A Rose in Splendor (49 page)

“I do not want her thanks!” Fey spat. “I did nae do it for her!”

Before Killian’s puzzled expression, Fey turned and ran up the tower stairs.

“What is the matter with the women in my household?” Killian grumbled, only to frown deeper as his words lingered in his mind.
The women of his household
.
Two
months earlier, he did not have a household. Two months earlier, he did not have a pair of women in his keeping.

“Gom!”

The duchesse expected him to rid her of O’Donovan, but she did not want the smuggling ring she relied upon dismantled; therefore, he could not simply kill the man. If he hoped to remain at Liscarrol in some measure of safety, he would have to wait patiently until he had proved himself among O’Donovan’s followers to be a better, more profitable leader than O’Donovan had been. That would take time. Meanwhile, he must find a means to make Liscarrol into a livable home for his wife and himself.

Killian looked about. Deirdre and Fey had cleaned away the last of the lichen and bracken from the interior walls. The Great Hall was nearly ready for a coat of plaster, but from where was the money to come to buy it? How was he to make Liscarrol self-sufficient?

“I am a soldier, not a farmer,” he grumbled. Yet, he needed the skills of a squire to set his new kingdom to rights. He needed cattle and sheep and a garden just to maintain the basics of life. Then there was the need for chairs and tables…and a bed.

Though she had not complained, he knew Deirdre must be weary of sleeping on a slate floor covered with rushes.

He thought of the ship that O’Donovan had told him about moments before. A French ship, loaded with brandy and silks, furnishings and tobacco and other goods bound for the thriving blackmarket of Dublin and Waterford and Wexford. The ship would be making an extra stop off the coast near Bantry Bay, and he had been invited to accompany O’Donovan and his men to see how the smuggling of wool and beef was accomplished. The incident of the morning had shown him that Deirdre should not be left alone without means of protection. He had declined.

Killian swore again as he strode toward the door. He had not finished checking his snares; but if they supplied no better catch than the first ones, the inhabitants of Liscarrol would once more be dining on watercress and wild onions.

On the front steps, he found the pair of ducks lying where Fey had dropped them when she went running to
fetch him. He bent and retrieved them, smiling as thoughts of roasted duck replaced watercress and boiled onions. O’Donovan had mentioned a basket as well. He looked about until he saw it standing inside the doorway. The contents brought a huge grin to his face as he opened the small barrel of ale and drank deeply.

O’Donovan’s generosity was out of character, Killian mused when his thirst was slaked. Such a man would not feed his enemies. O’Donovan wanted something.

Killian remembered the outrage on Deirdre’s face as he had led O’Donovan out of the house, but it was O’Donovan’s reaction to her anger that intrigued him more. The huge man was eager to be out of her sight. Why should that be?

As he replaced the barrel, Killian thought again, of the French frigate and her lovely cargo the smuggler had teased him with. He was not averse to the idea of owning a few bottles of French brandy, nor did he think Deirdre would turn up her nose at a French silk gown. Taking Deirdre along was out of the question, as was leaving her behind, so that was that.

“Next time,” he murmured to himself in consolation.

*

Killian heard them first, but Fey was the first to react. She jumped up from her pallet by the smoky fire and on soundless feet went down the stairwell to peer through the ax-made gashes in the main door.

It was nearly dawn, Killian decided as he slid his arm out from under Deirdre and carefully laid her head on the rushes that served as their bed. When she did not stir, he silently followed Fey’s path to the door.

Fey looked up as the heat from Killian’s body touched her skin. “’Tis two score or more of them,” she whispered in a sleepy voice.

Killian bent and pressed his eye to the spot she had used. The sky had lightened to shades of gray as night faded and mist began to rise. At first, he saw nothing, and then they appeared, irregular dark figures against the lighter gray mist crossing the valley beyond the river.

“What do ye think?” Fey questioned in his ear.

Killian put a finger to her lips but she jerked back as though his touch burned her. He glanced at her in surprise, but the room was too dark for him to clearly see her expression.

The first sounds on the bridge broke the early-morning silence as the loose boards creaked and bucked under the weight of many hooves. Killian looked out again, alarm tingling through him. It sounded like a full mounted battalion crossing the failing bridge. He had not seen the mounted army through the mist.

Almost immediately a low bawling filled the morning air, followed closely by another and another. Not soldiers and horses. Cattle! And, by the sounds of them, they were stampeding.

“O’Donovan!” Killian straightened. A herd of cattle would easily stove in the main doors which had been hacked from their hinges.

He grabbed Fey by the arm and dragged her so quickly across the floor that her feet scarcely touched it. “Upstairs!” he cried as he flung her up the first stone steps. Without waiting to see if she obeyed, he turned and raced across the floor to Deirdre.

Awakened by the ever-increasing din, Deirdre sat up just as Killian reached her. “What is happening?”

He did not reply but lifted her to her feet by the shoulders and pushed her toward the stairway. “Upstairs! Hurry!”

Deirdre resisted the hands on her shoulders. “But I’m not dressed! Wait! Where’s my shift?”

A colorful curse accompanied Killian’s actions as he scooped her up and ran the rest of the distance to the stairwell.

Fey looked back from her perch at the window with a smile that dissolved as she saw Deirdre in Killian’s arms.

Deirdre slid from Killian’s embrace, blushing furiously. “He would not allow me to find my clothes,” she answered, but, as usual, Fey turned away before she finished.

Killian recorded the discord between the two, but their differences were not as important as what was occurring below. He walked over and looked out.

“The cattle have been turned away from the house,”
Fey informed him casually. “There’s herdsmen with them and dogs.”

“So I see,” Killian murmured as he looked out.

In the yard below were several dozen cattle, and more were pouring over the bridge into the yard. The shaggy coats of the ancient Irish cattle mingled with the smooth black and white hides of the newer breed of milk cow. Killian’s gaze shifted to the men who whistled and prodded the cattle to the accompaniment of their dogs.

They wore the knee breeches and short coats of common laborers. Some wore hats and cloaks, others went bareheaded. There was a single woman among them; her long cloak swirled about her ankles as she approached the house. A call from one of the men, little more than a hiss really, made her turn back. They huddled together, voices barely a hum as they spoke to each other.

Deirdre moved to Killian’s side and tugged at his shirt sleeve. “Who are these people and why are we hiding?”

“We are not hiding. I’m sizing up our guests,” he answered; but his gaze never left the pair conversing below. “You will allow that they have the better of us in numbers.”

Deirdre nodded but she had begun to shiver. “’Tis dreadfully cold, Killian. I need my clothes.”

Killian regarded her almost absently. She was lovely in her rose and cream nudity, he thought with a swift but fleeting rush of desire. He stripped off his shirt and handed it to her and then turned back to the window.

The pair in the yard parted. The woman started toward the stables but turned off just past the corner of the house.

“What rooms lie at the rear of the castle?” Killian questioned, for he had been too busy repairing it to thoroughly survey the place he now called home.

“The kitchen,” Deirdre answered. “But there’s nothing in there to attract a thief. The pots and pans are blackened with age and riddled with rust. Nothing else remains.” When she finished the last button, she moved to his side and peered below.

“Why, it looks as it did when I was a child,” she exclaimed in a voice that made Killian’s brows wing upward “I loved to watch the herdsmen gather our cattle
before they went into the mountains for
booleying
,”
she explained. “We had over a thousand head, nearly a complete recovery from the days of Cromwell.” She spoke the hated name low, as if he were some monster from Hell to be conjured by the mere mention of his name.

“’Tis nae a bloody party in the yard below,” Fey answered roughly. She appealed to Killian. “Will they rush the house, do ye think?”

Killian shrugged, never taking his eyes off the scene below. They were very suspicious attackers. They seemed to be paying no attention at all to the house. Liscarrol had been abandoned for some time. Perhaps this company of wandering herdsmen assumed Liscarrol was theirs to occupy for a night or two. There was evidence in the stable and in the yard that cattle had grazed here recently. For all its dilapidation, Liscarrol offered a sound, dry place against the rain and mists. And, if his suspicions were correct, these people were the only folk in the area with whom he could be certain that O’Donovan had no contact.

Killian straightened. “’Tis time I greeted our guests.”

“You will be careful?” Deirdre asked.

Killian looked at her with a quizzical expression. “Careful?” In his entire life as a soldier, no one had ever asked him to be careful. Cautious, yes, and clever, and quick. “Careful,” he repeated, and then, as though it were a private joke, his laughter echoed back up the stairwell down which he disappeared.

“A bloody stupid thing to say that was,” Fey grumbled.

Deirdre shot the girl a venomous look but she held her tongue and started down the stairs behind Killian.

Fey jumped to her feet. “Where do ye think ye’re going?”

“To stand beside my husband,” Deirdre replied and hurried down the steps.

Killian paused in the hallway long enough to assure himself that his pistol was primed.

The morning was as gray as old sheets and as damp as
drizzle could make it. He stood on the top step and waited patiently until the first man noticed him. To his utter amazement, the man merely looked at him and away, continuing to prod the young heifer he guided toward the
main herd. The next man who saw him tipped his cap respectfully and then he, too, continued on his way.

“You,” Killian called in his carrying voice. “Come here.”

The third man looked at his companions; though they stopped to stare, neither of them spoke. Reluctantly, the hailed man came forward.

“A good morning to ye, m’lord,” the man said hesitantly, his cap quickly snatched from his head.

“Who are you?” Killian demanded.

“Colin,” the man replied. “We brought them back, just as we promised, and three dozen more besides.” The man indicated the cattle behind him. “We lost a few to the English; but like as not, the eating of stolen cattle killed them, and more’s the pity then that we could nae have crammed the lot down their miserable throats!”

“I see,” Killian answered. “The cattle belong to Liscarrol,” he ventured, and was rewarded with a broad smile and nod from the man. “Who told you we had returned?”

The man appeared puzzled for a moment but Killian was too good at reading men not to notice the quick flexing of his hands on the brim of his cap. Whatever the man chose to answer would not be the full truth.

“We saw movement,” the man began in an embarrassingly poor attempt to lie. “Folk hereabout suspected ’twas ye who had come home, m’lord.”

“Do you recognize me?” Killian asked in surprise.

“For truth, I do not,” the man replied. “The Fitzgeralds of Liscarrol were fair and freckled to a man. But ’tis nae business of mine should the raven show up in a flock of swan, m’lord.”

Killian’s lips twitched. Was that how he appeared, a raven among the swans? As for the lie, he would not press the man now. “What am I to do with the cattle you return?”

The man frowned again. “Do, m’lord? Sure’n a man may keep his cattle any place he chooses. The bloody English haven’t taken away his rights to that, yet!”

“Thank you, Colin. In the meantime, will you and your lads be good enough to remove them to the bog field beyond the river?”

“O’course we will,” Colin replied jauntily. “Anything ye want, we can do. Ye’ll nae hire better herdsmen
anywhere in the county, and that’s truth worth the hearing.”

Killian let the matter of hiring pass for the moment. He could not afford to hire an empty bucket, but the cattle needed to be moved from his front door.

“What do they want?” Deirdre asked as she stepped up beside Killian.

A quick appraisal of her showed him that she had pulled on her own clothing before showing herself. He smiled. “Your cattle have come home, Lady MacShane. ’Tis all the matter that confronts us today. There’ll be milk for supper and butter for breakfast.”

Deirdre gazed with widened eyes at the sea of cows streaming past.