Black Falcon's Lady (Celtic Rogues Book 1) (24 page)

"But my father was not so honorable,” Maryssa interjected in a hushed voice, her mind filling with stark images of her father's hatred for all things Irish, his loathing of all who bore the name Kilcannon. The dread within her twisted tighter, and she wanted to clasp her hands over her ears, to block out the truths she knew were to come.

"I do not know what happened between him and my own father," Tade said. "All I am certain of is that, whatever your father's original intentions or my father's rights, the plan they had contrived crumbled. Perhaps that was my mother's secret pain—that she saw disaster rolling toward us but lacked the power to stop it." Tade's voice fell, hushed. "She died only three days before we left these walls forever."

Maryssa padded across the floor to him, reaching up to touch his broad shoulders.

“Do you know," Tade went on, "I can still remember running through the corridors screeching battle cries as I darted into the rooms. Nowhere was forbidden me, even the rooms your father lived in.” Tade looked away.

"The day after my mother's wake, I remember hearing my father and yours, shouting at each other in the library. Dev had been trying to distract me from the whisperings of the mourners by playing with me at lead soldiers. But he was older than I and understood what death meant, that Mother would never again sit in her gilt chair pretending to be queen of the mock tournaments we held.

"I can hear myself laughing at Dev when he tried to explain her death, telling him over and over not to be such a dolt, that Mother loved us and would never let anyone cover her up in the ground and keep her away from us forever. But somewhere, deep inside, I must have suspected the truth, feared it.”

Maryssa stared at him, silent, aching at the pain in his face, yet clasped in the grip of some hideous terror, some sense of the truth yet to be revealed.

"I ran into the library, still clutching one of my soldiers, meaning to demand that Father and Mr. Wylder awaken my mother at once. But a pretty woman—your mother—caught me up. I remember her holding me before your father, asking him if he could steal more than he already had from such a tiny lad."

Maryssa swallowed hard, seeing in her memory, a tiny leaden soldier amid the clutter on her father's polished table, seeing the stricken expression on Bainbridge Wylder's face when she touched it. But even that was lost in the subtle picture Tade's words had painted of the mother she had never known.

Tade raked his hand through his hair, squaring his shoulders, the muscles rippling beneath his bronzed skin. "I remember my father dragging me from the woman's arms, saying that Bainbridge Wylder had already taken my mother's life. That he could steal Nightwylde as well and be cursed for it."

Maryssa gasped, pain twisting deep.

"I knew then that what Devin had told me was true. My mother was never going to wake up. Life was never going to be the same again. I was afraid, suddenly, so damn scared of my father's rage, of Bainbridge Wylder, of the pretty woman. I hadn't cried since I was a babe, but I remember sobbing then, screaming, as my father carried me down the hall."

"Dear God," she whispered, a sudden sharp loathing of and shame in the man who had sired her sweeping over her. "No wonder you—you hate us so. How could you have been so kind to me—you, Rachel, Devin—knowing who I was? What my father had taken from you?"

Tade suddenly seemed to remember where he was, who she was, and the pain his words must have caused her. He gave her a wistful, loving smile, his eyes searching her face. "I would have loved you, Maryssa, if you were given to me from the devil's own hand. From the first moment I saw you, touched you, my heart was bound to yours. You looked so fragile, so haunted, I wanted nothing more of my life than to spend it making you smile—shielding you from whatever or whoever had put the sorrow in your eyes."

His hands molded themselves gently to the curves of her cheeks. "My father clings to his bitterness," he said softly. "But Devin sees you as the gentlest of souls, and I . . . the love I feel for you will last until Nightwylde's stones are but dust."

He threaded his fingers through her hair, breeze-soft and warm. "You ask me to trust you," he said. "Well enough, then. I'll keep nothing from you, Maura. I'll give you all of what I am. When morning comes, tell those who ask that you are off to the Marlows’s, that Christa has asked you to go to church with them. Then slip away and meet me beside the lake. I vow, then, I'll show how much faith I put in you."

He turned away, his eyes sweeping to the mullioned panes, the wilds beyond. "Pray God these truths you crave do not destroy us both."

T
he leather reins cut
deep into Maryssa's palms. Her pulse was pounding despite the sorrel mare's sedate pace as it followed Tade's stallion up the rocky trail. It seemed as though they had been riding for hours—winding along trails grown over with brambles, picking their way along cliffs, poised, it seemed, on the brink of some gaping unseen maw that threatened certain death for those who fell upon the jagged stones below.

Once, as they had journeyed, Tade had reined in his mount to point out the mouth of a cave, all but obscured by vines and gorse. And the face that could be so lightsome grew harsh and dark as he told her that it was within that cave that the children of the Catholics met with schoolmasters whom the English hunted with hounds.

A trickle of icy fear ran down Maryssa's spine as her gaze flitted from Tade's broad shoulders to the steep, stone-pierced mountain that fell away from the path. "Tade," she had whispered as she glanced from the shadowed entry to the cave to the rough land surrounding it, "if the soldiers did come, where would the children go?"

Tade's mouth had turned bitter hard as he said, "To the devil."

The mare stumbled, and Maryssa's heart caught in her throat as she yanked on the reins with an awkwardness that would have sent a more spirited mount skidding down the mountainside. Tade turned his head, his face a mask of unaccustomed grimness, and for the hundredth time since they had ridden away from their meeting place at the lakeshore, Maryssa wished she had not pressed him into resorting to this excursion.

Where was he taking her? To some highwayman's lair bursting with stolen treasure? To some den dug deep into the earth, like the cave they had passed? She must have been crazed to have badgered him into dragging her off to reveal to her truths she would have preferred to leave unknown.

She glanced at the rippling black of his mantle, a chill creeping beneath her own camlet hood. What would she say if he took her to a hideaway? If he yanked from some battered chest the silk mask she remembered from that horrible night at the Devil's Grin? Would she weep and accuse him of having duped her? Played her for the fool? Or would it not matter at all whether he lived but a breath away from the hangman's noose?

She fixed her gaze on the mare's flowing mane, cursing herself for being a fool. Of course it would matter if Tade was the Black Falcon. The outlaw played no child's game of seek and dare. He rode into the night bent on terror—stealing, destroying property, and maiming people—English people.

She stared as the mare drew abruptly to a halt, her placid nose almost thumping right into Curran's rump.

"We must tie the horses here, out of sight," Tade explained, swinging down into the spindly shadows of a dead tree.

Maryssa tried to slip down from the mare's back, but before she could manage it, Tade strode to her side and helped her to dismount.

"Where are we?"

A tiny smile crooked Tade's mouth. "Christ's Wound."

"Christ's...? I don't understand."

“It is a hollow in the mountain, hidden as though in the palm of a hand. The ancients say that when one of Donegal's own dies defending the land, the soil here bleeds."

Maryssa felt the hair at the nape of her neck prickle; her gaze darted about the countryside. "Bleeds," she echoed, feeling a tinge of nausea.

“It was thought to be a place of evil or of great magic. But few dared brave the mountain to discover which." He took her hand and gazed down into her eyes with an expression of mingled dread, defensiveness, pride, and love. "You asked me where I ride when I disappear into the night. But I can't tell you that, Maryssa, until you see with your own eyes why I ride."

Her fingers felt numb against the heat of his hand as he led her the last few steps to the edge of the hollow. Maryssa looked down into the rugged valley cupped in the mountain's stone hand, all visions of thieves' lairs and stolen treasures obliterated by the sight that spread beneath them.

A huge flat boulder dominated the far end of the depression. Behind it stood the slender, solemn figure of Devin Kilcannon. Before him a score of people knelt upon the stony ground, their bowed heads catching the light of the sun.

Not one among their number could boast a gown or bawneen less than four seasons old, but from the tiniest child in short skirts to the most crabbed old crone, there was about them a sense of faith, of closeness to God, that Maryssa had not seen in the most magnificent cathedrals in London.

Her gaze swept the tiny, hunted congregation, picking out Rachel amid her brood, the faces of those who had glared at her suspiciously during the hurling match, the countenances even of some of those who served her father at Nightwylde. Even the glossy-tressed head of Sheena O'Toole was bowed as she knelt beside Deirdre Kilcannon in the waning October breeze.

Because of the distance between herself and the priest, Maryssa heard only a few of Devin's words as he offered his tiny congregation what little he himself possessed: faith in the God who had seemingly deserted them and the strength that could be found only in unity, love, and the hope that someday, in some glorious future, all men—be they Protestant, Catholic, English, or Irish—would live together in peace.

Maryssa stood on the brink of the hollow called Christ's Wound, feeling as if, in truth, she were looking into the gentle Savior's greatest sorrow. All who knelt there, whispering prayers in Latin, feeding babes threatened with poverty and ignorance upon dreams, risked everything they owned and even their lives to drink of their faith.

"Some have ridden all night to reach here." Tade's voice, low and solemn, stole into her thoughts. "They bring their nurslings to be christened, their dying to be shriven, their lovers to be wed. Sometimes no priest can meet them here, when the fangs of the hounds snap too close behind them. But the people still come... wait... hope."

She turned her face up to his and saw a solemn strength in his features, a stubborn pride that made the bronzed planes she had always loved seem suddenly strange, yet more beguiling than ever before. “This is the perfect place to feel close to God," she said softly, lifting her eyes to the broad sweep of sky, the clouds so low she was tempted to reach out and touch them. “It is so high here, so close to the heavens, that no one would dare defile it with the petty wars of men."

Tade's eyes sought hers, the green depths as warm as a sun-drenched meadow. "I fear, Maryssa love, that men would defile God's very gates if they could but reach them," he said gently.

"Have the hunters come here before?"

"Seven times since I was a lad the soldiers have come to other mass rocks in other glens. Most times our sentries give warning, and the people are able to steal away before the hunters reach them. But thrice I've seen blood spilled upon the very stones where the host has been offered up, and once, when I was but seven, I watched as they hanged the priest who had served us."

"Watched... but why?"

"Rachel had taken Dev and me to mass. I can't recall why. Maybe Da was off to Derry or tending to something that couldn't wait. She was heavy with child, and I remember her wanting Father Dominic's blessing for the confinement to come. But he had scarce opened his mouth in prayer when the sentries cried out. The others ran. But Rachel was so heavy she could scarce walk. I remember hearing the horsemen, being afraid. Father Dominic saw us and, instead of fleeing with the others, thrust us up into the branches of an old tree.

"Rachel didn't want to leave him, but he charged her to care for Devin and me, for we were the hope of all who dwelt upon Kilcannon lands." He paused, wiping the back of his hand across his eyes. "We were the hope of all those poor ragged wretches, two boys scarce breeched. I do not know how Rachel managed to gain the tree's lower branches, but I remember her face, all raked with scratches. I remember her crying. Crying without making a sound. Then the soldiers burst over the rise. I remember Father Dominic standing there, praying to God to forgive those cursed Sassenachs for what they were about to do."

Maryssa felt choked by unshed tears; her eyes burned with the torment on Tade's face.

"They hanged him, Maura," Tade whispered, a tear glistening on his cheekbone. "Hanged him from the tree where we were hidden. I remember Dev, sitting on the branch above Rachel and me, his eyes big, his face white. Rachel, had to hold on to me, because I wanted to aid Father Dominic. Even now I can remember the hideous—hideous feeling of the tree jerking beneath his weight as the rope snapped tight."

"Tade . . ."

"I vowed even then that someday, somehow, I would find a way to keep the people safe—the priest, aye, and the people who for generations have served my name."

"Surely they are safe here. It is so far up the mountain and so well hidden. No priest hunters could find them."

Tade's jaw hardened, and Maryssa saw his keen emerald gaze sweep the horizon. "They'd have to be led by their greedy Sassenach noses, and among the hunted there are few betrayers. The Wound, here, is well hidden in the wilds, and the soldiers fear to tread too far into the mountains." There was a glint of savage satisfaction in his eyes she'd never seen before, a menacing set to the mouth that could be so gentle.

Maryssa felt suddenly cold, the breeze sweeping up the side of the valley weaving beneath the shadowy folds of her hood. A fist seemed to tighten in her stomach, her fingers trembling as her eyes swept the ragged worshipers, the stone altar, the hard face of the man beside her.

"The soldiers," she said, her voice scarcely a whisper. "They fear the wilds because of you?"

"Nay,” Tade said, slipping the knot of the soft leather pouch that never left his waist. "Because of a phantom their own guilt has created—a rider, fools claim, who wears a cape that can turn him to mist, and a hood of black and silver marked by a falcon with its talons spread." Tade took her hand, but she could scarce feel his fingers, her own were so numb. He turned her soft palm upward and carefully emptied the contents of the leather pouch into her cupped hand.

She felt something cool and smooth slide into her fingers, but she dared not look at it.

"You asked for all that I am, Maura. Everything. No dark shadows hidden. And I'm giving it to you. Now."

Slowly, so slowly, Maryssa dragged her gaze down over the folds of his mantle, past the brown hands that had taught her to love and laugh, then across her own slender fingers to where a fine gold chain pooled against her skin.

She stared at the familiar curves of a swan's golden throat, arched gracefully over delicately wrought wings. The pendant that had belonged to the mother she had never known. The chain that had been snapped from her throat by a silk-masked brigand with eyes of emerald fire.

The necklet seemed to swim before her eyes, but instead of the horror and revulsion she had expected to feel in the event of such a revelation, she felt only the hollow sorrow of a knight's lady sending him off to do battle. A battle of honor, for what was noblest in men. In that instant she hated the brutes such as Quentin Rath and her own father, who had forced a man such as Tade to rove the highroads—not to seek a fortune cut from the purses of innocents but rather to shield those who had nothing to protect them but the few rags their conquerors had left them.

Shame for the nation that had bred her and for the father who had shown her only scorn surged through her, and it was all she could do to meet Tade's eyes.

She did not know what she had expected to find there, in those dark-fringed depths—hate for her and all her kind, or the savage arrogance that had glinted from the slits in his hood that long-ago night at the inn. She only knew that the tender hopefulness, the solemn, gentle pleading for understanding that shone in his face stole away all words, leaving only the silent tears to slip down her cheeks.

"Maura, I never meant to dupe you. It is just that I feared putting you in danger." His eyes flicked to her hands, a dark flush tinting his cheekbones. "Aye, and in truth I feared, too, that I would lose you forever if you knew that the man who dared to love you was not only a landless Irishman but a common thief as well."

"Common!" Maryssa could feel the blaze in her own eyes. "Nay, Tade Kilcannon, you are far from common. You are not only kind but brave as well, and willing to cast away your own life for the safety of others. You are even good enough to put away your hatred for the man who wronged your family and to love that man's daughter.”

"Maura."He pulled her to his body with a force that drove the breath from her lungs, but Maryssa reveled in it, losing herself in the hard heat of his mouth as it plundered hers, claiming her with a fiery possession. His hands swept up, driving the folds of her hood back from her hair, to frame her face in his callused palms. "I was so damn scared you would hate me if you knew."

"Hate you?" A tiny laugh tore from her throat. "Before this moment, I never would have believed it possible that I could love you more deeply than I already did. But now. . .” She pushed herself up on her slippered toes, her lips brushing his with a reverence more binding than any vows. "I love you Tade, more than my life, more than—more than Devin's gentle God or my father's cruel one. No matter what the future holds, no one will ever steal away the place you hold within me."

Tade's eyes were tear-bright, and the firm lips that had brought her such ecstasy were quivering with emotion. "I want you for my wife. Want to fill you with my seed, my sons. I want to hold daughters with ebony curls in my arms and make love to you until no demon can haunt you."

Maryssa laid her fingers on his lips, her own tears flowing free. "Aye, love," she said. "I know." Her other hand tightened about the swan pendant. "You held this once as a secret remembrance of a terrified girl you scarcely knew." She raised her eyes to his, incredible strength and confidence springing from some well of love within her. “Wear it now, openly, as a token from a woman who would give you the world if it was in her grasp. A symbol that whatever the fates may bring, you'll ever be bound to me as husband in my heart."