Stormfire (35 page)

Liam nibbled the bait. "For God's sake, Catherine, Ruiralagh is just a fishing town. You'd stand out like a Tudor rose in a shock of shamrocks. To parade you outside Shelan is risky."

"Not if you parade me as Doctor Flynn's niece from Killarney," she said quickly.

"I don't have a niece in Killarney," protested the doctor.

"Kilkenny?" Catherine suggested brightly.

"I don't have any nieces!"

"Besides," said Liam, "you don't sound Irish."

"Bite yer tongue, ye Irish mick, how dare ye be tellin' a good Irishwoman she don't sound like she come from the ould sod. 'Tis insultin' y'are, and fair to be havin' yer ears boxed!"

Flynn blinked. "Grotesque, but amazing."

The male arguments continued to meet with blithe rebuttals until Liam sipped his cold tea and made a face. "Just ribbon, mind you, then straight home."

Little choice of finery was to be found in the general shop where Catherine pondered the articles with maddening leisure. In nervous impatience, Liam paced up and down as she puttered, fingering this and twiddling with that while the middle-aged proprietress regarded her bale- fully. Two other women in sparrow-drab dresses eyed the stranger's rose-colored gown and softly draped heather shawl with sidelong disapproval. She was dressed no differently than they, save in the vastly becoming shading of her clothing and the appealing dip of her neckline, but in their minds she was far too beautiful to be good, and the fact Lord Liam waited attendance spoke for itself.

By now that lord was well aware his charge had far more on her mind than ribbons. Their carriage had barely rolled^ into the street lining the harbor, when she had cried out, "Begorra, what a darlin' dog!" slid out of the carriage as if it were buttered, and scampered up the wharf after a moth- eaten mutt that cringed when she petted him.

Despite Liam's protests as he hastily tethered the carriage and hurried after her, Catherine insisted on walking to the village's one dress shop and introducing herself to everybody. Her smile was so infectious people involuntarily smiled back, and generally heard some scrap of conversation concerning "my uncle, Doctor Flynn." The lovely stranger and tense young lord inched along at a snail's pace because the young lady could not resist impulsively complimenting villagers on their flowers or freshly painted shutters. However taken aback at being accosted the individual might be, inevitably he began to thaw.

Rare indeed the maleontent who would frown at a blooming rose, but eventually that being made her appearance: staunchly dignified Mrs. Agatha Flynn Leame, Doctor Flynn's eldest, stuffiest daughter. Her faded blue eyes and strong profile were her only resemblance to her father. She marched into the shop with a cheap sealskin muff mounted on her front and an ugly bonnet trimmed with cock's feathers jammed on her head. "Where's this Kitty Flynn?" she barked.

"Why, Aunt Agatha, how good it is to be meetin' at last. I'd have recognized ye anywhere from Uncle Michael's lovely miniature!"

Agatha's chin jutted out and Liam quailed. "I don't remember me father havin' a niece, from Kilkenny or anywhere else!" Lowering her voice to a furious whisper, she hissed, "If ye think ye can pass yerself off as kith and kin of decent folk so ye can play the whore for my fool of a father and fancy Lord Liam, think again!"

Catherine's eyes rounded as if astonished and she whispered back, "Why, Aunt Agatha, 'tis ungracious ye're bein'. Perhaps 'tis you who should be havin' a thought or two. Ye might not remember me, but I remember Flory Flynn, me social-minded aunt, passin' well. 'Tis a foin time she's havin' herself in Dublin, meetin' all sorts—"

A gloved hand spasmodically caught her wrist. Catherine's voice had grown subtly louder phrase by phrase and Agatha's chin sagged with each increase in volume. "Please! Lower yer voice," the woman whispered hoarsely.

"I'd be delighted, but I'll thank ye to be considerin' yer father's reputation as well as yer own."

Liam began a frantically noisy, mostly one-sided conversation with the shop proprietress while Catherine continued in a lower tone, foiling the craning attention of the customers. "If ye haven't learned by now yer father's an honorable man, ye're a sorry lot indeed! I'm his nurse: nothin' more"—she stuck out her own small chin—"and nothin' less." Her eyes narrowed. "Now, ye've abused his good name fer years and yer husband's practice has fattened because of it. If ye don't start rememberin'—and loudly, mind ye—what a foin gentleman and physician yer father is, ye may see how much of a dent in yer own reputation a flaptongue lass from Kilkenny can make!" Seeing the woman start to bluster, Catherine spiked her guns. "Would ye like yer neighbors to know how much Flory the Floozie charges?"

"Stop!. . . Stop." The gloved fingfers twisted at the muff. "I'll do like ye want. But it won't help. The folk here- abouts'll have no part of Da."

Catherine ignored her protest. "Speak to yer sister this afternoon, if ye please. Two mouths run better than one. I expect to be seein' patients come up the hill beginnin' next week. If ye can't send somebody, ye'd both better develop dire disease and pay a call yerselves."

"But my husband's the village doctor! How would it look?"

"No worse than it looked when ye deserted yer da and left him to bear gagglin' tongues alone. 'Tis only sorry I am it takes a bit of blackmail to make ye see it." Catherine's voice resumed its normally blithe volume as she bobbed a curtsy. "Good day to ye, Aunt! Ye're a dear to invite Lord Liam and meself to tea, but I fear we've too many errands this afternoon. Perhaps another time." She gave the dazed woman a hearty hug, rescued Liam from the shop mistress, who was swaying ostrichlike to see past his shoulders, then swept out of the shop with the silently fuming lord on her arm.

Determinedly heading away from the carriage, she turned in the direction of the small stone church at the village outskirts. Completely exasperated, Liam dug in his heels. "This is insane. I was an idiot to bring you here. Donegal County hasn't been so stirred up since Cromwell! And that remark you dropped to those fishermen about a mumps epidemic! You've bent the sword of medical ethics to a hairpin! I'm taking you home this minute!"

Wide blue eyes looked up at him beseechingly. "I know I've sorely tried your patience, but won't you allow me to go to confession before we leave?" She caught his hands. "I promise to be good. I'll not say another word to anyone but the priest." He looked dubious. "I won't involve you and your brother," she said quickly. "I swear it."

"But what can you have to confess? You were brought here against your will and . . . abused. God won't hold you responsible."

Her eyes dropped. She dreaded to admit to a priest lust for a man who had raped her; still more that she must promise in good faith not to repeat the offense. She could not bear for Liam to know how low she had sunk.

Liam caught her chin, his eyes narrowed to hard demand. "You aren't falling in love with Sean, are you?"

She paled. "No! My God, no! How can you ask? Have I no privacy, even in contemplation of my sins!" She had not meant to speak sharply, but Liam's perceptive question had cut too close to the truth. His hurt, angry expression brought a pang of remorse. "I'm sorry, Liam. Truly, I don't mean to hurt you. My relationship with your brother is one of complete antagonism. We rarely pass an hour in each other's company without quarreling." She paused a moment, watching the shadows clear on his handsome face. "I have need of a priest. Will you take me to the church?"

He sighed. "If you require forgiveness, I can hardly deny you." He tucked her arm in his. "But I'm afraid you'll glean little consolation from Father Ryan."

On the edge of the village they passed a ruined Gothic arch that spread in powerful, spinelike grace from the rocky beach.

"How beautiful! Liam, what place was this?"

"A Franciscan chapel built by the O'Donnells during early Tudor reigns. At the time, the O'Donnells and O'Neills were the ruling families of Ulster and the greatest pavers in Ireland. The church was destroyed during Henry VIII's Catholic suppression."

"Your mother was an O'Neill, was she not?"

His face tightened. "Purely descended from Hugh of Ulster. She came to Ireland from Spain when she was fourteen and married my father."

"She was very young."

"Not too young to know what she wanted. She had no desire to thin her royal blood through an alliance with exiled and distant kinsmen. She chose an Ulster man of lesser but equally pure lineage, then waited for a son to restore the O'Neills to the throne. Even as a child I was obviously unlikely to prove a terror to the English. After Father was thrown into prison, she was able to see him for a month out of every six, thanks to a powerful friend in government. After two years she gave birth to Sean. When she had word Father was returning from prison, she took Sean and left. Some say she left because she wanted the future prince to herself; others, because of my parents' long separation, that she had borne a bastard and couldn't bear the gossip."

Catherine squeezed Liam's hand in quick sympathy. "Surely your mother must have loved those she left behind. Your father is respected by all who knew him and you were her firstborn; she cannot have been heartless."

"Who knows? Perhaps she was more heedless than heartless. Sean grew tall and dark like Father. None would have slandered his legitimacy long if she had stayed, but her leaving made his bastardy seem a certainty. That's why Father's retainers cleave to me and not to my brother, for all his skills." Liam's lips twisted and the rankling of bitterness showed in his last words. "It was her one great error and typical of her arrogance."

"But how could she hope for Sean to draw all Ireland to his cause, when his own father's men won't follow him?"

"Megan had little more than contemptuous tolerance for Culhane support. Had she lived, Sean's surname would have been O'Neill. She planned to ally with the great hereditary vassals of the Irish crown, confident the sheer magic of descendancy from Hugh and national desperation would conquer any hesitancy. The Culhanes were only a small link in her aim. But it worked out differently. Sean cannot command the great clans without first establishing himself, and with Megan dead, he cannot do that without the Culhanes. Like that ruin, he would only be a relic of past glory."

The village church resembled a Romanesque fortress; squat and stolid, it offered no welcome. When they stepped into its dim interior, Liam dipped his fingers into the stone bowl by the door, crossed himself, then rang a" bell for the priest. Passing crude benches that served as pews, they knelt at an iron rack of lighted candles at the side of the simple altar. Surreptitiously, he studied the young countess's profile as she prayed. Strangely, even here her dark beauty appeared sublimely pagan, her oblique eyes reminding him of hieratic mosaics of Theodora, the courtesan who became empress of Christian Byzantium. Her face gilded by the flickering tapers, she seemed enveloped in a tension that increased as the minutes dragged by, her hands more clenched than clasped. At length she whispered almost frantically, "Where's the priest?"

"The bell can be clearly heard in his house; if he were there, he'd have arrived by now. I'm sorry, Catherine.

We'll come another time." She stared at him, then sagged slightly as if she had lost some inner battle.

Silently they walked along the wharf back to the carriage. Liam handed her up, then tucked a packet into her hand with an ironic smile. "Your ribbon."

Sometime later,
 
as the carriage rolled lumpily along the road, she spoke. "The Culhanes are originally Catholic, aren't they? You seem accustomed to Catholic worship."

Liam nodded. "Catholic as Saint Paddy himself. But native landholders in Ireland cannot afford the luxury of adhering to their private beliefs today." He swept a hand to include the barren land about them. "All this area bounding Shelan is shireland, confiscated property of the Crown since Charles II. If I were Catholic, I could no longer own Shelan. I would be forced to rent land that has been in my family for over a thousand years from an absentee owner at the usurious rate of two-thirds its income each year. I'd have no recourse to law for crimes against my property and person, no representation in government. I couldn't send my children to university, or even keep a decent horse."

Catherine listened to this litany of repression in stunned anger. How monstrously unfair! How could any God-fearing nation squeeze another so selfishly? No wonder rebellions are such a threat to English peace, she thought with sudden guilt. The Irish had no chance. Each time they rebelled, they were crushed; each defeat brought more oppression.