The Ground She Walks Upon (41 page)

"Don't be going after Malachi—I beg—"

"Is this true?" he bellowed.

"Yes," she gasped, "but it wasn't a planned meeting. He just found me there and he wanted to warn me of the fire. I think he even wanted to warn you."

"Quinn told everyone about seeing you with MacCumhal. Everyone. Now they think you started the fire.... Or at least helped those who did."

She took the posy from his hand. Trembling, she said, "I had nothing to do with it. I came to warn you."

"Lady Kathleen was the one to warn me, not you."

"But I was nowhere near the servants' passage. The violets fell off my gown when—" She closed her mouth. Anguish furrowed her brow.

"Malachi put this in the passage, didn't he?" He spoke slowly. "He wanted to make sure I knew you were with him. It was his message to me."

"Our meeting meant nothing," she whispered.

"Yes, nothing." He couldn't seem to hide the bitterness in his voice. "He was only near enough to you to unpin this posy from your bosom."

Guilt darkened her eyes. She'd done nothing wrong, but she had no way to explain it without condemning herself further.

"You were running from me when you met him, weren't you? You couldn't wait to get away. You ran from me, only to go to him."

Again, she just stared at him, forced to condemn herself with silence.

He wrapped his hand in her hair and gently pulled her up to him. "I'm the magistrate. Quinn and the rest of the Ascendency that were here tonight want an example made. They blame you."

"But you don't blame me. Surely you don't," she said, her eyes filling with tears.

"I love you. My curse is that I love you."

She hugged him, weeping softly against his satin waistcoat. "I wouldn't hurt you. Haven't I already proved that? I came to warn you—"

"Your warning came too late."

She rose from his lap and stared at him with a tearstained face. "But I tried to find you. This castle is so wretchedly big, I just couldn't."

"You couldn't wait to flee from me. You took your first chance and you were gone."

"Don't look at me so," she cried out, hating the way his gaze tortured her soul with accusation. "I've done nothing wrong. I came back to warn you."

"You came back to save yourself. You don't want to face the gallows like these rebels surely will when I catch them."

"No, I came back because-—"

"Admit it. You'd love to have revenge on me for holding you all these weeks. Your reasons aren't political, they're personal."

"My path has crossed with Malachi. You know that. But you also know I've had nothing to do with any mischief—"

"First there was the note that sent Seamus to his grave, then your old mate Sean O'Malley who tried to lure me to Hensey." He seemed to be battling tears of his own. In a hoarse whisper, he spat, "Everytime I turn around, there you are in the midst of this mess. And here I was beginning to fear this infernal
geis
when all along I should have feared you. You and my bloody heart that you've taken prisoner."

"But you should fear the
geis,"
she begged, tugging on his lapels, "for 'tis true. Don't you see it now? The
geis
is true. I finally believe it. Things will get better."

"Why?" he accused.

"Because I—"

She wiped her cheeks and stared at him, gaining the courage she needed to hand him her heart and soul.

"Because I love you," she whispered in wonderment of the emotion that ravaged his face. "Don't you see that now? I finally know I love you."

The anger left this face, replaced instead by hardened acceptance. He took her face in his hands and studied her as if she were a confessor and he the executioner. A minute ticked by, each second agony as she waited.

Coldly, he whispered, "How convenient."

"No...." she moaned, unable to accept what he was thinking. But before she could say more, he brought her mouth to his own and kissed her, tasting her thoroughly with his tongue. She tried to release herself; to defend herself, but he wouldn't let her go. With her every struggle, his kiss grew only deeper, more demanding, more accusing, and she hadn't the strength to fight it.

"Sweet lying bitch," he whispered, his voice filled with bitterness and fury.

Weak from fear and want, she shuddered against him, unable to summon the impossible words that might acquit her. In the end, her submission only damned her further. His mouth took hers in a punishing kiss, almost daring her to deny what he thought of her, and, in the end, she couldn't. All she could do was hold back her tears and relinquish her body to his all-too-capable hands.

"Believe me, please believe me," she whimpered uselessly while his lips claimed hers time and again. She moaned as he clawed at the hooks to her bodice. Her instincts told her to pull back, to beat some sense into him, but with every kiss, every heated caress, her logic informed her she was trapped. She loved him. Even in anger, she wanted to be with him. But though her heart was full of the soaring need to give him her love, it despaired at the guilt he'd resurrected around her. He was convinced she was the enemy. She rebelled at making love to him while he was so furious, but she knew it was meant to be. In order to convince him of her innocence, she knew she had to first convince him of her love.

So his eyes accused, his hands seduced, her body surrendered.

His lovemaking was as white-frothed and angry as the waves that crashed upon Briney Cliffs. He treated her little better than a whore. He bared her breasts and shamelessly cupped them with both hands while she stared at him with tears shining in her eyes. When she was finally nude and lying beneath him on the bed, her heart shattered with his roughness, but her soul still delighted in the union.

She loved him, and with every thrust, she told him so, until, spent and groaning, he covered her mouth with his own.

As if he were unable to hear the lie anymore.

April is in my mistress' face,

And July in her eyes hath place,

Within her bosom is September,

But in her heart a cold December.

THOMAS MORLEY(1594)

S
he wept
until she hadn't any tears left.

Sore and despondent, Ravenna rose from the bed and began to dress. Trevallyan stood at the window wearing only unbuttoned trousers, his stare fixated on the moonlit silhouette of charred ruins that had once been the wing farthermost from the keep. He said not a word. Even when the sounds of her weeping had reached him like the moan of the wind, he made no move to comfort her. His expression was as static as if hewn from marble. No emotion showed save for the wretched bitterness in his eyes.

Her numb fingers clumsily relaced her corset. The purple satin dress was ruined but it was all that was within her reach. She pulled the soot-stained skirts over her head and fastened what hooks she could, leaving the rest undone down her back. The shoulder of the gown dropped down one arm, but she couldn't be bothered with it. She didn't care how she looked. Strangely, she didn't seem to care about anything at that moment.

She stared at his back, her heart breaking. Reason seemed no longer able to penetrate his mind. He seemed immobilized by his grief over his castle and his grief over her. The man ruled by intellect seemed to have fled. Now there stood only one in the grip of anger and obsession.

"My lord," she whispered, unsure of what she could say next.

He didn't turn to her. Instead his gaze fell on the doorway. "What do you want?" he snapped at the person standing there.

She turned her head. Greeves slowly entered the room. His face was pale, his lips thinned to a grim, nearly invisible line. "Lord Trevallyan, I've come to tell you that we've assessed the damage. The east wing is lost, and there is smoke damage to a number of the castle's antiquities."

Trevallyan nodded a dismissal as if it were nothing he hadn't already guessed.

"There's more, my lord. They've caught one of the rebels."

Ravenna could feel her fists tighten around the counterpane. Was she to see Malachi hanged after all? The thought sickened her.

"Who is it?" Niall asked, his gaze turned to her.

"Sean O'Malley," Greeves said.

Ravenna felt herself go limp. She didn't want to see Sean O'Malley hanged either, but she suspected he was one of the ringleaders of the rebellion. Without him, perhaps Malachi would find a truer path.

"Thank you, Greeves, that will be all," Trevallyan said, his gaze still fixed on her.

"I've had the boys stow him in the old dungeon for now, sir."

"Yes. Thank you. I'll deal with it in the morning."

Greeves still hesitated.

Finally Trevallyan snapped, "There's more?"

"Aye, my lord." Greeves's gaze flickered guiltily toward Ravenna who knelt on the bed. "There are six men downstairs in the library, my lord—all peers, Lord Quinn and Lord Devon among them. They want Ravenna put in the dungeon with O'Malley. They've sent a party to search for her. A servant told them they saw her wander up here."

Ravenna's heart pounded in terror like the war drumbeat of a Celtic
bodhrdn.
She looked at Niall. He had shut his eyes as if he were in great pain. Shaking his head, he muttered, "God save us all."

"They want the rebels caught and punished," Greeves continued. "They demand that you as magistrate do something before the rebellion spreads and they find their homes aflame."

Niall's fist slammed down on his desk. But he said nothing.

"What shall I tell them, my lord? That I could not find her?"

Trevallyan stood still for a long moment, then he lifted his head. "Bring two men up here and have them take Ravenna down to the dungeon."

"No," Ravenna gasped, too shocked to believe her ears. Greeves sent her a pitying glance, then he spun on his heels and retreated.

"You cannot do this! You know I had nothing to do with the fire! I beg of you!" She swallowed a sob, then lowered her head in defeat. "I love you.
Don't
do this," she whispered.

"You ran from me. You
left
me. Only to go to him," he said, his voice cleansed of inflection.

"Don't make me hate you," she choked.

"Why not? You never loved me." He stepped to the bed and dragged her from it. In low, husky tones, he said, "At least you'll never be his. If it means keeping you in my dungeon, I swear you'll never flee me again."

"You don't have to own me to have my love," she cried. "Don't you see that? You already have my love."

The corner of his mouth lifted in a dark, cynical smirk. "Save me from your love, Ravenna, if it comes like this."

Vengefully, she couldn't stop herself from crying out, "And save me from your love, my lord. That is, if you have any in that cold heart to give."

An ominous silence passed. He appeared as if he wanted to say something, to refute her words, but he didn't seem capable of it. He stepped from her and looked at his reflection in his shaving mirror. Then his hand reached out and in one violent sweep, he shoved it off the top of his bureau.

She started at the crash. Shards of glass scattered everywhere, threatening her bare feet, but she didn't care. She was too numb to care. No matter where she looked, there seemed no way to convince him of her innocence, her love, the truth.

"Why? Why did you leave me? Why must you always run from me?"

She couldn't answer him. All she could do was shake her head and wrap her arms around herself to keep from trembling.

"Just tell me why?" he said tightly.

She didn't answer, and a dam seemed to break within him. He reached down onto the stone floor and picked up his straight razor where it had tumbled in the crash.

Angrily, he grabbed her and held it to her gaze. "If you and that
geis
wanted to ruin my life," his face drew closer to her own, "why didn't you just take this and cut my throat one night while I lay sleeping in your arms?"

"Stop it," she moaned, unwilling to play along.

He took her hand and wrapped it around the mahogany handle of the razor. Pressing it against his chest, he groaned, "Or even better, why didn't you just cut out my heart, as you're doing right now?"

She struggled to release her hand, but it seemed cinched to his chest with an iron band. "Please." The word was a bare whisper.

He had no time to answer. Someone pounded at the door, and he bade them enter. Two burly groomsmen came into the chamber with Greeves, ready to take her away.

She stared at Trevallyan, clinging to the hope that somehow he would put an end to this madness. When he said nothing, her mouth could no longer form any pleas, but her eyes still begged him to accept the truth: she loved him.

"Miss Ravenna?" Greeves motioned politely toward the door.

She felt like Anne Boleyn on the way to the chopping block.

"Wait." Niall put a hand on her elbow. Slowly, as if it hurt him, he lowered himself to one knee and lifted her gown. He took her bare foot in his hand and painstakingly buckled her slipper onto it so that she would not cut her feet on the glass. He lifted the other foot in his warm hand and she watched with a bitter ache in her heart while he performed the tender task yet again. When her feet were shod, he stood and nodded for them to take her. She walked toward the men, suddenly not caring what happened to her.

"Make sure she has anything she wants," Trevallyan said stonily.

Greeves nodded.

Ravenna walked across the straw-covered floor and stared into the void of darkness beyond the iron bars. With tears dried to her cheeks, she marveled at the fragility of love. It was so easily crushed. It could lie dying at one's feet long before it even had a chance to bloom. In a matter of weeks, Niall had taken her from intrigue to hate to unashamed confessions of love.

And now back to hate again.

She'd been down in the dungeon for two days. He had come to see her only once. O'Malley was jailed somewhere in the darkness to her left. At night—or was it day? without the sun she had no sense of time—she could hear Sean shuffle about in his cell. But it was a distant sound, and there were moments—or hours? time flew by or stood still depending upon the mood—that she feared the sounds were made by rats.

During Trevallyan's visit, they'd spoken hardly a word. As if to humor her, or patronize her, he gave her paper, pen, and ink, and told her to write. An extra lantern was passed through the bars so that she might read. Before he'd left, his hand reached through the iron cage and cupped the back of her head. He brought her close to the bars, and he'd kissed her mouth, the kiss made more aching because of the cruel bars that separated them.

She had wept then and begged him to release her. He'd refused. His only vow had been to clear her bad name.

And the hate that she thought was gone came back.

Depressed as she had never been before, she turned away from the bars and sat on her pallet. She should write, she told herself. Writing would take her to another place. Writing would help her escape. But she couldn't summon the will to do it. Until she became angry. He would never be able to take away her writing. Her novel was her one breath of freedom, and she would see it published, and damn Trevallyan, who had told her it couldn't be done.

Dawn came slowly in the deep woods, first with the twitter of larks and thrush, then with the howl of a roving wild peacock. Golden hinds with their sweet spotted young wandered to the brook to drink when the first gray light of a new morn reached down through the thick canopy of hazel trees. Finally yellow flags of sunshine dotted the forest floor and melted the mists, regally hailing the virgin day. This was the moment that Skya opened her eyes.

Aidan lay against her on the pallet, his heart beating strong and sure against her back. His skin warmed her, his muscular embrace assured her. She looked down at the rough wool blanket that covered them and at their still-clasped hands lying in the curve of her waist. She could not let him go. It was impossible now. The lonely years ahead of her would prove too painful now that she'd known what it was like to lie in such bliss. If he had never come to her, she might have endured. Now she had no choice but to keep him.

She turned her head, desiring to watch him sleep. To her shock, she found his blue eyes open and trained on her.

She said nothing. Words would seem trite compared with what she wanted to say to him, to give him. Instead, she smiled softly and placed a kiss on his beard-roughened cheek.

" 'Tis this day I'm going to leave you," he whispered gently.

She tightened her clasp on his hand. "If you go, I shall turn you back into a troll.

He kissed her, stealing her breath. He drank deeply, and when their lips parted, she mourned.

"You've got to understand. I must return. My father is not young. When he is gone, I will be king. Without me, anarchy will destroy the kingdom. And perhaps take your father's kingdom as well.

"You've always made war on my people. You've wanted their kingdom all along. You'll not make me believe otherwise."

With his head resting on his arm, he played with the fan of her gold tresses. Softly, he said, "I'm leaving this morning. I was not raised to hide in the woods in a mud-thatched cottage with a witch. I was raised to be a king, and a king I must be."

"But I can't let you go," she said, her lips trembling with tears. She hugged him close, crushing her bosom against his. "Stay with me and be my love."

"I can't." His hard features softened as he looked at the girl clinging to his chest. He stroked her hair and whispered, "I did not ask to become lost in these woods, nor to be turned into a troll and live beneath that bridge. I've hated you and this miserable time I've spent here." He bade her raise her gaze to his, then he said, "But I will not say it was all bad because that would be a lie. Our times spent such as now will remain sweet in my memory. Your spells are strong, witch, but I fear the spell of your womanliness has proved stronger."

"Then don't leave me. Don't you see? I'll die from the loneliness," she whispered, silent tears trailing down her cheeks.

"Then return to your father."

"I can't. I'm an outcast. My return to the castle will only hurt him. Besides, he may be your father's captive by now. Shall I return only to find a place beside him in your dungeon?"

He turned his gaze away. His resolve seemed as hard as the muscles that gridded his belly.

"Please.... stay...." she said, stroking his cheek.

He sat up and he pulled her with him by their clasped hands. She knelt between his long, heavy legs that dangled over the edge of the pallet and he embraced her, running his hand down the length of her hair. She thought he might kiss her so she tilted her face up toward his. Slowly he bent his head downward until her eyes fluttered closed in anticipation. Then he wrought his cruelty.