Chapter Seven

Colin lifted a square of blue silk and waved it at the crowd around him. Men and women spilled out the back door of the alehouse to watch. A baker, his black hair flecked with flour. A butcher, his leather apron marked by blood. A candlestick maker, his hands swollen by bee stings. Clean-shaven faces, close-cropped hair. No multicolored cloaks here. No flowing mustaches, no braided culans hanging over the men’s shoulders. Beyond the flax of the alehouse thatch, he glimpsed the stone cylinder of the castle—the forbidding spike the English had planted in Irish ground to claim it as their own.

When he was last here, Tuam had been only a summer ring fort, a small mound of earth used by the O’Manns for hunting in the nearby woods. Now it was full of Englishmen—Englishmen and at least one treacherous Irishman by the name of O’Kelly who’d passed the troupe on the road, riding proud on his palfrey, his long mustache flowing, heading straight to that English castle.

Tonight, Colin thought grimly, he would remind O’Kelly of his treachery.

And so it all would begin.

Colin snapped the scarf by a corner, then balled his hand and tucked the end in the tunnel formed by his fist. His gaze gravitated to a woman whose eyes began to glitter with knowing amusement.

“Good day to you, my lady.” He mimicked a courtly bow. “Would you be so kind as to assist me?”

She agreed with a lazy smile. He shoved the scarf into his fisted grip and asked her to poke it in tighter. She did, with a sturdy finger, taking her time with the ins and outs of the task, while bawdy comments flew around them.

“Faith,” he said, addressing the crowd, “I’m usually the one doing the poking.”

The words fell from his lips by rote, though he knew by the laughter that the joke had worked easily. He’d made the same joke a thousand times before, in French, English, and Langue d’Oc. He’d performed the same tricks and rolled with the same sort of woman in patches of spring clover in valleys all across Europe.

He leaned into the woman as she finished. “Did that satisfy you as much as it did me?”

She pursed her lips, as if still deciding. Then he raised his clenched hand and muttered a few words of Latin—veni vidi vici—then held his fist out to the wench again.

“Time to yank it out, my lady.”

The woman pinched the tip of the scarf between her thumb and forefinger and then tugged at it with languorous slowness. He released a grunt of relief as the knotted end popped out.

“Lady,” he muttered, “don’t stop now.”

She continued to pull, and out of his fist came another scarf, knotted to the first, a gossamer thing the shade of peaches in summer. The crowd gasped, and even the lady took enough time out of seducing him with her eyes to raise a brow as a succession of bright silk scarfs slipped out of his fist. Colin let his grin widen and made comments about the length of it, all the while wondering in the back of his mind why the sight of such a pretty, willing woman left his cock limp.

When the last scarf fell out of his fist, the crowd applauded and Maguire, on cue, popped into Colin’s place. The little man gathered farthings into his hat even as he started telling a tale about an itinerant priest and the peddler’s daughter. Colin backed out of the clearing, avoiding the woman’s seeking eye, and ducked into the alehouse. He came out of the other side into the brightness of day.

One sweep of the streets and he glimpsed what he hadn’t expected to see—a white coif, pure and clean. Maura, standing in the shade of the blacksmith’s shop.

Colin’s gut tightened. Maura should be safe at the camp, not wandering around this English town alone. She wore her kitchen-servant garments, not the bells and rouge and silks of a minstrel’s trade. As he watched, three burly apprentices pressed close around her. He shot across the cobbles and without a pardon muscled himself between the men.

“There you are, Abbess.” Colin draped an arm across her shoulders as he turned to eye the apprentices. “Angling to get me in a fight with a blacksmith?”

She blinked up at him in surprise. By God’s Nails, the wench didn’t even know that three men were closing in around her, three Englishmen who wouldn’t give a moment’s worth of thought for her welfare. If he hadn’t shown up, she could have ended up on her back on the smithy’s floor, servicing the lot of them.

“This good apprentice,” she began, trying to wiggle the weight of his arm off her shoulders, “has been kind enough to explain how metal is molded.”

“That’s not all he’ll mold, if he gets a chance.”

She tilted her head and gave him a scolding eye.

“My lady,” one of the apprentices said, as he shifted a bellows off his shoulder to set its point in the dirt. “Is this your husband?”

“No … no,” she said, “He’s just—”

“Then leave her alone, minstrel.” The apprentice eyed Colin’s cape and the jagged hem of his tunic. “Such a fine lady won’t be meddling with the likes of you.”

Colin’s nostrils flared. The apprentice was young and burly, with swelling, work-reddened forearms. As a rule, Colin avoided tangling with the village blacksmiths wherever he traveled. They were strong enough to pull teeth out of a man’s jaw. But after seeing the traitor O’Kelly riding the roads surrounded by armed retainers this morning—a man against whom Colin's only weapon could be words—Colin was primed to flex his muscles at the first opportunity that presented itself. He felt a familiar rush to his head, a warmth of anticipation in his blood, as he curled his hands into fists.

Maura seized his arm but he shrugged it off.

The smith lunged first, tossing the bellows aside before barreling into him. Air whooshed from his lungs as he heard Maura cry out. He and the blacksmith, locked in a hold, plunged onto the road, bumping into passersby until they tripped to the ground. Pebbles needled Colin’s back as they skidded to a stop against the alehouse wall. Then Colin seized the blacksmith by the scruff of his leather jerkin and tossed him off, leaping up just as the apprentice rolled to his feet. The blacksmith charged again, but another man emerged from the shadow of the shop and darted between them, holding out one meaty hand to stop the apprentice from attacking.

“Do your fighting on your own time, William. You’re mine until vespers.” The sweaty-faced master blacksmith fixed his glare on Colin, assessing him up and down. “A piece of sterling says my William will beat the guts out of this one.”

Then Maguire Mudman twisted out of the crowd like a whirlwind. “Is it going to be a fight, then?” With a toothless grin, he flipped a silver coin in the air. “A piece of silver, then, for the minstrel.”

“A ha’penny on the magician!”

“A groat on the blacksmith—”

“Double that for me—”

Maguire pulled out a wax tablet and began scratching wagers. Colin took measure of the blacksmith as he wiped the blood from the corner of his lip. Aye, the apprentice was strong and quick, and the blow to the belly had been a surprise, but Colin had several inches and a good two stone on him. Staring at this puffed-up young man, Colin didn’t give a damn about the bids. No matter how the wagers fell, he intended to beat the stuffing out of the boy.

Then there she was, standing before him, anger radiating from her like heat from a kiln stone.

“What are you thinking,” she whispered, “haggling over me like some market day harlot?”

“What are you thinking,” he retorted, “wandering around this town alone?”

Her gaze faltered, but only for a moment. “I may be alone,” she said, “but I’m in a public place, amid a crowd—and not far from where you and Maguire were working.” She crossed her arms. “I’ve been traveling on these roads long enough to be aware of some of the dangers, Colin.”

He grunted. She shouldn’t wear that coif, Colin thought. Hair like that shouldn’t be hidden under a bit of linen. “You’re dressed well for your wanderings.”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Where’s Nutmeg? Your bells, your silks?”

“It’s best, in some cases, that I don’t play the minstrel.”

“I like you better as the minstrel.”

“Whether I’m minstrel or maiden, you keep your distance, I’ve noticed.”

She regretted the words the moment she said them, he could tell by the way her skin bloomed pink right to the roots of her hair. He knew what she was talking about. He’d made a point of not being caught alone with her lest he be tempted into teaching her more lessons about love. She was too innocent to understand that he was staying away from her for her own damn good.

So he jerked his chin toward the apprentice, now swaggering back to his anvil. “Your blacksmith won’t keep his distance, I’ll wager you that.”

“Don’t be talking nonsense.” She fingered the ring upon her hand. “William was telling me how such a ring could be made.”

“William, is it?”

“It’s a fine Christian name.”

“No doubt he yearns to hear it whispered from your lips.” He frowned. “What’s this about your ring?”

“Never mind about that.”

She turned with a flip of her tunic and marched into the shadow of an alleyway, escaping so fast that Colin knew he’d touched a nerve. He brushed the dust off him, saw that Maguire was busy taking bets, and then eyed the apprentice who had taken a stance near the front of his shop to pound a crescent of reddened metal with an iron mallet. With a challenging grin, Colin made sure the boy saw him set off after those twitching hips.

He caught up with her just as she stepped out of the alleyway into the open space that spread before the city gate. He grasped her by the waist, ignored her cry of surprise, and pulled her into the shade under the thatch overhang of one of the shops.

A rider galloped past, harness and bells jangling.

“Watch yourself, Abbess.” Her hair smelled warm. “You were nearly crushed under those hooves.”

“I’m in more danger now, I think.”

“You have to take care.” He felt his throat tighten. “The troupe needs you now.”

“Stop with your flattery. The troupe doesn’t need me, and I’m only here until St. Patrick’s Purgatory. Which,” she said, pushing out of his grip, “I’ve recently been told is north, while all this time we’ve been walking west.”

“I warned you back in Killeigh that a minstrel troupe follows the fairs.” He seized her hand before she could slip away. “Now tell me what’s special about this ring that you risk flirting with blacksmiths.”

Her lips went tight and she tried to tug her hand free. He ignored her efforts and eyed the ring. Its face was scratched and worn, but the metal was heavy and untarnished, a sign of true gold.

He said, “This is no tinker’s work.”

“Of course it isn’t.”

“I know you didn’t steal it. Was it a gift?”

“This is mine. It has always been mine.” Her mouth moved but she seemed to be having some trouble forming words. “I found out, not long before I left the convent, that this ring had been discovered in my swaddling clothes.”

He met those guarded hazel eyes and remembered how she’d told him she was a foundling. A woman without a family. A woman without family obligations, without the weight of unfulfilled promises.

Envy pierced him to the bone.

“You go to strangers to ask questions about a ring,” he said, tightening his grip on her hand, “but you didn’t think of asking me.”

“What would you know about such a thing? You and Padraig are the only true Irish in the troupe, and you’re all wanderers to a man. I need to travel through towns, seek some similar insignia. I need to speak to villagers, local people on the road to the shrine. Or,” she added with a lift of a brow, “a blacksmith who might know something of the forging.”

“That blacksmith of yours knows ironwork, not the working of silver and gold.”

“He knows more than I know.”

“This troupe has been to France, Gascony, Normandy, England. We know more than you can possibly imagine.”

She went mute, her jaw tight as she stood with her back against the wall. He eyed the crest upon the ring, worn to flatness, nothing visible but a scratch of even lines that looked something like the rays of the sun. The pattern looked familiar. He struggled to remember where he might have seen such a thing … but it became difficult to focus on the ring. The scent of heather seeped out between the wattles of the candle maker’s hut and clouded around them. It roused memories of fresh grass and how it smelled crushed under a woman’s back. He found his thoughts wandering to the softness of Maura’s breasts, his gaze to the poke of her nipples tightening under her tunic. He found himself thinking of things better meant for a man with a sturdy, profitable trade and a secure future.

“Well?” She leaned toward him. “Do you know something about it, or are you just using this as an excuse to play finger games with my hand?”

Such stormy hazel eyes, such sun-struck curls poking out from beneath that white coif. A whiskey-brown fleck of a beauty mark lay just above the arch of her left brow. Her skin looked so soft it seemed that a breeze would bruise it.

He didn’t think the world could hold such innocence.

He spoke softly. “What do you want to know about this ring, Maura?”

Her lashes swooped down to cast shadows on her cheeks. “You’ll make me say it,” she said, “and then you’ll mock my foolishness.”

“I will not.”

A breeze siphoned in from over the walls of the city and whirled in the cleared space, raucous with peddlers’ cries, soldiers’ demands, the clatter of wheels over pebbles, the laughter of children. She pulled her lower lip between her teeth.

“Let me guess then,” he said. “You joined us to travel through Ireland, hoping to find the owner of this ring.”

“No, I didn’t have hopes as high as that.”

“But you’d hoped to learn something.”

She shrugged. “It was a better plan than sitting in a convent, forever wondering from whence it came.”

“So this pilgrimage to St. Patrick’s Purgatory is nothing but a story.”

“Not exactly.” She kept taking the pink flesh of her lower lip between her little white teeth. “Around the time I was found on the convent steps, a large group of pilgrims came through Killeigh, stopping for a while to rest in the fields. They were on their way back from St. Patrick’s Purgatory.”

“You assume your mother was among them.”

She shrank into herself a bit, the hollows of her shoulders deepening.

“So you decided to walk the same pilgrim’s road.” He rubbed a thumb across her knuckles. “To search for the insignia. On a silversmith’s shop, or hanging from the post of an inn. To ask questions of strangers in the hopes they’d remember a detail from over twenty years ago.”

She tilted her chin, but her voice came out small. “I didn’t realize that the world would be so … big.”

Colin thought of the roads of Gascony, the vineyards of Bordeaux, the woods outside Paris, the cobbled lanes of London, the bustle of Dublin and Wexford, and swallowed the laugh that rose in his throat because ignorance was not a sin, and should never be mocked.

“I wouldn’t take the veil,” she said suddenly. “So the lady Abbess kept insisting I should marry the butcher’s boy. He’d been courting me at the kitchen door for months, with no encouragement by me.”

Colin didn’t like the kick of jealousy he felt at the thought of some dirty grunt ogling Maura in a back courtyard.

“Oh, he’s a fine enough man,” she continued, “and he has a good trade, but I was given this ring, you see. Once this had been given to me, how could I just go on with my life, pretending the ring didn’t mean anything?” She sought answers in his face. “How could I not set out to find the truth?”

He let go of her hand and found himself cradling her face in his hands so that she couldn’t look away from him anymore.

Soft, confused hazel eyes.

“The world is big, but it’s not so strange, Maura.” He eased her deeper under the thatch overhang. “Babes are left on convent steps more often than you think. That’s the desperation of unwed mothers bearing their lover’s children, or families who cannot feed another mouth. Only in stories do you hear of midwives spiriting away children born of noble patrons, tucking a token in their swaddling clothes.”

She flinched. “I don’t fancy myself of noble blood.”

“I would.”

Such soft skin. Her brows arched like wings. Freckles like tiny constellations on the swell of her cheekbone. Hazel eyes bright with question. A face with curves like a carved stone angel, except living, pliable, warm.

She whispered, “You think I’m a fool.”

“No.” He watched her eyes flutter, her lashes glinting amber in the light. “I think you are the last bit of innocence on the face of the earth.”

“Ignorance, you mean.”

“I admire the courage that sent you out of that convent.” He ran a thumb across the tear that fell from her eye, wishing he could leave her believing in impossible coincidences. “But happy endings are rare, Maura. As much as I would give one to you, if I could.” He pressed a thumb on the indentation in the middle of her lower lip, stopping the words that rose to her mouth. “Abandoned children never find their true parents. And minstrels never turn out to be kings.”

Emotions rippled across her features, dismay and desperation and shame. Guilt needled him. He hadn’t wanted to bring her pain. He wanted to tell her it could be a great gift to be unburdened of family expectations, never to carry the encumbrance of some long-set destiny. He wished he could teach her to embrace her freedom, and give herself over to what life was meant for.

Capturing moments of joy.

His gaze fell to her lips and a feeling he couldn’t identify rushed through him, so strong and fierce that he wanted to kiss her with the same intensity that he craved a bite of the first red apple in September.

Instead he closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against hers, feeling the heat of her skin against his, the slight hiss as she drew in a long, deep breath. He wondered what the hell he was doing, rolling his thumb down the curve of her breast, only to lift his hand and bury it in the curls lying against her neck.

It was all muddled in his mind. Everything had been muddled since he’d visited the site by that pond where his father had died, since he’d seen that damn traitor O’Kelly riding high on his horse. It was this English town, this Irish countryside, the knowledge that he was hurtling toward an inevitability he’d avoided for ten long years just when he had a reason to slow it down, to stop it—if just for a moment.

If just for this moment.

A passerby bumped him from behind. Colin tore his face away from hers, long enough to see that her hazel eyes, usually so sharp, were now as mellow as honey mead.

He thought, one kiss.

One simple kiss.

Her lips quivered under his mouth. Sweet and eager, guileless and innocent, she was like a flower raising its face toward the sun. He tilted her chin with one finger so he could slant his mouth against hers—kiss her more deeply—and then, moments later, he gripped that chin to pull her away before he, too, became lost in this dizzy rush of desire.

Inches from his face, she whispered, “Colin.”

His heart thumped at the sound.

As he turned on his heel, he wondered if anyone in the whole of his life had ever said his name with such sweetness.