A Rose in Splendor (25 page)

“Aye. Da will curse and swear and threaten until he’s blue in the face, but you’re forgetting Dee. She has Da wrapped neatly about her finger. He’ll bluster, but he’ll concede to the wisdom of seeing his daughter wed.” Darragh nodded to himself. “I would not be surprised to learn Lady Elva’s in the family way again. Dee needs a man to take care of her, too.”

Conall glanced at Deirdre’s sleeping face. “Do you think we rush the matter? After all, Dee’s had little enough time to consider MacShane. The choice should be hers.”

“Curse you for a soft-headed man!” Darragh said irritably. “Blind was it you were to them on the dance floor? ’Twas some rare sight. MacShane watched her like she was the first lass he’d ever set eyes on, and him in the discovery of his manhood. And she behaved no better, trembling and skittish as a filly with the first smell of a stallion in her nostrils she was.”

“As bad as that?” Conall asked mildly.

“Aye, ’twas a miserable display,” Darragh groused. “Shocked I am that even a Frenchman should allow such doings in his home.”

“Then ’tis settled. Who’ll broach the subject of marriage with MacShane?”

For the first time neither man had a ready answer. They looked at each other and then down at Deirdre.

“Nature taking its course would not be so terrible,”
Conall ventured softly after a long pause. “There’s you and me to look after her best interests. A blind eye, if it comes to it, might serve us well. MacShane will do right by her, I’m thinking.”

“Aye. ’Tis no surprise to most when a young bride makes the mistake of birthing her first bairn a wee bit early,” Darragh answered and resettled himself. “As we all know, the others are sure to come at decent nine-month intervals!”

*

“Was it a fine evening then?” Brigid asked as she drew Deirdre’s gown over her head.

“Aye,” Deirdre answered sleepily. “I danced with half the male company, including MacShane.”

“And how did that please ye?”

Deirdre avoided the woman’s eyes. “He’s a fair dancer, for a man so unfamiliar with civilized things.”

“Some dancing’s less civilized than other dancing,” Brigid replied. “Turn this way and I’ll have ye out of that corset in a trice.”

Deirdre did as she was told, glad to be able to turn her back on Brigid, for she had a question to ask. “MacShane tells me that he once visited Liscarrol.”

“Did he now?” Brigid said noncommittally.

“’Twas in ninety-one. Do you remember him?”

“Those were dark times, lass. Many a stranger came and went, and so much the better that we forgot they did.”

“He should have been difficult to forget, what with his black hair and bright stare,” Deirdre offered as bait.

“He could nae have been more than a bairn himself. ’Tis oftimes surprising to see what nature refines from dross,” Brigid countered.

Deirdre turned around as she was freed from the corset. “Are you certain you’ve never set eyes on MacShane before?”

“I’d nae swear to it,” Brigid replied in a manner that brooked no argument. “Hurry into bed, lass, afore ye catch yer death.”

Annoyance rippled through Deirdre’s expression. “MacShane came to Liscarrol the day we left. He and another lad had been chased by English soldiers and the English had captured and hanged his friend. How can you not remember that?”

Brigid looked at her charge, her eyes oddly bright. “How would ye be knowing of such things, lass?”

“Da told me,” Deirdre lied, crossing her fingers behind her back. “Now do you remember MacShane’s visit?”

“Aye, I remember it.” Brigid hesitated. “What do
ye
remember, lass?”

“I?” Deirdre frowned in confusion as she slipped off her remaining petticoats to stand in her shift. “You know I remember nothing of those days. Da says ’tis because of the fever I caught at sea.”

“Aye, we said that,” Brigid said quietly. “But memory is a tricky thing. It often comes galloping back, given the right mount.”

“Is MacShane the right steed?” Deirdre asked glibly as she scrambled into bed.

“Maybe aye, maybe nae,” Brigid replied. “Go to bed, ’tis no time for chatter.”

“If only I could remember,” Deirdre murmured, and it suddenly seemed very important that she should. When she had danced with him she had done so with an indefinable sense of elation and trepidation. When they conversed they had teetered on the brink of something of great importance; she had felt it. But then he had spoiled it by his boorish behavior and his careless kiss. She was a lass from whom he had snatched a token, nothing more.

She glanced at Brigid, who picked up her hair brush. Perhaps she should tell her a little of her dream.

“MacShane asked me if I had saved his life. ’Twas so strange a question. He spoke of fairies and magic.”

The crash of the perfume bottle surprised Deirdre, for Brigid was seldom clumsy. “You’re butter-fingered this night, Brigid. Brigid? What’s wrong? You’re white as a sheet!”

Brigid did, indeed, feel as though her blood had frozen in her veins. She looked down at the shattered glass oozing
the oily expensive perfume but it was the play of the candle’s flame upon the crystal shards that held her spellbound. The light danced, colored gold, green, red, and
blue, upon the sharp edges until a pattern began to form.

She heard Deirdre’s voice faintly, questioning and calling her name, but she could not draw back from the trance.

She was not a strong
beanfeasa
.
The years away from her homeland had weakened her powers even further. When as a child her family had sent her to learn the uses of her power, she had not progressed well. She could scarcely remember from day to day the recipes for elixirs and potions. She forgot the names of herbs and their uses. By accident, her mentor had discovered that bright light reflected from a shiny surface drew her into a trance and in those trances lay her powers.

Brigid closed her eyes and slipped down into the cool colors.

Reds and blues, gold and greens played about her. Each facet of color held the image of a face, like portraits in frames. As they shimmered past she recognized two of them. Deirdre stood enveloped in a brilliant red flame, the man called MacShane in a sapphire glow.

But there were others dressed in old-fashioned garments whom she did not recognize. One was a beautiful black-haired woman surrounded by deep emerald light. Entrapped in a golden halo was a golden-haired gentleman with a face so perfect that Brigid caught her breath. And then she knew, knew who the strangers were and what the vision meant.

The colors winked in and out until the red and sapphire flames outshone the rest. Blending, they became a single amethyst tongue of light.

“Brigid, are you all right? Brigid, please, answer me!”

Brigid opened her eyes to find Deirdre’s anxious face hovering over her as she lay sprawled on the carpet. “Aye, lass,” she mumbled, still trembling from the vision.

“You fainted. I’ll get Darragh.”

“No! Call no one, lass. No one!” The numbness began to drain from her body, leaving behind a weariness that
always plunged her into an unnaturally long and deep sleep.

She reached out and grasped Deirdre by the wrist, her grip strong enough to make the girl wince. She struggled to rise and with Deirdre’s help pulled herself into a sitting position. “Water,” she said.

Deirdre hurriedly retrieved a goblet from her nightstand and brought it. “I think I should call someone. You look pale as death.”

Brigid took the cup and noisily gulped the contents. When she had drained it, she raised her head, her pale blue eyes bright with knowledge. “Hear me, lass, and do nae ask questions.” She pulled in a long, slow breath. “The man called MacShane, he’s the one we’ve waited for. He’s yer way back to Liscarrol!” Her head drooped in weariness. “I almost did nae know in time.”

Nervous laughter trembled on Deirdre’s lips. “The one? A husband, do you mean? A fine husband he’d make, being so mannerless and rude. No, thank you, I prefer to be courted.”

Brigid swallowed, her tongue feeling thick and lifeless in her mouth. “Ye must go to him. He will know what to do.” She closed her eyes, seeking the phrase that would send Deirdre to MacShane’s room. “Raven’s-wing black, a complexion as pure as snow, and a scarlet spill of blood.” She looked up. “’Twas ye who saved MacShane’s life. Ask him, lass. Ask him!”

“I saved his life?” Deirdre rose, Brigid’s words echoing in her head. She put a hand to her temple, the tolling becoming tiny hammerings of her pulse. She wanted to remember…and yet she was afraid.

“Go to him!” Brigid cried. “Go!”

Deirdre turned and ran out the door.

As the door slammed shut behind Deirdre, a long, weary sigh escaped Brigid. “He’s your mate, lass, the one the fairies sent ye.” She closed her eyes, missing the small shadow that crossed the room and then silently disappeared out the same door.

* * *

’Twas you saved MacShane’s life! ’Twas you! ’Twas you! ’Twas you!

Deirdre ran down the hallway with those words ringing in her ears. If that were true, why had no one told her? Why would they want to keep from her this act of bravery?

Did MacShane know?

Deirdre came to a halt at the end of the hall, confusion swamping her. She hugged her body with her arms. She was shaking, shuddering like an autumn leaf under the first gust of winter. The headache, absent since MacShane’s kiss, had returned.

Her memory was returning but the recall was not yet complete. What were the missing threads that when woven into the spiderwebs of reverie would make whole cloth? She needed to talk to her father, to make him explain what she could not remember and what others would not tell her.

Round and round her thoughts spun until the darkness before her seemed to heave and shift. For an instant she thought she was mistaken, but then a long black shadow detached itself from the rest at the opposite end of the hall and moved toward her.

She took a backward step, pressing a hand against her mouth to still the cry that catapulted into her throat. Even as she recorded the phantom, it changed shape, taking on the contours of a man. MacShane.

He turned when he reached the landing, only a few yards from where she stood, and on a silent tread descended the stairs. She waited, watching until he lifted the bolt from the front door and went out.

There was the man who knew all the answers to all of her questions.

That single thought sent her down the stairs after him. She was not afraid of the dark. She did not hesitate to open the door and go after him. Only when the dew-slicked stones of the front steps chilled her feet did she remember that she was dressed only in her shift.

She looked about, searching for him, and saw his long shadow, made sharper and more black by the moonlight,
slipping behind the tall shrubs that lined the path to the rose garden. Even before her decision was complete, she was running across the moonlit grasses silvered by dew.

When she reached the arbor she paused again. Moonlight streamed in milky-white slants through a canopy of briers, making a houndstooth pattern on the paving. Disappointment knifed through her. MacShane was not here.

He stepped out of the shadows slowly, and this time she was able to quell the fear that raised the hair at the nape of her neck.

“MacShane?”

“Aye.”

He came forward, moonlight silvering his black hair. “What are you doing here, lass?”

His voice, dark and edged with unwelcome, made her timorous. She said nothing.

“Were you looking for me?” He spoke softly and slowly, the annoyance gone from his voice.

“I saw you leave the house,” she said.

She saw the sudden tensing of his body. He lifted his head as though he heard a noise she could not hear. For the space of three heartbeats he did not move, and then his body relaxed and he said in the same low voice, “I could not sleep.”

“I—I thought you were leaving.”

She seemed to feel him smile, for his face was in shadow. “I am a solitary man but I do not skulk away like a thief. I was restless.”

He looked up at the midnight sky. “They tell me I was born on such a night. Perhaps ’tis Samain’s light that draws me out with the tide in my blood.”

“Samain?” Deirdre repeated in a near whisper. “’Tis a pagan name for the moon.”

“Aye. Sometimes a man feels more the pagan than the Holy Ghost within him. There are many thoughts a man may think only in the dark of night.”

“Of places he’s been and seen?” she asked cautiously.

“Of things he has done or failed to do, of battles and regrets…and desires.”

“You hunger for a return to war?”

He sighed. “Nae. I’ll not return to the battlefield again. I’ve grown weary of war. A man who lives for battle lives only to die. It is a never-ending thing, an animal that lives by feeding upon itself. Ah, a riddle. ‘What is it that grows by devouring itself? War!’”

The air between them vibrated with his gentle humor, and she spoke only to break its harmony. “You could fight a battle that has a useful purpose.”

He smiled again, she sensed it as a breath of air upon her skin. “What war would that be, lass?”

“The war to free Ireland,” she answered promptly. “It would be an honorable war, a holy war, a righteous war.”