The O'Madden: A Novella (The Celtic Legends Series) (6 page)

She turned
to find Garrick standing with his legs braced. A frown marred his features. He hefted his hands on his hips. It struck her that though he didn’t wear the clothes of a lord, standing so big and so fierce before these people he had more of the demeanor than any of the milky-faced aristocrats who had been in his place before.

Then he ran a hand through his hair and palmed
the nape of his neck. “This is my tribute? All of it?”

“It
has been a bad year,” she said. “This is all they have for you.”

Garrick scowled as he
dropped his hand from his neck. Her eyes narrowed. She recognized that look of disgust. So the calves were thin this year and the sacks lighter than usual. Early rains had ruined part of the harvest.
This is all they have, Englishman, and you’ll take it. You’ll suck the lifeblood out of this land as your predecessors have done before you.

“Seeing you lack someone to keep accounts,” she said, holding her anger, “I can offer the services of—”

“Tell them
that they may keep their tribute.”

Words died on her lips. A ripple of sound trembled over the crowd. She blinked up at
him, sure she’d heard him wrong.

“Tell them,” he
said, “that it is my gift to them, for all their years of loyal service.”

A light drizzle misted the ground by the time Garrick wove his way back from the sheep pen to the castle. His palms burned from stretching thongs of leather across hurdle and strut. His palms seeped with blood where slivered wood had speared his skin. It wasn’t as strenuous work as hefting bales of wool, or cages of Irish wolfhounds, or unloading casks of French wine off the docks of Wexford—but it left his back aching with the soreness of muscles well-spent.

He startled a bevy of women as he strode in through the back door
. Any other day he would laugh at their surprised expressions. But not after what he’d done today. He’d been here at Birr long enough to learn his place—and it wasn’t the servant’s entrance. Old habits were hard to break. It was past time for him to remember that he didn’t have to earn the bread he put into his mouth, not anymore. He had to be very careful. After all, he had secrets of his own—dangerous ones that had to be kept.

He climbed the s
tairs. He leapt past the third one which had long lost its mortar and then he pushed open the door to his chamber.

A fire crackled high and hot in the fireplace, illuminating the
brilliant tapestries which draped the walls, the silken draperies of the canopied bed, and cast shadows amid the tumble of pillows and furs. He felt a strange discomfort as he shuffled his way through the rushes, smelling of some sweet herb. It was no wonder his tenants hated the English so much. Every lord before him had taken the food from their children’s mouths, turned it into something as cold and dead as silks and gold, and then draped this very bedroom with the stolen bounty.

It was no wonder
she
hated him so much.

The door burst open and two girls
stumbled in, hauling in pails full of steaming water. They waddled past him toward the hearth.

Maeve followed.
“I’ve ordered a bath for you.” She moved aside as a man rolled a wide barrel through the door, slid it through the reeds, and then tipped it upright in front of the fire. “I thought you might need one, my lord, after the hard work you’ve done today.”

He hazarded a glance to her,
trying to read her expression. She avoided his eye as she nodded to the men who slipped back down the stairs. Then she bustled about, laid linens on a stool by the fire and rifled in her basket as the girls poured the water.

“I’ve foun
d some good soap left over from when the last lord was here.” She waved it under her nose. “Too fine stuff for any of us to use, but worthy of you.”

He
strained his ears to seek out the sarcasm. He wondered what was so damn important in that basket that she couldn’t lift her head and look him in the face. The servants finished their pouring, clattered up their pails, and skittered across the room. The door clicked shut behind them. He found himself in the place he’d wanted to be since he first saw her the day he arrived:  Alone in his bedroom with Maeve.

“Don’t be standing there as dull as a cow,” she said, sifting something into the water. “The
bath won’t stay hot forever.”

He raised a brow at her. It was custom for the woman of the house to bathe any visitors, but that was a privilege Maeve had dodged from the
start. What mischief she was up to, lingering about over his bath and ordering him in?

She said,
“Are you going to stand there staring at me until I grow old and withered? It’s not as if I haven’t seen you without your braies.”

Her cheeks went dark then, flushing as they did when he teased her in the yard or across the trestle-table as she served him food, and finally he found himself on surer ground
. “A bath is welcome.”

“No doubt it is, with the way you’re wearing yourself out.”

“I’ve worked harder than this for the taste of bread.”

“You should
hire some of the villagers to do this work.” She tossed a vial back into the basket. “They’d welcome the pay, and their labor wouldn’t cost more than a few calves come slaughter-time.”

“Is that all?”

“If I told you that price was generous,” she said, finally raising her face to his, “you wouldn’t know if I spoke the truth, would you?”

He set to the ties of his tunic as he let a smile slip across his lips. “I have to put my trust in you.”

“It’s a fool who trusts an enemy.”

“You’re no enemy.”

He’d spoken softly but she turned her face away anyway, hiding her expression once again in the shadows. She might be ashamed of the truth, but he had spoken plainly. She ran the estate with a strong and even hand. All the servants looked to her for guidance. And though she proclaimed she hated his English blood and wanted to drive him off, not once had he seen her do anything to harm him or the manor.

He set to his belt and tossed it across the bed.
“Hire some good men, then. I need several to help me mend the roof.”

“You know that it won’t make any difference.” She
startled as his belt slid off the bed and clattered to the floor. “All your work— it’s futile.”

“There’s nothing futile about a good, strong roof.”

“The curse won’t go away by you fixing things,” she argued, her eyes widening as he pulled his tunic off his back. “The milk will still come out green, the eggs blue, the butter won’t come in the churn, and oatcakes will still burn in a cold pan. Bought loyalty never lasts.”

“Bought
loyalty?”  He rolled the tunic in his hands. Caked mud flaked onto the reeds. “Is that what you think I did today?”

“I think t
hat was a foolish thing you did today.” She planted the basket at her feet and crossed her arms. “With the cows giving green milk and the hens laying eggs we can’t eat, how are we going to survive over the winter? You have servants to feed, and yourself, and the livestock, as well. Did you think of that, when you so blithely refused the tribute?”

He tossed the tunic on the bed and frowned.
He hadn’t even considered that. Perhaps he’d condemned the people of this castle to a season of starvation with an unwitting act of foolish generosity.

Hell. What did he know of running an estate? He knew how to thatch a roof, how to mend a fence, how to heft the bales of hay so they fit tigh
tly amid the rafters of the barn. But he didn’t know a damned thing about raising cattle or feeding two dozen servants over the winter. He swept his gaze over her, over that cloud of dark hair and those pale, fine-boned features, and wondered why she didn’t just marry him so he could let her run the place as she’d obviously done all these years.

“
There are cattle on those slopes.” He sat on the end of the bed and nudged off his boots. “They’re mine, aren’t they? And the sheep?”

“You’ve got a healthy herd for a lordship of this size.”

“
The time must come when we have to thin the herd.” The other boot clattered to the floor. “Or is the meat cursed, as well?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“We’ll see to it then.” He ran his fingers through his hair then planted his palms on his thighs. “The villagers need that tribute more than we do, that was plain enough to see. We’ll make do this winter.”

“I supp
ose,” she said softly, “we will.”

Something in the husk of her voice drew his gaze to her. She’d uncrossed her arms, and as he watched she
looked at him with eyes he’d not seen since Samhain Eve.

Inside him something
stirred to life, a slumbering hope he’d held onto despite all reason.

“Ah, Garrick.”
Her gaze dipped, and then rose again, shining. “For all its foolishness, it was a fine thing you did this afternoon.”

Something shimmered between them, a gleaming thread of hope and expectation—so fragile and uncertain that he was afraid to move, even to speak, lest
he shatter it. Looking at her reminded him of a sleek Irish wolfhound which had come free of its cage one day upon the Wexford docks. It had taken hours for him to corner the she-hound. When he did, the creature had looked up at him with the same mixture of fear and hope and skittish expectation.

“I’m thinking,” he said, nodding to the bath lofting steam between them, “
that the bath is big enough for the two of us.”

“
The bath is barely big enough for you.” Dusky lashes dipped over those silver eyes. “Don’t I know that well enough.”

Her words emboldened him to rise to his feet and take a careful step toward her.
He wanted her with a fierceness that caused him to ache right down to the soles of his feet. “There are times when a man and a woman can take the space of one, lass—”

“If you want
a woman,” she whispered, “don’t ask me to find you one.”

“Y
ou know it’s only you I want.”

“Don’t, Garrick.”

“Haven’t we waited long enough?”

“
This thing between us must never be, even if I did see the finer side of an Englishman this day.” She trailed her fingers across the rim of the tub. “Perhaps it’s best you see to your own bath tonight.”

“Don’t leave.”

“I must.”

Maeve crossed the room. Garrick watched her stif
f back, silently willing her to stop and turn and come into his arms. He curled his hands into fists, forcing himself not to run after her. In such things as this, he knew that a woman must come of her own will.

He took one step toward her anyway. She curled her hand over the handle of the door. She pulled.

Nothing happened.

Frowning, s
he pulled on the door again. He watched her take the handle in two hands and give it a good yank.

The door didn’t budge.

“It’s locked.” She blurted the words, louder than necessary.

“It can’t be locked,” he said
. “The lock is on this side of the door, and it’s not fastened.”

She yanked again. “Then i
t’s stuck.”

“That door
doesn’t stick. I can hardly keep it closed at night.”

She planted her fists on her hips
, eyeing it fiercely. “It’s the weather, then. When the rain threatens, everything seems to stick.”  She turned narrowed eyes on him. “You won’t even offer to help me?”

“
I don’t want you to leave.” 

Garrick
didn’t move as she struggled to pull the door open again. The warped, scarred old door didn’t budge. He knew it didn’t make sense. The bolt had long rusted and he could see from here that it wasn’t locked. It couldn’t be blocked from the outside, either, because the door opened inward.

A bubble of laughter threatened on his lips
. “The curse can work two ways, lass. It can work against even you.”

What a strange twist of luck
. He felt breathless, filled up with new energy. He wasn’t a fool to let another opportunity pass him by, no matter what forces were at work. He crossed the distance that separated them and flattened the palm of his hand on the door, right over the curve of her shoulder.

He
leaned close enough to smell her again. Hillside wildflowers, grass and woman. His body hardened. He sensed her sudden agitation in the plumpness of her buttock and the tremble of her back.

He whispered close to her ear
. “You want me.”

“I don’t.”

“Is that why you’re breathing so quickly? Is that why your blood runs through you as hot as mine? Is that why you stay still against me?”

“I’ve no p
lace to run. And you’re likely to take what you want, my English lord.”

“My worse half,
I admit. Is that any reason to hate a man? Because I was born on the wrong side of the bed to a father I hardly know?”

“Yes
.”

“
I cannot help who my father is,
a stór.”

He heard the catch of
her breath at the Irish endearment. He felt the crumbling of her will as her spine softened. He seized her arm, turned her around, and pressed her back against the door. Her eyes shone, filling with tears that threatened to drop off those black lashes and trail over that luminescent skin.

He fixed his gaze on her lips and knew tonight he could wait no longer.

“Brace yourself, lass.” He dipped his head. “I’m going to kiss the truth out of you.”

***

She saw the kiss coming just as she had imagined it a hundred thousand times as she searched for sleep on her pallet by the kitchen fires. She wanted it with the same fierceness. She wanted it with every throb of her heart. She wanted it mindlessly, for she knew the consequences of succumbing to her fantasies. Yet now, standing with her back against a door that shouldn’t be stuck shut, she could no more pull away from the giant’s kiss than she could wish herself born of different parents.

I cannot help who my father is,
a stór.

It was as if he knew
what he couldn’t possibly know. It was as if he could understand the fate she was condemned to for no more reason than an accident of birth.