A Rose in Splendor (48 page)

“Aye, I know what ye’re thinking, lass, and ye’re right. Yer man and I have crossed paths afore.”

Deirdre had not been listening to his words, only watching for the moment when he tensed for action. She was not the daughter and sister of soldiers for nothing. When his grip tightened to draw her close, she went limp so that her weight was suddenly full against him. Her right hand closed over the hilt of the O’Neill skean and her left sought his pistol. An instant later, she flung herself away from him with all her might.

She came free with a suddenness that left half the bodice of her blouse in his hands as she tumbled backward onto the floor. Her left elbow struck the slate with a painful jolt, and the numbing pain made her drop the pistol.

“Och, lass, ye’re a fighter, and that’s the truth of it!” O’Donovan declared cheerfully as he threw away the torn cloth. “Mayhaps there’s more of the Gael in yer blood than I’d allowed.”

He glanced at the skean she clutched. “Ye would nae cut a man, lass: Ye’ve nae the stomach for it.”

Deirdre flashed her weapon. “’Tis an O’Neill blade and one that would not fail its owner.”

To her surprise, a puzzled look came into the huge man’s eyes. An instant later, a stricken look replaced it and he fell back a step.

“The mark!” He wiped his mouth with the back of a hand and then pointed at her shoulder. “I said I’d nae believe until I saw it for meself.”

Deirdre glanced quickly at her torn sleeve and the rose mark revealed through the rend. The priest had reacted the same when he saw the mark. She looked up. “What does this mean to you?”

“’Tis the sign of the otherworld,” O’Donovan replied,
making with his fingers the sign to warn off the spirits. He was not a religious man, and found the mealymouthing piety of men like his cousin Teague O’Donovan worthless, but he was an Irishman. The Sidhe was strong in the wilds of the west. Living in the bogs and mountains of Munster, he had seen things more astonishing than the pitiful miracles that Christianity proclaimed but could not produce to order. “I did nae know ye for a
beanfeasa
,”
he said defensively. “And ’twas no insult I offered ye in wanting to kiss yer lushmore lips. Ye’ll nae be holding it against me?”

Deirdre glanced once more at the doorway and joy lit her face. “Killian!”

O’Donovan swung about to find Killian standing behind him with his pistol drawn.

“MacShane, lad!” he greeted expansively. “And looking as well as ye might. I was just welcoming yer lady wife.”

To Killian’s surprise, relief flickered in the man’s gaze. His gaze swung from O’Donovan to Deirdre and his features hardened as he saw her torn clothing. “You’ve a curious method of conversation, O’Donovan. I do not believe my wife approves of it.”

O’Donovan shrugged. “Ye cannot blame a man for amusing himself when the temptation presents itself. ’Twas only to pass the time till ye arrived.”

Killian eyed him casually. “Is that what it was?”

O’Donovan glanced at the still angry young woman and then at her mark before his gaze slid away. “I’m nae a man to overstay his welcome.” He sidestepped toward the door. “Liscarrol has fallen on hard times, anyone can see. I brought ye just now a fresh brace of ducks and drink enough for both ye and your lady wife.”

Killian frowned as he regarded the huge man. Where was O’Donovan’s bluster, his swagger, his evil temper? And why was he watching Deirdre as though he expected her to turn into a wolf and bite him? “And here I thought you’d come to see me.”

O’Donovan nodded, his gaze continually flicking back and forth between the two. “Ye outfoxed me, that ye did, MacShane. And I’ve had another thought on the matter of
our business dealings.” He grinned. “Half for you, half for me and the lads.”

Killian’s frown deepened. “For a careful man, you’re damned careless with your speech. Come out to the stables. We’ve kept my wife from her cleaning long enough.”

“You cannot mean to entertain him, even if it is in a stable?” Deirdre asked.

“Dee, my love, kindly keep your sweet mouth shut,” Killian answered and pocketed his pistol. “O’Donovan?” He gestured toward the stairwell.

“He’s the man the English seek!” Deirdre challenged.

“Thank you, Dee, for the announcement, but we’ve no Englishman to interest in the matter,” Killian replied in the same maddening tone.

When they were gone, Deirdre tucked the O’Neill skean into her waistband and bent to pick up the ruined broom. With a mutter of disgust, she cast it aside. How dare Killian behave toward that depraved creature as though he were some country squire who had come calling. What business dealings could they possibly have together?

From the corner of her eye, she saw Fey on the stairs. “Just one minute!” she called as the girl tried to sneak up the stairwell.

Fey paused and swung about. “What will ye be wanting then?”

“Why did you run away and leave me?”

“When?” Fey questioned in a bored voice.

“You know very well when—when O’Donovan came.”

Fey shrugged. “I did as I was bade.” She looked up quickly, a flash of enmity in her eyes. “Ye’ve said I do nae do as I’m told often enough. Ye do nae think I hear ye whispering to MacShane in the dark. Well, I do!”

Deirdre blushed. Much of what she and Killian whispered in the night was too private to be repeated in the daylight. “I’ve never said a harsh word against you, and well you know it. I’ve even taken your part against Killian.”

“Ye’ve nae need to take me part against MacShane. If he’s angry, he’s right!”

Deirdre regarded the girl’s flushed face anew and what she read there appalled her. The girl hated her enough to
wish her harm. “You think a great deal of MacShane,” she said softly.

Fey’s mouth tightened into a silent knot.

“You told me once you wished you were old enough to attract his eye. You still do, do you not?”

Fey dropped her gaze to her boot tips.

“And you hate me for being the lass he loves.”

Fey’s gaze swung upward in sharp wariness.

“I do not blame you,” Deirdre continued. “I would hate as well any other woman Killian chose to love. ’Tis a bitter thing to love a man who does not love you back.”

“Shut up! Shut up!” Fey cried, flying from the steps with her fists raised. “Shut up talking about MacShane loving ye!”

The force of her body nearly knocked Deirdre from her feet. She flung her arms about Fey, pinioning the girl’s arms at the elbows to keep the pair of them from toppling to the floor. Fey did not stop struggling. She kicked Deirdre’s ankles and beat her back with hard small fists, but Deirdre held on until Fey turned and sank her teeth into her shoulder.

With a gasp of pain, Deirdre flung the girl from her.

“Ye do nae deserve him!” Fey raged, her chest heaving up and down and her eyes blazing. “Ye did naught to earn his love when ’twas me who saved his life!”

Deirdre’s own heart was pumping like a piston and her ankles throbbed too much for her to think of the wisest, most mature thing to do. She reached out and grabbed Fey by the shoulders and shook her as hard as she could. “You will never, never hurt me again! Do you understand?”

Tears burned in her eyes and she gulped back a sob as she released the girl. “Have you learned nothing of manners in the year you’ve lived with me? What is to become of you if you go about biting people and bruising their ankles whenever you are angry.”

Deirdre paused suddenly, stunned by the triviality of her words. She spoke as if to an unruly but well-reared child, not a cast-off orphan who had killed a man before her thirteenth birthday. “Fey, Fey,” she murmured as she sank to the floor in defeat.

Fey watched her a moment in silence, wondering if Deirdre would faint, but she merely wiped away a tear and sat staring at the floor.

“Ye’ll be telling him what I done,” Fey said after a long silence.

Deirdre shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. O’Donovan did not hurt me.”

“But he might have,” Fey replied.

“Aye,” Deirdre answered wearily.

“And ’twould be me fault. MacShane should know.”

Deirdre looked up. “Then you tell him.”

Fey jumped. “Me? Why should I?”

“Because it would be the grown-up thing to do.”

Fey screwed up her face and spat a string of colorful Spanish epithets she had learned at the dockside of Nantes. “Ye bloody stupid cow!” she finished. “’Tis always the same. It’s ‘be a lady, Fey,’ ‘be sweet, be pleasant, be good, be stupid, be quiet,’ be what everyone else thinks I should. But it does nae mean I do not feel things. I love MacShane and ye took him from me!”

The raw pain in those words made Deirdre wince. “You are wrong, Fey. I do not think you are too young to love.” She swallowed her pity. Fey did not want or need it. “I know what it is to be young and in love. I loved MacShane the first moment I set eyes on him and I was but seven.”

Fey glared at her in frank disbelief.

“’Twas here, at Liscarrol, we first met. He was a tall but scrawny lad of seventeen, hiding in the stables. The English were after him, you see, and he was bad wounded.” Deirdre’s lips turned up in a winsome smile. “I thought him the bravest, dearest lad a lass ever saw.” She turned to Fey, who was watching her with a guarded expression. “I did not learn his name, nor he mine, and we parted within a few hours of our meeting; but I knew even then that I would love him forever.”

She met the girl’s dark-eyed stare. “I did not win him from you. He was always mine.”

In astonishment, she watched Fey’s lower lip begin to tremble and one thick tear slide free from beneath her heavy fringe of dark lashes. Though she expected a rebuff,
Deirdre held out a hand to the girl. Without hesitation, Fey flung herself into Deirdre’s lap and burst into tears.

“I am sorry, Fey,” Deirdre said gently as she stroked the girl’s heaving back. “As one woman to another, I am sorry.”

“It—it hurts—so bad!” Fey murmured between hiccupy sobs. “I hate loving!”

Deirdre bit her lip. “I know. Loving can be hard, but it can be wonderful, too. There’ll be another man for you.”

Fey lifted her head, her expression hostile once more. “There wasn’t another for ye, ye said so. Why should there be another for me?”

Deirdre silently cursed herself for her poor choice of words. She had complicated the matter. “I did not say that I would never have loved another man if MacShane had never returned to me. I said I would have always loved him, no matter what.”

Fey’s expression soured. “Ye do nae want me to keep loving MacShane.”

Deirdre stroked the girl’s short dark curls into place. “That would be very foolish of me. MacShane loves you, too.”

Fey backed away from Deirdre, suddenly ashamed of having sought refuge in her arms. She stood and tugged angrily at her wrinkled jacket. “Do nae lie to me. I am nothing to him.”

“You do not believe that,” Deirdre answered reproachfully, “not after all he has done for you.”

Fey sucked in a breath as her temper teetered dangerously on the edge of renewed rage. “He cares, does he? Then why did he leave me behind in Nantes when I’d have gone on foot to Paris to be near him? And why did he pack me off to Nantes the moment ye were wed? So he’d have none of me about to bother him, that’s why!”

“We hurt your feelings,” Deirdre murmured mostly to herself. “We did not mean to, Fey. We both wanted you to be safe.”

“Ye wanted me out of yer life. Ye do nae need me.” Fey braced her hands on her hips. “As well I do nae need ye. But take care that one day ye’ll nae wish I’d return.”

“Return? Where are you going?” Deirdre rose to her feet as Fey marched away “Fey.”

The girl turned, her back stiff with indignation. “I’m not staying where I’m nae wanted. I can go the way I came.”

“And how was that?”

The question startled Fey. “’Tis none of yer affair.”

Deirdre saw the guarded look. “You could not afford passage to Ireland. Who paid your way?”

Fey shrugged. “I did nae steal anything from ye.”

“
Merde!
Did I suggest it?” Deirdre exclaimed angrily. “I give up. Go your own way. You will not be my friend, and neither will you allow me to be yours.”

“What’s this? Full-scale war?”

Deirdre turned an angry face at Killian. “And you, you’re no better than she! Keeping company with murderers and rogues. Next, you will tell me they did not kidnap you! Go to the devil!” she ended with a stiff-armed shove that foiled Killian’s attempt to embrace her.

When Deirdre had marched out of the house, Killian turned a speculative eye on Fey, who stood spread-legged in the middle of the hall. “What did she say to you?”

“She told me to go back to Nantes,” Fey answered, her face stiff with dried tears.

“Did she?” Killian mused. “Well, perhaps she’s right. You are in danger. Have you thought what might have happened had Deirdre been here alone or if you had been? If you had not thought quickly enough to take the ducks and come running to me, he might have raped the pair of you before I knew he was here.”

Fey’s sullen expression did not alter. “I can look after meself. ’Tis your lady wife what wants a talking to.”

Killian nodded at the wisdom of the suggestion. “I will see to it. You’ve a born talent for self-preservation. I’m certain Deirdre will thank you properly for saving her when she has calmed.”