The Ground She Walks Upon (15 page)

"Go on. Get out of here. The lesson is learned then," he whispered.

" 'Twas not your place to teach it to me," she retorted.

He looked at her and again she found that strange, humorless smile on his lips. "Indeed, it was my place, because Lir is populated with illiterates and fools. Don't believe what they tell you, Ravenna. I never have. And I never will."

"Now that you've insulted everyone in this county, I can see this conversation has reached its natural conclusion." She gave him a dismissive glance. Trevallyan had proved he was of the Ascendency through and through. The likes of her old friend Malachi would have no love for the man, not if he ever heard Trevallyan speak as he did.

"Remember what I said about Chesham."

She knew it was not even a possibility, but still her haughty English-schoolgirl self wanted to torment him with the idea anyway. "Chesham may one day be my husband."

"In thy dreams. The only thing you both have in common is a youthful age...." Trevallyan's expression suddenly seemed to grow cold, as if he were pondering something that weighed upon him.

She stared at him, hurt by his latest insult, in disbelief over his mercurial mood shifts.

He finally took a deep, invigorating breath and stared back. Cryptically, he said, "I know the truth. Remember that in times to come. I know the truth about all of Lir, and I know the truth about you."

Puzzled, she wiped the tears from her cheek and demanded, "What do you mean, you know the truth?"

He lifted the corner of his fine lips in the mockery of a smile. "All in good time. I just want you to know that I've seen how you've matured, Ravenna. I see the woman before me where there used to be a little girl playing pranks with her friends. That English school has given you a demure, cultured facade. But a facade it is. I see past it. I know the real you. You may cultivate an innocent demeanor... but the way you use those eyes, those violet-blue, seductive eyes..." A strange, irrational anger shadowed his expression. He touched her face, drawing his thumb gently across the flutter of her lashes. "But just remember, I am immune to it. I
am
immune to it. Yet 'tis no wonder I want to protect Chesham."

Her words were unsteady. His unexpectedly gentle touch left her weak and her emotions in havoc. "You want to protect me, then you want to protect Chesham. Which is it, my lord?"

He dropped his hands as if she suddenly burned him. Refusing to meet her gaze, he said, "As you stated before, I'm not your guardian. What you do with yourself is ultimately your concern. I thought only to be helpful. You're a woman alone, and I've seen what the world does to vulnerable women. Yet, I'm not your protector, nor do I wish to be. The man that desires to protect you, desires to keep you all to himself."

She looked at him for a long moment while seconds ticked by on the mantel clock. He should have met her gaze and announced that she could finally leave. But he didn't. He wouldn't look at her at all. Instead he seemed to be waging a battle within himself and he stared into the fire as if the flames held the secrets of the moon and the stars.

"Good night, Lord Trevallyan," she said softly.

She stared at him, her eyes begging a last look from him, but he wouldn't give her one.

And with no other recourse, she departed the library, numb with the crazy, inexplicable, unsettling notion that the master of Trevallyan, the man who ruled County Lir as if it were his kingdom, was somehow terrified of her.

T
he evening
ended just as strangely as it had begun. Ravenna walked through the passage toward the candlelit great hall with her thoughts heavily on Trevallyan. The man was a bit tetched in the head, she concluded. Father Nolan stood at the entrance to the hall, and she found she couldn't help but include the priest in Trevallyan's mad little group as well. To her dying day, she wouldn't understand why the father thought it perfectly fine for her to dally alone with the master of the castle. The final irony had been that she was deposited with Trevallyan only so that he could lecture her on the dangers of being alone with men.

"There you are, my pretty girl!" the priest exclaimed, smiling like an overeager pup. "And how did your little meeting go? Did you find Niall amusing?"

Ravenna noticed for the first time how frail the old man appeared against the black of his cassock. His clerical collar was frayed and poorly mended with blue thread. He leaned so anxiously upon his blackthorn that she was convinced he would topple over if she told him Trevallyan had made her cry.

" 'Twas a meeting of no account, Father. It's done with now. Let's be off, shall we?" She took his arm and led him across the cavernous medieval hall. Greeves stood at the front door summoning the driver. They paused while a servant crossed their path, carrying a satchel of wood for the hall's three room-sized fireplaces.

"Was Trevallyan unkind to you, my child?" the priest asked, walking even more slowly than normal. Ravenna could swear he was trying to pry information out of her about the meeting.

"He was..." She thought about it. He had indeed been unkind, but then, so had she. The conversation had heated to an unnatural degree, and she hoped never to repeat it. "He was, perhaps, a bit brusque. But that is the way he is. He did not overly offend me. We rarely cross paths, so, as I said, it is of no account."

The servant spilled the wood at the nearest hearth, making a loud clatter. Ravenna looked over at him, a little surprised the man was allowed in the castle. His back was to her, but she saw he wore field clothes still grimy with the dirt of the stables. He began belligerently poking the fire to reignite the flames and finally she saw him in profile. She gasped. His gaze darted to her, anger and recognition in its depth.

"Malachi," she whispered, taking a step toward him.

The priest held her back. " 'Tis not the time or the place for you to be talking to him, Ravenna."

Ravenna stared at the father, astounded. "What? I may close myself alone in a room with Lord Trevallyan, and yet I may not greet my dear old friend whom I haven't seen in years?" She turned to where Malachi stood far across the hall. He had changed a great deal since they had last met. His red hair had dimmed and he was near six feet tall now, with a man's growth of beard on his face. But the eyes were the same. Hazel eyes, with rebellion like a fire that burned within.

"Malachi," she said, a warm, welcoming smile on her lips. She wanted to run across the hall and throw herself in his arms. All the years that she'd spent in London seemed to melt away beneath that familiar gaze.

And yet, the gaze was not so familiar.

It was a man's gaze now, and it stopped her dead while he stared as Lord Chesham had stared at her, his eyes lowering to regions of her figure in a manner that was not quite polite.

"Get along with you, Malachi," Father Nolan said, a scowl on his features.

Malachi said not a word. He stared at Ravenna as if she had captured him and he could not move.

"I said get along with you, my boy," the father repeated, more sharply.

Suddenly Malachi's eyes shifted to the left. Trevallyan stood in the entrance to the hall, his arms crossed over his chest, his expression rigid and cold. His gaze leveled at Malachi.

Without a word, Malachi swept up the debris left by the firewood and left the hall. He gave Ravenna not a second look.

Twice heartbroken by their harsh separation, she thought to run after him, but then she quickly realized it would be best to see him tomorrow when they could talk alone. Malachi MacCumhal was the only friend she had ever really had and perhaps would ever have. She longed to cement once more the bonds of friendship, but she knew it was not possible to do it under the circumstances.

She turned and found Trevallyan staring at Malachi's retreating back. A shiver ran down her spine when she found Trevallyan's gaze on her, disapproval etched into his every feature.

" 'Tis best you avoid a character like that." His voice echoed with doom across the rough granite walls of the hall.

She could no longer hide her hatred beneath a civil facade. She gave him such a scathing look she was surprised he didn't roll back on his heels.

Instead, he laughed. "I've just thrown you into his arms, haven't I?"

She didn't answer him. Her retort was lost in the anger that now choked her.

"Come, my child. 'Tis been a long and upsetting night," Father Nolan interrupted, giving a faint hold on to her arm.

She was suddenly shocked at how bad he looked. The priest's face was drained of color, and his hand trembled mercilessly on his cane. If she hadn't known better, she almost could have believed he was somehow grieved by her ill-will toward Trevallyan.

The clock struck three in the morning, and Trevallyan gave up on the book he was attempting to read. A fire crackled merrily in the hearth and a full glass of brandy sat on the table next to him, but neither cheered him. The melancholy of the night grew worse by the hour.

He hadn't wanted Ravenna at the castle that evening, but he had allowed it, thinking it would come to naught. But now it was hours past midnight, the girl had come and gone, and he had yet to erase her from his mind.

She was indeed a lovely woman. He could not dispute it. Even in the sorry blue gown she had worn, she was stunning. And her poverty only added to her allure. The worn spot on her elbows, the fray of her hem, cried out for a man to take care of her. Though every fiber of her being seemed to loathe him, even he had to admit it would be a temptation to see her dressed in silks and satins more suited to her exquisiteness. He was quickly discovering that Ravenna had the power to take hold of a man's imagination and never let go.

Already Chesham was a casualty.

He thought back to the moment before he had retired. His cousin had suggested they give a ball for everyone in Lir.

"To celebrate what?" Trevallyan had snapped, irritated by Chesham to no end that evening.

"To celebrate...
beauty,"
Chesham had said, and then retired himself.

With that, Trevallyan knew he'd be on a fool's errand to try to remove his cousin from the castle. Chesham would elope with the girl before he would allow himself to be banished from her presence.

And now there was MacCumhal.

Niall reached for the brandy and took a long, burning gulp. Malachi MacCumhal was trouble. The boy had watched his father murdered in Dublin, and the experience had put murder into his own soul. There was talk Malachi was one of the hard men. There was also talk that the fiery deaths of a wealthy family in Kildonan was caused by mischief-makers setting the house aflame. Three children had died in the household. Three small boys younger than Malachi MacCumhal had been when his father had been unjustly shot.

The brandy glass in Trevallyan's angry grip was near the shattering point while he stared darkly into the fire. Home Rule would come one day; it was as inevitable as the bloodshed that would precede it. Yet, rivers of red would not run through Lir, because he, Lord Niall Trevallyan, eighth generation in Lir, son of a Celt himself, would go to his grave to prevent it. Lir was prosperous and peaceful. After hundreds of years, the Trevallyan roots ran deep in the rocky Irish soil. He could not separate the county from the people any more than he could separate his love for his homeplace from the land that held it. He was Ascendency, but he would not be a foreigner in his birthplace. In ancient times his family had acquired their lands by might not right. Regardless, he would see no bloodshed in Lir. And that was exactly why he had employed Malachi in the first place. He wanted to keep an eye on him. 'Twas better to hold one's enemies close, or so the saying went.

He closed his eyes, disturbed with the thought of Ravenna running to Malachi. She towered over the man in wit and education. It was not her lot in life to shackle herself to a lout, bear his twenty children, and watch him die stupidly, tragically, as his father had died.

His eyes opened, and he looked down at the volume in his lap. It was a treatise on the Wexford Rebellion that had resulted in Ireland being annexed into the United Kingdom.

God, how he wanted to prevent the letting of blood. But all his attempts to understand the situation were for naught if he let his passions rule where his mind should. He must handle it like the
geis.
He could do anything, control anything, solve anything as long as he relied on reason. If he ever let emotion take hold, all would be lost.

So he could
not
get involved in Ravenna's life, he told himself. If she should want to follow Malachi, then he must let her. He was immune to the girl. The
geis
had proved false and impotent. He had no desire to win the love of a foolish young girl.

He stood and wearily looked around the luxurious antechamber to his bedroom. His gaze lit upon his favorite leather chair where he did most of his reading.

The chair was plump, broken-in in all the right places, and well-used. Yet right next to it sat its shining new companion. A matching chair that had never really held a visitor to his chambers. He wasn't comfortable seeing his mistresses in it—though they were more likely to lounge in the bedstead than aright themselves to read something to improve their minds—nonetheless, he discouraged its use. Now the chair remained a virgin, waiting for the day he would marry and had a wife who, too, longed for a blissful evening of reading.

A knife turned in his gut. Two chairs. One unused, perhaps never to be. The thought echoed through his mind until he longed to silence it.

He strode for his bed, swallowing his bitterness. He would find a wife one day, and he vowed she would be nothing like Ravenna. Even now his mind mocked him with the picture of Ravenna standing in the hall, hatred for him burning in those bewitching eyes. But he liked her that way. He couldn't deny it. Her spirit was like a brilliantly lit mantle she wore around her shoulders. It brought the blush of passion to her cheeks and the erotic dew of anger trembling on her lips. She was a sight no man could resist.

His eyes darkened and gleamed with his own anger. Indeed. He liked the defiance. It was a challenge. It made him want to break it.

"Is Malachi here?" Ravenna whispered to the batten door, the first light of dawn graying the horizon. She stood shivering at the entrance to the MacCumhal hovel, a place she had not been in many years.

The door opened, and a small, dirty face peered out. "Nay, Malachi's a teh meetin'," the child said in a heavy accent.

Ravenna pulled her shawl more closely about her, fighting off the early morning chill. "You're little Branduff, aren't you?" she asked. "Do you remember me? I'm Ravenna, Malachi's good friend. How's your mother?"

"Died," the little boy said in a dull, dispassionate voice, as if he were no stranger to mourning.

Ravenna wanted to put her arms about the thin little shoulders and comfort the lad, but if he was anything like his brother, she knew he would not take kindly to it.

"Can you take me to the meeting, wherever it is? I must see Malachi. 'Tis been ever so long," she whispered.

"I don' rightly know where teh meetin' is." The child's green eyes opened wide at her disappointment. The lad looked so much like Malachi at that moment that as Ravenna stared down at him she felt as if she were reliving her youth. She knew if she removed his torn and grimy cap she'd find a handful of carrot-colored hair.

"But, methinks he'll be a teh market in a wee bit. Why don' you sarch for him tere?"

Ravenna hugged the little boy, despite his protests. "Oh, thank you! I've wanted to see him for ever so long!" With that, she wrapped her black shawl over her head and ran down the rock-strewn path to the market.

The center of the town of Lir was nothing but a large, crumbling barn that had been divided into stalls so that sellers could hawk their various goods. Cabbages and beets filled an entire stall, and on Saturday there was a rag fair where clothing was bartered for potatoes. Ravenna had always loved the market. She had once set up shop there herself. Barely ten years old, she had claimed one dark corner and hawked fortunes all day. It had worked beautifully because everyone in Lir knew she was Grania's granddaughter, and with all the money she had earned, she bought Grania a blue flannel petticoat. But she had never been able to return. Some of the more superstitious sellers banded together and forbade her to enter the market ever again. Now she could laugh at it. It was foolish that any adult would think a person could truly tell another's fortune by reading their palm. Besides, Grania was the one with the Sight—not she. Still, she had never been back until the moment she entered the carriageway.