Black Falcon's Lady (Celtic Rogues Book 1) (17 page)

Tade started, the image of fire-glow and soft, yearning lips vanishing as something hard jabbed into his ribs. He looked down to see Deirdre rubbing her elbow, her mouth drawn into lines of acid contriteness.

"A thousand pardons for disturbing you. I didn't mean delay you from your assignation! Tade the magnificent! The great high king! Not burdened by the rules of the household like the rest of us poor lowlings," she trilled, dipping him an insolent curtsy.

"Last Monday when Shane forgot to throw his soiled
bawneen
into the willow basket before I went to the creek, Ma made him suffer a whole week without it. But you? Oh, nay. You sashay in after two weeks—
two weeks
—and she expects me to spend half a Friday afternoon washing your stinking—"

"For shame, Dee." The tiniest edge to Rachel's ever-gentle voice made all eyes in the room turn to where she leaned over the cradle. Her angular features were creased with concern, and Tade could feel her gaze sweep the slight thickness of the bandage hidden beneath his shirtsleeve. He shifted, to hide the telltale bulge from her view. Yet it was as if those soft brown eyes could see through the layers of fine linen and bloodstained cotton to the gouge a Sassenach bullet had carved beneath.

Rachel turned to Deirdre, the patience that usually glossed her features marred by tight lines about her lips. “It is a fair enough exchange, I think," she chided. "An hour of washing clothes for the shoes Tade brought you from Derry."

"Oh, aye," Deirdre sniffed, her mouth quivering with resentment. "And such lovely shoes they are, too. Heavy as a cow's hoof and well nigh as appealing. I may die of gratitude every time I don them. Most likely Tade scarce had time to spend at the cobbler's, though, what with the hours he must have wasted plying confectioners with his coin." She glared at where little Katie leaned chubby elbows on the table's edge, her round baby eyes wide with delight as she stared, transfixed, at the sugar swan gracing the center of the table.

Tade turned, a smile tipping one corner of his mouth as his eyes skimmed the cunning creation. But it was not the sugar swan he saw, wrought as perfectly as a sculptor's masterpiece amid carefully unfurled petals of thick wrapping, but rather its image reflected back at him in eyes as fathomless as the deepest lake, alive with the wondrous hues of his mountains.

"Don't pay her any heed, Tade."

The vision of Maryssa's face faded at the sound of Brody's call, and Tade turned to see the ten-year-old thrust his head from beneath the stool. "Dee's been cross as a stinging bee since Phelan took Aileen to the dancing at the Dalys’s. And I heard her brag to the other girls that you went to Derry 'specially to buy her something that'd turn Aileen sick with envy."

"Brody Kilcannon if you don't close you're mouth, I'll—"

"Come, now, Dee, I could hardly know you wanted frills and furbelows when you didn't see fit to tell me," Tade interrupted in his most cajoling tone. "And I doubt Phelan would be smitten with a girl who lost her toes at first frost."

"You seem smitten enough with that dull English dishrag of a girl to make a complete dolt of yourself. Perhaps if I minced about with my eyes fixed on my toes and my mouth barely peeping open to whisper 'aye, sir,' and 'nay, ma'am,' Phelan would hurl himself at my feet."

"Well, little sister, at least if he does, he'll not be staring at bare skin." Tade nodded toward the sturdy new shoes, which lay in an ignominious heap in the hearth corner. He grabbed up the towel and wiped the remaining lather from his lean cheeks, then draped the length of linen over one shoulder. He grinned as his gaze strayed to the table where Katie's tiny nose was a hair's breadth from the sugary temptation of the swan's outspread wing. The child's pink tongue peeked out of her mouth.

"Nay, nay, Katie, treasure, that sweetie is not for you," Tade said gently, sweeping the child up in his arms. "I brought that back from Derry town for a very special lady."

"See-na?" the child asked dejectedly, her little face crumpling. "See and De'dra’ll never give me a lick."

"Well, neither one of them will get so much as a taste of this treat," Tade said, tweaking Katie's rosy cheek. "That swan is for the prettiest lady in Donegal, next to you."

"Pwitty?" the imp echoed.

"Aye. Her name is Maryssa, and she has the sweetest face God ever put on a woman."

"You—you didn't drag home that sugar monstrosity for that cursed English witch?" Deirdre gasped, jabbing a finger at the swan.

A frown touched Tade's brow, and only the sudden hint of fear in the girl's eyes saved him from anger. "Nay, I dragged home that sugar monstrosity as a gift for the gentlest woman— English or Irish—I've ever known," Tade offered with forced lightness. "But it is obviously most fortunate I had the confectioner slip a packet of peppermints for you in with the sugar-teat I brought back for Ryan. Your disposition is in great need of sweetening."

"Tade, you—you can't mean to—to woo Wylder's daughter! He would . . . will . . ." Deirdre gulped.

“Have to become accustomed to seeing a Kilcannon once again about Nightwylde?" Tade finished, shooting Deirdre a mischievous grin. "What you you think, Dee? Would I not strike a fine figure standing on the turrets? Or should I say dangling from them?"

He saw Deirdre flinch, her face becoming tinged with gray. A small hand tugged on his open collar, and he turned away to where Katie's eyes feasted on the swan's sugary wing, their wide blue depths bright with wistful yearning. "Tade, is your 'Ryssa gonna eat the sweetie on the terpets?" she asked.

"Nay, love. I'm meeting her at the lakeshore. Most like she'll nibble on it there."

"Where y' taught me an' Tamkin how t' puddle about?"

"Aye." Tade's mouth widened in a smile. "Come to think of it, I vow Maura could use a few lessons in
puddling
herself." The sun-drenched memory of Katie and Tamkin splashing about in the water shifted, and Tade could almost feel the cool water lapping at his naked flesh, feel Maryssa in his arms, warm, sleek, and willing.

"Tade?"

He mentally shook himself, vaguely embarrassed as though the child could somehow see the scene he had imagined and sense the tightening in his loins. "Aye, Katie?"

"Does your 'Ryssa like little girls?" she asked in a tiny, hopeful voice.

Tade looked down into her round little face for a long moment, then grinned and brushed one finger over the tip of her nose. "Aye. And if she were here, I'm certain she'd break off a wee piece of the wing for my favorite little sprite," Tade assured her, reaching down with one hand to chip a delicate scallop from the base of the swan's wing. He popped it into Katie's mouth, whispering in a voice just loud enough for Deirdre to hear, "Maryssa has a much more agreeable temperament that either Sheena or Dee can boast."

Tade stifled a laugh as Deirdre snatched up the laundry basket with a vengeance. One bentwood handle slammed into the washbasin, sending the metal container careening to the floor, spraying soapy water to the four corners of the room. Yowling noisily, the kittens streaked out the open door, Tom and Brody shrieked and scrambled up from the floor, their sopping wet shirts and breeches rimed with soapsuds, and little Ryan set up a piercing wail that set the very rafters shaking.

In an instant, Tade had set Katie down upon the edge of the table and grabbed a fistful of clothes from Deirdre's basket to swab up the mess. He looked up at her, words designed to tease her into laughter on his lips. But the jests stilled at the oddly stricken expression on her face.

He watched as Deirdre's tear-bright gaze swept from the graceful swan, safe upon the table, to the rivulets of water running merrily across the newly scrubbed boards to stain the leather of the shoes in the hearth corner. Tade dived for the shoes and whisked them out of harm's way, then turned, holding them aloft with a smile. But Deirdre only flung him a look of stark betrayal and then, clutching the basket, spun and ran out the door.

Tade stared after her, scarcely noticing when Brody and Tom stomped into their bedchamber to peel off their sodden clothes. "I warrant I should have told her about the gown I sent back with Reeve," he said, turning to Rachel with a rueful sigh. "But I hadn't time to match slippers to it, and Christa promised—"

"She'll see the dress soon enough, Tade." Rachel scooped up Ryan and cuddled him to her shoulder. "Some days do not know what that girl needs more, a good shaking or a month's worth of hugs."

"Well, whichever it is, she's of a certainty not getting it from me," Tade said, moving to scrub the last of the dampness from the floor. "It seems that she spends every minute I'm home either shrieking or staring at me as if I'd just drowned her pup. She used to romp and laugh, flinging back just as good as I dealt. But now every time I open my mouth she bursts into tears or—"

"She misses you," Rachel interrupted with a sad smile. "We all do."

"But I stay home as much as possible, and even when I'm gone, it is only for a few weeks’ time. I have to go.”

"I know." Rachel bent to lay Ryan in his cradle. "But each time you go, it shows us how empty this cottage will be when you finally leave for good. We've always depended upon you so—me, the little ones, and especially Dee. It seems to her that you've committed the most unforgivable sin of all. You've grown up, Tade, and left her behind."

Tade pushed himself to his feet, a sudden ache of loss in his chest. "Rachel, I—"

"Don't." Rachel held up her fingers to stop him. "No one knows better than I how deeply you love this cottage and all of us. But you can't stay forever, despite the ties that bind you. And you can't wed Sheena to please either Dee or your father." Rachel's voice softened. "But we fear for you, Tade. All of us. And this fascination you have with the Wylder girl—"

"She has a name."

"Aye. Wylder. And yours is Kilcannon. Think, Tade, what that name means in these mountains. For three hundred years it has graced earls, rulers in their own land, and before that, kings."

"It means nothing now but one more cottage full of Irish fighting to scrape a livelihood from beneath the heel of the Sassenach."

"Nay. When your father rides Nightwylde's lands, it is to him the people turn with their loyalty and honor, not to Bainbridge Wylder. They leave baskets of vegetables, chickens, aye, even coin they can ill afford, as if they were still tenants on Kilcannon holdings. You were too young to remember how your da tried to stop them after Wylder stole the land. Kane railed at them, saying he had nothing to offer them in exchange now—now that he was no longer the earl. But the mountain folk only started leaving their baskets of treasures on the doorstep at night, so there was no way your da could know from whence they came, nay, nor return them."

"I know of the bond between da and the people, and God knows he does what he can, to ease their burdens, but—"

"He does more than that, Tade. He makes their burdens his own. Sometimes I grow jealous of his love for those who were his kerns, of the hours—sometimes days—he spends away from the babes and me, tending to them." Rachel's voice trailed off, her rawboned face suffusing with an aura of quiet pride. "But I'd never clutch him to myself, to this cottage," she said. "For he gives the people the one thing the Sassenachs cannot take away from them. Aye, and so do you and all the babes. To the people who live in these hills, Tade, 'Kilcannon' is the word for hope."

“It is nothing but a name, Rachel. It can't warm your bed at night or bear your children." Tade paced slowly to the open door and stared out across the rock-studded slope that dipped down to a winding ribbon of stream. The laundry lay abandoned on the turf. Deirdre, her scarlet petticoats tucked into the waistband of her skirt, stretched up on the tips of her toes, shielding her eyes as she peered down the path that wound up the mountain. Tade tensed, his instincts suddenly alert as Fagan O'Donal's lumbering dray horse galloped into view, its rack-ribbed sides heaving with exertion.

The strapping O'Donal leaned down to Deirdre, calling out something Tade couldn't understand before wheeling the horse about, slapping the reins against its neck with a force that sent the staid animal plummeting down the path as if pursued by demons.

Tade was halfway to the stream by the time Deirdre had splashed back across it, her petticoats tumbling down as she dashed up the slope toward him.

"Dee, what the devil—"

“It is Fagan's wife, Leah! She's borne their babe, but Fagan says it is too tiny. It can scarce breathe, and—"

"I'll take Rachel to her right aw—"

"Nay, Tade," Deirdre burst in, her face oddly flushed. "Leah's ma and sisters are with her. It is Devin they want, to baptize the babe in case it dies.”

"Devin? Where in blazes is he?"

"He was riding out to the O'Cahans', I think, or-or was it the Fitzpatricks’s?”

"Damn it, Dee, they're on opposite sides of the mountains. Which was it?"

"Both," Deirdre said almost too quickly. "He was to say mass for the O'Cahan's sick mother, and at the Fitzpatricks’s . . . I . . . well, I don't remember, but I know he was going there.”

Tade spat a curse. "He could be anywhere within a full fifty miles. I hope to God I can find him before . . . Damn!" His eyes flashed toward the valley below, finding the distant break in the trees that sheltered the hidden glen. "Dee, you'll have to go to the lake for me. Tell Maryssa what happened. That I'll come to her as soon as I can.”

"I will. Now go!"

"And, Deirdre, tell her I—" Tade stopped at the strange look on his sister's upturned face, a fist twisting in his stomach as the words he had wanted to whisper to Maryssa snagged in his throat.

The green of Deirdre's eyes washed bright with tears and terror, and he could see that she sensed what he had been about to say. Pressing her knuckles to her lips, she spun away from him and stumbled down the hillside.

Tade took one step after her, then, spitting a curse, wheeled and raced toward the byre where his stallion waited.

T
he flowers were dying
. Maryssa slipped a drooping blossom from her hair and fingered the once-crimson petals that now lay wilted to the hue of dried blood. She had waited since the sun was at its crest, watched it as it sank inexorably toward the scraggly tops of the trees. And with each gossamer sweep of clouds that drifted above the grassy rise on which she sat, the joy that had sung within her stilled a little more.