gray walls of Liscarrol. Killian spied first the golden head glittering brightly as it bobbed up and down between the hedgerows. Even before she gained the bridge, he knew it was Deirdre. As she clambered across the dilapidated planks, setting them rattling underfoot, he called out a warning; but Deirdre did not pause, and a moment later, she was on the far side of the river, running toward him with her arms outstretched.

The moment his arms closed about her and she knew that Killian was safe and well, a contrary anger rose up within her. Before he could even kiss her, she was pushing free of him.

“You! Where have you been?” she cried.

Killian smiled at her, his laughter barely contained as he reached for her a second time. “Come, lass, will you not kiss your husband?”

She sidestepped him, slapping his hands away. “You miserable, ungrateful man! Can you think of nothing but your own pleasure? And me so worried about you I nearly died.”

Killian’s brow furrowed as he searched her flushed face. “You were not harmed? They promised me you would not be harmed.”

“They promised you, did they? And what other pleasantries did you exchange that kept you away these two days?” She brushed away the tear that dared to dampen her cheek. “Had I known you were dealing with gentlemen I’d nae have been worried at all!”

“Dee,” he coaxed as he reached for her once more. “Poor lass, you’ve had a time of it, worrying about me and frightened half out of your wits at being alone.”

“I was not frightened,” Deirdre lied and folded her arms across her bosom. “I was angry and worried, I admit.” Against her will, her gaze strayed to his bare chest where fine black hair clung in damp curls to the sleek-muscled contours. It was a fine chest, she thought fleetingly as she dragged her eyes away, but not so fine that it would make her forgo her anger.

Killian’s gaze, too, had wandered; to her bare arms and the décolletage of her bodice, over her petticoated hips to her bare ankles and feet. His eyes darkened. “You are undressed. Where are your clothes?”

The abrupt tone turned Deirdre’s complexion bright red. She opened her mouth but closed it with a snap and turned on her heel to stalk back toward the bridge.

A grin spread across Killian’s face as he watched her walk away. There was no denying that he had feared the worst for her. To find her perfectly sound had come as a shock. He well understood her irrational anger. The sentiment had risen within him also as relief had turned to chagrin.

He caught her just before she reached the first plank and encircled her about the waist and swung her off her feet and into his arms.

Deirdre glared at him. “Put me down, you great brute!”

Killian bent to nuzzle the warm damp skin of her neck. “You were frightened for me. I’m sorry, lass.”

Deirdre kicked her heels and pressed her hands against his chest to hold him away from her. “Put me down!”

Killian looked at her, reproach in his eyes of vivid blue. “Dee, lass.”

Deirdre’s hands curled into the furring on his chest. “You left me for two days!”

“It could not be helped.”

She drew her hands away. “You should not have allowed them to take you.”

An ironic smile curved Killian’s mouth. “Much as you may not believe it, I have no great desire to be apart from you, lass. As for not besting my foes, you should remember that a man is at a wee bit of a disadvantage when his back is to the door and his senses are filled with the tantalizing nearness of his bride.”

Deirdre looked up to see that desire had expanded his pupils, but she was not so easily appeased. “You do not look as though you tried very hard to resist.”

“What did you desire, bloody wounds and blackened eyes?”

“Aye!”

“Nae, lass,” Killian murmured warmly, nuzzling her neck once more.

“Put me down this instant!” Deirdre commanded sharply, but oddly enough she reached out to encircle his neck with her arms.

“Mo cuishle,” he murmured thickly into the hollow of her throat.

“Now!” she answered less steadily.

The grass was lushly green on the riverbank. She sank into it as easily as into a feather tick when Killian lowered her onto the ground. He was smiling at her, a new cocky grin that she had never before seen on his face.

“You’re very certain of your welcome,” she challenged.

Killian did not answer. Instead, he reached for the row of tiny bows on her bodice.

Deirdre giggled. “We stand in fearsome company. What if you’re attacked again?”

Killian opened her bodice and plucked loose the lacing that held her corset closed.

“You would not?” she whispered in scandalized tones.

The corset parted as easily as her bodice and he brushed one rosy peak with a finger. “You’re an uncommon lass, Lady Deirdre. Not many a gentlewoman would bare herself in the open light of day, however hotly passion runs in her veins.”

Deirdre tried to close her bodice but he caught her hands, laughing at her outraged face. “Lass, lass, do you not yet know when a man’s delighting in your wantonness?”

“Release me, you spalpeen!”

Killian threw a leg over her until he straddled her waist. “Does it shame you to want a man so?”

“I do not want you, Captain MacShane. You’re too conceited by far. Killian? Do not—Killian!”

His cheeks were dark with whiskers and they lightly abraded her skin as he tenderly suckled her. Deirdre shut her eyes against the pleasure as a shameful blush warmed her skin from cheeks to belly. His actions were shocking, reckless, scandalous…and very, very exciting. As his lips moved from her breasts to her abdomen, she felt his hands on her thighs raising her petticoats.

“Can ye nae manage a place of shelter that ye must be rutting under a bush?” questioned an exasperated voice.

Deirdre squealed in fright and tried to throw Killian’s weight from her but he would not budge. He looked up, more startled than frightened, for he knew the owner of the voice.

Fey stood a few feet away, her hands on her narrow hips and a look of pure disgust on her features.

“Fey, lass,” he greeted with a lopsided grin as he lowered Deirdre’s petticoats to a more respectable level. “I apologize. I had forgotten about you.”

The truth of his statement did not have the desired effect. Fey turned on her heel and stalked away.

Killian looked back at Deirdre. “I fear I hurt her feelings.”

Deirdre watched the girl’s retreating back. “We both did,” she answered quietly, “more than I had realized until now.”

She did not question why the girl should be here in Ireland. The answer of how did not seem important for the moment. Fey had crossed an ocean and the reason was as plain as the look that had been in her eyes as she gazed at them sprawled in the grass. The girl was in love with Killian MacShane.

She looked at her husband and put a hand to his cheek. “I think perhaps we should rise, my love.”

“We have not finished,” he answered with a prodding reminder.

She smiled and tweaked his nose. “Musha, my love! If we rise now, I’ve no fear but what you’ll rise again later.”